The Genre of the Sermon and its Interpretation in “Christ’s Night” and “The Christmas Tale” by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin

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Pavlova, I. B. “The Genre of the Sermon and its Interpretation in ʽChrist’s Night’ and ʽThe Christmas Tale’ by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin.” Dva veka russkoi klassiki, vol. 8, no. 2, 2026, pp. 284–303. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22455/2686-7494-2026-8-2-284-303
Abstract:
The article is devoted to the aesthetic and genre originality of “Christ’s Night” and “The Christmas Tale” created by the satirist and social moralist Saltykov-Shchedrin in the 1880s. Educational and didactic tendencies have always been prominent in the writer’s artistic and journalistic works, and they are clearly manifested in these works. The author used poetic means developed by rhetoric and homiletics. “Christ’s Night” and “The Christmas Tale” are designed for active communication between the author and the reader; the writer pursues an edifying and agitational goal. They reflect the social and ethical ideals embodied in the allegorical images of Shame, Conscience, and Truth. Saltykov-Shchedrin relies heavily on the text of the New Testament, as well as on the style, vocabulary, morphology, syntax, and compositional organization of the Orthodox sermon. The author examines the figurative means used from the perspective of their persuasive effect. However, there are also fundamental discrepancies between the literary sermon and the church sermon, conditioned by the writer’s worldview, formed under the influence of evangelical ethicism, the democratic ideas of the 1840s–1860s, and utopian socialism.
Keywords: M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, sermon, parable, rhetoric, homiletics, socio-moralistic stance, enlightenment, skepticism
Author: Irina B. Pavlova
Information about the author:
Irina B. Pavlova, DSc in Philology, Senior Researcher, A. M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya St., 25A, bld. 1, 121069 Moscow, Russia.

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0006-0156

E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Received: November 21, 2025
Approved after reviewing: January 30, 2026
Published: June 25, 2026
Issue: 2026 Volume 8 No. 2
Department: Russian Literature of the 18th–19th Centuries
Pages: 284-303
DOI: Visit Website
EDN:
https://elibrary.ru/VQDQFR
UDK: 821.161.1.09"19"
Publication Type: Research Article

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