The article presents review of the results of magistrial experiment conduc­ted by the author during distance learning at the Russian State Humanitarian University. Students were given the task to choose from all 19th-century Russian literature a single work for one-way travel. The author considered it necessary to give the main place in the review to students’ texts, where the selection criteria are clearly visible, as well as the students’ ability to justify their choice, to analyze literary works using various approa­ches. The material needs serious reflection. In fact, before us is a spontaneously created new canon of Russian literature of the 19th century. The question is, how the new canon different from the old one.