Negative character traits of prominent people. What is a personality - what qualities it is characterized by, examples of historical and modern strong personalities

Hello, dear readers of the blog site. The term "personality" is used in different scientific paradigms (?): philosophy, sociology, linguistics, psychology. This concept exists even in religion and politics.

In everyday life, we also often use it, for example, talking about someone "an interesting or famous person" and the like. What is this concept? Who can be called that, and who can not? What qualities are needed for this?

Definition of personality - what is it

This term has many definitions. If we combine them, then the output will be the following:

Personality is a person participating in the socio-cultural life and activities of society, revealing his individual characteristics in the process of interaction with other people.

A person can exist in two forms:

  1. as a separate person, the subject of relations (each person);
  2. as a member of a certain society endowed with a certain system of stable qualities (for example, a member of a party, an actor, an athlete).

From here it is clear that personality is not born- it becomes in the process of socialization (?), knowledge of the surrounding world. A person acquires his own individual set of moral qualities, which distinguishes him from others.

In the future, people unite in a community, unite in groups driven by similar interests.

Various approaches

As noted above, this concept is used in various social aspects, and all of them respond in their own way. to the question what is personality. Briefly about some of them:

  1. Philosophers different times had different interpretations of this concept: a person was interpreted as the essence of God, as a hero and just a citizen of his state. Its obligatory attributes, according to great minds, are will, reason and feelings.
  2. Social sciences connect a person with the culture of society: that is, it is possible to be it only in the context of a cultural society.
  3. religious currents define the concept of personality in different ways. For example, in Christianity, only people can be called that, and from the moment the conception occurred in the womb (therefore, abortion at any time is considered a sin). In Hinduism, a person is not only a person, but also animals. In Buddhism there is no such concept at all: it is replaced by the word "soul".
  4. In politics- this is a subject endowed with certain, assigned to it by the constitution of Russia.

Personality in psychology

The psychological view of this concept is also a scientific approach. In my opinion, it is the most interesting, so I allocate a separate chapter for it. In psychology, the most common definition is:

A personality is a person who has a certain set of psychological qualities that determine his life in society: behavior, actions, relationships with people, activities, etc.

What is a strong personality

What qualities must a person have to be called that? Based on the personality structure described below (be sure to read it - very useful), we can say that strong personality is:

  1. self-confident person;
  2. having a strong-willed character;
  3. able to manage their actions and emotional intelligence;
  4. easily adaptable to any changes in the environment, especially negative ones;
  5. having goals and being able to achieve them;
  6. effectively interacting with the world and rationally thinking.

This list of qualities is endless.

The person described above is rather a collective image, since for each individual there is a portrait of a strong personality. You can compose it yourself and develop the necessary characteristics in order to become strong.

For example, in this video we are offered to pay attention to 22 signs of a strong-willed person:

Do you consider yourself one of those? Well, okay. Being strong is not a synonym for "". For the most part, such people simply cannot act differently - they are. Did they want it? You have to ask them.

Personally, I do not want to be like that, because due to the features described below (temperament, abilities, strong-willed qualities), this is not my way. BUT go the other way- the worst thing that can happen to a person.

Do not be fooled by the calls of "woe teachers" personal growth - they will not help you. Everything is decided by genetics and your own desire. Breaking the program of behavior laid down by nature is not worth it, because it is unnatural.

Examples of strong, prominent and historical figures

In fact, there are a lot of such people. Just not everyone was lucky enough to go down in history. This happens only if a strong personality manifests itself at a very high level (state, world) or if, due to some circumstances, a wide circle of people becomes aware of them.

  1. Genghis Khan- Mongolian nomad who conquered half the world. Without outstanding personal qualities, it would be difficult to even think about it.
  2. Alexander the Great- at one time he also conquered half the world, however, he went from west to east, and Genghis Khan - from east to west, but that’s not the point.
  3. Napoleon- there is much more evidence about the scale of his personality than about the previous two defendants. He went from lieutenant to emperor in 20 years, conquering people with the strength of his spirit and self-confidence. He almost became the emperor of the whole world (and who prevented him from doing this?).
  4. Minin and Pozharsky- these two people, thanks to their personal qualities, led the militia at the beginning of the seventeenth century and expelled the Polish invaders from Moscow.
  5. Peter the First- a very odious personality, during the period of his not very long life, made Russia a maritime (great) power. So much energy and confidence emanated from him, which allowed him to do the impossible.
  6. Catherine II- a native German who, having become our empress, thanks to her indefatigable energy and iron will, made Russia truly Great.
  7. Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich- who will say that this is not the strongest personality in the current world politics. Of course, descendants will judge his deeds, but it is already clear even now that he will go down in history on a par with the above-mentioned comrades.

There is people who are considered strong not for what they achieved in life, but for the fact that they were able to stay true to themselves on the verge of death:

  1. Ivan Susanin- made the Polish invaders lose time leading them through the swamps, while knowing that he would be executed for this.
  2. Alexey Maresyev- a pilot, was shot down during the Second World War and for many days got to his own with crushed legs. After that, he returned to service and flew on prostheses, striking all his contemporaries and descendants with the strength of his character.
  3. Magomed Nurbagandov- a policeman from Dagestan who, in the face of death, did not lose his temper and did not abandon his principles. He was executed in front of a video camera by a group of bandits. But he was not broken.

What influences the formation of personality

The structure of personality refers to the presence of certain traits and the interaction between them.

In an individual, these traits are manifested in varying degrees and intensity, which is why all people are different from each other. Imagine that inside each of us there is a personal mosaic: everyone has it, but no one like you.

You will not find two completely identical people on the planet: each has its own peculiarity, individuality. , contradictions and misunderstandings between individuals.

To better understand what qualities characterize a personality, consider its components.

Motivation consists of 3 elements:

  1. A need is a psychological or physiological need (I want to eat).
  2. A stimulus is something that starts human activity in order to satisfy a need (I got a stomach ache from hunger).
  3. Intention - a decision regarding the satisfaction of a need (I will now get up and go to lunch).

Motivation is an important part of being successful if a person has no goals, then it is unlikely that he will achieve high achievements while sitting on the couch.

Also, knowledge about motivation will help you to better interact with others: having understood what need a person wanted to satisfy, his behavior becomes explainable and predictable in advance.

For example, someone who steals money is not necessarily a bad person. Maybe he just wanted to eat.

Strong personalities who have achieved a lot in life, had a very strong motivation, moving them forward and forcing them not to notice obstacles.

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Truly brilliant personalities are extremely rarely pleasant people. They are preoccupied with great ideas, they do not like to waste time, including on unnecessary "bashing" or observing etiquette. It happens that from the realization of one's own importance, some prominent people finally blow the roof off. For the title of "the most obnoxious genius" we selected 5 candidates who left their mark on history, science and culture.

Steve Jobs

The recognized IT genius of our time, Steve Jobs, could be absolutely unbearable. After his death, friends and subordinates told the world many stories about how Jobs skillfully humiliated people, was rude and behaved like a capricious child. Apple employees have heard more than once how the boss scolded colleagues, not at all embarrassed in terms. Sometimes Jobs arranged public "whippings" and dismissals. Complete strangers sometimes suffered from the hot temper of Jobs - from cooks in a restaurant to policemen. One day, Jobs was stopped for speeding, and he, not wanting to wait for the slow servant of the law to issue him a fine, began to frantically honk, and then defiantly rushed at the same speed. In everyday matters, he was also extremely picky.

According to the recollections of his wife, Jobs could not decide to buy furniture for the house for about 8 years. Once, while staying in a New York hotel, he suddenly had the idea that the piano in the room was in the wrong place, and therefore demanded to move a heavy instrument right in the night. According to the recollections of his comrades, all these oddities were explained by Jobs' perfectionism and his unwillingness to waste even a second of time. But in the end, it is to this man and his difficult character that the world owes a real technical revolution.

The genius of our time, Steve Jobs, masterfully humiliated people

Nikola Tesla

The mystery of the personality of a brilliant scientist is still of public interest. This man, as he himself admitted, was far ahead of his time. According to the memoirs of his contemporaries, it was extremely difficult for Tesla to interact with people - that was his character. He suffered from a disorder that was expressed in various phobias - the scientist was afraid of germs and washed his hands endlessly, each time using a new towel, while in hotels he settled only in those rooms whose number was a multiple of three.

Another obsession Tesla had was counting - he counted how many pieces of food on the plate, how many steps he took today, what is the volume of a cup of coffee or a bowl of soup. In addition, Tesla was one of those who shared and supported the idea of ​​eugenics - the doctrine of the selection of the human race. In 1935, Liberty magazine published Tesla's article titled "The Machine That Will End the War". Among other thoughts, the scientist suggested that by the year 2100 eugenics will be applied everywhere, and individuals "unsuitable" for reproduction will be forcibly subjected to sterilization.

Brilliant scientist Nikola Tesla believed that "eugenics" had a future

Alfred Hitchcock

The recognized genius of the suspense genre had an extremely difficult character. He was a real perfectionist and squeezed the actors to the drop on the set, sometimes crossing the line of reason. In addition, Hitchcock had a very specific sense of humor. So, once, the actors involved in the film "39 steps" were forced to walk all day in handcuffs that the director put on them, as he claimed that he had lost the key.

On another occasion, he had an argument with actress Tippi Hedren, the star of The Birds, and in a very peculiar way decided to take revenge on her. Hedren's daughter, Melanie Griffith, received a doll with her mother's face as a gift from Hitchcock, which lay in a coffin. According to the memoirs of contemporaries, no one could endure Hitchcock as an interlocutor for a long time.

The great and terrible Hitchcock once gave a little girl a doll in a coffin.


Bobby Fischer

The brilliant chess player Bobby Fischer at some point began to appear in the media with rather loud and provocative statements. Fischer attacked the US and the Jews.

The words of the chess player that the Holocaust never happened raised a big fuss in the press. In addition, he accused the US government of having these people under the "total control of the Jews" and expressed his approval of al-Qaeda's actions and the September 11, 2001 attacks. In response to harsh statements, the US government canceled Fisher's passport, he later signed a renunciation of American citizenship himself and was deported to Iceland.

Chess player Bobby Fischer blamed the USA and Jews for all the world's troubles


Mikhail Lermontov

The character and worldview of Lermontov was largely influenced by his family and relations between relatives. The mother died when the future poet was still a child, the relationship between father and grandmother Elizaveta Arsenyeva was very difficult. Contemporaries left extremely conflicting reviews about the person of the poet - many noted his unattractive appearance, disproportion of the head and body, emphasizing that the whole image of Lermontov was repulsive. A lot of unflattering reviews also remained about his character - they noted his “evil tongue”, “envious disposition”, pettiness and “poisonousness” of character.

At times, this made it very difficult for Lermontov to achieve success: there is a known case when he actually reprimanded a professor for, in his opinion, giving insufficiently complete material in a lesson. However, among the many harsh assessments of the poet's personality, there are others, where it is noted that his bad temper was just a thick shell, breaking through which, one could see a truly pure and beautiful soul.

Each person has certain characteristics, which are expressed in emotional manifestations, the selection of specific actions and reactions. All this happens automatically and is defined by people as character traits. There are many personality types for quickly determining what kind of person is happening.

We all know what character is. This is a set of qualities that are inherent in a particular person. Character is developed throughout life. In childhood, he is flexible and quickly changing. Over the years, it acquires greater stability and at the end is fixed .. What is it and what features does this phenomenon have, the article will tell.

What is the nature of a person?

Each person faces the character of another personality. What it is? This is a characteristic of the psyche, which combines permanent and stable qualities that determine the behavior and attitude of the individual. Translated from Greek, character means "feature", "sign". This is a stable characteristic that affects behavior, responses, activities and individual manifestations of a person.

We can say that the character of a person determines the whole life of a person, his fate. They say that fate is predetermined. In fact, a person who does not obey specific rules and strategies creates his own destiny, which he then lives.

By changing the character, you can change the fate, because the character determines the reaction, behavior, decisions of a person that he takes in a particular situation. If you look closely, you can see that people who are similar in character live the same life. Only the details differ, but their ways and behavior are the same.

Character is formed throughout a person's life. At any moment it can be changed, which in adulthood is possible only under the influence of one's own desire and willpower. If a person cannot change his character, then his life does not change and its development is predictable.

Personality traits

The character changes depending on the type of activity, society, social circle, attitude towards oneself and the world as a whole. If any of these aspects change, then this can affect the change in the quality of character. If everything in a person's life remains unchanged, then the character traits remain unchanged.

Personality traits

The character of a person is also formed under the influence of the values ​​and moral beliefs that a person uses. The more stable they are, the more a person is fixed in his behavior and manifestations. The main feature of a personal character is its certainty, where one can note the leading features, of which there are always several. The certainty of character disappears if there are no stable qualities.

Character is also based on the interests that a person has. The more stable and constant they are, the more a person becomes purposeful, persistent and whole in his manifestations.

