The article is devoted to one of the most prolific authors of the beginning of the 18th century – John Maximovich, Metropolitan of Tobolsk, who made a forced journey from Chernigov to the capital of Siberia in 1711. His huge poetic work “The Trave­ler” combines lengthy theological arguments and everyday details. Mundane motives and plots occupy a prominent place in this text, complicating the question of its genre affiliation. Some aspects of the poetics of the “Traveler” anticipate the artistic discove­ries of poetry of the second half of the 18th century. The diversity and variability of the world, the baroque macaronic variety are combined with autobiography, which opens the way to the “golden age” of private life notes.

Stanislav Krakov, writer and warrior, hero of the Balkan Wars and First World War, who worked for the Serbian government from 1942 to 1944, was rediscovered in the late 20th century and became vastly popular in Serbia. His masterpiece “Wings” (1922), an Expressionist war novel, features the last year on the Salonika front as a series of film shots selected from the footage. The life of Krakov’s characters is totally under the control of Eros and Thanatos. The novel contains both romantic and naturalistic scenes, as well as dramatic and lyrical features.

The article deals with the problem of studying the image of the heroes of epic folk songs in Serbian folklore studies. The author highlights the principles of classification and typology of the characters of the following Serbian folklorists and literary scholars: P. Bakotić, M. Braun, B. Suvajdzić, S. Samardzija, S. Petrović, D. Petković. Each of the researchers identifies different criteria according to which the characters are typified. Such criteria include: the participation of a character in an action, their functions, the type of actor and the characteristics of the action, the quantitative characteristics of the action, the number of participants, a certain type of verse, gender and age, the nature of the hero.

This paper begins with a brief overview of the most famous literary-historical readings of Dositej’s major work, in order to consider the question of determining its genre nature from the end of the 18th century to the present day. Functionally problematizing the necessary criteria for the constitution of a typical autobiography, we strive to single out the basic factors that distinguish the mentioned genre from the novel. Exami­ning the characters, dialogues and some of the most impressive scenes from Dositej’s work, we point to its genre hybridity and assess the degree of the writer’s commitment to the enlightenment-rationalist concept. Finally, we scrutinize the difference between those elements that are didactic and those that, from a purely artistic point of view, could be considered literary.

Bologna with its eldest university in Europe was an important point of Emperor Nicholas I’s grand tour of Italy in 1845. In Rome the tsar talked with the Pope on problems of inter-church relations, then the rest of the time in the eternal city and along the entire route (from Palermo to Naples, from Florence to Bologna and Venice) he showed himself as a prominent collector, patron of the arts, who adopted his parents love for Italian art. The tsar had a special reverence for the Bologna painting school, the Bolognese Baroque style, which, along with the Roman Baroque, was reflected in his purchases for the New Hermitage. Only in Bologna he acquired the originals of classical painting (Guercino, Agostino Caracci). There he practically completed the formation of his famous collection of Italian neoclassical sculpture (C. Baruzzi) and ordered copies from the local Pinacoteca of such a high level that they, having partially reached our time, were honored to enter the GE painting collection. Russian monarch’s visit is commemorated only in Rome and Bologna by commemorative plaques, the first of which is official, and the second is an “ordinary” Bolognese marquis, who considered it an honor to visit his palace by the Russian tsar.

The Horologion, published in the Printing house of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra in late 1616 or early 1617, contains a mixed liturgical terminology that goes back to both the South Slavic tradition of translations of the Jerusalem Typicon and the East Slavic one. At the same time, the Kievan Horologion contains lexemes that go back to the older South Slavic translations of the Jerusalem Typicon. It can be assumed that these lexemes are not borrowed directly from the South Slavic sources, but are inherited from later East Slavic versions of the Horologion.

The article continues the study of the pseudepigraphic Commandment of John Chrysostom on Church Law, known in Serbian Trebniks of the 14th–15th centuries, as well as in Bulgarian and Moldavian manuscripts of the 15th–16th centuries. For the first time, the characteristics of four East Slavic editions of the Commandment are given. Three of them date from the beginning of the 15th century. and are part of stable collections: collections of the “Arkhangelsk” type, the Myasnikov edition of the Kormchaja, the Kiril-Belozerosky edition of the Nomocanon of John the Faster and reflect the process of creating new types of canonical collections. Only in the collections of the “Arkhangelsk” type is the Commandment in its entirety, including the chapter on the Bogomils. The text of the Commandment was subjected to the greatest revision in the “Barsov” edition, which is found in the composition of the “nomocanons” addressed to priests. These collections do not have a stable composition, although they contain many matching blocks. A study of the “Barsov” edition shows that the text is found not only in the tradition of monasteries, but also among collections addressed to priests.

