Abstract:

The first part of the publication is an introductory text by Diana Obolenska. The basic anthroposophical concepts, biographical facts from the life of Nikolai Belotsvetov and the ideological background related to the published texts of the author («The Book of the Russian Grail», «In Defence of Anthroposophy» and «The Mystery of Good and Evil in the Spiritual Experience of Selfknowledge») are presented here briefly. The introduction undertakes the task of explaining Belotsvetov’s ideological structures and proposes one of the possible interpretation keys to the attached theoretical texts. The assumption of the entire publication was to introduce to a wider range of readers the anthroposophical works by Nikolai Belotsvetov, known so far only in a narrow circle of anthroposophists and researchers of anthroposophy. The source of most of the conceptual constructions that appeared in the texts is the anthroposophical methodology compiled by Belotsvetov, that helped this anthroposophist, poet, writer to reveal to the reader his picture of the perception of the surrounding world. The possibility of defining an individual form of understanding of higher and lower reality, going back to the main anthroposophical ideas, was precisely this element in the system created by Steiner that gave amazing results. The most striking example of this approach was the oeuvre of Russian symbolist Andrei Bely. This introductory article is also consistent with the epistolary materials published by O.F. Kuznetsova in the same edition, accumulated in the funds of the Manuscript Department (IWL RAS).