O.E. Mandelstam’s Works in the Context of Russian Modernist Philosophy and Artistic Practice

Abstract

The article proposes a philosophical interpretation of the poetic heritage of O.E. Mandelstam. The approach to characterizing the artistic experience of the Russian poet, through the prism of the philosophy of creativity and the philosophy of culture, seems to be significant and productive. This position is substantiated by the fact that in modern scientific literature there are still few works in which Mandelstam’s poetry would be elucidated within the framework of the philosophy of Russian culture and the ontology of creativity. In the article, Mandelstam’s creative phenomenon is shown in connection with the aesthetic program of artistic modernism. The philosophical foundations of Russian modernism are rooted in theissue of the spiritual self-awareness of Russian culture. Since Russian modernism reflects the transformation of artistic and spiritual culture that took place in Russia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the author tries to highlight and analyze the leading philosophical and aesthetic principles of Symbolism and Acmeism, discussed by poets of the Russian Silver Age. Special attention is given to Mandelstam’s theoretical works. The cultural-philosophical analysis makes it possible to trace the internal relationships between aesthetic attitudes and the artistic imagination of Russian Symbolists and Acmeists, to determine the specifics of the aesthetic self-awareness of Russian culture, its practices in selecting ideas, symbols, images of national and world artistic culture in the early 20th century. The author describes the logic of the continuity of the artistic ideas of Russian and world literature in the aesthetic concept of Mandelstam. In order to demonstrate the close connection of the philosophical and aesthetic ideas of classical culture with postclassics, the research brings together literary, philosophical and memoir sources in the context of the heritage of Mandelstam and the poets of his circle.