H. Grimmelshausen’s simplicissimus as a personification of trickster

The article is devoted to the image of H. Grimmelshausen’s novel “Simplicius Simplicissimus” protagonist as a personification of a trickster archetype. The author analyses the main characteristics of Simplicissimus and the key trickster episodes in the context of the Baroque era, The Thirty Years’ War and carnivalesque traditions. The researcher shows ambivalence, liminality, hypersexuality and the relations of the hero with the sacred, reveals his passion for metamorphoses, transgressions, cynicism and bricolage, characterizes the protagonist as a mediator, a taboo-breaker, a catalyst of social change and the embodiment of conscience of culture.