Аннотация:Mystical and folklore attributes may be noticed in numerous works of such Russian writers as N. V. Gogol “May night or Drowned Maiden”, “Christmas Eve”; O. Somov “Mermaid”; A. Bestujev- Marlinsky “Frightful Fortune Telling”; A. P. Chekhov “Conversation of a Drunken Man with a Sober Devil”; A. K. Tolstoy “The family of a Vurdalak”, “The Vampire”. These works were created borrowing various folklore motives and images to some extend. The main heroes of the given prose works are demonic characters respectively.
The significance of the presented work lies in the lack of studies devoted to the analysis of the folklore influence on the development of mystical prose in Russian Literature. The research paper considers and analyzes the ways of performing demonical characters (such as mermaids, devil, ghouls, and vampires) taken from folklore stories in the creative works of Russian writers. The research is based upon the comparison and the analysis of identical features of folklore and literature that allows to define the level of folklore elements borrowed by the authors in their prose and to determine the specifics of that interaction.