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Abstract: In Russian literature, alongside the mythologization of book / literature / library, an idea is developed of the escape from book. The work of symbolist poets holds an important place amid the literary interpretations of this idea. The present text aims to uncover the conceptualisation of book / literature / library in the artistic concept of symbolism by following the course of thematology and conceptology, as well as using the instrumentarium of semantic analysis of poetic text. The observations show that in poems by V. Bryusov and Al. Blok the value of “real” life is opposed to book / literature / library. With this artistic concept the poets elaborate the ideas of sentimentalism (embodied in Goethe’s Werther), the romantic skepsis as to the fruits of civilization, the ideas of Pushkin, Goncharov, Dostoevsky, and Chekhov about the negative aspects of “literary man”. The negation of library in symbolist poets is also motivated by an apology of revolution, which in their body of work incorporates the specifically Russian idea of the Scythian element in Russian culture, coming to annihilate the old European culture. This draws the conclusion that the idea of “natural man”, developing in European literature, obtains in the poetry of Al. Blok and V. Bryusov specifically Russian dimensions.

About the author(s) :

Dechka Chavdarova

Konstantin Preslavski University of Shumen (Bulgaria)

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8076-0146

Publication Timeline:

Date of receipt: 19.11.2021; date of publication: 25.12.2021.

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