Interpretations of Philosophical Ideas of Sophists in the Tragedies of I.F Annensky

As a philologist, translator and playwright, I. Annensky devoted a lot of time to the study, translation and interpretation of the works of Euripides and responded to his traditions to a certain extent in his own dramatic work. As we know, Euripides was influenced by the Sophists and had close relations with the main figures of this philosophical movement, such as Protagoras and Prodicus. In his plays, he not only used theomachy motives and criticisms of longstanding traditions, but also demonstrated sophistic dialogues and the general ideas of Sophists. Annensky, “Russian Euripides”, had taken into account the priorities of his ancient teacher and presented sophistic discourses in his tragedies. It is this perspective: Annensky’s perception of Euripides as a thinker and his judgment of him as a Sophist - that we primarily consider in this article. It also analyzes the origins of the tragic conflicts in the plays of the Russian modernist: the spiritual struggles of characters are considered as the result of individualization, the assertion of a self-sufficient personality and its falling away from gods. Thirdly, the analysis of the justice scene helped to establish the author’s attitude to the antithesis of “nature” and “law” in Annensky’s plays. In the last part the idea of personal perception of the world as the only source of reality and being is revealed. The conclusions are as follows: embodying the ideas of the Sophists in plays helped Annensky reveal the spiritual crisis of modern man and to show his existential state, as well as contributed to understanding the lyrical subject in his work.