Confession occupies a special place in Russian literature. Suffice it to recall here the famous "Author's Confession" by N.V. Gogol, “Confession” of L.N. Tolstoy, confessions of philosophizing heroes F.M. Dostoevsky, L. Andreev.

Confession in Russian culture acquires special significance in connection with the revolutionary events of Russia at the beginning and end of the twentieth century. Indicative of the spiritual evolution of Russian revolutionaries at the beginning of the twentieth century is the example of the confession of former socialist revolutionaries after the revolutionary events of 1905. Contemporaries called their writings public repentance. “They beat themselves in the chest with their fists, confess their sins to the crowd, call themselves moral cripples, freaks, stinking and mischievous dogs. Everyone has the name of God on their lips, and in their hands are whips that painfully cut into the body of the penitents.”

Obviously, the exclusive place of confession in Russian culture is associated with Christianity. Christianity came to Russia not only as a religion, but also as a worldview. Therefore, confession in Russian culture acquires a special ideological status. It becomes a unique form of deepest personal development and represents a unique ideological act.

Russian literature presents different levels of confession - confession of repentance and confession of repentance. "Confession" by L.N. Tolstoy is a typical case of confession of repentance. Brought from outside, “the creed communicated to me from childhood, as Tolstoy himself says, disappeared from the age of sixteen.” Under the influence of the society in which he lived, without a protective moral-Christian teaching, the young Tolstoy very soon arose “the desire to be stronger than other people, that is, more glorious, more important, richer than others.” It was at this time that he began to write “out of vanity, greed and pride.” These motives for writing corresponded to his selfish lifestyle, similar to many people in his circle: “I killed people in the war, challenged people to duels to kill, lost at cards, ate the labors of men, executed them, fornicated, deceived. Lies, theft, fornication of all kinds, drunkenness, violence, murder... There was no crime that I did not commit.” He formed a corresponding worldview to suit this way of life, as soon as Tolstoy arrived in St. Petersburg and became friends with the writers. The views and views of these people on life “substituted the theory” “for the licentiousness of my life,” L. N. Tolstoy analyzes his life. This worldview was “expressed in the word progress.” From the ideological idea of ​​progress, associated with the idea of ​​social justice, L.N. Tolstoy, like other writers, derived the role of enlightenment: “Everything develops through enlightenment.” Enlightenment, in turn, is measured by the distribution of books. Therefore, “we all then, writes Tolstoy, were convinced that we needed to talk and talk, write, print as quickly as possible, as much as possible, that all this was needed for the good of humanity.”

From this self-analysis of the world famous writer, priest of progress L.N. Tolstoy, we learn about the direct connection of the ideological idea of ​​social justice with selfish greed: “I was paid money for this, I had wonderful food, women, society, I had fame. ..Being her priest was very profitable and pleasant."[ 4 ]

Where did L.N. come from? Tolstoy repentance for his own worldview and corresponding way of life? Repentance was brewing gradually. Tolstoy says that along with the rational mind, which justifies his way of life and the theory of progress, there has always lived in him a feeling that is not subject to reason. This feeling “flowed from the heart.” It was this feeling, which revived again in his heart, that acted as the immediate force that prompted him to repent.

However, Tolstoy abandoned the secular “progressive”, “socially just” worldview not out of pity, not out of heartfelt love for people, but most of all under the fear of his own death, the fear of incredible power: “I felt horror of what awaited me. .. The horror of darkness was too great, and I wanted to quickly get rid of it with a noose or a bullet." This is the explanation of Gogol’s act, “how I destroyed Dead Souls and how I destroyed everything I wrote lately.” As we see, “suspicions” of Gogol’s insanity have no basis. In fact, the author is repenting for ridiculing Russia. He laughed at Russia on the basis of only a witty mind, “view”, without love, without a wise heart that comprehended the truth. He wrote, meaning to teach all people how to live correctly: “My mind has always been inclined towards significance and benefit...” As a result, the idea resulted in only one proud claim: “My plans were proud,” “the conclusions were only proud and “arrogant,” Gogol repeats repeatedly. Now he clearly sees the perniciousness of the self-will of the mind, rationalizing on the subject of a just structure of the world: “I noticed that almost everyone formed their own Russia in their heads and therefore endless disputes.” This also applied to himself.

First, Gogol rose to the first stage of a confessional act of repentance, when he saw his moral imperfection and his pride was shaken. At this stage, as we see from his “Author's Confession,” the moral feeling was entirely directed towards himself: “In my thoughts, the further I went, the clearer the ideal of a beautiful person appeared, the blissful image that a person should be on earth, and I felt Every time after this, it’s disgusting to look at yourself. This is not humility, but rather the feeling that an envious person has, who sees the best thing in his hands, throws his own and no longer wants to look at it.”

Gogol was pushed to humble repentance by the merciless, impartial criticism from the populist writers, who published (shortly before the "Author's Confession") "Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends." Reflecting in “Confession” on what actually happened to him, Gogol writes about this criticism as the reason for the final death of pride in him: “Perhaps this happened precisely to give the opportunity to look at myself... pride in me would live incessantly, and no one would point it out... But when you expose yourself in front of strangers... and reproaches rain down from all sides, hit and miss, hitting both intentionally and unintentionally on all your sensitive strings, then you will inevitably look at yourself from such angles as you would never look at yourself; you will begin to look for those shortcomings in yourself that you would never have thought of looking for before. This is that terrible school, from which you will either go crazy or become wiser than ever.” . With Gogol the last final crushing of pride occurred as a condition for genuine heartfelt, truthful repentance.

Repenting of his proud thoughts, ashamed of his world-building claims, repentantly blaming himself for the harm done to Russia, Gogol in the “Author's Confession” reveals the essence of his act of repentance, from the burning of “Dead Souls” to the writing of the “Author’s Confession”. The philosophical essence of repentance emerges in him in the transition from a rationalizing mind to the wisdom of a truthful heart, from pride in a highly valuable social idea to love for people. He says this about his previous works: “I didn’t know then that it was necessary... to overcome the ticklish strings of personal vanity and personal pride... I didn’t know even then that anyone who wants to truly honestly serve Russia you need to have a lot of love for her, which would already absorb all other feelings, you need to have a lot of love for a person in general.” Pride gave way to love. At the same time, with heartfelt love, and not with reasoning about love for humanity in general, for the world as a whole. The penitent Gogol says that you cannot love the whole world if you do not first begin to love those who “stand closer to you and have the opportunity to upset you.” He says that love for “the whole world” is “closest to cold callousness of the soul.” Gogol repents to people for the harmful creativity of his proud worldview satires because he begins to love people. If earlier his plans and views “were proud and arrogant,” now Gogol has a need to serve in any capacity, even the most petty and inconspicuous position, but to serve his land. Now, with his heart formed through experience, he knows: “If you have at least some true Christian love for a person, then... you can do a lot of good in every place.”

Gogol's confession of love for people began earlier than the penitential "Author's Confession" in the book "Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends." Gogol writes about this book: “It contains my own confession, it contains the outpouring of both my soul and heart.” This heartfelt confession of Gogol grew into an act of repentance on the pages of the "Author's Confession" before all of Russia. Previously, Gogol, proud of his social ideal, “even with his most sincere friends did not want to express his innermost thoughts.” In repentance, he “enters into an explanation with the reader,” and the reader, no more and no less, is all of Russia. Now instead of pride there is humility. The crushing of pride develops love. But Gogol is still learning to love people; he himself talks about this when he explains why he refuses to write works of art and worldview.

Confession in Russian literature expresses the natural love of truth of the Russian people. Natural love of truth makes a person capable of humility before the truth and, consequently, of repentance. This is where the idea of ​​a “little man” who feels all around guilty is born in literature. For readers brought up on Gorky’s idea of ​​the proud, mighty “falcon man”, the heroically desperate Danko, stories about little people are perceived as a cycle about spiritually premature, morally degraded creatures. But in reality Chervyakov A.P. Chekhov lives with conscientious tact, the painful guilt of the Russian person before God (the religious aspect) and before other people. This “Russian guilt” was well noted by one of the Russian philosophers: “In a parish community, no one calls anyone else a criminal, but everyone considers himself guilty of everything that happens in him.”

In Russian poems and songs (by Nekrasov, Yesenin, Rubtsov, etc.) there is a lot of guilt towards human truth, Russia and “holy eternity”. Paintings by Russian artists, original in spirit (for example, Levitan, Perov, Kramskoy, etc.) express the same feeling of guilt, love and tenderness, “acquiring tears” in the face of “holy eternity”, the truth of absolute good. Guilty people are a favorite topic and L.N. Tolstoy. Pashenka in “Father Sergius” works for everyone: she washes, irons, cooks, sews, earns extra money, humbly looks after everyone, serves everyone and always feels guilty before everyone. In Leskov's works, guilt and pity and tenderness characterize his Russian righteous heroes. Guilt, pity and tenderness permeate Russian literature, starting from “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” and Russian folk epics, Russian “laments”.

The theme of extra-church public repentance hovers in Russian fiction. This is not only the silent bows to the ground on the square of Raskolnikov the killer, but also the stubborn, silent repentant walk of the self-executing governor (the killer of workers) through the most deserted streets of the vengeful workers' settlement near L. Andreev. In modern literature these are the works of V.G. Rasputin, V. Krupina, F. Abramova and others.

Through the analysis of confessionalism in Russian literature, one can better and more clearly understand the originality of Russian culture, the Russian worldview. Interest in the topic of “original Russian” in the 19th-20th centuries is not a coincidence, but historically natural. If in the 18th century all the attention of Russians was directed to studying the culture of Europe, then it is natural that in the 19th century Russia’s comprehension of its originality became a historical necessity. Conditions are opening up that inevitably give rise to the “Russian question” both in the 19th and 20th centuries.

In the 19th century this is a cultural dissociation of the highest educated layer, “Frenchized”, “Germanized”, etc., in short, “Europeanized”. The 20th century is significant for the global expansion of Americanized European culture. The question of national identity is and has been acutely raised not only in Russia. But neither in Germany, nor in England, nor in any other country was there such a cultural dissociation of the upper strata from the people, as was the case in Russia, there was such a derogatory attitude towards one’s own, national, as was the case in Russia, where everything " Russian": speech, clothing, behavior, traditions, customs, objects of material and spiritual culture, everyday life, politics, economics, philosophy, etc. - everything was ridiculed as low, stupid, and absurd.

In this regard, Russian writers said that Russians need to learn from Europeans to respect themselves - there every people wants to be themselves, lives their own original life, while in our country the desire for Europeanism suppresses everything Russian, folk, original. F. M. Dostoevsky, reflecting on the ways of Russia’s entry into the European space, bitterly and mockingly remarked: “We imbued ourselves with European tastes, we even ate all sorts of nasty things, trying not to wince. We should have started with contempt for ours and ours, which was growing more and more. We did not notice the sharp division of different nationalities in Europe. We tried our best to be Europeans - common people." And what have we achieved? - asks Dostoevsky. And he answers: “The results are strange. The main thing is that everyone in Europe looks at us with ridicule, and the best and undoubtedly smartest Russians in Europe are looked at with arrogant condescension. Even emigration from Russia itself, that is, political, did not save them from this arrogant condescension.” emigration and complete renunciation of Russia. The Europeans did not want to honor us as their own, for nothing, for any sacrifices and in any case. And the more we despised our nationality to please them, the more they despised us ourselves... We. wagged in front of them, we obsequiously professed our European views and convictions, and they listened to us from above... and were surprised at how we could not become Russian, but we could never explain to them that we want to be not Russian, but common people."

