Spiritual prose of Siberia: diaries of archbishop Gerasim (G.I. Dobroserdov)

The article deals with the Irkutsk priest G. Dobroserdovs (the Astrakhan archbishop Gerasim) diaries. Thesetexts, written in the middle of the 19th century, have not been studied in the philological field yet. It is considered that Dobroserdovsdiaries belong to spiritual prose - a special type of compositions which tries to combine religious content and belles-letters forms. It isdemonstrated in the article that the texts may be correlated with the leading samples of the genre - the works of A.N. Muravyov, St.Ignatiy (Bryanchaninov) and of an Orthodox monk Parfeniy. Dobroserdovs compositions can help in understanding the phenomenon ofspiritual prose as a whole. The combining of religious and belles-letters components in the diaries of Dobroserdov (which are travellersnotes in their content) is realized in dealing with the genre of a sentimental journey. It is characterized by the image of a travellerobserverinclined to introspection, contemplation, nature poeticising, and motives of friendship, loss, loneliness and cemetery theme.However, using the language of sentimentalism, the author-priest tries to reconsider its basic categories in the course of the Christiantradition. Sentimental sensitivity is the base for development of religious feeling, contemplation - for internal spiritual vision. During hisjourney, Dobroserdov tries to forget about his wife, who passed away prematurely, and is preparing to become a monk. The inner storyof the work develops in the direction of overcoming of uneasy sentimental sensitivity (as a sign of communication with the world) andtransition to the Christian quietness and internal harmony. The sentimental journey, in the process of the authors spiritual formation,becomes a religious pilgrimage. Such overcoming of belles-letters discourse by the religious one can be considered as a common featureof spiritual prose. Similarity with literary forms is brightly shown at the stylistic level, but, as a rule, it does not concern the problems ofspiritual texts. However, such interaction is rather productive as it destroys the border typical for New Time the culture between thechurch and the fiction.

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