Music and Time Annotation << Back N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov and realism: to the problem of the composer’s creative method E.P. Prokopyeva The article is devoted to the study of the dissonance that exists in relations between Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov and Russian culture in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The object of study is the creative method of the composer in comparison with the creative method of his modernity, which are considered from the standpoint of modern historical poetics, and above all, ideas of Al.V. Michailov. Based on the study of the ideas of Rimsky-Korsakov’s contemporaries about the modern composer and modern music, a conclusion is drawn about the realistic essence of the method of this cultural period. At the same time, the creative method of Rimsky-Korsakov himself, which determines the individual characteristics of his musical style, has all the signs of a rhetorical. Keywords: Rimsky-Korsakov, creative method, realism, rhetoric, historical poetics. Pp. 14-20.