The book explores the problems of portraying the characters of ancient and medieval literature in China, starting with the images of the first ancestors (Fu-si, Nu-wa, Huang-di) and ending with the images of the heroes of late medieval epics and novels such as Luo Guan-zhong's "Three Kingdoms" or "Tales of the Beginning of the World" by Zhou Yu, and a certain continuity in the type of portrait characteristics of the characters. Attention in the book is also paid to historical prose, which inherits the tradition of mythological depiction. For comparison, the material of fine art is also involved. Throughout the work, a connection with the myth has been traced, which gives the study not only a historical and literary, but also a theoretical character.