One's Own vs. Other / Another / Alien in the Conceptual and Aesthetic Paradigm of Modernism

In: Izvestija Ural'skogo federalʹnogo universiteta: Ural Federal University journal. Serija 2, Gumanitarnye nauki = *Series 2*Humanities and arts, Band 23, Heft 2, S. 233-245

Abstract

This article focuses on the issue of the Other/Alien within the conceptual and aesthetic paradigm of modernism. In the context of modernistic ideas, the author analyses the philosophy of dialogue and phenomenological views on the Other as represented in the intellectual heritage of the twentieth century. Taking into consideration these ideas, the author discusses three mainstream aspects of the Other/Alien in Russian modernist literature: 1) mythological tradition, which provokes the image of the enemy through the image of the Other; 2) Romantic tradition of the double (doppelganger), and 3) philosophical / phenomenological notion of the body, which views personality as "me/Self" and "my body". Conceptual analysis of these aspects is provided with reference to poetic texts by Alexander Blok, Innokenty Annensky, and Osip Mandelstam. The author stresses the conventionality of such a division, on the one hand, and the influence of the analysed aspects of the Other/Alien onto the conceptual system of Postmodernism. Modernism in European culture, in contrast to other historical periods, is characterised primarily by the fact that many of its ideas and concepts were only proclaimed, but not presented in the form of complete theoretical concepts/systems. In this sense, modernism turned out to be open to the future, which allows us to call it an "uncompleted project" (Jürgen Habermas). Previous eras offered solutions to important existential problems in the form of complete philosophical systems (Immanuel Kant or Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel), ideas or concepts (Kant's concept of "eternal peace" and a moral imperative, Hegel's idea of state and law). Modernism, influenced by the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, destroyed the systematic nature of thinking, doubted traditional morality, and offered paradoxical solutions to many problems in the form of conceptual questions, which are discussed to this day. One of these uncompleted modernist projects was the concept of the Other/Alien, discussions about which have been going on for over a century.