Leo Tolstoy's moralizing in context of ethical and aesthetic synthesis

Svetlana A Simonova,Alexei A Mikhailov,Tatiana V Shvetsova,Denis G Bronnikov,Marina A Shtanko

doi:10.34069/ai/2021.43.07.25

Abstract

The article examines the moralizing of Leo Tolstoy on the example of his theoretical ideas. The authors, examining their genesis, come to the conclusion that the writer formed his ideas under the influence of French enlighteners and sentimentalists, on the one hand, and absorbed the ethical dominant of Russian culture, on the other hand. The article analyzes the idea of absolutizing good, which runs through Tolstoy's entire aesthetic theory as a leitmotif. As a result of the study of the aesthetic views of the writer, it is concluded that Tolstoy understood the role of art solely as a translation of feelings and a means of communication. The writer deprives art of its aura of mystery and does not recognize the latter as a source of aesthetic pleasure and spiritual enrichment. The article analyzes the worldview of the writer, reveals the influence on him of the experience acquired by Tolstoy in childhood and adolescence. Tolstoy's works of art and theoretical views are another example of the fact that the artist's worldview does not always coincide with his work.

Highlights

Rehabilitation and new substantiations of the essence of spiritual values are in demand, the basis of which is the synthesis of ontology, ethics and aesthetics
We aim to identify the origins and specific features of Leo Tolstoy's moralizing based on an analysis of his aesthetic theory
Leo Tolstoy, realizing that the idea of synthesis comes from the thinkers of antiquity, accuses the Greeks of the backwardness of ignorance and naivety: “The Greeks themselves were so poorly morally developed that goodness and beauty seemed to coincide, and on this backward worldview of the Greeks the science of aesthetics, invented people of the XVIII century and specially dressed in theory by Baumgarten” (Tolstoy, 1985: 178)

Summary

Introduction

Rehabilitation and new substantiations of the essence of spiritual values are in demand, the basis of which is the synthesis of ontology, ethics and aesthetics. Researcher Paramonov spoke about modern culture in the following way: today, the value of a person is no longer what is due, for modernity the given is paramount and present (Paramonov, 1999: 6). The European tradition, in the destruction of the ancient synthesis of truth, goodness and beauty, alternately carried out the absolutization of the epistemological, ethical or aesthetic aspects of spiritual unity, which has led today to quite negative consequences. In Russian culture, it is ethics that traditionally passes through the whole philosophy and works of art as a leitmotif. Astafiev notes: “Our people are least of all a legal or political people, to a very weak degree - socioeconomic and in the highest degree - moral and moral-religious” (Astafiev, 1996: 95)

Materials and methods

Results and discussion

Conclusion