The article considers the crucial genre-forming role of the biographical component in Nabokov’s novels on Russian emigrants. Certainly it is of great importance in his memoirs, but in “The Gift” it also obviously creates the individual artistic explorations of F. Godunov-Cherdyntsev and his individual consciousness, because he is portrayed as the alter-ego of the author. The protagonist Luzhin in “The Defense” with love of chess partly reminds the author, but his real prototype is the chess champion of Russia A. Rubinstein. In American novels on Russian émigré Nabokov creates an unfavorable image of his burlesque double, who ruins the main hero’s life (“Pnin”), or vice versa – his own paranoic double, V.V. MacNab, the author of a biographie romancée, who ascribes to himself all Nabokov’s novels, but grotesquely garbled. Thus a biographical component is the invigorating vital source for creating new curious and remarkable images, marvelous plot and genre collisions, used in Nabokov’s novels on Russian émigré.

The article deals to contemporary literary material is R. Senchinʼs novel “What do you want?” (2013), where through speech, worldview, observations, assessments of a 14-year-old Moscow schoolgirl from a large writer’s family, the seething socio-political life in Russia of the late 2011 – early 2012 is comprehended. The article considers the artistic embodiment of generational issues, the dramatic narrative fabric of the work, which conveys a polyphonic panorama of modernity

Yakov Arnol’dovich Bukhband (1893–1938), a high-ranking Soviet prison officer, was the head of Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp in February-December 1933. After relocation to a new place he outlined this period of his life in an unpublished novel “Solovki”. Currently, an excerpt of his unfinished work is stored in the Gorky Archive at the A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and is not known to a wide range of readers. Boris Nikolayevich Shiryaev (1889–1959) is one of the most famous and prolific writers who described everyday life of the SLON (Solovki Prison Camp). He began his writings during his stay at the camp in 1923–1927. Biographies of these authors can be considered as a benchmark of the revolutionary years. Their works reveal the essence of the soviet penal system and show the peculiarities of the artistic tradition of describing the Solovetsky archipelago, which goes back to the time of the foundation of the Solovetsky Monastery and includes different approaches to the artistic understanding of this religious and historical place.

This article examines the ideological and creative evolution of the Danish symbolist poet, prose writer and art theorist Johannes Jorgensen: from the radical democratic beliefs of youth, through pantheism, faith in the eternal, which formed the basis of his symbolist art, to the specifically Christian way of thinking, with its inherent system of spiritual and moral values.

Plant world is one of the most important elements of nature. The plants of a particular region are reflected in mythology, culture, literature and, of course, in language. The purpose of this work is to consider a small part of the plant world on the phraseological material from the Macedonian and Russian languages, in order to see the differences and similarities in the perception of this part of objective reality among speakers of both languages.

In the digital and technological era, minority languages, especially those that are endangered, seem to be getting a new chance to survive. The report examines the support measures of activists for the Balkan-Romance languages in social networks, their initiatives to promote and use their languages not only in the virtual, but also in the real life. Facebook thematic groups (12 Aromanian, 2 Megleno-Romanian and 1 Istro-Romanian) testify to the viability of endangered languages in the modern world, despite the leveling trends of globalization. An analysis of the content presented in social networks allows us to get a general idea of the state of the minority Balkan-Romance languages at the present time, to notice the main trends in their promotion programs and draw conclusions about their functionality.

The author of the present article demonstrates the role of the ovel in Russian literature. He characterizes it as a specific “Hassliebe” which became a paradoxical cause of its worldwide fame: under the impact of the psycho-so ciological factors connected with the newly functioning category ‘reader’ it was not possible to avoid the genre of the novel‚ but in Russia on the grounds of the unfinished process of secularization (especially this was the reason for the frequent assertion about the would-be religious character of Russian literature) the novel was perceived as an unwanted child. Its specific trajectory is being demonstrated on the exemple of some crucial works.

The problem of the title of one of Gogol’s polemical works, written in 1847, is posed. Traditionally, this work, untitled and published after the writer’s death, still bears the editor’s title . The article explores various ideological and artistic aspects of Gogol’s work. It is established that Gogol’s “story... of authorship” is not “confessional”, but mainly teaching in nature and is subject to a special preaching plan. In it, the writer argues with his Western opponents for a patriotic, state-oriented ministry. The autobiographical part in the essay plays the role of a personal example in the affirmation of religious and patriotic values. As in the previous book, “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends” (1847), Gogol continues to instruct the liberal-Western audience. The new essay is a development and strengthening of the ideas of the published book. An inaccurate title makes it difficult to understand the author’s intention and does not contribute to the comprehension that this work is a programmatic presentation of the artist’s creative principles, the main of which is “to serve one’s land”. The task of explaining and apologising for “Selected passages from correspondence with friends” is paramount here. Numerous features are noted that distinguish Gogol’s work from the church sacrament of confession, as well as from the genre of literary confession. The history of the origin of the editorial title is traced, a new title is proposed – . The features of Gogol’s religious-pastoral approach to his critics are outlined in detail. It is pointed out that the Christian tone of the conciliatory response determined the Gogol choice as a means of preaching his writer’s autobiography. The time of creation of the polemical essay and its connection with other works of the writer are specified.

The article is devoted to researching matter of the image-symbol of fire in Leonid Andreyev’s creative works. The base of analysis is writer’s works from different stages of his creative path (“The Riddle”, “The Story of Sergey Petrovich”, “The Abyss”, “The Tocsin”, “The Thought”, “Life of Basil of Thebes”). The conclusions show that Andreyev expresses the traditional idea of fire as a strong emotion in early prose and fills the image-symbol with a fundamentally new content in later works by linking it with madness interpreted in a way of romanticism. The parallel is drawn between creative works of Andreyev and a short story “The Sandman” by E.T.A. Hoffmann, who fills the image-symbol of fire with a similar content. In the context of the epoch and Russian tradition Andreev is closer to the group of artists who interpret the image of fire as a symbol of the destruction, the apocalypse, the devil (Fyodor Sologub, Alexander Blok, Ivan Bunin).

The article examines “Romantic Stories” by A. Chayanov in its connection with the traditions of Russian romanticism of the 19th century, as well as with the work of the German romantic E.T.A. Hoffmann. The main emphasis is placed on the comparison of the stories of A. Chayanov and A. Pogorelsky as the founders of the Hoffman tradition in Russian literature. The works of Chayanov and Pogorelsky are compared with the “Golden Pot” by Hoffmann. The general reasons and images characteristic of literary romanticism are revealed, such as the confrontation between the real and the other world, duality, heroines-dolls, fantastic elements in the space of a real city. The differences in the appeal of Chayanov and Pogorelsky to Hoffmann’s prose are revealed.

The article is devoted to zoom-meeting “Conversations on plenty of Ale­xander Makhov’s universes”, consecrated to scientist’s memory, held on February 26, 2022. It was not an official conference, but a warm conversation with the involvement of his friends, colleagues, and students. The main thing that everyone was talking about was A.E. Makhov’s multi-worldness.

The article deals with a series of books by Terry Pratchett, the Discworld, and the work of puppeteers inspired by his ideas. The author’s dolls created by them (several dozen works) were presented in December 2021 at the “Doll Art” exhibition in Moscow’s Gostiny Dvor as part of the “Letters from Lancre”project. Artists Lyudmila Bulatnikova, Natalya Bocharova, Marina Mayorova and Olga Kirillova worked on the project. All dolls are made in a single copy.