I. SHMELEV AND V. KOROLENKO: THE IMAGE OF A SCIENTIST IN LITERATURE OF THE TURN OF THE 19th?20th CENTURIES

The development of belles-lettres at the turn of the 19th?20th centuries is characterized by a persistent search for new spiritual and moral foundations and artistic images required for revealing the world perception typical of the epoch. One of those was the image of a scientist, that appeared in literature of that period as an artistic whole. The present work is an attempt to explore this image based on the writings of two authors ? the story “Toward a new life” by I. S. Shmelev and the story “On both sides” by V. Korolenko. The works selected for analysis call to one another at different artistic levels. What they have in common is a real prototype of the image of the scientist, that was a famous botanist Timiryazev. In both works the main character is a scientist and mentor of young heroes, helping them to find their path of life. The heroes-scientists of Shmelev and Korolenko represent a new vision of the image of a man of science in literature.