You can determine the characteristics of the character of another person by his actions and their orientation. Both the actions and the results that he achieves at the end of their commission are important. They are what characterize a person.

Temperament and personality

The interrelation and character of the personality is looked through. Although these characteristics are determined by the human psyche, they are different values. Temperament is determined by the structure of the nervous system, which makes it an innate quality, the manifestations of which cannot be changed, but you can just do something.

Character is a flexible aspect that develops throughout life. A person can change it, which is determined by his life activity.

Character is formed on the basis of the temperament with which a person was born. Temperament can be called the basis on which the entire branch of his character traits is built. At the same time, the temperament does not change from external circumstances and the type of activity.

Temperament is characterized by three directions, each of which has its own complex structure:

  1. Mobility (activity). It manifests itself in vigorous activity, self-expression, manifestation of oneself, which can be both sluggish and overly active.
  2. Emotionality. There is a variety of moods and flow of feelings. Defined:
  • Lability is the rate of change from one mood to another.
  • Impressibility - the depth of perception of external emotional stimuli.
  • Impulsivity - the speed at which an emotion transforms into a motivating force for taking actions without thinking about it and making a decision to carry it out.
  1. Motility.

Personality character types

Psychologists of different times tried to identify types of personality characters to identify specific groups of people. E. Kretschmer identified 3 groups of people according to their body type:

  1. Picnic people, prone to gaining excess weight, short in stature, with a large face, neck, plump. They are easily adaptable to the conditions of the world, sociable and emotional.
  2. Athletic people, characterized by well-developed muscles, are tall and broad-shouldered, hardy and with a large chest. They are not impressionable, domineering, calm and practical, restrained in gestures and facial expressions, and do not adapt well.
  3. Asthenic people, characterized by thinness and underdeveloped muscles, a narrow face, long arms and legs, a flat chest. They are stubborn and serious, withdrawn and poorly adapted to change.

K. Jung proposed another typology that divides people according to the type of thinking:

  • Extroverts. Very sociable and active people who tend to make many acquaintances. They are straight and open. They love to travel, have parties, be the soul of the company. They are guided by objective circumstances, and not by the subjective opinions of people.
  • Introverts. Very closed and fenced off from the world people. They have few friends as it is difficult for them to make contacts. Constantly analyze everything that is happening. They are very anxious and prefer solitude.

Another classification divides people into 4 psychotypes depending on their combination of character and temperament:

  1. Cholerics are unbalanced, fast, impulsive, passionate people. They are quickly depleted due to the senseless expenditure of strength. Prone to emotional outbursts and mood swings.
  2. Phlegmatic people are stable in their manifestations, emotions and views, unhurried, unflappable people. They are inclined to calmness and poise, perseverance in work. Outwardly they do not show emotions.
  3. Melancholic people are vulnerable people who are prone to constantly experiencing emotions. Very impressionable, sharply react to external manifestations.
  4. Sanguine people are lively, mobile and active people. They react quickly to external circumstances and tend to receive many impressions. Productive at work. Easily tolerate failures and troubles.

The psychological nature of the personality

The changes that occur in the psychological character of a person are divided into regular (typical) and individual (atypical).

Regular changes occur as a person grows up and goes through certain changes in his body. Children's features disappear, being replaced by adults. Childish traits include capriciousness, irresponsibility, fears, tearfulness. For adults - wisdom, life experience, tolerance, reasonableness, prudence, etc.

Much here is determined by the situations that a person often encounters. Communication with people, various circumstances, successes and failures, tragedies determine the change of views and values ​​in a person. This is why people in the same age group differ from each other, because everyone had their own life experience. Here individual traits are formed, which depend on the life circumstances through which each person passes.

Traits change faster if they are similar to or include previous traits.

The social nature of personality

The social character of a person is understood as those qualities that should be characteristic of absolutely all people of this or that society. Going into society, a person must show not only individual traits, but also those qualities that are considered acceptable, approved, normal. Such a set is formed by society, the media, culture, upbringing, educational institutions, religion, etc. It should be noted that parents raise their children also depending on the framework and norms that are accepted in society.

According to E. Fromm, the social character of a person is a way of adapting a person to the society in which he is located. This is an unpunished and free way of existence in a particular society. He believed that no society allows a person to realize himself in full force, since he always dictates his own rules and norms, which should be above individual characteristics and desires. That is why a person is always in conflict with society when he must obey in order to be accepted, or tries to protest, which can be punished.

Society will never allow a person to express himself in full force, which prevents him from realizing his inclinations and harms the individual himself. There must be a distortion of character, when everyone adjusts himself to certain limits and norms accepted in society. Only by developing a social character in a person does society make him safe for himself. It is not the personality that is important here, but its safe manifestations, which will be acceptable in society. Otherwise, there will be punishment for any individual self-expression that does not fit into the framework.

Personal character accentuation

Under the accentuation of the character of the personality is understood a set of qualities that are clearly manifested by the individual within the normal range. It is divided into:

  • Hidden - traits that appear infrequently or never at all. However, under certain conditions, they can appear.
  • Explicit - features that appear to the extreme degree of the norm and are characterized by constancy.

K. Leongrad identified types of accentuation:

  1. Hysterical - a thirst for attention, egocentrism, a need for reverence and approval, recognition of individual characteristics.
  2. Hyperthymic - sociability, mobility, a tendency to mischief, excessive independence.
  3. Asthenoneurotic - anxiety, high fatigue.
  4. Psychosthenic - indecision, a tendency to demagogy, analysis and introspection, suspiciousness.
  5. Schizoid - detachment, isolation, lack of sociability.
  6. Excitable - periodic dreary moods, accumulation of irritation.
  7. Sensitive - increased touchiness, sensitivity, shyness.
  8. Infantile-dependent - a delay in childhood when a person does not take responsibility.
  9. Emotionally labile - mood variability.
  10. Unstable - a tendency to idleness, pleasure, entertainment, idleness.

Outcome

The nature of a person often helps in understanding the person himself, since everything revolves around his inner world, which has manifestations in the form of reactions, emotions, behavior, actions, and even achievements that are currently available. Considering different types of character can lead to the following result - a quick and easy understanding of people.

Character is a flexible characteristic that can be changed at any time. It can change both unconsciously and under the influence of the willpower of a person who controls the manifestation of a particular quality. The longer a person manifests a particular quality, the more it is fixed and becomes one of his characteristics that influence the future development of life.

A. V. Mikhailov

FROM THE HISTORY OF CHARACTER

In the book:Man and culture: Individuality in the history of culture. M., 1990, p. 43-72

It will be about character, more precisely, about those changes in the understanding of character that are obscured by the immutability of the very word "character". The latter is very common in European languages, is used in everyday speech and is included in the language of science. Therefore, now it is not so easy to realize that the directly understandable meaning of this word, so rooted in the general consciousness, was formed as a result of its most radical rethinking, and such a rethinking, apparently, took place in connection with those profound changes that the very view of people of a certain type of culture on the world, in general, on everything that becomes the subject of their understanding (and this is, in fact, “everything” - everything with which they come into contact, i.e., the totality of their life relationships) .

Before speaking directly about character, however, we must begin with some remarks about history, about historical movement. One can imagine, as a starting point for what follows, that people are immersed in what we might call a mythosemiotic accomplishment. Such an accomplishment or process seems to have three inseparable aspects or perspectives.

1. One of its peculiarities is that the foundations of this whole process (its “why”, “whence” and “where”, etc.) are not known to people in each individual historical period; much (but not all) becomes clear after a while, in hindsight. People seem to be moving in a space where almost everything is hidden from them by fog, or in a corridor where they can hardly see the walls.

2. Its other feature, or side, is in the predestination of this commission, in the predestination with which what is happening unfolds. This creates the impression of regularity, purposefulness, and therefore, the meaningfulness of the process. Here, as it were, logos, a folded meaning, diverges into mythos, into a narrative, - the initially set logos unfolds. We can analyze the known parameters of the process, the contours of space. It is quite natural to feel the matter in such a way that we are constantly touching on such a semantic process, in which there is its own connection and in which a huge multitude of significant moments are united by this connection.

3. The third feature, or side, is that the commission that is being performed is constantly comprehended, but (according to the first and second features-aspects of the process) it never happens and cannot be
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Comprehended directly, directly, but always comprehended only indirectly, indirectly, through something else - allegorically. In other words, those ideas about what is happening that people acquire indicate what is happening, the essence of which is not comprehended as such, “in itself”. These representations are then indications, allusions, signs, or, as is often said, symbols; however, this last word is not very suitable - it is excessively binding, it diverts attention to itself. The reason for this is that the word "symbol", as it is processed in the European tradition, implies a sensual embodiment of meaning (whence such an urgency of its being for itself) - in contrast to the abstractness of the concept and the greater abstraction even of allegory. But an abstract concept can also act as that in which historical events are comprehended.

Among all signs in which what is happening is comprehended, representations or concepts of internal and external occupy a special place.

These representations or concepts themselves, their very relation are not immutable, and we, for example, have no right to assert that they are generally abstract, and their relation is abstract (the relation of absolute opposite). They historically change in their comprehension along with everything that comes with them. in touch; they make sense of it all.

Thus, everything visible, for example, can be comprehended as a surface in which and through which the essence comes out and becomes accessible to the senses; essence is then understood as internal - as the essence of a thing or, in general, as the essence of the visible creative principle, the thing - as the image and appearance of its essence, everything visible - as the edge of the invisible. Destroying a thing, breaking a stone or kneading a clod of earth in our hands, we do not find any essence and see, we feel only new surfaces, we all again find only the external. The invisible is invisible in its essence, and yet it somehow appears in the external, is revealed in the external through the visible surface of things accessible to us. The visible and the invisible are contemplated together with the external and the internal.

To what we are gradually meeting, man also applies. And in it we also find ourselves in connection with the external and the internal, the visible and the invisible. Among all created things, visible and invisible, man belongs to the visible - unlike, for example, angels or demons, who, in order to reveal themselves to us, need to reveal themselves in the visible - in action or taking on flesh. But a person, along with the visible - the face, the body - has the invisible, the essence, which can, for example, be called the soul. It can be imagined that the body of a person is mortal and turns into earth after his death, while his soul is immortal and eternal. If the essence of a thing does not become more accessible because the thing is destroyed, and what was inside it is exposed - in fact, “inside” there was nothing that would not become external as it was exposed, then all the more disappears for us. soul, if the human body is subjected to disintegration and destruction. In the visible that is characteristic of a person, his invisible is invariably hidden from us - the soul or, perhaps, the moral image of a person, whatever you call this invisible.
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Everything, however, that we could say about the external and the internal, about the visible and the invisible, itself inevitably turns out to be in the mythosemiotic process - with all its inherent aspects. So, everything that was said about the visible image of a person, his integral appearance, his soul and body and their connection - all this takes its rightful place in this process.

The process itself is characterized by constancy with an incessant shift in emphasis - the signs in this process, their correlation are rethought; the inevitable repetition of signs that were encountered in the process at all can be considered constancy - once they have appeared, one can assume that they once and for all enter into the mythosemiotic fund, the signs and motives of which are hardly ever truly forgotten, unless we consider oblivion. a sharp transformation of their meaning, their rethinking. One might think that signs are more durable than meanings, or generally indestructible, while meanings, by their very nature, must be reproduced anew, must be formed anew in the very concreteness of historical circumstances. Such and such a mythological system of understanding the world may become obsolete and overcome, however, signs (or motives) that have passed through it remain: they are subsequently either remembered - reproduced, reconstructed, analyzed, or they themselves arise in our ideas about the world, at first unnoticed and out of control. Mythosemiotic, as it should be considered, is wider than mythological.

The texts of Hermes Trismegistus say the following: “The earth lies in the middle of everything, overturned on its back, and lies like a man, looking at the sky, divided into parts into which a person is divided.” Her head lies towards the south, her right hand - towards the east, her legs - towards the north, etc. The location of the body of the Earth-man explains the distribution of physical properties, temperaments and abilities among the peoples inhabiting the Earth, so, for example, the southern peoples are distinguished by the beauty of the head , beautiful hair and are good archers - “the reason for this is the right hand”, and living in the center of the Earth, at the heart - the seat of the soul - the Egyptians are “reasonable and sane, because they were born and raised from the heart” 1 .

Let's compare the text of V. V. Mayakovsky ("150,000,000"):

Russia
all
single Ivan,
and hand
him -
Neva,
and the heels are the Caspian steppes.

For all the incomparability of their ideological tasks, both texts have something obviously in common. At the heart of this general is the imposition of the human body on a figure or on a map of the Earth. Since the texts have such a common thing, they are involved in a well-known cultural tradition -
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True, not central, but rather lateral and latent (since it seems to be not represented at all, for example, in baroque emblematics), - precisely to such a tradition that finds meaning in such an overlay and relies on it in its comprehension of the world 2 .

