Hermann Cohen’s Ethical Ideas in the Works of Boris Pasternak

Abstract

ABSTRACT A unique feature of Pasternak’s reception and interpretation of Cohen’s philosophical ideas consists in the fact that the poet focused mainly on the conception of ethics posed by the head of the Marburg neo-Kantian school and his conception of a history based on ethical principles. This article offers a comparative analysis of the three-stage development of Cohen’s conception of human being alongside Pasternak’s development of the image of his young female character in the tale “Liuvers’s Childhood.” It shows how Cohen’s intersubjective model of self-consciousness finds its embodiment in the transformations of Zhenya Liuvers’s self-consciousness resulting from the appearance of a “stranger,” or “Other,” in her life. The article also analyzes Cohen’s conception of history in relation to ethically understood human being and shows how Cohen’s specialized approach to understanding time, the future as a moment in time, and the ideal is reflected in Pasternak’s conception of history and its interpretation from a Christian perspective in Doctor Zhivago. In addition to these literary works, the author also uses certain autobiographical and publicistic texts, as well as correspondence, to examine Pasternak’s reception of Cohen’s ethical ideas.