In the 19th century, in connection with the entry of Ossetia into the Russian Empire, with the development of bourgeois social relations, with the emergence of Ossetian enlight­enment, great qualitative changes occurred in the material, spiritual and artistic culture of the Ossetians. In particular, Ossetian professional artistic culture appeared and, as part of it, literature. During this period, K. L. Khetagurov, the founder of Ossetian literature, solved a very important creative task: he formed the concept of realism in the emerging literature. At the same time, he, of course, proceeded from the objective possibilities of realism as a method of artistic reflection of reality. First of all, Kosta Khetagurov saw in it the ability to vitally and truthfully reflect the facts of reality, to know the innermost essence of man and the world around him. At the same time, Kosta also successfully realized its limitless possibilities in his artistic work. Firstly, in the 19th century, which had a com­plex character with its socio-historical cataclysms, realism was very much in line with the spirit of the times. It was most capable of reflecting the state of social existence and social consciousness in an era full of drama and tragedy in the lives of Ossetians. Secondly, real­ism, especially critical, adequately corresponded to the worldview of Kost himself, as the most prominent representative of the Ossetian enlightenment. Understanding the history of the artistic consciousness of the Ossetians and their ancestors, he defined for himself the most important methodological principle. This is the integrity of perception, which makes it possible to consider the history of the artistic consciousness of the Ossetians in a comprehensive and systematic way. To highlight in it qualitatively defined types. These are mythology, folklore and fiction. In mythology, he identified three subtypes: the initial stage, devoid of religious meaning, mytho-pagan with its focus already on the religious aspect; epic thinking as the most mature stage in mythology, in which the sources of real historical consciousness are born. In general, when developing his concept of realism, of course, Costa relied on the experience of Russian classical literature and on national folklore and myth­ological material as its basis. The purpose of this article is to study the mythological basis of the concept of realism of Kosta Khetagurov, which determines the national specificity of Ossetian literature throughout its history.