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0PHILOLOGICAL SCIENCES
AN AESTHETICAL REFLECTIVE VIEW OF KULAKOVSKIY'S POEM «THE DREAM OF SHAMAN»
Nogovitsyn A.P.
the North-Eastern Federal University named after M.K. Ammosov, magistrate
Abstract
The article shows the factors in worldview formation of A.E. Kulakovskiy and its reflection in the literary heritage of the poet, in particular, in the poem "The dream of Shaman".
The founder of Yakut literature, educator, and philosopher A.E. Kulakovskiy play a big role in the formation of national self-consciousness and intellectual elite of the Sakha people. Further, the poet was the first researcher in various fields of science in Yakutia. In this regard, A.E. Kulakovskiy was a big public figure of the republic..
In the context of the "Great" historical time, A.E. Kulakovskiy' s scientific researches and literary works found significance, and philosophical message.
"The dream of Shaman" (1910) is one of the most difficult complex work where there are concentrated the thoughts of the poet about the life of the indigenous community and the humanity as a whole. The author on behalf of his character analyzed the modern international situation. It shows that the poet was concerning about the fate of his native people.
Keywords: the poem "The dream of Shaman", the philosophical message, globalization, A.E. Kulakovskiy's worldview, historical cataclysm.
Each person lives and works in his own time and space. In this regard, the saying «He was the son of his era» is widespread. However there are figures who transcend time and space. They become revered by subsequent generations. A.E. Kulakovskiy is and remains just such a person, remembered by the Yakut people.
The end of XIX century and the beginning of XX century is called the Era of A.E. Kulakovskiy. It is char-actezed by the unprecedented development of industry, the formation of powerful monopolies, corporations, trusts, technology. It is during this era, that one of the primary energy sources appears—electricity. Education, science, culture, spirituality became powerful engines of progress of society. Around the end of the 19lh century and the beginning of the 20th century, the division of the world ceased to satisfy all and the question of remaking boundaries arose. These epoch-making events provided an important source for the formation of Kulakovskiy's worldview.
A.E. Kulakovskiy's philosophical, literary, historical views, his perspectives on the development of human society, on nature and political process were formed on the basis of analysis and comparison with the progressive countries of the world, in the East (China, Japan), and in Europe (Germany, England, France, the USA). Kulakovskiy repeatedly wrote about these countries. His native Yakut reality was like a background, a foundation confirming an integral system of outlooks for the researcher on the development of human society. In A.E. Kulakovskiy's opinion, the small Yakut people were integrally woven into the fabric of world history.
A.E. Kulakovskiy's Russian Empire traveled the path of progress. However, the necessity for rapid development in the huge country resulted in unforeseen cataclysms, sharp dichotomies between political parties and political visions, and ultimately in a series of major wars: the Russo-Japanese War, the First World War, and the Russian Civil War. Revolutions are events
which send shockwaves through the world, force reflective people to meditate on the development of mankind. The inquisitive mind of A.E. Kulakovskiy sought for answers to the questions that arose in through his meditations in the works of West European philosophers, thinkers and scientists.
A.E. Kulakovskiy, unlike the aggressive Malthu-sian-sociologists or «social- darwinists» of the 19th Century, never called for a war of annihilation. On the contrary, he considered war as «barbarous remedy» and in the poem «the Shaman's Dream», war is depicted as the most terrible evil on Earth.
He was deeply convinced that the human mind was on a path of enlightenment and that people would themselves begin to regulate birth rates. Man, by means of education, enlightenment and science would free itself from defects and vice, unreasonable traditions and, in the near future, would begin «to live a rational, spiritual life, full of pleasure under the canopy of radiant poetry and aesthetics, and under the protection of an omnipotent science and logic!» [2, P. 40].
In the formation of A.E. Kulakovskiy's worldview, the realities of his Yakut background did not necessarily play a deciding role, but at the same time, it does not mean that we can discount them altogether. They remain present as an important context for philosophical reasoning in A.E. Kulakovskiy's world.
The treatment of colonial possessions by world super-powers, including Yakutia as colonial object of Russian empire, is addressed in the poem «The Shaman's Dream».
According to A.E. Kulakovskiy's calculations, world apocalypse (war, revolution, the resettlement of millions hungry people to Yakutia) should occur 25 years after 1910. Over the course of the following critical years, he advises his fellow countrymen to seek «learning and education», the crafts anil technologies of the expected newcomers (Russians) in order to be equal with them in cruel «struggle for existence.»
The formation of А.E. Kulakovskiy as a poet thinker took place during an era when people were only beginning to recognize the necessity for expanding the borders of human knowledge, of exploring both the external and internal worlds of mankind and discerning the laws of human development. His perspective on the world and the community of mankind is most fully and vividly reflected in the series of verses, «The Shaman's Dream» and in his letter «The Yakut intelligentsia».
«The Shaman's Dream» is one of the most complicated of A.E. Kulakovskiy's works. This poem concentrates the poet's surpsingly broad vision on the fate of an individual nation and of humanity in its entirety. This man, having created a work of such intellectual sophistication, undoubtedly was himself possessed of the broad erudition and the briglil analytical mind of a progressive thinker. А.E. Kulakovskiy's public works. In private correspondence and archival documents all attest to the his deep, constant study of philosophy, sociology, history, jurisprudence, literal v criticism, and economic science [3, P.182].