Russian writers in their works contrast this “globalization” and sycophancy to Europe with the high spiritual culture of Russia - the ability to feel guilt, repentance and truth. A humble sense of guilt, truth, hence great patience, as a characteristic feature of the spiritual structure of the Russian people, largely determines the identity of Russian culture: politics, art, folk art, literature, philosophy. “There is something special in the fate of the Slavic people, just like in the fate of the Orthodox Church: only they represent examples of the fact that, being the religion and nationality of the majority of subjects in the state, they, however, instead of being dominant, are the most oppressed."

The love of truth of the Russian people cannot be separated from conscience. In Russian self-awareness, conscience means “innate truth” (Vl. Dal). “If you hide it from a person, you cannot hide it from your conscience.” "A good conscience is the voice of God." Therefore, in Russian literature it is noted that the Russian-Slavic soul, from ancient times and organically predisposed to a sense of truth, responded with its heart to God's gospel, that the Russian people accepted Christianity not by the sword, not by calculation, not by fear and not by intelligence, but by feeling, kindness, conscience. Thus, the Russian people felt Orthodoxy with an eternal sense of truth, the “voice of God,” and conscience. That is why repentant confession in Russian literature and culture, as a conscientious desire for the highest absolute truth, is an expression of the identity of the Russian people. Therefore, the Orthodox Church in Russia is inseparable from its people and any dishonest attitude towards it is anti-people in its essence.

See: Tolstoy L.N. Father Sergius // Tolstoy L.N. Collection. Op.: in 12 volumes. T.11. M., 1987. pp. 112-173.

CONFESSION AS A LITERARY GENRE

Kazansky N. Confession as a literary genre // Bulletin of history, literature, art / RAS, Department of History and Philology. sciences; Ch. ed. G. M. Bongard-Levin. - M.: Sobranie, 2009. - T. 6. - P. 73-90. - Bibliography: p. 85-90 (45 titles).

Typically, confession is considered as a special type of autobiography (1), which presents a retrospective of one’s own life. Autobiography in the broad sense of the word, including any type of memory, can be both a literary fact and an everyday fact (from a service record to oral stories (2)). In memoirs, however, there is no what we primarily associate with the genre of confession - sincerity of assessments of one’s own actions, in other words, confession is not a story about the days lived, the secrets in which the author was involved, but also an assessment of one’s actions and actions committed in the past, taking into account the fact that this assessment is given in the face of Eternity.

Before we consider in more detail the problem of the relationship between confession and autobiography, let us ask ourselves the question of how confession was understood by the contemporaries of St. Augustine and subsequent generations (3).

The word confession throughout the 19th-20th centuries. significantly expanded and lost its original meaning: it became possible to combine under the word confession diaries, notes, letters and poems of completely different people who lived at the same time (4). Another meaning is the meaning of recognition, which is widespread in both legal texts (5) and notes (6). The meaning of “confession” can quite clearly lead away from the original meaning of the word confession: for example, “Confession of a bloody dog. Social Democrat Noske about his betrayals” (Pg.: Priboy, 1924) in no way implies church repentance, although throughout that same XX century Confession also retained the old meaning of the “confessional word” (7). This latter continues to be used and interpreted in philosophical literature (8), but at the same time diary entries, especially capable of shocking with their frankness, are called confession. Indicative in this regard is the assessment that M.A. Kuzmin gave to his diary in a letter to G.V. Chicherin dated July 18, 1906: “I have been keeping a diary since September, and Somov, V.Iv<анов>and Nouvel, to whom I read it, is considered not only my best work, but generally some kind of world “torch” like the Confessions of Rousseau and Augustine. Only my diary is purely real, petty and personal" (9).

The very comparison of the confessions of Augustine, Rousseau and Leo Tolstoy, which underlies N.I. Conrad’s long-standing plan to present confession as a literary genre, is based largely on this, traditional for the 19th-20th centuries. "blurred" understanding of the word confession. For European literature, starting from the 18th century, confession is perceived, despite the indicated vagueness of the concept, as an independent genre, going back to the “Confession” of Bl. Augustine.

Speaking about works of the “confessional” genre, it is necessary to trace its formation, since, as M.I. successfully formulated it. Steblin-Kamensky, “the formation of a genre is the history of the genre” (10). In the case of the genre of confession, the situation is more complicated, since the genre itself arises at the intersection of traditions associated with everyday life: confession of faith, repentance and church confession can be considered as the basis of a measured lifestyle befitting a true Christian. Another, but also everyday basis of the genre remains autobiography, which had both its own literary history and development within the framework of a way of life that required official records of an official career. On the contrary, the entire subsequent history of the confession genre can be perceived as “secularization,” but one difference from autobiography, having once appeared, will never disappear - the description of the inner world, and not the external outline of life, will remain a feature of the genre to this day. The height that Bl. reached in “Confession”. Augustine, in the future no one will even try to achieve: what can be called the theme “I, my inner world and the cosmos”, “time as an absolute and the time in which I live” - all this as a sign of confession will not appear anywhere else - a philosophical view of life and the cosmos, understanding what God is, and bringing one’s inner world into harmony with his will. However, this last aspect will be indirectly reflected in Rousseau’s “Confession” in connection with the idea of ​​“natural naturalness” and in L. Tolstoy, for whom the same idea of ​​“natural” turns out to be fundamental. At the same time, the correlation of one’s inner world with God, the Universe and the Cosmos remains unchanged, but later a different view of the author on the foundations of being (God vs. Nature) is possible. And the first step in this direction was taken by Augustine, who can rightfully be called the creator of a new literary genre.

Let us dwell in more detail on the question of how this new genre was created. Augustine himself defines his genre in a very unique way, mentioning confession as a sacrifice (XII.24.33): “I sacrificed this confession to You.” This understanding of confession as a sacrifice to God helps define the text functionally, but does little to define the genre. In addition, the definition “confession of faith” (XIII.12.13) and “confession of faith” (XIII.24.36) (11) is found. The title of the work is easier to translate into Western European languages, although sometimes ambiguity arises here, since the same word conveys what in Russian is designated by the word “repentance” (cf. the translation of the title of the film “Repentance” by Tengiz Abuladze into English as “Confessions”) . It is quite obvious that bl. Augustine does not set out a creed, and what we find does not fit the concept of repentance. Confession absorbs the internal spiritual path with the inevitable inclusion of some external circumstances of life, including repentance for them, but also the determination of one’s place in the Universe, in time and in eternity, and it is the view from the timeless that gives Augustine a solid basis to appreciate their actions, their own and others’ searches for truth in an absolute, not a momentary, dimension.

The literary genre of "Confession" is certainly associated with several sources, the most ancient of which is the genre of autobiography.

Autobiography is found already in texts of the 2nd millennium BC. One of the oldest texts in this genre is the autobiography of Hattusilis III (1283-1260 BC), a Hittite king of the Middle Kingdom. The narrative is told in the first person, with a kind of service record and a story about how Hattusilis III achieved power. It is characteristic that the future king is not completely free in all his actions - in a number of episodes he acts according to the instructions of the goddess Ishtar (12).

Hattusilis is focused on his external destiny and the support he receives from the goddess Ishtar. Autobiographical remarks of this kind are also present in ancient culture, where the first indications of the autobiographical genre begin already in the Odyssey with the hero’s story about himself, and these stories correspond to the usual canons of autobiography (13). The use of the autobiographical genre continued in the 1st millennium BC. in the East. The Behistun inscription of the Persian king Darius I (521-486 BC) is indicative in this regard (14).

Of the autobiographical genres, perhaps a little closer to understanding confession are the edicts of the Indian king Ashoka (mid-3rd century BC), especially those parts where the king describes his conversion to Buddhism and observance of the dharma (Rock Edict XIII) ( 15).

Two circumstances make this text similar to the genre of confession: repentance for what was done before turning to the dharma and the conversion itself, as well as comprehension of the events of human life in moral categories. However, this text only briefly reveals to us the inner world of Ashoka, then moving on to a discussion of practical advice aimed at creating a new society, and the new policy that the king bequeaths to his children and grandchildren. Otherwise, the text remains autobiographical and focused on external life events, among which is the king’s appeal to dharma.

The most extensive autobiographical text belongs to Emperor Augustus. This is the so-called Monumentum Ancyranum - an inscription discovered in 1555 in Ankara, which is a copy of a text installed in Rome and listing the main state and construction deeds of Augustus. He concludes his autobiography by indicating that he wrote it in the 76th year of his life, and gives a summary of how many times he was consul, which countries he defeated, to what extent he expanded the Roman state, how many people he allocated with land, what buildings he carried out in Rome . In this official text there is no place for feelings and reflections - Gaius and Lucius, early deceased sons, are only briefly mentioned (Monum. Ancyr. XIV. 1). This text is typical in many ways: throughout ancient times we find the biographical and autobiographical genres closely intertwined.

A certain role in the formation of the genre of biography was played by pamphlets, not so much accusatory pamphlets, of course, as acquittals, a kind of apology that could be written both in the third person (cf. the apologies of Socrates, written by Xenophon and Plato), and in the first person, since the lawyer was not relied upon in a Greek court, and the best Greek orators wrote acquittal speeches on behalf of their client, creating a kind of autobiography based on his biography. The autobiographical genre moves from Greece to Rome, and autobiography becomes a fairly powerful tool of propaganda, as we could see in the example of the autobiography of Emperor Augustus. Monuments of victories and construction activities of this kind can be found in the East throughout the 1st millennium BC. (cf. Behistun inscription of King Darius, which outlines Darius’ path to royal power, and his military victories, and state transformations, and construction activities; cf. also the texts of the Urartian king Rusa). All of these texts serve to justify government policy or the actions of a statesman. The assessment of some practical steps is subject to discussion, and both a direct order of the deity and adherence to high moral principles can be cited as an explanation.

Of course, not all autobiographies, and especially the invective of ancient times, had a chance to reach us in any complete form, but we have at our disposal the texts of comparative biographies of Plutarch, who used any biographical information as material, ranging from the most malicious accusations and ending with self-justification (16). All of the listed genres pursued the “external” and completely practical goal of succeeding in society or establishing the principles of the program pursued by a politician. For many centuries, the genre of autobiography has been understood as a combination of external manifestations of human activity with the help of motivations, in which, if desired, one can see individual features of the hero’s inner world. These motivations are in no way an end in themselves of description or the result of introspection. Moreover, they may depend on rhetorical exercises, especially in Roman times, when rhetoric developed rapidly and took leading positions in traditional education.

All this centuries-old experience of tradition, which in general can be called a written tradition, in early Christianity collided with a new, just becoming oral genre. Church confession includes confession of faith and acceptance of the sacrament of repentance, but does not imply a complete autobiography, being limited, as a rule, to a much shorter period of time than the entire human life. At the same time, confession is devoid of any features characteristic of hagiographic literature; Moreover, it can be noted that an autobiographical life would be obvious nonsense. In the Gospel we will hardly find a mention of confession as such; we will talk about the confession of a new Christian faith with a new principle of confession: “confess to one another.” Of course, this genre of confession existed only as an oral genre, although individual passages of the apostolic epistles can be quite easily correlated with confession as a genre of oral literature. However, these are teaching letters in which the theme of catechesis (conversion to Christianity) and instruction in faith occupy a dominant place, preventing the authors from dwelling too much on their experiences and assessing their moral formation and development.

