Why the Russian man can not become a superman: a version by A.A. Golenishchev-Kutuzov

The article deals with the narrative-thematic configuration of the novel by AA. Golenishchev-Kutuzov “Distance Calls” taking into account such contexts as the author’s, literary and historical-cultural ones. Initially, the study of this configuration suggests that in this work the author’s search program is aimed at disclosing and 134 Новый филологический вестник. 2018. №4(47). 135 asserting such an axiological dimension of being which would testify to the indisputable superiority of free existence with no attachment to anything, including the misunderstanding of moral and ethical standards. According to this program, the protagonist is to find happiness not in such intimacy that cannot exist without attachment, but in the one which does not hinder a wanderer’s devotion to distance. In Golenishchev-Kutuzov’s novel, the protagonist makes an attempt to sabotage the traditional (primarily associated with the name of Pushkin) concept of happiness as a home circle, protected by the principle of obligation. The protagonist (Pogostov) associated happiness not with the love to one’s neighbor, but with the love for the distance, that, undoubtedly, not without Nietzschean influence. He becomes a wanderer not because he was torn off from his native soil and thus condemned to a wandering life, but because his nature is such that he cannot fail to respond to the call of distance. However, the analysis draws us to the conclusion that the declared purpose is nor achieved. In the final part of the novel, on its plot level, an event occurs which introduces significant changes to the notion of the ideological and thematic configuration of this work, and that forces the reader to build it in a fundamentally different way. Golenishchev-Kutuzov’s protagonist acts in full accordance with the character of the Russian man, which being fundamentally conscientious, does not allow him to become a super-human being in the spirit of Nietzsche and Wagner.