SCIENTIFIC AND EDUCATIONAL SOCIETY FOR CULTURAL STUDIES
SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION OF CULTURE RESEARCHERS

Culture of culture

Scientific peer-reviewed electronic periodical
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Hypotheses:

THE THEORY OF CULTURE

E.A. Orlova. The anthropological foundations of scientific knowledge

 

Discussions:

IN SEARCH OF THE MEANING OF HISTORY AND CULTURE (A.Ya. Flier's section)

A.V. Kostin, A.Ya. Flier. Ternary functional model of culture (continued)

N.A. Khrenov. Russian culture at the turn of the XIX–XX centuries: the Gnostic "Renaissance" in the context of symbolism (continued)

V.M. Rozin. Some features of modern art

V.I. Ionesov. Memory of things in images and plots of cultural introspection

 

Analytics:

CULTURAL REFLECTIONS

A.Ya. Flier. Social and organizational functions of culture

M.I. Kozyakova. The Ancient cosmos and its evolution: ritual, spectacle, entertainment

N.A. Malshina. The post-non-classical paradigm in the study of the Russian cultural industry: A new type of rationality and value system

N.A. Khrenov. A Century later: the tragic experience of Soviet Culture (continued)


Announcement of the next issue

 


Nikolay Andreevich Khrenov,
Doctor of Philosophy, Professor,
All-Russian State University
of Cinematography named after S.A. Gerasimov,
e-mail: nihrenov@mail.ru

Russian Culture at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries:
the Gnostic "Renaissance" in the context of symbolism

(continued)

Abstract. The article is devoted not so much to such a significant artistic trend in the history of Russian art of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as symbolism, but rather to the rebirth within its boundaries of a whole worldview characteristic of the era of the extinction of ancient culture. This worldview at that time manifested itself simultaneously in religious and philosophical forms. The philosophy of antiquity, having already freed itself from religion in the era of the "ancient Enlightenment", i.e. in the era when Plato and Aristotle worked, returned to religion again, but most importantly, it was fragmented into several schools or directions. One of these trends was Gnosticism, which in the second century of the new era reached such a high point of development that it became a competitor to early Christianity. However, history developed in such a way that in the subsequent period Christianity came to the fore and began to spread throughout the world. It was Christianity that did everything to make Gnosticism forgotten. On the one hand, it pushed the Gnostics into unofficial spheres, into sects, protecting itself from their influence, and, on the other, it dissolved the Gnostic teaching in itself. This is how Christian Gnosticism or Gnosticism in its Christian forms arose. Since the second half of the nineteenth century, humanity has entered a transitional period of cultural development, characterized by the rehabilitation of the early layers of culture pushed to the periphery and forgotten (archaic, medieval, Byzantine, Oriental, etc.). This process is evidenced by Russian art, which from the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries begins to experience what some designate as the Slavic artistic Renaissance. Calling this period in art the "Renaissance", they meant by the beginning of the rise of Russian art something similar to the Western Renaissance of the XV – XVI centuries. However, these processes cannot be reduced solely to art. Apparently, since both religion and philosophy are becoming more active during this period, this era in the history of Russian art should already be called a "cultural renaissance". The innovations that were taking place in the art of that time and, in particular, the emergence of symbolism in its domestic version, were associated with philosophy. Thus, the symbolists themselves believed that their ideas and images were due to the philosophy of V. Solovyov. Indeed, it was this Russian mystic philosopher who did a lot to rehabilitate Gnostic ideas in Russia. Ideas of V.Solovyov was largely determined by the interest of symbolists in Gnostics. Although, of course, the worldview of the Gnostics, convinced that the world lies in evil, returned in addition to philosophy and art, simply as a mood spreading in different strata of society. It was some kind of premonition of those catastrophes in the form of an incipient chain reaction of revolutions and wars, during which millions of people died. It seemed that evil had reached its peak in the new century. To express this mood, the ideas of the Gnostics were first used, and then this mood was expressed in the philosophy of existentialism. Bearing in mind the revival of Gnosticism since the end of the nineteenth century, including those of its forms that reached the twentieth century in the form of sects, the author designates these manifestations using the concept of "underground", which has been actively breaking into Russian art since the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and also continues to make itself felt, including throughout the last century.

