Open Originality as Overcoming Nihilism

Abstract

The article reviews the monograph by Kapitalina Antonovna Koksheneva, DSc in Philology, dedicated to the cultural and philosophical aspects of N. N. Strakhov’s legacy. The book under review is an innovative study that links the problems of nihilism and devaluing of the idea of personality, and the crisis of rationality in the European philosophical culture of the last third of the 19th century. The monograph examines the legacy of K. S. Stanislavsky in the context of the theory of “organic art.” The study is characterized by both new approaches and interdisciplinary thoroughness. Based on the concepts of understanding man and the national nature of the soul, created by Russian philosophers of the second half of the 19th century, the author defines the range of national ideals that N. N. Strakhov developed in “The Struggle with the West in Our Literature,” and which is fundamental, eternally relevant for Russian culture. The research of K. A. Koksheneva convincingly proves that only the metaphysical method allows us to understand the cultural studies of N. N. Strakhov and the circle of artists-creators and thinkers-creators close to him.

Keywords

• n. n. strakhov
• ap. a. grigoriev
• f. m. dostoevsky
• k. s. stanislavsky
• p. ya. chaadaev
• i. s. turgenev
• l. n. tolstoy
• nihilism
• national ideals
• self-awareness
• civilization.