"From Human to Humanity": Philosophical reflection of human nature in the essays of Sergey Zalygin

In the few scientific studies devoted to the works of Sergey Zalygin, the author's concept of a Human is presented indirectly, in the analysis of the poetics and problematics of the writer's prose. The principles of people representation and the images of Zalygin's characters are analyzed mainly in the context of the author's natural philosophy, in which the writer comprehends the relationship between a Human and Nature, the natural in a Human. This trend continues in recent studies of Zalygin's work in Russia and abroad. This makes it necessary to reconstruct the system of the writer's worldview representations about a Human, expressed in the direct word of his publicistic essays. As the analysis shows, the problem of human nature entered Zalygin's field of view in his publicistic writings as he moved beyond a narrowly social understanding of a Human, beginning in the early 1960s with the publication of his article "The Writer and Siberia" in Novyy Mir (1961, No. 10). His system of ideas about a Human developed in the direction of a universal philosophical anthropology-a holistic theoretical concept of a Human that comprehensively describes their essence and being in the world. The writer's philosophical anthropology is positivist, considering a Human as a natural being whose emergence and evolution are determined by natural laws. Genetically connected to nature, and possessing reason, a Human distinguishes oneself from the natural environment and creates their own, supra-organic world. However, in doing so, a Human loses the harmony of natural existence inherent in other living species. The fact that, in the process of evolution, a Human has become a powerful geological force, extending its impact on a global scale and threatening the balance of the universe as a whole, led Zalygin to formulate his program for the ethical correction of human existence. The writer's concept is characterized by a dualistic opposition within a Human of benign and malignant principles: on the one hand, a Human is virtuous and aspires to achieve the good; on the other, they diverge from this goal, exhibiting aggression and self-destruction. According to Zalygin, human destructiveness is an innate propensity, a natural component of our contradictory-yet-integral nature. Reflecting on a Human as a social animal endowed with reason, the writer asserts the primacy of intellect over feelings and emotions. In Zalygin's philosophical reflection, a Human, while capable of emotionally experiencing harmony in the world yet not embodying it oneself, is able through an effort of reason to partake in this harmonious being and extend its rational organization to social relations, thereby harmonizing them. This constitutes the writer's utopian project. Thus, Zalygin's philosophical anthropology not only revitalizes the noospheric ideas of Russian Cosmism but also develops them in its own way within the socio-historical, ecological, and literary context of Russia in the second half of the 20th century. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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