Volume 7, Nº 1 (2024)

Russian philosopher Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (1812–1870), who devoted his life to the struggle against the Russian Empire, is the main idea of the article. The author builds a chain of events: from the “annibal oath” of the young Herzen and Ogarev (1827), noting that the Carthaginian Hannibal swore to destroy a hostile state, while Russian teenagers devoted themselves to the destruction of their empire. Then the development of Bakunin’s credo in 1847: “The passion for destruction is at the same time a creative passion!” and practical actions in London, where Herzen organized a Free Russian printing house. The main thesis of the author is that in comparison “from the other shore” Herzen clearly saw the weakness of the Russian Empire, which he clearly formulated in a book on the development of revolutionary ideas (1852). But the problem at that time was that there were no such ideas yet. They were invented and turned into text by Herzen. He turns the opposition to the autocracy of educated people into the pressure of the revolutionary will (the “call to the axe”, the sacrifice of young revolutionaries, etc.). The oath of Herzen’s youth remained on the pages of “The Bell” and in his texts. The young demon destroyers responded to his ideas by creating revolutionary societies, proclamations and calls for real action against the government, murders, and so on. In the letters “To an old Comrade” (1869), Herzen composes something like a testament filled with tragic phrases in defense of the norms of social life. This is a spell addressed to demons, a call to civilization. But above all, it is a renunciation of the former self: “I will not go any further now.” Nechaev, having learned about Herzen’s latest text, sent N. A. Tuchkova-Ogareva and Herzen’s son a letter on the letterhead “People’s Massacre” with threats and a demand not to print this text. Herzen’s family acted courageously and published the text. The author comes to the conclusion that it was Herzen who initiated the movement of young radicals with his ideas, who turned from his words to bloody actions.

Among the numerous and contradictory evidence that, with possible completeness, reveals the position of writers and philosophers of the Russian diaspora in relation to the results of the USSR Victory in the Great Patriotic War, one cannot even mention the ideological and political conflict that occurred around N. A. Berdyaev regarding the emerging phenomenon of “Soviet patriots” and pro-Soviet sentiments among the emigrants. The debate about Russian and Soviet patriotism came to the fore, about which of them is more significant, can be accepted by emigrants or rejected, how the national and the universal relate to the scope of this concept. The last years of Berdyaev’s life, his political, philosophical, religious self-determination after the Great Patriotic War in relation to Russia (the Soviet Union) are very indicative of the fate of the Russian dispersion and are connected with our present-day intuitions about the history and fate of Russia. The position of the “last Berdyaev”, its complexity and inconsistency is presented in the article in three complementary assessments of his beliefs of the post-war years (B. K. Zaitsev, S. L. Frank, Archbishop John Shakhovskoy), in the context of historical events of 1945–1947.

The article examines the allusive plan and history of the creation of F. M. Dostoevsky’s short story “The Dream of a Funny Man” (1877). Special attention is paid to the analysis of the plot continuity of this work from “Memnon” and “Micromegas” by Voltaire, many components of which are connected by direct alluvial or hidden cryptographic links with Dostoevsky’s story. Quotations and reminiscences are found, and a version is put forward according to which the “Dream of a Funny Man” was conceived by the writer in 1869. The connection of the ideology of this work with the one developed during the 1860s and 1870s is analyzed. “Organic philosophy”, which was formed in its original view in the editorial offices of the journals “Time” and “Epoch” (1861–1865), in which the religious intuitionism of the older Slavophiles, “organic criticism” by A. A. Grigoriev, the idea of the “wholeness and unity of the universe” by N. N. Strakhov and literary-philosophical experiments, in the form of a peculiar version of the menippea (“samples” of the philosophical concept in its pragmatic implementation in reality) in the artistic practice of F. M. Dostoevsky.

