Ideas and Ideals

Abstract

The subject of the article is the text-mentative and its functioning in the Russian literature of the XX-XXI centuries. The concept of ‘mentative’ (which appeared in linguistics since the beginning of the XXI century by analogy with ‘narrative’) means a text with a mental reference, dialogically responding to the word and thought of the other. In linguistics, there is a typology of communicative strategies of the mentative in relation to the speech of the other. There are 8 strategies, they are equal logically, but unequal in dialogical and, consequently, heuristic relations.

In Russian fiction, the text-mentative was established in the middle of the XIX century. That was due to the beginning of the stage of convergence of the artistic and non-artistic word in Russian literary evolution. The novel “War and Peace” by L. Tolstoy, containing multiple mentative fragments and entire chapters, became a clear sign of the mentative appearance in fiction. The stage of convergence of the artistic and non-artistic word continued until the end of the XX century, and all this time the specific weight and importance of the mentative in Russian fiction were steadily increasing.

The article shows functioning of the mentative in the ideologically and artistically most important works of Russian literature of the mid – late XX century. These are novels by B. Pasternak “Doctor Zhivago”, A. Bitov “Pushkin’s House”, V. Pelevin “Generation ‘P’”, A. Chudakov “The Mist Falls on the Old Steps”, texts by A. Solzhenitsyn, V. Rasputin, V. Makanin. In all these works, the mentative allows us to formulate the key thoughts for the self-consciousness of the XX century Russian literature: morality, truth, the meaning of life and the danger of consumerism. In the XXI century, in the works by M. Kucherskaya, E. Chizhova, E. Vodolazkin, the mentative also occupies a large place, appearing in ideologically important fragments of works.

As a result of the above, it is concluded that the role of the mentative in Russian literature of the XX century was steadily increasing. The authors of the article suppose that we witness starting of the stage of mental thematization of writing in the Russian literary evolution in the XXI century.

The knightly ideal of N.A. Berdyaev is one of the major components of his creativity: “the spirit of chivalry” is a unique alternative to “the spirit of the bourgeois”, to “world philistinism” and total, self-sufficing, godless statehood. Berdyaev believes in the great historic mission of Russia – to become a connecting link between the East and the West, to unite two streams of world history. The First World War adds an urgency to these themes. The Russian thinker interprets this war as an epoch of great tests, hopes that it will lead to spiritual awakening of Russia, will give courage and nobleness to the Russian people, provide the Russian person with attributes of the knight. Berdyaev is convinced of the necessity of qualitative changes of Russian national consciousness and being. War as a phenomenon of a spiritual order shows that only spiritual power can eradicate violence in the world. According to the well-known concept of “the new Middle Ages”, the barbarity of war overcomes bourgeois decadence and opens the potential of the humane person; war expands culture horizons, opens new resources. Russia needs people of dignity and honour, people who realize the greatness of divine power. Russian society should join the world civilization; internally accept Christian revelations about humanity. Berdyaev confirms that the idea of knightly service is anticipated in Christian morality, it’s crucially important for the history of personal formation. The precondition of success of the historic world mission of Russia is the liberation of the ‘Russian soul’ from domination of womanly, natural, potentially chaotic elements. The problem of choosing between the East and the West, declares Berdyaev, defines the fate of Russia. Russian national consciousness should accept the cultural heritage of the West imminently. Only focusing on the self-forged knightly courage and responsible creative personality will allow Russia to change spiritually, and successfully solve problems on a global historical scale.

This study is devoted to outlining the influence of Platonism on Orthodox theology.

Platonism, understood in a broad sense, is traditionally associated with Orthodox theology, but this connection itself remains not described sufficiently, which creates a number of difficulties. The last is represented by a scientific tendency to build historical and philosophical concepts, which do not correspond to facts, but also create such perspectives that lead to further misconceptions. This includes the idea that Platonism is more expressed in Eastern theology, and Aristotelianism in Western (or vice versa), the idea of theological disputes as conflicts of philosophical traditions, etc.

