The author’s dramatic emotional experience of the catastrophical essence of human history and being is based on the conviction that the history of the mankind started “on the day when Cain slew his brother” (“The Spectre of Alexander Wolf”), i.e. at that very moment when man perceived in his own nature “the appeal of murder”. <...> The novels by Gazdanov are abundant with various kinds of deaths, both real and potential, merging into a single hyper plot of life under the sign of death. <...> Among the manifestations of eschatological poetics in the whole Gazdanov’s metanovel prose there are the motives of Apocalypse appearing in the characters’ visual images, aural associations, physical sensations. <...> The author’s artistic strategy is marked by an optimistic stoicism uncharacteristic for the self-consciousness of the generation. <...> His entire literary path represents the overcoming of tragic sensation of being. <...> Herewith, a peculiar role belongs to the character, who more often becomes the winner in the combat not so much with real mortal circumstances as with overpowering mental apathy threatening him with spiritual death. <...> This existential position seems more hopeless than the position of his contemporary B. Poplawski, which © Siberian Federal University. <...> In his article “On the Mystical Atmosphere of Young Literature in Emigration” Poplawski wrote, “Christ has been on the verge of death from the beginning to the end of the world. <...> Emigration is a perfect setting for this” (Poplawski 1930, 309). <...> This statement reinterprets Pascal’s idea given in the book by Elena N. Proskurina. <...> Poetics of the Eschatological Plot in the Novels by G. Gazdanov L. Shestov “On the Scales of Job”: “Jйsus sera en agonie jusqu’а la fi n du monde: il ne faut pas dormer pendant ce temps-lа” (Shestov, 1993, p. 281 ) (“Jesus will be in agony until the end of the world: one should not sleep during this time” (fr.) (Ibid, 543)). <...> Then He said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me” (Matthew, 23: 37-38)), Poplawski creates a formula of the complete existential despair. <...> Shestov’s metaphysical system allows this not for all, “but only for some, “rare chosen ones” – or “martyrs”. <...> For if they fall asleep <...>