The Apophatic Dimension of Color in B. Zaitsev's Stories “Mist” and “White Light”: Its Ontological and Cultural Aspects

Abstract

This article is timed to coincide with the 140th anniversary of the birth of the Russian writer B. Zaitsev and it is devoted to the apophatic dimension of Russian artistic culture, namely, the phenomenon of color in the stories “Mist” and “White Light”, which are included in the collection “White Light” (1922). The works are analyzed from a cultural-philosophical point of view. The research object in its widest sense is the apophatic dimension of verbal culture, manifested through a thanatological discourse and liminal states of the heroes, expressed by the author through a special color. Death is a priori apophatic, but this does not mean that its meaning cannot be approached. The focus is on the colors “white” and “black”, which are used by Zaitsev in a dominant and symbolic sense: white correlates with Light, and black – with Darkness. Both colors are considered from cultural-philosophical positions not only as achromatic, but also as apophatic: black enters into a paradigmatic relationship with white, spiritualizing it – to use the terms of the anthroposophical teaching, known to the writer. The ontogermeneutical reconstruction of the ethos of life and death in these stories allows us to approach the apophatic horizon of Russian verbal culture. This study gives the reader a holistic cultural and philosophical understanding of the phenomenon of color in the stories of B. Zaitsev. The main images, their nature and functions in the work are discussed. The results obtained may be of interest both to cultural scientists for the subsequent social and philosophical analysis of the phenomenon of color, and to philologists studying the poetics of B. Zaitsev.