Volume 13, 2015 year

The article analyzes the plot of husband’s return to his wife’s wedding embodied both in the millenary Ancient epic literature represented by the "Odyssey" of Homer, and in the Russian and Slavic epic. The study of Homer’s epic heritage, conducted over the years, includes a huge number of works of scientists around the world. Comparative-historical, comparative-genetic and comparative-typological studies found a link between oral folk tradition and epic poetry written by an author. The current international science is developing the hypothesis that professionally individual Homeric poems, which are at least 850 years old, were created in the ancient, oral poetry improvisation in a precise format of hexameter. The study of the Russian epic has less history, but the researches in this field have revealed the presence of Late Antiquity elements in the Slavic environment. These elements along with paganism and Christianity became the source of the people’s spiritual culture. The plot "the return of her husband", which is analyzed in the article, is widely-spread in folklore of many nations, and appeared rudimentarily in "The Odyssey". The western and eastern variants of this theme are diverse in genre structure and stylistic features. In Russian tradition the plot is presented in a large thematic variety "Dobrynya and Alyosha", which evolves into the epic genre due to contamination, small inserts in the epic genre. As a result, the great volume brings together the olden time and the ancient epic, creating intermediate forms comparable with the author’s imitations.

Keywords: Homer’s "Odyssey", the plot "the return of her husband", Russian epic, "Dobrynya and Alyosha"

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Among the hagiographic works appeared in the 18th century there is a widely-spread “Life of Cornelius of the Vyg” in the Old Believers’ environment. The writing is known in two versions: the original and the literary processed one. The author of the second version is a senior choir singer of the Vyg, Old Believer coenoby Tryphon Petrov. The subject of this article is detection of the artistic peculiarities of his text. The writer made significant alterations to the structure of the text, giving it a three-part format. The main part that is the actual history of the life of Cornelius is divided into chapters, each of which has its name. Along with the text’s structure Tryphon Petrov revised the content of the text too. He eliminated some episodes from the plot and added a number of those non-existing before. Moreover, he introduced topos inherent of the lives of monks and wrote additions aimed at creating the image of the saint. An important part in the work of Tryphon Petrov is assigned to the Vyg community. Cornelius’s spiritual path is represented in the context of its history. Cornelius himself acts as a mediator between the first generation of Old Believers and the residents of the Vyg community. In his image there is embodied the idea of continuity associated with the idea of a special mission entrusted to the community.

Keywords: “The Life of Cornelius of the Vyg”, Tryphon Petrov, the Vyg community, Old Believers, hagiography, the Vyg literary school, Old Belief

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In the 18th century, Russian literature was actively exploring folklore genres and characters. The bylina was one of the forms of interaction between folklore and literary genres. Some bogatyrs became literary characters. The 18th century epic tradition is known due to the collection of Kirsha Danilov (1804) and the publication of “Byliny v zapisiakh i pereskazakh XVII–XVIII vekov” (Bylinas in the Records and Retellings of the 17th–18th centuries) edited by A. M. Astakhova (1960). This fact gives an opportunity for raising the issue of the correlation of written and printed texts with the oral tradition recorded by collectors and folklorists. The article presents a comparative analysis of oral and written prosaic adaptations of the “Chernigov” version of the plot “Ilya Muromets and Nightingale the Robber” that remained similar to the oral tradition. Handwritten and printed publications of the records of the 18th century bylinas show that there was an active appropriation of epic plots, characters, themes, topics, formulas and concepts in Russian literature. This became apparent in the genre transformations of the bylina, development of its genre content in short novels, folk tales, fairy tales, operas and poems as well as in written and oral prosaic retellings and adaptations.

Keywords: folklore, Russian literature, genre, Transformations, bylina, fairy tale, lubok, plot, bogatyr, Ilya Muromets, Nightingale the Robber

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Folkloric heroes were turned into characters of literary works of different genres in 18th-century Russian literature. One of them is bogatyr Alyosha Popovich. The distinctive features of the epic hero are such personal traits as astuteness, dexterity, boldness. Vasily A. Levshin perfectly turned to them to pen “Povest’ o Aleshe Popoviche bogatyre, sluzhivshem knyazyu Vladimiru” (A Tale of Bogatyr Alyosha Popovich Serving Prince Vladimir) in his “Russkie skazki” (Russian Tales; 1780—1783). Due to his prankish nature the protagonist performs deeds of valour. He shields the Alanian Kingdom from calamity and makes it a part of the dominion of the Prince Vladimir of Kiev; he defeats the demon Beelzebub acquitting the Polish wizard Tverdovsky of his oaths taken to one of the princes of Hell; he conquers the Tsar-Maiden and takes her to wife. The epic hero becomes a literary character in Levshin’s story. Under going genre transformations he acquires personal traits and appears as the protagonist of the tale that comprises both folk and literary genres.