One text presents a mythological natural philosophy of a mystical orientation with its characteristic analogous thinking. In another text, modern poetic figurative thinking reigns. moreover, the poet builds his images, who, it would seem, enjoys the maximum possible freedom in the choice and design of images. Precisely because the image chosen in the boundless wealth of everything at the disposal of the poet is accidental in this sense - the same image is not devoid of its substantiality and necessity, since it bears the increased weight and consciousness of its choice: we can say that just for that reason that the image is, in fact, random (it is chosen from an infinite number of possible ones), it is all the more indispensable; it is not the poet who stumbles upon his image, but the image finds him.

The first text is by no means a mythology "in itself"; he absorbs a methodologically conducted reflection and on its basis creates something similar to a scientific theory, a geography of human types as national types.

The second text incorporates an even richer reflection, establishing an analogy between a very specific historical situation of our time (which, as it were, gave birth to the image of the poet) and the mythological identity of the human body and the earth/world. However, it is in the second text that something like a non-reflective mythological identity returns, for it is precisely here that the image turns out to be something “in itself” - that cannot be deduced from the artistic fabric of the text as something of any general significance, like a thesis and position (no need to think that in poetry this is usually the case - not only the didactic poetry of the past accepts universally valid provisions or strives for them). Here this mythological image is a means of a poetic analysis of life, a means calculated for a single use, moreover, used meaningfully and with a view of the long tradition that opens up behind it. On the contrary, the first text is endowed with a very great cognitive meaning - however, for the modern reader, placed in a completely different place in mythosemiotic performance, this meaning is equal to zero and only curious. The modern reader, enriched by the scientific experience of past centuries, most likely will refuse to consider the text of Hermes Trismegistus as scientific; if the reader is scrupulous and meticulous, he will note everything unfounded in the text, everything that is not known on what grounds is directly connected in it, and he will probably be inclined to attribute this text entirely to the realm of myth. And yet this text emerges from myth, so to speak, into the expanses of mythosemiotic fulfillment. The mythological in the narrower sense of the word begins to be washed out, preserved and generalized, as after two thousand years it is still preserved and restored in the text of our poet and in the texts of other poets of our time. The ancient text, in its departure from the immediacy of the myth, on the basis of which it continues to stand, reaches a very great generalization - a model is created,
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which, after all, should explain all types of people living on earth as national types. With such a generalization, in various respects it also agrees with the early Greek way of comprehending a person, which goes back to mythological ideas. Moreover, this Late Antique text clings to the archaic and seeks to consolidate it - along with the fact that the text contains reflection, philosophical generalization, it relies on rationalized techniques associated with mythology (such as the technique of divination by the liver) and through this reconstructs the immediacy of mythological identifications. , their pre-reflectivity. So such a text is not just full of reflection - it deliberately deliberately directs it.

In what this text inevitably converges with the early Greek way of comprehending a person (and in what it even deliberately primitivizes the methods of comprehension that have developed by the turn of the millennium), is the following: everything that we would call internal - spiritual or mental in a person, is derived from the material , from an external force and is firmly fixed in the external as its basis and cause. This is exactly the case with the author of the Hermetic text: the place on the body-Earth predetermines what the physique of people will be, what their occupations and skills will be, what their mind will be. The action of an external force passes from the body to the mind, being the same everywhere: thus, in the south, moist air, gathering into clouds, darkens the air like smoke and hinders not only the eyes, but also the mind; the cold of the north freezes both body and mind. The bodily and the mental here are quite similar to one another; everything grows in the same way in the bosom of the Earth, which has overturned on its back, like a man.

cicero. In Pisonem I 1

There are such various processes in mythosemiotic performance that seem to be characterized by rigor and consistency, at least if we consider history in broad strokes. Such is the irreversible washing out of everything as if immediately given - so that over time an increasing number of beliefs, opinions, judgments, givens are questioned, criticized and no longer exist as simple givens. Another such process directly affects a person in his fundamental relationship with the world (i.e., in general, with being, with “everything” that a person encounters, including the person himself) - this is a steady process of internalization, - a process in which various contents of the world are revealed as belonging to a person, a human personality, as depending on it and directed by it.
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Washed by it, as being rooted in it, as an inner human heritage. This process of interiorization of the world can, of course, be interpreted in various terms; with it, we note, are interconnected and so dramatically developing relations of man with nature insofar as the objectification of nature, opposing it to man as something alien in its essence, simultaneously means development, i.e. e. something similar to its appropriation as - let's say - peripheral property on the border of one's own and someone else's.

For historical and cultural research, this is the main difficulty and now arises as the most urgent, finally overdue problem of reconstructing past phases, states of man - so to speak, “under-interiorized” (relative to the current situation) of his cultural states. The study of such states belongs entirely to historical disciplines, since all these problems relate to mythosemiosis and all processes proceed “within the framework” (if one can speak of “the framework” of an all-encompassing) mythosemiotic fulfillment. It may be necessary for the doctor to establish the "objective" state of the patient's health, in contrast to his well-being, since sensations can deceive the patient; it's completely justified. However, if there is a science that is occupied with historical material and which seeks to clarify for itself something objective in this material, bypassing the "well-being" of the people of the past, then it is quite possible that such a historical discipline is also fully justified and has something to do in history, but it lies in away from any historical and cultural studies. Because for these latter, material begins to exist only when they are taken and studied, when all the statements of a person of the past about their well-being, self-awareness and self-understanding, all their self-expressions and self-revelations in word and sign are taken seriously. To put it simply, the image of an era is made up of its "objectivity" and its self-interpretation; but only the one and the other are already inseparable, and "objectivity" is inseparable from the stream of self-interpretation.

And everything that is “under-interiorized” is not actually remote from us, but is close to us, next to our culture. Thus, as long as a feeling or passion takes possession of a person, this feeling or passion does not completely belong to him, they rather exist as givens that come to him from outside and which exist "in general" and "objectively" in nature, in the world. Man lives surrounded by such external forces; he, for example, has to resist them, he falls victim to them. This situation is fixed in many turns of speech, which are almost completely automated; however, when all such past and automatically fixed experience (“experience with one’s feelings”) comes into actual conflict with a newer interpretation of a person and his feelings, such turns of speech cannot but be decisively suppressed or destroyed. The story of Benjamin Constant "Adolf" (1816) and much in the sublime Russian lyrics of the 1820s, the lyrics of the Pushkin circle, provide, in all likelihood, the last, and brilliant, rhetorical samples in which - in harmony with the new mood of lyrical penetration, in self-deepening - reflects, perhaps with a certain sharpness, the previous situation: a person surrounded by passions! A person surrounded by feelings coming towards him, advancing on him from the outside (of his own!) Feelings - a turning point for the history of culture, the situation reflected in these works with the greatest possible subtlety and delicacy.
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Fast forwarding now to millennia ago, we can perhaps be sure that those surprises of a psychological nature that the 19th century gives us, when archaeological excavations begin to be carried out in it, in its culture, and not just communicate with it from memory, will prepare us to what should be expected in more ancient times. Probably, the closeness of those surprises that lie in wait for us in the 19th century will prompt us with the cautious thought not to look for something incredibly distant from us in antiquity, but also here to count on a certain closeness to what we are used to. So, apparently, this is the case.

Already Pindar speaks of "innate disposition" (Ol. XI, 19-20 Shell-Maehler):

And innate temper
Do not become otherwise -
Not in the red fox, not in the roaring lion
4 .
(Translated by M. L. Gasparov)

It is clear that "innate disposition" presupposes an internal that does not depend on anything external in this place; moreover, the very combination of words seems even very familiar - whether an English philosopher of the 17th century speaks. about innate abilities, whether the modern biologist speaks of innate, genetically transmitted skills, do they not talk about something related or, perhaps, about the same thing as Pindar. Unless it is permissible to assume a greater intensity of Greek emphyes in comparison with innatus and innate. In another ode (Ol. XIII, 16), Pindar speaks of “an innate disposition (to syggenes ethos), which cannot be hidden,” and here the root (“gene”) itself connects antiquity and modernity: !” (translated by M. L. Gasparov) 5 .

Sophocles, also without resorting to anything external, is quite "modern" "as something completely taken for granted, speaks of the soul ( psyche), about the mental warehouse ( phronema, as it were" mentality "), about plans and intentions (gnome) a person who is difficult to recognize until he has been tested in administration (leadership) and in the observance of laws (Ant. 175-177).

True, the Greek word psyche captures the same conjugation with the material principle as in “soul”, “spiritus” and other similar words (asycho - I blow, I cool; psychros - cold, fresh). Thus, here, too, there is nothing specific and somehow removes us from our time - it is true that materiality, materiality, is by no means inadmissible to imagine only as a direct opposition to the spiritual, as is characteristic of modern times itself.

More specific is the dependence of words relating to the internal states of the human spirit on external, spatial representations; for the 5th century BC e. this dependence was very close in time, established quite recently.
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“To understand Homer. phrenes<. . .>Of exceptional interest is the nature of the verbal (and more widely - predicative) constructions in which this noun is used. A feature of these constructions is their medi-passive meaning, or in any case the meaning of the state, excluding the participation of phrenes ( phren) as a subject of mental activity: Dios etrapeto phren "Zeus's mind turned around". . . "
“The word phren every time denotes a passive receptacle. Of particular interest is the turnover found in Homer 4 times, in which the recognition process is described inside this receptacle, grammatically represented by the aorist egno, denoting in this case that something happens to someone (and not himself he is actively doing something) 6 .

It turns out that even what the hero has learned within himself, eni phresi ("learned and said"), does not entirely belong to him - all this is extracted by him from within and from the outside, all this is only in the process of internalization, is placed inside, remaining external in relation to himself, the hero.

This problem of the dependence of the internal on the external and spatial is very common for the Homeric epic. It manifests itself, in particular, in the fact that the characters of the epic appear as making decisions and doing things not independently, but under the guidance of the gods (with a few exceptions).

The following statement can hardly be considered true: “Without a sense of the freedom of the will of man, the Greeks could not have imagined the gods acting according to their own arbitrariness,” as well as the argument cited in support of his argument: “. . The history of all religions teaches us that the specific features that people give to deities are always the result of the transfer of human properties and forms of behavior into the world of the gods. Xenophanes already understood this in relation to the Greek religion, and he, speaking about the immorality of the Homeric gods, of course, saw how typically human, often not the best in the moral sense, impulses are transferred to the world of the gods in Homer. 7 .

This position and this argument suffer from what I have called a naturalistic understanding of relations in the spirit of "objectivity": here the matter is presented as if the world of the gods were opposed as an object to the world of man, including his inner world. But this is not so: the world-gods are, first of all, a part of consciousness, namely, a part of consciousness that is alienated into the external and spatial; it is consciousness itself that clothes the world, including man himself, in the forms in which it can only comprehend it under such and such cultural conditions. Then the world of the gods appears as such an external one that is not mastered by man and is not subject to him. But it is not at all the case that, say, some kind of ability must first be mastered in the inner, belonging to a person, and then alienated to the external to him, his consciousness. You can transfer as much as you like - in the work of mythological fantasy - the features of a person to the gods, this will only be a free activity of fantasy, while the leadership of a person by the gods involves a certain, not free, but necessary, so to speak, forced, inevitable phase of comprehending the motivation of one's actions . The latter is comprehended only as coming from the outside, therefore, it can only be presented as alienated, and only in this way can it be assimilated for the time being, at this stage.
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There is nothing surprising in the fact that some things of a psychological nature are mastered in precisely such an intricate way: after all, feelings - and as you can see, there is nothing more "natural" and immediate than feelings - are mastered in such a way that at first and then over an extremely long time they are comprehended as not belonging to man himself, but belonging to the world. And this, of course, with almost the same psychophysiological structure of a person - to accept otherwise, in particular the hypothesis of J. Jaynes, there are no sufficient grounds 8 . It seems that there are no sufficient grounds for looking for psychological roots for the notion that the gods guide people's actions. 9 . These roots are rather “metaphysical”: in other words, for everything psychological there must be some kind of logic guiding it, a logic rooted in being, an existential logic. Here it is the logic of interiorization inherent in mythosemiotic performance. This logic determines the path leading from something to something, from some beginning to some goal, and the whole path begins, of course, with the fact that something has not yet been internalized. Here this “something” is the sphere of motivation for human actions that later belongs to the inner world of the human personality. Not only the sphere of motivation, but the entire inner (in the future!) world of a person appears as external in relation to the person himself, as alienated from him (if you look from a position achieved later). Perfectly corresponds to this circumstance that the gods guide a person exactly as he “himself” would act - if everything were different, and between the world of man (“internal”) and the world of the gods (“external”) there would exist a relationship of real objectivity and opposition, while here there is a relation of alienation and assimilation - assimilation through alienation and in its forms. To put it more broadly: there is an assimilation, internalization of the contents of the world, which become the internal content, the internal property of the person himself.

And it would only be strange if a person had to first possess what would then be transferred outside, no longer belong to him. True, the alienation of motivation, i.e., the fact that it was not mastered, could induce the poet at some late stage of this process to use such alienation as a poetic device. But this is another question: how does Homer use this situation in his two poems? This in no way cancels what, in fact, is recorded in his texts - the true situation of unexploredness, under-interiorization. Perhaps poetically and aesthetically prolonged in its existence.

