Representation of motives of gnosticism in modern Russian prose

Abstract

The article tells about the peculiarities of representation of Gnostic motives in modern national literature. Gnosticism is a unique religious-philosophical doctrine characterized by resilience due to its syncretic nature: founded in the beginning of our era, the ancient world perception continues to attract the attention of modern writers, offering a diversity of interpretations of existence within a single system, harmoniously combining myth and religion, Eastern and Western wisdom. The mystics will open the mystery of existence through the experience of spiritual communication with the spirit realms, and philosophers will discover the beginnings of existential philosophy in the Gnostic system (H. Jonas). The interest of modern writers to Gnosticism is caused by a general situation of confusion and spiritual search. The researchers pay attention to "existential horror", the captivity of the soul in the world - the motifs common to the Gnostics and the current situation of the postmodern (S. Heller). In their artworks, V. Sorokin and T. Moskvina search for an "alternative faith" on which ideas about the unstable reality can be firmly rooted. This alternative was the Gnostic doctrine, whose motives are a means of reality interpretation, explored through artwork. V. Sorokin introduces a novel motive of being chosen as a leading motif (clearly represented in Basilides' teachings), and the heroes-"Pneumatics", the worshipers of the Primordial light, are not aware of the possibility of the Supreme Creator's existence, that is why their "acts" on the earthly world in the third part of the trilogy turn into tyranny and cruel oppression of the uninitiated people ("Empty"). In V. Sorokin's trilogy Pneumatics can be compared with the "Chief Archon" of Basilides, and the mass death of the heroes in the final with overcoming physical imperfections (the release of the Third Sonship). In the novel by T. Moskvina the reception of Valentinian Gnosticism dominates, its main image is Sofia, languishing in a physical prison. The writer depicts different types of femininity (from Blok's Neznakomka (Achamoth) to Sofia, dissolved in nature (Prunikos)). Thus, in modern Russian literature the authors actualize and include Gnostic motifs in a new context. A piece of art becomes a vanishing point of philosophical conceptions: in the trilogy by V. Sorokin postmodernistic playing with patterns and critical look at immutable values converge art world with the Gnostic conception, which merges Christian archetypes with Greek mythology and occult knowledge of the East (synthetism, bricolage), doubting the truth of the Creator of the earthly existence. In the novel by T. Moskvina the problem of the woman's fate in the world is conceptualized through the Gnostic Sophia aspects