Аннотация:The article uses the methods of literary studies, historical psychology, history and cultural studies to analyze the problem of formation of literary reputation and literary hierarchy on the material of the beginning of the 20th century. The aim of the article is to find out how public influenced the formation of literary hierarchy. Humor magazines are a specific source that reflects features of mass reader’s reception of writers. It is a material which rarely reflects in other sources and requires a specific form of analysis. The article uses rare primary sources, introduced here for the first time. It also tries to show the connections between the M. Nordau’s theory of degeneration and the attitude of humor magazines towards Russian modernists. Consciously if not, humor magazines found in literary production of decadents the same symptoms as Nordau did in his book. And the Nordau’s idea of «critical police» proposes a convenient way of describing that attitude.