The article covers the main alternates of destructive strategies implemented by the Russian literature in the XIX–XX centuries for the reader's consciousness in particular, and the ethnic culture as a whole. Methodologically the article is based on the interdisciplinary links between philosophy, cultural studies, and the theory and study of literature, using recipient theories of consciousness and the effect of external, in this case literary factors, the mental presentation of auto-sphere of human consciousness, as well as using the basic concepts of the ontology of destructiveness. The research resulted in the identification of the basic mechanisms of the destructiveness developed when affecting the reader's consciousness in the perception of the Silver Age literature. The use of the results is possible in the construction of theoretical and methodological models of readers' consciousness, as well as when creating effective mechanisms against destructive tendencies in the field of verbal-based culture. As a conclusion, we can determine the unmasking of leading strategies aimed at the destruction of current personal values. These strategies may include the strategy of the overinformation of readers’ consciousness, the churning of adequate reception of consciousness, the "the quick" and “the dead” mixing in the perception of the reality and others. It is the implementation of these destructive strategies that can be considered as one of the causes of the cultural disaster in Russia in the early 20th century.