Athenaeum

The biweekly literary and scientific journal, published in Moscow from 1828 to 1830 by M. G. Pavlov, who was not a professional writer, but who managed to attract prominent writers to the journal. Here were published the works of M. N. Zagoskin, N. I. Nadezhdin, A. I. Herzen, F. I. Tyutchev, N. V. Stankevich. M. A. Dmitriev, S. E. Raich, and E. A. Baratynsky. Pavlov himself wrote some dialogues in the Platonic style. In the dispute between the Romantics and the Classicists, magazine defended the principles of Classicism.
In 1830, the Athenaeum hosted Lermontov’s print debut: in part four (approved by the censor on 10 May 1830) is the poem “Spring”, signed “L.” This poem was dedicated to Ekaterina Sushkova, by whom Lermontov was captivated at this time.
In her memoirs, Sushkova wrote about how Lermontov gave her “an ordinary grayish paper, folded with a note, and sealed with the inscription: “To her, the truth”. In the note was the poem “Spring”.
“He unfailingly sought to make me perceive his truth as unpleasant to me. ‘Why’, I said, ‘it is an unquestionable truth, there is nothing unpleasant or offensive or unexpected in it: you and I, and everyone else shall grow old and wrinkled; it is unavoidable, if we live that long…”