Abstract: The subject of research is the historical and literary modification of various images of the “cursed thing” in Russian literature (demonic portrait, black glove, money coupon, occult book-grimoire, videotape, gramophone), starting from the XIX century (the works of Antoni Pogorelsky and N.V. Gogol) and the modern experiments of Russian writers within the framework of numerous subgenres of literary horror (texts by E.N. Uspensky, A.P. Vladimirov and A.G. Ateev). The work is based on literature texts, which determines its local research character and gives the prospect for further study. The methodology of the work is based on the structural-semiotic method in the scientific interpretation of the Moscow-Tartu School, in particular, on the works of Y.M. Lotman and V.N. Toporov. Hermeneutic, motive and intertextual types of analysis are applied. For the comparative analysis of the artistic image the contextual analysis and the method of philosophical-ontological analysis of A.E. Eremeev are used. The scientific novelty of the article is determined by the fact of insufficient study of the phenomenon of “terrible” in the Russian literary tradition, as well as the importance of the image of the “cursed thing” in the ethical and aesthetic perspective of the existence of the artistic concept. According to the author's observations, the images of things and artifacts touched by a curse (generic, external, etc.) in the space of Russian prose of the XIX-XXI centuries are characterized by a certain continuity with Western European culture, and, on the other hand, they acquire a philosophical and symbolic meaning, in which ethical and religious axiology is strengthened.