The main Problem of Boris Vasiliev’s Novel ‘Alexander Nevsky’ (On the 800th Anniversary of the Birth of the Saint Prince Alexander Nevsky)

Abstract

The main purpose of the research is to identify the main problems of the novel «Alexander Nevsky» and to study the features of the artistic image of the saint Prince Alexander Nevsky in the artistic work of one of the outstanding representatives of Soviet military prose – Boris Lvovich Vasiliev, who turned in the second half of the 1990s–2010s to the embodiment in artistic images of outstanding Ancient Russian princes and created in his historical novels from 1996 to 2010 a whole gallery of artistic images: Vladimir the Saint, Yaroslav the Wise, Vladimir Monomakh and many others. To achieve this goal, the main problems of the novel by Boris Vasiliev are analyzed. The research highlights the problems of the spiritual heritage of Byzantium, feudal fragmentation, dual faith, the relationship between the government (state) and the Church, the historical choice between East and West are highlighted as the most relevant issues for Russia of the XIII century raised by the author, the problems of the spiritual heritage of Byzantium, feudal fragmentation, dual faith, the relationship between the government (state) and the Church, the historical choice between the East and the West. The comparison of the image of the saint Prince Alexander Nevsky is undertaken, first of all, with the famous monument of ancient Russian literature of the XIII century «The Story of the Life of Alexander Nevsky». The work also identifies the literary predecessors of Boris Vasiliev in creating the image of the blessed Prince Alexander Nevsky in Russian literature of the XIX and XX centuries, among them the poets Apollo Nikolaevich Maykov, Lev Alexandrovich May, Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov and the writers Alexey Kuzmich Yugov, Vasily Grigoryevich Yan, Anatoly Alexandrovich Subbotin, Sergey Pavlovich Mosiyash. The comparative-historical method and the method of philological analysis are used in the work. The most important results of the study are to identify the main features of the artistic image of the saint Prince Alexander Nevsky in the novel by Boris Vasiliev.