FIGURATIVE SYNTAX OF HEGUMEN NIKON (VOROBYOV)’S SPIRITUAL LETTERS
The paper analyses stylistics of the epistolary heritage of a spiritual writer of the 20 <sup>th</sup> century - hegumen Nikon (Vorobyov). The author deals with the aspects of functioning of stylistic figures, identifies features of the individual style of Nikon. The focus is made on enumeration, rhetorical questions, question-retaliatory scheme, parenthesis, antithesis, lexical repetition, polysyndetons, aposiopesis. The paper shows specific functioning of these stylistic figures in the epistolary works of the Russian spiritual literature. The author identifies the main stylistic functions, which are didactic, figurative, emphasizing, characterizing, text-forming. With the help of illustrative material, the author demonstrates that in the spiritual letters the figures become an important way of expressing moral and exalting meanings. One of the most im portant purposes of using them by hegumen, as the analysis of the examples shows, is strengthening the instructive beginning, the effectiveness of spiritual guidance. Nikon's spiritual letters are aimed at moral improvement of his readers, they show the ways of righteous life and acquiring the most important Christian virtues. The expressive syntactic means contribute greatly to this purpose. Enumeration plays a significant role both from the position of figurativeness and in terms of didactic strengthening.