Patriotism in the worldview of N.S. Leskov: the experience of historical and philosophical reconstruction

The purpose of this study is a historical and philosophical reconstruction of the concept of patriotism, which can be isolated from the creative heritage of Nikolai Semenovich Leskov. The object of the research is the creative legacy of N.S. Leskov, the subject is the ideas of patriotism, which are an integral part of the worldview of the writer and thinker. This study of Leskov's philosophical ideas about patriotism takes into account the specifics of expressing philosophical ideas in both artistic and journalistic forms. The initial setting of the research is to search for the correspondence of Leskov's philosophical views, presented in articles, memoirs and letters with the ideological ideas expressed on the pages of his works of art and reflected in the system of artistic images. The writer's thoughts put into the mouths of the characters were an integral part of the spiritual world of the characters he portrayed, whose intellectual life was saturated with philosophical, moral and aesthetic ideas closely related to specific ideas about patriotism. The hermeneutic method is used as a methodological basis in the work as an explanation and reconstruction of the meanings inherent in artistic creativity, philosophical comparative studies and comparative historical analysis. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the historical and philosophical reconstruction of Leskov's patriotic views as part of his philosophical worldview. These representations were based on the following grounds about Russian culture: 1) love for Russian nature and enthusiastic admiration for it, 2) Christian faith, embodied in a truly humanistic, not servile Orthodoxy, 3) love for the history of Russia, belief in the effectiveness of the evolutionary mechanisms of Russian history and understanding the perniciousness of revolutionary nihilism, which sought to accelerate the historical process, 4) conscious love for the Russian people and understanding all its advantages and disadvantages. Instead of the official formula of patriotism, Leskov proposed his own triad of concepts "Truth, goodness and beauty", expressing in this triune formula Leskov the ideal of Russian patriotism, which is necessary to strive for in our complex and contradictory era.