The first literary monuments in the Udmurt language

The article deals with the first literary monuments in the Udmurt language in the context of the single Russian spiritual space and state events. The literary works in focus were created during the reign of Catherine II, Paul I and Alexander I. Chronologically, appearance of these works refers to the last third of the XVIII - first half of the XIX century. The purpose of the study is to compile an objective view of the initial stages of the Udmurt literature development. The research also aims to determine the role of the literary monuments in this process and to describe the “procedure” of the people’s national identity development. Fulfillment of the following tasks contributes to the achievement of the above mentioned goals: the use of contrastive-comparative analysis of poetic and prose works of panegyric content in the Udmurt language with the similar texts written in the languages of the Volga peoples; identification of the methods used by the Udmurt authors in poetics. The significance of this work lies in the research of the little-studied texts of the last third of the XVIII - first half of the XIX centuries. Literary works composed by students of Kazan New School and Spiritual Academy are considered in the context of all-Russian historical and cultural processes. The small texts in the Udmurt language are regarded as a “launching point” in the improvement of the emerging written and literary norms of the Udmurt language. They are also approached as a necessary “foundation” for subsequent literary experiments.