Volume 12, 2014 year

The article substantiates the necessity of a new interpretation of Lermontov's works in terms of the categories of Russian philology which emerged over the last decades. In one way or another, all of them go back to the notion of the unity of the Russian culture and actualize various aspects of this culture. The mental model of a preference for the "above the law" freedom to the "legalistic" necessity dominates Lermontov's art world. The ideal, which Lermontov, as well as a number of his characters, would like to put into practice, is unattainable not only in Russia or any other country, but also in general on earth. Relations above the law are inherent in the ideal space of Holy Russia rather than the historical Russia. However, these very above the law relations were recognized both by Russian writers and their readers as a spiritual, ethical and aesthetical reference point of a kind. Through the collision of "the ideal" and "the reality", which researchers mostly trace back to the romantic paradigm, shines the fundamental opposition of Law and Grace and that penetrates the whole space from medieval to modern Russian literature.

Keywords: Law, Grace, Christocentrism, Lermontov, a new interpretation

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In the history of Russian and world literature, Lermontov's novel A Hero of Our Time stands as an original development of Pushkin's discoveries in genre, bringing the new variable of ῾historicity᾿ into the traditional domains of the novel — “fictions of love adventures” and ῾private life᾿. Using the famous dictum of Pushkin, we can say that the conceptual design of A Hero of Our Time features the “higher boldness: the boldness of invention” — the hallmark of a work of genius which sets it apart from the commonplace. By means of unique compositional choices and a juxtaposition of contrasting viewpoints, controversial remarks and actions of his characters, Lermontov has created a “set of mirrors” facing each other. Every story and novella, the preface to Pechorin's diary and to the second edition of the novel reflects one another, setting up an endless semantic vista. The protagonist is shown to be inexhaustible, personality proved boundless, and thus the reader's recognition becomes endless. We can denounce the protagonist as much as we want, but his own judgement of himself will always remain the harshest. In Lermontov's novel, words have a second, hidden semantics. They mean more than it is actually said, or sometimes not quite what is being said. The protagonist is bigger than words and higher than others' opinions of him. He is a riddle to be solved and impenetrable at the same time. The concept of the genre developed by Lermontov is built on the artistic discoveries of Pushkin and the theoretical ideas of A. I. Galich, N. I. Nadezhdin and V. G. Belinsky, anticipating the novels by Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. In suggesting his unique understanding of the genre, Bakhtin did not describe the novel as it was, but showed it as it might be, revealing its limitless artistic capabilities. A Hero of Our Time is among the few exceptions which justify Bakhtin’s hypothesis of the novel of the new time as a new genre of world literature.

Keywords: Russian literature, Mikhail Lermontov, Aleksandr Pushkin, Vissarion Belinsky, Mikhail Bakhtin, Russian novel, plot, composition

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Lermontov's contemporaries were against the judgments about the poet's “amorality” and “lack of religious belief”, who was, in fact, a truly devoted Orthodox Christian. This is reflected in his poetry: four works out of a short list of his poems are entitled The Prayer, in other words, aspire to “raise the heart and mind to God” directly. The article analyzes these poems that present different possibilities of implementation of this devotion. Lermontov is extremely diverse: from an “invoking” prayer and a direct “request” he comes to the revelation of the Holy Mother icon and to the understanding of a special influence of a prayer on a human's soul. Joint review of these prayers forms an idea of a “full cycle” of the Divine's poetical discovery: from a romantic appeal to the Almighty together with perception of the darkness of the chosen way, to ironical “pleading” to the “Heavenly King” to liberate him from the ties of Junkerdom; from a passionate monologue to the Holy Virgin with prayers for the miserable beloved, to understanding of a prayers' special meaning for a Christian, to creation of an overall wide and whole image of a prayer. A prayer without an “invoking” or a “request” is joyful and blessing at the same time; it is intended for a difficult and sad moments of life.

Keywords: Prayer, empathy, request, revelation, fulfillment

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This article studies the Gospel quotations in the description of the history of the 12th century Kievan rule in two compillations of East Slavic chronicles. An important problem concerning the principles of representing historical reality in a literary and historical narration is studied through the example of a 12th century Kiev cronicle (compiled by hegumen Moisei (Moses)), which is interpreted as the author's text. Images of the princes created by the purposeful selection of certain literary means by the author, among which the Gospel quotes and reminiscences play the main role, provided moral accents in the stories about different episodes of almost a century-long history of Russia. It was how hegumen Moisei sought to prove legality of inheritance of the grand prince throne by Rurik Rostislavich, the great-grandson of Vladimir of Monomakh, to whom the chronicle is devoted in general. In the Nikon Chronicle, a massive chronicle compilation of the 16th century, images of the same princes as well as the history of the great Kievan rule are presented differently. In some of the plots the Gospel presentations add some strokes to the images of princes, while leading to the loss of “topical character” typical for the hegumen Moisei's Cronicle.

Keywords: the Gospel, quotations, author, Kievan rule in the 12th century, prince images

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The article concerns the realization of famous paradigm Imitatio Christi, comparing the lives and acts of saints with those of Christ in ancient russian hagiography in general and in the Legend describing the death of Pafnutiy of Borovsk in particular. Traditionally injected in the narration by biblical quotations and reminiscences, the paradigm equalizes the days preceding the decease of Pafnutiy with premortal sufferings of Christ. Thus, Pafnuty is surrounded with negligent discipes, which are not able, as well as the apostles in the Gethsemane garden, to bear the high level of prayful effort the ascetic experiences. Pafnutiy stays silent, when monks address to him, as well as Christ, when Pilate asks Him. Innokentiy, the hagiographer of the saint utilizes quotations without the attribution as well as the compositional quotations. Consequently the impression of stenography in the description of last days of Pafnutiy is to be illusory, and the text of the “Legend” is constructed with sophisticated laws of hagiographical poetics.

