RUSSIAN HISTORY AS AN INVENTED TRADITION IN THE PROSE BYVLADIMIR SHAROV:an image of an escapeas of a return and an image of an exile as of a traumatic “procession” and “crusade” in the novels “Be Like Children” and “Return to Egypt”

The author analyzes the literary heritage of the Russian postmodernistwriter Vladimir Sharov in the context of travel images. The articleconsidersnovels “Be like children” and “Return to Egypt”. The author believes that the writer actualized in his texts the problems of movement as of a social and cultural journey,like trauma, nostalgia and forgetting. The real and imaginary travels of characters in the prose by V.Sharov can be described in the categories of absurdity and meaninglessness. Travel images do not actualize spatial migrations, but they visualize contradictions and paradoxes of thedevelopment of Russian identity as a deformed one. The author analyzes travels in V. Sharov’s prose as invented cultural traditions. The travel discourse in the texts byV. Sharov became the result of the development of modern in Russia that emergedas modern before modern and modern without modern. The author of the article assumes that the travel in V.Sharov’s prose gradually loses its connection with reality, transforming into a travel as a construct and a travel as memory. The forced travels of his prosecharactersbecame imaginary pilgrimages and attempts of the Russian people, regardedas a hostage of Russian history,to escape. The writer imagined Russian history as a cyclical social and cultural journey. The motifs of travel in V.Sharov’s prose are presented in a variety of forms, including a novel in letters, a traditional postmodern novel, and an imitation of hagiographic texts.