“To Think and to Suffer” as the Meaning of Life

Abstract

This article analyzes the philosophy of Alexander Pushkin through the prism of his formulation “to think and to suffer.” The material for this analysis is Pushkin’s lyric poetry, his novel in verse Eugene Onegin, and his cycle of plays The Little Tragedies. Pushkin’s works contain a tragic world view embodied in the deep structures of his texts, which therefore remain hidden to the general reader in their general tone of “light sadness.” The irresolvable contradictions of life are reflected in his work as suffering, which requires the author and his protagonists to solve and overcome it in their consciousness (a comprehension of the tragic nature of being). The transformation of suffering into thinking about suffering is a universal mechanism for “relieving” suffering and a stimulus for an individual’s moral self-improvement, for him to discover the meaning of life and human dignity. At the same time, the suffering that belongs to the world of “low truths” can, through philosophical reflection, rise to the level of universal human issues: socioeconomic, moral-aesthetic, spiritual-erotic, and existential. Once comprehended, suffering thus extends beyond the trials of a particular individual and reveals the overall pattern of the global universe.