People first receive something from their gods, and only then lo-xenophaneously give them all of their own.

In the same way, one could not demand from the Greeks that they first recognize their phren as their inner property, and then alienate it as external to “themselves” and spatially external in relation to “themselves”, although already located inside “their” body. Among those concepts that have been interiorized for the longest time are “character”, character.
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In recent centuries, there has been a strong belief that character belongs to the deepest and most basic that determines the human personality. This is known from life and from here passed on to science; it is curious that our "Philosophical Encyclopedia" and our "Philosophical Encyclopedic Dictionary" give only a definition of character "in psychology": it is "a holistic and stable warehouse of a person's mental life, manifested in individual acts and states of his mental life, as well as in his manners, habits mentality and the human circle of emotional life. The character of a person acts as the basis of his behavior and is the subject of study of characterology " 10 .

However, since the understanding of character is rooted in life itself and appears so firmly in it, more scientific definitions will be given by the practical expressions of the essence of character. Of course, there could be a huge number of them.

". . Much should be said about the ladies themselves, about their society, to describe, as they say, with vivid colors their spiritual qualities; but.for the author it is very difficult.<. . .>It is even strange, the pen does not rise at all, as if some kind of lead is sitting in it. So be it: about their characters, apparently, it is necessary to leave it to the one who has more lively colors and more of them on the palette, but we only have to say a couple of words about appearance and about what is more superficial " 11 .

What can be "subtracted" from this passage?
1) Character is, apparently, in general and as a whole “spiritual qualities”;
2) character is "internal";
3) “appearance” is, as it were, the “reverse” of character, but there are also more superficial layers of personality that are easier to convey than character;
4) between "appearance" as the most superficial and character, obviously, there is a connection about which the writer in this passage does not say anything directly, however.

“Undoubtedly, there is such a qualitative certainty (So-Sein) of a person that rests deep under his properties and which is uniformly found in the lines of his body, traits of spirit and character” 12 .

Again, character is a well-known personality trait. However, the writer believes that a single principle that creates the spiritual, mental and bodily appearance of a person is not the character itself; if the character is the known qualities or properties of a person, then in this case it is natural to assume a deeper common core for all properties, or the beginning of the personality, which creates its integrity.

In general, the idea of ​​character in modern times is so widespread and indisputable that it sometimes forces even writers (whom no one forces to scientific thinking) to philosophize on the subject of character and burden it with a load that is completely uncharacteristic of it - in the desire to say something “good”: “Character - this is, first of all, the ideological content of the personality, its philosophy, its worldview. Then - this
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The social role of a person, expressed by his professional activity. Then - the very essence of activity in the concrete details of human labor. Finally, this is the personal life of the actor, the relationship of the intimate with the public, "I" and "we"" 13 . The essence of character and all manifestations of personality are completely vainly identified.

So, the modern European character is such self-evidence, on the topics of which one can freely fantasize.

This new European “character” as a concept and representation originated from the Greek “character”, which at first meant something emphatically external. This emphatically external, however, possessed such an inner essence, which was, as it were, intended for its assimilation into the inside, for its internalization, and, being assimilated, could not but reveal itself in the most unexpected light.

So, the Greek "character" is at first something purely external and superficial.

This does not mean that the Greeks were alien to the idea of ​​the inner beginning of the personality. Quite the contrary - the Greeks had such a word, which is very often translated as “character”, - this is ethos or ethe. This is how it is usually translated in prose. However, ethos was a word with a rapidly unfolding semantics, the individual branches of which even, apparently, are difficult to trace. 14 , is a word rich in semantic nuances, ambiguous, vibrating within itself and therefore, in fact, of little use for translating it into such obviousness and certainty as the modern “character”. The poet-translator rightfully creates variations of the meaning given by the Greek word, trying to capture its essence: the Russian translator, translating Pindar (the lines quoted above), speaks of “an innate disposition” and “what is natural in people”; one German translator (K. F. Schnitzer) conveys the same passages like this - der Urart Sitte; anageborne Gemütsart 15 . The word ethos, having experienced a significant deepening (from “place” to “temper”, orientation, as it were, the general line of personality, and not only personality - see the ethos of modes in music), however, was not suitable for the role of the future “character”.

So, it turns out that in Greece we have two characters - one that understands in one way or another "internal" in a person, but does not coincide with what is understood by "character" in modern times, and the second - denoted precisely by the word character, however, implying something completely external.

The meaning of this last word had to be energetically assimilated - it was internalized, it was being drawn inside. I must say that in antiquity, from the 5th century. By the Hellenistic era, this meaning had already gone through most of the path of such internalization - at least so much so that the word "character" in European languages ​​\u200b\u200bcould absorb the direction of this movement, imprint it in its semantics, and at the same time present this meaning to a large extent according to -new. In other words, the modern "character" (as you can see) is the direct heir to the Greek character g "a, only with the remarkable feature that nothing like the new European "character" in antiquity was and was not conceived by the wife.
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Let's run ahead and say one thing: the character gradually reveals its orientation "inward" and, as soon as this word comes into conjugation with the "internal" of a person, it builds this internal from the outside - from the external and superficial. On the contrary, the new European character is built from the inside out: “character” refers to the foundation or foundation laid down in human nature, the core, as it were, the generative scheme of all human manifestations, and the differences can only concern whether “character” is the deepest in a person, or in his innermost even deeper generative principle. Such discrepancies in themselves can be quite significant - and they look not very significant only when we compare them with the diametrically opposed understanding of "character" in antiquity. Namely, this relation of antiquity/modernity interests us.

External and internal, and, most importantly, the boundary between external and internal is that in relation to which and within which the mythosemiotic process takes place here.

Apparently, the external and the internal and their boundaries in general belong to the most central representations for the mythosemiotic process. In any case, to the extent that mythosemiotic performance is understood and can be understood as a process of interporization.

Recall that this process is the process of assimilation and appropriation by a person of the contents of the world (of the world - naturally including the person himself), - a process in which these contents are immersed "inside" a person; in this process, "man" himself is rethought in the most energetic way.

Then the voltus (see the epigraph from Cicero) of a person - his face, his body and much more - turns out to be on the very border, "around" which the process of internalization takes place. The face, the body and everything else are surfaces that separate and connect the outer and the inner. In other words, here lies the boundary that cuts the world into two parts in the most essential respect - but does not cut it completely. Here, on this frontier and frontier, for centuries the most important frontier operations for the history of man and his culture have been carried out.

The Pacific natives, who walked naked, responded to the reproaches of Christian missionaries: our whole body is a face.

The Oriental beauty, who was paid a visit by a European lady in crinolines, exclaimed in amazement: “How - and is it still you ?!”

August Wilhelm Schlegel, recalling such a scene, continues, admiring the ancient sculptures: “In front of a Greek statue depicted in robes, such a question would no longer be ridiculous. She really is wholly herself, and the vestment is almost indistinguishable from the person. 16 .And then Schlegel explains it this way: “Not only the structure of the members is shown through closely fitting vestments, but the character of the figure is expressed in the surfaces and the folds of the falling clothes, and the inspiring spirit penetrated to the very surface of the immediate surroundings” 17 .
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A few years after Schlegel, one unpopular in the first half of the 19th century. the philosopher argued that "any existing objects, including one's own body<. . .>, should be considered only as a representation" 18 . That the world is “my idea”, in such a conviction, the very first Indologist of Europe, William Jones, helped the German philosopher to establish himself. 19 . True, the body is recognized as an object only indirectly; immediately everything remains subjective, as long as the immediate perception of sensations of the body is unconditional 20 ; “That which knows everything and is known by no one is the subject” 21 .

All these variegated judgments, border clashes on the dividing line between the external and the internal introduce chaos into the chaos of mythosemic fulfillment at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries. In this chaos, art criticism and philosophical themes and voices stand out meaningfully. The ancient and modern (modern for us) are perfectly reflected in these texts. The ancient sometimes turns out to be very close to this era, our modern (way of expression and way of thinking things) is very far away. And vice versa. Schlegel's "character of a figure" implies something completely external and is consistent with Greek word usage (except that such a phrase would remind one of the non-specific, fluent and formal use of the word "character" in modern texts). But even less “modern”, along with such phraseological archaism (as it is perceived in the text), is what Schlegel does easily and on the go - the identification of “statue” and “person”, that is, the Greek statue seems to him completely full and plenipotentiary representative of the "Greek man" - not just in the way, but in the being of such. A strange turn - “a beautifully dressed Greek statue” or “beautifully dressed” (with a very literal translation), which seems unjustified by brachylogy (the bigots who dressed statues and covered ancient nudity come to mind), in fact, only betrays the simplicity of Schlegel’s successful identifications: the statue is not depicts a man or god in clothes, and she is this dressed man or god.

Differences here turn out to be unnecessary for the new author or impossible for him because identification is natural and simple for him. Precisely for this reason, in the thought of an ancient statue, what is generally related to man and what concerns man, his essence is decided; that is why Schlegel, on the other hand, does not have to talk about "man", his possibilities, boundaries, the boundary of man and the world, etc., which is an ancient statue that directly reveals (apart from any reflection and abstraction) the possibilities, so - being a man by a man, i.e., for example, the possibility of harmony between the soul and the body (the soul continues in the body, and their harmony is exceeded even with brilliance, and the human "inner" goes out into the outside world, turning its border with it into the image of its own internal). And to the same identifications: Schopenhauer's vehemence in conquering absolutely everything that exists for the "subject" 22 is directly proportional to his "naivety", with which he can say, for example, that "reason and brain are all the same", they are one and the same 23 ; it is unlikely that any of the later idealists, trying to separate the subjective and objects, would so easily repeat such a mistake of identifying the spiritual and the material, the internal and the external in relation to the “I” 24 .
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Known, characteristic of thought at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries. inseparability, some of its inconsistency, with regard to the problem of external / internal, and therefore, in general, self-understanding of a person of this time (what is he? how should he represent himself? what is he in the world?), are apparently explained by the nodal the position of this epoch in the history of culture (or, more specifically, in the mythosemiotic process). This era echoes antiquity, reproduces many of its ideas, moreover, actively strives for this. In many ways, it looks just like a condensed repetition of antiquity, its summary - but at the same time it is so different from antiquity in its foundations, so different from it in the understanding of man, that all this repetition of antiquity almost immediately comes into conflict with the new, and this new breaks out. to freedom and goes further on their own unknown paths. So is the ancient "character", the echo of which is heard at this time (in various respects, which will be discussed below). However, all this "summary" is extremely important - it is, as it were, a clarifying reflection of ancient meanings in conjunction with the new, which is already quite outlined. Mythosemiotic performance is not yet so forward-looking, as long as ancient ideas are continued and reflected; only after they have been fundamentally overcome, outlived, and in art, a completely new principle of building, creating character is affirmed.

The examples cited also remind us that the external/internal boundary should not only be imagined as moving (there is a dispute over it, and until it is resolved, the boundary shifts), but it is also necessary to represent it spatially, with its own depth, and not geometrically. - planar. She, this border, for the thought of the turn of the XVIII-XIX centuries. is drawn somewhere between the “I” (or “subject”) and the immediate environment of a person, and when it is carried out, then it is most likely to consider that this is not a plane, but, as it were, a flattened, extremely flattened space that is crossed by multidirectional (from inside - outward) , from the outside - inward) of energy and where the events of transition take place, manifestations are incessant and therefore “ordinary” and at the same time carry the fundamental dialectic of existence25.

A lot has been said about the extraordinary plasticity of the Greek perception of the world at different times; in the 20th century managed to show that such basic concepts of Platonic philosophy as “idea” and “eidos” are involved in the Greek plastic, sculptural, three-dimensional comprehension, understanding of the world 26 . This is now understood by everyone, but until relatively recently the Platonic "idea" was understood by analogy with the philosophical abstractions of modern times. So, I. Kant believed that in painting, sculpture, in general in all fine arts, the essential is drawing ( Zeichnung), sketch, contour (Abriss), - so, we emphasize, in sculpture; "the form of objects of the senses", according to Kant, is a Gestalt or a simple game (the game is again Gestalt "(! LANG: s or sensations), and we must remember that Gestalt is one of the German correspondences to the Platonic "idea" (idea, eidos - it is also an image, a whole, a form, a figure, a structure, etc., which
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collectively would convey well the semantics of the word " Gestalt", If only the molecule of this German word assembled its atoms like the Greek one, but this is not so), I. G. Walhass's "Philosophical Dictionary" immediately explains that "and in Latin" idea means "Vorbild , Muster, Entwurff , Gestalt » 27 . According to Kant, the basis of Gestalt and the game of Gestalt" амисоставляет рисунок в одном и композиция - в другом случае !} 28 .

