This article is devoted to a research of a plot assumption as a cognitive method in works of the modern St. Petersburg poet A. Kushner. As the material for the analysis served his lyrical poems and literary essays written in different years that touch the subject of Kushner’s fate and fate of writers and poets of the Golden and Silver Ages of Russian culture: A. Pushkin, F. Dostoevsky, A. Chekhov, I. Bunin, A. Blok, A. Akhmatova, B. Pasternak. As a result of the research, which includes comparative-typological and contextual-immanent methods of literary analysis, the potential of the plot assumption as a productive cognitive technique in the poetic text is revealed.

The article analyzes evaluations by N. Leskov of L. Tolstoy’s works in 1870-1880s. Unlike works in which the newspaper publications were utilized as a support material rather than a subject of special research itself, in this work, publicistic speeches of Leskov became the material of the study. The article covers the period from the first publication of Leskov about Tolstoy (1869) to the beginning of their personal acquaintance (1887), which includes both Leskov’s enthusiastic remarks on Tolstoy’s works and his sharp rejection of the theory of non-resistance to evil and Tolstoy’s views on the women’s question. We review the publications in which Leskov pays attention to the way how Tolstoy depicted pictures of death. In this article we do not aim to study the artistic thanatology, the emphasis is made on Leskov’s analysis of the literary experience of comprehension of death in the works of his great contemporary. On the basis of newspaper publications it is concluded that being under the influence of the talent of Tolstoy, Leskov managed to preserve independence of judgment.

The article addresses various aspects of Konstantin Balmont’s poetry, particularly the contrastive artistic vision of the poet and numerous ways of its actualization in his lyric poems. A number of themes of philosophic and love poetry are analyzed in the light of Balmont’s controversial perception. The main attention is paid to cycles “In boundlessness” and “Burning houses”. The observations made by the author of the article are validated by the memoirs of one of the poet’s contemporaries.

The article is dedicated to the analysis of the «short story cycle» phenomena basin on the American scientists’ researches. Main attention is paid to the diversity of their opinions regarding the cycle designation, classification and principles. The study of scholarly works on prose cycle (one of the most popular form of writing in the beginning of the 20 century in the USA) explains the reason for perceiving the literary text in the current form as a separate genre and suggests to take a fresh view on a «short story cycle» analysis.

The materials of the article, which give the basis for the understanding of the creative heritage of the poet and journalist Lydia Shelest (1901-1986) in the context of the Russian literature of the 20th century, help to produce her creative biography. Poetry of Shelest clearly reflected the difficult stages in the history of our country in the 20th century and can be considered a unique artistic document of the epoch. The article highlights the author’s main themes in poetry and journalism. Among them is the image of a small motherland, the military-patriotic works and love poems.

The article deals with the literary-critical legacy of Karamzin in the dynamics of his views on the relation of artistic and documentary merits in the works of literature, in the context of his “Europeanism” of early 1790s and the subsequent disappointment in his former ideals (the middle and second half of the 1790s), when art is interpreted by him as “sorcery of embellished figments”, as a way to escape reality, and the poet appears as a “skillful liar.” In the aspect of dialogism, specific genres of Karamzin criticism in “Moscow Journal”, as well as in “Aglaia” and “Aonide” almanacs are analysed: translations, notes, announcements, prefaces, excerpts and appeals to the reader.

This article discusses the poems-prayers, which are one of the groups of prayer lyrics of little-studied poet of the twentieth century Rurik Ivnev (1891-1981). These works in their form and content are to great extent close to religious prayer, but have some differences. The analysis of the poems highlighted the main features, the motives, the structure of poetic texts. The conclusion is made about the influence of the poet’s artistic and religious vision of the world on his outlook and creativity. Through poems-prayers Rurik Ivnev tried to understand the basic ontological questions posed to humanity in the 20th century.

The article deals with the evolution of meaning of the epithet “svet” in the N. Karamsin’s poetry. It is shown that classicism first implicitly prepares the sentimentalistic split of “svet” as world into “svet” as society and its periphery (nature), - but then classicism reunites “svet” / society and nature on a new level, giving the society and the state the attributes of their former sentimentalistic antipodes. There is nature and poetry, that unites the pure reason of classicism and the feeling of sentimentalism.

