Averintsev and Gogol: Exploring the origins of modern-style Russian literature antinomies

The article addresses the problem of how a distinct philosophical literary study is possible, of which S.S. Averintsev was the most prominent representative in Russia. Averintsev interpreted a vast number of works from various literatures, from the ancient Orient to the works of his contemporary poets, yet his position cannot be reduced to a hermeneutics or close reading of these works. All these methods play a subordinate role in comparison with the historical-cultural schema, which itself determines the understanding of the basic meaning of both individual works and the historical-genetic connections within literature. Although the general framework for Averintsev's study of literature is the conflict between polytheism and monotheism, and the general canvas is the development of affective principles of the attitude to the word, both oral and written, in his interpretation of 20th-century Russian literature, Averintsev reconstructs a productive, simultaneous opposition to both traditionalism and avant-gardism as extremes. This opposition cannot be explained by value preferences alone but has a structural justification. Contextualizing Averintsev's work with issues of 20th-century Russian literature reveals that the primary structural justification was the understanding of Russian literature as reflective. Russian modernism (the Silver Age) turned to Gogol as a writer who thematized the antinomy between Romanticism and Realism, while subsequent Russian literature and theoretical thought turned to the Silver Age as a period that thematized the antinomy between life-creation and professional literary work. Both of these thematizations were linked to the biblical-monotheistic implications of creativity and redemption. By also employing a theological framework, Averintsev demonstrated that the matter was more complex. In his interpretation of Gogol, Averintsev was close to I.B. Rodnyanskaya and V.V. Bibikhin, but diverged from them on one point. He understood Gogol not as a creator of ideals or idealizing schemes of representation, but as a writer capable of realizing the ideals of previous eras. Therefore, a romantic mood does not dominate in Gogol; on the contrary, according to Averintsev, Gogol considers this mood merely as one of the potentialities of the spoken or written word. Averintsev critically discusses both the Symbolist interpretation of Gogol as a grotesque writer and Vyacheslav Ivanov's comparison of Gogol's experience with that of ancient civic experience. All these concepts from the Silver Age are sufficient to demonstrate the complexity of Gogol's antinomies. However, the primary antinomy turns out to be the antinomy of small and large time (terms by M.M. Bakhtin). Averintsev thematizes this antinomy not as belonging to the life of genres, but as belonging to the practices of self-knowledge. In that case, contemporary Russian literature realizes not so much Gogol's techniques, but rather Gogol's form of selfknowledge. It is this realization that allows Averintsev to provide non-contradictory interpretations of Russian poetry. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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