IMAGES OF A BIRCH AND OAK IN RUSSIAN LITERATURE: FROM FOLKLORE TO LITERATURE
The article is devoted to the images of a birch and oak which took special place in Russian Literature. They have become constant and versatile metaphors of Russia due to their inherent deep and broad content, and due to the long evolution from mythology to folklore and classics. The author strives for tracing that aesthetic evolution from Pushkin's works to Tolstoy's, through Yesenin's lyrics onwards to the village prose and song poetry of the poets of 1960-s., one can state that they are and will be continuously used as metaphors of Russia in the masculine (an oak) or feminine (a birch) aspect.