Introduction. The article deals with the poetics of the short story “The Belt” written by Mari writer Vera Boyarinova. The relevance of this problem is determined by its correlation with history studies and modern status of Mari poetics. This aspect of literary research is urgently needed in regional philological science at present. Purpose. The purpose of the article is to study signs of an autobiographical narrative. Materials and methods. The method of the research is structural semantic. In the article the following levels and aspects of story structure are analyzed in regard to revealing the genre determinants of the autobiographical creation: the form of storytelling, the structure of characters, the system of subjects of speech and conscience (in their connection to an autobio-graphical event and psychological outline of writing), the methods of expression and stylistic organization of the narrative. Results, discussion. The study is intended to clarify and supplement the existing typology of Mari story of the second half of the XXth century. The autobiographical short story as a genre variety of Mari short story and lyrical (subjective) story in particular has not been studied up to the present. It is proved in the article, that Vera Boyarinova's story “The Belt” is an autobiographical one. The first person narrative and bright character of a personified narrator, identical to the author; a key character (Ovdaki), linked with her, whose life story is drawn in retrospect and which is a part of the real biography of the narrator, are presented. Narration is subjective, expressive and characterized by lyricism and drama. The style of the narrative is correlated with the characteristics of the author's speech.