The biblical context of existential self-rejection motive in Ivan S. Turgenev's “A strange story”

The article studies the functional role of biblical reminiscence in Ivan S. Turgenev’s short novel “A Strange Story” (1870). A pretextual function of the Bible and interpretations of certain biblical theses, sayings and maxims are revealed through the artistic analysis of moral choice of Sophie and the embodiment of the existential motive. In the ethics of self-expression the main character of the short novel relies on the Old Testament dogmas and evangelical preaching as well as asserts her own understanding of the necessity of self-renunciation in the name of implementation of the moral ideal. Sophie’s moral views despite being formed under the influence of religious ethics are not limited by the very ethics. Her faith in Christ is accompanied with the consciousness of her duty to people. The biblical ethics of self-dedication is based on antinomy of self-obsession and renunciation of one’s own self. The personal is sacrificed for the sake of the public. This unites Sophie with the selfless girls, participants of the populist movement, and describes the world perception of a new person of the watershed times in the “national history”.