Gestalt is thus sensuously (visibly) embodied meaning, and thus is a reinterpretation of the Platonic idea in a certain way. The differences are quite profound; it can be said that in one case, any representation is predicated as a form of contemplation of voluminousness, in the other - flatness, in which the scheme is born, the figure of the whole, which determines both the integrity and beauty of the Gestalt 29 .

Far from abstract abstraction, the Greek "idea" and "eidos" just introduce any vision and understanding (closely related between both) to the verge of the original plastic form ("view"). Creative prototype, according to which both things and works of art are created 30 , is always close here to the artist, and he is not in the “pure” imagination (as the realm of the ideal, from which earthly reality has fallen away), but in the things themselves and in the language itself. An indicator of the depth at which three-dimensionality acts as a form of vision is the fact that, creating tomb images - and the cult of the dead was, obviously, the most powerful impulse for the emergence of both a portrait and fine art in general - the ancient Greeks turn to round sculpture, then how other nations gravitate toward flat images.

However, Greek culture, Greek vision, thinking and depiction of things also have a planar-graphic transfer of meaning. It is in connection with and in conflict with the fundamental three-dimensional "vision" of things. Probably, this connection and this contradiction are rooted in the inconsistency of vision and comprehension of the human body - and for Greek culture this is one of the main topics with which, especially in the classical era, the very vision-thinking of the idea is constantly measured. If we consider an extreme situation and a starting point such as when “the whole body is a face”, then among the Greeks, against the background of bodily unity, bodily integrity, supported by the plasticity of the “idea”, the dualism of the face / body should have appeared, which in subsequent epochs sharply increased, intensified. The face as a sign of a “face” (person, person) is also known in ancient Greece; however, if the winner of the games is given a statue not of a “portrait”, but depicting an ideal body-figure, if portrait images on coins appear only after the death of Alexander the Great, at the end of the 4th century, then it is obvious that the dualism of the face / body is given here only in the very beginnings , potentially. If I may venture to say so, then the generality and indistinguishability of the nature, massiveness and vigor of the growing flesh, that very indomitable phyein, almost without a trace immerse everything in itself and keep it to itself. Some kind of resistance is needed, some kind of counterforce coming from the outside is needed for something to be implanted or crashed into such a flow of growth and grow with it, so that something emphyes or empephycos is obtained. On the contrary, in recent Europe the face/body dualism is almost absolute; the whole body is only a face, the whole body is reduced to a face"
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To the face of the “face”, the whole person is one face, so for a long time in mass portraits the face is only attached to the finished uniform, like C. Brentano in his witty story about “Magyar national physiognomies”; to attach an ideal body to a portrait of a face (Anne-Louis Girodet - “Mademoiselle Lange in the guise of Danae”) is almost a public scandal. Painters diligently study the nude, but do not think "bodily", with the body as the central idea of ​​the imagination (after Michelangelo's frantic attempts to resurrect such thinking).

Moreover, while in Greece sculpted bodies absorb space and exist as bodies-toposes inseparable from their place-volume, in Michelangelo space dominates bodies, being associated with them by energy lines penetrating it and revealed by the artist. Hence, Michelangelo has the freedom with which even sculpted bodies posit themselves, move, bend in space, take all sorts of poses in it, appear in the most unexpected angles, etc. It is more convenient to depict such a space picturesquely, and then it is revealed more visually.

The Greeks, on the other hand, did not create anything like a graphic sheet, nothing that, like the printed strip familiar to us, destroyed any idea of ​​three-dimensionality (in order to create such a strip without its own depth, it was probably first necessary to firmly grasp the idea of ​​\u200b\u200buniform geometric three-dimensional space). Graphic flatness in the new European art can reach extreme consistency, starting with romantic artistic "hieroglyphs" 31 ; among the Greeks, the graphic-planar is only outlined.

True, the Greeks had painting, unknown to us, with the exception of later, in which flatness is enhanced. As for the early and completely unknown, it can be assumed that it exists in a semantic sense within that continuous verbal-visual transition, within that verbal-visual continuity, which is so characteristic of Greek culture and is known from many texts (starting with Homer), which arose while ancient culture remained alive. Prose works arise in connection with works of art, created and comprehended in the poetic word - such are some Greek novels, such is the dialogue of Kebeta "Picture", such is the genre of ekphrasis, studied with great results by N. V. Braginskaya 32 .

In the transition from the word of poetry to the visual arts, there is, therefore, a poetically constructed artistic creation, the creation of which is associated with some still insufficiently studied aspects of Greek culture. Apparently, these consist in very specific methods of preserving encryption, transmitting - according to the logic of pronunciation-hiding discovered by the Greeks - such meanings (semantic bundles) that could for some reason be considered vital. “A thing is like a cosmos: in this sense, many descriptions of skillfully made things have come down to us, which depict the primitive universe.<. . .>Glasses and cups, pots and vases, lamps, all kinds of vessels - they are born with a mythological meaning" 33 .
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Forged in the word of Homer, the shield of Hephaestus, “the shield-sun, the highest connecting the functions of the eye and the mirror, it captures the entire cosmos in its main natural (astral, divine, human, bestial) and social (war, peace, trade, agriculture, hunting, wedding) horizons Hephaestus, its creator, forged the plots of the shield, but in the epic narrative these scenes remain mobile, for the shield is only a mirror of the universal rotation. True, this is such a mirror that not only serves Achilles as armor, but even guides his further actions and speeches. 34 .

Apparently, the Greeks were interested in creating precisely such verbal-pictorial models-likenesses of the world, in which the limited pictorial possibilities were supplemented by a flexible and diversely expressive word, the mute sealing of the image - by verbal interpretation, exegesis, narrative unfolding of the plot, and the visual unrealization of the word - by a sharp intensification of peering or inner vision. The word and the explicit appearance are aimed at each other, they complement each other, having a common basis - namely, the predetermined volume, the plasticity of comprehended meanings. One must think that the real ancient painting was also consistent with this and took part in this system of continuity, which reduced the word and the visible appearance, in this system, based on the general principle of three-dimensionality. One can also imagine that in general all the arts are united by this unique system, including music , which until the 5th c. was inseparably connected with the word and even in a purely instrumental version it was distinguished by a striking definiteness of the modal ethos 35 .

A clearer discrepancy between the basic plastic principle and the “graphically” planar one, in addition to that hidden and potential one that could exist between the body and the face in a statue (between the comprehension of both), seems to be reflected in more applied forms of art. So - between the material and sensual fullness and completeness of the statue, where the sacred and the life-like are united and merged in an ideal body (whether "classical harmony" was ever actually achieved is another matter and a matter of view) and the stinginess and brevity of a small relief image. Carved stones, labor-intensive work and requiring perfect craftsmanship, gravitate, with all the amazing detailing in many samples, to conciseness, to brevity of features, to hieroglyphicity of a kind; the ratios of volumetric and planar are used and played up here. And if, in comparison with a flat hieroglyph, such an image is very spatial, voluminous, vital, then, in comparison with a large sculpture, it is deprived of freedom and is squeezed into the planes and surfaces of the stone. The art of precious intimacy is close to acting as a sign of a sign in general - sometimes carved stones reproduced monumental works of art (which are sometimes known only from them). If the statue is the real presence of the depicted, and the relief is a reminder of it, a sign of someone who is absent, then a carved stone is a reminder of such a sign or a reminder of some important meaning, and in the latter case it is quite natural to shrink to the extreme and acquire a direct graphic flatness.
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The coin, technologically imperfect, reveals the course of development: not alien to the depths of vision and knowledge, allowing symbols 36 , the coin with distinctness shows the features of the graphic. The relief is flattened and placed in a circle or some other form: isolation is not determined by the integrity of the body, but is laid from the outside, put by the very principle of “printing” and imprint, and approved by the mass character of “circulation”. A coin is not “its” being, not “what”, but “what it is on”: a symbol, a “face”, letters - something that will turn a piece of matter into something else. And although this transformed “what” can acquire artistic value, the relief, the imprint of the sign of the sign, tends to hide in its graphic, functional “significance”.

In contrast to this - inevitable (as a trend) - graphic, the classical sculpture of the Greeks is as if sculpted by an unmistakable plastic nature, which organically nurtured this body, bringing it to possible perfection. The internal and external in such an image - like the face and body - are in a state of indifferent mutual agreement. Indifferent - non-dramatic, conflict-free. Mutual consent - if only the body does not exceed the expressiveness of the face.

In such a sculpture, everything external, and, therefore, first of all, the face, is an expression of the internal, and by no means, say, an imprint of a seal (something imposed from the outside). However, this inner, finding its expression in the features of the face and outlines of the figure, as these features and these outlines can and should be, finds its calm in them: the inner has merged with the outer as having grown with it. It is expressed not internally as a movement, as an instant of existence (as later in the famous group of Laocoön), but as an essence, being, merged with the external. It was not unreasonably presented to Hegel as follows: they lack a real, self-existing subjectivity in knowing and volition of themselves.<. . .>The greatest creations of sculpture are devoid of sight, their interior does not look out of them as self-knowing self-absorption with that spiritual concentration that the eye reveals. The light of the soul lies completely outside their sphere and belongs to the viewer, who is not able to look inside the soul of these images, to be with them from the eye of the eye. 37 .

The internal in the statue of the god completely passed into the external, knowingly with the pressure of growth; the inner as such is not expressed at all. But if the preponderance of the inner (as in later, European art) deprives the figure and face of essential necessity, dooms them to the “accident” of their existence and turns them into a field of active, most energetic revelation (revealing the inner), then a gap is inevitable here. faces and bodies - in fact, only the face remains with its facial expressions, with its talking eyes. The face is as if almost open, naked inside. The face of a Greek statue is neither closed nor open; it abides in the constancy of its being. There is no soul that has not been a body here, but that is precisely why it is impossible to speak strictly about the harmony of the internal and external, but it would be better to talk about them.
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Inseparability, historically achieved at the moment when the abstract-sign in the artistic thinking of the Greeks was maximally united with the intuition of the natural-corporeal and was maximally overcome in it. However, if the bodily appearance brings out the being in its constancy, the being of a god or a hero, then here again, slightly outlined, the dualism of the face/body. Barely overcome in a round, ideally harmonious figure, it arises from the fact that the head, which has acquired its life-like body, is more strongly affected by the tendency towards the existential-general. The face then tends to be "its" type. Between “types”, with whatever natural lifelikeness they are created, naturally, there can be no transitions (because each type conveys its own being, its own “image” of being, and, of course, also without any nuances of the accidental and without any psychologization). And then classical sculpture is a living typology; it refers to the types of being recreated ideologically-plastically and carnally-naturally.

However, in this case, the face, no matter how it grows into its body, so lifelike in its ideality, still turns out to be close to the mask. And indeed, the face of the statue of life itself, expressing the type of being, is very close to the mask - the face of a sculptural god and the mask of a theatrical god. ". . .Mask is the semantic limit of a continuously emerging face.<. . .>The mask gives the appearance of the face reified, objectively, statuary, as a complete set and a specific alternation of bulges and depressions in a once printed and forever frozen imprint of a seal (character!) ” 38 .

If the existential typification of the face seeks to "tear" the face as a mask from the body, then in the further development of art could go either by a new schematization (because the archaic schematization was only to be overcome as far as possible), or by blurring the mask, its immobility, by introducing for the sake of this psychologism , movements, etc., and sculpture went this last way.

Hegel, speaking of the Greek theater, reasoned as follows: “The features of the face constituted an unchanging sculptural appearance, the plasticity of which did not absorb the multi-moving expression of private spiritual moods in the same way as the acting characters, who in their dramatic struggle represented a firm universal pathos, - by no means deepening the substance of this pathos to the penetration of the modern soul (Gem uths) and without expanding it to the detail (Besonderheit) of the current dramatic characters " 39 .

In the theatre, the mask of the god or hero continues in the body and figure of the actor, and in such acting the dualism of the face/body is quite clear, although it is not discussed. The plasticity of the performance with its sculptural images-masks serves as a middle link between the round sculpture and the abbreviated plasticity of small reliefs, serves as such a link in meaning. Moreover, the theater combines the completely heterogeneous and in time - archaic schematism and the perfect bodily embodiment of images. That graphic-planar and schematic that in classical art is buried in an abundance of ideologically organized flesh is nevertheless preserved by the theater, moreover, in the very center of the cultural life of the 5th century.

The person is comprehended as a type, as a character.
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“Among the Greeks, an individual person is immersed in timeless types of statues
archons, poets, philosophers, types that reflect a clear order
human space" 40 .

“The Greek portrait typifies. Through the features of the depicted, he allows you to see something super-personal " 41 . And this is in the event that the person to whom the statue is placed is honored with a truly individual, i.e., portrait image. 42 . Sculptural Sophocles IV century. transfers the great tragedian into the elevated world of types, and here there is no subjective individuality, which was easily found in the creations of antiquity, by analogy with their own, for granted, viewers and readers of the 19th century. There is no subjective individuality in the ugly, silenoid Socrates, whose numerous images are mixed with images of lower deities. The sculptor who depicted Socrates changed the features that, according to the descriptions, were so ugly, and brought them closer to the image of Silenus; the shape of the flattened nose did not have to be smoothed out, but it was necessary to soften the eyes that rolled forward and the thick inverted lips of the large mouth. 43 .