The present paper proves the relevance of the diachronic approach to grammaticalization research. The article contains definitions of the concept of grammaticalization and makes a distinction between diachronic and historical grammar. The theoretical review is based on research carried out by such scholars as I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay, W. von Humboldt, E. Kuryłowicz, B. Heine, Ch. Lehmann, E. Traugott, J. Bybee and others. Grammaticalization is defined as a process whereby lexical units turn into grammatical units or the latest increase their grammatical status. It is noted that a diachronic approach to this process enables researchers to identify the grammaticalization sources, find out the patterns and possible ways of development of universal grammaticalization paths in different languages and prove the unidirectionality hypothesis. This approach also provides the explanatory value of a linguistic theory, allows us to identify the cognitive and communicative factors, analyze the dynamics of grammatical changes and find out the similarities between languages in the most explicit way. Based on the example of the English grammaticalized construction be going to, it is proved that the grammaticalization process is gradual and requires a diachronic approach for a more comprehensive analysis of intermediate stages of development of grammatical units.

The article explores alchemical poetics in the cycles “Motley Tales” by V.F. Odoevsky and “Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka” by N.V. Gogol. Research is focused on reflection of “ordeal by fire”, the genesis of which is traced back to the alchemical tradition of describing the transmutation of matter with the participation of the fire element.

The article dwells on the issue beset with the study of peculiarities of Mirzo Shams Bukhari᾿s historico-literary production entitled as “The History of Bukhara, Kokand and Kashgar” and its significance as the most important historical source in the historical studies of Kokand Khanate. The article deals with the issues concerned with the history of the relevant literary production creation, with its structural peculiarities, ideological content and the ways of interpreting facts by Bukhari himself. As well as, the author of the article pays particular attention to the analysis beset with the constituent parts of the historico-literary source under study, proceeding from this assumption he comes to important results. It is concluded that the former in question is recognized as one of the valuable sources aimed at the study of socio-political and cultural situation of Kokand Khanate and contains the rarest evidence of literary circles and centers of the relevant period, which had a profound sway over the literary and social life of the Tajik people.

In the article the features of the text “Our Foundation”, written by the futurist V. Khlebnikov, are considered in comparison with the main theses and nuances of the original conception of futurism created by F.T. Marinetti. As a result of analysis, the author figures out the features which allow to attribute the creations of V. Khlebnikov to this literary trend and the differences in his conception asserting originality and distinction of futurism in Russia.

The article is dedicated to the analysis of the tragic modus in Geoffrey Chaucer’s poem “Canterbury Tales”. It gives a brief description of the terms “tragedy” and “the tragic”, which are understood in the medieval sense, and discusses the variants of their usage in the English medieval tradition. The author of the article singles out three main types of the tragic in Chaucer’s work and analyzes their specificity using “Monk’s Tale”, “Man of Law’s Tale” and “Second Nin’s Tale” as examples. The first type of the tragic is a story of fallen princes which is modeled on the genre of exemplum, having the Boethian tradition as a fundament. The content of the narrative, which is connected with the second type of the tragic, is associated not with a person of high position, but with an ordinary one undergoing all kinds of disasters. Finally, the third type of the tragic is close to the genre of the saint’s life and describes the torment of a sinless character. In some cases, different types of tragic are mixed. All variations of this modus are associated with the theme of merciless fate and are devoid of comicality.

The paper presents the analysis of metaphors used by ancient Greek scientist Theophrastus in his botanical treatises “Περὶ φυτῶν ἱστορίας” and “Περὶ φυτῶν αἰτιῶν”. Three types of metaphors are determined, i. e. (1) metaphors that represent stable expressions and describe weather and other natural phenomena, (2) metaphors that similize plants and animals and designate plant parts or organs forming a basis for botanical terminology, (3) metaphors that used in the plant names. A plenty of examples from Theophrastus studies show that metaphors have played an important role both in establishing the scientific terms and nomenclature, and in learning and perception of the world itself.

The article attempts to find the origin of color symbolism in the novel “Petersburg” by A. Bely. The meaning of colours is interpreted in the context of color theories of J. Goethe and R. Steiner, who influenced Bely’s worldview. There is one aspect, which stands out in the study of writer’s work, and this aspect is picturesqueness, more precisely, coloristics. The features of the use of color in the novel “Petersburg” are compared with the requirements for the color design of the picture, which are put forward by V. Kandinsky in the treatise “On the Spiritual in Art”. The basis for this comparison was the general literary and pictorial sources, equally relevant for both Bely and Kandinsky. The result of the study was determination of the functions and meaning of the most frequently used colors in novel “Petersburg” in their correlation with the subject and the hero, as well as the episode, the leitmotif, and ultimately – with the author’s position.