Poliakova Y. Poetics of M. Kuzmin’s short prose

This study examines poetics of short prose by Miсhael Kuzmin, one of the most extraordinary representatives of Silver age of Russian literature and art. The writer's short prose comparing to his poetry and novels still remains on the periphery of researchers' attention. Meanwhile, M. Kuzmin wrote more than 80 works of small genres. Such a great layer of the writer's creative heritage deserves careful analysis and reflection: it gives reasons to believe that in short prose M. Kuzmin’s creative individuality and innovations showed up no less than in poetry, ‘high’ (remarkable) prose genres and drama. It also determines relevance of the thesis. The study was conducted on the basis of short prose by M. Kuzmin in the 1900s-1920s. It was considered in the context of his work and literature at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. The scientific novelty of the research results consists in a thorough analysis of M. Kuzmin's poetics of short prose carried out for the first time; interpretation of the writer’s studied works and the author's concept enclosed in them; detected general features of the writer's short prose poetics (autointertextuality), paradoxical combinations of cultural codes, high irony degree, references to other arts, eroticism, absurdity, layout conciseness, cyclization tendency etc.). A typology of short prose by M. Kuzmin (stylized short stories, literary fairy tales based on novellas, fictional short stories, fragmentary prose and miniatures) is also given. The place and significance of M. Kuzmin's short prose in his work and literary process of the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th centuries are specified: the revealed peculiarities of poetics allow characterizing it as post-symbolist (including pre-postmodern) and typologically similar to some features of avant-garde poetics.