Keywords: hagiography, biblical quotations, biblical prototype, paradigm of Imitatio Christi

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The article focuses on the peculiar properties of the style of writing of Tryphon Petrov, the Old Believer writer of the Vyg literary school. The analysis is based on two homilies which are dedicated to the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The article examines the structure of the homilies, their genre features, meanings and interpretations of the image of the cross as well as the form and sources of the texts. The work contains comments on the influence of Baroque esthetics and rhetoric on the author's style of writing. The analysis of the first text is focused on its structure which is inscribed in the symbol of the cross. Listening to the preacher hearers go through the space-time coordinates determined by the cross. The most important in the second homily are the canticles which are a part of the text. They create rhythm and convert the homily into reminiscence of a hymn. The narration of both texts is based on amplification. The article resumes the thought that Tryphon Petrov assimilated new trends of his time but he also was continuer of the tradition of patristic eloquence.

Keywords: The Vyg community, Old Believers, homiletics, Tryphon Petrov

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The paper offers a survey of manuscripts of a peasant, Old Believer and knizhnik I. S. Miandin (1823-1894, Ust'-Tsilma, Komi Republic) from the Old Manuscript Division of the IRLI (Institute of Russian Literature of the Russian Academy of Science or Pushkinskiy Dom). Knizhnik, in the Russian tradition, is a scribe, who also can recite from memory the Scripture texts and the patristic tradition. Miandin left his recapitulations of the Old Believers literary tradition. He left few compilations, transcribed a number of Old Russian texts of various genres. In four convolutes, he collected Biblical stories taken from chronographs. Most of Miandin's stories recapitulate the Old Testament texts, but there are also legends from the early Christian history (e.g., The Story of Emperor Constantine and His Mother Helen). His major source was, in all probability, the copy of the Chronograph from the Old Believers tradition which he had in his possession (he lent it to a writer S. V. Maksimov and never received it back). The whereabouts of the Chronographer are not known. Some of the stories were significantly reworked by Miandin in comparison with the chronographic version. Among those there are the stories of Joseph the Beautiful, King Solomon and Judith. The study of Miandin's manuscripts demonstrates that the first stage of his work is reflected in the IRLI reduction (Ust'-Tsil'ma collection no.267), the second - idem, no.66, the third RNB NSRK O.100. The Biblical protagonists were interpreted according to the understanding of life by Pechora peasants. The peripeteias were taken with empathy as if they were concerned people next door. This attitude compelled the narrator to seek, from one version to another, the most convincing motivations for the action of the heroes.

Keywords: Old Believers reductions of chronographic legends of the Old Testament heroes, Pechora manuscript tradition

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The article proves that one of the sources of Fyodor Glinka's poem Karelia was the legend describing The Vita of Lazar of Murom — a Greek monk who founded the Murom Monastery of St. Assumption on the southeastern shore of Onega Lake in the middle of the 14th century. This fact has not been mentioned yet in any of the literature studies devoted to Glinka's works. It is believed that The Vita of Lazar of Murom was created during the period between the late 14th and early 15th century. At the end of the 18th century this manuscript's copy belonged to a high rank Petrozavodsk official I.A. Pykhtin. In 1805, he consigned his copy of The Vita of Lazar of Murom to a well-known Petrozavodsk historian T.V. Balandin, who made another copy of it. Soon T.V. Balandin transferred his copy to a famous Orthodox church historian Evgenii (Bolkhovotinov), who in turn published this copy in 1813 in the 5th volume of his work The History of Russian Hierarchy. In 1826-1830, poet Fyodor Glinka was sent to exile in Petrozavodsk for having participated in the Decembrist movement. He met T.V. Balandin, read the text of The Vita of Lazar of Murom and included a story about a monk who had moved from Greece to Russia into his poem Karelia published in 1830. Besides, the name of Saint Lazar is mentioned in the main text of the poem and twice in its footnotes. Glinka had a great intuitive feel for a language and noticed correlation between style and authenticity of the legend about Lazar's life. So, The Vita of Lazar of Murom became one of the sources which inspired Fyodor Glinka to create his poem Karelia and to certain extent determined its content.

Keywords: The Vita of Lazar of Murom, Fyodor Glinka, T. V. Balandin, poem Kaleria

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The Tale about the Priest and his Worker Balda seems the most simple of all the Pushkin's fairy tales. However, this is a very specific simplicity, which can be called ̒’the simplicity of complexity᾿. The story contains different levels, which are not apparent immediately. Traditionally, The Tale of Baldahas been interpreted as an acute socio-political satire; another approach refers to the peculiarities of folk tales poetics and its literary transformation, determined by the difficulties of combining the folk fairy-tale function of the character with the nature of a literary tale hero. Both of these approaches raise a number of questions, the main of which is why the Priest was punished, after all. The third interpretation, which is presented in the second part of the article and considers Pushkin's fairy tale in the Christian context, allows us to reveal the deeper connotations of Pushkin's intention, giving the opportunity to comment differently some parts of the text, usually overlooked by researchers that are focused only on a “superficial layer” of the meaning of the text.

Keywords: Folk tale, a literary tale, the priest, the Balda, the devil

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The topic of trial by faith is one of the main ones in the cycle of stories by M. N. Zagoskin The Evening on Khoper. The author analyses the mechanism of the influence of apostasy essence on human nature in Zagoskin's Concert of the demons. The main character faces a choice between “dilapidation”, ossifying in sins and the renewal of human nature, between the decay and death, or resurrection and immortality. The setting is Great Lents Eve and its first week. It allows analyzing the passionate state of the character mainly in the context of the Great Canon of Repentance of St. Andrew of Crete and Old Testament readings on Adam and Eve during the first week of Great Lent. The setting at the masquerade ball defines the way apostasy manifests: the infernal disguised as the human trying to replace the image with a mask, guise. Apostasy in this novel is projected onto the modern age, as far as along with society secularization the aggression of apostasy grows, the outer forms of manifestation somehow change with its essence remaining the same.