The influence of the Platonic tradition was expressed in the works of many famous authors, for example, Origen, Evagrius Ponticus and Pseudo-Dionysius, but this fact still did not receive proper analysis in the scientific community. So, although all these authors adopted some of platonic conceptions - they were condemned by the Orthodox Church, then their concepts were adopted and modernized, and only then they were written in Orthodox theology. Platonism is definitely connected with Orthodox theology, but primarily because of the philosophical language and in lesser degree due to Platonic concepts.

In Russian religious thought Platonism is becoming more and more popular thanks to Soloviev’s sophiology and German idealism, however, this philosophical and theological conceptions were condemned by Russian orthodox councils, remaining mostly in writings of individual philosophers and researchers.

Thus, we believe that reference to “Christian Platonism” in order to explain the whole system of orthodox theology is unjustified. But, on the other hand, philosophical and theological systems (such as, for example, the philosophy of S. N. Bulgakov or Gaius Marius Victorinus) may well have this name.

In connection with the growing manifestations of the systemic crisis of civilization – ideological, ecological and socio-economic, there is an urgent need for a holistic spiritual and psychophysical picture of the world, called ‘the plot-game’ by the author. The author investigates the concept of ‘causality’ within the frame of this paradigm, and then shows the expediency of generalizing it to the concept of ‘plot coherence’, which opens up new possibilities for applying the plot-game methodology. The methodology and methodology of the research are based on the categorical apparatus of the story-game paradigm, the main feature of which, the novelty, is the proposal to add a third parameter to the space-time model of the world – the individual, who at each moment perceives the first two aspects – space and time – in his own way as a certain plot. Thus, the art-historical concepts of plot, scenario and game are generalized to the level of ideological universals and at the same time natural-scientific terms – ‘cross-cutting’ units of Being.

It is shown that we see each object under study as a participant in the flow of story cycles, and its essence is the roles that it ‘played’, can play and will play in them, and which are reflected in its genetic and acquired scenarios. The plot stream of events is formed as the resultant of the attempts of all its participants to implement their own behavior scenarios, generated mainly automatically with the help of programs for processing all incoming information, which are formed from the moment of birth in each individual. On the basis of the story-game paradigm, the concept of causality is expanded to plot coherence, and it can be applied both in natural science and in the humanities. In the proposed model of communal reality, the rigid opposition of science and art is removed, since both there and here, as in ordinary life, we not only learn, discover, and observe something ‘from the outside’, but continuously reproduce, create the world and ourselves in it, regardless of our awareness of this fact; and the story-game picture of the Universe and its corresponding approach make it possible to realize the dependence of the ‘world plot’ on our ‘scenarios’ and games, to feel the responsibility for the future in each of our steps.

The article considers the problem of correlation of aesthetic form and social content in contemporary poetry through the prism of contemporary poetry criticism, in particular, the New Lyric Studies of 2008 (M. Perloff, Y. Prins, R. Terada, V. Jackson, etc.). A representation of the lyrics as a genre of poetry, in which historically structured subjectivism and identity of author are interrelated with poetic writing, is at the center of the New Lyric Studies. In this context the lyrics is relative and volatile but also is the closest genre to the poetic nature, that allows to merge an autonomous entity of poetry with ‘agendas’ in the poem, which were difficult to connect in either too formal or too contextual critical approaches to the poetry in the 20th century. This became possible in the conditions of New Lyric critics speaking up against a substitution of poetry and literary criticism for historical, anthropological and cultural criticism because of the high popularity of cultural studies in the 1990s and the ensuing incorporation of interdisciplinarity in literary studies. Despite the objective of New Lyric critics to revitalize a theoretical study of poetry in the spirit of academic criticism of the New Criticism, the modifications in the methods for producing, existence and broadcasting of poetry and therefore in poetry of the last 50 years, poetry itself prevented the New Lyric from becoming the regressive movement. Some representatives of the New Lyric Studies subsequently expressed the need to study poetry in terms of new historical poetics and to create different methods capable to analyze the relations between culture and poetic form – between the social and the aesthetic.

Having considered advantages and limitations of the New Lyric studies in the context of contemporary poetry discourse, reflecting not only the nature of contemporary criticism, but also perhaps the history of poetry criticism of 20-21th centuries, which is the dynamical coexistence and the mutual succession of different movements, the author draws a conclusion that this movement defines the right vector for the reconciliation of the long-standing struggle of formalism and contextualism in the poetry criticism as well as social and aesthetic components which poetic work includes.

