Poèt kak antropologičeskaja problema v modernizme: ot russkih simvolistov k Gottfridu Bennu.

The modernist project of a total transformation of life through art focuses to a certain extent on the question of an anthropological nature of poets as well as on the general line of the transformation of human nature. The theoretical basis for the discussions on the range of issues among the representatives of the new art was rooted both in ideas of natural science (to which the modernists have always showed increased interest) and in Nietzsche's concept of the overman, which arose under the undoubted influence of Darwinism. Paradoxically, both the Russian Symbolists and the German expressionists discover unexpected unity in upholding of principles of non-biological criteria of human development. Unlike Darwinism, for which the criterion of evolution is augmentations of degree of an adaptability to external conditions and increasing of life expectancy, the aesthetics of modernism castigates dangerous symptoms of a social timeserving as a decline of anthropological nature. Dmitry Merezhkovsky worried about the ubiquitous dissemination of mediocrity in Europe. This anthropological type, according to Alexander Blok, appeared as a result of division of masses from the spirit of music, which is open only to the poet in the era of civilization. Modernists indicate that poets often demonstrate an alienation from their social background, an evolutionary leap. Taking into account the fact that geniuses often bore the symptoms of biological degeneration – illness and antisocial behavior – Gottfried Benn in his theory of "progressive anthropology" claims that main vector of human evolution is not the increasing survival of species, but the ability to create art.