Form and Context Features of Literary Diaries (Based on the Literature of Post-Soviet Countries)

The development of the diary has gone through a complex process, serving initially as a supplementary source for writing memoirs and gradually evolving into an independent literary form. The author’s diaries, which we consider examples of literary fiction, do not consist solely of informative entries written daily. Instead, the structure of these texts is more complex, incorporating poems, stories, letters, literary criticism, memoirs, and more. A study of diaries written during the Soviet period reveals that the defining features of the genre weakened while the artistic qualities were enhanced. The shift from auto-communication to publication as a primary goal contributed to this enrichment, introducing elements of memoirs and biographies into the diaries. Our analysis and research lead us to conclude that during the Soviet period, significant changes occurred in the diary genre, resulting in synthetic works that no longer fully adhered to the traditional expectations of the genre.