I. SHMELEV AND V. KOROLENKO: THE IMAGE OF A SCIENTIST IN LITERATURE OF THE TURN OF THE 19th—20th CENTURIE

Abstract

Th e development of belles-lettres at the turn of the 19th—20th centuries is characterized by a persistent search for new spiritual and moral foundations and artistic images required for revealing the world perception typical of the epoch. One of those was the image of a scientist, that appeared in literature of that period as an artistic whole. Th e present work is an attempt to explore this image based on the writings of two authors — the story “Toward a new life” by I. S. Shmelev and the story “On both sides” by V. Korolenko. Th e works selected for analysis call to one another at diff erent artistic levels. What they have in common is a real prototype of the image of the scientist, that was a famous botanist Timiryazev. In both works the main character is a scientist and mentor of young heroes, helping them to fi nd their path of life. Th e heroes-scientists of Shmelev and Korolenko represent a new vision of the image of a man of science in literature.

Keywords

• I. Shmelev
• V. Korolenko
• the image of a scientist
• the genesis of the image
• a mentor