Author's world modeling in the genre of “Yuletide story” by Fyodor Sologub

The features of the artistic embodiment of the image of childhood in the genre of “Yuletide story” by the Russian writer of the late 19th - early 20th centuries Fyodor Sologub are revealed. The material for the research was the story “The Christmas Boy.” The purpose of the study is to identify the originality of the author’s world modeling in the genre of “Yuletide story” by Fyodor Sologub in comparison with the works of this genre in the works of F.M. Dostoevsky, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin and N.G. Garin-Mikhailovsky. The unique, original perception and interpretation of the theme of childhood by a symbolist writer is a current trend in modern literary criticism. The novelty of the work lies in the consideration of Sologubov’s story through the prism of world modeling. The results obtained during the study showed that the theme of purity, sinlessness of the child hero, his suffering and death due to fundamental incompatibility with the norms of earthly life bring F. Sologub’s story closer to the works of his literary predecessors. The general space-time universals, the theme of Christmas as the leading world-modeling category, and the theme of child death are preserved. F. Sologub concentrates the text space around the mystical and philosophical ideas of the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, introducing into it the aesthetic principles of symbolism.