The motives of searching and finding a home in the prose of I.S. Shmelev and V.N. Lyalin

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The article examines the role and specificity of the motivational complex search/finding a home based on the stories “Christ's Vigil” by I.S. Shmelev and “Christmas at the 809 junction” by V.N. Lyalin. Based on the conducted research, it was revealed that these images are perceived by both authors in the context of a theocetric, more precisely, a christocentric picture of the world. The image of the house is perceived in the paradigm of the earthly Fatherland — the Heavenly Fatherland. In both works, an ambivalent image of a house by the road arises, which is borderline in terms of social, historical and spiritual parameters and combines both signs of destitution and homelessness, as well as features of a temporary shelter, an asylum, a marching temple. The true finding of a home becomes possible through an appeal to the evangelical and Orthodox liturgical contexts, within which this image is filled with sacred and religious content and acquires the features of a true home both in socio-historical and spiritual-metaphysical terms. An important role in both works is played by the motives of loneliness, homelessness, orphanhood, as well as the motives of prayer, repentance, and worship opposed to them. The liturgical context focuses on the cardinal content vectors of both works in the aspect of home — Heavenly Fatherland. It is obvious that the setting of I.S. Shmelev and V.N. Lyalin on christocentrism allows us to talk about the correlation of the concept of “home” with the idea of meeting and connecting a person with Christ, which occurs through the sacred liturgical (divine service) chronotope. The motif of light and shadow plays an important role in the poetics of both works. The image of light is considered as an artistic phenomenon combining the categories of earthly and Heavenly.