When describing the essential features of the Russian peasantry, Gorky draws attention to the concepts of cruelty and, as a result, pity, which are necessary for understanding its actions. Cruelty,...

Andrei Platonov’s novel Chevengur does not only describe the concrete model of building communism that was being realized in real life; it also discusses the problem of creating a new human being w...

The article focuses on the use of repetition in the work of Mikhail Yu. Lermontov. Lermontov utilizes repetition to create a multiplicity of meanings, to redraw plotlines, and to depict the life of things and characters in a state of freedom. An analysis of three Lermontov poems, The Confession, Boyarin Orsha, and Mtsyri shows that they constitute a single train of thought, which cannot be broken without violating Lermontov's attempt to show the limits of not only the human soul, but (...) also the power of judgment, a central idea of European philosophy at the time. Confession and judgment are the central themes of the three poems. (shrink)

For Russia, the beginning of the twentieth century was a step into Modernity, into that pan-European new time that in the seventeenth century heralded a permanent social change, which has defined our entire epoch up to the present day—it was a time of transformation, war, and revolution.1 A concept of “revolution” that emerged within theology marked a global shift toward modernization, which defines Modernity even in those moments when there is a fallback to the preceding tradition, the meaning of which (...) is lost. Thus, the current break with the objectives of the 1917 revolution does not correspond with the illusion of a return to old values. The idea of the redesign of traditions and their introduction into the past is a truly new thing, for no other time dared to change the past in the name of state interests. (shrink)