Keywords: Vasily A. Levshin, bylina, povest’, tale, long short story, genre transformation, bogatyr, Alyosha Popovich, folk type, literary hero, literary character

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The article studies the utopia of Prince M. M. Shcherbatov “Journey to the land of Ophir” (1784) in a new literary-historical way. The author explores the pedagogical ideal, represented by Ophir schools. In the centre of the study there are the “small books” containing moral and civil “catechisms”, which are taught in school along with other subjects and illustrate the essence of the Ophirian educational system. There are no special works on “catechisms” despite the fact that they often have been mentioned in academic literature. “Catechisms” are of a particular interest to the history of literature. They reflect not only the fragments of the writer’s biography, his view of modern pedagogical theories, but also describe the image of a man and citizen, the true “Son of the Motherland”. The author analyzes literary sources of “catechisms”, among which there are the works of S. Pufendorf, an Augustinian monk I. Felbiger, “Instruction” of Catherine the Great and writer’s own pedagogical texts. As a result, the author concludes that for Shcherbatov the ideal of school education was strongly connected with the truth of the Christian law.

Keywords: M. M. Shcherbatov, literary utopia, pedagogical ideal, Catherine the Great, catechism

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The article analyses the works by M. Makarov, one of the little known Russian authors of the first third of the 19th century. There is an interest to the author’s works due to the controversy of the genre specificity of Russian prose of the 1830-s and the topicality of the Orthodoxoriented governmental way of thinking, which is expressed in his works. The collection “Stories from the Russian folk tales” targets folklore as the form of expression of the national spirit and ethics. The historical, toponymical and ethnogenetic legends of Vladimir, Novgorod, Ryazan and Moscow lands form the plot of the stories of the collection. At the poetic and stylistic levels the article reveals the correspondence of the analyzed stories to Karamzin’s model of a sentimental pre-Romantic tale of the 1800-s. Its typological specificity consists in a broken plot line; in special attention to a person’s destiny; in the “Gothic anthropologism”, which asserts the unity of human morals of the past and of the present. The fictionalized plots of the legends in Makarov’s tales serve to accentuate the Orthodox-based spiritual guidelines and moral values of the nation. As a result, the undertaken study substantiates the special type of folklorism of Russian historical prose in the first third of the 19th century. The combination of the features of oral poetical and literary genres comprises its peculiarity.

Keywords: literature and folklore, a folk tale, spirit of the nation, national ethics, Orthodox way of life, M. Makarov, the historical tale in the first third of the 19th century, poetics and stylistics of the genre

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The bylina is a Russian epic song about the bogatyrs. Different genre transformations of bylinas are known in folklore: prosaic narrations [pobyval’shchiny], bogatyr tales, legends about the bogatyrs, lubok tales about the feats of the bogatyrs and knights. In the early 19th century, Russian literature was actively absorbing epic images and motives: the bogatyrs were turning into characters of novellas, literary tales, poems, novels, operas. Some poets and writers were attempting to develop the bylina as a literary genre. Th eir genre search was a creative imitation of Th e Tale of Igor’s Campaign [“Slovo o polku Igoreve”] published in 1800 and in some cases of the Collection of Kirsha Danilov (1804). One of the fi rst attempts was Gavrila R. Derzhavin’s work Dobrynya, Dramatic Musical Performance in Five Acts [“Dobrynya, teatral’noe predstavlenie s muzykoyu, v pyati deystviyakh”, 1804]. Glorifying the idea of the state, the poet composes a work where epic and literary characters act and the plot is derived not only from bylinas and tales, but also from chivalric novels. In Stepan S. Andreev’s poem Levsil, a Russian Bogatyr [“Levsil, russkiy bogatyr’”, 1807] the hero is not only a folkloric (epic and fabulous) character, but also a literary one. Alexander F. Veltman’s novel Koshchei the Immortal. A Bylina of the Old Times [“Koshchey bessmertnyy. Bylina starogo vremeni”, 1833] was an ingenious genre experiment. Th e word ‘bylina’ was used in its title in the literary genre meaning for the fi rst time ever. Th e genre of Easter novella Ilya Muromets. A Tale from the Rus’ of the Bogatyrs [“Il’ya Muromets. Skazka Rusi bogatyrskyi”, 1836] by Vladimir I. Dahl emerged from a complicated interaction of the tale, the bylina, the Old Russian novella and the hagiography. The literary transformations of folkloric genre stemmed from the authors’ imaginative need to create a national and historical myth, conjecture the ‘fabulous’ history and imagine what happened in the old preliterate times.

Keywords: Russian literature, genre, Transformations, bylina, fairy tale, lubok, plot, bogatyr, povest’, novel, poem, dramatic presentation

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An icon appears in some works of V. F. Odoevsky: “Ball”, “Princess Zizi”, “The Witness”, “Unforgettable house”, “An Orphan”. It is never referred to just as a part of the interior or the Russian color. An icon is invariably the centre of Holiness, heroes always pray in front of it. Not only doesn’t Odoevsky describe icons, he doesn’t name them either, because icons have a sacral nature that cannot be shown in a secular writing. In “The Witness” the writer talks about imperfection of the language and failure to put into words sacred thoughts and senses. But this idea, having come to the main character’s mind in the Church, gives a special religious connotation to the unexpressed. Remarkably, Odoevsky never uses the word icon referring to Western European art. He considers images of Madonna and Saint Cecilia to be paintings and puts them in the context of everyday life. According to modern researchers this kind of perception is typical for Russian writers and Orthodox consciousness in general. The analysis of an icon in the prose of Odoevsky demonstrates the depth of his religious searching and the importance of Orthodoxy in his philosophy and aesthetics.