The article highlights the history of the drama in the poetry of the Italian Diaspora Russian poet-emigrant Vasiliy Sumbatov “The Crucifixion” and proposes the analysis in relation to the philosophical arguments that are developed on the pages of the book of I. Ilyin, “On the resistance to evil by force” (1925). The author focuses on the understanding the central image of the monk-artist, Fernando, who creates a picture of the passion of Jesus Christ, for the authenticity of which the Spanish inquisitors put before him the real “nature”, a nailed to the cross man. The debunking of the false position of non-resistance to evil, thoughts of the author and the character of the play about the artist’s responsibility for understanding the spiritual meaning of the event - this is the main core of the conflict. The conclusion on the poetic perfection, mastery of speech characteristics, topicality and depth of moral and philosophical sounding of the play, its timeless relevance completes the article.

When creating an image of a «positively beautiful person», the writer paid attention to the question of moral impact of such a person on others and the nature of their response. The novelist noted duality of Prince Myshkin’s character (a special person - an impostor) in the first part of the book (abbot Pafnutius theme). However, it was weakened in the story about Marie and the children as Prince Myshkin took the role of the teacher. In this story, the novelist raised the question of the nature of interaction between the people and the teacher who carries words of truth. The biography and works of St. Tikhon of Zadonsk played a significant role in the understanding of the issue. They became one of the important sources of Prince Myshkin’s story about Marie and the children. The purpose of parenting, importance of comprehension (Christian morality), unique features of the children’ spiritual world, educators’ topic (parents, pastors of the church, teachers) - they all unite writings of St. Tikhon of Zadonsk and the story of Marie and the children in the novel “Idiot.”

The article contains linguistic-imagological analysis of D. Fonvizin’s vision of Germany - the Germans, their cities, customs, architecture and art. The author’s private correspondence was analyzed, which determined the emotionality of the opinions. The epistolary presents D. Fonvizin as a versatile personality - talented writer, statesman, scientist aspiring to reveal the cause-and-effect relationships, benevolent and inquisitive person.

The article deals with the lexical units linked by a single common Slavic root *ke(i): *kai-: *koi- and identifies the semantic shades that confirm their linguistic kinship. The author considers it possible to group the words цена, каяться, казнь, окаянный, чаять, час in one single etymological nest on the basis of their semantics. Described are their origins and the evolution of the semantic structure of the Russian language and conclusions are made about the results of the analysis.

The article is devoted to the identification of original genre characteristics of mediatexts in terms of prospects for the development of the theory and practice of functioning of journalistic genres. Building on the core concept of genre transformations that exist in online journalism, the author analyses the reference examples and concludes that the media political-administrative blogosphere has a special convention and and a number of sustainable genre characteristics.

The article is devoted to the analysis and the review of the attitutude to the basic categories of morality among the Russian poets of the Silver Age. The structural analysis of the poems published in 1916 showed a variety of views on the problem under discussion and creative methods of implementation that provide an effective and emotionally tense view of the author’s position. The explosion of poetic creation which had reflected the dialectic of the happening changes, their multifaceted and contradictory character in vision of the geniuses who judged the ongoing changes from essentially different points of view, boldly represented the attitude to the concept of “good” and “evil”. Noteworthy is the relevance of 100 years old texts to the situations of today.

The article discusses the issue of a variant of the Russian language functioning in Sevastopol. The author takes on the objective to study the language situation and relies on the Sevastopol speech data produced by years long monitoring of the speech features (phonetic, word-forming levels, etc.). The concludes is made that the findings prove the absence of a certain variant of the Russian language in Crimea and Sevastopol. However, there are some deviations from the literary norm that are characteristic for the sub-dialects of southern Russia.

The article considers the modern jargon of dramatic theater, and also indicates the feasibility of establishing a detailed classification of such tokens. The author considers it possible to combine the identified jargons in thematic groups on the basis of their semantics and fields of use. Described are the characteristics of each of the groups and conclusions are made about the results of the analysis. The functioning of these units is demonstrated by materials of media.