Genre of religious fantasy in the work of D. Urushev

The article is devoted to the study of the genre specifics of the works of D. Urushev, who published five works in the genre of “Old Believer fairy tale” in the period from 2017 to 2023. The author’s nomination of the genre determines the features of mythological thinking reflected in the analyzed books. The works of art of D. Urushev contain a large number of fairy-tale elements that organize the plot, determine the choice of the character system. At the same time, “Old Believer tales” are focused on the religious thinking of the writer, contain a large number of religious motifs, metaphorically express the edifying meaning of the works. These features allow us to attribute the analyzed books to the genre of religious fantasy, which is especially popular in modern mass culture and at the same time only acquires terminological certainty. This is due to the relevance of the study. The author of the article points to the relationship of D. Urushev’s works with the genre of religious fantasy, analyzes in detail some genre-forming features of books, points to features outside the named genre. The material of this study was the first two books of D. Urushev, which represent the beginning of the story described in a series of Old Believer tales.