Biblical context and subtext of “The hermit” by M. Gorky

The article examines “The Hermit” by M. Gorky in the cultural, historical and religious-axiological context, reveals figurative and philosophical potential, existential-ontological problems of the story. The God-building pathos of the writer's early works in “The Stories of 1922-1924”, including The Hermit, which opens the cycle, acquires a clearly pronounced religious and moral orientation, rooted in the ethics of folk Christianity, balancing between orthodoxy and hereticalism. The story of the “great sinner” Savely Pilshchik, whose immeasurable love for the world (for the individual and for all mankind) redeemed his own earthly/worldly desires, in the artistic concept of M. Gorky turns out to be a modification of the archetypal image of the wanderer, the seeker of truth. The purpose of the article is to identify and systematically analyze the timeless, biblical context of the story “The Hermit”, to find the archetypal mode of the “prodigal son” in the main character of the story, staying in search of the “promised land”. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to find Old Testament and New Testament semantic layers that are updated by the writer in the story at the level of allusions and reminiscences; trace the development of the theme of apokatostasis, a key one for Russian religious philosophy at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, about the salvation by divine love of all fallen creatures (including the devil), which must embark on the path of apostolic service - from Saul to Paul (such is the biblical subtext image of the protagonist of M. Gorky's story “The Hermit”, whose very name, Savel, indicates the trajectory of his spiritual evolution from a sinner to an apostle of love).