THE EVOLUTION OF THE REPRESENTATION OF THE NAME IVAN IN RUSSIAN LITERATURE: FROM HAGIOGRAPHY TO THE PROSE OF THE 20TH CENTURY

Abstract

The objective of the study is to identify patterns in the evolution of the literary representation of the name Ivan in Russian literature from Old Russian hagiography to the prose of the 20th century. The work consistently examines three main stages of the anthroponym’s semantic transformation: the sacral-hagiographic stage (the formation of a paradigm of spiritual chosenness based on biblical prototypes and the hagiographic tradition), the folkloric and paremiological stage (the cyclization of the name in fairy tales, the crystallization of the dual archetype Ivan Tsarevich / Ivan the Fool and its consolidation in the proverbial fund as a code of the national autostereotype), and the literary stage of the 19th – early 20th centuries (the deconstruction and philosophical-existential reinterpretation of the archetype in the works of N.V. Gogol, N.S. Leskov, F.M. Dostoevsky, A.P. Chekhov, and M.A. Bulgakov). The scientific novelty of the work lies in its systematic literary analysis of the transformation process of the artistic image associated with the name Ivan, wherein each subsequent cultural layer performs a complex recoding of the preceding one, leading to the name’s transition from a sacred sign, through a folklore symbol, to a multidimensional literary concept. The study establishes that the overall trajectory of evolution demonstrates a shift from externally, collectively defined models of identity (divine destiny, fairy-tale chosenness, paremiological typification) towards internal, reflexive, and existential forms of self-determination (individual moral choice, personal responsibility, memory as a foundation of identity). The findings contribute to understanding the mechanisms of interaction between the religious, folkloric, and literary strata of Russian culture and can be utilized in further research on the evolution of literary archetypes, as well as in university courses on the history of Russian literature and folklore studies.