It is well known that as the regional secretary of Baturusskiy ulus, In read the works of Adam Smith, J.S. Mill, Meyer, Thomas Malthus, Karl Marks and other economists, Morgan, Nietzsche and other philosophers that were available in the rich library of doctor P.N. Sokolnikova. With the knowledge he acquired from reading, using the strength of his talent he was able to correlate the historical destiny of his people with that of Russia and the other nations of the world [2, P. 474].
«He would read us fragments from this song and say: «Because of such factories and mills, great strife draws near...» Judging from this, we can guess that «The Shaman's Dream» was not the result of sudden inspiration but rather that the poet-philosopher raised ideas and thoughts in this poem that he had long wondered about.
According to the memoirs of N.E. Mordinov, N.M. Zabolotskiy, and others, and also judging from the text «the Shaman's Dream» recorded in 1913 and found in the archive of S.A. Novgorodov, А.E. Kulakovskiy began in 1910 to copy the poem with his own hand and to distribute it among friends. In this way, the poem was widely circulated in addition to the fact that А.E. Kulakovskiy performed it on stage as a solo-play [2, P. 475].
Through his hero, А.E. Kulakovskiy analyzes the contemporary international situation. In his opinion, the USA, Japan and China present particular danger for Yakutia because of their territorial proximity, a fact supported by historical evidence. From Europe, А.E. Ku-lakovskiy sagaciously highlights England and Germany as possible initiators of and participants in the wars of conquest. In consequence of the aggressive and rapacious politics of the world superpowers and the resettlement of the planet, there comes to be many conflicts between the «insatiable rich» and «black people», the growing unhappy masses, and imminent revolution. Owing to the prophetical vision and insight of the author, «The Shaman's Dream» came to be a poem of warning.
А.E. Kulakovskiy created an impressive fu-turological picture of the coming global cataclysms.
They will be accompanied by, in his opinion, a manufacturing crisis, natural disasters and unprecedented famine. As a result of these tragical events and destructive processes, Russian peasants ruined by war will be forced to resettle to the remote provinces of the empire, including to Yakutia.
Against this background, the poet expresses concern for the destiny of his native people. He refers to the sad fate of many «tribes and people « which «have already left the global arena», which have disappeared from llie face of the Earth. At the same time, А.E. Ku-lakovskiy reminds us of the heroic past of the Yakut people, that since the time of legendary ancestors Omogoi and Ellei, the cruel vicissitudes of life have not broken his spirit. Hut now, as he writes in his « Letter of the Yakut Intelligentsia,» he argues that the only possibly solution, is the acceptance of advanced Russian culture and science, that is «cultivation.» And again, the author uses mythological imagery which derives from ancient Yakut understandings about the multiplicity (3-partedness) of souls. He offers to feed the «soul-mother», to sate the «soul-air», to allocate the «soul-ground» of the Sakha people by means of this «sacra-ment» and «wisdom». In other words, the positive pathos of the poem consists in an appeal to enlightenment and education.
A white shaman, addressing his fellow tribesmen, Sakha (Yakuts), sometime around 1910, with pain and difficulty declares:
When our reason has ended, It seems, in the six-fold coils of a snake, The crumbs of happiness of the Sakha Can be taken away?
It is insulting, and it is bitter so ... In his meditations, the poet asks the Hamlet question: «To be or not to be» about the historical prospect, the fate of Yakuts.
А.E. Kulakovskiy in his poetic works and on the Yakut soil, saw the great contradiction of modern civilization and progress. On the one hand - the greatest force of technology, science, culture. On the other, — a great destructive force of technology and progress for the simple survival of mankind, for ecology, for the moral principles of man.
The Yakut poet, ultimately the witness of civil war in his homeland, expressed a deep thought about perni-ciousness of any war and violence as life has evidently shown that
Those who have won today, Tomorrow have fallen, Those who summon courage tomorrow, Will be crushed the day after tomorrow. Considering the future of the country and native people, А.E. Kulakovskiy, addressing «the Bolshevik party,» dares to state a number of wishes: «to eradicate the former order», «to intelligently eliminate discord», «to restrain zeal and ardour, to eliminate faults», «to unite thoughts of many» and even it is convincing to explain « the doctrine of your narrowly understood place [2, P. 478].
And consequently the destiny people of Sakha, its future in a poem should be perceived as an example of a survival of one of the founding races of humanity.
Kulakovskiy's program for the survival of the Sakha people is universal for all representatives of civilization, especially for small, colonized peoples, whoe are the most likely to disappear.
Familiarization with the culture of peoples having centuries-old history, searching for paths of peaceful co-existence, understanding the equal value of every ethnic group in the civihzed world, communion with nature, not exalting oneself above it, and interaction, good interference, rational use, achievements of technology - all, in A.E. Kulakovskovo's opinion, comprise the only true path to the survival of mankind.
The scientific heritage No 18 (18),2017 References
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