The Self-Selfness of Vasiliy Rozanov

Akimov Oleg Yur'evich ORCID: 0000-0003-0941-7382 PhD in Philosophy Leading Researcher of the Western Branch of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA) 236016, Russia, Kaliningrad region, Kaliningrad, Artillery str., 62 aktula1@gmail.com Other publications by this author

V.V. Rozanov's spiritual searches, considered as a whole, contain a special "dimension" of depth, telling about this, the thinker wrote about a "funnel" coming from his social Self and narrowing to a point through which a ray from God passes ^{[1, p. 48]}. Approaching this depth, in our opinion, is the essence of Rozanov's "study"; it is no coincidence that at the end of his life he dreamed of compiling a dictionary of Russian philosophers, which should describe not philosophy (teaching in the conventional sense of the word), but the life and speculation of thinkers. Rozanov left "Separate words" for the future "dictionary" of his own searches both in the early book "On Understanding" and in later works - "Solitary", "Fleeting", "Fallen Leaves", showing the directions of "approaching the funnel" that determined the fate of Rozanov studies. 

The "journey" to the "authentic" Rozanov consists either in expanding the "funnel" (recognition of the value and originality of the thinker's metaphysics as a whole, as regards both its general nature and its individual aspects: (V.V. Zenkovsky, V.V. Bibikhin, G.D. Gachev, etc.), or in its narrowing (recognition the genius of individual intuitions of the thinker, coupled with the statement of the uncertainty of the general philosophical position, which was explained by insufficient training or low moral qualities of Rozanov - man: (N.O. Lossky, A.V. Sobolev, N.A. Berdyaev, P.A. Florensky, etc.).  The attitude to the metaphysics of the philosopher is thus formed based on the attitude to Rozanov himself.  The definition of "himself" in this context acquires, in our opinion, a special connotation, since it is neither an attitude to Rozanov as a thinker, nor a personification of Rozanov's philosophy. We are talking about the simultaneous movement from the Rozanov man to the Rozanov thinker and back, which the reader makes by choosing a position, or rather, the position chooses him, since it affects, manifests itself when contacting the Rozanov word. In this movement, the inexpressible comes out that the thinker, with all the ease of writing, seems to squeeze out of himself, wanting to "get out from behind the curtain" ^{[1, p. 62]} and making an effort to do this, designates this inexpressibility with the first words that burst from the tongue (later A.F. Losev will call it Himself).    

The very thing itself was chosen by us as the designation of Rozanov's intention- orientation, which was suggested by the thinker himself, who wrote about his work "and everything came to mind without borrowing even an iota" ^{[1, c68]}. The philosopher conveyed this "state" in his first work "On Understanding", stating that the "emptiness" of understanding - a special world that owns a person is always de facto filled ^{[2, p. 38]} (knowledge is owned by a person, and understanding is owned by a person). Subsequently, this fullness was accentuated by Rozanov in "Solitary", "Fallen Leaves", "Fleeting" (in later works it was exposed, played out by the thinker when he wrote, as if about his own subjectivity, "I am the whole Spirit and the whole Subject" ^{[1, p. 34]}).

In the author's "revelation" about himself, the following point is interesting: Rozanov, if we proceed from the literal meaning of "Solitary", says that the body is the root of the spirit ^{[1, p. 181],[11, p. 513-514]}. For the thinker, the soul/spirit in the context of this statement is something abstract and ephemeral, which can be handled as you like, which cannot be done with a specific material body (however, in the statement "I am the whole Spirit and the whole Subject" Rozanov, using "Spirit" and "Subject" as synonyms and writing these words with a capital letter, solidifies them, giving them a special place in their unique cosmos).

 Rozanov's "subjectivity" demonstrates the thinker's intention - dynamic attention - understanding as "the soul's prolongation by an event"^{[1, p. 53]}, at the same time Rozanov emphasized:"there was always some kind of tetanus in my thinking" ^{[1, pp. 153-154]}. According to V.V. Bibikhin, non-possession of attention means absolute fascination of Rozanov, his "stone thoughtfulness" ^{[1, p. 175],[3, p.130]}. It should be noted that this non-possession, which in another statement the thinker defines as "concentration on another, on his own" ^{[1, p. 105]}, is experienced by Rozanov, since he does not control it (this is similar to the state of falling in love, when it is not the individual qualities of the object of love that are interesting, but the object as a whole, in contrast to specific qualities that devalue him, "killing" Himself); namely, in Rozanov's work, it "requires" the reader to enter into himself (understanding the lover, they sympathize with him, not evaluate him)  and empathy, which shows not the world of the one who is sympathized with, but rather the world of the sympathizer.  Empathy -in the language of M.M.Bakhtin "contact" ^{[4, p. 533]} is carried out in relation to Rozanov's work as acceptance - justification or acceptance-condemnation. In this context, acceptance-justification and acceptance-condemnation are not concepts, but "conditional words" (M.M. Bakhtin) reflecting the features of the "grasping" of V.V. Rozanov's intention. The difficulty of grasping Rozanov's intention, in our opinion, lies in the fact that the researcher chooses a strategy of feeling (acceptance-justification or acceptance-condemnation), while Rozanov's intention is not a "technical installation" that reinforces the "building" of the thinker's metaphysics, but an inner horizon or a set of horizons that encompass the things "studied" by Rozanov, phenomena, the thinnest living threads that connect the thinker's cosmos.

The reader/listener includes Rozanov's horizon into his own horizon, and paradoxically Rozanov, describing understanding as emptiness, indicates exactly this "route" of understanding, without emphasizing its boundaries anywhere, although the experience of exploring these boundaries is a clarifying subtitle to the title of the first Rozanov book, which V.V. Bibikhin called Rozanov's "alphabet".^{[3, p. 259]}. As an acceptance-condemnation, one can cite with a certain degree of conditionality, as in everything that concerns Rozanov's work, the point of view of A.V. Sobolev, stated by him in the work "Orthodox Positivist", where the author noted that writing as it is written "About understanding" (it is unclear to write) is to a certain extent disrespectful to to the reader ^{[5, p. 80]} (according to A.V. Sobolev, the change in the writer's manner in the "Solitary" subsequently attracted readers to Rozanov). As the opposite "pole" of reflection of Rozanov's thought - acceptance-justification, one can cite the point of view of G.D. Gachev, who considers Rozanov's work as carnivalization- inversion ^{[6, p. 187]}.

 These points of view can be interpreted as an attempt to approach the horizon of Rozanov, they demonstrate what V.V. Bibikhin called the "scope" of Rozanov ^{[3, p. 295]} (the elusiveness, the non-drawing of Rozanov's intention is fixed - the Very thinker Himself; the doctrine of the Very, with which A.F. Losev formulates a special view on the history of philosophy as well as the above remarks by A.V. Sobolev and G.D. Gachev is not an explanation of Rozanov's intention, but an attempt to enter the Rozanov horizon, revealing its various sides in their integrity).