Keywords: apostasies, canon, Andrew of Crete, Great Lent, masquerade

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In his story V. A. Zhukovsky reviews the power of faith that can change people. A protagonist of the poetic story Bopp is the captain of the ship, an evil and depraved person, an offender and a blasphemer, hated by his crew that are ready to kill him. The main character gets a possibility of salvation through the gospel of repentance and a prayer. Inner transfiguration occurred to the captain became possible due to his sophisticated internal spiritual work, the power of aspiration to God, his self-reflection and total devotion to God. This way is seen by the author as the only possible, but the main thing here is the fact that it is possible. The culmination of the story is the image of the crucified Christ that the captain sees. Since then the hero is not afraid to die, because it becomes clear that he has been forgiven. In the story, on the one hand, the death of a man is presented, but on the other hand it is not death that becomes important, but a new mind that enables the hero to find peace. For Zhukovsky mortal (temporal) life is a time of preparation for eternal life. The story gives hope to everyone and admits the possibility of salvation.

Keywords: story, didactism, confession, prayer, dialogue, genre, vision, transfiguration

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The calendar symbolism is always a component of the artistic message of the author (usually by filling in the dates of the Orthodox calendar). Although the time in Boratynsky's poem Eda is poetically clichéd, some folklore meanings still can be traced in the sensual atmosphere of the “magical” spring. In all three poems the author demonstrates the destructiveness of love passion in the destiny of the heroines. In the romantic poems Eda and The Ball the theme of love temptations is developed by contrasting motifs of darkness of the night and glowing “light” of the romance. At a decisive moment for the heroines the artifact of the Orthodox culture presents a certain barrier from the fatal step, a reference point in attesting the Truth. As the logic plot of the examined poems indicates, the possibility of happiness in the life tainted by the sin is negated in Boratynsky's artistic world. The poetics of night determines the dynamics of the poems Eda and The Ball. A calendar way of thought characterizes the large epic genres and organizes the plot of Tsyganka (The Gypsy) (Easter, July, the Christmastide fun and the Eve of Lent), which is a kind of attempt to the author's “eclectic” novel in prose. Boratynsky diverges from literary and cultural traditions not only in the development perspective of a romantic plot, but also in the semantics of winter and blizzard.

Keywords: romantic poem, poetics of contrasting motives, folklore, the Orthodox calendar

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The life and work of Vladimir Odoyevsky as a writer, a statesman and a scientist were dedicated to his Motherland, its culture, science and society. The Bible, especially the Gospel and the works of the Orthodox Fathers published in Dobrotolyubiye determined the writer's view of the world. The Parable of the Talents was one of the most important and key parables of the New Testament for Odoyevsky. This importance is attested by the writer's life which was full of selfless and relentless hard work for the good of Russia, as well as his diaries, works and letters. Odoyevsky was multi-talanted person who was deeply concerned by the question of the essence of true service to God and people. Existence for Odoyevsky was the battleground where distresses, uncertainty, self-deception and self-delusion lie in wait for an individual. Sometimes in Odoevsky's works appeared sad reflections about the vanity of carnal existence that deeply contrasted with his opinion about the necessity of active work and fulfillment of one's talents. However, the only firm support for him was always the faith in God and Providence.

Keywords: Vladimir Odoyevsky, religion, the Gospel, Dobrotolyubiye, the Parable of the Talents, way of life, human destiny

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It is well known that P. J. Chaadaev's, a famous Russian thinker of the 19th century, assessment of the present-day reality was determined by the study of the world and Russian history. But it is less known that Gogol was keen on studying of history since his childhood and that his enthusiasm for history seriously affected his literary and publicistic works. Unfortunately, for a long time scholars have not devoted enough attention to the impact of Gogol's interest on his artistic images. The article is one of the first attempts to fill this vacuum and show how the study of the Slavic and Russian past (the source of information for the writer mainly was The History of Russian State by Karamzin) affected the writer᾿s vision of the present and the future of Russia as well as the reflection of it in his writings: in stories A Terrible Vengeance, Taras Bulba, The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich and in his main novel — Dead Souls. The content of historical works of Gogol, his lectures and individual sketches allow us to say that the most sensitive "pain spots" in the writer's perception of national history was experience of a well-known phenomenon — the mutual princely feuds, often destroying the Russian and Slavic unity. Peculiarity of Gogol as a writer, as a Christian author, was in the fact that, perhaps, no one experienced this sad locus communis of the Old Russian past so deeply and keenly as he did. The article shows based on the extensive material that the problem of overcoming the internecine conflicts, being important for the building of the Russian and Slavic world, disturbed Gogol throughout his life and became one of the main and key themes in his writing.

Keywords: Gogol, Christianity, history, slavophilism, slavdom, literature, society, biography, sacred prose, interpretation

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Modern readers often do not know or do not understand literal and connotative meanings of personal names (anthroponyms) in Russian classical literature, which reflect the culture of that time and play an important role in the books' stylistic harmony: these names provided certain framework for the writers and readers who knew at least some elementary Latin and Greek, as well as some basic ancient Slavic mythology. Thus, one of the ways to provide correct philological commentary on a text can be to define the semantics of personal names and its correlation with the characteristics of the heroes, with the ideological and artistic aspects of the text. And analyzing the structure of the artistic image, you need to consider the importance of the various forms of personal names, as well as their possible external and internal dialogism. We characterize onims in the early works of Gogol devoted to Little Russia: A Chapter of the Historical novel, Two chapters of Little Russia's Story, the first book Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka (1831). It is based on the interpretation of common Slavic names in their Ukrainian and Russian versions generally accepted at the time, as well as the list of Names Given at Baptism from Gogol's The Book of Bits and Pieces (1827-1831). Given analysis leads to the conclusion that choosing a certain Christian name for his hero, Gogol took into account the phonetic and semantic structure of the onims and its direct and connotative meanings, their contradictions, semantic links, and less often - their popularity, belonging to a particular caste, and paronymic harmonies.

