Abstract: In the article, in a historical and literary context, the obituary of the famous publicist, critic, and journalist at the turn of the 19th – 20th centuries M. O. Menshikov, dedicated to the outstanding Russian critic N. N. Strakhov, is analyzed for the first time.
The focus of the study is the interest of M.O. Menshikov to Nikolai Strakhov, which manifested itself at different stages of the publicist’s work, as well as the convergence of the creative and biographical traits of the two critics. The subject of the study is the attitude to the artistic and journalistic creativity of L. N. Tolstoy, Tolstoyism, critical realism and decadence.
This work makes possible the determination of the degree of interest of the “Week” critic in Strakhov’s work, to identify the biographical and creative similarities between the two critics, to compare their perception of L. N. Tolstoy’s story “The Master and the Worker” and their attitude to the artistic and journalistic heritage of the Yasnaya Polyana genius. The study substantiates the idea of Menshikov’s deep interest in the national issue, which was formed even before moving to the newspaper “Novoe Vremya”. The author noted that the obituary reflected themes characteristic of the publicist’s work, laid the seeds of his negative attitude towards the revolutionary movement, and indicated the ideological inconsistency and ambiguity of the publicist’s position in the 1890s. Using text analysis, the author proved that Menshikov conducted an ideological search in the field of traditional values in the 1890s, closely related to his gradual internal spiritual growth. The methodology of this study is based on the key principles of scientific philological knowledge: the principle of historicism, consistency, objectivity and systematicity. The author used comparative typological and historical genetic methods, as well as an integrated approach to text analysis.

Abstract: The subject of this research is the early life of M. O. Menshikov – one of the ideologists of the Russian nationalism of the early XX century and leading publicist of the largest all-Russian newspaper “Novoe Vremya”. The goal consists in full reconstruction of the conditions of his childhood and early youth. The methods of deduction, induction, comparative and prospective analysis were used for reconstructing separate circumstances of the initial stage of development of Menshikov’s personality and holistic biographical picture. The synthesis of objective analysis of the facts with subjective assessments of the events described by Menshikov himself in his diaries and articles allowed depicting the external circumstances of his youth, as well as reconstruct the peculiarities of development of his inner world and social reflection. The conclusion is made that a range of the core themes of Menshikov's publicistic writing, which were covered in the newspaper “Nedelya” and later in “Novoe Vremya”, and ultimately brought him popularity, take roots in his childhood and early youth: “family relations”, “upbringing and education”, “pursuit of belonging”, “finding  happiness through harmony with the world”. These topics were covered by Menshikov based on the rich life experience, a long path from the poor peasant family to the cadet of Naval Engineering School in Kronstadt. The fact that he was able to understand the problems  of the commoners made him closer to the reader. The provided biography is currently the most detailed study of the early life of M. O. Menshikov's; many facts are introduced for the first time. The article also presents additional empirical material on the history of childhood, elementary and secondary education in Russia of the late XIX century.