MUNDUS, PAX, COMMUNITAS: ON DIFFERENT MEANINGS OF THE WORLD-CONCEPT IN RUSSIAN LANGUAGE

In this article we have tried to trace the correlations between different meanings of the world-concept in Russian language. The problematic point is that the same Russian word (“mir”) has three meanings separated in other Indo-European languages (mundus, pax, communitas). The analysis of this issue is preceded by an exposition of the world-problem in modern philosophy, with an emphasis put on the so-called “cosmological difference” introduced by Eugen Fink. It turned out that both for Russian and other languages, the core of the considered concept is a habitable space which the order, agreement and concordance between people take place in. Thus, such aspects of the world as community (communitas) and as peace, harmony (pax) intersect here. Further, the derived meanings of the concept of communitas were considered, starting from the peasant and Church community to the “historical world” and the “secular world” (in its Christian interpretation). In conclusion, we turned to the experience of some special sentiments having a cosmological value. First of all, it is the unique experience of the universal harmony (harmonia mundi), i.e. the experience of the world as peace (eirēnē, pax) in cosmological perspective. In addition, existential-practical conditions of the possibility of such experience (location, disposition and care) were considered. We also drew attention to some natural and social factors that prevent participation in the experience of the cosmological harmony. As a problematization of such experience, it was emphasized that from the theological standpoint the idea of the world, as the whole, can be realized only in the eschatological outlook, since the world in its present state is split, subjected to disorganization and only partly serves as an image (“icon”) reminding of its Creator.