Poetic cosmogony in poems of Russian poets of the 18th – early 19th century

Abstract

The research is significant due to the undiminishing interest shown by philosophers, philologists and culture experts to an eternal question of all times – the creation of the world by God. This aspect demands special consideration. That is why, the article aims to define the cosmogony as a part of the historiosophy, more precisely, the poetic cosmogony as a part of the artistic historiosophy. To achieve this aim, it is necessary to answer the following questions: 1) what is the fundamental principle of the world (universe), and is the poet focused on this particular problem? 2) what does this fundamental principle consist of? what are the constituents of the world? 3) how does it show itself? where is it situated? where does it exist? how did the world come into existence? The answers to these questions can be provided not only by religion and theology but also by science, philosophy and mythology. The analysis is carried out on the material of cosmogonical poems of four Russian 18th–19th century poets: “World’s Creation. Panegyric Song” (1779–1782) by А. N. Radishchev, “Reflection on World’s Creation Based on the First Chapter of Genesis” (1784, 1804) and “The Fate of the Ancient World or the Flood” (1789, 1804) by S. S. Bobrov, “Matter” (1796) by P. А. Slovtsov, “Song to the Creator” (“Pesn’ Sotvorivshemu vsja”) (1817) by S. А. Shirinsky-Shikhmatov. The conducted research found out, that all authors of the above writings put into verse versions of the so-called cosmogonic myths reputable for them, which describe how the universe originated, more or less. Four poets rely in their cosmogenesis reflections on some myth invariants to be found in the Old Testament [6], but these are the variants, and sometimes even concepts, alternating to the Bible determine an individual diversity of historiosophical constructs of our “metaphysical” poets. The material from this article can be used in teaching the following disciplines: history, 18th-century Russian literature and philosophy.