European civilization is based on the continuous conflict between the awareness of the universally valid laws, on the one hand, and the experience or requirements of the individual, on the other. This conflict is the source of the genre of tragedy. Modern era is characterized by the always stronger defense of the individual rights. The fact that even the strict rule of general requirements could not overshadow the individual voice is demonstrated by the example of Russian literature of the revolutionary period (A. Platonov, I. Babel, M. Tsvetaeva, V. Shklovsky).
Literary history commonly grounds itself in the heritage of philosophical positivism. It is not only its predilection for facts, but also a belief that the facts themselves can provide for the contours of syntheses and concepts of major styles and genres. The era of symbolism marked the renewed interest in philosophical hermeneutics, and, consequently, the realization that empirical knowledge is structured by a ground of a-priori assumptions (the rehabilitation of “prejudice”). This ground gave rise to a series of major concepts, the best known of which are Ferdinand Saussure’s “langue” and “parole”, but there are many more of similar pairs: Viktor Shklovsky “story” (fabula) and “plot” (syuzhet), Jan Mukařovský’s “semantic gesture” and “structure”, or Yury Tynianov’s “tightness of a verse line” and “syntax”. In the field of philosophy it is Arnold Toynbee’s pair of terms “challenge” and “answer”. Husserl’s concept of “Lebenswelt” is the most important explication of this approach in philosophy.
In order to describe the literary processes in the era of symbolism and the following decades it is important to realize that next to the avant-gard movements there is also the trend of the „anti-modern modernism“ (Milan Kundera). Against the emancipatory ideas of the avant-garde (following in the line of European Illumination) there is the continuation of Romantic cosmic visions. The author sees Osip Mandelstam, Andrei Platonov, and Marina Cvetaeva as rare representatives of this line in Russia. They see the Russian Revolution as a cosmic element (rather than a political event), the human being as torn between the perception of the immediate data of consciousness, and the feeling of cosmic movements. The implications of this vision are examined in more detail in the works and poetics of Marina Cvetaeva.
The problem of identity, which was felt by every society, acquired a systematic form during the modern era. The identity of modern Europe in comparison to the Ancient culture had become the topic of reflection. Such reflections turned into the philosophy of history, particularly in German idealism (Fr. Schiller, G. W. Fr. Hegel, Fr. W. J. Schelling), through the comparison of classic epic and modern novel, and the ancient tragedy with the tragedy of Shakespeare. European identity was identified with the rationalism and individualism of “modernity”. In contrast to this, conceptions based on the neo-platonic idea of cosmos appeared. These were typical of Russian philosophy, which emphasized the idea of salvation in “sobornost” (A. S. Khomyakov) and “mystic anarchism” (Vyacheslav Ivanov). In the 20th century, the so-called Eurasianism formulated a new concept of the identity of the space originally controlled by the Russian empire, not as the place of the redemptory fulfillment of history, but identity based on the idea of the eternal movement and fight.
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