THE REVOLUTION AND THE PEOPLE OF L. LEONOV AND V. SHAROV: HISTORIOSOPHICAL DIALOGUE OF TWO WRITERS

Abstract

The article examines the historical communication between two writers – Leonid Leonov («The Pyramid») and V. Sharov («Rehearsals», «Before and During», «Raising Lazarus», «Be like children»). The analysis featured the central artistic images and motifs of their novels, namely the Russian revolution and the people. According to the hypothesis, there are points of convergence between their historiosophical concepts. The Russian history, the way it was presented in their novels, was subjected to a multidimensional analysis, which revealed its catastrophism and eschatology. The revolution was largely demythologized by both Leonov and Sharov: they did not see it as an event that opened the possibility of creating a new world (paradise on earth) and a new man. So was the image of a God-bearing people who lost faith in the pursuit of social miracles. Both writers saw the revolution as the central historiosophical image of all Russian history. Both authors stressed the catastrophic and eschatological effect the revolution had for the foundations of Russian life, traditions, and Existence. Both authors used the symbolism of fire devouring Russia, its people, and every individual. In their novels, the revolution was an abyss which devoured millions of people and the  country itself. L. Leonov followed the theory of cyclical nature of Russian history; for him, the phenomenological essence of the revolution was a strange  and terrible delusion that captured the country and its people. V. Sharov was trying to prove the usual, repeatable character of revolution in Russian history: the cyclical nature of history was obvious to the writer. Sharov’s artistic strategy was to reproduce the individual word as a reaction to the revolution, words as expressions of attitudes towards reality, the metaphysical world, and God. History, according to Sharov, retains the traces of individual presence: it has a memory of i ts own.