In order to show the possibilities of interpreting V.V. Rozanov's creativity with the help of A.F. Losev's teaching about Himself, more precisely, to outline a "corridor" of these possibilities, it is necessary to make a number of preliminary remarks concerning the approach to the study of the philosopher's creativity proposed in our work.  This approach demonstrates the intention of Rozanov's creativity as a dynamic, which is described, on the one hand, in relation to specific fragments of Rozanov's later works, as a special understanding attitude or "gesture of understanding" (V.V. Bibikhin)^{[7, p. 12]}, and on the other hand, explicates the creativity of the thinker as a whole. In this context, Rozanov's remark about understanding is explained, which, according to the thinker, is knowledge "relative to the containing" ^{[2, p. 8]}. Knowledge about understanding according to Rozanov is not an instrumental application of understanding to a thing (in this case, Rozanov's position would resemble the dominant attitude of the New European epistemology of modern times, aimed at mastering the world things), and the vision of understanding itself through things that for one reason or another have fallen into the horizon of understanding, and the reverse (inverted) vision of things through understanding. Underestimation of the peculiarities of understanding is explained, in our opinion, insufficiently clearly articulated in modern works concerning Rozanov's work and trying to turn understanding into teaching (epistemology).^{[8, p. 8]} authentic moments of the thinker's vision, which he emphasized, defining understanding mainly apophatically, for example, as an attempt to restore lost links in the chain of knowledge ^{[2, p. 18]}. Commenting on this attitude of Rozanov, we can compare it with the position of V.V. Bibikhin, who argued that, starting a conversation about the world, we already have the world we are talking about^{[9, p. 3]}.

The vision of understanding through things and the vision of things through understanding, in our opinion, are realized in Rozanov in parallel with each other, since understanding "passes near things", forming its own closed world; therefore, the central question of the first Rozanov book is the question of being - pure existence as such ^{[2, p. 10]}. It seems possible to actualize the vision of understanding through things with the help of apophatics of a thing as a pure individuality, which A.F. Losev resorts to, arguing that a thing cannot be defined through its signs; the very thing itself is absolutely individual, and it excludes coincidence with anything ^{[10, p. 312]}. At the same time, A.F. Losev asserts that the being of a thing through the thing itself is identified with otherness ^{[10, p. 318]}, that is, the thing, remaining itself, is involved in the world as a whole and incongruously correlated with other things through this whole.

V.V. Rozanov actualizes this "state of affairs" in his revelations about things in the "Fleeting": "it's not things that move away from me, but I move away from things... things are so necessary and alive..." ^{[11, p. 196]}; thus, according to Rozanov, things turn out to be connected with the whole world through the sphere of the thinker's Ego (this explains, in particular, Rozanov's "apology" of egoism, in which the thinker asserts that everyone's true attitude is only to himself ^{[1, p. 125]} and adds that everything  we are with tails turned in different directions ^{[1, p. 59]}).This statement by Rozanov in the context of A.F. Losev's teaching about things can be interpreted from different positions (in Rozanov's way, there can be up to a thousand points of view on the subject ^{[11, p. 527]}, which means there can be infinitely many positions related to things). One of them can be conditionally called the position of the non-dialectical separation of the Self (according to it, in Rozanov's cosmos there is no transition from the individuality of a thing to the world of things as a whole; things turn out to be closed in Rozanov's subjective "world", which was proved by opponents of the thinker, for example, P.B. Struve ^{[12, p. 379]}).

With an alternative dialogical position, Rozanov's Ego turns out to be connected with other selves: his contemporaries, opponents, relatives, which means that things, entering the circle of this Ego, become connected with the whole world, accepting it as their otherness. The complexity of Rozanov's installation lies in the fact that the creativity of the thinker can be interpreted based on both of the above approaches, so the approaches themselves must be integrated and considered as a whole. This allows us to do the intuition of A.F. Losev, explicating the Very Self as absolute simplicity and inexpressibility, symbolically expressed through the thing as such.;  an attempt to define a thing in one way or another, according to Losev, correlates it with other things, involving it in becoming (the philosopher argued that the Very Thing Itself is not a symbol, but is explicated symbolically ^{[10, p. 335]}).

With this interpretation, it seems possible to consider Rozanov's position of the non-dialectical separation of the Self as a horizon in which a thing demonstrates its own uniqueness, seen as the subjectivity of the thinker. This "position" allows Rozanov to carry out the apology of the revelation about the thing that is at the center of the thinker's creativity and in which the thing is "taken" in its own self, a special nuance (the thinker draws readers' attention even to the holes on the boot ^{[1, p. 93]}).

A possible transition to an alternative dialogical position, when Rozanov's Self, explicating things, comes into contact with other Selves (the whole world), can be called the thinker's call "build small, and you will build the sky" ^{[11, p. 351]}. We believe that in this case we are talking about the symbolization of the Very; the great simplicity, which A.F. Losev wrote about ^{[10, p. 323]}, expresses itself through Rozanov's image (symbol) of the construction of small things as the formation of things.  The sky (absolute top) and the "shallow" (bottom) are opposed by Rozanov to each other and are not related in any way, are not correlated. Their "combination" is possible in this context only by virtue of the fact that they actualize the formation of the Very.  This image (symbol) is convincing for the reader precisely because it gives a picture of the formation of Himself, connecting together what is empirically incoherent.

An important feature of Rozanov is the possibility of both symbolic and non-symbolic reformatting of this image, that is, its interpretation as a subjective game of Rozanov - the artist; the thinker demonstrates things in their otherness (in space), and at the same time shows the separateness of a particular thing (its absolute uniqueness and incongruity with anything else, which is a potency for it combinations with everything). The ability to see Itself as if in two horizons is both a strong and a weak side of Rozanov's speculation, which the thinker himself noted, pointing out that "weakness has come out of strength" ^{[1, p. 73]} and calling himself a man of everyday life today ^{[1, p. 73]}.  

If for A.F. Losev, the infinite becoming of the non-restorative Self is "drawn" within the framework of dialectical synthesis as a high abstraction (albeit extremely concrete and filled with vital meaning, which he constantly approaches in describing Himself), then for V.V. Rozanov, becoming is "drawn" as a body-colored transformation of things, therefore his speculation it kind of resembles a myth.  When Rozanov is asked about the "results" of becoming or about his intermediate "results", he stops the conversation, as if not being able to translate it from semi-playful and confidential "chatter" into a serious tone, since the formation that is taking place before the eyes of the thinker is too serious and incomprehensible (Rozanov considered really serious questions, passing their language of contradictions and forcing the reader to peer into becoming, more precisely, into a separate fragment of becoming, which is revealed at the same time; for example, in the "Fleeting" when Rozanov writes "there is what there is" ^{[13, p. 26]} or another similar fragment already from the "Solitary" "the most essential is simply reality"^{[1, p. 169]}). Rozanov, as it were, deliberately profanes the answer to the eternal question, at the same time drawing the reader's attention to the relevance of the question and dwelling on the inappropriateness of the answer (from the same "series" his answer to the question about himself:"collegiate adviser Vasily Vasilyevich Rozanov, writing essays"^{[1, p. 382]}). The thinker fixes the status quo - the existing state of things, showing this fact as a result of becoming and at the same time demonstrating in this fact what V.V. Bibikhin called a "break in the economy of being"^{[7, p. 10]} ("collegiate adviser" is shown by the example of Rozanov's own personality as an image of not becoming becoming, since this official position, as an external frame, applies to Rozanov the writer, Rozanov the artist, Rozanov the philistine, and Rozanov the man). The Rozanov man can be perceived both as an abstract boundary of these definitions, and in the light of A.F. Losev's definitions as their supra-rational integrity, standing above their concreteness, above their purely logical unity. Rozanov, as it were, "removes" the usual logical and value unities, showing the supra-rational integrity of becoming  The very same "happens to the master to walk in supports" ^{[11, p. 222-223]}; it is no coincidence that the favorite method of the thinker is the inclusion of the reader, whom Rozanov, in his own words, could never imagine ^{[1, p. 144]} and who does not need to write "in his mouth"^{[1, p. 167]}, in conversation (Rozanov, as it were, urges him to finish the thoughts that the author did not write, which Alexey Remizov subsequently tried to do, that is, to put an end to the unfinished formation).