Keywords: Gogol's imenoslov, early works, form and semantics of personal names (anthroponyms), dialogism, Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka

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In the analysis of the prose of Nikolai Gogol and Fyodor Dostoyevsky both writers᾿ views on the category of "bogatyrstvo" are reconstructed and compared. The author covers such important literary problems as interpretation of heroic selfless devotion in tems of the Orthodox tradition, as well as the role of Nikolai Gogol in the artistic consciousness of Fyodor Dostoevsky. First of all the author emphasizes that both of the classics of considered ‘bogatyrstvo’ in the context of the Christian idea of "strength in weakness" with a focus on spiritual, not physical strength of the true bogatyrs; secondly, that the deeds are committed not only by fearless warriors in armor, but also by the people "of every rank and place" that constantly fight against the various manifestations of a disorder both in the outside world and in their own souls. It was found that for both writers the symbols of ‘bogatyrstvo’ were the holy warriors. Among those Nikolai Gogol mentioned the names of reverend Alexander Peresvet and Andrei Oslabya. The well known Christian bogatyr Ilya Muromets, honoured by Russian people, is the ideal of Saint heroism for Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Keywords: bogatyr, bogatyrstvo, Orthodoxy, strength, faith

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The article analyzes the programme of the weekly journal Grazhdanin (The Citizen) as “a body of Russian people who are not members of any party”. It was revealed in editorial announcements about the subscription by G. K. Gradovsky in 1872. The author notes the commonality of the ideological programmes of Grazhdanin and the journals Vremia (Time) and Epokha (The Epoch) published by the Dostoyevsky brothers. As an editor, Fyodor M. Dostoyevsky made some amendments and clarifications to the conception of Grazhdanin. He included the studies of the issues of church, everyday public and family life of Russia, district council (zemstvo), peasant world and new phenomena in literature into the blueprint of the journal. This blueprint was accomplished by Dostoyevsky in A Writer's Diary that became the personal Diary of The Citizen and editorial diary of the weekly journal Grazhdanin. In feuilletons and articles, which modified this column into a new genre of Dostoyevsky, he elucidated the standpoints of the journal regarding a lot of social, political and state issues of those times.

Keywords: Dostoyevsky, Gradovsky, Meshchersky, weekly journal Grazhdanin, blueprint, ideas, conceptions

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The article analyzes a theme of religious sects in A Writer's diary of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Dostoyevksy, who readily responded to all the vital questions of contemporary life, obviously could not ignore the theme of pseudo-spirityality and involvement of people in different organizations masked by prayerful meetings; organizations that often set political rather than religious goals. In the article the image of a stundist parson as a religious sect leader is compared with the image of Elder Zosima from Dostoyevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov seen as a real saint leading people to Christ. F. М. Dostoyevsky actually demarcates the concepts of sectarian teaching and its practical implementation. According to the writer, the destructive activities of sects are much more dangerous than their theoretical views. Immersed into all sorts of trance states (“whirling and prophecy”), a person broadcasts a distorted view of Christ, rejects the true faith, and without knowing it, revitalizes the ancient pagan cults of idolatry.

Keywords: religious sects, A Writer Diary, Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, Father Zosima

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The article deals with the meaning of a penitential confession in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov. It is noted that the penitential confession in the novel exempts from the burden of guilt, allowing the confessor to get rid of spiritual sufferings through the compassion of the person who accepts the confession and shares the guilt with the sinner. It is emphasized that repentance is inseparably linked with overcoming the sense of shame before public exposure and self-obsession with one's reputation. The attention is paid to mutual confessions in the novel after which the heroes step on the path towards transformation. It is concluded that penitential confessions of heroes result in their revival and spiritual renewal, as each of them is given a chance to endure spiritual revolution, to overcome the "hell" and to confirm the validity of Zosima's idea about common guilt and responsibility.

Keywords: Dostoyevsky, confession, repentance, the idea of common guilt and responsibility

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The artistic functions of the Gospel text in Dostoyevsky's The Double, Notes from the Underground and The Idiot are examined in the light of Losev's aesthetic theory. The focus is on the fact that the categories of Prime-image, Myth, Name take important place both in Losev's aesthetics and Dostoyevsky's poetics. Dynamics of the form-producing process is described by Losev as a dialectical way of the movement of Image towards Prime-image, its purpose is their complete equation. In Dostoyevsky's works this dynamics is already apparent at onomapoetics: hero's name actualizes dialectical relations between the character and its ideal prototype. These relations are materialized in diverse interactions of the artistic and the Gospel texts. Gospel text is actively involved in the process of formation; it carries interpenetration of architectonics and of composition aspects of artistic form, organizes artistic teleology of the writer's works. Teleological direction of artistic myth created by Dostoyevsky embodies teleology of Absolute Myth of Sacred history.

