St'ephanie F'elicit'e de Zhanlis in Russian literature

Loving books, as a complex alloy of emotional, social and intellectual characteristics of personality, have always provided valuable input for Russian writers. They were interested not only in a book itself, but in people`s attitude to it. The reference to these or those works in novels, short stories or essays recreates the reading period of that time, allows to identify and highlight the main books which represented the time, taste and readers` demand. One of the personifications of the time, taste and readers` demand were books by a French writer Countess Félicité de Zhanlis, written more than 2,000 works. Certainly, nowadays her works would be called popular literature. According to Vissarion Belinskiy, in the early 19th century Zhanlis was perceived as "the most wonderful and amusing bluestocking", who had become popular in18th centurybecause of the sentimental-moral novels. "Her first priority was morality and her inevitable companion - boredom". Nevertheless, Russian writers, born in the late 18th - early 19th centuries, read her novels about social life in the original and translated into Russian: "Duchess de La Vallière" (1804-1805), "Madame de Maintenon" (1806), "The spirit of Mrs. Zhanlis, or images, characters, rules and thought, selected from all her writings, until now published in light" (1808), "Mademoiselle de Lafayette" (1813), "The Knights of the Swan, or Courtyard of Charlemagne "(1821), etc., including books for children. For example, "Adel and Theodore" (1782), which set out the original system of her pedagogical theory (translated in 1791). Conclusion. Pedagogical and artistic creativity of Zhanlis reflected in assessments, judgments and the works of Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Gogol, Tolstoy, Leskov.