A lecturer from our faculty, Ivan Nazarenko, and a student majoring in Literary Creativity, Alexander Serdyukov, successfully passed the competitive selection for the sixth V. Ya. Kurbatov School of Literary Criticism. The School of Literary Criticism is an educational project for aspiring critics, held on August 23–29 at the L. N. Tolstoy Museum‑Estate "Yasnaya Polyana" with the support of Samsung Electronics. This year, the organizers received a record number of applications – over 130 from 38 regions, of which only 19 were selected.

"To pass the competitive selection, participants had to write an essay on the significance of diaries in the creative work of 19th–20th century writers – a topic close to my own research interests," says Ivan Nazarenko. "In my essay, I compared the diaries of the young Leo Tolstoy and Eduard Limonov, a writer of the third wave of Russian emigration, whose work has seen a significant rise in interest in recent years."

The School participants took part in workshops and practical sessions on literary criticism, where they analyzed works by contemporary authors together with their mentors and also worked on their own critical texts. The best works of the participants were published on partner platforms.