Иван Гончаров и Лев Толстой: человечность в русской классике как философская проблема

Abstract

The article develops an approach to the philosophical interpretation of the works of Ivan Goncharov and Leo Tolstoy. The analysis of a literary text is un­dertaken as an effort to understand humanity, as a reflection in the context of philosophical anthropology: what is humanity? Is it possible to preserve it? The tragic experience of the 20th century has set many thinkers and writers against the myths about humanity, which Goncharov and Tolstoy were accused of creating, and put almost any discussion about it on the verge of posturing and cynicism. However, the very ability of a person to question the humanity and seek it, the ability to protest against his demythologized reality, suggests that a person is not equal to his circumstances, that his reality is not ex­hausted by empiricism. With a myth, he expresses and defends his humanity. The works of Goncharov and Tolstoy are interpreted in the article as myth-making, protecting humanity. Special attention is paid to mythological fantasy and the problem of the reality of myth-making, it is proved that the myth is not a fiction, but an autonomous reality. Humanity is understood as the meeting of everyday life and myth in this sense of the word, the living of an empirical life in association with the mythological reality of Goncharov and Tolstoy. Thus, the appeal to the myth-making of Russian classics becomes an aid to such philosophical anthropology and such humanism that would not ignore the tragedies of the century as something already past, but would not refuse to talk about humanity (hoping to preserve it only in mournful silence). The re­ality of the myth of humanity is created in spite of the inhuman reality: in this creativity and thanks to it, a person finds himself.