Повести покойного Ивана Петровича Белкина

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Bélkin's stories are among the finest works of prose by Pushkin, although the author presents himself to readers in the preface as merely the editor of a found manuscript by the deceased Ivan Petrovich Bélkin. This framing transforms the collection from a work of literary authority into a testimony from an otherwise unknown individual about the world and life within it. This allows Pushkin to place uniquely ordinary characters at the center of the narrative, who later became an inspiration for the entirety of modern Russian literature.