The Cultural Potential of Art (Based on the Materials of Russian and North Caucasian Poetry of the First Half of the XIX Century)

The article is devoted to the study of art as a cultural phenomenon and, in particular, its cultural creative potential. This methodology of cognition of art implies its consideration as conditioned by the general cultural context. At the same time, the artistic image created by art absorbs not only the external, but also the internal, dictated always by the individual and subjective understanding of the author. The image created by the Artist’s creative consciousness is able to not coincide with the actual reality that gave rise to it. An artistic image can contain ideas and values that are ahead of reality and anticipate its future. The author has attempted to prove this position using the material of poetic images created by Russian and North Caucasian poetry of the first half of the XIX century. These images, created in the totally monologous conditions of the long Caucasian war, internally already contained the idea of humanism, which was so necessary at that dramatic time.