Abstract
The article analyzes the book of memoirs by Z. Gippius "Living Faces", which is a very valuable source for acquaintance with writers, poets, historical figures of the Silver Age who survived the revolutionary rift. Conveying the originality of the turning point, Z. Gippius resorts to creating literary portraits of A. Blok, A. Bely, V. Bryusov, V. Rozanov, A. Vyrubova, F. Sologub. Comprehension of their images is unthinkable for the author outside the religious and philosophical context of time and his own search for God. The problems of death and immortality, truth and righteousness, sin and retribution form a cross-cutting mythos of the essays of "Living Persons". Central to the book are the motives of redemption, retribution, immortality. Retribution in the understanding of Hippius in accordance with the Christian canons is considered as the basis of the process of incarnation. Z. Gippius is concerned about the complexity and purpose of being. Her attention invariably shifts from the external to the internal, religious and philosophical overtones crowd memories of the details of everyday life. The author strives to fully express the state of mind of the portrayed. To do this, the documentary-memoir form of a literary portrait introduces the psychologism necessary to recognize "one's own" in the "stranger" of the interlocutor. The creation of "living" portraits of contemporaries becomes for Z. Gippius, at the same time, an option to justify his own aesthetic practice. She manages to make the fate of the portrayed characters part of her own myth, interpret the death of the heroes not as the end, but as an opportunity to transition into a new quality, actualize the ideas of retribution and salvation, and also show her "living" face with likes and dislikes.
Keywords
Z. Gippius, literary portrait, A. Blok, V. Rozanov, V. Bryusov, motives of redemption, immortality, retribution.