НАЦУМЕ СОСЕКИ И ЗЕН-БУДИЗАМ
NATSUME SOSEKI AND ZEN BUDDHISM

Summary/Abstract: In Japan, Natsume Soseki’s (1867-1916) works today have been thought of as a kind of a modernistic classic, which once had been both a witness and an active founder of the new, modern Japanese identity. Yet, at the same time the contemporary readers mostly stay unconscient of Soseki’s closeness to the Zen Buddhism, that at a deeper level immensely influenced the Japanese spirit for a very long period of time. Recognized as being a literary classic, Soseki eventually stayed confined within the terms of traditionally shaped reception, which perceives him as a writer caught between the oppositions that emerged in the process of shaping modern Japan, such as East and West, individual and collective, tradition and modernity, etc. Undoubtedly, all of these are the inevitable elements in understanding the Japanese literature of Soseki’s time, but putting a too strong emphasis on them could make us believe that his literature today has lost much of the appeal it once had. However, most of the issues he deals with are of the biggest interest even today, and it could hardly be an overestimation to say that many of the issues pointed out, at times in a rather exaggerating manner, by Soseki seem to be acquiring their relevance to understanding the Japanese society of our days. Equipped with Zen, as a religion of formlessness, Soseki tried to conceive a way for the literature to communicate with the reader through the narrative in order to lead the former to a different understanding of Self in the oncoming time, as he predicted, of egoism and even increasing uneasiness.

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