2021 Vol. 12 №4

The article investigates a religious and philosophical dialogue of Miłosz and Dostoevsky. The antinomic content of Miłosz's poem “Theological Treatise” is analyzed in the context of Dostoevsky's Christocentric worldview, as well as religious and heretical teachings of early Christianity, which aroused Milosz's interest throughout his career. In their works, Dostoev­sky and Miłosz explored the theological problem of apoсatastasis and offered their interpreta­tion of it. The paper also examines Miłosz’s contribution as an essayist to the comparative study of Dostoevsky's works (Dostoevsky — Mickiewicz and Dostoevsky — Swedenborg). The ideological basis of “Theological Treatise” is the dialectical relationship between faith and truth, which is associated with Miłosz's appeal to Dostoevsky's ‘creed’ from his famous letter to Fonvisina. Like Dostoevsky, Miłosz criticizes the natural-scientific concept of truth in its depersonalized and, therefore, dehumanized version, which seems to the author of “Theologi­cal Treatise” as an instrument of ‘devilish theology’. In a dialogue with the traditions of Rus­sian religious philosophy, and above all with Dostoevsky’s legacy, Miłosz turns to the Apoca­lypse, in which the most aesthetically significant the idea for him is that of ​​restoring paradisi­acal existence. However, unlike Dostoevsky, the concept of life after death in “Theological Treatise” is not free from pessimism and skepticism. Miłosz is inclined towards the ideological paradigm of the West, and the concept of “Theological Treatise” includes the ideas of Dosto­evsky's unbelieving heroes.

Irony is considered as an evaluative category in literary and artistic discourse. The au­thors point out such typical features of ironic evaluation as implicit character, i. e. the ability of irony to present the evaluative position of the author in a veiled form, subjectivity, which is directly dependent on the author's attitudes and ideological intentions, negative colouring of ironic evaluation and a high degree of its impact on the reader. The authors identify the basic techniques of expressing ironic assessment in Saltykov-Shchedrin's novel “The Golovlyovs”. The peculiarities of ironic evaluation are analyzed, and the forms of expressing irony are iden­tified. The main techniques of expressing irony in the novel are antiphrasis, unexpected ironic inference from a situation, antithesis, the use of inappropriate collocations that do not fit the context, intertextual inclusions, intentionally created absurd situations, and rhetorical ques­tions. The main feature of ironic evaluation in the novel is its satirical basis, its distancing from humour and the focus on the denunciation of human vices and social flaws in the histor­ical period of the domination of the landlord class. Ironic evaluation in Saltykov-Shchedrin's novel is an important component of the Saltykov-Shchedrin's ideostyle and reveals the speci­ficity of his narration and the peculiarities of the writer's worldview.