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The article studies the space-semiotic organization of one of the central symbolist novels of the Silver age, associated with the “estate topos” in Russian literature. Most of the action in the “Roman-Prince” by Z.N.Gippius takes place in the 1910s on the territory of country estates in different parts of Russia, as well as in the Western European castle near the Pyrenees, where Russian revolutionaries live. The duality of the Russian revolution manifested as late as in Decembrist movement (the “autocratic” dictatorship of P.I.Pestel and the Christian democratism of S.I.Muravyov-Apostol) echoed in Gippius’s novel in the form of the opposition between Roman Smentsev and Mikhail Rzhevsky, along with his supporters Florenty and Litta. Gippius’s discovery consists in the fact that she found in the field of “estate topos” a meaning that goes back to the activities of the Decembrists-noble revolutionaries of the first quarter of the 19thcentury, often large landowners. The “Estate topos” appears in the “Roman-Prince” as the topos of the Russian religious revolution in a number of local variations. The ideological and artistic circulation between its three loci unites the Western European castle, reminiscent of the educationist roots of the Russian “estate culture” with its ideal of a free personality, a noble estate of the Golden age, which brings Russia’s first apostles of religious revolution, and eclectic intelligent-landowner estate of the Silver age, the inhabitants of shich are under the evil power of the Antichrist of the revolution, genetically ascending to Stavrogin of the novel “Demons” by F.M.Dostoevsky. At the same time, they maintain the ability to break the fatal circle outlined by Smentsev thanks to the heterotopic connection with the other two estate projections presented in the novel. So, the scientific novelty of the article is that: here, in the material of the Gippius’s novel is identified and discussed an important modification of the “estate topos” in the literature of Russian symbolism— a landowner’s rural estate as a topos of the religious revolution, and for understanding of its structure a new category— “heterotopia of the estate”— is used.

The article looks at the interpretation and assessment of the most important female protagonist in Russian literature – Pushkin's Tatyana Larina – by authoritative figures in literary criticism in pre-revolutionary Russia. In 1840s, 1870s and 1900s key figures in various schools of thought: Westernizers (V. G. Belinsky), Slavophiles (F. M. Dostoevsky), representatives of “new religious consciousness” (V. V. Rozanov) repeatedly returned to the same texts to interpret them in accordance with radically different ideals, which turned their assessments into polar opposites. The primary moot point was Tatyana's choice between love to Onegin and spousal duty to her husband. A positive or negative take on the choice Tatyana made characterizes the religious stance and worldview of the three authors and the strands of 19th and 20th century Russian culture they represent. Our study has allowed us to underscore and compare the deep currents of Russian religious and artistic thought, their interconnections and mutual influence within the cultural field of contemporary Russia. It has found resonance in the 'national idea' of the turn of the 21st century as expressed by A. I. Solzhenitsyn – “the preservation of the people”.