Literature as a School Subject in Light of the Traditions of Philological Scholarship
DOI: 10.23951/2782-2575-2026-3-5-21
Literature as a school subject is included in the Philology subject area. It constitutes its conceptual and substantive foundation, as reflected in the current Federal State Educational Standards for Basic General Education and Secondary (Complete) General Education. The relationship between literature and philology has been interpreted differently at different stages in the history of literature education in Russia. Thus, from the late eighteenth century onward, the concept of “philology” was replaced by the concept of slovesnost’ (verbal arts). From the second half of the nineteenth century, the concept of slovesnost’ began to be displaced from scholarly usage and replaced by the terms “philology,” “literature,” and “linguistics.” Likhachev offered the most comprehensive definition of philology, calling it the highest form of education in the humanities. The author argues for the fundamental role of literature in humanities education – worldview-shaping, moral, aesthetic, and cultural – a role that is insufficiently reflected in the current Federal State Educational Standards, and considers literature’s synthesizing role in the school curriculum and the meta-subject nature of philology. The meta-subject nature of Literature as a school subject presupposes the use of key literary and cultural images, codes, concepts, and ideas in the educational process. Through them, a living dialogue within culture is organized, one that addresses students’ hearts and minds and establishes connections between the present and other historical periods, cultures, and their characters. Particular attention in the study is given to the cultural and educational environment, which is created not only by an educational institution but also by the online environment, formed by various websites and blogs, that extends the boundaries of the contemporary lesson and enables dialogic communication between teachers and students beyond the classroom. Literary classics occupy a special place in philological education, since reading them offers multiple possibilities for interpretation and understanding. Such reading entails reflection on perennial, existential questions, even when these multivalent subtexts are not immediately recognized or seem self-evident to every reader. The article examines the life of classical works in the “great time” and the organization of dialogue within culture and across cultures. The article’s main conclusion is that, from the standpoint of contemporary philological scholarship, literature education entails educating a competent reader, cultivating aesthetic taste, developing creative abilities and a culture grounded in the humanities, as well as introducing students, through literary works, to the world of culture and fostering a culturally developed personality. For Likhachev, philology does not lead us away from life itself; it always reflects its deeper essence, constitutes the self-consciousness of culture, and shapes models of speech, intellectual, and social behavior.
Ключевые слова: Literature as a school subject, philological scholarship, slovesnost’ (verbal arts), historical overview, functions of the school literature course, cultural and educational environment, the role of the classics in philological education
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Выпуск: 3, 2026
Серия выпуска: Issue 3
Рубрика: PEDAGOGY
Страницы: 5 — 21
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