Literary criticism

In the article the author regards the personality and oeuvre of A. I. Solzhenitsyn («Gulag Archipelago», «Red Wheel», «Russia in Collapse») from the perspective of the unity of Russian spiritual culture in relation to two political philosophies: conservatism and radicalism. Ideas of the Russian religious philosophy expounded in the works by S. L. Frank underlie the theoretical foundation of the paper. A special role is dedicated to the polemic judgments of the writer.

The article dwells on the artistic functions of hearsay and fame in the plot of N. V. Gogol’s novel Taras Bulba, on their internal link with the folklore tradition. The cultural and historic essence of Zaporozhye Rada is considered; the analogies with the text of the novel are drawn.

The article considers the debut novels by A. F. Pisemsky and Ye. E. Driansky, which defined the development direction for the prose department of Moskvityanin journal during the ‘young editorial board’ time under the supervision of A. N. Ostrovskiy. Specific features of the individual styles of both writers and the closeness of their aesthetic positions to the program of the journal have been defined.

The article deals with the problem of mothers and daughters relationships as one of the central issues in the history of women’s literature. On the basis of the comparative analysis of women’s texts of different historic and literary epochs, some general tendencies in its representation are identified, which are important from the point of view of researching women’s writing and aesthetics.