Genesis of the plot and the genre of the creative history of Shmelev's short story “Toward a new life”

The beginning of Shmelev’s career is associated with children’s literature. In the early 20th century, the writer creates a significant number of works for children, published in magazines for young people. In one of these magazines - “Young Russia” - there was published Shmelev’s story “Toward a new life”. The article is devoted to studying the creative history of this story: following the process of origin and genesis of an artistic idea of the text, analyzing the stages of its creation, editions and poetics. The working process had two phases and found its reflection in three editions of the story. At the first stage the writer was working upon a sketch of the life of contemporary villages. Later this essay became a prehistory of the short novel about a country boy torn out of his ambiance and seeking for his way in life. Not only the genre changed but the ideological content of the work became extended as well. The core idea of the author that is present throughout the story is the idea of scientific perception of nature and life, receiving education that is able to improve life of a common man. In the story “Toward a new life”, focused on representing a social aspect of life, there are revealed the beginnings of the author’s original writing manner, his unique style and language.