Popular literature often appropriates the structural patterns of folklore. V. P. Adrianova-Peretts has observed that in Russian narrative literature prior to the 1760s it is difficult to draw a distinct line between folklore and formal literature. Discussions of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Russian adventure tales, the first body of original prose fiction to enjoy widespread success in Russia, have traditionally noted use of folkloric motifs, usually citing isolated moments rather than basic, underlying plot structures as examples. In fact, however, the fairytale plot, as outlined by Vladimir Propp in The Morphology of the Fairy Tale, forms the skeleton of most Russian prose tales of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
The article identifies thе alternative changes to the traditional plot pattern for autobiographical narration. Memoirs of the 18th century are based on the cumulative principle presuming that heterogeneous events (both nation-wide and those of public and private life of the memoirist himself) are described in parallel and in a strict chronological sequence. In contrast to the previous tradition of memoir-making, Shakhovskoy conceptualizes his life as moving from happiness to unhappiness and focuses on the cumulative plot of an adventure novel. He describes only official activity and builds up the plot of the autobiography as a number of series, consisting of structurally homogeneous microplots or plot situations. Happiness alternates with unhappiness both within the series of microplots and in the very sequence of the series (loss of patrons — victories over opponents — victories of opponents — success in the service of Her Majesty). Unlike other autobiographies, The Adventures of Ensign Klimov is based not on the cumulative but on the cyclic pattern of the plot (forced abandonment of the Fatherland and the family — suffering calamities in exile — return). The plot of Klimov's memoirs is semantically based on the story of cruel fate and God's will. The memoirs of Shakhovsky and Klimov actually represent two possible options for transferring the plot structure of epic genres into memoir narration: specifically, the cumulative plot of an adventure novel in one case, and the cyclic one of the parable of the prodigal son and ancient Russian stories dating back to it in the other. The use of models of fiction literature plots is predetermined by the authors' conceptual understanding of their own life history, in contrast to most memoirs of the 18th century, where events are simply recorded as a chronicle and do not line up in a semantically determined plot series.
