On Literary Terror (Based on the Materials of V.V. Rozanov’s Drafts and Unpublished Articles)

The article presents the views of experts on the specifics of V.V. Rozanov’s literary discussions. It highlights the features of the thin­ker’s polemics with P.B. Struve and his colleagues about the boundaries of the party framework in the course of public statements in late 1910 — early 1911. The most vivid details of disputes on the previously mentioned topic are noted. This is evidenced by citation of various draft versions of manuscript materials from V.V. Rozanov’s archive, stored in the Manuscripts Department of the Russian State Library. The article focuses on the duality of the positions not only of V.V. Rozanov, but also of the critics who started the dispute. On the basis of previously unknown archival sources presented in the article, the study aims to refute the myth that the philosopher was never engaged in author’s editing of works in the genre of journalism, and to prove the importance of this work for the thinker. It was V.V. Rozanov who introduced the term “literary terror”. There is consi­dered the lexical series of the origin of this concept in the writer’s texts. The article confirms V.V. Rozanov’s view on the inadmissibility of politicization of his creative works. Personal motives in the philosopher’s fate during the described journalistic polemics are revealed. Responding to accusations of immorality, he claimed the inseparability of talent and moral forces of a literary person’s soul. There is also noted that it was important for V.V. Rozanov to understand the “mosaic” composition of cultural formations in all types of creative process. The article provides guidelines for detai­ling the ideological foundations used by the writer in his polemical speeches.