AESTHETICS OF ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY IN THE ARTISTIC INTERPRETATION OF IVAN SHMELEV AND BORIS ZAITSEV
The article deals with the sensory-figurative perception of Orthodoxy by the two writers of the Russian diaspora - I. Shmelev and B. Zaitsev. The aim of the work is to clarify the convergence and divergence in their artistic perceptions of the faith. The most important dominants were chosen for comparison: church worship, reading the Gospel, the Cross procession, the images of the clergy men, the monastic way of life. It is shown that these realities appear in the two artistic worlds in a completely different aesthetic frame, demonstrating the difference of artistic and aesthetic systems of the writers. It is concluded that for B. Zaitsev’s Christianity is primarily spiritual, his images and characters are directed to a higher, spiritual sphere of being. Meanwhile in Shmelev`sbooks the Christianity often appears as something visible and tangible. This writer is characterized by attention to ritual and Orthodox mode of life, although in a number of books he also addresses to the metaphysical subjects of the faith.