Genre specificity of modern hagiographic literature: “Promised Petushki” by Gennady Katyshev

The authors of modern theocentric prose often describe the life of the New martyrs and confessors of Russia in the twentieth century who suffered persecution for the faith in the twentieth century. Gennady Katyshev studied the biography of St. Athanasius (Sakharov), Bishop of Kovrov, and wrote the book “Promised Petushki”. The book contains everyday stories about God’s help to people, including episodes of the narrator’s life, and biographies of the Saints of the twentieth century. The Life of St. Athanasius is the semantic center of the book. The distinctive features of the book correlate with various genres. As a scientific biography, it is based on historical research, archival materials and published sources. The biography also contains popularization techniques. The book resembles traditional hagiography, it brings spiritual benefits; historicism is combined with the aspiration for Eternal life. The similarity between some events in the lives of different ascetics is due to the similarity of circumstances and the worldview of the heroes. In this article we consider artistic time and space as the artistic features of the book. The artistic Universe is actualized according to the “I am - here - now” model. Any moment of time is connected with Eternity. The narrator, as fully as possible, describes the life of each character, therefore, the history of the country is repeatedly shown through personal perception.