The expansion of the methodological field, the variability and diversity of scientific approaches in the 20-21th centuries leads to the fact that at present an increasing number of humanities scholars, in search of a certain subject constant, turns to archival materials (notes, drafts, epistolary heritage). These sources, as a rule, contain existential narratives that make it possible to clarify the origins of conceptual constructions. In the article, the epistolary narrative is considered as a kind of “sphere of conversation” (the concept of A. Ben), a special type of communication, i.e. as a field for the analysis of the hermeneutical concept of G.G. Shpet and revealing its intellectual and existential sources. It is shown that the fairy tale letter “Little Girl Tsvetolubochka” (as an example of an epistolary narrative), which Shpet wrote for his daughter Marguerite in 1914, and his later discussions about the specifics of different types of understanding, given by him in the report “Art as a kind of knowledge” (1927), meaningfully intersect. The problem of understanding the meaning posed by Shpet in the 7th chapter of the book “Phenomenon and Meaning” (1914) is symbolically transformed (appears in poetic forms of the word) into a narrative (fairy tale). This “flow of meaning” from one external form to another (while maintaining the internal form) is then conceptualized by Shpet in the book “The Internal Form of the Word” (1927). At the same time, the author compares the specific hermeneutic techniques used by Shpet in an epistolary narrative with methodological ideas of F. Schleiermacher and H.-G. Gadamer.