The article considers an issue of the origin of the classical detective genre, namely, its continuity with the dramatic race.

The author of the article advances a hypothesis of the “family mystery” novel as a substantive genre which is drastically different from the Gothic, or sensation, or an “investigation of the victim” novel. The analyzis of the different national literary traditions covering the period from the 1840s to the beginning of the 21th century enables the author not only to confirm her initial hypothesis, but also to find out the invariant structure of this genre founded on M. Bakhtin’s genre model. As a result of this complex research there is a conclusion that presence of the central “family mystery” motif, which is connected with a crime and is also touching the family near past, correlates with the particular speech, subject structure, space and time organization, hero types, the plot and world view.

The article deals the problem of studying the genre adventurous and philosophical fiction of the 20th century. There are few scientific papers devoted to this aspect; whereas those on literary criticism, on the contrary, are a lot. And they both are based on the idea of the 20th century fiction as a single genre. This construction is now existing classification, which is a loan translation of the English-language literary tradition: here the system of “genres” and “subgenres” stands, which is uncharacteristic for the domestic genrology. The necessity of genre approach to the study of fiction of the 20th century on the basis of theoretical and historical poetics, of genres system identification, and the construction of theoretical models of the fiction genres in their relationship with the non-fiction, and also genres genesis is substantiated.

This article treats Mark Aldanov’s apprehension of the creative works of A.I. Herzen. Among issues discussed there are allusions to Herzen in Aldanov’s works and citations from the writings of Herzen. In addition, the researcher analyzes Aldanov’s creative images, in particular those that are connected to the name, thoughts and deeds of Herzen.

The article considers variative implementation of the method of lexeme doubling on the border of the two levels of dramatic text in the trilogy “Paintings of the Past” by A.V. Sukhovo-Kobylin. It emphasizes the connection between repetitive plot elements and the duality motif of some characters. So the doubling phenomenon could be considered as a concept within the framework of the trilogy.

The article considers the research of F. Dostoevsky’s text “The boy at Christ’s Christmas tree holiday” carried out through (non-traditional for literature history) Gilbert Durand concept of a structure of the imaginary and Yeshayahu Shen cognitive methods, emphasizing special role of five senses in artistic language. The analysis is based on a comparison of concepts “diurne” and “nocturne”, on a clarification of a role of the fear and the place of rhetorical figures in a composition. It also clarifies a manifestation of motives of the death and Christ and a role of fiction frame for the text, what (in views of the narrator) implicitly underlines the significance of the art in its entirety.

The article is focused on the analysis of Sergey Esenin’s “Snowstorm”, especially on the use in the poem of a dream-vision as the form of a dream. The author offers a description of structure of this form and considers its manifestations in the chosen poem. The analysis of the dream-vision serves as basis for certain observations on the functional peculiarities of this form of a dream.

The article is devoted to continuation of Chekhov’s tradition, and also it’s modification in Yury Trifonov’s story “Another life”. On the one hand, motives of the deafness, past life, misunderstanding of each other by people continue Chekhov’s tradition, on the other hand, being transferred to the different context, they refract the problems raised by Chekhov in a new way.

Petersburg text is expressed implicitly throughout all works of Alexander Vasilyev, the creative leader of the band “Splin”. In this paper we study the phenomenon of Petersburg text in the framework of a two-part album “Resonance”, which was released in 2014. Petersburg for Vasilyev is the imaginative space for a lot of songs. Petersburg cannot be nominated in this texts but it is implicit. Almost everyname “city” in works of Vasilyev is referred to Saint Petersburg. The city and the lyrical subject are in difficult relationship of indivisibility and mismatch interacting with the city, the lyrical subject is split, combining (but not mixing) within itself the collective and individual features.

The article analyzes the problem of emblematic rhetorics and one of its manifestations - J. Mazen’s theory “Imago Figurata”. The article points to the rhetorical emblem as it was seen by Jesuits - starting from “argutial” emblem and up to an emblem being a rhetorical syllogism. The article demonstrates how emblem’s rhetorization postulated its integrity in relations between “protasis” and “apodosis” together with “four fonts of inventio” and parallelism structure of emblematics and canons of rhetorical “dispositio”.

A short novel “April” holds a special place among the works of an Austrian writer Joseph Roth. In the period of report and the New Objectivity popularity, Roth indues his short novel with a specific lyrism, thus creating a new quality of precision, which was later developed in his famous novels “Job” and “Radetzky March”.

The article contains brief information on joint scientific events of humanitarian club “Intrada” and RSUH Faculty of History and Philology in 2015.