M.N.MURAVIEV AS A READER AND RESEARCHER OF THE OLD RUSSIAN HISTORY

In the present article, we examine the uniqueness of the Old Russian history per- ception and interpretation in the prose of one of the outstanding Russian enlighteners in the second half of the XVIII century – Mikhail Muraviev. The central object of our study is the writer's documentary and fiction cycle “Razgovory mertvykh” (“Talks of the dead”), which he created in the course of educating the grandchildren of Catherine II (the Great), the cesare- vitches Alexander and Constantin. Our main task is to reveal the dialectic of interaction be- tween the Old Russian ethical system and the axiological attitudes of the Modern period in the context of the reader's and fiction interpretation by M. N.Muraviev