Inner life as the purpose of description can appear in the form of scattered notes and reflections, for example, such as we find in the reflections of Marcus Aurelius. The orderliness of his notes requires some autobiography, which explains the beginning of his notes, addressed to himself, with the classification of the natural traits of his character and their correlation with the moral virtues of the elders in the family. The history of the inner life of man, the history of the soul and spirit, is not arranged in any chronological sequence by Marcus Aurelius (17). Reflections on “eternal” questions do not allow, or do not always allow, him to delve into the history of how these issues were resolved at different periods of life and how they should be resolved now. The history of internal spiritual growth, described by the person himself, requires a chronological framework, which reflections themselves are not able to set - they have to be taken from external events of human life. These external events set the outline of the narrative, but also have explanatory power: a chance meeting unexpectedly turns into internal spiritual growth, and the mention of it allows us to introduce a chronological milestone into the narrative and at the same time explain the origins and meaning of what happened.

Christianity, of course, knew both polemics and disputes during church councils, which in many ways continued those lower genres of Roman literature that have come down to us mostly in the form of indirect references. Nevertheless, it is in Christianity that the genre of confession appears in the way that it enters subsequent European culture. This is not just a combination of traditional written genres and oral genres included in the established sacraments of church rites. We are talking about the emergence of a completely new genre that did not initially have a practical goal, similar to the one that was set for the justification or accusation of a political opponent. That is why the frequent mention that accusations in the Manichaean past served as the impetus for writing the “Confession” (18) is hardly related to the inner meaning of the work of Bl. Augustine.

As one might notice, defining the genre of confession turns out to be an extremely difficult task, even in relation to our contemporary literature, due to the organic combination of literary significant elements (autobiography, notes, diary, creed), the interweaving of which creates a whole and new thing recognizable to the reader - confession. Probably the most accurate definition of our modern understanding of confession within the framework of modern literature we will find in the poems of Boris Pasternak, who invited the reader to see the multi-layered and multi-directional nature of spiritual quests predetermined by the genre, placing the following lines at the beginning of his poetic autobiography (19):

Everything will be here: what I have experienced, And what I still live with, My aspirations and foundations, And what I have seen in reality.

This list lacks only theological problems, but even without them, there is no word in any of the world’s languages ​​that would be able to designate the inner world of man in his relationship to God, taken in development and philosophically comprehended step by step (20). Speaking of Augustine as a discoverer of the inner world of man has become common in recent years (21). The problems that arise here are related to determining how Augustine managed to accommodate God in the soul without affirming the divinity of the soul (22). Understanding through the metaphor of inner vision and the ability to turn one's gaze inward (23) one's inner world and the need to purify one's mental gaze in order to receive grace, Augustine insists on diverting one's gaze from external things. When comprehending his inner world, Augustine operates with signs, which allowed a number of researchers to consider him a “semiotician of the Platonic sense.” Indeed, the contribution of St. Augustine to the doctrine of the sign is difficult to overestimate.

In any analysis that Augustine undertakes, grace plays an important role in comprehension, which is a divine gift associated initially with reason, not faith, but at the same time it is grace that helps to understand the internal attitude to self-awareness. The intellectual vision itself in relation to understanding and to the Christian faith in Augustine is not at all as simple as modern supporters of Catholicism, Protestantism or Orthodoxy try to define it based on popular ideas (liberal or authoritarian preferences) (24).

In any case, St. Augustine's Confessions was the first work to explore the inner state of human thought and the relationship between grace and free will, themes that formed the basis of Christian philosophy and theology (25). A subtle and observant psychologist, Augustine was able to show the development of the human soul, drawing attention to a number of fundamental moments for human culture. Among other things, he mentioned in passing the “tickling of the heart,” which is fundamentally important for modern understanding of the theory of the comic, which is enthusiastically commented on in the latest monograph on the theory of the funny (26).

For Augustine, the desire to speak of himself as a repentant sinner is quite obvious, i.e. “Confession,” at least in the first books, represents a “sacrifice of repentance,” and conversion to Christianity itself is understood as an act of divine grace (IX.8.17). The latter requires a special story about God as the Creator of every gift, including the gift of joining the Christian faith. Within the framework of this construction, the internal logic of the plot of “Confession” by Bl. is understood. Augustine, which can be described as a movement from external to internal and from lower to higher, completely in terms of the development of the Spirit according to Hegel. Thus, according to B. Stock, there is a certain subordination of autobiography to general theological considerations. In 1888, A. Harnack (27) suggested that the historical truth in Augustine’s Confessions is subordinated to theology to such an extent that it is not possible to rely on the Confessions as an autobiographical work. Without going to such extremes, we can agree with the conclusion of B. Stock, who reasonably noted that Augustine understood perfectly well that autobiography is not a revision of events; this is a revision of one’s attitude towards them (28).

In ancient times, for a literary work, genre affiliation was often more important than authorship (29). In the case of “Confession,” which tells about the inner world of a person, the authorship, of course, had to break the established genre canons. Moreover, Augustine's Confessions should not be viewed as an attempt to create a text of a certain genre. Augustine moved from life and from his memories to the text, so that the original plan may have been purely ethical and embodied in a literary work only thanks to ethics (30). A significant role in the formation of Augustine, as shown by the same Stock, was played by reading, which accompanied him at all stages of his life. Augustine turns comprehension of the events of his life into a kind of spiritual exercise (31).

It should be said that the perception of past days as books being re-read is also characteristic of the culture of modern times, cf. from Pushkin:

And reading my life with disgust, I tremble and curse, And I complain bitterly, and I shed bitter tears, But I don’t wash away the sad lines.

Augustine's life is presented by him as worthy in many respects of "bitter complaints", but at the same time it is shown by him as a movement, as a return from the external (foris) to the internal (intus) (32), from darkness to light, from multiplicity to unity, from death to life (33). This internal development is shown in turning points for Augustine’s biography, each of which is captured as a vivid picture, and in the connection of these moments with each other there is the idea of ​​theocentricity, i.e. It is not man who is the center of his existence, but God. Augustine's conversion to Christianity is a return to himself and surrendering himself to the will of God. As noted above, “Confession” turned out to be the only work of its kind, possessing its own new, previously unknown genre specificity.

The author of a recent generalizing encyclopedic article on Augustine's Confessions, Erich Feldmann (34), identifies the following as the main issues related to the study of this text: 1) perspectives in the history of study; 2) history of the text and title; 3) division of the “Confession” into topics; 4) the unity of “Confession” as a research problem; 5) the biographical and intellectual situation in which Augustine was at the time of completion of the Confessions; 6) the theological structure and originality of the Confession; 7) the theological and propaedeutic nature of the “Confession” and its addressees; 8) the art form of "Confession"; 9) dating.

Of particular importance is the question of the dating of the “Confession”, and we can speak with sufficient confidence about the beginning of work on the “Confession” after May 4, 395 and before August 28, 397. This dating has recently been subjected to a fairly serious revision by P.M. Omber (35), who proposed 403 as the date for writing books X-XIII. It should be noted that all this time (already in the 90s) Augustine continued to work on commentaries (enarrationes) to the Psalms. However, it is clear that Augustine made changes to his text in subsequent years, and the last change can be dated to 407.

Above we have already tried to show that confession as a literary genre originates from Augustine. Before moving on to further consideration, let us recall that confession as such is an integral part of the sacrament of repentance, a sacrament established by Jesus Christ himself (36). The sacrament of repentance has been preserved to this day in the Orthodox and Catholic traditions. The visible side of this sacrament is confession and the permission from sins received through the priest. In the early centuries of Christianity, the sacrament of confession formed an important part of the life of the Christian community, and it should be borne in mind that at that time confession was public. Repentance and confession often appear as synonyms, not only in church texts when it comes to the sacrament of repentance, but also in modern secular texts: above we mentioned that the title of the famous film “Repentance” is translated into English as “Confessions”. The concept of confession combines both repentance and a declaration of the principles that a person professes.

This second meaning is probably more correct, since the concept of confession arises in the depths of the Christian tradition, but the word denoting it goes back to the so-called Greek translation of the Bible by the LXX interpreters. It is possible that the Russian verb “to confess” in the first part is an Old Slavonic tracing paper from the ancient Greek exomologeo. Typically, etymological dictionaries note that confession is formed from the prefixed verb povedati “to tell” (37). Already for the Old Slavonic confession several meanings are proposed: 1) “glorification, glory, greatness”, 2) “open recognition”, 3) “teaching of the faith, openly recognized”, 4) “testimony or martyrdom”. V.I. Dahl’s dictionary gives two meanings for the word confession: 1) “the sacrament of repentance”, 2) “sincere and complete consciousness, an explanation of one’s convictions, thoughts and deeds.” Clarification of these accompanying meanings of the word confession is fundamentally important, since understanding of the intention of the work of Bl. largely depends on them. Augustine, the origins of the creative impulse, as well as the understanding of the literary genre that he first established.

The novelty of the literary genre of confession is not in confession as such, which already existed in the Christian community, was part of Christian life and therefore, from the very early stages of Christianity, belonged to “everyday life.” The division of everyday and literary fact goes back to Yu.N. Tynyanov, who proposed such a division based on the material of letters. An “everyday” letter may contain lines of amazing strength and sincerity, but if it is not intended for publication, it should be considered as an everyday fact. Augustine's "Confession" is very different both from what we assume for confession, which has entered Christian life, and from the modern understanding of confession as a literary genre of modern times. Let us note several features of Augustine's Confessions. The first is an appeal to God, which is repeated regularly. The second feature is not only a focus on understanding one’s own life, but also consideration of such philosophical categories as time. Three whole books of the Confessions are devoted to this problem, theological and philosophical (38).

It seems that both of these features can receive an explanation that greatly changes our understanding of the concept of the Confession and its implementation. As shown by recent studies devoted to the chronology of creativity of Bl. Augustine, in parallel with writing the Confessions, continued to compose commentaries on the Psalter. This aspect of Augustine’s activity has not been sufficiently studied, but it is known that he read his “Enarrationes in Psalmos” in Carthage to a wide audience (39), and before that he wrote the poetic work “Psalmus contra patrem Donati” (393-394). The Psalter played a special role in Augustine's life until his last days. Dying during the siege of Hippo in 430, he asked that seven penitential psalms be hung next to his bed (Possidius. Vita Aug. 31). It is characteristic that both the exegetical interpretations and the psalm belonging to Augustine were read aloud and intended for oral perception. Augustine himself mentions reading the Psalter aloud with his mother, Monica (Conf. IX.4). There is also direct evidence from Augustine that the first 9 books of the Confessions were also read aloud (Conf. X.4 “confessiones ... cum leguntur et audiuntur”). In Russian, only one study is devoted to Augustine’s interpretation of the psalms (40), showing Augustine’s adherence to the Latin text of the psalms, which blindly repeats the inaccuracies of the Greek understanding of the Hebrew text.

