The paper discusses the evolution of the motif of loss in the Shor literature. The motif of personal loss arises in the first Shor poem, published in the diary prose of the first Shor orthodox missionary I. M. Shtygashev. Over a period of one hundred years of the existence of the Shor literature the motif of loss becomes complicated, comes into interaction with motifs of historical
memory, loss of language, Paradise Lost, etc. The modern Shor poet G. V. Kostochakov in the bilingual collection of poems «I Am the Last Shor Poet» sums up the results of the historical development of the Shor literature, increasing the suggestive loading of the motif of loss. Singled out in the plot and motif complex of loss, archetypical of many national literatures of smaller
peoples, are two basic motifs; of personal and of national loss, which, while interacting and developing, reflect the role of a man’s private destiny in the general destiny of the people and the culture, mutually supplementing each other.