The author of the article turned to the old Russian most complicated period in the history of Russian literature. The issues of the study were domestic and satirical noveletts of the 17th century. They touched the problems that were of great concern for the society of that period of time. Domestic novelettes reveal the tragic fate of the young generation, striving to break with old forms of family lifestyle; satyrical novelettes showed such significant aspects of the feudal – serf system as: unjust and corruptive court, social inequality, immoral lifestyle of monasticism and clergy, drunkness. Consequently, these novelettes of the second half of the XVII century reflected the spirits of the period when for the Moscow society came the time to critically revise all outdated norms of life.