Values and their metaphoric instantiations in Boris Pasternak's “Rassvet” (the ways of countering “the threat of devaluation of self” revisited)

Building on Boris Pasternak's poem “Rassvet” (“Daybreak”, 1947) the article looks at the ways of opposing the threat of devaluation of self in Russian speaking community. The authors hold that the poem's value dimension is framed by a cluster of interrelated metaphors that bring forth the text's hidden meaning and add to its novelty. The poem is focused on a theme that dominates many of Boris Pasternak's mature works, namely that of overcoming the finiteness of individual self while “giving your all” to others. This predominating theme is developed within a wide axiological context shaped by evocatory biblical references, both overt (“Your Testament” in the 2nd stanza) and implicit (e.g., “Like melting snow I also thaw” in the 7th stanza), that provide thematic clues enabling the reader to fully understand the text's concealed implications. The narrator experiences the revelation of “You” as the only all-embracing absolute intrinsic value which predetermines the correlation between the categories of “temporary” and “eternal”, “individual” and “collective”. Renouncement of an inward “ego” in a genuine compassion towards “others” is shown to constitute an invariable moral law the poet believes to help break the circle of self-sufficiency and anchor an individual in eternity. We come to the conclusion that it is emphasis on a value paradigm manifested in the poem that will help oppose the threat of devaluation of self in the modern world of proliferating technoculture and changing norms of social interaction.