Sergei A. Shul’ts, DSc in Philology, Independent Researcher, Rostov-on-Don, Russia. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3429-6714
The images of master and servant in Enlightenment literature – J. Swift’s “Directions to Servants” (1745), D. Diderot’s “Jacques the Fatalist and His Master” (1796), the Figaro trilogy by P.O. Beaumarchais, D.I. Fonvizin’s “Message to My Servants…” (1769), etc. – receive symbolic and metaphysical content which gave Hegel reason to see in them the archetypes of social ontology and anthropological archetypes in general. Leo Tolstoy’s story “Master and Worker” (1895) – in the aspect of historical poetics based on the genre traditions of hagiographic canon, philosophical story and tragedy – develops all the meanings indicated above. Hegel’s idea of mutual recognition and affirmation of people from polar social groups became the leading one in Tolstoy. At the same time for Tolstoy the anthropologicalmetaphysical weight of the category of “slave” (servant) turned out to be the only important one (as it was for his predecessors).
L.N. Tolstoy; J. Swift; D. Diderot; D.I. Fonvizin; G.V.F. Hegel; master and servant.
15.05.2025
10.06.2025
Shul’ts, S.A. “Master / Servant Archetypes in the Works of L.N. Tolstoy (‘Master and Worker’) and the Traditions of J. Swift, D.I. Fonvizin, D. Diderot, the Philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel”. Literaturovedcheskii zhurnal, no. 3(69), 2025, pp. 34–48. (In Russ.)
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