Greek sculpture of the classical era is the result of the same unspeakably rapid development as the Greek tragedy of the 5th century, and this tragedy in the person of Euripides turns out to be at the turn of psychologized art, and in the tragedy “Rhee” it is almost already within the limits of sharply plotted fiction that reduces the problematic. All these are components of that “Greek miracle” and “cultural explosion”, to the essence of which A. I. Zaitsev again drew attention 44. Greek art extremely quickly goes from an aniconic monument sign to an image and a portrait 45 . Therefore, in the culture of the 5th century. archaic and “ultra-modern” forms coexist at the same time, and the great innovator Socrates already poses the question to the sculptor Cliton that “the creator of the statues is obliged to convey in the external appearance of the figure (to eidei) what the soul creates in it (ta erga tes psyches)” (Хеn. Memor. III, 10, 8), and also discusses before him about the brilliance of the eyes of those who fight, about the “radiant expression on the face of the winner” - about all sorts of subtleties that have become visible to this mind (thinking out the extreme possibilities of its era). The speeches of Socrates draw forward, and his very appearance is a clue to movement and a challenge to ideality.

On the border of the 5th and 4th centuries. in the consciousness and art of the Greeks began to separate what was temporarily united or mixed in classical art. Greek tragedy, comprehending man, introduces us into a violent discord of the very principles of comprehension - doubtful and opposing.

In her long monologues, Medea Euripides utters words that deprive the soil of the sculptural types of being with their merging of internal and external, with their fusion of face and body:

O Zey, ti de chrysoy men hoscibdelos ei

tekmeri" anthropoisin opasas saphe

andron d "hotoi chre ton cacon dieidenai,

oydeis character empephyce somati?

(Med., 516-519)

The translation of Innokenty Annensky conveys this place quite accurately:

Oh Zeus, oh god, if you could for gold
Fake open signs to people
So why didn't you burn out the stigma
On a scoundrel, so that it catches the eye?
. 46

So, “character” is not a mental phenomenon, but “somatic”: Zeus had to mark the body (soma -) of a bad person with his sign. So, “character” is a feature, a sign, a sign, everything embedded, cut, scratched, then a seal , brand. Euripides Medea finds the word already at a certain stage of its development 47 . Medea uses the word "character" as meaning something completely external, but she is spoken of in her sense as character as internal, to character as such internal. what should be especially revealed outwardly, in addition to and along with the “indifferent” mutual agreement of internal and external. It is obvious, however, that her thought is still predetermined, as it were, by an immovable conjugation of the inner and the outer: the sign of “bad” must be a special brand imprinted on the outside. It is quite natural that Medea imagines things in such a way that this brand should be ingrown into the body. Medea's words were spoken 32 years before the death of Socrates, and Medea, one might think, is facing the same insoluble problem that the sculptors who depicted Socrates faced: they could hardly cope with their task - the contradictory richness of the individually-internal, with duality and irony, could in no way converge with the external and see through it. It is unlikely, however, that the sculptors felt their problems with the acuteness that Medea did. However, wit is wit, but Medea, in his despair, invoking God, falls into a dead end created by the ideas of the era. No matter how you shake the walls of your prison, one thing comes out - the immovable conjugation of the internal and external and the creation of a seal from the outside - in the form of a brand embedded in the body.

Medea's speeches reflect a certain stage in the history of the Greek "character". The internal development of its semantics leads to that knot of meanings, in which, perhaps, only one thing is not fully provided for - the further European fate of this word, in which it is, as it were, turned inside out. The peculiarity of thinking and vision inherent in the Greeks, the peculiarity of ideological and plastic thinking 48, is also captured in the naturally flowing history of the word "character": the simplest element of visuality, pictoriality, enclosed in a sign, already points to a certain three-dimensionality in relief, only that such can be flattened , and fade away. Grapho (cf. graphics) originally also means “swarm”, “scratch”, like the verb charasso. All these are words from the everyday life of a carver, engraver, medalist, sculptor (although the activity of a sculptor is determined through the result of his work - andriantopoios, agalmatopoios 49 ). Characteres, like grammata, are runes, carved letters 50 ,
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Inscriptions merged with their meaning and therefore taken from the side of their integral image: as sacred signs worth labor, they show a tendency to spiritualization. Hence the metonymically developed meanings - for example, the composition “Peri ton characteron. . ." Metrofana from Lebadeio no longer means “about letters”, but “about styles” 51 ; but this is already the era of Hellenism, when the picture of the unfolding meanings of "character" is very different from the classical era and serves as a prologue to modern times.

So, a wooden stake char ah, which turned into a carver's tool (character) and an imprint of a medal, an imprint of a seal, a brand, laid the foundation for semantic development in the spiritual sphere, just as heavy hammer blows (typto) finally gave rise to relief images of seals, medals, coins (typoi ). Plato has medals, seals, coins in a row - all these are “characters”: (Polit., 289b).

For the Greek worldview, reliance on the “body” is extremely essential: so the meaning of the word, developing, enriching and permeating with the spiritual principle, finds for itself a material, plastic form and, inseparable from it, does not part with it. Such is also the Greek "character" associated with the activity of cutting and sharpening and having a stake and a prop as its ancestor - it is not by chance that it almost coincided with the offspring of the hammer striking the anvil. Samislova is like imprints of meaning in the outline of the seal. Having developed to such a representation, they further, up to the “style” and to the “type”, while the boundaries of the language have not yet been violated, constantly look around at this figurative-spiritual formation that restrains them.

The moment of coincidence of internal and external, bodily, material, their inseparability - all this is such as if one should rejoice in the fact that they can constantly be reflected in each other, rotating in the circle given to them! Pelasg, the king of Argos, refers to the daughters of Danae in this way - it seems, not without complacent irony and with distrust, rather played:

It can't be, oh guest, I can't believe it
That you are indeed from Argos.
You look like a native of Libya
You are more than the women from the surrounding area.
Such a tribe could be born by the Nile,
And Cypriot, perhaps, imprinted
The features on women's faces are from their fathers.
Still Indian you remind
Nomads - near the border with Ethiopia
Those on camels ride, I heard, on horseback. . .
52
(Translated by S. Apta)

Two verses about the "Cypriot" character of persons clearly compress the necessary circle of concepts:

Cyprios character t" en gynaiceiois typoys

eicos peplectai tectonon pros arsenon
(Hic., 282-283)

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The Cypriot “character” is embossed (from charasso - “I strike”) on faces, so that the “character” is not just “features”, but precisely once and for all given, more indelible imprint of the seal, or even the instrument itself in the hands of “creators”, “builders ”(tecton - related to the Russian “teshu”), which is carved, carved in relief of the image. “Female faces” (gynaiceioi typoi), “types” - the material of the relief image - are compared with “male creators” or “builders”, the demiurges of these eternal seals, and the whole is described as a kind of sublimely creative and, moreover, constructively accurate production - a forge of spiritual material forms. The word tecton, meaning "builder", "carpenter", has a special role here: to show this imprinting of seals in the light of divine creativity, which creates both all materiality and all spirituality of what is being created. 53 . This word returns again in the tragedy of Aeschylus - in the archaically powerful chanting of the eternal Zeus:

Almighty himself, wise father himself
All living things, the creator himself,
Zeus is my originator
.(592-594)
(Translated by S. Apta) 54

“Character” and “type” are, in the final sense, the imprint of the creative principle, namely, the principle of the primordially creative, eternal, wise (“anciently wise creator”).

"Characters" are produced by the unquenched power of divine creativity. But in them is the end, the edge of such creativity and its goal: being imprinted, the “characters” do not further imply anything behind them, nothing internal or even individual, and equal to the face of the fifty daughters of Danae.

After a very short time, Medea, as we have seen, only dreams of such a simplicity of "character" in which a "bad" person would be immediately marked by a sign of his "sickness". Speaking about "character", Euripides in this place expressed himself more precisely than his translator: choosing "stigma" for "character", I. Annensky went further on the occasion of this word - the brand is burned out; in Euripides, as it is said, "character" had to grow into the body. "Character" is simpler than "brand" - something like a sharp mark of fate. But Medea is convinced by Euripides, on the contrary, that there is no such “brand” on the human body! The ratio of internal and external, essence and phenomenon becomes a mystery. This determines the tragedy of incomprehensibility: someone else's soul is darkness, it is not revealed in advance and is comprehensible to someone else's gaze. This confirms the fact that the poet's gaze is now directed into the depths of character - such as character is now understood; the gaze is fixed - but there is nothing there yet, except for a riddle! All those who have ever, like F.F. Zelinsky and many others, found in Euripides a modern martyred and torn psychology of the soul, acted so not without reason and were close to the essence of what was happening: the psychologism of Euripides is separated from the modern one by an impenetrable thin barrier. What the writer-psychologist delved into with pleasure or with irritated impatience, all this is hidden for Euripides by subtle and opaque. Everything happens - outside the inner, before the inner itself.
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Euripides still remembered very well - and could convince himself of that - that

. . .between people on a noble sign
Both menacing and beautiful. If valor
In whom it shines, on that the sign is brighter.

(Ness., 379-381)
(Translated by I. Annensky) 55

However, in the work of Euripides, one of the main themes is the divergence of appearance and essence, external and internal, the loss of their identity and deep disappointment in human nature. Confusion settled in human nature: (El ., 368). Nobility is now fake, and many noble people are bad (550-551). "There is nothing to honor the gods if the untruth prevails over the truth" (583-584). Finally, the choir in Hercules is absorbed in the same concern - "there is no distinction from the gods either good or bad" (Her., 669): if the gods had understanding and wisdom in relation to people, then double youth would be given to the virtuous - an obvious sign (character) virtues, and baseness would live its life only once 56 .

The same theme - the discrepancy between the external and internal in a person - is also present in Sophocles, who, according to tradition, should have been considered before Euripides (one example from Sophocles has already been given earlier). It is known that Sophocles calls a person the most terrible or terrible force in the world, connecting with this the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe uncontrollability, unbridledness, godlessness of people. At the same time, the tone of Sophocles, when he speaks of a person, differs sharply from Euripides' frenzied drama in its restraint, concentrated wise enlightenment and patience. Therefore, it would hardly be possible now to repeat after W. Wilamowitz that Euripides is closer to Sophocles of our time and that Sophocles strikes with the strangeness of his views and motives. 57 . At least, speaking of a person, Sophocles betrays his great closeness - of course, not with his calmer tone (the tone could be completely restless), but with the simple obviousness with which he knows how to talk about the inner, which is inherent in man. One could already be convinced of this: psyche, phronema, gnome - all this is “internal”, simply called, without the overstrain of conjugation with the external that Euripides created. If the inner is revealed to Euripides as a tragic riddle, impenetrable darkness, then Sophocles at least knows how to call this riddle, how to verbally master it. From this we can conclude that, as was expressed in ancient times, Sophocles has a completely different “pathos”. So it is; although he is also concerned about the same obscurity and the same deception associated with the lack of revelation of the inner, he seems to be able to take a person much more whole, to feel confident in his rather gloomy knowledge about him and is not ready to be deceived in him again and again, with the same sharp pain.
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Sophocles does without that word "character" (when he speaks of a person), which was so necessary for Euripides, because it created a sharp contrast to the internal (not revealed). Sophocles, on the other hand, has his own motive - the motive of time, when he talks about this unrevealed inner: you don’t recognize a person until such and such, obviously, a long time has passed. That the character, that the inner man is revealed in time (and, therefore, without a dramatic "collision" at the moment when you die, but put the "whole" person, as it is with Euripides - only that this is something that is impossible!), - in this Sophocles converges, as will be clear from the history of the fate of "character", with Goethe, who also, just as patiently, introduces the motive of time into this problem. The non-manifestation of the inner, the non-revealing of a person in his integrity is, of course, tragic, but there is some key to this tragedy, to this riddle, at least theoretically. The unrevealed will reveal time.

And here are two passages from Sophocles where he argues in this spirit (“you won’t know until you don’t”):

But it's hard to know a person's soul
Intentions and thoughts, if you
(prin an)
He will not show in the laws and authorities.
("Antigone", 175-177.
Per. S. V. Shervinsky, N. S. Poznyakov) 58

We honest only time will find -
Enough of the day to find out meanly.

(O.R., 614-615)
(Translated by S. V. Shervinsky) 69

One more place can be added to these two places - Deianira talks about her fate: you won’t know the fate of a person until he dies, whether it was good or bad 60 (Deianira herself is an exception in this sense):

Logos men est" archaios anthropon phaneis,

hos oyc an aion" acmathois broton, prin an

thanei tis, oyt" ei chrestos oyt ei toi cacos

(trach., 1-3)

Sophocles refers to the old human "logos" 61 (a proverb passed down from generation to generation), and in his patient view of the manifestation of human essence, Sophocles probably relied on the fortress of popular experience.
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At the end of the classical period of Greek culture, "character" is still extremely far from the modern European "character". However, the fate of “characters is now connected with the fate of understanding a person as a problem of revealing the internal through the external and as a task for a person to find his internal. The connection of "character" with such an understanding of the human turned out to be stable - this word, as it were, fell into favorable conditions for development.

