Research on the Russian novel of the 1920s was expanding in 1978–79, when I was a guest
student at the University of Ljubljana on an academic program for Slovenes from Italy to
advance their studies. Dr. Aleksander Skaza intoduced his students to the analysis of artistic
texts according to a strict methodological approach. Among the chapters of Russian literary
studies, Iurii Tynianov's “literary evolution” occupied a special place. It was possible in light
of it to analyze the role and meaning of the Dostoevskyan “tradition” in two variants of Leonid
Leonov’s novel The Thief. We observed in our comparative analysis similar poetological
elements in the two authors and differences between them.
