The cultural and historical factors in the interpretation of St. George's image in Russian art of the first quarter of the 20th century

The paper looks at the cultural and historical factors in the reflection of St. George's image by a case study of the works of artists and poets of the first quarter of the twentieth century. The paper deals with the interpretation of the traditional motifs of Russian iconography depicting St. George as a defender, warrior, and great martyr. The following methods are applied: cultural and typological, cultural and historical, and literary text analyses. The authors are the first to consider the existential and metaphysical component of the interpretation of St. George's image in the context of ideas of Russian cosmism and synthesis of the arts, existential and eschatological philosophy of personalism (L. Shestov and N. Berdyaev). The researchers concluded that such factors in the Russian cultural development as Russian cosmism, the idea of the synthesis of arts, the existential and metaphysical development area of Russian philosophy, and eschatological personalism initiated by the tragic events of that time determined the specific nature of arts development in the first quarter of the 20th century, including the artistic interpretation of St. George's image.