The categories of law and grace in Lermontov's poetics

The article substantiates the necessity of a new interpretation of Lermontov's works based on the categories of Russian philology which emerged over the last decades. In one way or another, all of them go back to the notion of the unity of the Russian culture and actualize various aspects of this culture. The mental model of a preference for the "above the law" freedom to the "legalistic" necessity dominates Lermontov's art world. The ideal, which Lermontov, as well as a number of his characters, would like to put into practice, is unattainable not only in Russia or any other country, but also in general on earth. Relations above the law are inherent to the ideal space of Holy Russia rather than the historical Russia. However, these very above the law relations were recognized by Russian writers and their readers as a spiritual, ethical and aesthetical reference point of a kind. Through the collision of "the ideal" and "the reality", which researchers mostly traced back to the romantic paradigm, shines the fundamental opposition of Law and Grace and penetrates the whole space from medieval to modern Russian literature.