The article examines the problem of the need to transform the school literary canon, analyzes the teleology of the canon, considered from the point of view of diachrony and synchrony. Using the results of research carried out in the framework of such related disciplines as pedagogy, history, psychology, etc., a theory is put forward about the conditionality of the composition of the school literary canon by urgent social and political problems. Based on this hypothesis and on the basis of the analysis of the representation of works of Russian literature of the 18th century in the school curriculum, a proposal is made to include the tragedy of A.P. Sumarokov "Dimitri the Pretender" in the school canon, and elements of its literary analysis are presented.