Несколько тезисов к дискуссии об инаковости
Some Theses Concerning the Discussion on Otherness

Summary/Abstract: The author of the present reflection demonstrates several aspects of the problem of otherness in relation to the two special international conferences held recently (2021, 2023) in Siedlce, and to the volume devoted to “otherness” in which he published a study covering—due to his opinion—the crucial question of otherness. Referring to the first conception associated with the work of Emmanuel Lévinas and stressing the importance of the Neoclassicist concepts of balance, quietness, calmness, stability based on the philosophy of Johann Joachim Winckelmann (“Edle Einfalt, stille Größe”) close to the Russian realist/neoclassicist Ivan Goncharov and his personality to Thomas Mann’s Tod in Venedig, the author points out the relation of otherness and identity, the defocusing of the borders of cultural areas, balance, ekphrasis, synchrony and diachrony of otherness, area character of otherness, the problem of Central Europe and Russia. At the end of his short reflection the author summarizes the threats and chances of the subject of otherness mentioning superficiality, shallowness, an excessive focus upon topicality, the underestimation of diachrony, the endless thematization, a dangerous widening of the range of otherness, the unclear position of the otherness sphere in the framework of literary criticism, at the same time the danger of the disintegration of compact disciplines. If “otherness” discipline which he proposes to call “alternology” will really come into existence it would be inevitable to think through its boundaries, the sphere of the problems being solved, its methodology and terminology at any cost. This would represent another manifestation of the still strengthening tendency towards the disintegration of the formerly united scholarly disciplines as the cases of “genology” or comparative studies going beyond the boundaries of literary criticism, the same with narratology or the theory of the plot. The new discipline called “alternology” would appear on the edges of traditional disciplines. The Siedlce conferences might mean, from this point of view, a certain combat reconnaissance of the maturity, immaturity or prematurity of the otherness sphere of cognition.

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