The article continues the author's long-term research devoted to testing various ways of reading Kantemir's satires. The organic connection of satires with European emblematics as a convenient prism for their interpretation has already become the subject of the author's attention. The reason to return to the topic was the new monograph by A.E. Makhov "Emblematics: Microcosm" published in 2024, which presents a fundamentally new view of European emblematics. Makhov's approach to emblematics from the position of "how it is done" (analysis of three main ethos and metaphors for their expression, the use of various types of paradox as a rhetorical device, a view of the body as a source of signs that make up the language of emblematics; description of the use of the argumentation system and highlighting the key role of the four main combinatorial operations - addition, subtraction, rearrangement, replacement, etc.) successfully "works" in interpreting Kantemir's satires. Satires easily “respond” to such a method of reading, which allows us to significantly develop the theme of the emblematic component in satires and once again recall the role of Kantemir in the process of connecting Russian literature to 35 the European emblematic tradition. But the main thing in the article is still its theoretical component: the principles of interpretation used by Makhov are universal (at the deepest level, this is a system of metaphorical codes, a system of argumentation, and four combinatorial operations) and can be applied to the analysis of any material, and not only of a verbal nature. The use of general methods of interpretation for such seemingly distant genres as emblem and satire allows us to draw conclusions of a comparative nature: to note their common features. The parallel points of convergence between satires and the texts of later Russian authors (for example, A.S. Pushkin) can be considered a kind of “intertextual bonuses” that provide additional material for both research into the topics of Russian literature and for a comparative analysis of paired literary connections.
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