The paper considers the development of the concept of the Caucasus in the culture of the 18th century and the first part of the 19th century, as well as the development of its artistic content in A. S. Pushkin and M. Y. Lermontov’s works, which were devoted to the Caucasian theme. The «Caucasian text» of A. S. Pushkin’s works includes connotations of biblical, cosmological, and eschatological myths, an array of motives about the heroics and images patriarchal harmony, their romantic and historical variations, represented in the author’s creative myth about the ancient mountainous country. In the «Caucasian text» of M. Y. Lermontov’s works several loci are united (the North Caucasus, Georgia, the Russian Caucasus), each of them having its own archaic
basis and its own array of motives. Lermontov’s myth about the Caucasus unites the autobiographic, legendary, historical and philosopho-historical content.