Usually, when talking about the word confessiones, they start from the etymological meaning, which is really necessary, and this is what we tried to show when talking about the Russian name “Confession”. For the Latin confessiones, the connection with the verb confiteor, confessus sum, confiteri (going back to fari “to speak”) is quite obvious. In the Latin language of classical times, the prefix verb means “to recognize, acknowledge (errors)” (41), “to clearly show, to reveal,” “to confess, to praise and confess” (42). The distribution of these words throughout the Vulgate text appears fairly even, with the exception of the book of Psalms. Statistics obtained using the PHI-5.3 Latin Thesaurus showed that almost a third of the uses are in the Psalter (confessio occurs 30 times in total, of which 9 times in psalms translated from Greek, and 4 times in psalms translated from Hebrew; confit - occurs 228 times in total, of which 71 times in psalms translated from Greek, and 66 times in psalms translated from Hebrew). Even more significant is the use of the stem exomologe- in the Septuagint, which occurs only 98 times, of which 60 uses occur in the Psalter. These data, like any statistics, would not be indicative if not for several circumstances that change the matter: bl. Augustine in his Confessions addresses God directly and directly, as King David did before him in the Psalms. The openness of the soul to God, the glorification of God in his ways and the comprehension of these paths do not find parallels in ancient culture. For Augustine, the question formulated by the author of one of Homer’s hymns is simply impossible: “What can I say about you, who is all-glorified in good songs.”

Augustine sees in himself, within himself, in private episodes of his life, reflections of God's providence and builds a picture of the earthly path he has traveled, based on introspection, composing a hymn to God leading him. At the same time as comprehending the circumstances and vicissitudes of his life, Augustine tries to comprehend the greatness of the universe and the God who created it. Much has been written about the reflection of the genre of autobiography in Augustine’s confession, and much has been done to understand the contribution of Roman writers to the particular rhetoric and poetics of St. Augustine (43). Less attention has been paid to how St. Augustine was influenced by different parts of the Holy Scriptures over the years, although here, too, research has led to the important observation that after the Confessions and before the so-called “late works” of Blessed. Augustine avoids quoting pagan writers. S.S. Averintsev, contrasting ancient Greek and Old Testament culture (44), specially emphasized the inner openness of the Old Testament man before God - this is exactly what we find in Bl. Augustine. From the point of view of the overall composition, one can observe the uniqueness of the plan, in which autobiography played only a subordinate role, leading the reader to reflect on time as a category of earthly life and the timelessness of the divine principle. Thus, the last books turn out to be only a natural continuation of the first ten books of the Confession. At the same time, it is the Psalter that makes it possible to discover the intention of the bl. Augustine as holistic and maintaining unity throughout the work.

There is one more circumstance indicating the influence of the Psalter on the Confession. We are talking about the word pulchritudo, which occurs together with the word confessio in Psalm 95.6: “confessio et pulchritudo in conspectu eius” - “Glory and majesty are before Him” (45). It is not difficult to see that in Russian perception confessio et pulchritudo as “Glory and Greatness” does not mean “Confession and Beauty” and thus poorly correlates with the understanding of the bl. Augustine, in whom a significant part of the text of “Confessiones” is occupied by discussions about beauty - pulchritudo (46). It is extremely important that, as I. Kreutzer puts it, “Die pulchritudo ist diaphane Epiphanie” (47), the beauty (pulchrum) that surrounds us in its various manifestations is only a reflection of that “highest beauty” (summum pulchrum), which is pulchritudo . This Beauty is closely connected with time, entering, as the same Kreutzer showed, into the semantic series “memory-eternity-time-beauty”. Thus, "Confession" Bl. Augustine, as a necessary component, initially contains a theological understanding, which will no longer appear in the subsequent history of the genre and will remain outside of comprehension within the entire literary genre of confession in modern times.

It is the comparison with the Psalter that makes it possible to both confirm and correct Courcelle’s conclusion, according to which “Augustine’s main idea is not historical, but theological. The narrative itself is theocentric: to show the intervention of God throughout the secondary circumstances that determined Augustine’s wanderings” (48). A number of researchers define confession as a mixture of different literary genres, emphasizing that we have before us an autobiographical story (but in no way an intimate diary or memory), confession of sins, the action of God's mercy, philosophical treatises on memory and time, exegetical excursions, while the general idea is reduced to a theodicy (apologie de Dieu), and the general plan is recognized as unclear (49). In 1918, Alfarik, and later P. Courcelle (50), specifically emphasized that the confession, from the point of view of St. Augustine, had no significance as a literary text (cf. De vera relig. 34.63). In this perception, “Confession” turns out to be more of a presentation of new ideas, to which both autobiographical and literary narratives are subordinated. B. Stock's attempt to divide the narrative into narrative and analytical does not help matters much either. Such attempts to separate the text into its components do not seem justified or productive. It is justified to point to previous traditions, the synthesis of which gave birth to a new literary genre, previously unknown in world culture.

It is no coincidence that many researchers have noted that the events described in the Confessions are perceived by Augustine as pre-ordained. The problem of teleology is extremely important for understanding bl. Augustine of free will. Since in subsequent theological polemics Augustine was perceived almost as an opponent of free will, it makes sense to immediately mention that for him and in his reflections in one work there are simultaneously two perspectives and two points of view - human and divine, especially clearly opposed in his characteristic perception of time. Moreover, only from the point of view of eternity in human life there is no place for the unexpected and accidental. On the contrary, from a human point of view, a temporal action only develops sequentially over time, but is unpredictable and does not have any recognizable features of divine providence over individual time periods. It should be noted, however, that free will in the understanding of Augustine, who polemicized with the Manichaeans, was very different from the understanding of free will in the same Augustine during the period of polemics with Pelagianism. In these latter works, Augustine defends God's mercy to such an extent that at times he does not know how to justify free will. In the Confession, free will is presented as a completely distinct part of human behavior: a person is free in his actions, but his conversion to Christianity is impossible on his own; on the contrary, this is primarily the merit and mercy of God, so the more a person is embraced by His will, the more free he is in his actions.

1 CuddonJ.A. A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. 3rd ed. Oxford, 1991. In Russian literary criticism, the genre of confession is not considered as an independent genre: the “Short Literary Encyclopedia” (editor-in-chief A.A. Surkov. M., 1966. T. 3. P. 226) does not indicate it, although in the first publication (Literary Encyclopedia / Chief editor. A.V. Lunacharsky. M., 1934. T. 7. P. 133) in N. Belchikov’s article “Memoir Literature” the confession was mentioned: “An autobiography dedicated to any, especially turning points , events in the life of a writer, is often also called confession (cf., for example, “Confession” of L. Tolstoy, written by him after a creative turning point in 1882, or the dying “Author’s Confession” of Gogol, this term, however, is not entirely defined). , and, for example, Rousseau’s “Confessions” are more like memories”; "The Reader's Encyclopedia" under the general editorship of F.A. Eremeev (Vol. 2. Ekaterinburg, 2002. P. 354) is limited to indicating confession as one of the seven sacraments.

2 The study is devoted to the problem of the relationship between oral and written forms of autobiography: Briper], Weisser S. The Invention of Self: Autobiography and Its Forms // Literacy and Orality / Ed. D. R. Olson, N. Torrens. Cambridge, 1991, pp. 129-148.

3 On the role of Augustine in the general history of autobiography, see the following works: Misch G. Geschichte der Autobiographie. Leipzig; Berlin, 1907. Bd. 1-2; Cox P. Biography in Late Antiquity: A Quest for the Holly Man. Berkeley, 1983, pp. 45-65. As one of the most revered of the Church Fathers, Augustine was studied and included in the indispensable reading circle of any educated Catholic. B. Stock (Stock B. Augustinus the Reader: Meditation, Self-Knowledge, and the Ethics of Interpretation. Cambridge (Mass.), 1996. P. 2 ff.) traces the history of confession, including Petrarch, Montaigne, Pascal and up to Rousseau. From the works devoted to Tolstoy’s confession, see the foreword by Archpriest A. Men in the book: Tolstoy L.N. Confession. L., 1991, as well as the article by G.Ya. Galagan “Confession” of L.N. Tolstoy: the concept of life understanding” (English version published in: Tolstoy Studies Journal. Toronto, 2003. Vol. 15).

4 In addition to those indicated in the "Reader's Encyclopedia" under the general editorship of F.A. Eremeev (Ekaterinburg, 2002. T. 2. P. 354-356) the works of T. Storm, T. D. Quincy, J. Gower, I. Nievo, Ch. Livera, Ezh. Elliot, W. Styron, A. de Musset, I. Roth, see, for example: Grushin B.A., Chikin V.V. Confession of a generation (review of responses to the questionnaire from the Institute of General Opinion of Komsomolskaya Pravda). M., 1962. Even more revealing is “Confession of a woman’s heart, or the History of Russia of the 19th century in diaries, notes, letters and poems of contemporaries” (composition and introductory article by Z.F. Dragunkina. M., 2000). The title is absolutely remarkable in this regard: “Confession of the Heart: Civil Poems of Modern Bulgarian Poets” (compiled by E. Andreeva, foreword by O. Shestinsky. M., 1988). Also interesting are the notes of professionals, designated as “Confession”: Fridolin S.P. Confession of an agronomist. M., 1925.

5 This kind of “confessions” includes both the actual confessions of criminals (cf.: Confessions et jugements de criminels au parlement de Paris (1319-1350) / Publ. par M.Langlois et Y.Lanhers. P., 1971), and “confessions” of people who simply put themselves in a position of sharp opposition to the authorities (cf., for example: Confessions of an anarchist by W. S. N. L., 1911).

6 Confession generale de l"appe 1786. P., 1786. A different type of confession is presented in: Confessions du compte de С... avec l"histoire de ses voyages en Russie, Turquie, Italie et dans les pyramides d"Egypte. Caire , 1787.

7 In addition to the literature indicated in the note. 36, see: Confession of a sectarian / Under. ed. V. Chertkova. B. m., 1904; Confession et repentire de Mme de Poligniac, ou la nouvelle Madeleine convertie, avec la reponse suivie de son testament. P., 1789; Chikin V.V. Confession. M., 1987. Wed. also: Confession before people / Comp. A.A. Kruglov, D.M. Matyas. Minsk, 1978.

8 Bukharina N.A. Confession as a form of self-awareness of a philosopher: Author's abstract. diss. Ph.D. Sci. M., 1997.

9 First published: Perkhin V.V. Sixteen letters from M.A. Kuzmin to G.V. Chicherin (1905-1907) // Russian literature. 1999. No. 1. P. 216. Quoted with corrections of inaccuracies according to the edition: Kuzmin M.A. Diary, 1905-1907 / Preface, prepared. text and comment. N.A. Bogomolova and S.V. Shumikhina. St. Petersburg, 2000. P. 441.

10 Steblin-Kamensky M.I. Notes on the formation of literature (to the history of fiction) // Problems of comparative philology. Sat. Art. to the 70th anniversary of V.M. Zhirmunsky. M.; L., 1964. S. 401-407.

11 Trace the influence of the ideas of St. Augustine in Russian literature of the 20th century. tried Andrzej Dudik (Dudik A. The ideas of Blessed Augustine in the poetic perception of Vyach. Ivanov // Europa Orientalis. 2002. T. 21, 1. P. 353-365), who compared, in my opinion, completely unreasonably, the work of Vyach. Ivanov's "Palinode" from the "Retractationes" of St. Augustine, moreover, by the very name Vyach. Ivanov certainly refers to the “Palinode” of Stesichorus (VII-VI centuries BC).

