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Abstract: The article attempts to substantiate the concept of “artistic anthropology” and to describe the principles of this cognitive method using the example of A. P. Chekhov’s short story “Rothschild’s Violin”. The article poses a number of questions that could help identify and describe the peculiarities of a particular writer’s understanding and portrayal of a person: what anthropological categories are used in the text? What is the proportion of different “elements” that make up a person? What changes (biological, structural, spiritual) does man develop and what methods does the writer use to depict the dynamic nature of man? What kind of communication (and with whom) can a person enter into and how does this communication change him? What philosophical and theological anthropological theories does the author draw on when creating the image of a person? Identification of Chekhov’s original anthropological model allows the researcher to argue that at the lexical level, one can talk about the writer’s refusal of traditional anthropological vocabulary and replacing the category of “soul” with the concepts of “thought” and “consciousness”, which is typical of the psychological science of the late 19th century. The writer accurately records the psychophysical states of his characters caused by illness, conveys the special states-atmospheres that capture the characters beyond their will. However, the short story also reveals Chekhov’s need to talk about the core of a person that goes beyond the boundaries of psychophysical phenomena. The essential changes that occur with Bronza are conveyed through changing his name. The character gets a name, becomes Yakov, a person capable of communicating with another person, Life, and God. The three phases in the character’s change are marked by the triple use of the adverb “suddenly”. The life-giving force in the story is memory, nature and “the other person”, who provokes, leads to communication from isolation within oneself. It is in the sphere of relations with “the other” that Chekhov most of all reveals his gravitation towards the axiological principles of Russian classical literature. The article compares Chekhov's anthropological ideas with the key ideas of V. I. Nesmelov’s work “The Science of Man”.

About the author(s) :

Iuliia V. Balakshina

Herzen University (Saint Petersburg, Russia)

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4187-1633

Publication Timeline:

Date of receipt: 11.02.2025; date of publication: 31.10.2025

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