Kierkegaard’s key to the “mysterious tales” by Ivan Turgenev: Once again on the composition of the unassembled cycle

The article considers one of the possible variants of the cycle-forming beginning of Turgenev’s “mysterious tales”, namely, the motif of the hero’s anxiety. The analysis showed that there are grounds to talk about a similar function of the motif in a number of stories: the state of anxiety invariably occurs in the hero on the eve of contact with the unreal, inexplicable. At the same time, in the future, unreal phenomena may remain in the realm of the incomprehensible, otherworldly, infernal (“Ghosts”, “Dream”, “Song of Triumphant Love”, “The Story of Father Alexy”). They may be explained quite realistically (“Knocks”, “The Story of Lieutenant Ergunov”) or may not fully reveal their nature (“Faust”, “Knocks Knocks Knock!..”, “A Strange Story”, “Klara Milich”). We define the state of the hero precisely as “anxiety” in the context of Kierkegaard’s philosophy. According to the philosopher, anxiety “fears” and at the same time enters into secret interaction with the object of its fear, cannot turn away from it, and will never do it. Anxiety, according to Kierkegaard, is associated with the prospect of realizing one’s freedom, the opportunities that have emerged - with an unknown, frightening, but also attractive space. This ambivalence is its main distinction from the objective, situational fear. Researcher of the psychology of emotions Caarroll E. Izard, following Kierkegaard, characterizes anxiety as a result of the interaction of “interest with fear”, noting at the same time that anxiety is a combination of several discrete emotions. In addition to the key emotion of fear, sadness, shame, and guilt can be involved in experiencing anxiety. Taking into account all of the above, but first of all as a result of a specific analysis of Turgenev’s works, we found out what exactly makes it possible to determine the state of the heroes as anxiety. The recurring motif of anxiety is proposed to be considered as one of the possible cycle-forming factors. We conclude that this motif contributes to the convergence of works with various substantiations of the unreal, found both in tales with undeniably mystical plots, and in works where the mystical is not so obvious. The common semantic “denominator” in this case becomes the idea of a person’s potential readiness to meet with the otherworldly, and, perhaps, of an unconscious acceptance of the very possibility of the presence of the unreal. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.

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