12 I was a prince, and I became the head of the courtiers - meshedi. I was the head of the Meshedi courtiers, and I became the king of Hakpiss. I was the king of Hakpiss and I became the Great King. Ishtar, my mistress, delivered my envious people, enemies and opponents into my hands in court. Some of them died, struck down by weapons, some died on the day appointed for them, but I ended them all. And Ishtar, my mistress, gave me royal power over the country of Hatti, and I became the Great King. She took me as a prince, and Ishtar, my mistress, allowed me to reign. And those who were well disposed towards the kings who ruled before me began to treat me well. And they began to send me ambassadors and send me gifts. But the gifts that they send to me, they did not send either to my fathers or to my grandfathers. Those kings who were supposed to honor me, honored me. I conquered those countries that were hostile to me. I annexed edge after edge to the lands of Hatti. Those who were at enmity with my fathers and grandfathers made peace with me. And because Ishtar, my mistress, favored me, I am from N.N. Kazansky. Confession, as a literary genre of respect for one's brother, did nothing wrong. I took my brother's son and made him king in the very place, in Dattas, which was the domain of my brother, Muwa-tallis. Ishtar, my lady, you took me as a small child, and you made me reign on the throne of the country of Hatti.

Autobiography of Hattusilis III, trans. Vyach. Sun. Ivanov, cit. from the book: The moon fell from the sky. Ancient literature of Asia Minor. M., 1977.

13 Misch G. Geschichte der Autobiographic. Bd. 1. Das Altertum. Leipzig; Berlin, 1907. Recently, attempts have been made to connect some features of the work of Bl. Augustine with the cultural situation in Africa (see: Vyach Ivanov. Vs. Blessed Augustine and the Phoenician-Punic linguistic and cultural tradition in North-West Africa // Third international conference "Language and Culture". Plenary reports. P. 33- 34).

14 I am Darius, the great king, the king of kings, the king in Persia, the king of countries, the son of Vishtaspa (Histaspa), the grandson of Arshama, the Achaemenid. Darius the king says: “My father is Vish-taspa, Vishtaspa’s father is Arshama, Arshama’s father is Ariaramna, Ariaramna’s father is Chitpit, Chiitisha’s father is Achaemen. That’s why we are called Achaemenids. From time immemorial we are honored, from time immemorial our family was royal. Eight [people] from my family were kings before me. I am the ninth. By the will of Ahura Mazda, I am the king.

The following countries fell to me, and by the will of Ahura Mazda I became king over them: Persia, Elam, Babylonia, Assyria, Arabia, Egypt, [countries by the sea], Lydia, Ionia, Media, Armenia, Cappadocia, Parthia, Drangiana, Areya, Khorezm , Bactria, Sogdiana, Gaidara, Saka, Sattagidia, Arachosia, Maka: a total of 23 countries.

I got these countries. By the will of Ahura Mazda [they] became subject to me and brought me tribute. Everything I ordered them, whether at night or during the day, they carried out. In these countries, I favored [every] person who was the best, [everyone] who was hostile, I severely punished. By the will of Ahura Mazda, these countries followed my laws. [Everything] that I ordered them, they did. Ahura Mazda gave me this kingdom. Ahura Mazda helped me so that I could master this kingdom. By the will of Ahura Mazda I own this kingdom."

Darius the King says: “This is what I did after I became king.”

Translation from ancient Persian by V.I. Abaev: Literature of the Ancient East. Iran, India, China (texts). M., 1984. S. 41-44.

15 In the eighth year of the reign of Piyadassi, pleasing to the gods [i.e. Ashoka] conquered Kalinga. One and a half hundred thousand people were driven away from there, one hundred thousand were killed, and what’s more, they died. After the capture of Kalinga, the One Pleasant to the Gods felt a greater inclination towards dharma, love for dharma, and praise of dharma. The one pleasing to the gods mourns that he conquered the Kalingians. The one pleasing to the gods is tormented by painful and difficult thoughts that when the undefeated are defeated, there are murders, deaths and captivity of people. Even more difficult are the thoughts of the One Pleasant to the Gods that in those parts live brahmins, hermits, and various communities, lay people who honor rulers, parents, elders, behave with dignity and are devoted to friends, acquaintances, helpers, relatives, servants, mercenaries , - all of them are also wounded, killed or deprived of loved ones. Even if one of them does not suffer himself, it is painful for him to see the misfortunes of friends, acquaintances, helpers, and relatives. There are no countries, except the Greeks, where there would be no Brahmins and hermits, and there are no countries where people do not adhere to one faith or another. Therefore, the murder, death or captivity of even a hundredth or a thousandth of the people who died in Kalita is now painful for the One Pleasant to the Gods.

Now the God-Pleasing One thinks that even those who do wrong should be forgiven if possible. Even the savages living in the lands of the Pleasant of the Gods should be admonished and admonished. They are told that they are being admonished and not killed because of the compassion of the One pleasing to the gods. Indeed, the One who is pleasing to the gods wishes all living things security, restraint, justice, even in the face of wrongdoing. The one pleasing to the gods considers the victory of dharma the greatest victory. And it was won here, everywhere around six hundred yojanas - where the Greek king Antiochus is, and further beyond Antiochus, where there are four kings named Ptolemy, Antigonus, Magas and Alexander; in the south - where the Cholas, Pandyas and Tambapamnas (Taprobans) are. Also here, in the lands of the king, among the Greeks, Kambojas, Nabhaks, Nabhpamkits, Bhojas, Pitiniks, Andhras and Palids - everywhere they follow the instructions of the One pleasing to the gods about dharma.

Even where the messengers of the One Pleasant to the Gods have not visited, having heard about the rules of dharma, the provisions of the dharma and the instructions in the dharma that the One Pleasant to the gods gave, they observe them and will observe them. This victory has been won everywhere, and this victory gives great joy, the joy that only the victory of dharma gives. But even this joy does not mean much. The one pleasing to the gods considers the result that will be in another world important.

This edict was written with the aim that my sons and grandsons should not wage new wars, and if there are wars, then that leniency and little harm should be observed, and it is better that they strive only for the victory of dharma, since this gives results in this world and in another world. Let their actions be directed towards what produces results in this world and in the next world.

Translation by E.R. Kryuchkova. Wed. See also: Reader on the history of the ancient East. M., 1963. P. 416 et seq. (translated by G.M. Bongard-Levin); Reader on the history of the ancient East. M., 1980. Part 2. P. 112 and ed. (translated by V.V. Vertogradova).

16 Averintsev S.S. Plutarch and his biographies. M., 1973. pp. 119-129, where the author writes about hypomnematic biography with its categorized structure and the influence of rhetoric on the genre.

17 Unt Ya. “Reflections” as a literary and philosophical monument // Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. Reflections / Ed. prepared A.I.Dovatur, A.K.Gavrilov, Ya.Unt. L., 1985. pp. 94-115. Here, see the literature on the diatribe as one of the sources of the genre.

18 See, for example: Durov V.S. Latin Christian literature of the 3rd-5th centuries. St. Petersburg, 2003. pp. 137-138.

19 Pasternak B. Waves // Aka. Poems. L., 1933. P. 377.

20 "Augustine's commitment to describing the inner state of man continues to attract philosophers and psychologists, as well as the study of rhetoric not only as an end in itself, but rather within the framework of liturgics, literature and theology. The Confessions was the first work in which the inner states were explored the human soul, the relationship of grace and free will - themes that form the basis of Western philosophy and theology" (Van Fleteren F. Confessiones // Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia / Gen. ed. A.D. Fitzgerald. Grand Rapids (Mi.); Cambridge , 1999. P. 227).

21 See for example: Saga Ph. Augustine's Invention of the Inner Self. The Legacy of a Christian Platonist. Oxford, 2000.

22 Ibid. P. 140.

23 Ibid. P. 142.

24 F. Carey concludes his interesting book with this remark.

25 Van Fleteren F. Op. cit. P. 227. Wed. also: Stolyarov A.A. Free will as a problem of European moral consciousness. Essays on history: from Homer to Luther. M., 1999. P. 104 pp., especially “The Legacy of Augustine” (p. 193-198).

26 Kozintsev A.G. Laughter: origins and functions. St. Petersburg, 2002.

27 Harnack A. von. Augustins Confessionen. Ein Vortrag. Giessen, 1888.

28 Stock B. Op. cit. P. 16-17.

29 See: Averintsev S.S. Ancient Greek poetics and world literature // Poetics of ancient Greek literature. M., 1981. P. 4.

30 Stock V. Op. cit. P. 16-17.

31 AbercombieN. Saint Augustine and French Classical Thought. Oxford, 1938; KristellerP.O. Augustine and the Early Renaissance // Studies in Renaissance Thought and Letters. Rome, 1956. P. 355-372. N.N. Kazansky. Confession as a literary genre

32 F. Körner suggests that the external (foris) and the internal (intus) represent the coordinate system of Augustinian ontology (Korner F. Das Sein und der Mensch. S. 50, 250).

33 However, the idea that all human life from birth can be considered as a sequence of stages of dying also goes back to this same line of ideas. The last thought was formulated especially clearly by John Donne in his so-called “Last Sermon”, see: DonnJ. Duel with death / Transl., preface, commentary. N.N. Kazansky and A.I. Yankovsky // Zvezda. 1999. No. 9. P. 137-155.

34 Feldmann E. Confessiones // Augustinus-Lexikon / Hrsg. von C. Mayer. Basel, 1986-1994. Bd. 1. Sp. 1134-1193.

35 Hombert P.-M. Nouvelles recherches de chronologica Augustinienne. P., 2000.

36 Almazov A. Secret confession in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Experience of external history. M., 1995. T. 1-3; It's him. The secret of confession. St. Petersburg, 1894; Shostin A. The superiority of Orthodox confession over Catholic // Faith and Reason. 1887; Markov S.M. Why does a person need confession? M., 1978; Uvarov M.S. Architectonics of the confessional word. St. Petersburg, 1998.

37 Shansky N.M., Ivanov V.V., Shanskaya T.V. Brief etymological dictionary of the Russian language. M., 1973. P. 178. It is characteristic that the word confession is absent in both Vasmer’s and Chernykh’s dictionaries. (Vasmer M. Russisches etymologisches Worterbuch. Heidelberg, 1953. Bd. 1; Chernykh P.Ya. Historical and etymological dictionary of the modern Russian language. M., 1993. T. 1).

38 For recent research on this topic, see; Schulte-Klocker U. Das Verhaltnis von Ewigkeit und Zeit als Widerspiegelung der Beziehung zwischen Schopfer und Schopfung. Eine textbegleitende Interpretation der Bucher XI-XIII der "Confessiones" des Augustinus. Bonn, 2000. However, some clarifications are possible, since recently, thanks to the discovery of a Coptic manuscript of the 4th century, apparently dating back to a Greek text, in turn originating in the Aramaic tradition, it is possible to get some idea of ​​how in The Manichaean tradition interpreted time and how original Augustine’s views on this problem were. As A.L. Khosroev showed in the report “The Manichaeans’ idea of ​​time” (readings in memory of A.I. Zaitsev, January 2005), the Manichaeans believed that “before-time” and “after-time” correspond to the absence of time and both of these states opposed to historical time.

39 PontetM. L "exegese de saint Augustin predicateur. P., 1945. P. 73 sq.

40 Stpepantsov S.A. Psalm CXXXX in Augustine's exegesis. Materials for the history of exegesis. M., 2004.

41 K. Mormann (Mohrmann S. Etudes sur le latin des Chretiens. T. 1. P. 30 sq.) specifically notes that the verb confiteri in Christian Latin often replaces confiteri peccata, while the meaning of “confession of faith” remains unchanged.

42 In a special work (Verheijen L.M. Eloquentia Pedisequa. Observations sur le style des Confessions de saint Augustin. Nijmegen, 1949. P. 21) it is proposed to distinguish between two uses of the verb as verbum dicendi and as recordare (confiteri).

