Эхо убийства Коцебу: образ Бакалавра в трагедии Гете «Фауст. Часть 2» как демоническая маска эпохи

Литературный факт. 2026. № 3. С. 206–235.

Lagutina I.

This article examines a relatively inconspicuous yet conceptually significant scene featuring the Baccalaureus in Act II of Faust. Part Two by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in the context of the ideological and cultural transformations of post-Napoleonic Germany. The study interprets the figure of the Baccalaureus as an artistic representation of the demonized intellectual youth associated with the student fraternities (Burschenschaften). The article combines historical-literary analysis with a cultural-philosophical interpretation of the text. It draws on archival materials, investigative records, letters of contemporaries, diary entries, and Goethe’s own reflections. Particular attention is devoted to the rhetoric of the Baccalaureus, in which the language of Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s idealist subjectivism transforms into an ecstatic religious-prophetic pathos. The study identifies, for the first time, connections between the two central monologues of the Baccalaureus and the radical journalism of student leaders of the 1810s, as well as statements by historical figures such as Karl Ludwig Sand and Karl Witt von Dörring. The article argues that the scene with the Baccalaureus should be understood not merely as a satire directed at the younger generation of Romantic intellectuals, but as a broader artistic and philosophical commentary on the age. Goethe demonstrates how the Romantic idea of subjective will, once radicalized and absolutized, replaces reflection and dialogue with a rhetoric of destructive action—an ideological dynamic that culminated in the assassination of the playwright August von Kotzebue.

Keywords: романтизм, риторика, Фауст, Гете, Rhetoric, Фихте, August von Kotzebue, Август фон Коцебу, Romanticism, Burschenschaften, студенческие союзы, Goethe, Faust, Part 2, The Baccalaureus, Post-Napoleonic Germany, Political discourse in literature, Witt von Dörring, Karl Sand, Fichtean subjectivity, Бакалавр, постнаполеоновская Германия, субъективный идеализм, политический дискурс в литературе, Витт фон Деринг, Карл Занд

Publication based on the results of: National philosophy and culture: spiritual and moral values (2025)