From “light of knowledge” to “light of nous”: the image of childhood in prose of Ivan Shmelev in 1906-1910

I. Shmelev began his literary career as a children's writer. His first literary works were published in such еditions for young people as “Spring” and “Young Russia”. The poorly studied writer’s early works for children and the youth, published in 1906-1910 became analytical material for the article. The story line motifs in Shmelev’s early prose are often repeated, aligned with each other. Among these recurring motifs, the basic one is the motif of a “cherished meeting” between a child and an adult who becomes the mentor for the former. The images of the adults helping children decide on their path of life, reveal the features of the essential image of a mentor and nurse of souls in Shmelev’s works, embodied in the image of the carpenter Gorkin in the novel “Summer of the Lord”. The motif of being of service to people, along with the motif of self-sacrifice, is the keynote of his works of 1906-1910. One of the main images of the writer’s early prose is the image of the book. A reader is portrayed as a carrier of high intellectual culture transmitting it to others. The semantics of the image is varied. One of the characteristic metaphorical meanings is comparison of the book with life itself. That is why the writer often calls precious childhood memories of the heroes “bright pages”. Empathy, the ability of internal, spiritual sight, simple cordiality, purity are the important features of the artistic world of childhood. Highlighting a complex and multifaceted process of formation of the human soul, searching for meaning, comprehension of the laws of life, the ratio of good and evil from the standpoint of spirituality, can be traced even in the early works of Shmelev that makes the writer one of the founders of the tradition of spiritual understanding of childhood.