A Retrospective of Pilgrimage Literature as a Communication Guide to the World of Sacred Culture

The purpose of the article is to examine the pilgrimage genre in literature as a social and communication guide in the world of contemporary sacred culture from a communication perspective. Different types of guidebooks are considered, i.e., interviews, travelogues, diaries, records, review texts, memoirs, notes, and pilgrimage travel notes are given as a necessary communication tool during a pilgrimage. The research methodology consists of descriptive (using observation and interpretation techniques), historical and literary, and biographical methods of analyzing pilgrimage literature. The author used the analytical-descriptive method, which consists in the selection, description and analysis of data; the system-structural method helped to arrange the works of different genres and apply them according to the subject in chronological order, reproducing the logical sequence of the material presented. The scientific novelty of the article involves expanding the concept of pilgrimage and the pilgrimage genre in literature as a social and communication guide to the world of contemporary sacred culture based on pilgrimage guides, diaries, memoirs, pilgrimage notes, and other sacred literature. Conclusions. In the article, the author examines the multi-genre works of pilgrimage literature as a communication guide to the sacred world in order to encourage the transformation from a book or a movie to a real pilgrimage for those who have such an opportunity. The article analyzes pilgrimage records, guidebooks, diaries, travelogues, novels, novellas, short stories, and pilgrimage notes to study pilgrimage from a communication perspective for different categories of pilgrims. As a rule, various categories of pilgrims and representatives of different professions go on sacred journeys, and then they write memoirs, pilgrimage texts, songs, scripts for future plays and films, and artists reproduce all details in artworks, and thus pilgrimage penetrates all spheres of an individual’s cultural life, which indicates the highly spiritual component of such journeys. Before going on a pilgrimage, you need to prepare thoroughly, both physically and spiritually, so that guides allow you to follow the trail of others and then plan your sacred journey relatively well. You will never return from a pilgrimage the same as you were before because such travels utterly change the vector of your life. Observing different groups of pilgrims, we can conclude that they all have one thing in common: spiritual enrichment, purification from sins and temptations, and the achievement of catharsis, which will be present in the everyday life of each of us for as long as possible. These works can keep living in ideas for film scripts about pilgrimage, thus expanding their socio-cultural horizons.