Yuli Aikhenvald was one of the most popular and influential Russian literary critics of the early 1900s. His major book, Silhouettes of Russian Writers, went through six ever-expanding editions. A major presence in Vladimir Nabokov’s early career, Aikhenvald has since been neglected by other writers and critics. This collection translates several of Aikhenvald’s key essays, making him available to English-speaking readers for the first time. Today’s readers will discover in these writings original, impassioned interpretations of major Russian authors and a theoretical vision that grapples with an urgent question in this “crisis-of-the-humanities” moment: What is the function of criticism?