The review article sets out the concepts of reports and speeches by the leading experts on the history of Russian literature in the second half of the twentieth century from Russia, Belarus, Bulgaria, and Germany. The refereed reports and speeches were made at the round table dedicated to the 90th anniversary of V.M. Shulcshin, held on November 15, 2019 within the framework of the St. Petersburg international cultural forum (section «Education»). The key issue for discussion is included in the title of the round table «Vasily Shukshin - a current classic?». The author claims that the researchers spoke mainly about the problems of literary anthropology and actively used a variety of analytical methods developed in line with the mythopoetic approach to the literary text. Especially significant are the attempts to find modern terms to characterize a universally gifted person and the modern literary situation.