Russian classical literature and problems of methodology: boundaries of understanding

The article examines the peculiarities of understanding Russian classical literature depending on the primary basic epistemological and value settings, on the initial orientation of consciousness towards binary or trinitarian comprehension. The binary approach is characterized by a description of the world according to the principle of ontological dichotomy, splitting it into two parts: into “friends and foes”, into “good and evil”, etc. Understanding of Russian classics, based on the principles of binary (structuralism), gives rise to a simplified artistic picture of the world, expressed in oppositions, antinomies, oppositions and enshrined in the categories “I and Other”. The absolutization of this approach in the social sphere results in alternative domination, the dominance of one pole over the other. In the light of this approach, the world cannot be conceived as more complex than a unilinear whole. The transition to a viable epistemological paradigm and, consequently, to a new strategy of life and worldbuilding is associated with the trinitarian approach developed during the formation of great cultures, in this case, the Russian classics. This approach is characterized by an understanding of the world, reflected in Russian literature, as a hierarchically structured and sacralized whole, within which the tension and opposition of oppositions is removed.