Bestiary code in the gospel plot “escapes to Egypt” in Russian poetry of the Silver Age

The article in a wide cultural, philosophical, religious, ontological, historical and literary context explores the artistic realization of the gospel plot of “flight to Egypt” in Russian poetry of the Silver Age, the value-semantic potential of the motif-shaped complex is revealed, dating back to the canonical and apocryphal versions of the New Testament story about the childhood of Christ and the holy family as a whole, as a source of symbolic allusions and reminiscences, which turned out to be extremely in demand in Russian literature of the first third of the twentieth century. A concrete and factual analysis of poetic texts by I.A. Bunin, V.F. Khodasevich, G.V. Ivanov, N.S. Gumilyov, which embody the plot of “flight to Egypt” in varying degrees of event-subject detail, showed the presence of an important figurative actant accompanying the main subjects of gospel history (Joseph the Betrothed, Our Lady and Bogomladenets) and represented by images of animals (traditionally domestic and wild; corresponding to and departing from biblical factology). Hence the purpose of the article is to study animalistic imagery, its ideological, content and functional basis, to decipher the bestial code in the plot of “flight to Egypt”, artistically transformed in Russian poetry of the Silver Age. On the basis of structural-typological, historical-genetic and system methods of studying a literary work, it was possible to reveal the mythopoetic subtext of poems in which the images of animals accompanying the event outline of New Testament history actualize the idea of natural and human unity in world knowledge and life attitude.