[2] Maykov's early memories and impressions formed the foundation for his much lauded landscape lyricism, marked by what biographer Igor Yampolsky calls "a touchingly naive love for the old patriarchal ways.

Apollon and his brother Valerian were educated at home, under the guidance of their father's friend Vladimir Solonitsyn, a writer, philologist and translator, known also for Nikolay Maykov's 1839 portrait of him.

[5] With a group of friends (Vladimir Benediktov, Ivan Goncharov and Pavel Svinyin among others) the Maykov brothers edited two hand-written magazines, Podsnezhnik (Snow-drop) and Moonlit Nights, where Apollon's early poetry appeared for the first time.

Instrumental in this decision was Pyotr Pletnyov, a University professor who, acting as a mentor for the young man, showed the first poems of his protégé to such literary giants as Vasily Zhukovsky and Nikolai Gogol.

[6] Vissarion Belinsky responded with a comprehensive essay,[7] praising the book's first section called "Poems Written for an Anthology", a cycle of verses stylized after both ancient Greek epigrams and the traditional elegy.

Having received a stipend for his first book from Tsar Nicholas I, he used the money to travel abroad, visiting Italy (where he spent most of his time writing poetry and painting), France, Saxony, and Austria.

[5] On his way back Maykov visited Dresden and Prague where he met Václav Hanka and Pavel Jozef Šafárik, the two leaders of the national revival movement.

He also debuted as a critic and published several essays on literature and fine art, reviewing works by artists like Ivan Aivazovsky, Fyodor Tolstoy and Pavel Fedotov.

A "natural school" piece, touched by Mikhail Lermontov's influence, it featured "a Pechorin-type character, an intelligent, thinking nobleman retrogressing into a low-brow philistine," according to Alexander Hertzen's review.

In an 1854 letter to M. A. Yazykov he confessed: "At the time I had very vague political ideas and was foolish enough to join a group where all the government's actions were criticized and condemned as wrong a priory, many of [its members] applauding every mistake, according to the logic of 'the worse they rule, the quicker they'll fall'.

Vile peace is signed...", "Whirlwind" (both 1856), "He and Her" (1867) criticized corrupt high society and weak, inadequate officials who were indifferent to the woes of the country and its people.

In retrospect it is regarded as a curious experiment in breaking genre barriers, with images and conversations from foreign life used to express things which in Russia could not be commented on publicly at the time.

He condemned young radicals, and expressed solidarity with Mikhail Katkov's nationalistic remarks regarding the Polish Uprising and Russian national policy in general.

In poems like "Fields" (which employed Gogol's metaphor of Russia as a troika, but also expressed horror at emerging capitalism),[13] "Niva" and "The Sketch" he praised the 1861 reforms, provoking sharp criticism from Saltykov-Schedrin[16] and Nikolay Dobrolyubov.

[13] Unlike his artistic ally Afanasy Fet, Maykov always felt the need for maintaining 'spiritual bonds' with common people and, according to biographer Yampolsky, followed "the folk tradition set by Pushkin, Lermontov, Krylov and Koltsov".

Maykov's poem Princess (1876) had its heroine Zhenya, a girl from an aristocratic family, join a gang of conspirators and lose all notions of normality, religious, social or moral.

Ignoring Dostoyevsky's advice to use rhymes so as to make the text sound more modern, Maykov provided the first ever scientifically substantiated translation of the document, supplied with comprehensive commentaries.

Following Belinsky's early advice, Maykov abandoned Lucius, a weak Epicurean, and made the new hero Decius, a patrician who, while hating Nero, still hopes for the state to rise up from its ashes.

"His legacy will always sound as the mighty, harmonious and very complicated final chord to the Pushkin period of Russian poetry," wrote Arseny Golenishchev-Kutuzov in the Ministry of Education's obituary.

[25] Maykov's initial rise to fame, according to the Soviet scholar Fyodor Pryima, had a lot to do with Pushkin and Lermontov's untimely deaths, and the feeling of desolation shared by many Russian intellectuals of the time.

"The emergence of this new talent is especially important in our times, when in the devastated Church of Art... we see but grimacing jesters entertaining dumb obscurants, egotistic mediocrities, merchants and speculators," Belinsky wrote, reviewing Maykov's debut collection.

[26] Hailing the emergence of a new powerful talent, Belinsky unreservedly supported the young author's 'anthological' stylizations based upon the poetry of Ancient Greece, praising "the plasticity and gracefulness of the imagery," the virtuosity in the art of the decorative, the "poetic, lively language" but also the simplicity and lack of pretentiousness.

While admitting "Who's He" (a piece on Peter the Great, which some years later found its way into textbooks) was "not bad", Belinsky lambasted "Two Coffins", a hymn to Russia's victories over Karl XII and Napoleon.

In the 1840s "his lexical and rhythmic patterns became more diverse but the style remained the same, still relying upon the basics of classical elegy," according to the biographer Mayorova, who noted a strange dichotomy between the flamboyant wording and static imagery, and pointed to the "insurmountable distance between the poet and the world he pictured.

In his 1895 article for the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, the philosopher and critic Vladimir Solovyov argued that Maykov's dominant characteristics were "a serene, contemplating tone, elaborate patterns, a distinct and individual style (in form, although not in colors) with a relatively lackluster lyric side, the latter suffering obviously from too much attention to details, often at the expense of the original inspiration."

He loves Byzantine/Russia in its historical reality, refusing to admit its faults and contradictions, tending to glorify even such monsters as Ivan the Terrible, whose "greatness", he believes, will be "recognised" in due time.

"What strikes one is Maykov's poetry's extraordinary vigor, the freshness and firmness of the author's talent: Olympians and the heroes of Antiquity whom he befriended during his childhood years… must have shared with him their eternal youth," Annensky wrote.

"Maykov couldn't be seen as equal to giants like Pushkin, Lermontov, Koltsov, or Nekrasov," but still "occupies a highly important place in the history of Russian poetry" which he greatly enriched, the critic insisted.

"His spectacular forays into the 'anthological' genre, as well as his translations of classics formed a kind of "antique Gulf Stream" which warmed up the whole of Russian literature, speeding its development," another researcher, F. F. Zelinsky, agreed.

[13] Maykov's best poems ("To a Young Lady", "Haymaking", "Fishing", "The Wanderer"), as well his as translations of the Slavic and Western poets and his poetic rendition of Slovo o Polku Igoreve, belong to the Russian poetry classics, according to Pryima.