The article examines the question of the nature, origins and content of the humanistic worldview of I. Dedkov, a literary critic. The author polemicizes with the existing views on this issue and offers his own approach to solving it using specific empirical material. From the author's point of view, the origins of Dedkov's humanistic worldview can be found in russian classical philosophy and russian pre-revolutionary philosophy. In addition, as it follows from the textual analysis of various verbal sources, including his epistolary heritage, diaries, literary and critical articles, I. Dedkov was strongly influenced by russian and Western European existentialism. The main purpose of this article is to reconstruct Dedkov's worldview in its dynamics and development, and to determine his relation to the marxist philosophy and communist worldview that prevailed at the time. This article demonstrates a gradual but systematic trend in the transformation of the literary critic's worldview from the dominance of stalinist elements in Dedkov's social, political, and philosophical views to overcoming them and to formaing free and independent perception of reality. The main methods the author relies on are the elements of system analysis, induction and deduction, analysis and synthesis, biographical approach, discursive and narrative analysis. As a result of this work the author of the article was able to reconstruct the main elements and features of I. Dedkov's humanistic worldview, as reflected in his biography and literary and critical work. The author used I. Dedkov's hitherto unpublished letters stored at the I. A. Dedkov Interregional scientific and educational center at Kostroma state university as a source for writing this article.