On the way to historical narratology

The paper suggests and substantiates the concept of fundamentally new direction in the field of narratological studies - historical narratology. Up to now, narratology has been almost exclusively theoretical, nearly scholastic discipline. Only in the last couple of years, there has been an interest in the diachronic approach as way to the consideration of the categories in Western narratology. The author of the article suggests turning to the research experience accumulated in Russian historical poetics by Alexander Veselovsky and his followers, relying also on Paul Ricœur's fundamental work “Temps et Récit” and taking into account the works of Wolf Schmid and some other Western narratologists. Narratology is seen as a theory of forming, storing and transmitting the event experience of the presence of the human self in the world. In particular, the work deals with diegetic picture of the world as historically staged foundations of events; with historical evolution of narrative identity and significance of character and self categories for this evolution; with historical dynamics of the most important types of narrative intrigue. Attention is paid to such a new and practically unexplored aspect of modern (non-classical) narratology as the ethos of narrative. The most important characteristics of narrative are integrated into the concept of narrative strategy of a particular discourse. The emergence, spread and coexistence of narrative strategies in the diachronic dimension of the culture of storytelling as a form of human communication is at the core of research interest in historical narratology.