The Worldview and Patriotism of Boris Shergin in a Cultural and Historical Context

Boris Viktorovich Shergin (1893—1973) was a Russian storyteller, writer, artist, and expert on traditional Russian artistic culture. His name is known mainly for his literary legacy: stories about the way of life and traditional culture of Arkhangelsk Pomoria, — as well as fictional adaptations of folk literature. Having started his career primarily as an artist of folk decorative and applied art and book art, in the second half of his life Shergin was forced to focus largely on literary work: the reason for this was his progressive loss of vision. The tragic turning point in the spiritual and cultural life of Russia, marked by the revolution, the fall of the empire, anti-religious sentiments and persecution of the Soviet period, and the crisis of traditional culture as a whole. This is the background for the life and work of B.V. Shergin. Shergin’s “non-modernity,” and therefore the value of his figure, is manifested in the following. In his native language of folk literature of the White Sea region, he expressed the high ethical principles of the traditional northern Russian Pomor culture. Love for his earthly Fatherland and its traditional culture were inevitably shaded by bitterness about their fate in the destructive twentieth century. Correlating the content of Shergin’s diary entries with the content of his works gives an understanding that the solution to the problem of the fate of Russia’s cultural heritage lies in the spiritual, not socio-cultural realm. In April 2025, the exhibition “A Bow to Boris Shergin” organized by the Arkhangelsk Museum Association “Artistic Culture of the Russian North” within the walls of the Museum of the artist and storyteller S.G. Pisakhov ended its work. The exposition was an attempt to comprehend the spiritual and moral content of Boris Shergin’s life path, the significance of this content for future generations.