Spontaneous Semiotics of Nikolay Akhsharumov

The article is devoted to the phenomenon of the spontaneous semiotics
of the critic and writer Nikolai Dmitrievich Akhsharumov. A contemporary
of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, well studied today as a fiction writer,
Akhsharumov is practically not known as a researcher, who for a long time created
a series of fundamental works. These works were not intended for publishing,
nevertheless, they were consecutively examined, they indicate tense methodological
searches. Moreover, that texts aren’t far beyond the aesthetic
interests reflected in the published works of the writer. In particular, relying on
the works of I. Bentham, O. Comte, E. Renan, H. Steintal, and others, Akhsharumov
formulates a number of fundamental theses: 1) psychology is the science
of signs, which must deal with the study of their «upcoming meanings»;
2) the connection between the signified and the signifier is realized at the level
of abstraction from the called object, and in many respects is associative; 3) the
value is determined by the communication and is adjusted depending on the
recipient's pragmatics.

In fact, hereby, there are two spheres of activity – public, connected with
criticism and fiction, and private, chamber, are a curious contrast. The less successful
the literary career of Akhsharumov, who apparently realized the secondary
importance of his texts after the cultural explosion of 1866, the more intensive
his scientific search became, allowing him to be in his eyes and the eyes of
his closest friends to scientists. In addition, in unique cases, such accumulation
of inert material gives an explosive effect. That’s case of the specificity of the
philosophical chapters the Tolstoy novel «War and Peace». Existing as a separate
whole of Tolstoy’s record indicates a lack of academicism and gross scientific
assumptions that are not acceptable in the historical science of the 1860s.
Nevertheless, in the structure of the aesthetic whole, their connection with the
artistic text determines the uniqueness of the poetics of Tolstoy’s nove.

Despite the obvious dilettantism in presenting the existing theories,
Akhsharumov-researcher deserves attention in the context of studying «spontaneous
intuitions» that determined the scientific revolution of the beginning of
the 20th century. The reference to draft notes indicates that many semiotic ideas,
without a clear language of expression, literally «rushed in the air», and were
familiar to readers who go beyond the academic circle. «Secret», not known to
contemporaries side of Akhsharumov’s personality is a private evidence of intuitive
anticipation of large scientific discoveries.