The language and the light. The Kabbalistic allegory in Russian literature: From religious philosophy to political mythology.

摘要

The dissertation analyzes the history of the influence of the Jewish mystical tradition (Kabbala) on Russian literature and the development of the mythology which has provided the basis for the so-called Judeo-Masonic kabbalistic myth in the Russian nationalist literature of the twentieth century.The first chapter of the dissertation discusses the historical development of kabbalistic mysticism from its early dissemination in France till the beginning of the eighteenth century. The chapter analyzes the difference between Jewish and Christian versions of kabbalistic mysticism and discusses the connections and the differences between Kabbalah, Gnosticism, Occult and Magic.The second chapter is devoted to the analysis of the role which Kabbalistic symbolism played in the literature of the eighteenth-century Russian Masonry. Mystical kabbalistic allegory played an important role in the philosophical doctrine of the Russian Freemasons, and was directly connected with the Masonic principles of moral enlightenment. The chapter discusses a number of major eighteenth-century Masonic literary works and analyzes the significance of kabbalistic symbolism in eighteenth-century Russian Masonic ideology.The third chapter concentrates on the transformation of the literary application of Kabbala from an ethical concept into a poetic trope in the literature of romanticism. This new interpretation of kabbalistic symbolism concentrated mostly on linguistic mysticism and the creative power of poetic language, and thus popularized the occult and magical pseudo-Kabbala. It was also accompanied by the literary popularization of an image of the Jew as the possessor of secret and evil kabbalistic magic.The interest in creative language was developed further in Russian occult publications of the Silver Age, and in the literary works of the popular authors of this time. Those writings largely contributed to the general confusion between the original mystical Kabbala and such kabbalistic forgeries as the book of Papus, the results of which can be seen in modern Russian and Western criticism. The study of the reasons that caused this confusion paired with the discussion of the role of kabbalistic symbolism in the literature of the Silver Age and the creation of the magical kabbalistic mythology is the subject of the last chapter of the dissertation.