The article considers the erotic genre of traditional Chinese art, chun gong hua (‘spring palace paintings’), which was developed in painting. The study uses comparative - historical, cultural and historical methods, as well as methods of systematization, analysis and synthesis. The author traces the formation and evolution of the genre, reveals its specific features. The paper analyzes the system of artistic images of the works of chun gong hua, reveals that they are based on the ideas of Taoism, which are visualized through painting, which made it possible to reveal a second, meaningful plan of paintings filled with metaphors and allegories. Particular attention is paid to the characterization of expressive means, specific techniques and visual techniques of the genre.

The study shows that due to the richness of images, artistic and expressive means and techniques, juxtaposition of the conditional and the real, double transformation of nature, the first impression of seemingly pornographic images of naked bodies and erotic scenes is subdued. The high artistry of the ‘spring palace paintings’ allows us to attribute them to the unique works of Chinese traditional art.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the functioning of metamodernism in the field of Russian contemporary art. Researchers of metamodernism talk about the revival of historicity, depth and affect that were lost with the era of postmodernism. Metamodernism is characterized by oscillation, metaxis, new sincerity, neo-romantic sensuality, reconstruction, etc. In this paper, the author attempts to analyze markers of metamodernism in the visual arts using the example of the artist Vitaly Pushnitsky (St. Petersburg). The material for the study was a research interview with the artist V. Pushnitsky, as well as a semiotic and formal-stylistic analysis of his works (2015-2020). The author comes to the conclusion that through such markers of metamodernism as oscillation, reconstruction and appeal to new sincerity, the artist V. Pushnitsky seeks to show the reality in which the artist is at the stage of searching for new artistic means of expression. Along with this, through certain compositional and color features, V. Pushnitsky pays tribute to such artists as Pierre-August Renoir, Claude Monet, Leonardo da Vinci, Francis Bacon, as well as the Japanese poet I. Kosugi.

In the article the author considers the problem of using art as the political power instrument. The subject of the study is the analysis of applied arts possibilities as a means of political propaganda and agitation, the necessary qualities and political views formation in a person. The material for the analysis is the Soviet propaganda porcelain of the 1920s. The choice of this material is caused, firstly, by its great visibility in the framework of the discussed problem, and, secondly, by the negative result of its use in real politics (at first sight, paradoxical). At present, Soviet propaganda porcelain is considered to be a “unique phenomenon” of Russian and world art. However, the main reason for its appearance at the beginning of the 20th century was not the search for new art forms. After coming to power in 1917, the Bolshevists faced the need to form political views of the citizens that were compatible with the party course — in general, to form a “new man” capable of living in a new society. On the one hand, porcelain was a random choice at that period of time (1920-s) but, on the other hand, people assigned specific characteristics to it as a type of applied art. And, therefore, they ascribed to it the possibilities of an instrument of political power. But at the same time using it in that capacity is greatly limited due to other specific properties, as well as due to other historical circumstances. The main reason for the failure of Soviet propaganda porcelain as the political propaganda and agitation means is the contradiction between the course of political power and the essence of porcelain as a phenomenon, i.e. inconsistency between the goal and the means to achieve it. In general, the author draws a conclusion that there is a difference between the goals of art and power and, as a consequence, the groundlessness of the power attempts to consider art exclusively as its own tool.

