Philosophical and historical concept of Yuri Buida in the novel “Gardens of Wyvern”

The subject of the essay is the peculiarity of the philosophical and historical concept of the modern Russian writer Yuri Buida, whose works are marked by the richness of philosophical and cultural implications, variety of intertextual connections accompanying his reflections on the fate of man in history, on the relationship of the eternal and the modern, past, present and future. The analysis is based on the novel “Wyvern Gardens”, which is representative in this regard, and has not yet been addressed in literary studies. The scientific novelty of the research is determined both by the selected aspect of the study and the literary material. The novel “Wyvern Gardens” reflects the genre tendency characteristic of Yu. Buida — the construction of an epic novel as a cycle of short stories. The final part of the novel “Urschukh” is considered in the most detail, being most representative in terms of revealing the author's philosophy of history and the fate of man in history. The philosophical and historical concept is revealed through the analysis of cross-cutting motives, the identification of intertextual connections, the arrangement of the image system, and the principles of recreating the turning point in Russian history in 1900–1920. The essay focuses on the functioning of the ambivalent motifs of Eros, the gardens of the Wyvern, the interaction of the Apollonian and the Dionysian and the interpretation of the Christian legend of St. George the Victorious. The analysis also reveals the influence of existentialist philosophy of history on the writer and his polemics with it. In contrast with the pessimistic existentialist philosophy, Yu. Buida’s philosophy of history and the concept of personality is based on Christian values that encourage people to believe in the immortality and power of the human spirit. They determine the vector of the individual efforts in opposing evil, no matter what forms it may take.