Myth, the Christian one, is a means of self-creation of man. Does it work in a scientific worldview? To answer this question, the author substantiates the possibility of interpreting and rethinking some of the essential mythologems of Christianity. He proposes to consider them in the light of the modern philosophy of consciousness. According to this philosophy, a person cognizes the world being inside it. Thus, he is ontologically rooted in it. Therefore, our world contains certain conditions for its cognition, which themselves have no conditions. Their existence is evidenced only by their effects; they appear simply as a supernatural reality. Without the concept of the supernatural, there can be no adequate understanding of the phenomenon of “man”, since his being is not limited to its natural side. Religion in the modern world is supposed to have a renewed mythology. However, there is a problem. The traditional Christian mythology emerged spontaneously. The mythology of our time cannot but have an artificial origin. It must be rationally understood as mythology. The author believes that a possible interpretation of the mythologems of Christianity that is adequate to the time gives reason to disagree with the idea of the historical failure of Christianity. At the same time, he argues that this religion can claim the status of a supra-confessional, universal world outlook. This is tantamount to claiming its trinitarian meanings, which have so far remained largely undiscovered. The supra-confessional worldview implies that sociality should also be based on Christian moral values and that a person should not be limited to the task of personal salvation. This also means participation in the preservation and reproduction of civilization.

This article is devoted to considering philosophy of theatre of two Russian thinkers — Aleksei Fyodorovich Losev and Sigizmund Dominikovich Krzhizhanovsky. Particularly, the article deals with ideas on the world as a theatre that were expressed in their philosophical prose, with the help of broad contextual material giving the whole understanding of philosophical and theatrical problematics in the beginning of the 20th century. It is paid particular attention to A. F. Losev’s story “Theatregoer” and S. D. Krzhizhanovsky’s fictional and philosophical treatise “Philosopheme about Theatre” where the main states of their philosophy of theatre were expressed. The element that unifies both thinkers is the idea of the world as a theatre which, however, transforms in their works in different images (concepts) of theatre. As for Losev’s story, one can distinguish four images of theatre: theatre-school, theatre-show, theatre-farce, “theatre-concentration camp”. In the conception of Krzhizhanovsky there are three clearly distinguished images of the world as a theatre: theatre of being, theatre of everyday life, theatre of “would”. On the basement of the philosophical analysis of Losev and Krzhizhanovsky’s works, it is made a conclusion about different ontological statuses of the images of theatre given by them: every image of theatre implies specific universality and specific worldview. Besides, the aspect that also unifies Losev and Krzhizhanovsky’s ideas about the world as a theatre is their theatrical anthropologism — an attempt to link different images of theatre with the nature of the human being and with the personological problematics of Russian philosophy. Thus, the article covers the little-known side of heritage of two Russian thinkers who created different conceptions of the world as a theatre which are united by universalism, anthropologism and hierarchy.

At first, in the West and in the press of the Russian emigration, there was delight at the “Munich conspiracy” in the autumn of 1938 between Britain and France — both Hitler and Mussolini. Hitler’s road to the USSR was open. Then the enthusiastic were disappointed — in August 1939, the Molotov—Ribbentrop Pact was concluded between Germany and the USSR, and in September the World War began, in which the Munich sides became enemies. The Russian emigrant press once again began to talk critically about the “totalitarian” USSR, Germany and Italy. And our hero from Switzerland writes treatises against the totalitarian threat in modern Europe and publishes them in Yugoslavia. He was the Russian philosopher, political thinker and publicist Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyin (1883–1954).

This article discusses the problem of understanding the musical image as a nonverbal text, analyzes the specificity of the symbolism of the musical image, and outlines possible ways of approaching its meaning. The attitude to the musical image as a nonverbal sounding text is based on the fact that without a deliberate and conscious approach to the idea there can be no complete picture of the image, in which each element takes its proper place. An image as a certain fixed and finished thought as a sounding text becomes capable of translation, reading/listening, understanding and interpretation. Hermeneutics enables and promotes a deeper understanding of a musical work and comprehension of its hidden meaning. Thanks to cognitive hermeneutics the search for the most effective methods of interpreting the meaning of musical images as nonverbal sounding texts becomes relevant. The cognitive hermeneutics of a musical image contributes to revealing the knowledge that is shared through such an image, revealing the hidden mechanisms of this process.