An important detail that brings the intuitions of Rozanov and Losev closer together is the absolute news, the individuality of becoming ^{[10, p. 331]}, which Rozanov explicates, being in a continuous search for new combinations of the same ideas about God and the world. The thinker describes this feature as follows: "at least I left some thought.. I still have it, that is, I think so, but I think already in the form of a weak shade"^{[13, p. 16]} (in this case, the inexpressible in Rozanov's thought that readers perceive as repetition turns out to be the most unstoppable in this case, which is partly why Rozanov's search for connections between fragments, except for the most general, abstract ones, is meaningless).  The thinker wants to be screwed into the human soul in literature ^{[1, p. 148]}, intending to take it away ^{[1, p. 263]}, therefore, he needs a reader who can shake hands at the elbow ^{[13, p. 67]}; thus, in a living body, according to Rozanov, a limit is set to the incomplete formation of Himself, potencies are realized, relative integrity has been achieved. Rozanov, coming into contact with the body of the interlocutor and "striving for intimacy", which remains incomplete, as if suddenly open, explicates at the sensory level the limit of boundless becoming.   The thinker is in relation to the interlocutors in search of what S.A. Schultz called an "emotional-volitional tone" in relation to himself ^{[14, p. 47]}. Rozanov gropes for what is the inexpressible Self of the interlocutor. This happens in accordance with Rozanov's intuitions, analyzed by A.D. Sinyavsky, as a movement from the soul, which is something abstract and cold for Rozanov, to the body ^{[15, p. 40]}, which is "more spiritual than the so-called soul" ^{[11, p. 513-514]}.   According to Rozanov, the body is the limit of becoming. But the thinker interprets as the limit of becoming not the body as something closed in itself, detached, but the embodiment in the body of the soul.  Rozanov is "interested" not in the soul in an abstract metaphysical plan, theological or philosophical, but in the soul as the realization of the body (the thinker discusses this in the fragment "did I like women with the body..." ^{[1, p. 150]}) Here, in our opinion, Rozanov has a "cliff line" (V.V. Bibikhin) that is, this realization opens Rozanov (and he tries to express it as vividly as possible so that readers not only understand it, but also feel and see this moment) The very Self, actualized as a metarational connection of soul and body;  the thinker "guessed" the difference between the soul –being and the soul-music, which has only a system ^{[1, p. 161]}.

The tragedy of Rozanov, in our opinion, lies in the fact that his "language", expressing what A.F. Losev calls self-generating becoming ^{[10, p. 331]}, in which the moments of continuity and distinctness indistinguishably differ, seems to be on the lead of ordinary consciousness, articulating or continuity of becoming (as indicated by, for example, N.A. Berdyaev, speaking about the predominance of the impersonal principle in Rozanov, submitting to external force ^{[16, p. 313]}) or its distinctiveness (which is expressed in the subjectivity of Rozanov emphasized by A.D. Sinyavsky ^{[15, p. 205]}).  At the same time, Rozanov, as if "compensating" for this tragedy, shows a "different beginning" in things, relationships, phenomena, for example, mentioning that the people of the church need to look closely at the positivists, and the positivists notice something in the people of the church ^{[11, p. 227]}.  Rozanov used in this statement precisely the verb "to look closely", that is, to see, to grasp instantly, while maintaining his own and thus demonstrating a detailed understanding given symbolically.  Both positivism and the church point to peering, which, although it reflects the process of rapprochement between positivists and churchmen, are not brought closer together if you read other fragments of the thinker in isolation. However, peering as a meta-rational given nevertheless confronts positivists and churchmen in reality, which is not by chance the most essential according to Rozanov ^{[1, p. 169]}. V.V. Bibikhin, who deeply felt the essence of Rozanov, therefore noticed that Rozanov had not changed since the time of writing "On Understanding"^{[3, p. 130]}, the moment of immutability of the thinker's intention was emphasized, albeit with slightly different accents, by A.V. Sobolev^{[5, p. 80]}.

In our opinion, the peculiarity of the Very face depicted by V.V. Rozanov is that by explicating this Face, it is possible with the same right as we previously attempted to symbolize Rozanov's world (it is an attempt, since the thinker's world is not clearly drawn, it is always shaded ^{[15, p. 118]}) to consider the same fragments as evidence of the infinity of becoming, in which continuity (A.F. Losev) "drowns in itself" ^{[10, p. 323]} distinctness, and instead of clear dialectics, confusion remains, which Rozanov blessed and called "the lie of the world", thanking God for it ^{[13, p. 23-24],[1, p. 131]}.   Emphasizing this confusion, especially if one perceives Rozanov's work one-dimensionally, unconditionally accepting one of his many points of view, turns out to be the focus of the thinker's attention, mesmerizing "inexperienced" readers (in fact, Rozanov, if you add the "picture" he left us, snatches one of the moments of formation, demonstrating his accidentally seen distinctness, by which one can judge about the same continuous incurable other moments, thus the picture turns out to be unfinished).

It is necessary to note the following regularity of the thinker's vision: if we consider Rozanov's work as a whole, then none of his specific faces (drawings of "reality" made in different ways) "accepts" neither the absolute continuity of becoming (then we would have to leave out of consideration the personality of Rozanov's vision), nor its distinctness (everyone knows the truth according to Rozanov, and he is always the only philosopher ^{[11, p. 527]}). Rozanov demonstrates the possibility of changing the vector, and therefore, contrary to the position of V.V. Bibikhin^{[3, p. 259]}, the closed world of understanding turns out to be an open world of life, only this is a special life or reality in Rozanov's way, since in everyday life, the proximity to which Rozanov "catches the eye", either only the continuity of becoming is emphasized, or only its distinctiveness. Rozanov feels the gap between the continuity of becoming and its distinctness as a pain and offers a "route" out of it. This way out, as well as the formation of an unstoppable self-image in Losev, represents a convergence of what de facto does not converge, if we consider it in a limited perspective of concrete knowledge.  We are talking about the thinker's attempt to draw connections between fragments of discernible continuity of becoming, just as he demonstrates Himself by comparing the faces of Pogodin and Mill in portraits ^{[1, p. 143]}.   If we consider this fragment of the "Solitary" as a formal proof of the advantages of Pogodin, then we have to state that Rozanov's choice in favor of Pogodin can only be explained by the subjectivity of the thinker.  Rozanov, however, gave instructions that make it possible to understand his "subjective" choice as the objective truth of becoming (he spoke about the "richness of the face" of Pogodin and the "poverty" of Mill's face; the richness of the face can be interpreted in the context of the definition of Itself as distinctness-the expression of specific features with their indistinguishability in relation to the face as a whole).  The depth of comprehension is accompanied by the thinker's lack of explanation. Rozanov does not want or cannot prove the position, instead he performs inversion, demonstrating the vision of things through understanding, which creates an alternative to the vision of understanding through things (the thinker's work "On Understanding" was devoted to the vision of understanding through things, which did not find a response among contemporaries, and still, according to V.V.Bibikhin, according to-not really read by descendants ^{[3, p. 257]}; in it, understanding, as already indicated, is de facto determined apophatically when it is demonstrated that it is not knowledge in the usual sense of the word^{[2, p. 8]}; Rozanov argues that, composing his own closed world^{[2, p. 15]}, understanding given through things, but rather through certain structures or forms, does not affect the real world, although it is connected with it; understanding, explaining itself to a person, gives him a vision of the real world, it is never complete for a person, does not show him its integrity^{[2, p. 18]}).

