It is customary in Soviet criticism of Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin (1873–1954) to speak of the unique blend of fact and fantasy, of science and art in his work. In fact, this view is not restricted to Soviet discussions of the writer’s art. It is a reasonable view, if cautiously considered as no more than a convenient generality. Something of the same generalizing nature operates in discussions of the literary forms which Prishvin most often employed in his narrative art: the ocherk, the rasskaz, and, less frequently, the povestf. Scholars and critics speak of the writer’s inimitable mastery of these forms, but rarely in definitive terms. Briefly summarized, Prishvin’s preferred forms are the halfsketch and half-tale, or the novelette-sketch; his pieces represent an amalgam of fact and fiction. They are, above all, lyrical and poetic, but they are also “scientific.” They are the one and the other, but their specificity seems almost too elusive to capture and define.