Journal archive

Abstract: The author considers a number of autobiographical works of D.N. Mamin-Sibiryak, namely, At the Border of Asia, a story written in the early 1880s, and From the Distant Past, a collection of essays of the late 1890s – 1900s, seeking to solve the problem of correlation between fiction and factual narrative, typical of autobiographies. Thus, Mamin's early story is characterized as a work of fiction, based on the facts of the writer's life, but interpreting them in terms of 19 th century realism. By contrast, the essays written in the late period of the writer's life are memoirs, idealizing the author's past from a distance.