Abstract
The purpose of the article is to study the different aspects of Leo Tolstoy’s phenomenon in the diary discourse of Mikhail Prishvin, a Russian prose-writer, thinker/sophist and artist of a unique range, who lived through the tragic Russian history in the first half of the twentieth century. Prishvin’s diaries represent a unique chronicle of the difficult epoch, a lively, subjective and at the same time inherently veracious evidence of historical time. A great deal of attention is paid to the writer’s reflections on creative originality, philosophical and moral principles of many Russian and European prose-writers and poets, who considerably influenced Prishvin’s creative method, his artistic philosophy and aesthetic distinction. Leo Tolstoy occupies a special place in the domain of the writer’s internal dialogues, being the center of Prishvin’s reflection, a symbolic figure, whose creative life became a special link between the cultural paradigm of the classical literature of the XIX century and the emerging trends of the Russian philosophical and artistic modernism. Throughout his life, Prishvin was concerned about Tolstoy’s phenomenon, his ideas and life paradoxes. Prishvin tries to unravel “Tolstoy’s mystery” – the mystery of a brilliant artist, essay writer, philosopher, and preacher, agreeing and at the same time disagreeing with the most significant principles of his world perception. Prishvin does not accept him as a moralist and a preacher, claiming that the writer cannot “abandon art”. He has to serve only his creative gift. In Prishvin’s diaries Tolstoy is the artist who portrays people as they are in a crucial historical moment, because even being under delusion he has always served the truth, understanding life as a great integrity. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n5s4p27
Highlights
Mikhail Prishvin’s diaries introduce the writer’s internal dialogues with the most outstanding representatives of the national literature
The reader observes the author’s philosophy of how he daily conceptualizes the “restless Russian being” during the first half of the XX century which is represented by people, facts and events
The central place in this chronicle is given to the Russian literature, the national writers who embody the Russian culture, belonging to a special kind of people who “... do not write with a pen but plough through the paper, piercing it, turning over the black earth onto the white sheets
Summary
Mikhail Prishvin’s diaries introduce the writer’s internal dialogues with the most outstanding representatives of the national literature. The problem of the dialogue between Prishvin and Tolstoy is significant for the understanding of Prishvin’s artistic strategies, as his own reflections on “the great Leo’s” life and ouevre clarify many invariants of his own mental search, his philosophemes which often determine both explicit and implicit meanings and values depicted in the prose of different genres. In his mental disputes with Tolstoy, Prishvin defines complex concepts about the meaning of art, the genesis of artistic gift and the possibility to communicate through words the essential ontological foundations of the Russian world. The third person effect engenders new impulses and unexpected turns in the analysis of certain issues which are vitally important to Prishvin and for a deeper comprehension of his artistic world perception
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