Linguistic Representation of V.G. Belinsky’s Value Priorities (Based on Aphoristics)

The article deals with the aphoristic heritage of V.G. Belinsky. V.G. Belinsky’s name and his concept of «real art» are objectively considered nowadays within the history of literature of the 19th century. In his numerous works Belinsky developed the theoretical foundations of Russian realism proposed the principle of a new «real» aesthetics; in fact, he created a program of contemporary art. In the corpus of Russian aphoristics, V.G. Belinsky’s sayings occupy a special place showing in synchrony a person’s ideological attitudes in the first half of the 19th century. Belinsky’s sayings about criticism are widely known in Russian literature, but his aphorisms are not only about art, they are about the theory and history of literature, language, although it undoubtedly forms the ideological basis of the conceptual picture of the world, but also about love, family, friendship, the value of human life, etc. V.G. Belinsky’s aphoristics, representing his linguistic picture of the world, also reflects his conceptual picture of the world. Belinsky’s aphorisms are connected with the historical context of the epoch. They reflect it in synchrony, which suggests that extralinguistics seriously determined his value priorities. Belinsky, being one of the representatives of the Russian democratic intelligentsia of the first half of the 19th century, became an exponent of the moral values of the Russian democratic society of his era. Belinsky’s aphorisms represent his value paradigm based on the life-affirming concepts of man (citizen), society, Motherland, the Russian language, love, and life.