Karelian realities in Y. Kazakov's story “Adam and Eva”

The article establishes and describes patterns of prototypical connections between the island of Kizhi in Karelia and the literary space of Yuri Kazakov’s short story “Adam and Eve” written in 1962. This research approach is supported by Kazakov’s personal letters and diaries dating back to the end of the 1950s. They contain some facts about his visits to the Kizhi island and the city of Petrozavodsk, as well as some motifs and images for his forthcoming story referring to certain objects of Kizhi landscape. Kazakov’s archives, published in different sources, explain why he paid so much attention to Petrozavodsk and Kizhi islands. His short story “Adam and Eve”, therefore, can be included into the corpus of books that represent “Kizhi text” of Russian literature. The analysis of literary (imaginary) topography and toponymy of the story in the context of Yuri Kazakov’s ‘northern theme’ shows that his prose reflected his aspiration to synthesize principles of realism (‘the local’) and symbolism (‘the universal’).