Keywords: symbolism, gnosticism, gnosis, underground, rejected knowledge, the Golden Age, sects, existentialism, Hermeticism, theosophy, anthroposophy, East, Buddhism, Christianity, Slavic cultural Renaissance, Western Renaissance, transcendental, chiliasm, V. Solovyov, F. Schelling, S. Baudelaire, D. Merezhkovsky, A. Bely, V. Bryusov, A. Blok, A. Schopenhauer, F. Nietzsche, A. Kozyrev, I. Evlampiev, N. Berdyaev, A. Etkind, P. Gaidenko.

 

[94] Kozyrev A. Decree. op. c. 22.
[95] Ibid., p. 35.
[96] Rozanov V. The Apocalyptic sect (Khlysty and Skoptsy). – St. Petersburg. 1914. p. 46.
[97] Ibid. p. 56.
[98] Gaidenko P. Decree. op. c. 128.
[99] Bely A. Symbolism as a worldview. M.: Republic. 1994. p. 210.
[100] Dams. Against the Gnostics // Gnostics or about "false knowledge". Kiev: Ucimm - Press. 1997. pp. 202-230.
[101] Berdyaev N. Theosophy and anthroposophy in Russia. Decree. op. p. 234.
[102] Sologub F. Poems. St. Petersburg: Academic Project Humanitarian Agency. 2000. p. 178.
[103] Sologub F. Collected works in 20 volumes 5. Climbing. Poems. St. Petersburg: Sirin. 1913.
[104] Hansen-Levet A. Decree. op. p. 129.
[105] Sologub F. Poems. St. Petersburg: Humanitarian Agency "Academic project". 2000. p. 267.
[106] Bryusov V. Collected works. Vol. 1. Decree. op. p. 101.
[107] Hansen-Levet A. Decree. op. p. 61.
[108] Balmont K. Poems in 7 volumes. Vol. 1. M.: "Terra". 2010. pp. 60, 88.
[109] Minsky N. Decree. op.
[110] Hansen-Levet A. Decree. op. p. 89.
[111] Ibid., p. 245.
[112] Dams. Decree. op. p. 208.
[113] Etkind A. Khlyst (Sects, literature and revolution). M.: New literary vision. 1998. p. 197.
[114] Merezhkovsky D. Poems and poems. St. Petersburg: Academic Project Humanitarian Agency. 2000. p. 473.
[115] Ibid., p. 473.
[116] Ibid., p. 334.
[117] Ibid., p. 470.
[118] Merezhkovsky D. L. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Eternal companions. M.: Republic. 1995. p. 362.
[119] Panchenko A. The Silver Age and the death of Russia // Lectures and reports of members of the Russian Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg State University (1993 - 2013). In 3 volumes. Vol. 3. St. Petersburg. 2013. p. 527.
[120] Cicero M. Tusculan conversations. Book 1. On contempt for death. 1885. Odessa. p. 25.
[121] Merezhkovsky D. L. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. . Decree. op. p. 362.
[122] Mamardashvili M. Categories of social being and the method of its analysis in Sartre's existentialism // Modern existentialism. Critical essays. M. 1966. pp. 149-150.
[123] Merab Konstantinovich Mamardashvili. Series "Philosophy of Russia of the second half of the twentieth century". Moscow: Russian Political Encyclopedia (ROSSPEN). pp. 319-348. pp. 328.
[124] Kozyrev A. Decree. op. p. 12.
[125] Hansen-Levet A. Russian symbolism. A system of poetic motifs. Early symbolism. M. : Humanitarian agency "Academic project". St. Petersburg. 1999. p. 114.
[126] Literary heritage. Vol. 85. Valery Bryusov. M.: Science. 1976. p. 40.

 

 

ISSN 2311-3723

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