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Abstract:

The world of childhood has always been the focus of Prishvin’s attention. His recognition is very characteristic: “The focus of our time is on children.” The article is devoted to the artist’s understanding of the phenomenon of childhood as the focus of crucial issues of being and creativity. The study aims to identify the writer’s views on this period — the “beginning of life” — in human destinies and to realize his understanding of the place of childhood in the formation and development of a human personality. Analysis of the writer’s works, mainly diaries, made it possible to come to the following results: 1) the impression of the personal experience became for Prishvin the source and criterion in understanding the essence of the childhood, its role in human destinies; 2) according to the artist, images of childhood, his voices, sounds, smells, remaining in the memory of a person, have a transforming effect on his emotional sphere, affect creativity; 3) childhood is the best asset that cannot be discarded for uselessness with increasing age, but, on the contrary, it is necessary to preserve its principal values, such as purity, immediacy, “joy of life,” vivid comprehension of the world, freedom from reasonable conclusions, astonishment, the ability to penetrate the essence of phenomena, rich imagination, sincerity of faith that pacifies human pride, and much more; 4) the writer especially appreciated natural, free character of children, the audacity of their thoughts and aspirations, readiness to defend themselves, their independence and their right, therefore he protested against the suppression of a free thought, originality, and the desire for independence in the child; 5) these qualities perfectly corresponded to Prishvin’s ideas about the artist’s strategies, which he considered taking into account the factors of children’s life-creation, but accepting it only in creative dynamics, and in the triumph of freedom as a conscious need; 6) without idealizing children, the writer nevertheless asserted the gospel covenant “be like children,” and followed it in his creative life.