Andrieva Niedras prozas varoņu reliģisko uzskatu pārmaiņas

Abstract

At the turn of the 19th /20th century, in an era of transition (fin de siècle), both social and economic processes, as well as aspects of education and spiritual culture, change. At the turn of the 19th/20th century, several authors focused on the solution of religious issues, Jānis Poruks (1871–1924) wrote the essay “Nākotnes Reliģija” (Religion of Future) (1894), Andrievs Niedra (1871–1942) published a series of articles in the magazine “Austrums” (1905), religious issues have been addressed in several writers’ prose. Niedra believes that he has found the key to the religious problem of the transition era. Religious ideals are the signposts that mark the course of human development, and religion is the promulgator of people’s life assignments. Art, religion, and virtue are transformed similarly; this transformation is determined by the solitary or collective individual’s heredity and environment. The religious views of the characters of Niedra’s prose (the stories “The Feeble Soul” (Nespēcīgā Dvēsele), “The Fourth Fellow” (Ceturtais Biedrs), “Without One’s Past” (Bez paša pagātnes), the novel “In the Smokes of a Clearing” (Līduma dūmos), etc.) are based on personalism as a direction of philosophy in the second half of the 19th century, Gustav Teichmüller (1850–1937), Alexey Kozlov (1831–1901), Lev Lopatin (1855–1920), Jēkabs Osis (1860–1919), Haralds Biezais (1909–1995), Voldemārs Maldonis (1870–1941), Kārlis Kundziņš (1850–1937), Alberts Freijs (1903– 1968). The aim of the article is to reveal the religious views of the characters of Niedra’s prose and their change at the turn of the 19th/20th century. The descriptive, comparative, psychoanalytical, and anthropological methods are used.