The medicine of the soul — a remembrance of death

The desire to learn the secrets of otherness passes through the whole history of world literature. Each epoch gave its answers to these questions and in its own way represented the idea of the mysterious union of man with the transcendent. From the very beginnings of the existence of Old Russian writing, the ideas of finding the meaning of life in the face of death were popular. The article presents a brief analysis of thanatological meanings as the most important regulators of worldview attitudes and the behavior of the heroes of some significant works of world literature in the diachronic aspect.