Keywords: Gospel text, dialectics, art form, prime-image, name, teleological principle, Dostoyevsky, Losev

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The article analyzes the key genre characteristics of A. M. Dostoyevsky's diaries: the context, the image type, the stylistic originality. Though the diaries have their own art history, they are also the literary part of the similar memoir document «Memories». The age of the diarist plays an important role in the comprehension process of the diary text functionality. A. M. Dostoyevsky began writing his diaries at the end of his life. Probably the disease of his wife invoked the writing activity. Dostoyevsky made his diary writings in a strictly chronological order. The writer just once was to interrupt the chronological order of his writings because of his wife's death. Dostoyevsky suspended writing his diaries for almost two years. The first time Dostoyevsky initiated himself into the similar form of diary writing was his regular epistolary correspondence with the sister V. M. Dostoyevskaya. That time the writer had been was in St. Petersburg and described his everyday impressions in letters. The topics of A. M. Dostoyevsky's diaries refer to family and domestic questions. Along with the domestic topic, art materials of the diaries include a wide range of the historical portraits and the descriptions of the meaningful epochal personalities and events. The travel writings and the dates to be comprehended in the spirit of the Christian calendar occupy an important place in A. M. Dostoyevsky's diaries. These art components sacralize the chronotope and the art style of the diaries. The stylistic experiments of the diaries are highly various: dreams, poetic improvisations, official work documents, drawings, plans.

Keywords: diary, memories, genre, language, sacralization, style, chronotope

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The article deals with N. S. Leskov's perception of the 17th century Prologue. From 1870 to 1890s the writer gave conflicting characteristics of the functional purpose of the Prologue, the history of its existence and publications in Russia, from the book, appointed by the church for godly edifying reading and helping to “comprehend the Word of God”, to the deprivation of its ecclesiastical authority at all. Since 1886s, Leskov defined the Prologue as a “renounced”, “non-canonical” book. The analysis of archival materials has confirmed a supposition previously expressed in science that the writer called the fully printed version of Prolog, published in Synod printing in 1642-1643s, as “renunciation”. This edition was the one that was not subjected to book correcting (“knizhnaya sprava”) during Nikon's reforms. Antiquity and preservation of monuments always were determinative criteria for the writer. Such characteristics are not lacking in tangible ground and are based on the scientifically proven observations of the 19th century. It was found that the monograph of Kiev Theological Academy Professor N. I. Petrov, “On the origin and composition of the Slavic-Russian printed Prologue (The foreign sources)” (Kiev, 1875), had a significant impact on the development of Leskov's own position. Leskov made a simple creative move. He transferred the scientific fact, the “non-canonicity” of “pre-Peter” Prologue, in the literary fact. Not only the heuristic search of Leskov in the history of its publications lies within the strategy to provide the Prologue of 1642-1643s edition by the status of “renounced”, but also the creative quest. Given the “accountability” of his works written on the subjects of the Prologue, on the part of the censorship, the writer had to find an access to the new language of “cryptography”. An appeal to the “non-canonical” Prologue as a literary source turned out for him as the freedom of creative expression. The second “non-canonical” plan hardly fits into the scope of the 19th century censorship; author's reflections on the issues of faith, sainthood, fall of man, active love hides in the Prologue situations and images.

Keywords: Russian Literature of the 19th century, N. S. Leskov, medieval bookishness, Prologue

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The article is devoted to studying Komarovsky skete monastery, one of the oldest Nizhny Novgorod Old Believer skete monasteries, in Pavel Melnikov-Pechersky's dilogy “In the woods” and “On the hills”. This dilogy is an artistic reflection of Pavel Melnikov-Pechersky's experience of studying historical reality. In this article Komarovsky skete monastery is considered as the category of artistic space. Komarovsky skete monastery is a distinctly dominating spatial image in the dilogy. In modern literary criticism the concept of “locus” is often used to identify spatial images. The text of the dilogy allows considering Komarovsky skete monastery as locus, since it has some essential characteristics of this concept: identity with the real world object, cultural importance for a certain society, discretisation and anthropological conditionality. The article analyses the text on the basis of locus defining characteristics applicable to a spatial image of Komarovsky skete monastery.

Keywords: Pavel Melnikov-Pechersky, Russian Old Belief, Komarovsky Skete Monastery, locus, artistic space, spatial image

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The article examines an archetype of the righteous person in the Pavel Melnikov-Pechersky's dilogy through the example of Old Believers images which form the main part of the text. Through the example of righteousness as a subject the interconnection Melnikov-Pechersky's dilogy with Old Russian literature traditions, focused on Christian values, is shown. Russian literature of the 19th century, which kept these traditions addressing to the subject of righteousness, created heroes of a new type. These are secular people, imperfect and a bit sinful, but holding onto the ideals of Old Russia. Such righteous persons being the ambodiment of different virtues are portrayed in Melnikov-Pechersky's dilogy. The article draws some typological parallels with Old Russian literature and identifies several types of righteous heroes in the dilogy – certain types of righteous women and spiritual wanderers. As a result, on the basis of the analysis of Old Believers' images it can be concluded that the main criterion of righteousness for Pavel Melnikov-Pechersky is not belonging of the hero to the Old Belief or to the dominating church but his/her Christian attitude and following evangelical precepts. That is why Melnikov-Pechersky does not present the righteous Old Believers as active spokesmen of the Old Belief ideology.

Keywords: image, Old Believer, righteous person, tradition, Old Russian literature, national ideal, spiritual values

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This article presents the first analysis of tropes in the letters of the first Elder Lev (Nagolkin) of Optina Pustyn Monastery (Opta’s hermitage) - i. e. proverbs, allusions, allegories periphrasis and metaphors. Elder Lev most frequently used such tropes as “the storm of temptations”, “the heart field”, “happy harvest”, “rags of the passions”, “the marriage of the soul”, “verbal sheep”, “soldier of Christ”, “spiritual milk”, “the mind's wolf”, “a log of pride”. One special thing about these tropes is that they blend together several biblical quotations and the Gospel images. Both simple and extended metaphors are used, and all the metaphors in the letters of St. Lev of Optina have a special function: they actualize biblical events, describe symbolically the inner world of a person and show the way to the salvation of the soul. It is typical of the Elder to use his own unique tropes, which are very different from the traditional poetic images of the Russian literature of the 19th century.