Keywords: V. F. Odoevsky, icon, painting, ecphrasis, prayer, the spirit of secular art

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The article seeks to elaborate a methodological approach to the creative work of Fyodor Dostoevsky, corresponding to dialectical nature of the writer’s artistic world perception. Dostoevsky’s formula “the whole emerges as a hero” is regarded as an architectonic model of his poetics. The author reveals the dialectical and mythological content of various aspects of this model, discovers the moments of community of Dostoevsky’s “realism in the best sense of the term” and Losev’s absolute dialectics. In the light of Losev’s teaching Dostoevsky’s formula is modified according to the dialectical model of a tragic myth. In the structure of the formula there are consistently explicated cosmological, anthropological, Christological, ecclesiological, and pneumatological aspects. These aspects trace back to a number of works of the writer (the novel “Poor People”, the tale “A Faint Heart”, the story “A Little Hero”, the novel “The Idiot”). There is demonstrated the dialectical unity of the intuitions of faith and knowledge in Dostoevsky’s artistic experience.

Keywords: the whole, a hero, an architectonic model, the absolute dialectics, the tragic myth, ecclesiology, pneumatology, Dostoevsky, Losev

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The author examines similarities and differences in the aesthetic interpretation of the theme of money in terms of social realism of Balzac and Christian realism of Dostoevsky. Such notions as “human mystery”, “a dark side of human nature”, the “ME law”, “the law of love” are introduced to achieve the aforementioned objective. As part of these notions, the article analyzes artistic types and reflection of both writers and shows the equalizing, reducing, transforming and compensating functions of the monetary absolute, which becomes a common equivalent of human freedom and personality and creates conditions for a new inequality. The author reveals anthropologic consequences caused by dominating principles of utilitarianism and monetarist perception, highlighted in the novels by French and Russian writers, that facilitate perversion and inversion of a hierarchy of values, displacement of spiritual and moral fundamentals, mental impoverishment, entropy and nihilism in the degrading society.

Keywords: Christian realism, human mystery, the dark root of existence, pragmatism, the monetary absolute, the ME law, the law of love

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The article analyzes Dostoevsky’s novel “The Insulted and Humiliated” in terms of functioning of the prodigal daughter motif in its narrative structure, dating back to the Gospel text and Pushkin’s pretext. The author finds several interpretative variants of the prodigal daughter motif, each one represented by different narrators in various genre models: from a sentimental melodrama (Ivan Petrovich) and a romantic story with a tragic ending (Nelly) to “a charming anecdote” (duke Valkovsky) and an adventure story, stylized of “skomoroshina” (Masloboev). In addition, the text of the novel contains a lyrical story “Bell” by Ya. P. Polonsky, which presents a poetic (romance) version of the traditional motif. In the novel, opening a new period of his works, Dostoevsky appraises the possibilities of a polyphonic art system, using the “eternal story” of the prodigal daughter for that purpose. Analysis of the narrative structure of the novel makes it possible to observe how the author matches different narrative strategies, making the text of the work a kind of “a test area” for creating a new novelistic form.

Keywords: motif, narrative strategy, genre model, parable, novel

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This article analyzes the interpretations of biblical texts in Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment”. It reveals the cases of ambiguity in determining the sources and the character of functioning of biblical allusions and quotations in the novel’s plot, examines the reasons for the textural discrepancies, and determines criteria for studying the biblical text in Dostoevsky’s works. For a more complete and accurate understanding of intertextual relationships, it is important to study biblical intertexts not only on a textual but on plot and figurative levels too, as far as the semantics of certain quotations and allusions is ultimately determined by the characteristics of their insertion into the author’s text and their interaction with the cultural tradition that is represented not only in the biblical text, but in spiritual literature and the folk perception of biblical stories as well.

Keywords: biblical quotations and allusions, Dostoevsky’s works

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Dostoevsky’s role in Russian folklore studies has been a research subject both for folklorists and literary scholars for a long time: in criticism, they have determined the range of folklore sources, ideas, genres, plots, motives, topics the writer conveyed in his works. Among his creative inventions we should mention his original conception of the bylina as a folklore and literary genre. In his assimilation of folklore, Dostoevsky exceeded the bounds of the traditional interpretation of folklorism. He was the only one who pointed out such a characteristic of the bylina as contiguity “with the supreme beauty, with the beauty of the ideal”. The bylina expresses “the whole world view of the nation”, “its ideals of heroes, tsars, people’s defenders and patrons, images of valour, humility, love and sacrifice”. Relying on the folklore conception, Dostoevsky developed his conception of the bylina as a literary genre that could express the meaning of Russian history, the Russian outlook on life, the Russian idea. There are no bogatyrs in his bylinas, but there are feats of ordinary people. They comprise the pivotal moments and landmark events of Russian and world history when Christianity was changing and the Russian futurity was emerging. In his opinion, such bylinas from Russian history “could be a great national book”, “could favour the revival of the Russian man’s self-consciousness”. Dostoevsky did not attain his aim; he only developed the conception of the genre and gave its literary example having enunciated the content of one of the bylinas in details. He passed his conception onto poet Maykov who could not implement their general creative idea. Despite the fact that there was no creative result, critics and poets should pay attention to the Dostoevsky’s conception of the bylina as a genre invention of the writer.

