The Poetics of the Image of Nil Sorsky in the Works of Mark Aldanov

This article studies the image of Nil Sorsky’s teaching in the works of Mark Aldanov. Some aspects of Nil Sorsky’s “Tradition” and “The Monastic Statutes of Life in a Skit” become clear in his novel “Delirium”. Aldanov is impressed by Nil Sorsky’s conception of Man, his understanding of the reasons for man’s sinfulness and his forbearing attitude toward a fallen man. The characters in the novel “Delirium” correlate their ideas about faith, freedom, and the dangers of despondency with the spiritual testament of Nil Sorsky. In the novel “Delirium” events from the end of the fifteenth century are juxtaposed to those of the twentieth century, and the medieval perception of a coming Armageddon is correlated with Aldanov’s premonition of a new atomic war. In the fifteenth century the Weltanschauung of the strigolniks played havoc with the medieval man’s harmonic conception of the world. In the midst of the Cold War Aldanov’s characters seek consolation in Sorsky’s teaching. Thanks to the inclusion of reflections on the Weltanschauung of the strigolniks in the narrative, the chronotope of the novel “Delirium” is significantly broadened, saturated with historical and cultural eventfulness. Aldanov creates heroes who overcome the tragic pathos of being due to the ethical principles of Nil Sorsky. The perception of the writings of Saint Nil for the first time in Aldanov’s works leads to the emergence of the theme of spiritual transformation. Aldanov presents the teaching of Nil Sorsky as a modern, relevant, considering it an important basis of the spiritual culture of a person who survived the cataclysms of revolutions and world wars.