Article

Name: Bela’s Causus (Historiosophy of Anthropology in “A Hero of Our Time” by M. Yu. Lermontov)

Authors: M. A. Dmitrovskaya

I. Kant Baltic Federal University

Abstract: The article deals with the conceptual system of M. Yu. Lermontov’s novel “А Hero of Our Time”. It is shown that Pechorin’s double consciousness is caused by a conflict between mind and heart. His double consciousness is personified and generates characters that come into conflict with each other. All of them are Pechorin’s doppelgängers. Doppelgängers are rendered by different means of representation and mind-heart opposition as well as explicit or implicit application of a mirror principle. The opposition among characters on the level of implicit semantics is represented as warfare and fighting activities. Anthropology and historiosophy are closely connected in the novel. The absence of explicit portrayal of the Caucasian War in the novel is due to the fact that warfare is internalized and identified with the internal struggle between two instances of the human psyche. In the novel the notion of a frontier is of a particular relevance: double consciousness is projected on the topography. Waging war implies a frontier crossing (cross-section) and repelling an invader (russ. otrazheniye ‘reflection’). On the level of anthropology it corresponds to the annihilation of a doppelgänger coupled with a corporal dissection (cross-section): a section passes through a head and heart (breast), – thought-producing and sense organs, generating double consciousness. Thus, a virtual frontier between “I” sections is materialized and blood-colored similar to a frontier between territories. It gets its most vivid representation in “Fatalist”. The conceptual core of the novel contains a prototypical historical model, highlighting the history of Rome (its foundation by Romulus, who killed his twin brother Remus, the fall of Rome under impacts of barbarians), Julius Caesar’s crossing the Rubicon River and Caesar's assassination in the Senate House. In each story of the novel it gets its individual plot and language representation. The reconstruction of the prototypical historical model is based on the analysis of semantic potential of characters’ naming, including proper names, the motive structure, the plot line and the language which incorporates a multilingual code. The references to grand generals, historical events and the Caucasian War link the events in the novel with the events of the world history. The prototypical historical model combines the opposing meanings of war and peace, local and global space, “ours” and “theirs”, a frontier and its crossings, life and death. This model contributes to the understanding of the correlation between individual and historical time and revealing a time marking calendar of the novel. The Julian and the Gregorian calendars are identified. The Gregorian calendar becomes Grigory Alexandrovich Pechorin’s calendar. Given this fact along with the protagonist’s double consciousness, his doppelgängers and their subsequent multiplication, the title of the novel “A Hero of Our Time” can be interpreted in a variety of ways.

Keywords: M. Yu. Lermontov, “A Hero of Our Time”, problem of consciousness, doppelgängers, anthropology, historiosophy, problem of time, conceptual system, proper name, multilingual code, language game, anagram

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