The article presents an analysis of the autobiographical experience of the philosopher and thinker M.M. Bakhtin, done by him in the word, in the oral genre of the utterance. It is shown that, despite the refusal of the philosopher to compose memories of himself, he made a unique experience of oral storytelling, taking place in the Voice. In this context, the author of the article analyzes the main ideas of Bakhtin concerning his concept of the author and the hero through the prism of the problem of autobiography and self-report-confession, in which I and the other are the main architectonic limits. It is presented that Bakhtin himself applied the genre of self-report confession to his personal experience of telling about himself, choosing for this the appropriate tonality of the story, the tonality of prayer-repentance. The problem of understanding Bakhtin’s philosophy is shown, referring to various kinds of reductions associated with the fact that the interpretation of his philosophy takes place within the framework of the interpretation of texts and sketches. At the same time, a participatory understanding of him as an author should consist in hearing through the text his unique intonation, his author’s voice.
author; hero; tonality; intonation; voice; anthropology; person; autobiography; self-report; confession.