Keywords: folklore, epic, genre, Russian history, Dostoevsky, A. N. Maykov

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“A Writer’s Diary” is a work of F. M. Dostoevsky, an artist and essayist. The authors of the article examine one of the manifestations of originality of this edition that is a compositional form by means of a bidirectional dialogue. Its branches are built by F. M. Dostoevsky on the basis of two models: of communication (a dialogue with the reader) and autocommunication (treatment «to himself») — with the help of author’s communication strategies. The leading role in the construction of both vectors of the dialogue is given to the Gospel Word. The author investigates the problem of a dialogue, emphasizing the value of the gospel quote. He comes to the conclusion that in the dialogue with the reader the gospel quote for F. M. Dostoevsky is a main tool of having an influence on an addressee, talking «to himself» it is a main tool of self-understanding, understanding the world, the man and God. In the overall structure of the dialogue in “A Writer’s Diary”, that is built by means of the main communication strategy of interaction the Evangelical quote is a tool of incorporating the author and the reader in the dialogue with God.

Keywords: Dostoevsky, A Writer’s Diary, Gospel, quote, dialogue, “a foreign word”, communication strategy, speech genre

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The article identifies the reasons for Fyodor Dostoevsky’s appeal to the traditions of Old Russian literature in “A Writer’s Diary” during the Russian-Turkish war. One of the main reasons is seeking for national foundations of Russian spirituality. The writer learned the world of medieval literacy getting acquainted with hagiography, walking, spiritual eloquence. Later Dostoevsky reverted to the Old Russian monuments in the course of his work on the novel “The Brothers Karamazov” (in particular on the chapter “The Russian Monk”). As follows from the comparison of the texts the dominant qualities of the ideal image of a Russian saint are repentance, humility and suffering, desire for purification, spiritual ability to resist the evil. The ideal form of existence of Russian people becomes conciliarism. The type of historicism is the movement to the Last Judgment. Gospel allusions and metaphors reinforce the author’s interpretation. Thus, Dostoevsky carries on the dialogue with the evangelical word at an ideological, imaginative, genre, motive and narrative level of the text. The hallmark of the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky who followed the evangelical tradition, becomes a dialogical word.

Keywords: Fyodor Dostoevsky, “A Writer’s Diary”, “The Brothers Karamazov”, traditions of Old Russian literature

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F. M. Dostoevsky’s ideas and images imbued the entire creative work of a distinguished Silver Age writer and critic G. I. Chulkov: beginning with the article “Dostoevsky and Revolution” (1906) and ending with the book “How Dostoevsky worked” (1939). The works dedicated to Dostoevsky demonstrate the evolution of the literator’s vision of “ground” from denying it in pre-revolutionary years (that was common among the representatives of “New Christian Consciousness”) to accepting it in the 1930’s (that corresponded with the attitude of Dostoevsky, best seen in “The Brothers Karamazov” and with the religious views of Chulkov, who had been already in churched by that time). The focus of the article is the analysis of the vision of “ground” in Chulkov’s unpublished work Dostoevsky’s Life (1935–1936), whose autograph and typewritten copies are kept in three different Russian archives. In the research Chulkov’s interest to religious philosophy of the Silver Age associated with the names of D. S. Merezhkovsky, V. I. Ivanov and N. A. Berdyaev is evident. However, the concept of “ground”, based on Chulkov’s opposition to “Soviet patriotism” of the 1930s, in general, tends to have the canonical explanation.

Keywords: F. M. Dostoevsky, G. I. Chulkov, ground, symbolism, paganism, Christianity, atheism

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Documentary texts describe not only the facts, but also favour their creative interpretation. It is the main stylistic feature of the so-called “documental”, non-fiction literature. Diaries and memoirs can be called one of the popular genres of non-fictional literature. Despite the artistic diversity of the memoirs, diaries are also stylistically intertextual. They contain examples of different genres: letters, chronicles, biographical portraits, fragments of recollections, writing experiences, some quotations from other literary texts and so on. The “Memoirs” and the diaries of Andrew Dostoevsky are original literary texts and they correspond to each other. Firstly, they correlate with one another chronologically. The diaries contain lots of textual references that imply the author’s work on the “Memoirs”. Secondly, both literary sources expand the narrative characteristics of the documentary genre and reveal A. M. Dostoevsky’s love to family traditions and values. “Family”, “home” are the key images both of the “Memoirs” and of the diaries. In the “Memoirs” the artistic chronotope develops from the public life towards the author’s private life (life as the change of apartments). In another way the diaries bring together family’s everyday narrations with the social life of the epoch.

Keywords: A. M. Dostoevsky, diaries, memoirs, genre, style, art, family, genealogy, chronotope

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The article considers the functional and stylistic features of the intertextuality between the diary and newspaper genres within A. Dostoevsky’s diaries. The combination of both genres is based on the artistic and poetic peculiarities of the diary text. A. Dostoevsky applies to newspaper publications within his diaries for the adding artistic dynamics to the text. First of all, the author refers correlates destinies of his family members (i. e. sister Varvara Karepina and brother Fyodor Dostoevsky, the elder son Alexander) with the historical circumstances of the epoch. In the biographical episodes and represent syncretism of the author’s inmost psychological time with the historical process. Widening the stylistic space of the diaries A. Dostoevsky expresses his feelings outside, changes the poetical communication of the text — from intimacy to publicity. The biographical newspaper publications don’t break the plot and thematic line of the diary notes, but complete their content. Secondly, A. Dostoevsky includes in the narrative a lot of newspaper articles that are not directly connected with his family history. They cover the epochal historical events, for example: international chronicle, phenological notes (so-called “Bulletins of nature” by D. Kaygorodov), reminiscences about famous writers, military figures of the past, members of the royal families, various statistics, facts and so on. Thus, the newspaper notes (both biographical and public) enlarge social and cultural context of A. Dostoevsky’s diaries. Personal history of Dostoevsky becomes particularly important for that epoch.