43 From works in Russian, see, for example: Novokhatko A.A. On the reflection of the ideas of Sallust in the works of Augustine // Indo-European linguistics and classical philology V (readings in memory of I.M. Tronsky). Proceedings of the conference, held June 18-20, 2001 / Rep. ed. N.N. Kazansky. St. Petersburg, 2001. P. 91 ed.

44 Averintsev S.S. Greek literature and Middle Eastern “literature” (confrontation and meeting of two creative principles) // Typology and relationships of literature of the ancient world / Rep. ed. P.A.Grintser. M., 1974. P. 203-266.90

45 Wed: Ps. PO: “His work is glory and beauty (confessio et magnificentia), and His righteousness endures forever”; Ps. 103.1: “confessionem et decorem induisti” (“You are clothed with glory and majesty”); Ps. 91.2: “bonum est confiteri Domino et psallere nomini tuo Altissime” (“it is good to praise the Lord and sing to Your name, O Most High”).

46 It is curious that even the work specifically devoted to this concept in Augustine's Confessions does not emphasize the connection of pulchritudo with the usage attested in the Psalter. Meanwhile, its author directly compared the opening lines of the “Confession” (1.1.1) with Psalm 46.11: KreuzerJ. Pulchritudo: vom Erkennen Gottes bei Augustin; Bemerkungen zu den Buchern IX, X und XI der Confessiones. Munchen, 1995. S. 240, Anm. 80.

47 Ibid. S. 237.

48 Courcelle P. Antecedents biographiques des Confessions // Revue de Philologie. 1957. P. 27.

49 Neusch M. Augustin. Un chemin de conversion. Une introduction aux Confessions. P., 1986. P. 42-43.

It is often said that anything can become literature: a conversation overheard on a bus, a lisping neighbor with a funny southern accent, a missing friend to whom you lent money. A writer is someone who opens his eyes and ears to the world, and then displays what he remembers on the pages of his works. How does the writer himself exist in the book? Sometimes he, with all his inner experiences, complexes, secrets, becomes the subject and purpose of the image.

Appearance time: 5th century AD e.
Place of appearance: The Roman Empire

Canon: lax
Spreading: European and American literature (has other origins in other countries)
Peculiarities: lies between fiction and non-fiction

Just as we all, in the apt expression of either Dostoevsky or Turgenev, emerged from Gogol’s overcoat, literary genres also emerged from somewhere. Taking into account the fact that paper used to be tanned leather, and the ability to write was available only to a select few, it would be logical to look for the origins of many genres in deep church antiquity. In fact, isn't a historical novel similar to the chronicle of a monk chronicler? And what about the edifying novel - the genre of teaching, to which great princes and illustrious monarchs often resorted, in order to educate their heirs even after death with the messages they left behind?

Of course, over time, the desire to capture facts gave way to the desire to give free rein to the imagination, genres acquired “secularism,” and now only philologists can find a connection between, say, Charles Bukowski and Petronius. However, the history of literature knows at least one example of how secular life borrowed and even enriched not just the genre of church literature, but an entire sacrament. And its name is confession.

Definition of genre

Now, when we talk about confession as a literary genre, we mean a special type of autobiography, which presents a retrospective of one’s own life.

Confession differs from autobiography in that it does not simply tell about the events that happened to the author, but gives them an honest, sincere, multifaceted assessment not only in the face of the writer himself and his potential reader, but also in the face of eternity. Simplifying somewhat, we can say that confession in literature is approximately the same as confession to a confessor in church, with the only difference being that the first one has a printed form.

For European literature, starting from the 18th century, confession is perceived as an independent genre, which originates from the work of the same name by St. Augustine. In the 19th and 20th centuries, this concept became somewhat blurred, and confession began to include poems, letters, and diary entries that were extremely sincere, often scandalous or shocking.

Origins of the genre. "Confessions" of St. Augustine

In 397-398 AD. thirteen amazing works appear, written by the monk Augustine and telling about his life and conversion to Christianity. They are known to us under the general name - “Confession” - and are considered the first autobiography in the history of literature and the founders of the genre of literary confession.

It really is like a recorded conversation with God, unusually frank, coming from the very depths of the soul.

At the center of this work is a sinner who reveals himself to the reader, and in the face of people and God repents of all his sins (or what he considers to be such: for example, learning Greek under pressure in childhood is also equated with sin) , praising the Lord for his mercy and forgiveness.

Describing the most subtle psychological processes (which in itself is something completely incredible for church literature, especially of that time), exposing the intimate, Augustine seeks to show two dimensions: a certain moral ideal that one should strive for, and the path of an ordinary person who is trying to achieve this come closer to the ideal.

Augustine makes the first attempt in the history of literature to communicate with himself as a others and is perhaps the first to write about the eternal, endless loneliness of the human soul. He sees the only way out of this painful loneliness in love for God. Only this love can bring consolation, because misfortune stems from love for what is mortal.

"Confession" by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The genre receives further development in the “Confession” of one of the most famous Frenchmen of the Enlightenment, Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

This is certainly an autobiographical work, although many researchers of Rousseau’s life and work point out inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the text (compared to the real biography), which is confessional in nature in the part where Rousseau openly admits his sins, informs the reader about his vices and secrets. thoughts.

The author talks about his childhood without parents, about running away from his engraver owner, about converting to Catholicism, about the main woman in his life - Madame de Varan, in whose house he lives for more than ten years and, taking advantage of the opportunities, is engaged in self-education. Despite all the frankness of Rousseau, his confession is increasingly becoming a psychological, autobiographical and partly ideological novel. Rousseau's sincerity in depicting the movements of inner life fades into the background, giving way to the rich eventful outline of the work.

Rousseau outlines the progression from internal experiences to their external stimuli; by studying emotional disturbance, he restores the actual reasons that caused it.

Augustine makes the first attempt in the history of literature to communicate with oneself as with another and is perhaps the first to write about the eternal, endless loneliness of the human soul.

At the same time, he himself says that such a psychological reconstruction can only be approximate: “Confession” tells us about genuine spiritual events from the life of the real Jean-Jacques Rousseau, while something can happen to his hero that in reality did not happen to Rousseau himself happened.

It is this gap between internal and external that is fundamentally important for the analysis of the genre. From now on, the eventual reliability of what is being told is not as important for the writer (and who of the descendants will be able to verify it with one hundred percent accuracy?) as “internal” reliability.

"Confession" by Leo Tolstoy

When the great Tolstoy writes “Anna Karenina,” he begins, like his hero-reasonator Levin, “to the point of headaches,” to painfully reflect on philosophical and religious problems. Of course, Tolstoy reflected on them all his life and in all his works, but it was in 1879 that his “Confession” appeared, where he consistently sets out his attitude towards religion, faith and God, starting from early childhood. Born and raised in the Christian faith, at the age of eleven Lyova hears from adults that there is no God, and these are human inventions. After his second year at university, eighteen-year-old Leo is not only sure of this, but even considers religion a kind of etiquette that people observe without even thinking.

Up to a certain point, Tolstoy’s life, by his own admission, is an attempt to resolve the question of his own purpose and meaning of existence logically, to explain life not by faith, but by science.

But there is no consolation to be found in science. Everything ends with death, and if everything for which you work, everything that is dear to you, is doomed to non-existence, then it makes sense to quickly end your stay on earth, without increasing either sorrows or attachments. Apparently, under the influence of precisely such thoughts, Tolstoy, a year before writing “Confession,” attempted suicide, in order to later come to the conclusion that faith is vital, but what the Russian Orthodox Church can offer is a little different from what he had in mind Christ.

For example, Tolstoy is unpleasantly struck by the statehood of the church.

So Tolstoy begins to preach his version of Christianity, which he developed after observing the life of ordinary people, peasants. This version was called Tolstoyism and led to a conflict between the writer and the church, which anathematized him. Tolstoyism preached mainly non-resistance to evil through violence, from which both the pacifism of his followers and their vegetarianism stemmed.

However, this teaching did not find wide support, according to the philosopher I. Ilyin, the fact was that it attracted “weak and simple-minded people and, giving themselves a false appearance of agreement with the spirit of Christ’s teaching, poisoned Russian religious and political culture.”

Everything ends with death, and if everything for which you work, everything that is dear to you, is doomed to non-existence, then it makes sense to quickly end your stay on earth, without increasing either sorrows or attachments.

For all its sincerity and autobiography, “Confession” is more of a pamphlet, a work that provides a certain ideological basis for future Tolstoyanism.

"De profundis" by Oscar Wilde

“De profundis” - “From the Depths” is the beginning of Psalm 129 and the title of one of Oscar Wilde’s most explicit works, which he wrote while imprisoned in Reading prison, where he was serving time on charges of homosexuality. As a matter of fact, this is a huge letter of fifty thousand words to Alfred Douglas, Bosie, as he was called, whose relationship gave rise to society accusing Wilde of “indecent relations between men.”

This is a very bitter message to a man who has not visited Wilde even once in two years, and where he attacks him with the full power of his talent, extolling his genius and emphasizing how little Douglas means to him compared to his creativity. The writer plunges into memories, on the pages of this letter the details of their relationship are revealed: Wilde tells how he did not leave the bedside of a sick friend, how he threw luxurious dinners in the most expensive restaurants, how he supported Bosie and how this maintenance ruined him and the family he was talking about I managed to forget.

But Wilde’s confession is also his thoughts about art, about the purpose of the creator, about vanity, suffering, about himself. The writer attests to himself so flatteringly that at first it’s even awkward to read. Here, for example, is his passage about his own merits:

But Wilde’s confession is also his thoughts about art, about the purpose of the creator, about vanity, suffering, about himself.

« The gods have generously gifted me. I had a high gift, a glorious name, worthy position in society, brilliant, daring mind; I made art philosophy, and philosophy - art; I changed people's worldview and that's it colors of the world; no matter what I said, no matter what I did, everything plunged people into amazement; I took drama - the most impersonal of the forms known in art - and turned it into a mode of expression as deeply personal as lyrical poem, I simultaneously expanded the scope of the drama and enriched it new interpretation; everything I touch, be it drama, romance, poetry or prose poem, witty or fantastic dialogue, - everything was illuminated with a hitherto unknown beauty; I made it legal property truth itself is equally true and false and showed that false or the true is nothing more than the appearances generated by our mind. I related to Art as the highest reality, and life as a variety fiction; I awakened the imagination of my age so that it surrounded me too myths and legends; I was able to embody all philosophical systems in one phrase and everything that exists is in the epigram" The listing of shortcomings is also more like a list of advantages, especially in the understanding of the esthete Wilde himself: dandy, dandy, waster of his genius, trendsetter.

However, the classification of “De profundis” as confessional literature is beyond doubt: it is truly an autobiographical work (albeit telling not about the writer’s entire life, but only about one, but its key episode), and this is indeed a very personal, painful and frank analysis of himself himself, and that other person, who was studied so well by him, and what self-praise goes off scale in this analysis is just personality traits.

Nowadays, confessional letters and novels have replaced blogs and pages on social networks, leaving, however, only autobiographical content from confession. People, like Wilde, talk about themselves so lovingly that shortcomings become advantages, and advantages turn into ideals unattainable for everyone else. However, we will leave the question of whether confession has finally died in its Augustinian meaning to the reader. ■

Ekaterina Orlova

Chapter II

La Rochefoucauld F., Pascal B., La Bruyère J.

Aphorisms from foreign sources. M., 1985.

