Comparison of the Concepts of Genius and Taste in the Russian Literary and Theoretical Thought of the Early 19th Century (Based on Translated Publications)

This article examines the emergence of the philosophical and literary concept of genius in early nineteenth-century Russia. The concept’s semantic content became a point of discussion in Europe, particularly in relation to the themes of true creativity and inspiration. The author cites translated literary, critical, and essayistic publications in magazines whose publishers adopt divergent ideological and artistic positions. European literary theorists (Voltaire, J.-F. de la Harpe, etc.) provided a foundation for Russian authors to critically assimilate translated material, as evidenced by the conceptual apparatus. Therefore, the comparison of génie (genius) and gout (taste) is a topic of interest for French criticism. It first appears in translated publications and is subsequently examined in original theoretical and literary articles. Genius is often considered a natural and innate ability. As a psycho-emotional characteristic of a person, it intersects with the acquired “ability to recognize”, i.e. taste. The article provides an analysis of the works of N. Brusilov, I. Martynov, A. Shishkov, and P. Karabanov. These authors adopt largely polemical positions in their assessment of the role of the European tradition in the emerging new Russian literature. However, for all the authors studied, the starting point of their reasoning was Western works and, above all, the Lycée, ou cours de littérature ancienne et moderne by de la Harpe, a theorist of French classicism. Enlightenment aesthetics, which dominates in the translated works devoted to the definition of genius in comparison with the concept of taste, is transferred to Russian soil simultaneously with the actualisation of the national peculiarities of Russian literature and the steady preservation of the ancient tradition, which is presented as a reference combination of genius and taste.