and in 1846 Andrey Krayevsky (on Ivan Turgenev's recommendation) invited Maykov to become an editor of critical department of Otechestvennye Zapiski, where Belinsky worked. In his first major article, on poet Aleksey Koltsov, Maykov came into direct conflict with Belinsky, accusing him of "biased and unfounded criticism" and "literary dictatorship". Belinsky's reply was harsh and this made the relationship between Otechestvennye Zapisky and Sovremennik, a Belinsky circle's unofficial base, strained. In spite of this Maykov in 1847 started to collaborate with Sovremennik. The same year he organised his own circle, close to that of Petrashevsky, with Vladimir Milyutin and Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin among its members. By this time Maykov's philosophy changed: inspired by Ludwig Feuerbach and Western Socialists he came up with his own concept of "harmonical man" and "ideal civilisation", seeing, among other things, national and ethnic differences as totally superfluous. Valerian Maykov’s promising career suddenly came to an end on July 15, 1847. While guesting in Petergof region, he died of a stroke while swimming. He was buried in a village graveyard of Ropsha nearby Saint Petersburg. Legacy After a barrage of obituaries all mourning Russian literature's heavy loss there came ten years of oblivion. In 1861 Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote warmly of Maykov's short legacy, then in 1868 Ivan Turgenev published a piece on him in his Literary Memoirs. In 1972 the magazine Otechestvennye Zapisky published a major analysis of Maykov's works. Critics argued, though, that the author, Aleksander Skabichevsky greatly exaggerated the degree of disagreement between him and Belinsky. In 1886 a large article by K. K. Arsentyev on Maykov and his political activities was published by Vestnik Evropy. The years 1891 and 1892 saw a renewed interest in Maykov's set of ideas when A. N. Tchudinov published in Literary Pantheon (Пантеон Литературы) his Critical Exercises (Критические опыты), which inspired a lively discussion in Vestnik Evropy, Russkaya Mysl and Istorichesky Vestnik magazines. Later a large article on this work was published by Akim Volynsky in his Russian Critics series. According to the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, Maykov "wasn't a gifted writer in the common sense of the word," his style of writing was "anemic and occasionally murky", his analysis of Herzen and Tyutchev's works not original. Yet author Semyon Vengerov credited Maykov with being arguably the first "theoretical" critic in Russia who, unlike most of his colleagues, was interested not so much in analysis of particular literary