In the collection 'The Splendor and Misery of Russian Literature' the philological prose of Sergei Dovlatov is presented for the first time in sufficient detail. He wrote about Pushkin and Tolstoy, V. Uflyand and A. Sinyavsky, Kafka and Hemingway (as 'Russian' and personal authors).
Dovlatov's reviews, magazine hackwork, turn into literary portraits, then into essays on literary mores and merge with the same 'literature about literature' as 'The Invisible Book' or 'Solo on an Underwood'.
Dovlatov's philological prose is distinguished not by objectivity, but by a personal tone, sarcasm, humor - the same qualities that are characteristic of his 'ordinary' prose.
S. Dovlatov's texts are accompanied for the first time by a real commentary by professor, Doctor of Philosophy I. N. Sukhikh. He is also the author of the introductory article to the book.