The images of foreigners in I. S. Shmelev’s early prose

The article analyzes the images of foreigners in I. S. Shmelev’s early prose using the examples of the stories “Hassan and his Jeddy” and “On the Seashore”. The originality of the study is due to the appeal to the handwritten and typewritten materials, which have been neither published yet, nor subjected to a textual analysis. Meanwhile, the existing draft materials make it possible to reveal the stages of Shmelev’s work on the texts, and his careful stylization, numerous author’s edits and elaborated versions of the plot and images indicate, among other things, the spiritual and moral search of the young author, whose mature work became a model of spiritual realism. The use of a comparative method showed that while working upon the images of non-Russian heroes (the Turk Hassan and the Greek Dimitraki), Shmelev, on the one hand, tries to accurately reflect their ethnic and confessional affiliation, and, on the other hand, makes their appearances, lifestyles and tragic destinies look alike. The conceptual similarity can be seen in the foreign heroes’ attitudes to life: to make an honest living by the fruits of their labor, to endure hardship, not to respond to the evil with the evil. Both the Muslim Turk and the Greek Christian become a figurative and semantic embodiment of the universal spiritual values concentrated in the biblical commandments addressed to all humanity.