Erich Auerbach: <i>Historical Typology</i> in the era of post-history

Abstract

Following the Russian publication of a comprehensive commented collection of Auerbach’s works entitled Historical Typology [Istoricheskaya tipologiya] (2022), the article discusses the problems of the German philologist’s legacy both in retrospect and with a look into the future. The choice of the angle comes from the fact that Soviet scholars were cut off from the wealth of the scholarly-humanitarian, historical-cultural, and philosophical traditions and factors that (especially those typical of Germany) largely defined Auerbach’s historical-philological thinking and, by the same token, that a certain inaccessibility of his books and articles has long frustrated contemporary Russian philologists and other scholars in the humanities. Given the renewed interest in Auerbach’s theory and method in the West in the last decades (upon the end of the modern era in the last century), the author concludes that his practical reconsideration of the traditional meaning of historicism and historicity and especially his understanding of what falls under the modern term of interdisciplinarity indicates considerable research and learning potential for humanities scholars.