Abstract
“Love is the eminence grise of history”, – once one of the greats of the past said. Few doubt that history is driven by human, more or less conscious interests – economic, political, religious, etc. As for feelings, passions and instincts, their role in the historical process is not so obvious, particularly of those that are connected with policy or economy indirectly. The objective necessity to rehabilitate the position of Eros in the political life of 18th-century Russia determines the significance of the current research. The article aims to analyse how the feeling of love and/or the underpinning instincts of procreation and self-preservation affect the political life and the course of history. The most important task is to examine some of the poetic texts of the 18th – early 19th centuries, the authors of which are the part of this still non-trivial historiosophical paradigm. So, it is mainly going to be about love, but not always – about love poems. The novelty of the conducted research lies in the fact that mythological and political issues of Anacreonic poetry have already become the matter of literary criticism [1, 2], while the hidden historiosophical senses have been still neglected. Certain creative works of the 18th-century poets: M.V. Lomonosov, G.R. Derzhavin, S.S. Bobrov served as research material. The practical significance of the investigation consists in the fact that the results can be used for further studying of 18th-century literature and historiosophical problems as well as to develop special courses in historical poetry.
Highlights
The first ideas known to human culture in which the history is associated with love – either of mating “pairs” of elements, or gods, or a god and a man; or with the division of a bisexual being into two halves, are reflected in marriage myths [3]
As for feelings, passions and instincts, their role in the historical process is not so obvious, of those that are connected with policy or economy indirectly
The objective necessity to rehabilitate the position of Eros in the political life of 18th-century Russia determines the significance of the current research
Summary
The first ideas known to human culture in which the history (its beginning, the creation of the world) is associated with love – either of mating “pairs” of elements (the Heaven – the Earth), or gods, or a god and a man; or with the division of a bisexual being (androgynous) into two halves, are reflected in marriage myths [3]. The prehistoric era includes the myths and legends about the Great (Goddess) Mother (Nature) as the source of all existance as well as the embodiment of creative, constructive, and female origin in nature [4, 5] These archaic historiosophemes will receive the second life in a number of poetic genres of the XVIII century. About Love as a goddess or a force that controls the processes of birth (fusion of “female” with “male”) and development of world, thought “the senior physics” (Parmenides, V century BC) and “the junior physics” (Empedocles, V century BC) [6] These semiscientific, semi-mythological ideas received the second birth in the Renaissance In the XVIII century the complex of these ideas would be meaningful to the masons and would be reflected in their literary works
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