Article

Name: Apophatic Rhetoric of Russian Culture (review of the book: Verneinung und Verschweigen. Apophatische Rhetorik in den Werken russischer romantischer Au-toren, ihrer Vorgänger, Nachfolger und Antagonisten. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2025)

Authors: Artem E. Trofimov

Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation

In the section Reviews

Abstract:

This review is dedicated to the book “Verneinung und Verschweigen. Apophatische Rhetorik in den Werken russischer romanticischer Authorren, ihrer Vorgänger, Nachfolger und Antag-onisten” (“Negation and Silence. Apophatic Rhetoric in the Works of Russian Romantic Authors, Their Predecessors, Successors, and Antagonists”) edited by P. E. Bukharkin, E. M. Matveev, Andrea Meyer-Fraatz, and Olga Sazonchik, published in the current year of 2025 by “Harrassowitz Verlag”, Weisbaden. The idea of the reviewed publication is to describe the “rhetoric of denial” (apophatics) in Russian literature. As is known, apophatics is one of the strategies of medieval theology, which consists in knowing God by denying all possible definitions of Him. In the Modern era, apophatic strategy belongs to not only theology, but also secular rhetoric. One of the most interesting features of the book is the authors’ concentration on the era of Romanticism – the most non-rhetorical period in the history of literature. The book consists of two main parts, the first of which is a monographic study by E. M. Matveev on the rhetoric of denial in the works of leading Russian romantics. The second includes individual articles by Mikhail Weisskopf, Anna Warda, Boris Lanin, Maria Rubins, Helene Tolstoy, Mateusz Jaworski, dedicated to the work of a number of writers of the 19th – 20th centuries (G. R. Derzhavin, L. N. Tolstoy, I. E. Babel, V. V. Nabokov), as well as individual genres and literary phenomena: spiritual poetry, fantastic and philosophical prose, Russian utopia and literature of the Stalin era. The authors of the book proceed from different methodological approaches and understanding of apophatic rhetoric, which, on the one hand, makes it difficult to generalize the research to any conclusions concerning the development trends and features of the poetics of Russian literature; on the other hand, the works collected under one cover allow us to present the phenomenon of rhetorical apophatic strategy not as a private artistic device, but as a literary tendency in a diachronic perspective.

Keywords: rhetoric, apophatics, Romanticism, European Slavic studies

Bibliography:

Annushkin V. I. Russkaya ritorika: istoricheskii aspect [Russian Rhetoric: Historical Aspect]. Moscow, Higher School Publ., 2003, 396 p. (in Russ.)

Feofan Prokopovich. Ob iskusstve ritoricheskom desiat' knig [Ten books on the art of rhetoric]. Transl. by G. A. Stratanovsky; resp. ed. by S. I. Nikolaev; prepared text by E. V. Markasova, S. I. Nikolaev; comment by E. V. Markasova; scientific ed. by E. V. Vvedenskaya. Moscow, St. Petersburg, Al’ians-Arkheo Publ., 2020, 488 p. (in Russ.)

Gurevich P. S., Spirova E. M. Nauka v gorizonte apofatiki [Science in the Horizon of Apophatics]. Filosofskaya antropologiya [Philosophical Anthropology], 2019, no. 1, pp. 6–25. (in Russ.)

Hansen-Löve A. Gøgøl. Zur Poetik der Null- und Leerstelle [Gøgøl. On the Poetics of Zero and Void]. Wiener Slawistischer Almanach [Vienna Slavistic Almanac]. Wien, Ges. zur Förderung slawistischer Studien Publ., 1997, Bd. 39, S. 183–303.

Lachmann R. Demontazh krasnorechiya. Ritoricheskaya traditsiya i ponyatie poeticheskogo [Dismantling Eloquence. Rhetorical Tradition and the Concept of the Poetic]. St. Petersburg, Akademicheskii Proekt Publ., 2001, 366 p. (in Russ.)

Lossky V. N. Ocherk misticheskogo bogosloviya Vostochnoi tserkvi. Dogmaticheskoe bogoslovie [Essay on the Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. Dogmatic Theology]. [Without place], Svyato-Troitskaya Sergieva Lavra Publ., 2012, 586 p. (in Russ.)

Mikhailov A. V. Metody i stili literatury [Methods and styles of literature]. Moscow, IWL RAS Publ., 2008, 176 p. (in Russ.)

Verneinung und Verschweigen. Apophatische Rhetorik in den Werken russischer romantischer Autoren, ihrer Vorgänger, Nachfolger und Antagonisten [Negation and Silence. Apophatic Rhetoric in the Works of Russian Romantic Authors, Their Predecessors, Successors, and Antagonists]. Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz Verlag Publ., 2025, 359 S.

Vompersky V. P. Ritoriki v Rossii XVII–XVIII vv. [Rhetoric in Russia in the 17th – 18th Centuries]. Moscow, Nauka, 1986, 185 p. (in Russ.)