Abstract. The article addresses the specificity of modelling the provincial text by Fyodor Sologub, its presence and context in his literary creations. The author represents several levels of analysing the provincial text as the spatial modus of the novel and the methods of modelling the artistic world view and concentrates on the role of provincial context in Sologub’s works. It is supposed that the uniqueness of The Petty Demon is based on creation of a paradoxical chronotope, within which the provinciality becomes not only time-spatial characteristics but also a meta-textual structure.

Key words: provincial text, provincial context, Fyodor Sologub, chronotope, decadency, meta-text, Symbolism, mythologisation