The book of archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov) “Unholy saints and other stories” in the context of literary confession genre: the cycles of “Fate” and “Events”

The article is devoted to revealing the traditions of literary confession in Archimandrite Tikhon’s book (Shevkunov) “Unholy Saints and Other Stories”. Basing on the achievements of modern science, the author determines the content and artistic features of the confessional genre such as the true disclosure of one’s own spiritual world, self-cognition, the desire for dialogue, the rejection of the biographical sequence and the transfer of emphasis in the plane of spiritual and metaphysical search, as well as including prayer, preaching, hagiographic discourse in the text, etc. The main attention is on the structure of the work where there is a transition from linear to nonlinear narrative. Moreover, the confessional principle is most fully manifested through a number of cycles. The cycle of fate is related to the life of the bearers of a unique spiritual and religious experience, amongst whom the inhabitants of the Pskov-Pechersk monastery occupy an important place. The revealing of these characters takes place with the help of hagiographic elements (confession, the motive of “meeting with a miracle”), contrast (when comparing the liturgical, ritual and everyday contexts), the situation of “last meeting”. The cycle of events is unveiled with the help of the compositional “case-appeal-conclusion” plot chain aimed at the destruction of stereotypes about the impossibility of overcoming the laws of worldly reality. Taking into account both cycles allows the author to conclude that the narrator’s mind forms the idea of a close relationship between the Heaven and the Earth, which is manifested in the daily life of human existence. Such transformation of the narrator’s worldview requires a dialogue and a focus on the addressee, which makes it possible to observe the presence of the traditions of literary confession genre of in the book “Unholy Saints”.