This published story can be formally classified as a work about "time travelers" (the main characters move from contemporary Russia to eighteenth-century Moscow). However, its conceptual structure is much more complex than that of the standard examples of "accidental travel" literature. The author of the story uses such a common fiction technique as travel to the past to create a sophisticated metaphorical statement about the vicissitudes of literary fame and the unpredictable evolution of any writer's destiny
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