Mythologems of the East in M.Gorky’s artistic consciousness

The aim of the work is an important scientific historical and literary problem: the role of the mythopoetic cultural code of the East in the artistic consciousness of M. Gorky, an outstanding representative of Russian neorealism. The objectives of the work are to clarify the definition of the cultural mythopoetic code of the East, to link the mythologems of the East and artistic consciousness, philosophy, aesthetics and imagery of Gorky's prose. The influence of the mythologems of the East on Gorky is considered in terms of Russian neorealism evolution, its artistic, ontological and aesthetic searches. The author identifies a diverse embodiment of the mythologems of the East in the form of motifs, archetypes, images in Gorky's works. The most significant results of the work are as follows. The description is given of the historical-literary and personal-biographical motives of Gorky's fascination with the Eastern cultural myth; the artistic types of Gorky's works generated by this fascination are established; the latter are presented in the context of his creative evolution. The approaches to Gorky's artistic and journalistic heritage, his epistolary works have given rise to an original view of the writer’s creativity and allowed us to broaden the existing ideas about the type of Gorky's artistic thinking. The paper gives a new evaluation to a number of well-known works. Gorky's artistery is considered in the context of neo-mythologism relevant to Russian prose of the XX century. The author has enriched scientific understanding of the complex phenomena in Russian literature in the first third of the XX century. The close and fruitful connections of Gorky's worldview and creative work with the myth of the East allowed us to see quite a different worldview and aesthetic guidelines of the writer, to understand his main aspiration, which is to answer the eternal questions of existence, the universe and the national character. The work is addressed to philologists, literary critics, researchers of the XX century Russian literature and culture, to teachers and students.