18 October] 1898) was a leading Pushkinist poet who wrote poems faithful to the traditions of Russian Romantic poetry during the heyday of realistic prose.

Polonsky's early poetry is generally regarded as his finest; one of his first published poems was even copied by Nikolai Gogol into his notebook.

Polonsky turned his attention to the Caucasian subjects and descriptions of lush nature, treated in the manner reminiscent of Lermontov (although he also wrote parodies of his poems).

His verse epistle to Leo Pushkin (the poet's brother), known as A Stroll through Tiflis (1846), was written with more attention to realistic detail.

He also provided the libretto of Vakula the Smith after Gogol, intended for Alexander Serov, finally made into a competition piece and set by Tchaikovsky (1874), who reworked it later as Cherevichki.