Keywords: tropes, author's metaphor, biblical quotations, salvation, Optina Pustyn Monastery

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The article studies artistic functions of the motif of a monk's temptation in Yakov Polonsky's lyric poetry and his poem Keliot. The study focuses on biographical prerequisites to the poet's Christian mind. To analyze literary motifs typical of Polonsky's poetry the article employs anthropological and axiological approaches. It examines the role that Gospel plays in Polonsky's lyric poetry. The paper maintains that plot development plays a secondary role in the poem Keliot. Polonsky centers on a complex philosophical themes of love and the Law in the system of Christian values. Like the Biblical characters Polonsky's character experiences lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. The poem depicts a human being within the framework of Christian tradition. Having fallen from his primeval integrity into sin, a human being receives forgiveness through complete repentance and acts of love. The final lines of the poem extol self-sacrificing Christian love. The study maintains that Polonsky depicts human beings through the prism of his Christian consciousness.

Keywords: Russian poetry, Ya. P. Polonsky, Christian anthropology and axiology, Biblical motif of temptation, primeval integrity, the poem Keliot, love and the Law

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The article analyzes characters of clergymen and the process of creating a specific type of a preacher in Leo Tolstoy's creative works. The researcher tries to prove that this process was strongly influenced by Tolstoy's close attention to the preacher characters in George Eliot's works. This can be proved by Tolstoy's letters, diary and notes in the books from the writer's personal library. The main features of Tolstoy's preacher character are demonstrated by the example of Prince Nekhlyudov (Resurrection). Proclaiming evangelical truth, he is not a member of any confession; he does not promulgate his views, but he proves his case by his actions and his way of life. He rejects earthly comfort and goods and voluntarily becomes integrated into people's life. Having walked his way of repentance of former sins, he cultivates the ability to forgive and have mercy. George Eliot also accents these features in the key characters of her books, analyzed in this article (Janet's repentance, Adam Bede and Felix Holt, the Radical). Eliot's version of preaching becomes a certain guide for Tolstoy in the process of shaping a new type of character in his late works.

Keywords: Leo Tolstoy, George Eliot, clergyman, preacher

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Anton Chekhov wrote his novella Three years in 1895, and this title could be chosen because it took Chekhov three years to finish it, given that entries from his diary dating back to 1891 were included into the novella. It is estimated that while preparing for writing this book Chekhov made about 200 notes. Therefore, Three years can be perceived as the author’s lengthy reflection on life, materialized through some ‘alien’ story. One special thing about this book, however, is its ‘incompleteness’: there is no event at the end of the story which would draw a final line – all we see is a series of open ends, so it seems that it all ends with nothing. Novella Three years is believed to be the first time when Chekhov used his new drama poetics in his prose, since his plays Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard also have ‘open ends’. Someone is leaving and something is happening there, but spiritual and real-life connections between people are not broken – they obviously await some development in the future. It means, then, that in Three years we see some new type of artistic integrity, which is created not by coherence of a seemingly completed plot line, but by inner cohesion of the life-transforming flow of events, representing reality with its inner unpredictability. What is even more important is that by completing his story Chekhov would probably destroy the inner integrity of his text.

Keywords: Anton Chekhov, novella Three Years, humility

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The article discusses the features of the poetics of Yesenin lyrics of 1918–1919. Poems of this period form a single metatekst about the end of the time, and the coming of the Day of Judgment. The research shows that the disclosure of eschatology theme by the poet exhibits characteristic features of the artistic world of S. A. Yesenin. The most important source of Yesenin's poetic imagery is the experience of Orthodox worship gained by him in childhood and adolescence. Liturgical foundations of Yesenin's artistic thinking implemented in different planes of the content of poetics throughout the career of the poet. In the "little poems" and poems of 1918–1919 the structure and symbolism of the liturgical text is presented. Yesenin uses quotes and paraphrases hymns and texts of Scripture; liturgical symbols and actions of church utensils, iconographic images are reflected in his poetry. The content and the relationship of poetic images and symbols, the interplay of these images are in compliance with the poetics of liturgical texts. A complex semiotic structure of worship is reflected in the poetry in the form of correlations of the New Testament and the Old Testament prophecies, combined with various biblical images and motifs. A theme of Old Testament prophecy is reproduced in liturgical discourse. In the development of eschatological themes the characters of prophets also form an additional scope of meanings associated with the spirit of the revolutionary events: the prophets becomes representatives of the common people, the spokesmen of the national spiritual experience. The poetic text had borne the additional connotations with biblical stories on the ministry of the prophets.

Keywords: eschatology, prophecy, Orthodox worship, the structure and symbolism of the liturgical text, S. A. Yesenin poetry, poetics

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The Biblical poems by Sergei Yesenin are full of pathos of theurgic reforms and creation of a new world. All components of these poems (images, spatial-temporal organization, colour symbolics) stressed the importance of ongoing changes. The colours in small poems not only correspond to normal natural colours, but also bear a symbolic meaning, drawing the reader to the iconographic mysticism. The colourful preferences correspond to the tradition (of the Old or New Testaments, iconography or liturgy, as well as scenic tradition), which Yesenin follows in his poetry. Creating images of cosmic transformation, the poet turns to the traditional icon colour combinations and reinterprets the Old and New Testaments images. It puts the cases of prophet Sergei Yesenin in line with the acts of the biblical prophets. All poems in their colour scheme are consistent with iconographic tradition. In these poems three basic colours are used which repeat the colours of thematically close icons. So, The Coming is coloristically associated with the icon of the Nativity, The Transfiguration corresponds to the eponymous icon of Christ. The colours show the relationship and the parallelism of the processes occurring in earthly and heavenly worlds. It emphasizes the unity of the poetic world, the engagement of the Earth and the Heaven in the conversion process. The consideration of Yesenin’s revolutionary epic in line with biblical and iconographic symbolism allows analyzing in a more detailed and deep way originality of poetic recreation of the World and enables to reveal philosophical and esoteric content of the works.

