The Icon and the Hatchet. The Motif of Aggression Against Icons in Russian Literature before the Revolution
Journal Title: Ikonotheka - Year 2017, Vol 27, Issue
Abstract
The present work focuses on the motif of aggression against icons introduced in the works by many Russian writers before the Revolution. Analysed material includes the works of Nikolai Gogol, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai Leskov, Lev Tolstoy, Dmitri Merezhkovsky and Vsevolod Krestovsky. The main aim of the article is to define how the authors imagined an act of imagebreaking and to determine who played the role of an iconoclast and what the presented motivation of such actions were. It attempts to answer the question of why so many authors felt the need to incorporate the motif of aggression against icons in their works, what literary and propagandistic aims this motif served, what feelings it was meant to evoke in the readers and what image of the world it strove to create.<br/><br/>
Authors and Affiliations
Dorota Walczak
INTRODUCTION
-
The Icon of the Holy Unmercenaries (Greek: Άγιοι Ανάργυροι) Cosmas and Damian, as Bequeathed by Zofia Ruebenbauer, in the Collection of the National Museum in Cracow
In 2011 the National Museum in Cracow received a bequest that had been specified in the last will and testament of Zofia Ruebenbauer from Ottawa. The gift was described as a 19th century Russian icon. Comparative stylist...
Two to Achieve a Visible Alliance: On the Choreography of Stanisław Wyspiański’s Vision
Stanisław Wyspianski’s tragedy, Protesilaus and Laodamia (1899), is about the toxicity of excessive illusiveness and constitutes the artist’s elucidation of a lethal image. The magic that linked Laodamia with the wax sim...
The Dark Source of Knowledge
-
Old Believers and the World of Evil: Images of Evil Forces in Old Believer Art
The article considers the Old Believers’ beliefs about, and the manner of depicting, the Antichrist, the end of the world, Satan and the devils. It discusses how both Old Believer literature and philosophy relate to thei...