Studia Litterarum Studia Litterarum 2500-4247 IWL RAS https://doi.org/10.22455/2500-4247-2026-11-2-304-325 Research Article and Publication of Archival Documents Articles “You Would Have Done me a Great Favor”: Letters from Dmitry Merezhkovsky to Marian Zdziechowski Lutsevich Lyudmila F. red@studlit.ru June 25, 2026 2026 December 15, 2025 The author of the article focused on the contacts between two famous thinkers: the Russian writer D.S. Merezhkovsky and the Polish philosopher, religious scholar, and cultural scientist Marian Zdziechowski. The article notes the influence of Slavophilism on the formation of Zdziechowski’s philosophical and cultural views; indicates his connections with the Russian elite of the Silver Age; reveals a common interest in the problems of the new modernist religious consciousness in the West and in Russia; and examines real facts of friendly communication with the Merezhkovskys. The article pays special attention to a previously unknown letter from Merezhkovsky dated November 3, 1929 (discovered in the Archives of the Polish Academy of Sciences), in which the Russian author addressed Zdziechowski with a request to find a “respectable Polish publisher” for his new novel “Napoleon.” This letter, along with the accompanying commentary, is being published for the first time. The “favor” Merezhkovsky requested was rendered. The novel was published in 1930 by one of the largest publishing houses of the time (Księgarnia Wydawnicza Trzaska, Evert i Michalski), and its translator was one of Poland’s finest, Paweł Gulka-Laskowski. The process of epistolary communication between Merezhkovsky and Zdziechowski is evidence of the spiritual unity and mutual respect of two thinkers who, as a result of many years of intellectual dialogue, overcame national barriers, political storms, and the hardships of emigration. D.S. 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