 Rozanov's inversion, demonstrating things through understanding, in our opinion, is a utopian project, reminiscent of the philosophy of the common cause of N.F. Fedorov or the social teaching of V.S. Solovyov, with the difference that Rozanov is alien to moralizing, and his utopia is an apology for the existing status quo of things "is what it is"^{[13, p. 26]};  this apology, in contrast to the previously mentioned understanding through things, affects real life in one way or another, showing the formation of Oneself through carnivalization (M.M.Bakhtin) - turning things over. Rozanov did not speak directly about carnivalization, but in modern works concerning his work, in particular, G.D. Gachev, A.V. Rysaeva, A.I. Fomin, A.D. Sinyavsky, etc., the possibilities of explication of certain aspects of carnivalization in the work of the thinker are outlined.   

In our work, carnivalization is understood as a special form of becoming Oneself - the exposition of things through understanding, instead of the understanding realized in Rozanov's first work, realized through things (this attempt to interpret the thinker's creativity, as well as the explication of the Very Thing undertaken by us earlier by V.V. Rozanov, is an invitation to reflection and co-creation, and not a form of creating a "canon" Rozanov is not canonical in principle, the "grasping" of the intention of becoming Himself is an illogical action for the thinker, which in some aspects brings his work closer to the "program" of mastering the world proposed by M.M. Bakhtin in the work "Francois Rabelais and the folk culture of the Middle Ages".  In Bakhtin's work, according to V.S. Bybler, not only a literary analysis of the work of Francois Rabelais is given, but also the ideological attitudes of M.M. Bakhtin as a thinker are expressed ^{[17, p. 8]}.

In our opinion, Bakhtin's intuitions emphasize the incompleteness of the formation of Rozanov Himself (the comparison of Bakhtin's and Rozanov's intuitions can be carried out in several plans, and Rozanov's "words", coordinated with Bakhtin's intuitions, indicate two perspectives, two horizons, two loci of his new existence and interpretation, which must be perceived for an adequate interpretation in dialogical unity. One perspective of this interpretation of Rozanov's creativity captures the external similarity of the worlds of Rozanov and Bakhtin and partly Rozanov and Rabelais. A different, more "complex" perspective immanentizes this similarity, pointing to the tendency of the formation of the Very, and separates the worlds of Rozanov and Bakhtin from each other by demonstrating differences.   External differences indicate the "internal" unity of intention, which, in our opinion, Rozanov sought, looking for a reader to whom he could shake hands at the elbow ^{[13, p. 67]}.

The external similarity lies in the fact that Bakhtin reveals, in relation to Rabelais' novel, an "unofficial" aspect of the world that becomes the bearer of vital truth ^{[4, p. 25]}. For Rozanov, who accepts and distributes the "official" truth, the peculiarities of its existence in the official world are unacceptable ("official" language, which is for the thinker a form of templating, repetition, erasing the true meaning of eternal events ^{[1, p. 124]}).  The "official" world, justified by Rozanov, is being "renewed" outside the usual forms of its acceptance, a new formation is taking place, entering Rozanov's family-intimate world with photographs, personal letters, details of life and self-perception, which are usually taken to hide. In order to "neutralize" the external (superficial) similarity of the worlds of Rozanov and Bakhtin (Rabelais), it is necessary to point out that according to Bakhtin, the "old" world is perceived as the underside of the new world and, gradually dying off, gives it its living space ^{[4, p. 165]}; in Rozanov, the new world preserves the old world, therefore Rozanov's world is partially reversed inside, that is, Rozanov's description, as a rule, contains a secret - hidden "springs" that connect this description with the creativity of the thinker as a whole, as if "stopping" the formation of Himself. One of these "springs" (it must be remembered that, considering them, we remain within the conditionality of the description) is the "Face. A man in History"^{[13, p. 25]}; in another fragment, the thinker describes him as "a monstrous other face of history"^{[1, p. 94]}.

For Bakhtin, such a "spring" is carnivalization as the transfer of the "event" of life outside; the emphasis in carnival metamorphoses lies on the external material world ^{[4, p. 26]}. Therefore, according to Bakhtin (Rabelais), death /birth is correlated with material changes (external progress), and this is in a special way connected with the nature of the national worldview ^{[4, p. 25]}. For Rozanov, death and birth are explicated simultaneously and as a kind of cycle(the influence of the ancient tradition on the thinker), at the same time correlating with the linear perspective of the finiteness of the world, conditioned by the Christian worldview of the philosopher; therefore, the "Solitary" is "filled" with Rozanov's reflections on the finiteness of his own existence: "death is the end of everything"^{[1, p. 89]} or about the liberation of the apartment after the death of the thinker^{[1, p. 89]}. 88]. Describing his own loneliness on the eve of death, Rozanov says that he does not feel any connection with children, but only with a "friend" ^{[1, p. 245]}. From this description it can be seen that the thinker's attitude to death is formed within the framework of the Christian linear interpretation of time, and even when the thinker, inspired by paganism, compares himself to a bull riding through the fields ^{[11, p. 256]}, death, as it were, imperceptibly becomes the background of his reasoning, no wonder the thinker called himself squeezed between birth and death ^{[13, p. 96]}.   

The rejection of death and the return to the world of birth determines certain statements of Rozanov, which can be interpreted as the articulation of the Very religion Itself, which remained inexpressible in history and explicated by Rozanov in the mutual formation of paganism and Christianity, which we considered in another work ^{[18, p. 65]}. A.D. Sinyavsky explained Rozanov's fluctuations between paganism and Christianity by the illness of his wife the thinker ^{[15, p. 67]}, but he also claims, proving the priority of paganism in the spiritual quest of the thinker, that despite the continuation of V.D. Butyagina's illness, Rozanov of the last years of his life (except for the very moment of death) is a convinced pagan ^{[15, p. 73]}. Sinyavsky believed that paganism was the "core" of Rozanov's inner life, one of the foundations of his formation as a person, and the thinker's reconciliation with Christianity was situational and temporary.

In our opinion, Rozanov's movement from paganism to Christianity, demonstrating the Very Essence of religion, was becoming within becoming, that is, the Very Essence of Rozanov's personality was correlated with the Very Essence of religion, and together they formed the Very Essence of Vasily Rozanov as such, that inexpressible simplicity (A.F. Losev) for which real life and religion Rozanov were symbolic expressions (one fact or multiplicity of facts indicates another multiplicity, being in no way directly related to it ^{[19, p. 250]}).  Rozanov's life points to the thinker's teaching, and the teaching points to life, collecting and enclosing images and symbols of the thinker's works, and all this together actualizes Vasily Rozanov Himself; proceeding from this, both paganism and Rozanov's Christianity can be considered as distinct moments of indistinguishable continuity of formation, each of which is inseparable from the others and together at the same time, it is absolutely different from them in its unique specificity (the same should be noted with respect to other moments that bring together the world of M.M. Bakhtin and understanding through V.V. Rozanov's things in an external perspective; so A.D. Sinyavsky emphasized intimacy as a special characteristic of the thinker's creativity, determining his approach to things and people^{[15, p. 24-25]}; M.M. Bakhtin also points to intimacy as one of the main features of descriptions in Rabelais' work ^{[4, p. 32]}). 

