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Abstract: The study looks at the specific features of artistic realization of the theme of childhood and the image of a child in the short stories of the Russian writer of the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries N. G. Garin-Mikhailovsky. The author employs the method of descriptive poetics, the comparative-historical, historical-literary, and comparative-typological methods, as well as the principle of comprehensive analysis of the ideological and artistic structure of the work. The practical research material com-prises the short stories “Confession of a Father”, “Natasha”, “Adochka” and “Dima’s Palace”, created in 1896–1901. The results ob-tained in the course of the study show that in his short prose, the author examines the issues of upbringing and the causes of chil-dren’s suffering. Garin-Mikhailovsky’s short stories focus on the theme of “difficult” childhood and the image of a suffering, vul-nerable, and defenseless child. The world of children and the world of adults are interpreted in two ways. The parents save their child from illness and death. At the same time, adults can show criminal indifference towards the fragility of the child’s soul. The blame for children’s suffering is placed solely on adults. The theme of child’s death in the short prose of Garin-Mikhailovsky receives a tragic interpretation. Death appears as an opportunity for the child to get free from suffering and humiliation. In his short stories, the writer pays great attention to different types of portraying characters, which emphasize their early “aging”, ill-nesses, and the depth of the experienced hardships of life. Garin-Mikhailovsky focuses on the specificity of the child’s view of the people and the world around them, manifested in the “detached” form of depiction, adopted from L. N. Tolstoy. The author intro-duces indirect speech into the narrative, different types of monologues (confessional, addressed, solitary), uses the techniques of “dialogue of the eyes,” psychological parallelism, and anthropomorphism. While describing children’s suffering, Garin-Mikhailovsky follows the tradition of the Russian literature of the 19th century (F. M. Dostoevsky, A. P. Chekhov, A. I. Kuprin, and V. G. Korolenko). The genre of the “Christmas” short story became the basis for solving the problem of children’s suffering. The results of the study can be used in teaching the university course “History of Russian Literature”, in special courses aimed to examine the specificity of the domestic literary process and at extracurricular reading lessons at the secondary school.

About the author(s) :

Elena Yu. Shestakova
Northern (Arctic) Federal University named after M. V. Lomonosov (Arkhangelsk, Russia)
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5764-0576

Publication Timeline:

Date of receipt: 10.06.2023; date of publication: 24.06.2024

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