Keywords: diary, publicistic newspaper notes, genre, style, A. М. Dostoevsky, V. M. Karepina, F. M. Dostoevsky

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The article studies the functional role of biblical reminiscence in Ivan S. Turgenev’s short novel “A Strange Story” (1870). A pretextual function of the Bible and interpretations of certain biblical theses, sayings and maxims are revealed through the artistic analysis of moral choice of Sophie and the embodiment of the existential motif. In the ethics of selfexpression the main character of the short novel relies on the Old Testament dogmas and evangelical preaching as well as asserts her own understanding of the necessity of self-renunciation in the name of implementation of the moral ideal. Sophie’s moral views despite being formed under the influence of religious ethics are not limited by the very ethics. Her faith in Christ is accompanied with the consciousness of her duty to people. The biblical ethics of self-dedication is based on antinomy of self-obsession and renunciation of one’s own self. The personal is sacrificed for the sake of the public. This unites Sophie with the selfless girls, participants of the populist movement, and describes the world perception of a new person of the watershed times in the “national history”.

Keywords: Turgenev, motive, the self-rejection renunciation, faith, biblical reminiscence, context, pretext, the subject of the speech, the subject of consciousness, moral and aesthetic stance of the author

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This article deals with the image of the icon of the Virgin in the novel “Odyssey Polihroniades” of K. N. Leontiev. It proves that the holy faces of the Virgin in the novel become a link between the Greek and Russian Orthodox traditions. The author traces the biography of the writer and explains special Leontiev’s attitude to the icons of Our Lady. As it is revealed in the analysis the Virgin images in the Eastern Christianity represent intercession and the protective function of the icon. Besides, The Orthodox Christian consciousness shares the same prayer tradition. It is these images of the Virgin through which a special connection between an icon and a prayer as well as its correlation with the prototype are revealed in the novel. The specific character of the Greek world is discovered in the novel “Odysseus Polichroniades” through the holy face of the Mother of God. The icon of the Mother of God gives the Greek world special symbolism in the artistic space of the novel adding there by the dynamics to the static Greek world.

Keywords: Konstantin Leontiev, “Odysseus of Polihroniades”, Icon of the Mother of God, character of the icon, Greek Orthodox tradition

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Thе article, for the first time, provides a detailed textual commentary on N. S. Leskov’s notebook with extracts from “Prologue”. The extant literary materials include extracts and abstracts from the early printed Prologue, fiction and historical literature of the 19th century, letters of European and Russian scholars and authors (Pushkin A., Tolstoy L., Pigault-Lebrun, Sher I.), devoted to doctrine matters and religious aspects, description and analysis of anthropologic categories. The autograph is the evidence of spiritual search and creative experiments of the writer. In the books the writer found endorsement of both his own ideas, and those ones that require further inner understanding, questioning and emotional upheaval. Meanwhile, studying the history, structure and contents of Prologue in the 1880s, Leskov found an exceptional existential and creative experience. The most part of the notebook shows the writer’s learning process of various examples of repentance, atonement, a sudden rebirth of a sinner, active love, the benefits of obedience, the miracle of movement of a saint in space, the phenomenon of manifestation of supernatural power and its intervention in life of a man (God, the Holy Spirit, Angels), etc. While working with Prologue texts Leskov enunciated some principles of their artistic processing (quoting “crisis”, “turning”, unusual fragments in the Church Slavonic language, emphasizing key situations by changing the name, specifying the narration, acronyms, graphic intonation). General trends in understanding of the Prologue source (ideological, imaginative, plot-compositional, stylistic), identified in the notebook, are subsequently transformed by the author in a series of “Byzantine Legends” where they receive additional semantic and functional load.

Keywords: Russian Literature of the 19th century, N. S. Leskov, A. S. Pushkin, L. N. Tolstoy, Pigault-Lebrun, J. Sher, medieval bookishness, Prologue, plot, notebook

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The author elaborates the idea of Tolstoy in his late literary writings as of a “non-Christian writer,” examines the functioning of Evangelic verses in the novel “Resurrection”. Evangelic verses in “Resurrection” fulfilling the functions of a parable and a plot modeler create a Christian hypertext with the universal enclosing and internal rhymes, and predetermine the parabolic composition of the novel, whose outline of events serves as an illustration to the Holy Scripture. An old believer appealing to the Gospel, suffers a defeat because he was preaching the Word of God only in words, the same happened to an English missionary who didn’t know the Russian language and didn’t cite the Gospel. The number of chapters in each part of “Resurrection” is not random mere coincidence. Evangelic verses in the last chapter of Tolstoy’s novel are aimed at a retrospective understanding of the novel’s plot and predict the resurrection of mankind. “Resurrection” is a parable-novel, where the features of the Christian realism are manifested.

