The fact that Lermontov repeated the beginning of Tatiana’s letter from the novel “Evgeny Onegin” in the first line of his poem “Valerik” allowes us to return to the problem of “Lermontov and Pushkin” marked by many “borrowings” made by Lermontov. It also makes it possible to present not only already well known statements by Lermontov creative work researchers but also works by modern scholars who broadened the field of study and changed the approach to the consideration of the problem taking into account the language differences as well. It also gives an opportunity to represent the result of compositionsemantic analysis of the poem “Valerik” which makes it possible to consider reference to Pushkin’s poetry a revelation of deep links between the two poets’ creative writings. At the same time the poem by Lermontov obviously tends to develop basic principles of big format works in prose which were to become milestones in the literary process of the XIX century.