Lev Ivanovich Polivanov

Born Feb. 27 (Mar. 11), 1838, in the village of Zagarino, now in Krasnyi Oktiabr’ Raion, Gorky Oblast; died Feb. 11 (23), 1899, in Moscow. Russian educator, literary scholar, and public figure.

Polivanov graduated from the faculty of history and philology at Moscow University in 1861. In 1868 he opened in Moscow a private boys’ classical Gymnasium, which later became well known as the Polivanov Gymnasium; he was its director to the end of his life. A methodological philologist of the logical and stylistic school, Polivanov regarded the aim of literary studies in school to be the fostering of logical thought and of a literary style. He advocated a historical approach to the teaching of Russian.

Polivanov compiled a number of school anthologies and Russian-language textbooks that were published in many editions. He wrote studies of such authors as V. A. Zhukovskii, A. S. Pushkin, and L. N. Tolstoy and published and edited classics of Russian literature with commentaries. He also translated works of Racine, Corneille, and Molière.