Keywords: Leo Tolstoy, the Gospel, epigraphs, parable, composition, novel

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The development of belles-lettres at the turn of the 19th—20th centuries is characterized by a persistent search for new spiritual and moral foundations and artistic images required for revealing the world perception typical of the epoch. One of those was the image of a scientist, that appeared in literature of that period as an artistic whole. The present work is an attempt to explore this image based on the writings of two authors — the story “Toward a new life” by I. S. Shmelev and the story “On both sides” by V. Korolenko. The works selected for analysis call to one another at different artistic levels. What they have in common is a real prototype of the image of the scientist, that was a famous botanist Timiryazev. In both works the main character is a scientist and mentor of young heroes, helping them to find their path of life. The heroes-scientists of Shmelev and Korolenko represent a new vision of the image of a man of science in literature.

Keywords: I. Shmelev, V. Korolenko, the image of a scientist, the genesis of the image, a mentor, a prototype

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The begginning of Shmelevʹs career is associated with children's literature. In the early XX century, the writer creates a significant number of works for children, published in magazines for young people. In one of these magazines — “Young Russia” — Shmelev story came out "Toward a new life". The article is devoted to studying the history of the creative story: the origin and genesis of the process of artistic ideas of the text, the consideration of the stages of its creation, analysis, editorial, poetics. Work on the product was in two phases, as reflected in the three editions of the story. In the first stage a writer working on a sketch of the life of contemporary villages. Later essay becomes prehistory story tale of a rustic boy torn from medium and finding their way in life. It changes not only the genre, and deepened the ideological content of the work. The main idea of the author, permeates the entire story is the idea of scientific knowledge of nature and life, education, able to improve the lives of the common man. In the story "Toward a new life", the emphasis is focused on the image of the social side of life, revealed the beginnings of original author's manner of the writer, his unique style and language.

Keywords: I. S. Shmelev, "Toward a new life", creative history, editions, poetics

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I. S. Shmelev began his literary career as a children’s writer, his works were published in such publications for young people as “Spring” and “Young Russia”. The article deals with Shmelev’s short novel “Toward a new life”, one of his earliest works. Scene motives of early writer’s prose are often repeated, aligned with each other. The motif of a “cherished meeting” of the a child with an adult, who becomes a mentor and assistant of the latter in choosing his way of life, is one of those recurring motifs. The article is devoted to comparative analysis of one of the central images of the story “Toward a new life” — Professor V. V. Fryazin, who became a mentor of the main character, and his real prototype K. A. Timiryazev. Comparative analysis is conducted both at the level of biographical data, and at the level of textual echoes with the writings and ideas of Timiryazev. The analytical material for the article was the short novel “Toward a new life” published in 1907. The study of its manuscripts kept in the Research Department of Manuscripts of the Russian State Library allows us to show better the relationship between the artistic image and its prototype.

Keywords: Shmelev, Timiryazev, a real prototype, citation, allusion, “Life of Plants”

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The article is dedicated to one of the major problems of literature that is scientific description, introduction into scientific use and comprehension of handwritten materials of writer’s creative heritage. At the heart of the research there is a draft novel of I. S. Shmelev “Crossroads” [“Rosstani”] kept in the Research Department of Manuscripts of the Russian State Library. The article presents codicological description and textual analysis of the draft that brought to light two versions and two editions of the short novel, revealed their genealogy, the process of formation and development of the narration. Philological analysis of discrepancies in the editions allows us to comprehend genesis of the plot, reveal the author’s objectives in the poetics of the short novel. In the course of the comparative analysis of different editions in the poetics of the short novel there were found out literary devices inherent to a Neo-Realist literary work, such as the abundance of out-of-plot elements that produce effect of a discrete narrative; repeating common details, the images of Russian nature, the motives of memory and leave that form a symbolic level of the short novel.

Keywords: I. S. Shmelev, “Crossroads” [“Rosstani”], manuscript, draft , edition, history of the text, narrative poetics, plot, symbol, Russia, memory

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Ivan Bunin created his “Travel Poems” — “The Bird’s Shadow” — based on the impressions of his wanderings, between 1903 and 1909, across the Middle East countries including Turkey, Judaea, Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia and Greece. Modern researchers present the East of Bunin’s “Travel Poems” as a certain generalized image of a “culturological aspect” which comprises the historical and cultures features of different countries of the Levant. Meanwhile, Bunin emphasized that he took his journeys to Judaea and Palestine as a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, not as mere leisure travels. The importance of the Bible East in the “Travel Poems” is also determined by the fact that the largest part of his routes and most of his essays (7 essays of 11) are related to the Holy Land. This article examines the artistic space-time of the Palestinian Essays by Bunin and reveals and characterizes the biblical chronotope and the role of the key topos of the Old Testament and the New Testament. However, the author emphasizes a special meaning of some biblical topos. These are the places associated with the key biblical events and with intentionality of author’s consciousness, which generate a broad range of the keynotes of the cycle of stories: the Valley of Josaphat as the place of the upcoming Last Judgement; the Dead Sea as the symbol of visitation of God for the people’s sins; the Judean Desert where Jesus was tempted by devil; Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Gennisaret as the cities of ancient Palestine related to the events of the Terrestrial Life of Jesus Christ. The hero’s perception of the holy places, domination of the biblical space-time in the “Travel Poems” devoted to the pilgrimage to the Holy Land, aspiration for being projected to the biblical times, unity of the hero’s chronotope with the biblical chronotope — all this indicates the extreme importance of the biblical events for the author and for the storyteller. The research of the artistic space-time continuum in the “Travel Poems” by Bunin — “The Bird’s Shadow” — helps to determine the biblical chronotope as the main space-time structure of the Palestinian Essays and of the whole cycle of stories.

