Философия человека в творчестве Варлама Шаламова

Вестник Русской христианской гуманитарной академии. 2022. Т. 23. № 4. С. 114–129.

Porus V. N.

In the article the philosophical and anthropological sense of Shalamov’s  "camp prose" is analyzed. It is compressed to a problem: what means to be a person in nonhuman circumstances?  Shalamov's answer is done not in philosophical terms, but in the art text. However, it offers new prospect of philosophical anthropology. The existential philosophy (K. Jaspers, etc.) looked for a way to human authenticity in acts of resistance of external determination of the individual life. But in nonhuman circumstances catastrophic metamorphoses occurs: human authenticity can turn out nonhuman, and vice versa. Then, the ratio "authenticity " and "not authenticity" in the person appears as special semantic dependence: "authenticity" is found when "terrestrial hell" destroys it. It designates the last boundary of resistance to infernal living conditions. Essence and existence are modality modes: someone, having handed over the last boundary of resistance to hell, will keep existence, but does not update the essence which will remain only an opportunity; someone, on the contrary, perishing in hopeless resistance, proves a nonmortality of the essence which became reality. Shalamov’s prose allows philosophical anthropology to speak in new language, to step through a framework of conceptual designs to go to understanding of the person, without being afraid of contradictions because they are life contradictions, but not logical errors of reasonings.

Keywords: личность, существование, философская антропология, сущность, Варлам Шаламов, «лагерная проза»