A FEW WORDS ON THE POETICS OF NICOLAI LESKOVS PROSE

The present article is an attempt at presenting the character of a pious man in selected works by Nikolai Leskov, with particular attention to cultural, religious, and historical connotations. This article is a part of a larger work, the authoress is currently working on: 'The Pious in Leskov's Literary Output'. The literary characters of the pious (righteous) men in Leskov's works are analyzed in the article along the following analogies: a pious man/a national and mythical hero, a pious man/a biblical saint, and a pious man/Dim-witted Ivan. She attempts to demonstrate actualizations of the prototypes and mythologems found in Russian folk culture and the Orthodox faith in the construction of Leskov's characters. To do this, among other things, she draws upon onomapoetics, direct and indirect methods of character creation, description of outward appearance and behaviours, characteristics of the characters' households, and their situation in terms of centre/periphery relations, along with the religious convictions and literary realization of Leskov himself.