Abstract
<jats:p>The article is devoted to a little-known first detailed biography of A. S. Pushkin in French and a little-studied text of the Russian diaspora − “Vie d’Alexandre Pouchkine” (1938) by Zinaida Shakhovskaya. The aim of the study is to determine the nature of Z. Shakhovskaya’s writing strategy, establishing the patterns of selection, transformation and construction of a biographical narrative. Scientific novelty lies in proving the conceptual nature of the text. The obtained results showed that the hidden source base of the book is a synthesis of the Western European tradition (P. Mérimée, E.-M. de Vogüé) and the latest Russian Pushkin studies (M. Alekseev, A. Akhmatova, B. Tomashevsky). It has been established that the tendentious selection and presentation of facts work on creating an image of the poet-martyr of autocracy, understandable to the Western reader. It has been demonstrated that alongside this liberal interpretation, the book consistently pursues an Orthodox line, allowing Shakhovskaya’s method to be characterized as “double coding”. The writer’s innovative approach is to incorporate Pushkin’s letters in French into the narrative. As a result, the book emerges as a thoughtful exercise in cultural mediation, adapting the achievements of Russian Pushkin studies for a Western audience in the 1930s for the first time.</jats:p>