Image of ‘Holy Russia’ in A. Blok’s Poem “The Twelve”: Experience of Linguistic Hermeneutics

Abstract

The research is devoted to of A. Blok’s poem “The Twelve”. The novelty of the study lies in the application of a linguo-hermeneutic approach to the interpretation of the poem and the appeal to its insufficiently studied aspect — the ideologeme “Holy Russia”. The relevance of the work is due to the attention to the poem that has not weakened to date, due to both its content and the originality of the language. A review of the scientific literature on the selected issue is given, demonstrating a predominantly literary interest in the poem. The specificity of the linguistic hermeneutics of a literary text, focused on the maximum approximation to the author's intention, is briefly formulated. The necessity of addressing linguistic hermeneutics to biographical and cultural-historical materials is substantiated. The main research methods were structural-semantic analysis and analysis of intra-textual paradigmatic relations. It is shown that the opposition of Holy Russia and the new world is marked by various linguistic and figurative means. Semantically inverted intertextual connections between Petrukha and the Apostle Peter are demonstrated. It is concluded that Holy Russia is the only serious opponent of the new world. It is suggested that the transformed values of Holy Russia will become an element of the future Russian culture.