F. I. BUSLAEV ABOUT A CHRISTIAN PHASE IN THE HISTORY OF LITERATURE

The article attempts to evaluate the concept of the historical development of literature by F. I. Buslaev who is traditionally perceived as the founder of the mythological school in Russian science. The scholar identifies two basic phases of language and literature development, i. e. mythological and Christian ones. Buslaev analyzes complex interactions between pagan and Christian, religious and artistic features at different stages of the development of Russian literature up to Romanticism and Realism, as well as of the novel in the 19th-century art.