Soteriological meaning of art: an attempt to understand a man of transition era

The article focuses on the artistic reflection of «transition experience» of a man under social cataclysms of the first decades of the XXth century. Basing on «Doctor Zhivago» by Boris Pasternak and «The Thibaults» by Roger Martin du Gard the author compares the transformation of the inner world of the main characters of the two novels and analyzes the differences in the directions of this transformation. The author concludes that to pursue the true existence it is necessary to preserve the integrity of the inner world and reveals the positive components of the experience of war from the standpoint of existential analysis.