Alexander Pushkin’s poetry in the context of political theology

Analysis of Alexander Pushkin’s spiritual path reveals correlation between the poet’s political and religious searchings, and makes it possible to undertake a reading of his texts in the context of political theology. The experience of such a reading determines the novelty of the study whose relevance is in the application of the method of conjugation, coherence of theological and political meanings of the text. Following Carl Schmitt’s intuition, political theology can be defined as relationship between political and theological structures of discourse, as well as the project of studying these relationships. In Pushkin’s work, political and theological thought manifests itself in the poem about a sower (1823), which happened to be a source of extensive theological reflection on history in Dostoevsky’s The Grand Inquisitor. In Pushkin’s poem the concept of Freedom is transferred from the area of political experience to the field of spiritual experience. The Bronze Horseman (1833) reveals conceptual parallels with the political-theological construct of Thomas Hobbes. The state appears as a necessary but monstrous moment in history. Pushkin’s political-theological thought is finally completed in the cycle of poems (1836) where Jesus Christ appears as a source of freedom in this world and a means of escape from political reality. Pushkin’s political theology can be defined as dualistic, i.e., separating the sacred and the profane, and as knowledge of the limits of the political. This knowledge is of practical significance for the poet.