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Abstract:

The article examines the reception of A.A. Potebnya’s linguistic theory by the Russian Symbolists (V. Bryusov, A. Bely, P. Florensky) through the lens of post-structuralist philosophy (J. Derrida, P. de Man, J. Kristeva). The aim is not merely to apply post-structuralist categories to historical material, but to identify immanent proto-post-structuralist intuitions and tensions within Symbolism itself, which become visible only in retrospect. The novelty of the research lies in considering post-structuralism not as a static set of ideas, but in its internal evolution, which allows for more subtle and dynamic parallels with the development of the Symbolists’ own thought. The key antinomy is analyzed: the Symbolists’ striving for the ontologization of the word, for finding in the “inner form” a guarantee of sacred meaning, on the one hand, and their own practice, leading to the deconstruction of this meaning, to the exposure of the material, playful nature of language, on the other. It is shown that the Symbolists’ contradictory attitude towards Potebnya — from reliance to overcoming — is vivid evidence of this movement. Russian Symbolism is considered not as a passive object of analysis, but as a unique laboratory where ideas radicalized by the later philosophical thought of the 20th century were maturing.