THE TRADITIONS OF ERMOLAY-ERAZMUS'S THE TALE OF PETER AND FEVRONIA IN ALEXANDER PUSHKIN'S NOVEL THE CAPTAIN'S DAUGHTER

This article raises the question of the Old Russian sources of Alexander Pushkin’s novel The Captain’s Daughter and presents an attempt to identify the traditions of Ermolay-Erazmus’s The Tale of Peter and Fevronia in it. The main purpose of the research was to identify the parallelism between Pushkin’s novel and The Tale at the imaginative, narrative and thematic levels. Therefore, it was based on application of the comparative method. The main characters of both the books are compared in succession: Prince Peter and Peter Grinyov first, and then Fevronia and Masha Mironova. The results of the analysis lead to the conclusion that the male images reflect the spiritual evolution from being self-willed to obtaining Christian humility, and the key moment of the characters’ spiritual evolution is the meeting with wise virgins, etc. As far as the female images are concerned, the key parallel between them is the praise of their wisdom at the end of both stories. Thus, the material of the research enables us to speak about the traditions of The Tale of Peter and Fevronia being preserved in Pushkin’s last novel.