Favouritism as a historico-cultural and literary phenomenon in the Russia of the second half of the 18th century

The article deals with historico-cultural phenomenon of favouritism and its reflection in Russian literature of the second half of the 18th century. The author singles out some stages of literary comprehension of this phenomenon which depended not only on specific character of a paradigm of genre in Russian literature of the Age of Enlightenment but also on personalities of favourites. Special attention is given to autobio-graphical memoirs of the epoch which reflect vividly "personal"comprehension of reality by the author.