V. Solovyov’s aesthetic assessments of K.F. Fofanov’s lyrics. Part 1

The article is devoted to Vl. Solovyov’s aesthetic evaluation of K.M. Fofanov’s works, well-known poet of the 1880s–1900s. The reconstruction of V. Solovyov's perception of the poet's lyrics was carried out, due to the philosopher's lack of a separate work on K.M. Fofanov. It allowed to establish Fofanov's place in Solovyov’s hierarchy of the leading lyricists of the second half of the XIX century (A.A. Golenishchev-Kutuzov, A.N. Maykov, Ya.P. Polonsky, A.K. Tolstoy, A.A. Fet) and reveal the connection between the aesthetic evaluation of Fofanov's creative work and the general attitude of the thinker to the decadent trends in the literary process of the 1890s. These trends distort the “eternal truth” and “universal meaning”and cause Solovyov’s rejection of other authors of this period (V.Ya. Bryusov, A.L. Volynsky, D.S. Merezhkovsky, N.M. Minsky, V.V. Rozanov, etc) as well as to identify the coincidences or discrepancies of Solovyov's position with contemporary literary criticism (N.M. Sokolov, N.N. Strakhov). For a holistic presentation of V. Solovyov’s aesthetic assessments of K.F. Fofanov’s lyrics it is necessary to take into account his views in such areas as ethics and historiosophy. It is shown that the rejection of Fofanov-the lyricist is also connected with his categorical protest against ethical and historical “decadence”, which, among other things, includes the newest “patriots” who, in their national, ethical and religious blindness, reached the apotheosis of the reign of Ivan the Terrible. This allows us to hypothesize that the aesthetic denial of Fofanov-the lyricist is associated in Solovyov's mind with the general process of diagnosing the “spiritual disease” of modern society, which makes itself felt in various forms (literary or social). This disease makes itself known also in a specific ideological division into “parties” in Russian society in the 1880s–1890s (apotheosis of Ivan the Terrible in the poems by A.N. Maykov in Katkov's “Russkij Vestnik”, as well as the patronage of Fofanov by A.S. Suvorin's “Novoe Vremia”). It is shown that Fofanov's lyrics seem to Solovyov to be one of the examples of substitution of concepts (a phenomenon characteristic of the epoch): Christ – superman, the idea of monarchy – tyranny, the Russian idea – Byzantinism, self –consciousness – narcissism, the higher sense – pretentious nonsense. It is no coincidence that Fofanov becomes the cult-figure of the ego-futurist Igor Severyanin, who, partly recognizing Fofanov's involvement in decadence, makes a step further from the “formulaic” and “banal” in Fofanov's poetry to the avant-garde cult of “the trivial”, blurring the distinction between “true” and “false”.