N. S. Leskov strongly emphasized the authenticity, even documentality, of what he described in his novels, short stories and novels. For example, in The Author's Confession (1884), he noted:" I have observation and, perhaps, some ability to analyze feelings and motives, but I have little imagination. I invent hard and difficult things, and therefore I have always needed living people who could interest me in their spiritual content. They took hold of me, and I tried to embody them in stories, which were also very often based on a real event" (Leskov N. S. Sobr. soch.: In 11 vols. M., 1956-1958. Vol. N. S. 229; further-only volume and page). And in " The Man on the Clock"the story of the soldier Postnikov is preceded by the words:" There is no fiction in the coming story at all " (8, 154). The trustworthiness attitude is typical of first-person narration - the narrative form that Leskov preferred to all others and which in the reader's mind is strongly associated with his name. However, the reasons why Leskov attached the narrative to the" I " of the narrators, and the effect achieved by this, often remained misunderstood. Thus, A. M. Skabichevsky, a critic of the narodnik trend, in order to humiliate Leskov, declared that the writer's talent "is nothing more than the talent of a good, experienced storyteller" (cit. by: Eichenbaum B. M. On prose. On Poetry, L., 1986, p. 238). Leskov's narrators create an image of the world refracted in someone else's mind. This trait of Leskov's talent was highly appreciated by M. Gorky. page 9 Comparing Leskov with L. Tolstoy, Gogol, Turgenev, Goncharov, Gorky attributed these writers to artists who "wrote plastically": "their words are like clay, from which they God-like molded figures and images of people, alive to the point of deception." Leskov, on the other hand, "wrote not plastically, but told stories, and in this art he has no equal. People in his stories often talk about themselves, but their speech is so wonderfully vivid, ... Read more