The Prologue to the Narcissus of Hryhorii Skovoroda as a Philosophical Testament

The article points out the composition and publication of the dialogue Narcissus and its Prologue, why the figure of Narcissus is for Skovoroda so unusually positive and why it is connected to the theme of “know thyself.” The article also draws an unprecedented parallelism between the “sacred narcissism” of Skovoroda and the “heroic frenzies” of Giordano Bruno. The theoretical meaning of the Narcissus’ figure in Skovoroda’s philosophy is the link between epistemological idealism, self-love (which is a strong ethical and personal commitment, a love of own character and fate) and deification. From the ontological point of view, it is suggested that Skovoroda’s ontology is a Christian Plutarchism: a transformation (by Platonizing and Christianizing it) of the Stoic individual hegemonic into an ability to grasp the invisible divine, in a perspective close to St. Augustine. Finally, we find, in Skovoroda’s philosophical testament, an original synthesis of Latin culture and humanism with modernism and Hesychasm’s spirituality.