Rozanov's work, if we proceed from Bakhtin's descriptions, can be considered as a carnival of one person played out on the pages of the thinker's works^{[4, p. 45]}; this is evidenced by Rozanov's revelations that God wanted to combine Don Quixote and Sancho Panso in it ^{[11, p. 294]}).  Rozanov, considering the world of phenomena and his own life through understanding, turns it over, using what A.D. Sinyavsky called the thinker's reduction of the author's own image ^{[15, p. 171]}. A comic moment (reminiscent of the world of Rabelais) is Rozanov's use of images of Don Quixote and Sancho Panso at the beginning of the twentieth century, when they began to be interpreted in culture as abstract concepts, for example, Don Quixote became an expression of senseless stubborn courage (Rozanov, as it were, identifies himself with the template images of "old" literature, while quixotic is also the thinker's "overcoming" of literature ^{[1, p. 305],[1, p. 349]}, which he knows as his own trousers^{[1, p. 172-173]} (the low is almost Rabelaisian in the place of the high, and Sancho is reminded of the "belittled" image of Rozanov in the "Solitary", given by the thinker with by describing the appearance and parodying the surname ^{[1, pp. 33-34]}).

  A.D. Sinyavsky considered the task of "overcoming" literature set by Rozanov to be serious ^{[15, pp. 108-109]}, because the thinker actually created a new literature ^{[14, p. 45],[16, p. 336]}.  In our opinion, in the formation of Rozanov Himself, the indistinguishability of the comic and serious "poles" of his literature is given (it is no coincidence that the thinker called himself the most pathetic person of the twentieth century ^{[13, p. 41]} and called himself an artist and philosopher ^{[11, p. 529]}).   Rozanov, identifying Don Quixote and Sancho, leaves in force both the comic and the tragic side of the phenomenon under discussion (in this case, inside his own life).  The effect of this identification is achieved when Sancho and Don Quixote collide (partly comic), but for Rozanov, the seriousness of the general situation (real life) appears on top of this comic, and the "unfolding" of the image leaves the possibility of both comic and tragic interpretations, separated from each other, but at the same time united by a special serious emphasis (tears through laughter). It is obvious that we are talking about the formation of the restless Self, which organizes the comic and serious moments as a whole, while not removing their opposition to each other and not leveling their essential difference.  In our opinion, this is the complexity of the interpretation of Rozanov's work, expressed in the fact that not only opposing points of view should be preserved, but also the dynamics of their opposition to each other and subsequent rapprochement, a kind of Rozanov dialectic, and this applies not only to individual things and phenomena described by the thinker, but also Rozanov's self-presentation,"frames" (almost ramps), in which the exposition of his work is carried out. The same applies to the intimate nature of the world of Rozanov, close to the world of Bakhtin (Rabelais). But Rozanov's intimacy, like other "elements" of the picture he draws, explicates the formation of Himself, it is ambivalent (M.M. Bakhtin) and can be considered both as the continuity of formation and as the distinctness of its individual moments.  Rozanov's intimacy, in contrast to the intimacy of the Rabelais world exhibited by Bakhtin, in which the metaphysical "bottom" turns out to be in place of the "top", and the horizontal in place of the vertical, presupposes the presence of a "border". Within this boundary, the thinker demonstrates to readers the "indecent" sides of his personality, "vices", all that brought accusations of unscrupulousness and immoralism on Rozanov.

The intimacy of the thinker "acts" only up to the limit of a genuine understanding of things, beyond which he is absolutely serious, therefore Rozanov, despite "playing up" intimacy in the "Secluded", "Fallen Leaves", "Fleeting" (photos of relatives, intimate details of family life, stories about children's toys), places in an intimate setting public in his the essence of reasoning about the fate of the world. This is explained by the fact that the thinker perceives his reasoning as revelations and prophecies, for which the situation is important; on the other hand, Rozanov seems to play the role of a "parody" prophet, calling his "words" sacred scriptures, though not in the generally accepted "school" sense ^{[1, p. 61]}, and considering himself the prophet of "one street" ^{[1, c81]}, and not the whole people as in ancient Israel.

A.D. Sinyavsky believed that Rozanov's description of the situation of "revelations", "reducing" the language of pathos inherent in official religiosity, increases their value ^{[15, p. 182]}.  At the same time, the general "tone" of Rozanov's revelations remains "reduced", that is, if we consider them from the point of view of form, they are close to the genre of table conversations once popular in literature; the content of individual fragments, serious and profound, is opposed to "documentary" descriptions of the life of the Rozanov family and the tonality of Rozanov's "story", which the thinker defined "almost on the rights of a manuscript"^{[1, p. 22]}.  The "solitary" as the "whole" of becoming seems to contradict individual fragments, and individual fragments "oppose" each other; at the same time, they are characterized by unity "relative to the soul that said them" ^{[11, p. 198]}. The thinker subjectifies the meta-rational Itself, preserving the unity of the whole work ("Solitary"), which, according to A.F. Losev, is higher than the unity of parts, therefore V.B. Shklovsky called "Solitary" "a novel without an encircling novella"^{[16, p. 341]}. The same principle defines Rozanov's intimacy, if we consider it as a "technique" by which the thinker "tells" readers about his "revelations". If we are talking about "high" and abstract things, intimacy "works" to reduce them, preventing the transformation of the high and eternal into a template. At the same time, the high, being involved in the formation of Itself, becomes part of the human world, which for the thinker was the "seal" of the authenticity of the religious phenomenon (it is no coincidence that V.V. Zenkovsky believed that Rozanov was characterized by "faith in the nature of man and tender love for him" ^{[20, p. 440]}). Rozanov's intimacy delineates the boundary of the private and public worlds, while the private world becomes public up to a certain limit (this limit is, for example, vulgarity - the transformation of his–Rozanovsky into "went what went" ^{[1, p. 190]}).  When publicity begins to "lose" the Rozanov tone (the attitude to the described phenomenon or person as one's own, which can be traced by the example of Rozanov's assessment of his own article about Leontiev, where he seems to lose this tone ^{[1, pp. 130-131]}, in order to avoid "loss", publicity "turns" into intimacy;  the thinker turns out to have the right to correct himself, since we are talking about his own records, which are not necessarily read and evaluated by outsiders).

 The "dynamic" border of "intimacy" in Rozanov is often "not noticed" by researchers, for example, A.V. Rysaeva evaluates Rozanov's work as an aesthetic game "movement on stage to everyday life and away from it"^{[21, p. 140]}, and considers the self-portrait painted by the thinker in "Solitary" to be a "theatrical costume"^{[21, p. 130]} (we cannot agree with this assessment, since according to it Rozanov's work can be considered the result of a planned theatrical game with a predictable effect calculated for the reader's audience, which contradicts Rozanov's intention "not to write in the reader's mouth" ^{[1, p. 167]}).

