THE "CAMP PROSE" IN THE CONTEXT OF THE RUSSIAN LITERATURE OF THE 20 <sup>TH</sup> CENTURY: CONCEPT, FRAMEWORK, SPECIFICITY
The paper describes the history of the formation of the ideas about the camp prose in the scientific literature. The definition of this concept and its characteristics are presentes, based on the study of three creative works of various writers: «The resurrection of the larch» by V. T. Shalamov, «Zone» by S. D. Dovlatov, «The nomadism to death» by V. E. Maksimov. The camp prose is a thematic direction in the Russian literature during the late 1950s - 1990s XX creating an artistic image of the camp in a creative reflection of writers (witnesses, observers, those who never saw camps but studied the archives, memoirs), with the following features: common themes and issues related to existential camp environment; autobiographical character; documentary; historicism; artistic expression of the image of the camp; special space (isolation, island, hell); special human psychology, philosophical understanding of the human situation in captivity; special author's reflection on the text.