Keywords: I. A. Bunin, “travel poems” “The Bird’s Shadow”, Biblical East, Pilgrimage, The Holy Land, The Old Testament and the New Testament topos, Chronotope of the hero, Biblical chronotope

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The beginning of the 20th century is the heyday of Russian dramaticart. Moscow and St. Petersburg became a meeting place for a considerableamount of artistic talent that allowed, based on the preceding theatrical tradition, creating outstanding works of theatrical art. The distinguishing feature of the poetics of the new Russian drama was plot collision, that does not derive from external events but from intentionally occasional, impulsive emotional movements of the characters. The article reviews dramas of Boris Zaytsev, written in the first half of the 20th century. For the plays of that period is typical impressionism, associative composition, weakness of the plot. Their content is characterized by tense psychologism, the dynamics of emotional experience and philosophizing. Key themes developed in dramas become the theme of redemption by love, search for spiritual wholeness and overcoming of existential conflict the heroes are faced with.

Keywords: Russian Drama, Boris Zaytsev, synthesis of arts, a new Russian drama

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The first literary experiments of Platonov, like among many novelists of the twenties, are connected with poems, which occupy a significant place in his early works. Poems are the texts where was formed a unique style of the writer. This article analyzes the musical images and motifs from Platonov`s two books of poetry: "Blue Depth" (1922) and "The Singing Thoughts" (1926—1927). The leitmotif of the first part of the book of poems "Blue depth" is music of machines. The presence of this motive is caused by the influence of Proletkult poetry. In a number of poems in this section the music of machines is a part of the characteristics of the utopian New Town, which is being built by the proletarians. At the end of the first part of "Blue depth" appears the image of unsung songs. This image indicates to the ways of knowing of the world, which are rational-technocratic alternative ways. In the plot of the second part of this book of poetry the motif of music machines is transformed into the image of music of thought. Analysis of the cycle of poems "The Singing Thoughts" has shown that in comparison with the "Blue depth" this book has a plot where a new interaction between musical motifs and themes takes place. The development of this plot is based on the principle of a counterpoint.

Keywords: A. Platonov, early works of A. Platonov, poetry, motif, plot, musicality

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In the article by the material of A. Platonov's short novels of the 1930-ies (“The Foundation Pit” (“Kotlovan”), “For future use” (“Vprok”), “Bread and reading” (“Hleb i chtenie”), “Juvenile sea” (“Uvenil’noe more”), “Dzhan”) a writer’s genre strategy is considered. These short novels have become the link between the two Platonov’s novels “Chevengur” (1926—1928) and “Happy Moscow” (1933—1936). The holistic analysis of the short novels of the 1930-ies in the dialectics of genre development allows us to understand Andrei Platonov’s artistic world, the role of genre in the implementation of the creative idea, the specifics of genre thinking, including to identify the relationship of genre and utopian/dystopian strategies of the writer. The article concludes that the short novel of the 1930-ies constitute a cycle and are united by a general plot of “testing”, a type of hero (worker-wanderer), the poetics of the finals. The reconstruction of the author's model of the genre and its dynamics in the work of one of the central Russian writers and world literature of modern times leads to a deeper understanding of the artistic nature, the role and genesis of the short novel in the genre search in the literature of XX century.

Keywords: A. Platonov, the short novels of the 1930s, creative strategy, genre, principles of forming a genre, short novels, the plot of “test”

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A. Platonov’s artistic creation of the 1930s is called the “ordeal of utopia”. During this period, Platonov writes the short novels “The Foundation Pit” [“Kotlovan”], “For future use” [“Vprok”], “Bread and reading” [“Hleb i chtenie”], “Juvenile sea” [“Uvenil’noe more”], “Dzhan”. “The second nature” of the genre of these works in research interpretations has different names: utopia, anti-utopia, metautopia, dystopia. The article is devoted to the analysis of the genre of Andrey Platonov’s short novel “Juvenile sea” defined as quazi-utopia. Quazi-utopia is implemented through the transformation of the genre of the production novel; through struggle and conciliation of two kinds of utopia used as the guiding principle for the conflict and system of characters: utopia of “escape” and utopia of “reconstruction” (L. Mumford). This goal is achieved with the help of using traditional for Platonov’s poetics principle of conjunction (the contradistinction and comparison). It allows us to study “Juvenile sea” within the context of the novel “Bread and reading”. Moreover, both writings were conceived by the author as part of the so-called trilogy “Technical novel”. The principle of conjunction has become leading in the dialogue utopia/dystopia: in this regard Platonov’s short novels complement each other.