Keywords: colour symbolism of iconography, biblical poems by Sergei Yesenin, iconographic symbolism of Sergei Yesenin

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This article contemplates the system of moral and aesthetic values which predetermined the main characteristics of Pavel Vasilyev's artistic system, and traces the main stages of his creative biography. The main attention is paid to his key works – poems The Song about Death of Cossack Army, Salt Revolt, Khristolyubovskiye Printed Cottons, Summer, and August, as well as the poems written during the period of 1930–1937 (Farewell to Friends, Stonemason, Old Moscow, Serafim Dagaev's Town, Horse, Camel, Injured Song, Oath on Chalice). The article raises the question about the most important role of the concept of “generic origin”, Christian values and Christian symbolism in Vasilyev's poetics and studies the problem of using various forms of verbal folk art in the art structure of his poems for the reflection of Russian orthodox traditions. The axiological approach and methods of historical typological and structural semiotic methods for studying art texts are used.

Keywords: Pavel Vasilyev, concept of "generic origin", The Song about Death of Cossack Army, Salt Revolt, Stonemason, Farewell to Friends, Christian values

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The subject of our study was the concept of “truth” in Bulgakov's novel Master and Margarita. S. Stepanov gave the definition of a concept. The concept is like a clot of culture in human consciousness; that is the manner in which culture becomes a part of the mental world of a man. And, on the other hand, the concept is a way for a man as an ordinary, normal person, not a “creator of cultural values” to be included in the culture, and in some cases, to affects it. In the analysis of the concept of “truth” we start from its cultural-and-etymological understanding of the word “truth”. The aim of the study was to conduct a comparative analysis of the three editions of the novel and to find out what semantic meanings Bulgakov deals with in a particular case and how it affects the transformation of the idea of the novel from edition to edition. Three editions of the novel were the material for the research: the first is “Engineer Hoof” (1930–1932), the second is Grand Chancellor (1932–1934) and the final version of “The Master and Margarita”. In these three editions Yeshua involves everyone who he is talking to in the dialogue. In the editions Engineer Hoof and Grand Chancellor M. A. Bulgakov uses the concept of “truth” in scientific-philosophical and sacred meanings (plans). In the final text Yeshua appears as a philosopher who is in search of the truth.

Keywords: concept, the truth, Bulgakov’s novel Master and Margarita, Gospel

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The article considers one of the aspects of artistic adaptation of an original source in the art works by Ivan Shmelev. The material of article is the story of the Abbot Damaskin, and the poetic text in the essays On the Rocks of Valaam and The Old Valaam, and the folklore text in the tale Inexhaustible Cap. The analysis of the genesis of the formal structure of the quotes of different levels at different stages of the history of essays reveals the author's intention to recreate the Russian Orthodox world, to show examples of prime examples of ascetic life. To this end, the author transforms the text of the Early edition, leaving only those fragments that create images of Holiness. In the Later edition of the concise description, the author uses a reportage style. He accurately reproduces the discourse of the monks. Analysis of the specificity of adaptation wedding ritual songs in the narrative structure of the novel shows that the author changes the value of the folklore text, сreates a parallel of the ecclesiastical and the folk, reflecting the ethno-religious attitude of the main character. Author's intention is to see and understand the Christian soul of the Russian people.

Keywords: ethnopoetics, literary subtext, quote, artistic adaptation, Ivan Shmelev, On the Rocks of Valaam, Old Valaam, Inexhaustible Cap

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The subject of the research is the concept of “soul” – one of the most important semantic components of Andrei Platonov’s artistic world. The concept of “soul” is one of the core ones in the history of culture and it includes the complex religious, philosophical, ethical, spiritual and mental content. The concept of “soul” is consistently present in Platonov’s works – from the first to the last ones – where it represents individual and personal, collective and national and world (cosmic) existence. The lexeme “soul” marks a zone of conflict between the writer and philosopher and militant atheism and historical materialism of revolutionary ideology. The author and his heroes search for a “sincere socialism” (The intimate person, Doubting Makar). The Soviet critics saw “foolishness for Christ” in these searches (A. Gurvich). Platonov starts actualizing the “soul” concept in his short novel Dzhan (1932–1935) with the title, since a Turkic word “dzhan” means “soul” in Russian. This concept plays an important role in the artistic representation of an intimate life of the dzhan people and the main character Nazar Chagatayev. Conceptual analysis of the short novel Dzhan includes the following components:

- defining semantic space of the “soul” concept in the novel, as well as its structure and functions;

- describing reference situations the “soul” concept points at in a work of art;

- studying the novel’s sphere of concepts (connections between the “soul” concept and the concepts of “mind”, “heart”, “happiness” and “life”);

- detecting mythological and Evangelical implications in the contexts which are directly connected with the concept of “soul”;

- defining convergences and divergences of the concept of “soul” in Platonov’s short novel Dzhan and its cultural semantics, which can be traced back to the Evangelical text.

Keywords: Andrei Platonov, Dzhan, the concept of “soul”, Evangelical and mythological implications, the Gospel

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Analyzing the manuscript of Andrei Platonov's tale The Foundation Pit and his early journalism the author traces the evolution of Platonov's views on the problem of the search for the truth. Analysis of the dynamic transcription of the The Foundation Pit manuscript enabled to show that by the end of the 1920s Platonov had abandoned rationalistic interpretations of the concept of «truth», including in its “Bogdanov's edition”. Platonov increasingly questioned the capabilities of socialist science, based on materialism, to find out the truth about the world, and changed his views on work as the only method of learning the truth. He departed from the materialistic concept of learning and shifted towards the religious and philosophical tradition: in the end the formula of P. Florensky “truth-estina (to be in existence)” is getting more and more essential and it is outlined a shift of the concept of “truth” from a cognitive-materialistic category (“invent” / “to do”) truth) in to an ontological and moral category.

