The duty and meaning of life for Daniil Granin's characters

V.A. Grinfel’d (V. Sobol’)

Saint Petersburg State University of Industrial Technologies and Design,

Saint Petersburg, 191186 Russia

E-mail: vlsobol@yandex.ru

Received March 26, 2018

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Abstract

The paper considers the message to the reading public, which is implicitly contained in several literary texts by D. Granin. The publicistic component of the writer’s prose has long been in the focus of attention of literary researchers. Such characters as Sergey Krylov, Oleg Tulin, Denis Drobyshev, and Pavel Kuzmin became iconic figures that turned into common names. However, until recently, the actions of the characters created by the writer were considered in the aspect of the opposition of the individual and society. Not only literary critics of the Soviet time, but also modern scientists suggest that the true path of a scientist should be directly related to the needs of society and the state. So, in the latest publications, the writer criticized the fact that collectivism moved to the position of an individualistic attitude to life. In the paper, the interpretation of literary and artistic activity of the writer has been carried out. The deep subtext hidden behind the plot twists and turns of D. Granin’s stories has been brought to the surface. To analyze the intentions and actions of the characters, the works of the thinkers of the 20th century, A.H. Maslow, K. Obukhovskii, and V. Frankl have been discussed. It has been shown that one of the main aspects that determine the life aspirations of the beloved D. Granin’s characters is the search for the meaning of existence, the definition of the true vector of being, and the self-actualization of a human.

Keywords: journalism, criticism, D. Granin, scientific cognition, meaning of life

References

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For citation: Grinfel’d V.A. (Sobol’ V.) The duty and meaning of life for Daniil Granin’s characters. Uchenye Zapiski Kazanskogo Universiteta. Seriya Gumanitarnye Nauki, 2018, vol. 160, no. 4, pp. 884–893. (In Russian)

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