No 1(25) (2025)

Ode is one of the leading genres in the poetry of European and Russian classicism. It is noteworthy that for Russian literature it became one of the very first genres cultivated by those authors, who linked their work with the new cultural paradigm that began to take shape during the reign of Peter the Great. Trediakovsky, Lomonosov, Sumarokov, Derzhavin and many others constantly referred to the ode, due to a number of reasons. Firstly, it is one of the key genres for the aesthetics of classicism and therefore so widespread. Secondly, the external, extra-aesthetic circumstances in the 18th century are such that the Russian poet is least dependent on internal choice, if not to say arbitrariness in his work, but is a kind of executor of an order, directly or indirectly transmitted by the institution of absolute monarchy. Thirdly, only by the end of the century does a more familiar character of relations between the poet and the authorities, which can be called oppositional in the broad sense, develop in Russia. But this is not typical of the classicists: they could have their own opinion, but in general they shared the ideals of enlightened monarchism, which also determines the relevance of turning to the genre of the ode. In the framework of our study, we pay attention to one of the most fundamental aspects of odic aesthetics, namely the relationship between the auditory and visual principles in the figurative system of the genre. This relationship matures in the odic variety of battle. We demonstrate the formation of this opposition in Trediakovsky's pioneer ode and the ordering of the principles of interaction between the two principles in Lomonosov's "Khotyn Ode". Thus, the battle ode becomes a preamble to the main variety of the genre, the laudatory ode itself.

The article is devoted to the novel by M.N. Zagoskin "Yuri Miloslavsky or the Russians in 1612". The scene of Nizhny Novgorod city council making a decision to liberate Moscow from the Poles is analyzed. Literary characters are compared with their historical prototypes. The article is based on an unpublished source, the notebook of M.N. Zagoskin. It was established that M.N. Zagoskin used used mostly the names of real members of the militia as prototypes of the council participants. They are listed in the charter of Dmitri Pozharsky to Putivl and other documents. M.N. Zagoskin also used historical literature and wrote out Polish and Russian names and terms from it. The characters participating in the scene can be divided into two groups: heroes, who are confident that they must fight; those who are practical, urge to think everything through and calculate. Kuzma Minin accumulates the opinions of these groups, symbolizes folk wisdom. The hidden enemy A. Istoma-Turenin has a special role. The article contains historical information about D. Cherkassky, G. Obraztsov, B. Kutumov, P. Mansurov, S. Samsonov and others. Due to the participation of different characters with different points of view and different roles, M.N. Zagoskin managed to correctly show the main thing: confusion in society, the presence of opposing points of view on the future of the state and the growing desire of different strata to unite and overcome the Time of Troubles. The characters of the council scene are not always close to their historical prototypes, but the author correctly understood and conveyed the essence and importance of the event.

The article explores the artistic embodiment of Christian values in the works of A.N. Apukhtin. Four main values are highlighted. Firstly, they appear in poems on military subjects. If in earlier texts the Christian God is the savior and patron saint of Russia and Russian soldiers, then in later works on the war with Turkey, the battle in the name of God is seen as an in human massacre that contradicts the first commandment of both Christ and Allah: Thou shalt not kill! Secondly, a number of poems on the episodes from the New Testament are dedicated to the Savior. In these works, the human principle is completely eliminated and the exclusively divine is affirmed in the figure of Christ, the spiritual ideal for humanity, the miracle of His Resurrection is seen as the beginning of the transformation of the world. Thirdly, the way of Christ, the crown of thorns and Golgotha are the personification of the path of the poet-prophet, the Savior himself becomes a symbolic "double" of the poet-in-the-world image, which continues the theme of A.S. Pushkin's poem "The Prophet". God is the force testing the poet. Fourthly, the opposition of the Father and the Son is studied. If Christ is the redeemer of the sins of mankind, "so that the world may be saved", then God the Father appears to be a punishing and merciless entity, testing the world with suffering and pain.

The omission (ellipsis) in a humorous rhyme has not yet become the subject of special consideration, although its studying helps to understand the poetics of the genre of miniature. The article explores stylistic and plot omissions. Among the stylistic ones, special attention is paid to the lexical ones in substantivation, which simultaneously identify the subject, characterize and express an attitude towards it. The plot omissions are analysed depending on the plot-compositional structure of the texts. Some of them arise when the typical for the genre artistic time expands: there is an appeal from the present to the past. The small form does not allow showing the unfolding of the event in time and, in addition to the present, one fragment of the past is selected and part of the content is transferred to the subtext. There are two well-established models for the implementation of this form: humorous rhyme-memories containing the formula "remember ..., and now ..." and humorous rhymes with the formula "... it was ..., and now ...". The past and present are presented in them with a diametrically opposite evaluation, the motivation for change is omitted. A more productive model turned out to be the one without rigid formulas, where, in addition to temporary opposition, other ones, not so straightforward, appear. It has a variety of plots, omissions and subtext. Omissions are also used in texts with a cross-cutting development of the topic, where sometimes the logical relationship between the actions of a character, circumstances and action, action and reaction to it are violated. That needs explanation, which is omitted, creating the possibility of different interpretations, i.e. ambiguous subtext. The nature of omissions becomes more complicated in two-part humorous rhymes, where the relationships linking the different components of the parts are transferred into the subtext. So, plot omissions give rise to a subtext that creates an artistic capacity that allows to convey in the miniature genre the complexity of a person's inner experiences, the depth of penetration into the inner world. The omissions deserve further study, establishing their typology, which will open up opportunities for introducing humorous rhymes into the circle of the lyrical miniature genre in the world literature.

The article traces in detail the life and creative path of Alexander Alaverdievich Bogodurov, a representative of the Nizhny Novgorod intelligentsia of the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries, a public figure related to the family of the famous local archivist and historian A.Ya. Sadovsky. The variety of Bogodurov's creative interests is shown. The text of his unsent letter to Leo Tolstoy is published for the first time. Also, the article contains the first analysis of his critical article "On Balmont". The importance of Bogodurov's local history research in relation to the work of the poet L.G. Grave is emphasized.

The article focuses on the interpretation of folklore materials collected by Bogodurov in the 1890s in Arzamas district of Nizhny Novgorod province. It presents a description and analysis of his folklore collection: the characteristics of the manuscript itself, the problem of its dating, and the composition of the records. For the first time, the texts of songs and ditties recorded by A.A. Bogodurov are published and introduced into scientific circulation. The ditties represent a particular scientific value as these records are among the earliest for Russian, as well as Nizhny Novgorod tradition. The published texts are accompanied by textual commentaries.

The review examines a two-volume collection of Nizhny Novgorod ditties, "Ditties of the 1920s–1930s. Collection of I.I. Timin", prepared for publication by Klara Evgenievna Korepova and published in 2025. The main structural blocks of the edition are highlighted: introductory articles to sections, a collection of texts (volume 1 – girls' ditties, volume 2 – men's) comments on the texts, indexes. It is noted that the collection is the first large-scale publication of ditties of the first third of the 20th century. Particular attention is paid to the significance that the publication of the book under review has in the context of the modern approach to the analysis of the ditty genre.

The books reviewed are V. Troitskaya's "The Donetsk Sea", A. Dolgareva's "I'm not a woman here, I'm a camera", D. Filippov's "Collectors of Silence", published in 2024 in the editorial office of the KPD in the series "Russian Reconquista". The formal and substantive aspects of these works are considered. Attention is paid to genre specifics, figurative structure, composition, and the peculiarities of an individual author's style.