In our opinion, Rozanov is closer to the "position" of an eccentric who, according to Bakhtin, is neither a stupid person, nor a fool, nor an actor, occupying a middle position between them ^{[4, p.13]} (Rozanov wrote about himself as a person without a role, calling it "the most sympathetic existence"^{[1, p. 197]}).  The absence of a role is a variant of the formation of Himself, since in the supra–rational integrity of Rozanov-man they are "revealed" as an isolated moment of "continuity": both Rozanov is a fool, and Rozanov is a fool, and Rozanov is a cheat, as evidenced by the thinker himself in "Solitary" ^{[1, p. 68]}. It should be noted that Rozanov talks about this as if from the words of other people, whose names he does not name, which is evidence of his inattention to this assessment, lack of interest in it. With the help of a story about his "hypostases", the thinker draws readers' attention to his "scope" (V.V. Bibikhin) - to the formation of Himself, from which there is a "way out" to Rozanov–the fool, and to Rozanov-the "fool", and to Rozanov - a man without a role. The thinker, giving readers the opportunity to see himself as different, demonstrates not a specific self, but the formation of Himself and "resists" the creation of his finished image, whether it is an extremely reduced image of a double-dealing provocateur or a high image of a fool. A distinctive feature of Christian foolishness is the inner change of a person, while with Rozanov's "inversion" the inner "core" of the changing Rozanov remains unchanged, since becoming requires what does not become.  In this regard, an important point of Rozanov's "carnival" is masking - the "technique of changing" faces as preserving one's own unique face, more precisely, Rozanov's own idea as the unity of individual eidos ^{[22, p. 165]}.   

The thinker embodies the intuitions of maskiness, which M.M. Bakhtin touched upon in his work devoted to the work of Rabelais, highlighting the importance of the mask in popular culture as a form of inclusion of the individual in the "second" world of folk truth, on the one hand, and the mask in the romantic grotesque as a form of hiding the face and keeping secrets on the other ^{[4, p. 48]}.  The change of Rozanov's mask faces, as noted above, is the formation of Himself; the thinker deploys a mask inclusion into another reality (cooperation in several newspapers of different directions, a change of political beliefs, a change in the manner of writing) and at the same time, through this inclusion, "hides" from others his own unique face, which N.N. saw. Strakhov, according to V.V. Rozanov, who characterized his work as a set of individually conditioned attractions and repulsions ^{[11, pp. 462-463]}. It is noteworthy that Rozanov almost verbatim retells Strakhov's review of him, which indicates the thinker's agreement with his assessment. Strakhov does not give a specific description of the thinker's worldview, does not characterize him in a complete form, does not try to "master" Rozanov by making his worldview the subject of knowledge, but demonstrates attention-understanding. Strakhov's understanding assessment, showing the "true" state of affairs regarding Rozanov's worldview, is abstract.  It "does not rank" Rozanov, does not include his work in a certain hierarchy, leaving the thinker to his own freedom.  In our opinion, this is the difference between the "truly" grasped formation of V.V. Rozanov Himself from attempts to grasp individual faces of this formation and give them the status of a whole (for example, in the work of A.I. Fomin "To the image of the author of Rozanov's "leaves"" separate masks of Rozanov: the mask of the confessing, the mask of the unaddressed-reflecting and meditating^{[23, p. 108]}, the mask of an orator and a publicist [23. p. 108], the mask of a profit–preaching speaker and the mask of an essayist speaker ^{[23, p. 109]} are considered as frozen forms of the unchanging Self of the thinker).  The author apparently considers Rozanov's masks to be invariants of Rozanov's single Self, external "disguises" that make the philosopher's texts interesting for readers. In our opinion, with this approach, the formation of V.V. Rozanov Himself loses its dynamic character, and masks, despite the possibly opposite position of the author, are perceived as something static and external.  For Rozanov, if we proceed from his revelations – testimonies about himself, masks (as if separate "roles" in life) reflected the dynamics of becoming Himself, which is rationally inexpressible.  The philosopher resorts to lyrical language for its expression, which, in our opinion, is close in nature to the language of myth, "modernized" by the thinker for his own needs. This language is characterized by such a feature as diary writing, that is, Rozanov's works were written from the "first" attempt, without preparation ^{[24, p. 23]} (this point of view is held, for example, by E.M. Krivolapova, but if we agree with her, then Rozanov's style, which we compared with the modernized myth, is the result of reflection with the expectation of another-the reader ^{[24, p. 25]}; this is contradicted by Rozanov's confession, according to which "the solitary is just Me"^{[25, p. 339]}, or how the thinker, describing the technique of writing "Solitary", transferred "half-thoughts" to paper^{[1, p. 22]}).  If we attribute Rozanov's notes to the genre of "diary", then we will have to admit that the thinker did not just write down his thoughts, but "professionally" prepared them for printing (a situation will occur that already took place when A.I. Fomin evaluated Rozanov's "masks").  The momentary state of the author will be the result of an artificially completed formation of Himself, the carrier of which can be considered the text written by Rozanov. Rozanov tried to prevent this by urging the reader not to listen to him either in whole or in parts, but only to "get infected" with his mood-a light "spirit" ^{[13, p. 63],[13, p. 189]}).   

Rozanov correlates his intention with the world of the "square", which makes him outwardly close to the folk world of Rabelais (M.M. Bakhtin). The thinker, for example, claimed that he did not need literate people, but needed a tsar and a peasant ^{[11, p. 448]}. In this case, we are dealing with a special face of the formation of the Very. Particular moments of style and features of presentation bring the thinker closer to the world of the square. Such moments can be called: Rozanov's openness - in his work, heterogeneous things and phenomena from the smallest to the greatest "find" a voice, as well as the collision between the private, private and public official aspects of the world, which we discussed in detail in our other work ^{[18, p. 58]}, therefore, G.D. Gachev noted the folk character of Rozanov's works ^{[6, p. 190]}).   Comparing the worlds of Bakhtin (Rabelais) and Rozanov, we note that the grotesque world of Bakhtin (Rabelais)  it is open and not limited by anything; it is the second world in which, in a special setting (mainly on holidays), what is impossible in the official world is possible ^{[4, p. 171]}, subsequently the "second" "unofficial" world or the horizontal world becomes the first and only world in Modern times ^{[4, p. 136]}.

In the world of V.V. Rozanov, outwardly resembling the world of Bakhtin, despite its naturalness and arbitrariness emphasized by the thinker, the boundary between top and bottom, private and public, vertical and horizontal is drawn. The thinker explicates the formation of the inexpressible Itself as an approximation to the "dynamic" boundary mentioned above, connecting individual moments of the cosmos: privacy, relative openness, outward orientation with their opposite moments: relative closeness, focus on their own immanent characteristics, inexpressibility.  Certain aspects of Rozanov's cosmos are correlated with these opposite moments and represent the formation of the thinker Himself as a transition from one moment to another and as a simultaneous return to the previous moment, hidden in the next moment (Rozanov told about this in "Fleeting", claiming that he retains any of his thoughts, even if he completely left it^{[13, p. 16]}), therefore, despite the intimate-areal nature of individual statements, Rozanov remarked "in essence, there was always a monastery in my soul, why did she need a square" ^{[1, p. 72]}.  These moments of the formation of Rozanov Himself "approach" the dynamic boundary, but do not reach it, therefore Rozanov is not characterized by areality in the absolute sense (M.M.Bakhtin), which is a negation of hierarchy, its inversion.  The inversion of the "order" according to Rozanov is relative, it "guesses" something new in the hierarchy, demonstrating this new or well-forgotten old in a form unusual for the official hierarchy and thereby restoring the hierarchy in a different quality, but without changing its essence. De facto Rozanov is committed to the vertical, which in its dynamic formation accepts the horizontal into itself, equates to itself, but in an absolute sense never becomes equal to it (hence Rozanov's respect for the form, the state, officials, the institution of the church ^{[11, c195-196]}; respect is not absolute, it is like "concerns"one facet of becoming, having another facet, the elevation of the small, not the big, sinful, not the holy ^{[1, p. 198],[1, p. 286]}).   There is no "inversion" of facets in Rozanov's world; the sinful does not take the place of the saint, but gets a rightful place next to him. In fact, we have a picture of understanding realized in the formation of V.V. Rozanov Himself and understanding, the formation of the Most realizing, therefore the thinker leaves the status quo of things in force, which is the peculiarity of his dialectic, according to which, for example, he compares the oratorical profession with prostitution ^{[1, pp. 29-30]} (private the aspect of the world along the "mobile" border of becoming coincides with the public aspect). At the same time, the thinker calls prostitutes "lost creatures" ^{[1, p. 234]} (the private without the implicitly public contained in it is perceived negatively by the thinker). 