About morality

The Thinker Alone

Evil wisdom

F. Nietzsche

Morality is the importance of man before nature.<...>

Some devil must have invented morality to torture people with pride: another devil will one day deprive them of it in order to torture them with self-contempt.<...>

When the good moralize, they cause disgust; When the wicked moralize, they cause fear.

All morality is all about open or seek the highest states of life, where the crucified hitherto abilities could be combined.<...>

Oh, how conveniently you have settled in! You have a law and an evil eye on the one who only in my thoughts turned against the law. We are free, after all. Do you know about the torment of responsibility towards yourself! -<...>

“If you know what you are doing, you are blessed, but if you do not know it, you are cursed and a transgressor of the law,” Jesus said to one man who broke the Sabbath: a word addressed to all breakers and criminals.

Nietzsche F. Evil wisdom / trans. K. A. Svasyana // Works: In 2 vols. T. 1. M., 1990. P. 735, 736.

Vauvenargues L.K. Reflections and maxims. L., 1988.

Goethe I.V. Selected philosophical works. M, 1964.

Gomez de la Serna R. Favorites. M., 1983.

Gracian B. Pocket Oracle. Criticon. M., 1984

Pearls of thought. Minsk, 1987.

Nietzsche F. Op. M., 1990. T. 1-2.

Fedorenko N. T., Sokolskaya L. I. Aphoristics. M., 1990.

Shaw B. Aphorisms. Chisinau, 1985.

Esalnek A. Ya. Intra-genre typology and ways of studying it. M., 1985.

The philosophical genre of confession is as attractive and interesting as it is difficult to define. Difficult to define in the sense that it inevitably refers to two problems. The first problem is the vagueness and instability of the very concept of confession. Confession, recorded in religious consciousness as a sacrament of repentance, and confession as a cultural phenomenon, confession as an expression of individual experience and confession as a genre of philosophy and literature are far from the same thing. The second problem is the specificity of confession, its difference from other philosophical genres. It is these problems that we encounter when trying to explain the obvious appeal of confession from the point of view of the philosophical genre. Of particular importance is the question of the origins of confession as such. How does confession relate to human existence, its ultimate and deepest foundations? What is the role of the confessional word in culture? What is the philosophical meaning of confession? Without answering these questions, it is impossible to grasp the genre specificity of the confession.

Initially, the very concept of confession was firmly rooted in Christianity and Christian culture. Moreover, confession was understood as one of the sacraments: the disclosure by believers of their sins to the priest and receiving forgiveness from him (“absolution of sins”) in the name of Christ. In fact, confession was identified with repentance. This, of course, left an imprint on all subsequent development of ideas about confession, including as a philosophical genre. It is very noteworthy that confession has hardly been studied either from the standpoint of secular culture or within the framework of religious Christian ideas. Not to mention the fact that there is a clear lack of research on confession from the point of view of its originality and uniqueness as a philosophical genre. Often in Christian literature the concepts of “confession” and “repentance” are not distinguished at all. As M. S. Uvarov correctly notes, “sometimes authors simply refer us from the word “confession” to the word “repentance” as a synonym, and sometimes there is no such reference, although related terms (“confession”, “confessor”) are explained and are commented"¹. In this regard, it should be noted that the Christian interpretation of confession is far from the only possible one. Of course, in confession the moment of repentance plays a huge role, but experience and examples of confession have shown and show that confession is not limited to repentance and repentance alone. Already in Augustine, whose “Confession” can be considered as the first example of the philosophical aspect of confession, we find, in addition to the pathos of repentance before God, the lines of the destinies of culture, expressed in the text and intertwined with the lines of the life and spiritual path of the author. Here “the life line of the confessor is like a connecting facet of the “nodal points” of culture”². In addition, confession is always extremely sincere, it involves the highest potentials of consciousness, it becomes repentance for oneself. In this sense, confession is a kind of self-awareness of culture, and the confessional word provides “order and order, harmony and harmony of culture”³. The theme of confession is constantly present in culture, just as in the consciousness and soul of a person there is always a need and opportunity for self-purification, repentance and knowledge of the deepest and most fundamental internal foundations. Confession, therefore, is a unique phenomenon, born at the intersection of two lines: the line of spiritual culture and the line of life of the confessor.

In the act of confession, the most hidden, most secret human essence is revealed. Step by step, everything superfluous is removed that hides the true “I” of a person, that inner core that forms the entire inner world of the individual. Otherwise, confession is impossible. Therefore, we cannot agree with L.M. Batkin and his interpretation of the origins of St. Augustine’s “Confessions” 4 . Despite the fact that for Augustine all people are equal before the Lord, and it is for this reason that we, who read the Confessions, recognize and recognize ourselves in it, this only points to the brightest, vital individuality of the author, since only a powerful individuality is capable of touching the thinnest strings of the soul. Confession is always a deep inner impulse, an attempt to penetrate into the true meaning of one’s feelings, aspirations, actions, desires, ideals. And this true meaning is always hidden from prying eyes. But the whole difficulty lies in the fact that it is hidden from view. And that is why confession is so desirable and at the same time painful and painful: it is difficult for a person to look inside himself, he always, or almost always, wants to be better, more worthy. He wants to attribute to himself the desired “true meaning,” but deep down there is always a constant need to find the true, truly authentic meaning, undisguised and unretouched. Hence the constant need for confession, for revealing one’s inner essence. In confession there is a double immersion into the depths of oneself. In it, using Christian terminology, occurs the sacrament of finding oneself in the name of a future life; since it is precisely in the face of the future that a person so needs to acquire his ultimate internal foundations. But this acquisition occurs in the course of constant dialogue with oneself, with others, with God. It is this need for dialogue, for comparing oneself with another, that is one of the main impulses of confession.

Confession is always narrative and autobiographical. Along with internal dialogue, it also contains a monologue. The person in it acts as a storyteller, a narrator of his life, fate, and deeds. But he tells not just about the events of his life, but about deeply personal spiritual quests. Confession is always the story of the formation of the spirit. The story is dramatic and sometimes tragic. Confession is spoken in words. We also see this as a characteristic feature of confession as a genre. A person experiences a painful need to speak out, to talk through his life again. The word here acts as a life-giving force; it forces one to take the position of speaking about oneself, which means to find new vital forces in oneself, to find a new self. In addition, the spoken word is the realized word. Confession is a kind of act of overcoming the fear of a word spoken about oneself, a truthful word that tears away all the veils from the true inner essence of a person. The word confessional is the realization of the true human “I”.

Another important point for confession is its connection with knowledge and cognition. In confession, a person comprehends some knowledge about himself, secret, intimate knowledge, and at the same time, by pronouncing this knowledge, reliving his life, he learns and gains new knowledge. Confession, therefore, is also knowledge. Knowing yourself through yourself, knowing your past, future and present. It is therefore no coincidence that confessions are written at turning points, both for the person himself and for entire eras. At a turning point in life and history, it is very important to reassess all the most hidden meanings, confess, understand and know your destiny in the face of the unknown future.

Confession is closely related to repentance. Sometimes it even acts as a synonym for repentance. Indeed, repentance is the leitmotif of any confession. It is inevitable, since if a person makes a confession, then he is obviously doomed to expose his true self. The path to self-soothing and self-exhortation is cut off and rejected by man, which means that repentance is made, confession is made. The origins of confession, the origins of repentance are in the sphere of certain absolute principles of a person’s individual existence and are conditioned by these absolute principles. This feature sets confession apart from a number of other philosophical genres and methods of philosophizing in general.

These, in our opinion, are some of the features of confession that determine its uniqueness as a philosophical genre. But in order to understand why a philosopher comes to the idea of ​​writing a confession; it is necessary to refer to specific examples. Among such examples, the most striking are the confessions of J.-J. Rousseau, Augustine the Blessed, L.N. Tolstoy.

For Augustine, whose “Confession” is the earliest in terms of writing among all three, the main prerequisite for confession is the search for ways of unity with God, the acquisition of true faith, in which for Augustine all the meanings of his individual existence and the existence of the universal are concentrated: “I will seek You “O Lord, I cry to You, and I will cry to You, believing in You, for You have been preached to us.”5 Augustine turns to God for consolation. Consolation for the sins he committed throughout his life. He once again lives his life anew in order to find God where he deviated from the true path and sinned. “What do I want to say, Lord my God?” - only that I don’t know where I came from here, into this - should I say - dead life or living death? I don’t know,” says Augustine in the first book of his “Confessions.” “Augustine’s entire “Confession” is a kind of search for an answer to this question, but with a predetermined answer, it is clear to Augustine and to the readers that the beginning of all beginnings and the end of all endings is God, and the absolute meaning of confession is to find God. in the deep, meaning-forming foundations of one’s own personality. However, to find God or to contain oneself - for Augustine this question remains without a clear answer. One way or another, but behind all this there is one need - to be confirmed in one’s own faith, to confess, repent, find God and. to follow the path leading to eternal unity with God.

For Rousseau, the need for confession is the need to show other people one person in all the truth of his nature. He wanted to see himself as this person. Moreover, what is important to him is the truth, whatever it may be. Confession is the summation of Rousseau's entire life. Only the truth expressed about oneself is capable of assessing the very personality of the confessor and what predetermined the formation of this personality. “Whether nature did good or bad by breaking the mold in which she cast me can only be judged by reading my confession” 6 . This assessment is important and necessary, first of all, for the author himself, despite references to the opinions of other people: “Gather around me an innumerable crowd of people like me: let them listen to my confession, let them blush for my baseness, let them lament my misfortunes” 7 . Rousseau, through the truth of confession, wants to establish himself in his own self-esteem, in his inner foundations. By confessing, he admits to himself his own mistakes and, therefore, finds the strength to search and affirm the true foundations of his life and individual existence.

“Confession” of L. N. Tolstoy is very original and bears a clear imprint of the personality of its creator. For Tolstoy, the eternal and one of the most important problems was the problem of a proper attitude towards God 8. This problem was also reflected in his Confession. Tolstoy, speaking about his thorny and painful path of spiritual formation, constantly creates tension between the proper attitude towards God and how far the life he lives is from this proper attitude. Tolstoy's "Confession" grew out of an unfinished chapter of a large religious and philosophical work. Therefore, the main motive of Tolstoy’s confession is an attempt to explain how a person should, overcoming his own weakness, rise to the level of divine truths. It was important for Tolstoy to show this by his own example, in order to once again make sure of the correctness of his chosen path, to once again appear before the court of his own conscience, to bring the vicissitudes of his own spiritual quest to the altar of faith.

Thus, in all three confessions we see different starting points: for Augustine it is God, for Rousseau it is the truth of life, for Tolstoy it is a proper attitude towards God. However, the general meaning of confessions is that they reveal the most secret, most intimate pages of a person’s life. In other words, the difference in confessions is determined by the difference in the starting points with which these secret, deep experiences are correlated. Based on this, the specificity of confession as a genre also lies in the fact that the starting points are absolute values ​​for the authors. That is why confessions are written extremely frankly, and in them all the highest potencies of human consciousness work with extreme, almost absolute tension. The starting point in confession (for example, Truth in Rousseau) as an absolute value requires the same absolute status from the end point. More precisely, these points coincide. Confession, thus, is a circle of ascent from absolute to absolute, and on the path of this ascent, the abysses and peaks of one’s own existence are revealed to a person.

