The monograph addresses the central problem for the Russian XVIII century of the correlation of national tradition and innovative cultural strategies, which has become the subject of heightened reflections in the literary consciousness of the second half of the century. Literature, which played a leading role in the formation of a new cultural paradigm, became not only an expression of the complex contradictions of the era, but also actively contributed to the formation of a new cultural consciousness, striving to search for the synthesis and reconciliation of different, sometimes polar intentions of the "new Russia."