I. YAKOVLEV CHUVASH STATE PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY BULLETIN

existential portraiture, topology of the critical, lexical-semantic field, linguorhetorical analysis, conceptual structure, rhetorical strategy, contemplation and action, V. S. Solovyov, D. S. Merezhkovsky

This article investigates the linguorhetorical model of the critical method employed by D.S. Merezhkovsky as realized in the collection “In Still Waters”. Drawing upon the essay “The Silent Prophet”, the study analyses the linguistic representation of V.S. Solovyov’s personality. The article demonstrates that the critic uses a binary opposition “philosopher-contemplator” / “man-of-action" to construct the image of V.S. Solovyov as a figure representing an unattained synthesis between mystical contemplation and the active imperative of the era. The analysis establishes that the specificity of D.S. Merezhkovsky’s rhetorical method is symbolically marked in the title of the collection, whilst the transformation of the phraseological unit “the reverse side of the coin” plays a crucial role in the hermeneutical strategy of Solovyov’s portrayal, functioning as an epistemological metaphor for representing the invisible dimension of the philosopher's personality. The article identifies lexical-semantic fields structuring the concepts of “duality” and “hiddenness”, and describes the rhetorical apparatus of critical discourse (oxymoron, catachresis, aporetic questions, symbolic detail, modality of indefiniteness), which generates an effect of semantic tension, blocking two-dimensional interpretation and engaging the reader in an active process of meaning-construction. D. S. Merezhkovsky’s critical method is perceived as existential portraiture – a method of decanonizing official representations through symptomatic reading of biographical details and philosophical interpretation of particular facts as manifestations of universal existential concerns.

Lugovskaya, Elena Grigoryevna – Candidate of Philology, Associate Professor of the Department of Russian Philology, T. G. Shevchenko Pridnestrovian State University, Tiraspol, Pridnestrovie, https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7348-2248, lugowska@spsu.ru

Grudina, Ekaterina Konstantinovna – Second-year Master’s Student in Philology, T. G. Shevchenko Pridnestrovian State University, Tiraspol, Pridnestrovie, kateprudina352@mail.ru