The genre of biographical essay in the works of Udmurt writers
Introduction: genre transformation in the Udmurt journalism of the end of the XX century is most clearly manifested in the biographical essays, based on real - life facts from the lives of famous representatives of the intelligentsia, natives of Udmurtia. The biographical essay in the Udmurt literature of this period demonstrates the presence of the elements of memoir, biography, elements of portrayal, problematic, biographical, social, historical essays as well as document / fact and fiction within the same work; the mental, intellectual principle is strengthened in it. The relevance of the article is due to thefact that for the first time an attempt was made to consider the problems and poetics of the biographical essay in the work of Udmurt writers.Objective: to study the features of the biographical essay in the Udmurt social and political journalism at the end of the XX century; to describe the content and the formal components of the biographical essay, based on particular texts by Udmurt authors.Research materials: biographical essays of the Udmurt publicists M. A. Lyamin and S. A. Samsonov.Results and novelty of the research: the article is one of the first attempts of comprehensive analysis of the genre of the Udmurt biographical essay. The peculiarities of the modern Udmurt biographical essay are largely due to the desire of writers to convey the complex of the personality traits of their famous fellow countrymen - public figures, scientists, politicians, culture professionals. A biographical essay which combines «portrait - biography» and «portrait - characterization» as well as the parameters of a documentary story, a literary portrait and a historical biography testifies to the expansion of the aesthetic boundaries of Udmurt prose.