The Mythologem of the North in the Early Works of L.M. Leonov (on the Example of the Story "The Death of Egorushka")
The article considers the creative implementation of the mythologem of the North in literature at the beginning of the 20 <sup> th </sup> century. The general interest of artists and thinkers to the phenomenon of the myth, understanding of its profound energy, as well as the need for the myth as a spiritual support, are the typical features of the neomythologization process. Writers turn to the mythologem of the North not only because of the desire to ﬁnd a new, unusual topic for narration, but also because of its typical heterogeneity, ambivalence, when there is a ﬁne line between holiness and demonicity. In L.M. Leonov's work, this controversy is preserved and even intensiﬁed, the place of faith becomes the place of universal desperation. The creative idea of the artist is explained not only by crisis moods of the beginning of the century, but also by social and political reforms of the new rule. The mythologem preserves unchangeable components: mythological space, mythological time, the image of a demiurge, a hero, motifs of challenge and initiation. An eschatological motif presented latently by the author, on the background of the continuing life, appears to be a new solution.