The specificity of the images of Solovki saints and oppressors in B. N. Shiryaev’s “The Unquenchable Lamp”

This article is dedicated to a comprehensive study of the artistic originality of the system of images in “The Unquenchable Lamp” by B. N. Shiryaev, one of the most prominent prose writers of the “second wave” of emigration. The aim of the research is to identify the specificity of the images of Solovki righteous individuals and oppressors in this collection of essays. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that, for the first time, based on a detailed analysis of the text and scholarly interpretations, it reveals the specificity of embodying the type of righteous hero in the extreme conditions of Solovki forced labor, and also examines the artistic means used to create the images of camp staff as a reflection of totalitarian evil. As a result, we established, firstly, that the writer creates a polyphonic and deeply symbolic picture of human existence on the brink of life and death, where spiritual resistance, based on Christian values, is contrasted with moral degradation and the inhumanity of the system of violence. Secondly, the research allows us to assert that the central artistic antithesis of the work is the confrontation between the unquenchable “lampada” of the spirit, carried by the righteous, and the “Solovki power” as an embodiment of darkness and arbitrary rule.