The unfolding of this word and the "reversal" of its meaning is still, however, ahead.

1 Scriptores physiognomici graeci et latini / Rec. R. Foerster. Leipzig, 1893, vol. 2, pp. 347-349.
2 See, for example: Gandelman C. The poem as map: John Donne and the “anthropomorphic landscape)) tradition//Arcadia. 1984. Bd. 19, H. 3. S. 244-251.
3 Dostoevsky F. M. Full. coll. cit.: V 30 t. L., 1976. T. 15. S. 94.
4 Pindar. Bacchilides: Odes. Fragments. M., 1980. S. 49.
5 Ibid. P. 51. Words with phy- - in the center of Pindar's ideas; see about Pindar's "das gewachsene Wesen": Marg W. Der Charakter in der Sprache des fruhgriechischen Dichtung: (Semonides, Homer, Pindar). Wurzburg, 1938. Nachdruck: Darmstadt, 1967 (Libelli, Bd. 117). S. 88-93; phya characterizes in Pindar the whole being of man (Ibid. S. 97); thus, mamasthai phyai means "sich muhen unter Einsatz dessen, was einem angehort und zur Verfiigung steht, von Gott, dem gottgegriindeten Schicksal gegeben" (Ibid. S. 97-98); true knowledge is to phyai in contrast to routine techne; to de phyai cratiston hapan (Ol. 9, 100); here on the development of words with phy- in Attica to denote character traits like ous erpu oyc ephy Solon bathyphron (Solon, fr. 23, 1); pephycen esthlos host" philois (Soph. El., 322).
6 Ivanov Vyach. Sun. The Structure of Homeric Texts Describing Psychically"
states//Text structure. M., 1980. S. 86, 88.
7 Zaitsev A. I. Free will and divine guidance in the Homeric epic // Vesti, ancient. stories. 1987. No. 3. S. 140, 141.
8 See: Ivanov Vyach. Sun. Decree. op. pp. 80-85.
9 See: A. I. Zaitsev, Decree. op. S. 141.
10 Philosophical Encyclopedic Dictionary. M., 1983. S. 431; Cf.: Philosophical Encyclopedia. M., 1970. T. 5. S. 430.
11 Gogol N. V. Full. coll. op. M., 1951. T. 6. S. 157-158.
12 Junger E. An der Zeitmauer. Stuttgart, 1959. S. 35.
13 Fedin K. Collected. cit.: V 12 t. M., 1985. T. 9. S. 487.
14 See, for example, “ethos” as “irony”: Turasiewicz R. Zakres semantyczny ethosw scholiach do tragikow//Eos. 1978 Vol. 66. F. 1. S. 17-30.
15 Pindar. b.; Stuttgart, 1914. Bd. 1. S. 69, 79.
16 "Bey einer schon bekleideten Griechischen Statue ware die Frage nicht mehr lacherlich. Sie ist wirklich ganz sie selbst, und die Bekleidung kaum von der Person zu unterscheiden" (Athenaeum (1799). B., 1960. Bd. 2. S. 43). Our translation is consciously clumsy - for the reason that moments important for meaning are not transmitted in a smooth form due to the foreignness of the ideas captured in the text for the modern language. Let's also pay attention to words whose history is similar to the history of "character". Such is the Latin “persona” in its development from a mask, a mask (as a sign of an individual identified with him; see: Freidenberg O.M. Myth and literature of antiquity. M., 1978. P. 41) to “persona” as a person, personality; cf. "parsun", which is "removed" from a person and which represents him, with a residual idea of ​​​​the identity of the mask and the person himself - "face". The function of the portrait-parsun is “the revival of the dead”, in the words of Simon Ushakov (see: Evangulova O. S. Fine Arts in Russia in the first quarter of the 18th century. M., 1987. P. 119; cf. p. 126. See: Tananaeea L. I. Sarmatian portrait: From the history of the Polish portrait of the Baroque era. M., 1979; She. Portrait forms in Poland and Russia in the 18th century: Some connections and parallels // Soviet art history "81. 1982. No. 1. C 85-125, especially pp. 93 -
68

On the relationship between the icon and the portrait as a depiction of a saint at the moment of transition from earthly to eternal existence).
Wed also Greek. herm - in development from a prop or rock, stone (herma, hermis)
to "hermes" (hermes) as a type of image.
"Persona" demonstrates the process of internalization, while the statue and herm are forms of human consciousness through endowing external human content.
17 Athenaeum. S. 43.
18 Schopenhauer A. Sammtliche Werke: In 5 Bd. Leipzig, 1905. Bd. 1/2. S. 35.
19 Schopenhauer quotes from W. Jones (Ibid. S. 34): “The fundamental tenet of the Vedanta school constituted not in denying the existence of matter, that is of solidity, impenetrability, and extended figure (to deny which would be lunacy), but in correcting the popular notion of it, and in contending that it has no essence independent ofmental perception; that existence and perceptibility are convertible terms.”
20 Schopenhauer A. Op. cit. Leipzig, S.a. bd. 3. S. 103.
21 Ibid. bd. 1/2. S. 35.
22 "Subject" is one of the words that most vividly testifies to the process of internalization; historically, the subjectum directly “turns over”, plunging into the inner man and even identifying with “man” as one of its synonyms. Schopenhauer's subject claims to be what God used to be, knowing everything and being known by no one. The history of hypoceimenon/subjectum is mentioned in many works of M. Heidegger.
23 Schopenhauer A. Op. cit. .Bd. 3. S. 103.
24 The subsequent development of philosophy diversified the problems that Schopenhauer often kept in their original state.
As for the history of ancient cultures, they usually make the opposite mistake, distinguishing and contrasting the spiritual and the material in the spirit of the abstractions of modern times. See, on the contrary, the analysis of the main ideas of Thales (including “water”) in the works of A. V. Lebedev: Lebedev A. V. Demiurge at Thales: (On the reconstruction of the cosmogony of Thales of Miletus) // Text: semantics and structure. M.. 1983. S. 51-66; He. Thales and Xenophanes // Some categories of ancient philosophy in the interpretation of bourgeois philosophers. M., 1981. S. 1-16.
25 According to fragment B 93 of Heraclitus about Apollo, who is in Delphi oytelegei oyte cryptei alia semainei. These words not only name the topic we are talking about, about what is hiding-revealing on the border of the external / internal, but, it seems, the topic of the whole science of culture: it is occupied precisely with what never exists for us "in itself" , as such - neither as accessible, nor as generally inaccessible, neither in its own adequate and identical being, nor in complete alienation from itself and alienation from itself, that is, it never exists either completely openly or completely hidden, but it always exists as giving a sign about oneself, giving a message, letting one know about oneself, pointing, nodding at oneself, as connecting, mediating openness and mystery, manifestation and concealment. This is what happens in the constantly occurring events of revelation. In the history of culture, full of correlated manifestations (between people, between man and being, between people of different cultures, and finally, in man himself as a comprehended unity), what we have called mythosemiosis takes place. The God of Heraclitus could, it seems, utter what he knows to the end, but he must probably adapt to people and, using their language, both speak and hide. Having resorted to language, God is in the language, within the language. In the same sense, according to the poet, "a thought uttered is a lie" - to the extent that it is forcedly cryptei and involved in the dialectic of revealing "to" nodding "in place of the direct pronunciation of meaning (if such was possible), to semiosis .
26 See, for example: Losev A.F. History of ancient aesthetics: Sophists. Socrates. Platon.M., 1969. S. 149-150.
27 Walch J. G. Philosophisches Lexicon. Leipzig, 1726. Sp. 1492; 2. Aufl. Leipzig, 1733. sp. 1497.
28 Kant I. Kritik der Urteilskraft, A 41-42 / Hrsg. von R. Schmidt. Leipzig, 1956.S. 90.
29 Note that Gestalt also transmits the Greek. schema, as it were, a concisely conceptualized appearance, a figure of something, a “scheme”. Gestalt is “schematic” compared to idea. Note that it is timely appropriate to emphasize the moment of abstract schematism in “eidos”: “. . .eidoses are the essence of the content of any “what” and the principle of explanation as such” (Dobrokhotov A. L. The category of being in Western European philosophy. M1986, p. 44).
69

30 Needless to say now that such judgments capture a highly differentiated and historically highly changing situation. ; Id. Mimesis und Phantasia //Philologus. 1934. NF 43(89). S. 286-300.
31 Volkmaizn L. Die Hieroglyphen des deutschen Romantik // Mimchner Jahrbuchder bildenden Kunst. 1926. NF 3. S. 157-186; Traeger J. Philipp Otto Runge und sein Werk. Munchen, 1975. S. 118-119.
32 See: Braginskaya N.V. Ekphrasis as a type of text: (On the problem of structural classification) // Slavic and Balkan linguistics. M., 1977. S. 259-283"
She is. Genesis of "Pictures" by Philostratus the Elder // Poetics of Ancient Greek Literature. M., 1981. S. 224-289.
33 Freidenberg O. M. Decree. op. S. 71.
34 Huseynov G. Ch. Grifos: subject and verbal embodiment of Greek mythology//Context-1986. M., 1987. S. 94. t
35 About this in a new light, see: Gertsman E. Antique musical thinking.L., 1986; He is. Ancient doctrine of melos // Criticism and musicology. L. 1987 Issue. 3. S. 114-148. Especially with. 129-130.
36 As interest grows in symbols-signs and signs-hieroglyphs, emblems, etc., the prestige of coins increases sharply: “Multa sub Numismatum corticelatent mysteria naturae”; "Uber dip ists heute zu Tage dahin gekommen / da ein rechtschaffener Politicus in alien galanten Wissenschaften mu(3 erfahren seyn / davon zudiscuriren / raisoniren / und nach Gelegenheit sich hierdurch wohl gar bey grossen. Herren und der galanten gelehrten Welt zu recommendiren"; . .die Redner-Kunstdadurch konne befordert werden...” (Olearius J. Chr. Curiose Muntz-Wissenschaft. . .Jena, 1701. Nachdruck: Leipzig, 1976. S. 25, 23, 29).
37 Hegel G. W. F. Werke. B., 1837. Bd. 10/11. S. 125.
38 Averintsev S.S. Greek Literature and Middle Eastern “Literature”: (Opposition and Meeting of Two Creative Principles) // Typology and Relationships of the Literature of the Ancient World. M., 1971. S. 217-218.
39 Hegel G. W. F. Op. cit. S. 518.
40 Schweizer B. Zur Kunst der Antike: Ausgewahlte Schriften. Tiibingen, 1963.Bd. 2. S. 181.
41 Ibid. S. 190.
42 Richter G. M. A. Greek portraits II: To what extent were they faithful likenesses? Bruxelles, 1959; Eadem. Greek portraits III: How were likenesses transmitted in ancient times? bruxelles; Berchem, 1959 (Coll. Latomus, 36, 48); Schweizer B. Studien zur Entstehung des Portrats bei den Griechen // Berichte der Sachs. Akad.d. Wiss. Philol.-hist. KL, 1939. Leipzig, 1940. Bd. 91, No. 4; also in: Id. Zur Kunstder Antike. bd. 2. S. 115-167.
43 Schefold K. Die Bildnisse der antiken Dichter, Redner und Denker. Basel, 1943.S. 68.
44 Zaitsev A. I. Cultural Revolution in Ancient Greece, VIII-V centuries. BC e.
L., 1985.
45 See in connection with the data of language and cultural history on the example of the Greek names for “statues”: Benveniste A. Les sens du mot colossos et les noms grecs de la statue // Revue de philologie. 1932 Vol. 6, No. 2. P. 118-135.
46 Euripides. Tragedy. M., 1969. T. 1. S. 128.
47 The earliest phases include character as nomen agentis (rare). For the “superficial” meanings of “character”, see Euripides in the scene of recognizing Orestes: the old educator gazes intently at Orestes (“That he stared at me like at the brilliant character of a gold coin, argyroy<...>lampron character?" -El., 558-559) and sees a scar above the eyebrow - a trace of a wound received in the hunt; the following words are given in the synonymic row: oyle, character, ptomatos tecmerion, sign of falling, symboloi - 572-577). Wed also the whole monologue of Orestes (367 et seq.), where the poet dispenses, however, without the word "character".

