The role of the debut genre in the creative career of writers of the early 19th century: Social strategies and statistical analysis

Abstract

The article examines the relationship between the social estate background of Russian writers of the early nineteenth century and the genre of their first published work. The study is based on materials from the multi-volume biographical dictionary Russian Writers. 1800–1917 (vols. 1–6, Moscow, 1989–2021). The sample includes 361 writers (approximately 12% of the dictionary’s total corpus) whose literary debut occurred between the 1800s and the 1830s; the core of the study involves authors born between the 1780s and the 1800s. The analysis takes into account six social estate categories (nobility, clergy, merchants, townspeople, peasants, and raznochintsy) and eight generalized genre categories (poetry, prose, drama, journalism, translation, non-literary text, other, and hybrid). The study demonstrates that members of the nobility most often debuted in poetry, the clergy in journalism and non-fictional texts, representatives of the lower estates in poetry and translation, while the raznochintsy displayed the greatest genre diversity, including prose and drama. Based on the data obtained, we can conditionally identify the following types of debut strategies popular among writers of the early 19th century: the strategy of prestige (choose a genre that will highlight the refinement of taste and education of the author), the strategy of usefulness (start with a genre that has practical application in order to first earn a name), the strategy of imitation of the canon (debut in a genre that is fashionable and generally accepted).