well-known writer had found himself. After three years spent in Samara Governorate, Palm returned to literary activities and published numerous novels and dramas. During the Russo-Turkish War (1877–78) he worked as a war correspondent for Novoye Vremya, in 1883 edited the weekly newspaper Teatr, for a year was the head of the Pushkin literary circle, having succeeded Alexey Pleshcheyev. Legacy Alexander Palm's poetry, "marked by clarity of vision, sonority and technical precision," bore all the marks of Mikhail Lermontov's influence, according to biographer Kravets. Palm's best known poetic drama, The Tale of Tsar, Tsarina and Guslyar with a Cat from the Overseas (1843) was similar to Lermontov's The Song of the Merchant Kalashnikov. Palm's 1849 novel Zhak Bichovkin featured a hero who, according to the author himself, "regarded himself as another Pechorin." The centerpiece of Palm's vast prosaic legacy is the novel Alexey Slobodin. The Family History in 5 Parts which he published in Vestnik Evropy (1872, Nos. 10,12; 1873, Nos. 2, 3; 1874, Nos. 10, 11) under the moniker P.Alminsky. The novel attracted much interest because most of its heroes had real life prototypes, members of the Petrashevsky and Durov's circles (Rudkovsky as Durov, Slobodin as Fyodor Dostoyevsky). Palm's dramas Old Landlord (1873) and Our Friend Neklyuzhev (1879), staged by the Aleksandrinsky and Maly Theaters respectively, proved to be very popular with the public. Contemporary critics dismissed them, but in retrospect Russian literary historians see Palm's plays as superior to his prose and poetry. Select bibliography Novels Zhak Bichovkin (Жак Бичовкин, 1849) Alexey Slobodin (Алексей Слободин, 1872- 1874) The End of the Old Romance (Конец старого романа, 1874) The Lost Years (Пропащие годы, 1880) The Petersburg Locust (Петербургская саранча, 1884) Dramas Old Landlord (Старый барин, 1873) Our Friend Neklyuzhev (Наш друг Неклюжев, 1879) Poetry The Tale of Tsar, Tsarina and Guslyar With a Cat from the Overseas (1843, drama in verse) References 1822 births 1885 deaths People from Mordovia People from Krasnoslobodsky Uyezd Russian male novelists Russian male poets 19th-century poets from the Russian Empire 19th-century novelists from the Russian Empire 19th-century male writers from the Russian Empire Russian exiles in the Russian Empire