Keywords: A. Platonov, short novels of the 1930th, “Juvenile sea”, “Bread and reading”, quazi-utopia, the motive of the “ordeal of hope”

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The article examines the genre synthesis in Andrei Platonov's novel-chronicle “For future use” [“Vprok”]. The synthetic nature of the compositions is formed by a combination of characteristics of several genres: novels, chronicles, essays. This article analyzes the main features of these genres and their specificity in the Platonov’s novel. Genre synthesis in the story is closely connected with the plot of “test of truth”. Platonov is concerned about how to implement the “truth of socialism” in the collective farming, and he enters into polemics not only with Stalin but also with the leader of the Soviet literature, M. Gorky: he opposes the Gorky’s interpretation of “new truth”, which was to be declared in the Soviet essay. Abandoning the form of storytelling “on behalf of the author”, the writer appeals to the form of a “story within a story”, which allowed him to avoid author’s direct assessments and to implement the idea of polyphony, matching several points of view. In the article we analyze ways of expression of the author's position and subjective organization of the text. The paper also attempts to identify areas of utopia/anti-utopia, according to the perspective of the “new truth”.

Keywords: A. Platonov, “For future use” [“Vprok”], genre synthesis, novel, chronicle, essay, the plot of “test of truth”, the subjective organization of the text, utopia, anti-utopia

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The article studies the image of the garden in the novel “Doctor Zhivago” that demonstrates the influence of the Ancient and Christian cultures on Boris Pasternak’s artistic and philosophical views. In classical literary tradition the garden served as a mythological and idyllic locus of happy life. In Christianity the most significant milestones of the biblical history are associated with the garden — the Garden of Eden and the Garden of Gethsemane. In Russian literature the garden plays an important role too, beginning from the era of baroque and classicism and ending with symbolism. Pasternak undoubtedly considers all these earlier traditions, and in his novel “Doctor Zhivago” the garden, comprising the natural and cultural meanings, becomes a symbolic embodiment of history, creativity and faith.

Keywords: Pasternak, antiquity, Christianity, the image of the garden, the locus

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A Russian emigrant writer Yuri Mirolyubov (1892—1970) wrote a lot about Slavic antiquities. His name is associated with the origin of a legendary “The book of Veles” (Velesova kniga). This article studies his literary works in a historical and literary context, thematically associated with Christmas and Easter. The son of a priest, Mirolyubov was able to create original Christmas and Easter tales. As a priest’s son Mirolyubov managed to create indigenous Christmas and Easter stories. He brought back an already existing genre tradition of Christmas and Easter literature to its folklore origins, freed it from absolutely literary accretions and narrative stereotypes. Yuri Mirolyubov strived to put the Christmas and Easter stories beyond moral (much less entertaining) literature, put them in the mainstream of a folk, “Russian epic” (Ivan Shmelyov). That was a definition given by an author Ivan Shmelyov to his writing “The Lord’s summer” (Leto Gospodne), who also updated the Canon of Russian calendar (Christmas and Easter) literature in his own way. In fictional prose Yuri Mirolyubov acted as a scientist-ethnographer, a sensitive receptionist of everyday phenomena and psychological states. But in the works defined as scientific, he became a true artist, who felt free to deal with the most complicated and poorly studied material, however, existing in the depths of people’s consciousness.

Keywords: Yuri Mirolyubov, a Christmas story, Easter story, Russian folklore, Russian Abroad

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Boris Zaytsev is one of the most significant figures of Russian emigration, the emigrant of the first wave, whose prose has left a noticeable trace in Russian literature. One of the favorite genres of the writer was the genre of the story. The subject of this article is the story “Autumn Light”, which was first published in 1919. The story belongs to the transitional period in the writer’s creative process, when his style changed significantly. Light symbolism occupies an important place in B. Zaytsev’s works. So does it in the story “Autumn Light”, that is stated in the title of the story. The article concludes that in the story the motif of light is semantically close to the image of the Moon, which is genetically traced both to romantic aesthetics, and to Russian religious and philosophical traditions. In this story this motive is a symbol of the perfect world, passing into the past. This motif is also included in the structure of the hero’s image. Sunlight in the artistic space of the text does not reach the ground, it is surrounded by damp haze. The hero’s thoughts are hazed too and he is full of doubts. The fragility of life and temporality of existence are emphasized in the story by the moonlight, ghostly and lifeless.

Keywords: Boris Zaytsev, Russian abroad, the story, the motif of light

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In Shukshin’s text there is a kind of an “anthem” to Saturday and its bathhouse that draws attention to itself. On the one hand, the main character that became free of the bonded kolkhoz labor is opposed to his fellow villagers. The change in the semantics of such words as “reverend”, “without escort”, “unharnessed” is evident. On the other hand, however, the festive Saturday substitutes the Christian Sunday, which makes obvious the transformation of the Orthodox tradition during the Soviet era. Alyosha Beskonvoiny in the context of “global time” of Russian literature follows the subdominant line of the foolishness. In this respect the violation of the “Law” (his firm refusal to work on Saturdays) is considered by others as an undue and provocative behavior and continues the Orthodox tradition of the rejection of sinful reality. The bathhouse looses its role of an instrument for physical purification and is associated with the act of salvation of the hero’s soul. However, the same “Sabbatarianism” in the cultural subconscious of the author symbolizes the oblivion of the Easter origins of Russian culture by the Russian people of the Soviet time, substitution of their own culture for other models of behavior.

Keywords: beskonvoiny (at large, literally, “without escort”), escorted, reverend, transformation

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