<i>Miraculous</i> in Russian Semantics of the 11<sup>th</sup>-18<sup>th</sup> Centuries: the Evolution of Socially Significant Distinctions

Abstract

The phenomenon of the miraculous cannot be removed from human existence, no matter how much its presence contradicts the arguments of reason, legislation, or common sense. Its attractiveness for philosophical reflection has been evident since the ancient classics (4th century BC), when the very phenomenon of admiration was considered the root cause of knowledge by Plato and Aristotle. The miraculous turns out to be semantically interconnected with religious communication, understood as the observation of the unknown, inexpressible, inaccessible within the familiar (N. Luhmann), including its naming and classification. This study is devoted to identifying the basic sociocultural differences and their dynamics associated with the lexeme miracle in the Russian context of the 11th–18th centuries based on the analysis of written sources. Tracing the evolution of the semantics of the miraculous, identifying the criteria for assigning such a characteristic to a certain phenomenon and the value assessment of what was called a miracle, the following trends are revealed. On the one hand, it is a differentiation from religious communication, which distinguishes between true and false miracles depending on the origin (for example, the Christian God or the Magi, fortune tellers, sorcerers, etc.). On the other hand, there is an increase in the complexity of the phenomenon itself, acquiring by the end of the 18th century various communication features. These are true/false miracles in religion; legal/ illegal in the field of state regulation of public life (starting with the legislation of Peter the Great); miracle as superstition, deceit and quackery for selfish purposes, i.e. marginal communication, contrary to science, morality, law and the ideals of the Enlightenment as the worldview of the elites; as a historical and cultural phenomenon (in works related to the history, ethnography and folklore that are emerging in Russia); as an artistic mean (functional element) in literature.