Folklore as sublimation of «soul dialectic» in understanding the stranger («Hadji Murad» by L.N. Tolstoy)

Abstract

In fact, in the works of L.N. Tolstoy has the best examples of the application of the "dialectic of the soul" to a person of a certain social origin ("Landowner's Morning"), a person of another sex (parting episode in "Anna Karenina"), even a horse ("Screen meter"). However, the understanding of a person of another religion, of another nationality ended up being perhaps the most difficult task. And even in Hadji Murad, the "dialectic of the soul" in its classical expression, when understanding a person, has no other ethnic-confessional culture. Using specific textual examples, we show the possibilities of the Caucasus folk system to describe the protagonist's inner world, understanding the basic meanings of his acts of life. Thus, "Hadji Murad" made a major breakthrough in the psychological portrait of a person of a different national, cultural and religious affiliation, which can hardly be compared to any work of other writers of the nineteenth century.