On the role of Lermontov in Russian culture. Some preliminary remarks

Abstract

The following text is a presentation that was held by V. Markovich at the international conference “The 200th Anniversary of the Birth of M. Lermontov” on October 9th, 2014, at the Institute of Russian Literature (Russian Academy of Sciences). Comparing the first elegy of the 19th century, “The Country Churchyard” by Zhukovsky, and Lermontov’s poem “I go out on the road alone …”, V. Markovich argues that the latter is the first poem in Russian culture to lay down the law of hesitation between two polarities — unbearability and impossibility. Impossibility is the only possible response to unbearability in the world of text. That is how Russian cultural dynamics can be described: fluctuation between two historical stages of cultural evolution finds itself again and again as the main form of mental stability in Russia, the stability of reappearing conflicts becoming a form of their insolubility. One of the anomalies of Russian culture starts to show and it can be studied against the background of universal polarities. As such background we can use the pattern of Mircea Eliade which is based on the antinomy of two types of worldview and existence, regularly appearing in world history; but this time the types are synchronous rather than alternating. The first one is “historically oriented”, ”western” and “modern”, relying on the concept of history progressively moving towards a certain goal, whereas the second one is “archaic”, “traditional” and “oriental”, determined by the laws of repeating patterns. Nations are divided into “historic” and “ahistoric”. The former understands its own existence as history and build history, whereas the latter sees development as a painful process and tries to escape from its horror and oppression, “constantly returning” to the original archaic ways. It is impossible to change the type of existence. Therefore, Russian culture combines two incompatible types, without any prospect of their future synthesis. This tragic anomaly is ineradicable, and the only possible solution is alternating between its two manifestations: a catastrophic and unbearable one and an under-active and entropic one. The anomaly of cultural development makes it unpredictable and opens inexhaustible possibilities.