The article substantiates the existence of three types of poetic creativity: technimatic (gaming), social-confessional and sophian. The personal-subjective aspirations of poet and playing with the language are the sources of technimatic poetry. The social-confessional line in the world poetry originates from the Chinese “Shijin” (“The Book of Songs”). The source of this type of poetry is a deeply personal reaction on the events taking place in the world, and the need to inform other people about personal experiences, contemplations and thoughts. Particular attention in the article is paid to the sophian line in world poetry. Its source is the eidetic super-personal reality. The poet creatively “connects” himself with this reality and introduces the reader to it through artistically revealed word. The feeling of the super-personal status of the created verses is one of the important attributes of sophian poetry. Homer, Dante, Avicenna, Rumi, V. von Eschenbach, Li Bo, Goethe, Tagore, Rilke, D. Andreev and Iqbal can be attributed to it. In Russian poetry of the 19th – 20th centuries Pushkin and Lermontov, Tyutchev and V. Solovyov, Blok and Gumilyov adjoin the sofian poetic line; Leopardi and Hesse –in the eastern and western poetic tradition. Sophian poetry performs important functions in culture. It is able to return to the words their original living meanings, familiarizing themselves with the essence of things and with the super-empirical reality of Cosmos. It also opens up new evolutionary horizons for language and national literature. The position of the sofian poet is twofold, which gives his work intense dynamism, and his life a tragic character. He simultaneously lives in two worlds: earthly and super-mundane, sensual-bodily and eidetic-semantic. From the eidetic layers of world existence, he is forced to convey knowledge to other people in the words, images and metaphors available to them. At the same time the inspirations and insights of the sofian poet are always preceded by intense professional work, the humility of one’s pride and vain passions.

The article considers the phenomenon of augmented reality as a special hybrid reality and a part of social space. The author compares the differences in approaches to the interpretation of reality in philosophy, social theory and natural science. The provisions of phenomenological sociology are used as a methodological basis for the study. The author substantiates the necessity of conjugation of ontological and epistemological perspectives of interpretation of the “multilayer” social reality. The lack of concentration of attention in most studies on distinguishing these angles leaves the category of social reality on the periphery of the construction of social ontologies. And this is not a paradox, but a desire to avoid difficulties in choosing a research position when solving a problem of a certain class each time that arises: either to build ontological models of each layer of the social, or to re-enter into polemics about the permissible limits of avoiding solipsism.

The article shows one of the possible ways out of the vicious circle of polemics about the demarcation of ontology and epistemology by presenting the concepts of ‘social reality’ and ‘social actuality’ as a means of separating research angles. Their application makes it possible to establish that the environment formed by augmented reality is much more complex than it seems to the individual in his direct perception. It includes four spaces: 1) the objective world; 2) the mental world; 3) a hybrid world as a symbiosis of real and imaginary worlds; 4) symbiosis of fragments of the real world - torn apart in space and time and combined with the help of technologies in devices, which make it possible for an individual to be present while observing their combined existence and to operate with them. The author comes to the conclusion that this feature of the organization of space with the help of augmented reality implies the specificity of the changed social space in which individuals have to interact. There is a transformation of the basic ‘cell’ of society - the system of social interaction. It has been established that augmented reality technologies provide additional, qualitatively new opportunities for influencing individual pictures of the world. Augmented reality also complicates virtual reality, introducing, in addition to fictional characteristics, the content of practical actions. Augmented reality not only ‘comprehends’ the world, but is in direct practical contact with it, turning into a special side of constant reality. It was found that the interaction of augmented reality with social reality is reversible. Thanks to this process, social reality from ‘augmented’ reality is transformed into a ‘complex’ one, the qualitative determination of which can be designated as ‘hybrid social reality’. Its mode of existence is more complex than that of the human community, and is inaccessible to them as long as they retain the biological substrate of their corporeity. But no less significant consequence for social and anthropogenic transformation is the emergence in society of its new structural unit - a techno-subject, as an actor of a new species and a new agent that forms a hybrid society. It has been established that the user of augmented reality transforms the provided visual effects in his imagination into really (beyond imagination) existing things and phenomena (ontologization). A reverse movement also takes place - from illusions fixed in the imagination as objects (created by augmented reality), back to pure illusions (reverse hypostatization). The distinction between the observed and the hidden through the introduction of the concepts of social reality and social actuality makes it possible to discover a more complex structure of the social - its multi-layered nature, supplementing the ontology of social reality and, in particular, P. Donati’s relational theory of society, with ideas about such layers as actual and potential, virtual and valid. The article considers the possibility of extending the idea of ​​the heterarchical principle of the structure of society (developed in the works of I.V. Krasavin on the basis of the model of W. McCulloch) to the further development of the augmented reality ontology. The formation of space connections using AR technology is a continuation of the embodiment of the heterarchy principle, which brings the social structure beyond the structures of a constant society.