To the history of the word: Korte A. Charakter // Hermes. 1929. Bd. 64. S. 69-86.
The above-mentioned (note 5) work by V. Marg is devoted not to the word “character”, but to the words and ideas of the modern sphere of “character”. See also: O. M. Savelieva. On the relationship between thinking and personality in the interpretation of Greek lyric poets. VII-VI centuries. BC e. // Questions of classical philology. M., 1984. Issue. 8. S. 47-57

48 That plasmata in Greek is all sorts of “imaginary” and that something deceptive, and not just creative, is also contained in “plastic”, it is now impossible to discuss. One can only think that Greek thought well developed in the language and put aside in it all sorts of subtleties regarding mythosemiosis , to which we must now reach.
49 While the first word indicates the reproduction of a human figure (andrias ot aner - “husband”, “man”), the second reflects the archaic light aesthetics, which gives shine to every valuable thing, an object of possession (agallo, agalma, etc.), and belongs to a group of words widely represented in the Greek group with an Indo-European root (see: Walde A. Vergleichendes Worterbuch der indogennanischen Sprachen / Hrsg. von J. Pokorny. B.; Leipzig, 1930. S. 622-624). Agalma in the meaning of "an object of worship, a statue" belongs to classical Greece, being, as it were, a product of the aesthetic rationalization of the semantics of the word (cf.: Himmelmann N. Uber bildende Kunst in der homerischen Gesellschaft. Wiesbaden, 1969. S. 16, 29-31; Schmitz H. Goethes Altersdenken im problemgeschichtlichen Zusammenhang, Bonn, 1959, pp. 183-184). Late ancient authors use the word agalma in such a way that it contains a tense reflection of its meaning and reflects a new sacralization of the Greek spiritual heritage. According to Proclus, the soul contains “images and meanings of existing things” - “as if their statues, agalmata ton onton” (ExProcli scholiis in Cratylum Platonis excerpta ed. Io. Fr. Boissonade. Lipsiae: Lugduni Bat., 1820. P. 7 ). In Olympiodorus, the names of the gods are "sounding statues", agalmataphoneenta (In Phileb., 242); both quotes are from Diels and from S. Ya. Lurie: Lurie S. Ya. Democritus: Texts, translation, research. L., 1970. S. 139. In the classical era, however, a far-reaching decline in the word is possible, its desacralization in an entirely enlightened style - about people full of false opinions and class prejudices, one can say that these are “bodies without a mind, just images displayed on the square, decorations of the square "(hai de sarces cai cenai phrenon agalmat" agoras eisin -Eur. El., 387-388); one cannot help but feel a certain aesthetic trend here.
50 Wed. Buchstaben.
51 This meaning is already in Aristotle; it has been developed since the classical era; see: Korte A. Op. cit. S. 76, 79-80. For the development of the rhetorical concept of "character" see: Fischer L. Gebundene Rede: Dichtung und Rhetorik in der literarischen Theorie des Barock in Deutschland. Tiibingen, 1968, pp. 106-131.
52 Aeschylus. Tragedy. M., 1971. S. 50.
53 This word goes back to Indo-European. See: Schmitt R. Dichtung und Dichtersprache in indogermanischer Zeit. Wiesbaden, 1967, pp. 296-297 (§ 601); Gamkrelidze T.V., Ivanov Vyach. Sun. Indo-European language and Indo-Europeans. Tbilisi, 1984. S. 705-706, Toporov V. N. Sanskrit and its lessons // Ancient India: language, culture, text. M., 1985. S. 10; Kalygin V.P. The language of ancient Irish poetry. M., 1986. S. 19-20.
54 Aeschylus. Decree. op. S. 63.
56 Euripides. Decree. op. T. 1. S. 359. The translation deviates significantly from the original due to additions (“beautiful”, “glowing”).
56 It is possible to think that Euripides in the speeches of the choir of Theban old men reproduces the features of senile thinking - one that is prone to repetition (hence pleonasms) - and at the same time cannot convey the basic logic of reasoning. Indeed, where is the “clarity of character” here, if a noble person - in order for his nobility to come out - must first die and immediately begin a second life, and a vile person must die for the first and last time ?! It is obvious that here, as in Sophocles, the problem of character as revealing the inner is put in connection with time (which will tell everything), but only ironically and intricately. If we put aside the unrealizable and idle dreams of the choir, then the choir itself comes to the conclusion that

nyn d" oydeis horos ec theon
chrestois oyde cacois saphes

There is no clear horos "a from the gods, neither good nor bad, that is, there is no clear boundary, demarcation. And then the choir only repeats again what was said in the tragedy earlier and which belonged to the deep convictions of Euripides: oyden anthropoisin ton theonsaphes - no nothing clear to people from the gods (62). Concerning horos "a, U. Wilamowitz writes that "character" could stand instead of him (Wilamowitz-Moellendorf U. von. Euripides "Herakles. B., 1959. Bd. 3. S. 154).

To the understanding of verse 655: ei de theois en xynesis cat sophia cat "andras - protasis. From which the dreams of the choir begin, and contrary to the interpretation of W. Wilamowitz and others (see, for example, the translation of D. Ebener), xynesis and sophia should be considered homogeneous members of the sentence and sophia cat "andras should not be understood as "people's reason", "people's reason", etc., but something like this: a wise arrangement (of the gods!) in relation to people. It is not even important that wisdom, or reason, or the common sense of people (as in Wilamowitz) turns out to have nothing to do with further reasoning, but that they expect a sign, clarity, from the gods, from their institutions, making sure that there is no sign, no clarity. Of the translations, U. Wilamowitz is very descriptive, D. Ebener is slightly more accurate, but very accurate (essentially) I. J. K. Donner: Waret iht klug, Gotter, und wogt Menschengeschickmit Weisheit. . . (Euripides von J. J. C. Donner. Heidelberg, 1852. Bd. 3. S. 220). I. Annensky translates accordingly. Very accurately conveyed by Donner and Art. 664-665: Kein gottliches Zeichen granzt ab. . .
Regarding synesis (Eurip. Or., 396), the ruining Orestes, who knew that he had done a terrible thing, see: Stolyarov A. A. Phenomena of conscience in ancient and medieval consciousness // Historical and Philosophical Yearbook "86. M., 1986. C 21-34 (with literature: pp. 34-35. Especially p. 26); Yarkho V. N. Did the ancients have a conscience?: (On the image of a person in an Attic tragedy) // Antiquity and modernity. M., 1972. pp. 251-263. ( Conscience )
67 Compare: Wilamowitz-Moellendorf U. von. Op. cit. bd. 2. S. 157.
58 Sophocles. Tragedy. M., 1958. S. 153.
59 Ibid. S. 27.
60 Concerning aion. Aion is the life or fate of every living being, comprehended as follows: aion is the “age” of the living, the “age” of a person, and the “age” is the body that embraces the time of all life (Arist. de caelo, 279a), i.e. life how aion is understood as a wholeness determined by the purpose of the whole. “Aion” is a whole meaning, a whole semantic final totality, since the meaning of periechon in Aristotle from “about-surrounding”, “framing” goes to what embraces itself, embraces “everything” in itself as a result, a semantic result (here - a whole “ aion" of life); "Ayon" - everything that is covered by it, the whole, and, moreover, endowed with a goal. Therefore, to think that the final meaning of "aion" can be determined only by living it, fully corresponds to the internal orientation of the meaning of the word. Although, presumably, aion is set in advance (and is only unknown to man). Hence the aion and the term - as embedded inside, given by fate; hence the life and fate (of someone else). See about aion: Wilamowitz-Moellendorf U. von. Op.cit. bd. 3. S. 154-155.
Is it not possible to assume that the horos, about which the choir discusses in the Euripides "Hercules" (see above, note 56), secretly reveals here a connection with time (and this differs from "character"): after all, only that single that one can wait for a “sign” or “border” of good and bad in a person only from the life lived to the end - then it would be to give the good a second life. . .When life is lived, then a sign will appear: it would be nice to turn it into something completely obvious, but it doesn’t work out that way. In fact, it turns out that the "border" passes in time, and not on the surface of the human body and forehead.
61 Cp.: Trach. 945-946:
. . . oy gar esth "he g" ayrion,
prin ey parei tis ten paroysan hemeran.

See also: Schmitt A. Bemerkungen zu Charakter und Schicksal der tragischenHanptpersonen in der "Antigone" // Antike und Abendland. 1988. Bd. 34. S. 1-16. Bes. Anm. 14. S. 3-4.

Tells the stories of people you want to emulate. They were heroes of their time: having overcome difficulties on the way, these people strengthened their honesty, courage, nobility, and also tempered their character. David studied a lot of celebrity stories, and here is his reasoning, what is the difference between these people and the rest and what is missing in our generation.

Two Adams

The book “The Lonely Believer,” written by Rabbi Yosef Soloveichik in 1965, made me think about the two sets of virtues. Soloveitchik notes that the book of Genesis speaks of the creation of man twice, and argues that these two descriptions characterize the opposite sides of our nature, which he called the first Adam and the second Adam.

To modernize Soloveitchik's definitions somewhat, we can say that the first Adam is the career-oriented, ambitious part of our nature. The first Adam is the outer Adam, the Adam "for summary". He seeks to build, create, produce, discover new things.

He wants to reach a high position and win victory.

The second Adam is the inner Adam. He seeks to embody certain moral qualities. The second Adam seeks inner serenity, a calm but sure sense of what is good and what is bad; he wants not only to do good, but to be good. The second Adam longs to give himself completely to love, to sacrifice himself for the good of others, to be guided in life by some higher truth, to possess spiritual integrity worthy of both the Creator and one's own talents.

If the first Adam longs to conquer the world, then the second wants to serve the world, following his calling. The first Adam uses his creativity and enjoys his own achievements, the second sometimes gives up earthly success and position for the sake of a sacred goal. The first Adam wonders how the world works; the second - why the world was created and what is our purpose in it. The first Adam seeks to move forward, the second - to return to the roots and enjoy the peace of a family dinner. If the motto of the first Adam is "Success", then the second Adam perceives life as a moral drama and his life passes under the motto "Mercy, love and redemption".

Heroes of the past generation

And then something beautiful happens. By subduing their "I", our heroes get the opportunity to see the world clearly, understand others and accept what they offer.

By pacifying themselves, they let grace into their lives. It turns out that they are being helped by those from whom they did not expect help; that others understand them and care for them in a way that they did not expect before; that they are loved in a way that they did not deserve. They do not rush about in despair, because they are supported by saving hands. And soon those who descended into the valley of humility ascend to the pinnacle of joy and dedication. They give themselves to work, find new friends, find new love. They are amazed at how much they have changed. They turn around and see what a long way they have come. This life experience not only heals wounds, but transforms them. They find their calling and give all their strength to a great goal, a difficult task that gives meaning to life.

Every step along the way leaves a mark on the soul. This experience changes the inner essence, makes it more holistic, solid, weighty. Self-esteem is not the same as self-confidence or high self-esteem. A person begins to respect himself not for the IQ, mental or physical abilities that help to enter a prestigious university. Self-esteem is not quantified. It does not appear because you are superior to others in some way, but because you are superior to yourself, overcome trials, and do not succumb to temptations. Self-respect is fueled by internal, not external victories. It can only be earned by those who have overcome the inner temptation, faced their weaknesses and realized: “Well, if the worst happens, I will survive. I can overcome it."

Everyone in life has decisive moments, turning points, when everything is at stake. But the same process can occur gradually, barely noticeable. The opportunity to recognize minor shortcomings, offer support to your neighbor, try to correct mistakes is every day.

The Command Performance transmission reflected more than just aesthetics or demeanor. The deeper I studied that period, the more I realized that I was looking into a completely different world from the point of view of morality. I began to notice a different approach to human nature, different life values, different ideas about a meaningful, spiritually rich life. I don't know how many people at that time strictly followed such a moral code - I admire immensely those who followed.


In the modern world, external success is often equated with internal well-being.

We have inadvertently left this moral tradition in the past. Over the past decades, we have lost its vocabulary, its way of life. We have not become worse, but have lost the clarity of moral concepts. We have not become more selfish or selfish than our predecessors, but we have lost their understanding of how to develop character. The moral tradition of the “crooked cleft”, based on the awareness of sin and opposition to it, was the legacy that was passed down from generation to generation. She helped to understand how to cultivate virtues in oneself “for an obituary”, how to develop that side of nature that is associated with the second Adam. Having lost this tradition, modern culture has become somewhat superficial, especially in the moral sphere.

The main delusion of modern life is the belief that the achievements of the first Adam can bring deep satisfaction.

This is not true. The desires of the first Adam are boundless and always outstrip any achievement. Only the second Adam is capable of deep satisfaction. The first Adam strives for happiness, but the second Adam knows that happiness is not enough. The greatest joys are moral joys. On the following pages, I offer several examples of such a life. We cannot and should not strive to return to the past. But we have the opportunity to rediscover this moral tradition, learn the vocabulary of character and implement it in our lives.

There is no formula or universal seven-point program by which one can develop the second Adam in oneself. But you can study the biographies of prominent people and try to comprehend the wisdom of their way of life. I hope that the following chapters will teach you important lessons - even if not the ones that seem important to me. I hope that by the time you finish reading this book, you will feel like you have become a slightly different person - a little better than before.