The phenomena of power and freedom in the political worldview of A. S. Pushkin

Altai State University, 656049 61a Lenina ave., Barnaul, Russia

^* Corresponding author: mshirokova1@rambler.ru

Abstract

The article discusses the place and role of A. S. Pushkin in the history of Russian culture and political thought. Such a feature of the Russian picture of the world as “literary-centrism”, which is the primacy of the word, confidence in the word. Like other Russian writers, Pushkin’s works present a moral ideal, but he does not try to teach something, does not construct an ideal model, but simply shows an ideal in the unity of form and content. Further, the article traces the main stages of the evolution of the great poet’s political views: the Lyceum-Petersburg period; the period of the southern exile; the period of exile in Mikhailovsky; and the period of creative maturity in the last decade of his life. The ideological evolution of Pushkin is a transition from liberalism and revolutionism to conservatism and monarchism, combined with the idea of personal freedom. The author concludes that the political worldview of Pushkin organically combined the phenomena of power and freedom. The poet managed to “remove” the dialectical contradiction between them, which later became one of the main problems of Russian literature and philosophy.