tradition and innovation
The paper is devoted to a problem of belief, service to the Fatherland, which is important for
Rasputin’s creativity. The text “On Mount Athos” is devoted to this problem. The work deals with
the literary tradition of a pilgrimage to the Sacred Mountain (with experience of K. Leontyev and B. Zaytsev taken into account). The novelty of the Rasputin’s work is revealed: the openness of
the text, a dialogism, the interpretation of the Russian Athos as a Book, the originality of the
author’s image. The main themes and images of the essay “On Mount Athos” are considered:
the image of Virgin, the themes of prayer, austerity, temple, temptation, wandering, hearth, Fatherland,
eternity and death. The text includes the important author’s ideas expressed in his stories.
The Athos appears as the close-up program of images, plots of national history and culture,
staying between two poles, where the life of Russia proceeds in constant fluctuation. The destructive
periods (the Tatar yoke, the Distemper, the Revolution of 1917, the globalization) are replaced
by the short periods of piety and prosperity, their pledge – Athos – “an unshakable step
to God.” The concept of Athos allows specifying the ideological content and artistic originality
of modern traditionalism in general.
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352 p.
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in Russian literature at the turn of the 20th–21st centuries]. In: Andreyevskiye chteniya. Literatura
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and prospects of study]. Moscow, Ekon, 2010, pp. 356–364.
Dmitriyeva L. M., Kulyapin A. I., Khalina N. V. Semiotika russkogo mira v kul’ture
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on Mount Athos]. St. Petersburg, Imp. Akad. nauk, 1902, 312 p.
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Orthodox context]. St. Petersburg, Nauka, 2009, 278 p.
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otvetstvennosti [“On Mount Athos” by V.G. Rasputin and “Mount Athos” B. K. Zaitsev: two
variants of the discourse of responsibility]. In: Tvorchestvo V. Rasputina: otvety i voprosy:
Monografiya [Creative work of V. Rasputin: answers and questions: Monograph]. Irkutsk, ISU
Publ., 2014, pp. 157–169.
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of genres in an essay by V. G. Rasputin “On Mount Athos”]. In: Vremya i tvorchestvo V. Rasputina:
istoriya, kontekst, perspektivy. Mezhdunar. nauch. konf., posvyashch. 75-letiyu so dnya
rozhdeniya V. G. Rasputina: Materialy [V. Rasputin’s time and work: history, context, prospects.
International scientific conf. devoted to the 75th anniversary of V. G. Rasputin: Proceeding]. Irkutsk,
ISU Publ., 2012, pp. 359–368.
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concept of geographical space in medieval texts]. In: Lotman Yu. M. Izbrannyye stat’i: V 3 t. T. 1
[Selected articles: In 3 vols. Vol. 1].Tallin, Aleksandra, 2009, pp. 407–413.
Lotman Yu. M. O russkoy literature. Stat’i i issledovaniya: istoriya russkoy prozy, teoriya
literatury [On Russian literature. Articles and studies: history of Russian prose, theory of literature].
St. Petersburg, Iskusstvo, 2005, 464 p.
Plekhanova I. I. Khudozhestvennoye voobrazheniye V. Rasputina [Artistic imagination of
V. Rasputin]. In: Tvorcheskaya lichnost’ V. Rasputina: zhivopis’ – chuvstvo – mysl’ – voobrazheniye – otkroveniye: Sb. nauch. tr. [Creative personality of V. Rasputin: painting – feeling – thought – imagination – revelation: Coll. of sci. art.]. Irkutsk, ISU Publ., 2015, pp. 447–475.
Radomskaya T. I. Dom i Otechestvo v russkoy klassicheskoy literature pervoy treti 19 veka
[House and Fatherland in Russian classical literature of the first third of the 19th century]. Moscow,
Sovpadeniye, 2006, 239 p.
Rasputin V. Tridtsat’ let spustya (publitsistika A. I. Solzhenitsyna nachala 1970-kh godov, do
vysylki na Zapad) [Thirty years later (published by A. I. Solzhenitsyn in the early 1970s, before
being exiled to the West)]. In: Mezhdu dvumya yubileyami. 1998–2003. Pisateli, kritiki,
literaturovedy o tvorchestve A. I. Solzhenitsyna: Al’manakh [Between two anniversaries. 1998–
2003. Writers, critics, literary critics about the work of A.I. Solzhenitsyn: Almanac]. N. A. Struve,
V. A. Moskvin (Comps). Moscow, Russkiy put’, 2005, pp. 343–344.
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tradition and innovation // Сибирский филологический журнал. 2019. № 4. Pp. 141–154. DOI: 10.17223/18137083/69/12.