Holy Russian Literature.

Thomas Mann

In Russian classical literature, the search for spiritual truth, according to many researchers, «is based on the national Orthodox consciousness, on our national ideals and spiritual traditions». [2] Philosophical ideas about the structure of the world and the laws in force in it, about God and the role of man in the universe, aroused great interest among Russian writers, because it is these issues that remain socially significant not only for the nineteenth century, but also today.

Scientists have repeatedly noted in their works that, when referring to the works of Russian classical literature, an important context for revealing the true meanings is reading the «Christian code» present in the text. Confirming this idea, the Soviet scholar of philology V. I. Kuleshov rightly emphasizes: «Awareness of the Christian (namely, Orthodox) subtext of Russian literature as a special subject of study is becoming one of the greatest tasks of literary criticism». [3] A stable research conviction is based on the idea that the ethical and philosophical content of classical literature organically grew out of the soil of Orthodox axiology. The starting point for the further rooting of the Orthodox Christian worldview in Russian literature is the Baptism of Rus in the tenth century. In this regard, N. P. Zhilina wrote: «Since that time, Christianity has become the most important source of all forms of life and, consequently, of national culture, one of the main components of which is literature». [1] However, the formulations of the above theses contain controversial points that require correction for greater accuracy and avoidance of unambiguous interpretations.

First, the starting point should be the understanding that the Orthodox categories in the author's mind are consistent not only with his personal beliefs about the structure of existence, but are also woven into the worldview of the author and his characters, jointly forming the unique artistic reality of the work.

Secondly, despite the recognition of the importance of the religious context, the analysis of works of art that raise philosophical and religious issues still requires traditional aesthetic and philosophical skills: deep professional immersion, «listening to the heart».

At the turn of the XX–XXI centuries, Russian literary criticism turned to understanding the phenomenon of righteousness in the works of Russian writers. The appearance of the righteous hero type in the Russian heritage of the nineteenth century is due to the search for truth and a moral ideal: «Seek first of all the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all this will be added to you» (Matthew 6:33).

The evolution of understanding the category of righteousness in the Russian literary tradition of the nineteenth century from early romantic experiences to late realism includes There are many unique and conceptually competing versions of the righteous hero.

The continuous intellectual and artistic search for a moral ideal goes back to ancient Russian literature, with its hagiographic corpus playing a constitutive role. The problem of the moral absolute, which interests us, was also raised in the literature of the 18th century, but the formation of the ideological and artistic concept of «righteousness» and its systematic implementation took place in the following century. In the works of F. M. Dostoevsky, L. N. Tolstoy, A. P. Chekhov, N. S. Lesky, this problem acquires a genuine scale and systemic development.

The ideas of «righteousness» in the artistic and philosophical consciousness of the Russian classics were not a simple translation of the church canon, they went beyond it, preserving a common value horizon.

Reading the concepts of righteousness in the works of prose writers cannot be fully understood outside of the author's personal religious experience. Dostoevsky's concept of the «soil-dwelling», suffering righteous man is inseparable from his christocentrism and the experience of penal servitude; Tolstoy's rational and moral ideal is from his criticism of church dogmatism and faith in reason; and Leskov's «enchanted» righteous master is from his passion for folk, everyday Orthodoxy. The author's theology, expressed in artistic form, becomes a key code for decoding the ethical and philosophical content of the image of the righteous. Thus, righteousness appears not as an abstract ethical abstraction, but as a personalistic embodiment of the spiritual quest of the creator himself.

The phenomenon of righteousness in Russian literature receives a twofold artistic representation. First, through a narrative about a person's spiritual path to existential Truth (God's Truth) as the highest form of ideal existence. Secondly, through the constitution of a gallery of righteous characters who act as personified bearers of Christian axiology and key mediators of the Orthodox tradition.

The very image of the righteous hero is characterized by structural duality. On the one hand, he focuses on the hagiographic canon, demonstrating asceticism, adherence to church rules and an eschatological commitment to the world of absolute values. On the other hand, this image is often rooted in mundane, «worldly» reality: being a psychologically mature person, not free from human weaknesses, the hero nevertheless possesses a stable internal coordinate system formed in the bosom of the Orthodox worldview. This antinomy — between the ideal prototype of holiness and its realistic, sometimes «uncanonical» embodiment — constitutes the main dramatic and philosophical potential of this type of character.

References:

1. Жилина Н. П. Концепция личности в русской литературе первой трети XIX века в свете христианской аксиологии / Н. П. Жилина. — Калининград. — 2009. — 349 с.

2. Кондратьев Б. С. Духовная традиция русской классики. От Пушкина к Достоевскому: учебное пособие / Б. С. Кондратьев. — Арзамас. — 2009. — 231 с.

3. Кулешов В. И. Русская литература XIX века и христианство / В. И. Кулешов. — Москва: Изд-во МГУ. — 1997. — 191 с.