Spiritual father of prototypes in Shmelevs’ novel “Ways of heaven”

Stored in the archives of the Research Department of Manuscripts of the Russian State Library (Fund 213. Carton 55. Item 22) letters written by Ambrose Grenkov to Victor Alekseevich Veydengammer and Daria Ivanovna Koroleva, the prototypes of Shmelev’s novel “Ways of Heaven”, are of great scientific interest not only as an epistolary heritage of the Optina Pustyn of the XIX century, but also from the standpoint of literary criticism. Correspondence of the Elder Ambrose of Optina Pustyn with Victor Veydengammer and Daria Koroleva is an object of scientific research. The letters have not been previously published. The study revealed that the Elder Grenkov Ambrose was a spiritual father of the prototypes Victor Veydengammera and Daria Queen described in Smelev’s novel “Ways of Heaven”. The Elder Grenkov Ambrose, in his turn, referred his spiritual children to the Elder Ioseiph Litovkina.