Russia - France, philology - theology: Myrrha Lot-Borodine's crossroads on the way to the Holy Grail

The review of Myrrha Lot-Borodine’s essays on the Legend of the Holy Grail demonstrates their actual significance for research into this vast and contradictory topic. As an advocate of the «Christian» hypothesis of the Grail origins, she insisted on purely orthodox character of the Grail symbol. The radical conception reflects the very spirit of her age and destiny of the Russian-French scholar. Her Grail ideas balanced between those of Russian Historical Poetics (Alexander Veselovsky) and the newest French Grail scholarship (Ferdinand Lot, Albert Pauphilet), whereas her method of reading medieval epic tended to taking distance from philological analysis of a poetic text (Veselovsky’s genetic symbolism) in favor of its theological interpretation (typological symbolism of a religious doctrine). The unique style of her essays, brought into correspondence with the Grail studies of Helen Adolf, is characterized as «intellectual visionary», a notable contribution of female scholars into the «Christian» hypothesis of the Grail origins.