Boris Pasternak: “In Everything I Want to Get to the Very Essence”

Abstract

The article considers the poetic heritage of B.L. Pasternak in the paradigm of the unity of philosophy and literary creativity as a peculiarity of Russian culture. The author demonstrates that dominant feature of Pasternak’s works is “syncretism of the picturer and the pictured” and argues that the basis of this syncretism is in the unity of thought and feeling, of reflection and mental mood, metaphors and artistic associations, poetic language and symbolic forms; and each time this unity takes its own special, unique forms. This aesthetic polyphonism has its own meaning and value basis. Early Pasternak was influenced by Russian symbolism, by its interpretation of creativity as knowledge and by the interpretation of knowledge as creativity as well as the idea of harmony between these two manifestations of human spirit. The author demonstrates that the foundation of this poetic credo is in the recognition of life as the medium of beauty and harmony, this credo allowed him to see universal meanings that unite people in a torn world, to save “his face as a poet” in spite of all the misfortunes of his personal fate and the tragic events of his time.