“Молитва” – последнее действие героя в творчестве Даниила Хармса

During his entire life Kharms was deeply concerned with the question of the miracle. However, whereas the “early” Kharms sincerely believed that he was a magician (miracles happening in almost all of his early texts), in his later work this belief has apparently disappeared. In ‘Starukha’, for instance, there is the motif of the magician “who lives in our time and does not do any miracles”. Kharms's belief in miracles disappears from around 1935 (the murder of Kirov) when he starts to anticipate his own death. Hunger becomes the main theme of his diaries. In these circumstances he addresses himself to God. The end of ‘Starukha’ and other “prayer-texts” demonstrate that the master of the absurd did not dream of a “life after death”, but accepted God's decision. Kharms's addressing God in prayers signifies the logical end of the avant-garde.