Conceptualization of the Fear of Non-Being in the Book About War “My Lieutenant” by Daniil Granin (on Actualization of Universal Binary Oppositions)

Abstract

The concept of war represented in the composition of D. Granin's book, introduces a number of universal binary oppositions. The most significant ones are war and peace, good and evil, life and death, being and non-being. The war is considered as a monstrous crime against humanity destroying human in a human being. Substantiality conflict reveals the deep opposition of the individual and the state system. The concept of war is associated in Granin's book with the comprehension of some existential problems. The author explores the fear of non-being as a state in which a person is aware of the possibility of his non-existence, a state of something absorbing and disembodying human in a human being. The origin of the fear of non-being is not in the transient nature of everything, but in the awareness of the inevitability of his own death, understanding his own mortality, his eschatology. At war, death is always just around the corner. It changes the perception of the world, shows the fragility of human life, makes one feel and appreciate every moment, and at the same time devalues life as an act of existence. The fear of death at war becomes all-consuming, raising the questions of human behaviour in the face of death. Every time a human being faces death, he behaves in a different way, but according to Granin, the fear of non-being defines human identity and his willingness to meet eternity. Taking away a human life like an arbiter is a point of no return to the inner self. Those who have experienced the fear of non-being, those who have been on the edge of life and death, cannot return to their former inner world, they become aliens in it, doomed for eternal wandering in another reality. According to Granin, overcoming the fear of non-being leads to the awareness of the world's and human eternity, to the faith in the creation of the world, to the eternal life and God's infinite mercy.