Speaking about confession as a philosophical genre, it is necessary to determine the boundaries of this genre, and also note a number of stylistic features. These features include, first of all, the autobiographical nature of the confession. However, autobiography is also characteristic of other examples of philosophical prose. In particular, one can recall “Self-Knowledge” by N. A. Berdyaev, which is also dedicated to the experience of the author’s spiritual, philosophical and worldview formation. Berdyaev himself writes that “my memory of my life and my path will be consciously active, that is, it will be a creative effort of my thought, my knowledge of today. Between the facts of my life and the book about them will lie the act of learning about today” 9 . It is this act of cognition, as it seems to us, that distinguishes self-knowledge from confession. Self-knowledge has a different starting point; it is rationalized and determined by the value of the creative act of comprehending the depths of the development of the author’s personality. Confession does not imply a rational creative act of cognition. It is an act of revelation, revealing one’s inner essence in all the truth of feelings and experiences. Although confession, of course, is not without a cognitive aspect and value from the point of view of understanding today. Confession is essentially ontological; it is where the final “formation” of the meanings of a person’s individual existence takes place. Self-knowledge, in turn, is epistemological. It comes from the desire to know, to penetrate into these meanings and, in the words of Berdyaev, “is a creative act performed in the moment of the present” 10.

We can also find elements of confession in V.V. Rozanov in the “one”. What the author himself calls “exclamations, sighs, half-thoughts and half-feelings” are in places very reminiscent of a confession. Moreover, they are addressed not to readers, but to oneself. Conversation with yourself, or rather, grasping your experiences, sensations of the present moment. We can say that Rozanov is the pioneer of a new genre, a genre in which a stream of sensuality, unformed thoughts, primary impressions of life, sometimes vague and sometimes very vivid, is presented. What gives this scattered stream the features of a confessional word? First of all, an intimate process of discovering new meanings of one’s own individual existence that occurs deep within oneself. Secondly, the address of these experiences, expressed in short, fragmentary notes, to oneself. In “Solitary,” Rozanov simply strives to keep up with the life of his own soul, essentially without any goal, without intention and without processing 11 . At the same time, Rozanov’s genre differs significantly from confession. There are only elements of confession in it, but there is not that integrity, the depth of personality revelation that we find in confession. The genre of confession cannot be limited to only fleeting, emotional impressions of oneself and the surrounding reality. Confession requires the inclusion of all internal reserves of the personality. Based on the completeness of its ontological status for the confessor, confession records the vicissitudes of life’s path with the same completeness of foundations and means of expression. It is this completeness that we do not find in Rozanov.

Another giant of Russian philosophy, the priest P. A. Florensky, has a peculiar interweaving of genres. “The Table and the Statement of Truth” is an unsurpassed example of Orthodox theodicy, and in terms of genre it can be correlated with an apology, a treatise, and a confession. Indeed, the fact that the work was conceived as a theodicy gives it the genre character of an apology, and its purposefulness and scientific character make it similar to a treatise. At the same time, the work can also be correlated with confession. “The Pillar and Ground of Truth” is a deeply personal work and is the fruit of the author’s intense spiritual life. Florensky himself writes about this in a letter to V.A. Kozhevnikov: “The lyrics of “The Pillar” ... are something fragile and intimately personal, solitary” 12. It is worth noting that The Pillar and Ground of Truth went through four editions. And the reason for this was the author’s difficulty in expression and presentation. On the one hand, the book had to look like an integral scientific and theological work, taking into account all the rigor of the requirements for books of this kind. On the other hand, the author’s background to “The Pillar” introduced a confessional, intimate and personal intonation into the fabric of the text itself. Florensky clearly did not want to avoid this background, as evidenced by his following lines: “Meanwhile, why should I print in such and such a font, speak in such and such a language, use such and such terms, and not such and such. Neither the Lord nor St. Church canons do not require from me either font, language, or philosophical terminology” 13. This contradiction reveals the boundary between the genre of confession and the genres of apology and treatise. Whatever elements of confession the apology and treatise may contain, it is still not a confession. These genres have different motives and, so to speak, “fields of application.” An apologia and treatise can be personal, but they have the purpose of clarifying and affirming specific issues, problems and principles. They use a rationalized categorical apparatus adapted for specific tasks. Confession is free from all this; it is an expression of individual existence, the need to express it, to verbalize it, if you like. It does not have that rigor and science, but there is internal spiritual tension, repentance and purification in an attempt to expose and clarify the deepest internal foundations, which in itself is already one of the main philosophical problems.

It is this formulation of the most fundamental philosophical problems that makes confession a truly philosophical genre. Using the example of a specific, living personality, her searches and sufferings, ups and downs, the tragedy and greatness of a person are observed especially clearly. A person in confession projects his future and present self, even in the face of death, through his past self. Through self-knowledge, a person understands the world. This is the uniqueness of confession as a philosophical genre. Thanks to this uniqueness, the genre of confession did not exhaust itself in the twentieth century. And it’s unlikely to ever run out.

Confession CONFESSION , a type of lyric. self-expression, cultivated by L. as lit. genre, but maintaining a connection with its original. meaning: she is one of the seven Christs. sacraments, which also include baptism, communion, confirmation, marriage, etc. I. demanded from a person complete sincerity, the desire to get rid of sins, and repentance. Having penetrated into the artist. literary ru, I. acquired didactic. shade, becoming a kind of act of public repentance (for example, in J. J. Rousseau, N. V. Gogol, L. N. Tolstoy). But at the same time, I. was also a means of moral self-affirmation of the individual. As a genre of lyric poetry, poetry was developed by the romantics, but is generally comparable to the lyric form. statements from the first person, known even before the appearance of I. as Christ. sacraments. In the previous L. rus. poetic tradition elements lyrical. I. appear in N. M. Karamzin and V. A. Zhukovsky, and intensify in the work of E. A. Baratynsky. Among the Decembrists, I. served to express political ideas. and philosopher the poet’s convictions through the mouth of the confessing hero (“Confession of Nalivaika” by K. F. Ryleev). The desire for I. is characteristic of the lyrics of A. S. Pushkin in the 30s. (“When the noisy day ceases for a mortal...”). I. is akin to a diary, but unlike it, it is not attached to a k.-l. place and time. To Lermont. I. often retain the form of repentance [“Prayer” (“Don’t blame me, omnipotent”)] and the figure of the attentive I. (poems “Giulio”, “Mtsyri”, “Confession”, verse “Repentance”). But this is only a form of the confessor’s appeal to the one who judges his sins. In this form Lermont. the hero, instead of begging for forgiveness of sins, on the contrary, defends the value of what he has done in life, not wanting to repent of what he has done. In L., two types of I. are distinguished. Firstly, this is I., addressed by the speaker to another person or to “the whole world.” For example, “Mtsyri”, “Repentance”, “K*” (“I will not humiliate myself before you”). Here is the desire for repentance, salvation of the soul and the utmost frankness of the canon. I. are supplanted by the opposite: “I don’t want to shed tears before heaven / For salvation / Or to wash a sinful soul with miraculous calm...” (“Repentance”). The confessor, instead of telling about himself, erects a wall of mystery between himself and the listener, and he refuses to reveal this secret to anyone: “For life, for peace, for eternity to you / I will not sell this secret!” (poem “Confession”). By pitting himself against the whole world, the hero thereby refuses help. I. turns into a challenge to the interlocutor. This self-awareness of the hero is also stimulated by the fact that he doubts the ability of words to adequately convey his feelings and thoughts: “. ..my affairs / It’s a little useful for you to know - / Can I tell my soul?” (“Mtsyri”). Confession as the remission of sins by someone else is devalued, and the person confessing places the remission of sins on himself. Secondly, L. has a monologue. I. - I. “for myself.” In verse. “I don’t want the world to know” L., as it were, explains to himself the reasons why the hero leaves his secret to himself: for him “the only judge is God and conscience.” But God in L.’s poetry cannot become the supreme “purifier” from sin: the person confessing is not given the fullness of faith necessary for complete justice. Faith constantly struggles with reason, with experience: “But cold experience, which is warm, contradicts every moment...” (verse "Confession") I. becomes the place where faith and experience collide (see Religious motives). The peculiar poles of L.’s confessional lyrics are “Prayer” (“In a difficult moment of life”) and “Gratitude.” In the first verse. the fullness of faith sought by the poet is expressed, in the second - sarcastic. a challenge to God (see God-fighting motives). The contradiction between these poles is fundamental. theme of I. in L. The poet cannot accept forgiveness and internal. excuses from any other person. Therefore, his I. is, first of all, a person’s report to himself (hence the reluctance to reveal, to entrust the secret to someone else). Analyzing himself, Lermont. the hero is convinced that such a contradiction is peculiar only to him and only to him it serves as a source of spiritual strength: “And what would be poison to others / Lives him, feeds him / With its caustic fire” (verse “Confession”). As a result of this, a person either consciously fences himself off from the world, dooming himself to loneliness, or, as in a verse. “Do not blame me, Omnipotent,” renounces the “narrow path of salvation” in the name of love for earthly passions. And the contradiction between rejection from the world and attraction to the “rebellious excitements of life” is for Lermont. I. the main genre-forming moment. Genre I. in Lermont. interpretation will later appear in F. M. Dostoevsky, in whose work he became the subject of in-depth analysis (“Demons”, “The Brothers Karamazov”).

A. M. Peskov, V. N. Turbin Lermontov Encyclopedia / USSR Academy of Sciences. Institute of Russian lit. (Pushkin. House); Scientific-ed. Council of the publishing house "Sov. Encycl."; Ch. ed. Manuilov V. A., Editorial Board: Andronikov I. L., Bazanov V. G., Bushmin A. S., Vatsuro V. E., Zhdanov V. V., Khrapchenko M. B. - M.: Sov. Encycl., 1981

See what “Confession” is in other dictionaries:

confession- confession, and... Russian spelling dictionary

- (Confessiones) (c. 397–401) in 13 books. - Augustine’s work summarizing the dramatic vicissitudes of his spiritual development. The title (“confessio” – “confession of faith” and “confession of sins”) compositionally unites the book. I–IX (psychological… … Philosophical Encyclopedia

CONFESSION, a sacrament of the church, the disclosure by believers of their sins to the priest and receiving from him forgiveness (remission of sins) in the name of Jesus Christ. Confession was first public, then became secret and mandatory. In Catholicism, secret confession... ... Modern encyclopedia

Confession- CONFESSION, a sacrament of the church, the disclosure by believers of their sins to the priest and receiving forgiveness from him (“absolution of sins”) in the name of Jesus Christ. Confession was first public, then became secret and mandatory. In Catholicism, secret confession... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

- – religious and philosophical treatise by L.N. Tolstoy, written in 1879–81. In Russia, publication was prohibited by spiritual censorship. First published in the journal "Common Cause" in Geneva in 1881–84, last edition: Confession; What is my faith? L., 1991. In... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

CONFESSION, confession, women. 1. In the Christian church, repentance of your sins before the priest; rite of absolution by the priest after questioning the penitent (church). During confession. Be at confession. 2. Sincere and complete confession of something... ... Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary

Sacrament, recognition, demands, consciousness, repentance Dictionary of Russian synonyms. confession see confession Dictionary of synonyms of the Russian language. Practical guide. M.: Russian language. Z. E. Alexandrova ... Synonym dictionary

- “CONFESSION”, youthful verse. L. (1831); combines the features of “confessional” lyrics and an oratorical monologue (see Confession). Expressing disappointment in the world and people, in one’s own. romantic illusions of the author and at the same time preserving the seeds... ... Lermontov Encyclopedia