 For Rozanov, as well as for Bakhtin (Rabelais) ^{[4, p. 87]}, the moment of birth and the body parts associated with it are important: breasts, abdomen.  The thinker says that "the girl came into the world with her belly"^{[1, p. 103]}, it is no coincidence that he is "attracted" to the pregnant belly in the female body^{[1, p. 150]}.  The peculiarity of the corresponding statements of Rozanov is that the thinker applies the definition of "girl" to women who have become mothers, for Rozanov, the birth of a child - a new being is the central moment of becoming a girl; in this case, Rozanov's intuition goes against empirical experience, for which the birth of a child means becoming a woman - a transition to a new status associated with irretrievable loss the status that was before (for Rozanov, in the formation of Himself, in the birth of a child, it is becoming a girl that is realized, that is, birth does not change, but only   emphasizes the former status; it is about the formation of the Very world Itself, manifested through Rozanov Himself).   As in other cases, when he describes the formation of Himself, Rozanov emphasizes birth as the moment of transition from one state to another, the beginning of a new life is for the thinker the beginning of life in general, therefore, according to Rozanov, "everything is outlined in a person except the genitals" ^{[1, p. 104]}. This resembles a "switch" to the future in the world of Bakhtin (Rabelais), for whom the present is "the womb of the future", so the funeral pyre at Rabelais becomes a hearth ^{[4, p. 262]}.

Another important point that brings the formation of Rozanov Himself and the world of Bakhtin (Rabelais) closer is the emphasis on the "irregularities" of the bulges of the human body (M.M. Bakhtin believed that the womb in the symbolic world of Rabelais means the grave ^{[4, p. 34]}). Birth, as it were, contains the future death of a person, marking the beginning of a new material life; thus, according to Bakhtin (Rabelais), death, being realized, abolishes itself, giving itself as "a new life in an inexhaustible vessel of conception" ^{[4, p. 265]}. M.M. Bakhtin does not accidentally assert that the body being born as it touches the edge of the dying person's body and thereby goes beyond its limits ^{[4, p. 345]}, emphasizing the perspective of becoming. For Rozanov, death means a "forcibly" set limit to becoming, it "destroys" the world of birth, returning the thinker from paganism to Christianity, which, as a rule, coincides with the moment of the illness of a "friend" ^{[1, p. 158]}. The "place" of death in the formation of V.V. Rozanov Himself is paradoxical, death is the only non-becoming moment in the Rozanov world of becoming - absolute zero ^{[1, p. 89]}, and after it nothing becomes interesting ^{[1, p. 130]} (the thinker notes that it is impossible to invent a "word" for death, more precisely speaking, the word invented for her by a man does not mean anything ^{[1, p. 107]}).

  In Rozanov, unlike Bakhtin (Rabelais), for whom death turns into a "funny horror", entering the whole of life ^{[4, p. 59]}, death is not played out, is not carnivalized, does not organically enter the cosmos of the thinker's formation, but "the meaning of the grave will overcome the whole civilization"^{[1, p. 81]} thus, the isolated moment of death, "losing" the border" with other moments, as it were, zeroes out becoming, realizing Itself, giving it a voice (in Rozanov we are dealing with a special form of becoming Itself, in which death is emphasized, while in Bakhtin, in the same way, when devaluing death, life is emphasized According to Rozanov, this antinomy is insoluble, but if we try to solve it as M.M. Bakhtin suggested, then Rozanov's picture of becoming would turn out to be a "typical" example of a romantic grotesque room, in which, according to Bakhtin, the connection with the material world and the general carnival folk body was lost ^{[4, p. 282]}).  From our point of view, the accentuation of death in the nomination of the formation of Rozanov Himself is connected with the world of understanding, which is both being and nothing (we must not forget that the nomination of the Most is a mystery according to A.F. Losev, in this his speculation is closer to V.V. Rozanov than M.M. Bakhtin, for whom the return to the real the world is the debunking of hierarchy, "disenchantment"). V.V. Rozanov "by natural means" "enchants" the disenchanted world ^{[1, p. 369]}, making understanding a syncretic scientific and religious mystery, whose place is in the real world, seen in a special way. At the same time, images of Bakhtin's folk world are "easily" incorporated into Rozanov's world, for example, the image of a pregnant belly and breasts; it is no coincidence that the thinker compared himself to a cow after a calf, ready to saturate all the bulls of the world ^{[13, p. 30]}. However, the images of birth, as already indicated, unite in the thinker around the border, which is death, and a complete becoming, like in Bakhtin, for whom death is a kind of "step" to new births, does not occur in Rozanov; becoming de facto remains for him a mystery of the absolute simplicity of Himself. The proof of the "appropriateness" of such an interpretation of the internal dialogue of Rozanov and Bakhtin in the light of the explication of the formation of Himself is, in our opinion, the attitude of thinkers to the phenomenon of laughter.

 For Bakhtin, laughter is a "lever" for switching attention from the conventional vertical world to the natural horizontal world ^{[4, p. 25]}. Rozanov, especially in the late period of his work, is characterized by a neutral negative attitude to laughter, which "cannot kill anyone, but can only crush" ^{[1, p. 43]}. This statement can be interpreted in such a way that in the presence of truly terrible things, such as death, laughter for Rozanov becomes unimportant, loses its meaning. The thinker also negatively, but with some difficult shades to convey, refers to Gogol's laughter, whereas Bakhtin saw in it parallels with Rabelais' laughter ^{[4, p. 530]}. Rozanov writes that reading Gogol, you stop believing reality ^{[1, p. 220]}. This "you stop believing" can be interpreted as a loss of boundaries (we must not forget that the world of understanding, although separated by Rozanov from reality, is connected with it) - a kind of scale, as if from a viewpoint from which understanding looks at the world. At the same time, Rozanov calls himself in relation to Gogol "a student who rebelled against the teacher"^{[11, p. 471]}, thus emphasizing the inner closeness with him despite the contradictions (A.D. Sinyavsky also notes Rozanov's appreciation of Gogol ^{[15, p. 305]}).

  The formation of V.V. Rozanov Himself in relation to the world of laughter is carried out as an elusive transition from the ridiculous to the serious and from the serious to the ridiculous; the absolutization of both the funny and the serious "restricts" the formation, making the subject uninteresting for Rozanov. As an example of the formation of the Most relatively "funny" and "serious" worlds, one can consider Rozanov's attitude to laughter in Christianity. The thinker thought that Christ never laughed, adding that "the highest Christians who have achieved are always smiling"^{[13, p. 46]} and calling on the Bible not to be so serious ^{[13, p. 199]}, while Gogol's laughter seemed to Rozanov too serious, satirical (Rozanov's intention is close to Bakhtin's reflections that satirical laughter kills the object of ridicule, destroying it, and the ambivalent laughter of the Middle Ages, killing the object, revives it ^{[4, p. 282]}).

