LEGEND, STORY AND NARRATION IN THE GENRE STRUCTURE OF IVAN SHMELEV'S SHORT NOVEL INEXHAUSTIBLE CUP: THE PROBLEM OF SOURCES

The article is devoted to one of the central episodes of Ivan Shmelev’s short novel The Inexhaustible Chalice (Inexaustible Cup, or Nonintoxicating Chalice). The source of this episode was a legend, recorded by a priest Yakov Brilliantov. In 1912, he published the text of the legend calling it a Story of the Miraculous Icon of the Mother of God Called the “Inexhaustible Chalice”. The legend existed in the folk tradition for a long time. The paper presents a hypothesis that Ivan Shmelev reproduced an oral version or edition of the legend in his short novel. Comparison of Shmelev`s novel and the old legend reveals similarities and discrepancies of texts, analysis of which can serve as the basis for important observations on lingvopoetics of the short novel and the author's style. Ivan Shmelev uses the legend as a source of pious history: he connects it with his main text at all narrative levels, while leaving only functional elements in the recipient text. This type of creative editing can be defined as a form of a condensed narrative. Moreover, analysis of sources leads to a conclusion about the poetics of the chronotope and the main characters of the tales.