“Thought”, “mind”, “thinking” in the poems of Pushkin, Lermontov, Solovjov, Losev

The article identifies and analyzes, for the first time, one of the permanent motives of Russian lyrics – the motive of thinking. The thematic lines of the classical period (God, world, man, poet's path) are rooted in the religious tradition; the poets' reflections on thought are stimulated by the demand for attention to inner life and to the mind in the practice of Christian life. The process of thinking becomes the object of intellectual reflection of poets under the influence of German philosophy. Thought, as one of the phenomena of the world, enters into a wide sphere of poetic perceptions, becomes an object of contemplation primarily in the works of Pushkin and Lermontov. Numerous lexemes “to think” in the XVIII century were used outside the philosophical context; the analyzed reflections of the poets of the XIX century form a kind of poetic epistemology – the knowledge of thought. The motive of thinking that runs through all Russian lyrics is presented in the article as a separate aspect of philosophical poetry as a whole, it forms the metatext that is significant for describing the poet's worldview. Solovyov and Losev gained the experience of both contemplative and mental comprehension of the truth. In Solovyov's poems, thinking is the basis and generating condition for visions. In Losev's poetic treatise “Justification”, the mind is affirmed as the mental basis of the heart's life, and love in its elevation to meaning – as the mind. Thus, the philosophical poets expressed in poetry the fruitful unity of two paths that are significant for Russian culture as a whole – mind and heart, intellectual reflection and contemplation, philosophical thought and poetic image.