Historiosophical, geo-aesthetic, and existential concept of "Arabesques" by Nikolai Gogol: the philosophy and poetics of the four elements in "A Chapter from an Historical Novel" and the fragment "The Prisoner"

The book "Arabesques" by Nikolai Gogol was published in 1835. In literary criticism interpretation of fragments of literary texts, as opposed to full stories, which are included in the book, have traditionally attracted somewhat less attention of researchers. However, the role of these two passages - "A Chapter from an Historical Novel" and "The Prisoner" - is very significant. These are a kind of an intermediary that holds, on the one hand, artistic, philosophical and purely ideological aspects of "Arabesques", on the other hand - historiosophical and aesthetic discourses of the book. This is extremely representatively illustrated by the philosophy and poetics of the elements presented in the two fragments. In "A Chapter from an Historical Novel" Gogol refers to the individual, not to peoples, as in the previous article, "On the Middle Ages". The fragmented nature here reaches such proportions that a meeting by chance is seen as a manifestation of transcendental forces. People are forced to take responsibility for the transformation of the world (as opposed to the picture revealed in the article "On the Middle Ages"), but have no power over their own lives. Fragmentation of existential relations is reflected in the poetry of the elements. Fire, which here is the flames of hell, the mentioned elements of air and water convert the peasant who meets Lapchinsky into a monster paradoxically most connected with earth. Indeed, the most important concept with negative connotations is earth. Earth is rarely explicit; it is the essential basis of the narrative. The monolithic and unchanging element becomes unstable and deceptive here. Thus, in the individual-anthropological paradigm of "A Chapter from an Historical Novel" Being is close to the existential worldview, although the person is not the carrier of existential consciousness. As a result, the world appears a fundamentally unknowable phenomenon, "thing in itself', while the person's stay in it is characterized by the permanent sense of fear as the categorical basis of life. In the fragment of "The Prisoner" a person does not wander blindly - he is a prisoner, which is claimed the title of the passage. However, if history reigns on earth, the person is a nameless prisoner in every moment of history, and the laws of the universe are unknowable and, therefore, hostile, death reigns underground. But if you look into it, join it, the person will see the true meaning of secret forces that create the universe, the true meaning of "underground geography" in its highest cosmogonic function, metaphysical sense, which gives rise to all creativity. In one of his seemingly darkest texts Gogol states the original ontological perfection of the world and questions people's worthiness. These modifications are possible largely due to the polysemy of the philosophy and poetics of the four elements that are fundamental categories and the center of the author's Cosmos.

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