Metaphysics of money in the works of Honor'e de Balzac and Fyodor M. Dostoevsky

The author examines similarities and differences in the aesthetic interpretation of the subject of money in terms of social realism of the first one and Christian realism of the second one. Such notions as “human mystery”, “a dark side of human nature”, “the ME law”, “the law of love” are introduced to achieve the aforementioned objective. As part of these notions, the article analyzes artistic types and reflection of both writers and shows the equalizing, reducing, transforming and compensating functions of the monetary absolute, which becomes a common equivalent of human freedom and personality and creates conditions for a new inequality. The author reveals anthropologic consequences caused by dominating principles of utilitarianism and monetarist perception, highlighted in the novels by French and Russian writers, that facilitate perversion and inversion of a hierarchy of values, displacement of spiritual and moral fundamentals, mental impoverishment, entropy and nihilism in the degrading society.