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Abstract: The article presents a brief comparative analysis of the protagonists’ features in Platonov’s story “Dzhan” (Nazar Chagotaev) and Nabokov’s novel “Glory” (Martyn). The study of these two texts reveals that Nazar and Martyn have several characteristics that make them related to each other and bring them closer to the archetypal fairy-tale character. The primary reason for Nazar and Martyn’s wandering is their orphanhood and their attempt to find their own world. The possibility of comparing the poetics of Nabokov and Platonov at the level of archetypal components may be partly explained by the commonality of the collective unconscious that Platonov and Nabokov share, despite the dissimilarity of their talents, destinies, and writing attitudes. Platonov, being a utopist, had a rare gift for constructing reality and creating new worlds. Nabokov’s poetics also reflect this focus on recreating a lost reality. Both writers, consciously or not, resort to mythological motifs, thus constructing their own mythologies.