 The dialogue between Rozanov and Bakhtin is complemented by the position of S.S. Averintsev, expressed by him in the work "M. Bakhtin and the Russian attitude to laughter" (the scientist enters into a correspondence discussion with Bakhtin regarding the liberating function of laughter ^{[26, p. 342]} and its projection in Christianity:  partly agreeing with the thinker's statement about laughter as a victory over fear, Averintsev believes that laughter can become an instrument of violence, and a Christian freed by the Savior's sacrifice does not need laughter, on his lips is the smile of a free man ^{[26, p. 344]}). Averintsev 's position reveals the essence of the contradiction between those in the same dialogical field  Rozanov and Bakhtin.   The contradiction lies in the fact that the "liberated" natural laughing world of Bakhtin, in our opinion, is a world of victorious violence (to see this, it is enough, although Bakhtin opposed it, to see the world of Rabelais outside of the mythological national integrity, which S.S. Averintsev tried to do, telling examples from the past about laughter-violence^{[26, p. 344]}).

Rozanov calls Gogol's laughter violence ^{[11, pp. 220-221]}, and Rozanov's own life, his personal formation of Himself, is an escape from violence into madness "they came with their morality to my soul ..." ^{[13, p. 24]}. The paradoxical nature of Rozanov's world lies in the fact that the formation of the restless Himself in relation to violence looks in him like submission to a specific manifestation of force (as N.A. Berdyaev said). This subordination is incongruously correlated (A.F. Losev) Rozanov's insubordination to force as a world order, including even insubordination to God, against which Rozanov, according to A.D. Sinyavsky, fights from a position of weakness (like a child with an adult ^{[15, p. 62]}).  For this reason, Rozanov does not accept revolution as violence ^{[11, p. 213-214],[13, p. 53]}, understanding its truth^{[13, p. 61-62],[1, p. 107-108]} and claiming that tender ideas will overcome iron chains ^{[1, p. 140]} (the victorious revolution as unlimited violence it is not accepted by Rozanov, but revolution as an idea that has its own place among other ideas is necessary.

V.V. Rozanov's dialectic becomes more complex when it comes to attraction-repulsion (A.D. Sinyavsky)^{[15, p. 160]} the thinker of the worlds of the Old and New Testaments. Rozanov perceives the New Testament in the Apocalypse of Our Time as a religion of victorious weakness, which is in a position of strength, since it stands at the origins of modern civilization ^{[1, p. 436]}; at the same time, the new Testament as a weakness that preserves itself under the pressure of force, Rozanov is close, as evidenced by the thinker's words about the mystery of Christ^{[1, p. 410]}). Religion, as the Very Thing that unfolds between paganism and Christianity, plays in the thinker's work the role of a "switch" to the genuine "natural" world, which is played by laughter in Bakhtin, therefore Rozanov's religion is indefinable, it is that you need to "sit at the window and look into the distance"^{[1, p. 54]}; Rozanov In our opinion, he gives a description of the "pure" Himself: looking into the distance is prayer, pious attention (reverence), memory, and hope. This "state" in Rozanov as a potency can be symbolically expanded into any religion, for example, into a religion that includes, according to Bakhtin, "elements" of the square, the horizontal "prayer and play, prayer and dancing" ^{[1, p. 80]}; to this "state" of the world, such its "coverage"^{[1, p. 362]} cites Rozanov's inversion (carnivalization) - an explication of the inexpressible Itself as the formation of a specific religion, pagan or Christian, its theory through understanding (Rozanov wrote about this, describing Rasputin, "everyone walked with prayer on rails, and Grisha went without rails"^{[13, p. 66]}).  According to Rozanov, Rasputin, while preserving the "core" of religion (vertical), sees it as if through a horizontal, thus, while preserving religion Itself, its external manifestations can be anything, and this is not pantheism in the "school" meaning of the word, but a realized understanding, which corresponds to a special state, unlike abstract knowledge, changing attitude to the understood subject (understanding corresponds to the subject, and not the subject adapts to human knowledge about it). 

Rozanov's understanding of religion, the "catching" of its elusive Self, is proportionate to its infinite mystery, the revelation of which stimulates the concealment of something deeper and truly important in it, therefore death for a thinker is another religion ^{[1, p. 89]} (about this, in relation to the world Itself as such, Rozanov remarked "I God clung to you like an ant to the wings of an eagle.."^{[11, p. 400]}; this is a sample of Rozanov's vision of things through understanding – turning: "little" Rozanov accidentally clung to the wings of an eagle -God, high and incomprehensible - understanding is always unintentional; Rozanov remains small, and God is incomprehensibly great, and they for a moment they unite, collide, touch, coincide in the incomprehensible formation of the Very Same, at the same time remaining in their places).   The secret of Rozanov is that inversion, when the bottom takes the place of the top, does not occur in the work of the thinker; we are talking about the constant balancing of emerging collisions, connections, consonances, therefore Rozanov's understanding is indefinite and indefinable, but at the same time concrete. In order to implement it, Rozanov needs to explicate the ever-becoming Itself as a vision of things through understanding, for this the thinker, as it were, "turns" the world, as if putting it "upside down"; in this his intuitions are profoundly similar to the intuitions of Bakhtin's world (this is not a superficial similarity of images and signs, which was described by us above, and the similarity of the approach with the difference in the results of its use; Bakhtin called it in his work "To the methodology of the Humanities" "the acceptance of someone else while not turning it into purely his own" ^{[27, p. 392]}, in which Rozanov discovers being as an event ^{[1, p. 53]}; this moment, guessed and designated Bakhtin, defines the scale of Rozanov's peering into the world).

Another important point that essentially brings Rozanov and Bakhtin closer together is the unavailability of things (M.M. Bakhtin), the incompleteness of becoming, which makes possible rapprochements between them that seem doubtful in a "dogmatically completed" world. Rozanov's "incompleteness" of the world does not concern the opposition of the vertical and horizontal; at the same time, Rozanov's world, like Bakhtin's world, is dual, but in place of the "truthful" laughing world, Rozanov turns out to have a "natural" world of understanding; Rozanov and Bakhtin's searches are inspired by the intuition of the infinity of the world, which makes possible inversion- carnivalization as a special vision things through understanding.

 A necessary moment that immanently brings the worlds of Rozanov and Bakhtin closer together is the "dimensionlessness" of the world–the unsuitability of accepted scales and frameworks to it; at the same time, Rozanov is characterized by the definiteness of the world as an infinite becoming of Himself, which causes the "eternal" novelty of the thinker's "insights", "you will open your eyes and the whole world seems new"^{[11, p. 198]}.  The metalogical synthesis of the features of the thinker's vision is carried out in the supra-rational integrity of Himself, expressed by Rozanov as a "living" changing multiplicity of individual "contents" of works, in the kaleidoscope of which each individual theme looks like an eternal formation, which is both a process and a result of Rozanov's literature and philosophy.     The thinker introduces readers/viewers into the circle of the same problems an infinite number of times; a similar intention was subsequently actualized by M.K. Mamardashvili, arguing that the one (being) is known by one of the many personal acts ^{[28, p. 36]}, as if the collected faces of the inexpressible Itself, about which with trepidation and love the artist and philosopher Vasily Rozanov told in his "letter of testimony" ^{[29, p. 69]}.