The heroic confrontation storyline in Russian literature: from The legend of the slaughter of Mamai to The fate of a man by Mikhail Sholokhov

This article presents a historical poetics viewpoint on the artistic implementation of the heroic confrontation storyline. The purpose of this article is to identify patterns of its development, principles and methods of variability in such key works of Russian literature as The Legend of the slaughter of Mamai (ХV c.), the poem of M. Yu. Lermontov A Song about Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, the Young Oprichnik, and the Valorous Merchant Kalashnikov (1837), N. V. Gogol’s short story Taras Bulba (1842), N. S. Leskov’s story The Enchanted Wanderer (1873), the essay of F. M. Dostoevsky Foma Danilov, the tormented Russian hero (1877), the story of M. A. Sholokhov Fate of a Man (1956). This story tradition has preserved its national and Orthodox “code”, and the important opposition of the main characters-antipodes has acquired the significance of an archetypal, pivotal situation mainly defining the features of the ethno-confessional originality of Russian classical literature.