Keywords: A. Platonov's works, short novel The Foundation Pit, A. Bogdanov, socialism, “organizational science”, the plot of the test, truth, faith

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The analysis of the book The Pillar and Assertion of the Truth (1914) and the sophiological doctrine presented in the article and related to the approaches of certain Russian sophiologists shows the general problematic character of the attempts of Orthodox substantiation of the ide-as of Sophia and at the same time the originality of Pavel Florensky's position. The thinker could not overcome sophiological aporia and the complex of religious-modernistic ideology; however Florensky proved the conception of Sophianess universe, formalistic in its essence, but symbolic in appearance, based on the author's theory of antinomic cognition and the misinterpreted principle of trinity. As a result, Sophia turned out to be isomorphic to Holy Trinity and simultaneously to the creative world. The paradigm of Florensky's thinking, apart from its gnostic basis, shows a certain deviation to the direction of postmodernist (in the broader sense) consciousness, which is why the philosopher is in demand in modern human environment.

Keywords: sophiology, orthodoxy, modernism, antinomy, consubstantiality, onthology, formalism, post-modernism

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The article presents the investigation of creative connections between Sergei Durylin and Ivan Shmelyov, two emigre writers of the first half of the 20th century. They were brought together not only by common religious values, but also by their tragic destiny. That is why we believe the comparison of their artistic principles – through the example of Durylin's Ancient Triptych (1919–1923) and Shmelyov's How did it all happen? (1944) to be very productive, especially considering that no serious comparative analyze of these works has been done before. The comparison of two texts clearly shows that their problematic and poetics are quite closely connected. Both writers depict the final period of life of outwardly successful, but spiritually devastated personalities (professor of ancient history and general Patrikiy Patrikiyevich Drevlyaninov). Durylin and Shmelyov tried to help their heroes to overcome the spiritual deadlock, senselessness of existence and their personal obsessions (for the professor it is the idea of scientiic labour corrupting the society, for the general it is gambling). Both the professor and the general travel their road of purification, their 'way of the Cross', their Golgotha and their Resurrection. Durylin directly connects his character's road with the liturgical cycle, because 'fighting with the devil' takes place during the Great Lent, while the grandfather sees his life-changing dream on the eve of Easter and the Passion Week. The hero's pilgrimage to Easter forms the plot of this story, actualizing the importance of Easter archetype for Russian literature. The methods used by both authors to free their characters from spiritual emptiness (introduction of a 'spirit character' as a reference to the devil from Dostoyevsky's novel The Karamazov Brothers) are also similar. Stylistic features of Durylin's and Shmelyov's poetics – plotlessness, prevailing of metaphysical problematic, Easter archetype and intertextual references to classical literature – are also related. All these facts enable us to classify the works of Sergey Durylin and Ivan Shmelyov among those of Christian realism, distinguished by its own artistic principles and world view.

Keywords: Christian realism, poetics, metaphysics, intertext, tradition

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An image of the temple (the church) often appears in the Kizhi plots of Russian Literature. The article describes its artistic implementation, semantics and its main literary characteristics. The study is based on the texts of N. Klyuyev, K. Paustovsky, A. Voznesensky, R. Rozhdestvensky, V. Pul'kin, I. Strelkova and others. On the one hand, this image of the temple finds its justification in the peculiarities of real Kizhi landscape where the silhouette of the temple ensemble appears as a visual center of perception. On the other hand, the image of the temple often acts as a semantic center of the literary texts. As the analysis shows, the image of the temple displays notable semiotic activity and has a significant impact on plot-constructing and themes. Surprisingly, it also infuses Christian themes, quotes and allusions into the secular texts of the Soviet period.

Keywords: island, Kizhi, Christian motifs, representation, plot

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Article is devoted to the study of the transformation of the genre of the Christmas story in modern literature. The article analyzes the influence of the classic Christmas story by Hans Christian Andersen The Little Match Girl on the structure of modern texts of mass and elite literature (D. Bykov The Little Match Girl gives a light, L. Petrushevskaya Black Coat). The subject of the study is a strategy of rethinking, recoding the source of the original content in the fabric of a new product. The structural and semiotic analysis of the texts revealed some tricks to updates the genre: filling-up with the new semantics, complicating a genre model of a Christmas story. Analysis showed that referring to the genre of a Christmas story; modern authors have different purposes, using different artistic strategies and methods. Some of them tend to reproduce the canon, appealing to the reader's memory (D. Bykov). Others develop the genre of a Christmas story, enriching it with new structural elements, interlacing it with other genres (L. Petrushevskaya).

Keywords: Modern literature, Christmas story, the transformation of the genre, intertextuality

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The article analyzes the works of contemporary authors, representing a particular artistic direction – Orthodox fiction developed in the Russian literature for the last decades, the interpretation of biblical motifs in a literary text. Evangelical plots and motifs are demanded in modern fiction, they determine a special structure of narration. The storyline built on the basis of autobiographical material in works of authors-priests mainly keeps the initial parabolic structure most closely resembling the primary source. Devine Providence is comprehended as execution of a request and a prayer of the person who is initially trust the Meanings contained in Gospel. In the works of secular authors the situation of illusion, showing the state of soulless modern society become emblematic. A parabolic story still requires the author's interpretation, based on the desire of a modern writer to expose moral pathos of the work. There appears a keynote of a miraculous effect of Devine Providence on human destiny. Analytical materials for the article were A. Vladimirov’s book From height of bird's flight, stories Feast by M. Yakovlev and Fishers of men by V. Krupin.

Keywords: Modern orthodox fiction, biblical scene, parabolic structure

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