The art specifics of the modern alterations, their connection with the traditional secondary text formations, the causes of actualization, the dominant strategies, the functions and the place of the phenomenon in the Russian drama in the period of the late 20th century and the early 21st century are researched in the thesis. Among the causes of the alterations' flowering are: the actualization of the problem of the tradition and the novelty, the review of the topics, the shifts in the literature's art system in the period of transition, the development of the principles of postmodern, the critical writers' reaction on the classics' adaptation in mass literature. The alterations are considered as the vector of the mediation between the traditional and the neoteric art systems and as the optics that alienates the classics and the modernity. It is the actual problems for the modernity that are put at the alterations which changes the conflict of the comparison to the classic original. The dialogue with the classics, travesty, contamination, ironic and non-ironic stylization, the continuation - are becoming the basic strategies of the modern alteration. They are used complexly with the certain one dominating in each of the certain texts. The intertextual sphere of the works of literature is significantly expanding that witnesses that the dialogue is conducted not with the certain classic text but with the tradition in general, with the cultural memory. The amalgamation of one of the problems that is put in the classic original, psychological basing of the images, the strengthening of the philosophical discourse, the change of the narrative positions, the introduction of the new characters or the overgrowth of the role of the secondary images are observed in the alterations. In all the works of literature the dynamics of the character is intensified; the internal contradiction, dualism, experiencing of the boundary situations, metamorphoses, the search of identity are accentuated. Classic images, symbols and a conflict acquire new semantics. The functions of alterations are the actualization of the classics, the alienating of the modernity by means of the figurative and symbolic code of the classics, the critics of the cultural crisis and mass consciousness, the expressiveness of the eternal topics' scope, the reevaluation of the art heritage of the classics. Key words: drama, tradition, innovation, strategy, alteration, remake, shepherd, travesty, continuation.
