The authors of the article believe that it is important to study the deep essence of the writer’s works in order to understand the period of time that he depicts. D.I. Stakheyev contributed to the development of the genres of sketch and short story as he discussed new subjects and ideas through studying the life of the Russian province. In addition, the value of his works is that they touch upon a wide range of universal problems that are of great importance in our time. The article gives a broader idea of “small” forms of literary works in Russia in the mid-19th century. The interpretation of the images of the provincial merchants created by Stakheyev, the Russian writer of the second half of the 19 century, is of scientific interest to us. To understand the nature of provincial merchants Stakheyev goes his own way: he shows the essence of the merchant class through the problems of fathers and children, of crime and punishment, and of the “golden calf” influence on everyday life. The provincial town, marketplace, forest trade are elements depicting a long-established patriarchal world that is far from civilization and not affected by European style of life. The article was written to be used in the educational process. Studying the works of D.I. Stakheev within the framework of additional education, teachers and students of a modern school can discover pages of Russian literature, that were unknown for them, realize the moral problems that were faced by the previous generations.

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The verbal genres are of great importance in the oral lore of any nation. Nowadays more and more attention is drawn to popular stories of the past, of people who lived long ago, and so on. This article focuses on the stories about merchants that are classified as memorates (precursors of legend) and chronicles. The perception and image of merchants in the narratives under consideration are of particular interest. Modern storytellers show the representatives of the merchant class as creative people of great soul, deep faith, and high morals rather than money-grubbers. The verbal story is characterized by narrators' striving to describe the events, preserving the factual authenticity. Like any folk text, an oral story is a collective genre: it is orally transmitted, it has variations, i.e. each storyteller participates in its creating and existing in their own way. Although there are text variants, the main storyline usually does not vary in oral narratives. Thus, modern oral stories about representatives of the merchant class of the past times do not break with the tradition that is an attribute of folklore. That gives grounds for arguing that such a thematic type of oral narrative as a story about merchants is independent. The independent position of the genre under study is also proved by its attributes that distinguish it from other types of folk prose. The article discusses the genre characteristics of oral stories about merchants, gives their thematic classification, and explains the style features. The texts have significant potential for historical reconstructing the persons and events associated with a particular region. They also reflect the general trends in Russian literature -to avoid a one-sided view on the past, to perceive and understand everything from the standpoint of truth, goodness, and beauty. In addition, the authors of the article focus on the issue of naming characters in oral stories about merchants. The role of the storyteller (narrator) as a subject of naming activity, as well as general mechanisms of character naming, is also shown. Naming the characters is presented as a process determined by the genre features of the folk stories under study, the corresponding ways and techniques of depicting reality.

The article presents the methodology of organizing educational activities to study a writer’s biography with the help of facilitation approach. A key aspect of the paper is the group work model, i.e., “The World Café” which allowed the authors to process and comprehend a large amount of information about F.M. Dostoevsky, share it with students, and plan further work on the study of his creative writing.In addition, the article identifies important concepts in the comprehension of the first part of the posthumous biography “The materials for the biography of F.M. Dostoevsky”. The compiler of the biography was O.F. Miller, a professor of literature in St. Petersburg University (Russia), critic, publicist, and a famous educator of the 19th century. Interestingly, “Materials for the biography of F.M. Dostoevsky”, published in 1883, were not fully republished and did not receive sufficient scientific understanding until 2010, even though the work of O.F. Miller remained the main source the experts studying F.M. Dostoevsky. Of much importance is the fact that some parts of “Materials for the biography of F.M. Dostoevsky” appeared on the Internet only after 2012. This paradox highlights the importance of the research describing the biography.  In 2010, the personal history “Materials for the biography of F.M. Dostoevsky” became an integral part of the academic thesis by K.A. Okisheva “F.M. Dostoevsky and O.F. Miller: the history of relationships”. Our present study highlights the importance of biographies for the education of young generations. Our major concern is the methodology, according to which personal history’s information serves as an essential part of roundtable discussions which simultaneously target the acquisition of F.M. Dostoevsky’s biography and innovative classroom activities.