Bird mythologem in E.G. Vodolazkin’s novel “The Aviator”

INTRODUCTION. Bird is a symbolic image in the works of E.G. Vodolazkin. The aim of the study is to determine the function of ornithological images in the novel by E.G. Vodolazkin “The Aviator” and their connection with the literary and mythological tradition.MATERIALS AND METHODS. The object of the study is ornithological symbolism in the novel by E.G. Vodolazkin “The Aviator”. The study is based on a combined approach, combining historical-cultural, mythopoetic, biographical, structural, comparative-historical and receptive methods.RESULTS AND DISCUSSION. The bestiary and mythological semantics of the images of a raven, crow, eagle owl, swan, and dove have been established. The ornithological environment of the protagonist has been analyzed, and the functions and techniques of creating ornithomorphic characters in “The Aviator” have been studied. Typological and genetic similarities with “protograph” texts – medieval apocrypha, Physiologus, Explanatory Paleia, the works of Ovid, A.S. Pushkin,  A.K. Tolstoy, A.A. Blok, etc. – have been identified and studied in detail. The connection between the novel “The Aviator” by E.G. Vodolazkin and the novels “Demons” and “Crime and Punishment” by F.M. Dostoevsky has been determined. The hypothesis about the palimpsest nature of the novel “The Aviator” has been substantiated.CONCLUSION. The research materials can be used both for the analysis of E.G. Vodolazkin’s poetics and for the analysis of mythological imagery in contemporary Russian and foreign literature.