K.D.Balmont and A.M.Gorky – existential-thematic intersections

The subject of the research is the existential-thematic intersections of the works of M. Gorky and K. Balmont, which still require their own research, this determines the relevance of the topic. It is noted that at the beginning of the twentieth century, writers were united by criticism and rejection of modern man. For Balmont, the doom of modern man is connected with his loss of his original unity with nature. Gorky's perception of modern man is twofold: the people of dreams are confronted by a confused, entangled hero, a man with an empty soul. It is emphasized that the writers are brought together by solar motifs, so important in the symbolism of the beginning of the century, and the mythologeme "children of the sun" is analyzed. Balmont's image of the "children of the sun" is attributed to an ancient man and poets. Gorky analyzes the drama "Children of the Sun" (1905), which completes the early stage of his work, marked by his proximity to the search for symbolists. Gorky's play contains the credo of the Silver Age era with its aspiration to the future, with its cosmism and the "heliocentric" concept of man included "in the general flow of world life." "Children of the sun" – people of creativity, people of culture. The solar Covenant is the covenant of creativity. The image of the "children of the sun" is opposed to both images of empty and boring life and images of Russian turmoil and shakiness. The main methods of our research are the structural and comparative analysis of texts, main themes, motifs, and mythologies. The novelty of the research lies in the comparative analysis of images of modern man, the mythologeme "children of the sun", images of Russian shakiness. The relevance of M. Gorky's play "Children of the Sun", traditionally defined as the "failure" of the writer, is emphasized. The conclusion is drawn that Gorky, in his ambivalent attitude towards man, is close to the antinomianism of Russian symbolism. Gorky's perception of modern man, crushed either by slave labor or by no less enslaving work, is unequivocally negative and akin to the symbolist denial of modern material civilization. An antithesis can be found for every thesis of the writer, based on the tragic discrepancy between the ideal essence, the Divine-human plan of Man and the real man. It is determined that for Balmont, the image of shakiness completes a cycle of poems about the "endless nightmare" of boundless space. It is emphasized that for Balmont, shakiness stems from the specifics of Russian space – the image of an endless plain as one of the leitmotifs of his poetry.