Abstract
<p>&nbsp;The motif of &ldquo;the escape from paradise&rdquo; has recently become one more time the subject of historical poetics. This motif is opposed to &ldquo;the expulsion from paradise&rdquo; accepted in Western literature. In the perception of scholars the motif of &ldquo;the escape from paradise&rdquo; in 19th century literature took a paradoxical form of &ldquo;loneliness&rdquo; (Dmitriev, Pushkin, Ostrovsky and Batyushkov) and then was designated as a &ldquo;moving&rdquo; model of a Russian man&rsquo;s life who escapes from Paradise&nbsp;&mdash; a &ldquo;homeostatic&rdquo; society (L.&nbsp;N.&nbsp;Gumilev). The transformation of the motif from a &ldquo;stable&rdquo; model to a &ldquo;moving&rdquo; one led to formation of a new Russian character&nbsp;&mdash; a &ldquo;homeless wanderer&rdquo; mentioned by F.&nbsp;M.&nbsp;Dostoevsky in his &ldquo;Pushkin Speech&rdquo;. The article puts forward a thesis that under the influence of wandering a part of Russian society feel inclined for Old Russian forms of world outlook that incites person&rsquo;s searches for life paradise in his own soul. This trend appears in the pilgrimage and theological literature of the 19th century. The transformation of the ratio between the &ldquo;stable&rdquo; and the &ldquo;moving&rdquo; towards the Old Russian ideal of wandering brings man to the saving paths of evangelical commandments. The theme of &ldquo;escape in the desert&rdquo; is closely related to the theme of &ldquo;Mental Paradise&rdquo;. In this regard, the key plot of the popular collection &ldquo;Mental Paradise&rdquo; popular in the 17th century and released in Wallay Iversky Monastery in 1658&ndash;1659 is considered. Based on the manuscripts the article shows how the motives of &ldquo;Paradise&rdquo; and &ldquo;escape in the desert&rdquo; having preceded the trends and having been developed in the 19th century leading to the prosperity of pilgrimage literature, are presented in literature of pre-Peter Russia.</p>
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