RUSSIAN ROMANTIC TALE FOR CHILDREN AT THE TURN OF THE 20<sup>TH</sup> -21<sup>ST</sup> CENTURIES (ORIGINS AND EVOLUTION)
The article studies the origins and evolution of the Russian romantic fairy tale for children at the turn of the 20th-21st centuries. We have addressed this topic to determine the function specifics of this fairy tale genre variety in the modern era. The main purpose of the study is to identify the features, which initially manifested themselves in the Russian romantic fairy tale of the 19th century and have been preserved in the 20th-21st centuries, and the nature of the changes that occurred during this period. When studying the works of the twentieth century Russian storytellers, we can see the direction of the romantic fairy tale evolution. The distinctive features of a romantic fairy tale: a stable problem-thematic complex, elements of medieval aesthetics in depicting the picture of the other world, the specificity of the subject organization -have been preserved within the framework of its development in the 20th and early 21st centuries. The study сoncludes that the romantic fairy tale of the 20th century experienced not only the direct influence of the nineteenth century romantic fairy tale, both Russian and foreign, but also the influence mediated by the works of A. Green and E. Schwartz. This manifested itself in the specificity of the correlation between the ordinary and the miraculous. The stylization, used by the authors, romantically elevates the ordinary, and the miraculous does not oppose it, but is seen through it. Moreover, in the works written at the turn of the 20th-21st centuries, the boundaries between the ordinary and fairy-tale worlds turns out to be permeable not only for the main characters and their assistants, but also for their antagonists. The subjective organization of the twentieth century romantic fairy tales reveals the authors’ desire to involve readers in the fairy-tale world and guide their experiences. The evolution of the romantic fairy tale in the late 20th- early 21st centuries is largely due to the rethinking of the dual targeting of such works: there is a differentiation of literary texts intended for children’s reading and focused on adult readers, having certain reading experience.