historical novel

The 17-th century is the Time of trouble and the age of feeble-mindedness flourishing in Russia. Composing the first Russian historical novel M.N. Zagoskin could not help bringing the figure of Christian associate in the narration. The article shows ways of interpretation of some episodes with the «God’s fool» using Scriptural passages.

The article offers a history of the publication of translations of M. Jursenar's works into Russian since 1984 and systematizes the assessments and approaches to the work of the French writer, which have been developing in parallel in domestic criticism.

Genre defi nition of Timur Kibirov’s The General and His Family caused disagreement among literary critics. The range of opinions concerning the defi nition of the novel’s genre include historical novel, family saga, cento novel, the novel about psychology and morality of the late years of the USSR. This article is concentrated on the novel’s genre defi nition. The genre framework of the text is the epoch-standard local family story depicted against the background of massive Soviet history.