“Spirit of Russia” in the song lyrics about the city of Yelets

The paper attempts to substantiate the opinion of Professor I. A. Esaulov about the special “spirit” of Russia present in the urban space of the ancient provincial Yelets. The analysis uses the song lyrics of local poets of the early twentieth century, published in 1996 in the almanac “Yeletskaya byl”. The author comes to the conclusion that the Yelets poets in their works conveyed the unique flavor of their native land by means of contamination of the main cultural codes of the Yelets text - Yelets Orthodox, Yelets merchant, Yelets-a city of military glory. Local mythology played a major role in the formation of the Yelets text of culture. The appearance of the mother of God at Yelets to Khan Tamerlane, after which there was a miraculous escape from the ruin of Moscow and all Russia, became a “starting” event for the perception of Yelets as a sacred city under the patronage of the mother of God. The widespread use of Orthodox symbols in the song lyrics about Yelets emphasizes the predominance of the religious and spiritual component over the visual and secular landscape of the city.