Readers' and Viewers' Reception of the Image and Heritage of Sergei Dovlatov

Sergei Dovlatov’s works became very popular in the last decades and his figure as one of the main Russian writers nowadays is a well-known brand. His powerful influence appeared due to the increased readers’ interest to his literature and biography. This interest can be examined through the mechanisms of readers’ reception in the terms of reader-response criticism: identification, realization and filling the gaps. Using the categories of Ingarden and Iser, Abramovskih this paper has a purpose to understand on the practical material what kind of strategies Dovlatov’s readers use in their reception. Moreover, according to the studies proving that readers’ interpretation is caused by the special author’s strategy, the paper claims that the keynote of the Dovlatov’s reception includes the function of identification that can possibly be explored by the author’s style of narration called "new autobiographism". The directors’ reception during the producing a film adaptation does not match with the reader’s reception because the option of identification for viewers in this case does not work.