The specifics of the implementation of the concept of “Antichrist” in the novel by D. S. Merezhkovsky “Peter and Alexey”

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the concept of “Antichrist” in the language picture of the world by D. S. Merezhkovsky. The relevance of the study is due to the significant role of the writer in the literature of the late 19th-early 20th century and the dominance of religious and philosophical ideas in his work. The work is aimed at identifying the specifics of the implementation of the concept of “Antichrist” as one of the key concepts for D.S. Merezhkovsky, analyzing its structure and main representations. The material for the study was the text of the novel “Peter and Alexey”, which was studied using the methods of component, frame and distributional analysis. The paper considers three layers of the concept: the outer layer, which corresponds to the biblical text and represents an literary reconstruction of the eschatological popular consciousness of the 23th and 18th centuries, the middle layer, which contains the idea of Peter as the Antichrist, and the deep layer, formed by the idea of the Antichrist as an entity inextricably linked with Christ in the struggle and unity at the same time. As a result of comparison with one of the first texts that allows us to reconstruct this concept, the Revelation of St. John the Baptist. The differentiating features that make up the peculiarity of the implementation of the concept of “Antichrist” in the text under study are highlighted. It is determined that the outer layer of the concept has a frame structure, and the slots included in it are identified. The semes included in the middle layer of the concept, which has a field structure, are analyzed, the organizing dominant and distributional connections between individual semes are established, which allow combining them into hypersemes. The togetherness of the signification in the third, deep layer of the concept of “Antichrist’s beginning” and “Christ’s beginning” is revealed, which is especially clearly manifested in the fragments that have a mystical character. Based on the analysis of the concept of “Antichrist”, which is widely and variously represented in the text of the novel” Peter and Alexey”, the author concludes that it affects the text and the system of images.

Keywords

• silver age
• gnosticism
• d.s. merezhkovsky
• eschatology
• synthesis
• concept
• antichrist
• frame
• sema