Humanities & Social Sciences 7 (2015 8) 1459-1468 ~ ~ ~ УДК 82.09 The Concept of Righteousness in the Literary Prose of M.A. Tarkovsky Nikita A. Valianov* Siberian Federal University 79 Svobodny, Krasnoyarsk, 660041, Russia Received 24.02.2015, received in revised form 16.03.2015, accepted 13.06.2015 The paper deals with the image of a righteous character traditional for Russian patriarchal culture. <...> The image of the righteous person is embodied in various artistic samples of Russian literature manifested in the form of the “wise old man” and presented in the literary works of Siberian writer M. A. Tarkovsky. <...> The examples of representative literary works are used to determine the type of righteousness characters close to the primordial hagiographic and folk traditions (a preceptor, a martyr, a keeper, a holly fool). <...> Introduction As a native Russian phenomenon Righteousness (Pravednichestvo) defi nes spiritual and moral guidelines of society, has a special signifi cance for the national culture. <...> The tradition of righteousness that was launched by the originator and liturgical texts, and later embodied in the works of Russian artists, today is refl ected in monographic research and is interpreted as an inner necessity, the need of the soul, freedom (ibid, 433). <...> The Russian literary tradition-righteous character is given a special place. <...> The image associated with the Orthodox values, deep and fully revealed in the ancient literature and is associated primarily with the fi gures of the holy fool and the saint. <...> The Russian literature of 18th century puts the image of the righteous person to Nikita A. Valianov. <...> The change of emphasis is determined by the fact that the literature of Peter the Great`s era is moving away from the national canons laid by the old Russian culture: it becomes europeanized, translating thus a humanistic perspective in the socio-political context. <...> In the literature of the fi rst half of the 19th century we see a kind of righteous person, embodied in the “little man” – a worker who overwhelmingly turns to God, living according to His commandments, “humiliated and insulted” – but the character himself is entrenched in the human moral truth, the idea of carrying on the Earth life transformation. <...> Later this theme is revealed on pages of works of the “villagers” – V. Belov, A. Solzhenitsyn, F. Abramov, V. Rasputin, V. Astafi ev, and becomes absolutely <...>