"Solitary" by Vasily Rozanov, or Life as it’s NOT
The problem field of the article is a question of degree of biographical character of one of the most famous texts by V. V. Rozanov called «Solitary». To solve this issue, the author uses historical, cultural, biographical, analytical methods with a general hermeneutical approach. The author of the article reconstructs in detail the history of the publication of «Solitary», the drama of which is largely determined by the unusual content of the text. Special attention is paid to the nature of this unusualness associated with the frankness of the author's confessions. Further, based on the analysis of fragments from «Solitary», the author of the article tries to find out where and how, with the help of what artistic means, Rozanov distinguishes between events from his own life with the way they are presented in the text. There is an abundant use of punctography, whiche visual nature allows one to immediately separate, for example, Rozanov (a person) from «Rozanov» or Rozanov (as heroes), an essay from a «composition» or (short composition). In addition, the author of the article compares the written text with events from the real life of Rozanov, notes their factual discrepancy with an external apparent similarity. Attention is drawn to the specifics of the literary text and for the first time its typological characteristics are proposed: parabolic and almost biographical. Each of these types of texts is described on the basis of analytical procedures. As a result, it is argued that the text-forming beginning in «Solitary» is a personified attitude towards oneself and towards life, which is reflected in the specifics of artistic means that are adequate to the author’s self-consciousness, but not his biography.