PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EVENT

Abstract

Lev Tolstoy’s short story “Khodynka”reflects the tragical events of Nikolay II’s coronation. The story was written during a day but it had been prepared for a long time. Tolstoy put down notes in his Diary, read lots of publications about Khodynka, listened to the eyewitnesses.He underlined that “The psychology of this event is very complicated” – the current entertainment changed into tragedy. The protagonist who hurried into Khodynka, at first dreamt only of winning a ticket, afterwards he became embittered and tried to release from the crowd. But the child’s rescue and then the one of Rina caused some new feeling in his soul which exalted him from the daily routine. The article studies the literary peculiarities of the story, the development of the motif of joy, originalityof the portrait, the role of the details, of irony, etc. Some parallels are marked between the stories ofV.Krasnov and F.Sologub.