Romanticism’s legacy in Russian philosophy of art and its significance for contemporary aesthetics

Abstract In this paper I shall briefly outline the history of Romantic aesthetic ideas in Russia and then delve into Romanticism’s significance as a philosophical outlook and its relevance for contemporary aesthetic thought. As elsewhere, in Russia Romanticism kept alive and promulgated the sense of art’s unique and irreplaceable contribution to cultural life. But its chief flaw, the tendency to subsume religion and philosophy under art, contributed to a profound imbalance in cultural life. Russian philosophers’ persistent attempts to find the key to art’s relation to religion and philosophy add up to a quest for the harmony of cultural spheres, a quest that is at its nadir today in Russia and around the world.