Scapegoat

René Girard (1923-2015) - French philosopher, creator of an original comprehensive theory of the origin of religion and culture. He gained fame with the book "Violence and the Sacred" (1972), but it was only in the book "The Scapegoat" (1982) that Girard's theory appeared in its entirety. Using the examples of texts on medieval persecutions of Jews, the philosopher introduces the concept of "persecution texts" - texts composed by the persecutors themselves, but against their will revealing the truth about the innocence of the victim, - and shows that all the mythologies of the world are indeed such texts. Girard's main thesis, which initially sparked outrage in the intellectual world and later gained many supporters, is that people learned to decode these texts only thanks to the evangelical Revelation. According to Girard, the liberating and simultaneously destructive action of this revelation continues to this day - and this book serves as one of its instruments.
The translation by Grigory Dashevsky was awarded the Maurice Vaxmacher Prize (2010).
2nd edition, corrected.