The image of Italy in works by V. F. Khodasevich

The article is devoted to the analysis of the image of Italy in prose and poetry by V. F. Khodasevich of the 1910-1920s. The writer's "Italian" works can be divided into two groups. Some of them were written before the First World War, others - in the period of the writer's exile. The oppositions "Italy - Europe", 'live - dead", nature - civilization are analyzed. The images of Italian nature and culture in Khodasevich's early and late works are considered. In addition, the paper analyzes the features of the national character of Italians, described mainly in essays by the writer. These features are considered in relation to works of Italian writers of the 20th century and contemporaries of Khodasevich. It is concluded that the romantic mood, characteristic of the writer's early poetry devoted to Italy, turns into tragic. In the author's opinion, this shift in the pathos of "Italian" works reveals the change in Khodasevich's perception of the world in the 1920s.