The author refers to the little-studied topic of the creative heritage of Lermontov's “Cosmos and Chaos”, treating it as a problem of man's relationship with God and the higher realms. The central issue is the author's reflections on the place and the degree of human freedom (bondage) in the world arranged by God. The subject of the author's analysis is value meanings behind the image of the Demon.

Turning to the poetic heritage of Lermontov, the author examines the philosophical meaning of his central problem - the antithesis of the “Earth - Sky”, indicating that it is backed metaphysical questions about life and death, the divine and the everyday, about God and the human right to free expression.

The author analyzes three works by Mikhail Lermontov (Confession, Boyarin Orsha, and Mtsyri) that form, in the author’s opinion, a single logical chain of meditations showing the extreme capabilities of not only the human soul, but also his very power of judgement, the idea of which dominated European philosophy of Lermontov’s time. In analysis of the poet’s works the author pays special attention to repetition, which he used in many of them and which gave him freedom to change meanings, redraw plot lines, and show the life of things and characters in their free state. The main notions chosen from the three poems are confession and judgement.

The article studies the creative work of M. Lermontov as of one of the pioneers of the Russian Reformation - humanistic movement in the Russian elite culture which started from the creative works of A. Pushkin. Lermontov and Pushkin, each on their own, were the firsts who declared: person in Russia is possible. This source, though not only this, created Russian nonpolitical liberalism and Russian literature of the 19 - 21 centuries. The article push forward discussion aimed at reorientation of logic and values of the Lermontov creation.

The article examines E. Said’s ideas which he expressed in his seminal study Orientalism, in relation to the Russian reality of the first half of the 19^th century. The Caucasus was viewed as the East not only by Russian writers and poets, but also by the whole Russian-speaking world at that times. In the magazines the translations of Oriental poets from French and German began to appear. Such a discovery of the East was stunning. But the poetry and prose of Pushkin, Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, Lermontov, who visited the Caucasus and embodied what they had seen in their works, were even more popular. For many years their works became the source of knowledge about the East, its customs and mentality, which guided Russian readers.

The article examines the origin of the ethical teachings and philosophy of the state and of international law, since ancient times, on the example of Confucianism. The author presents Confucianism as an ethical and social teaching and its place in the modern state and international law.

N.N. Strakhov is one of the greatest Russian thinkers of the 19^th century, who left no systematic theoretical heritage. His works are comprehensive, especially his literary and philosophical critique, but the thought, as the author supposes, is characterized by existential concreteness. It is directed against the artificial and lifeless in any conceptualism (especially against nihilism as its pro-Western historical form). N.N. Strakhov’s experience is most illuminating for the modern intellectual culture going through a new creative epoch of its history.

The phenomenon of universal evolutionism and possibilities of interdisciplinary synthesis of knowledge are under discussion in the article. It is argued that integrative, holistic trends are dominant in the modern scientific knowledge. Universal evolutionism is called also Big History, it allows to reveal patterns of complex behavior which valid on all levels of organization of being. The author traces the origins of evolutionism in the study of Charles Darwin, its development in the theoretical biology and general systems theory elaborated by L. von Bertalanffy, she considers the prospects of its further development in the modern theory of complexity and in network science. It is demonstrated that universal evolutionism may be a foundation for the philosophical naturalism that allows formulating strategies of evolutionary explication in epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, politics.

The article examines socio-economic and technological preconditions of the evolution of modern humanity: network society, informational economy, process of cultural creolization, global “cosmopolitan risks”, evolution of the public sphere under the influence of the Internet. In the second half of the article by means of narrative analysis we explore the elements of political world outlook of philosopher K.Douzinas in relation to the new transnational dimension of modernity.