>some ambiguity about the phrase 'going back to'

As you can see I was using the phrase of the parent comment which starts with 'A fairly substantial portion of the big names'... So I was referring to this "fairly substantial portion" while eexpressing my opinion that they are highly overrated.

>so what you said strongly implies that you also think Pushkin is highly overrated?

Yes. I think this one is especially highly overrated. When you read the poem of someone you willingly or unwillingly trying to read his mind and vision of the world. When I read this one I am simply disgusted. I have the feeling that he is just cold and cynical to the level that I can't stand it! And the general feeling of fakeness in his writings is to the level of realising that this human being simply doesn't understand a few concepts about this life. The same feeling you have when you are listening to some primitive music and you feel that author simply 'doesn't get it' in the first place.

I also can't help but notice some cheap/dirty tricks in his poetry when rhythm doesn't work. Even when I write some 'poetry' as a joke to entertain my friends even I manage to avoid such cheap tricks and then I think that surely some great poet must be able to do it too? Isn't it? I mean small kids when they are missing words to express their thoughts use those tricks to make some rhythm to work. In the poem 'Evgeny Onegin' I've counted a few of those and then I had to stop counting in order to somehow finish the poem.

Surely like any author he has something in his poems but I do have a feeling that this author is highly overrated.

>It seems unlikely to me that so much of a vast nation's literature, for so long, can be so overrated.

Sure, it seemed unlikely for me too in the beginning. But the more you read and explore the more likely it becomes. Especially when you explore nation's history. You discover a lot of fake there and then you realise that each and every Russian author has to deal with those lies somehow. And if such author wish to preserve some level of sincerely in this writings he has has very painful dilemma. Unresolvable for most of them if you ask me as long as they keep calling themselves 'Russians'. Because if you dig into the history enough you discover that the very term , well , has some ambiguity in it to say the least. One basic thing to notice: How 'Russians' end up being in Moscow while 'Rus' was known to be in Kiev? Thus they are culturally as related to the 'Rus' as 'Saw (some one)' related to 'Saw (as a tool)'. Thus I would also say that the whole 'culture' in my opinion is highly overrated because it is based on primitive fakes, lies, violence and very poor moral standards. Moral standards represent certain understanding of life and Rissian moral standards are not well developed to this very day because they lie and lie and lie. If you ask me 'why?' I would suggest that the enormous efforts to create "much of a vast nation's literature, for so long" were mostly wasted so far because most of the authors simply failed to understand or deliver certain basic concepts and I can't point out even one modern author that does! I wish that someone would show me this one because I would be happy to be wrong and surprised but I doubt it.