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[Alexandr Korol]

personality to a universal impersonal sentence, making it a kind of “heavenly” analogue of earthly totalitarianism. The characteristics of fate are wholly negative: dark, meaningless, merciless, all-crushing, inescapable, blind. These characteristics correspond to the guises of fate in which it appears to man: death, higher judgment, divine will, blind chance, chaos.

Researchers distinguish five functions of fate: Distributor, Player, Director, Creditor, Judge:

The Distributor — these are the Greek Moirai and the Roman Parcae. They randomly and blindly distribute possible variants of life. There is no logic in their actions, but much chaos, which is why feminine images are characteristic of such fate. Each person receives from them his share (portion), which is why fate as distributor is called allotment (lot).

Playing Fate — this too is mainly a feminine image: Tyche, Fortuna. It is marked by inconstancy, random whim, the choice of favorites, and cruel mockery of constant losers. “Lucky / unlucky” — that is how people describe the influence of this kind of fate on their lives.

The Director is fate that, on the contrary, is rational, having a purpose (a script) to its actions. Each person from this fate receives a role in the world’s play: heroes have leading roles, the mediocre are extras. This role is called predestination, preordination.

Fate as Creditor is the most humane. Here predestination is replaced by vocation; a person receives a certain gift on the condition of using it properly. If this happens, fate is favorable to the person: he has fulfilled its task, but he also does not lose out, for he has realized his talent.

Fate in the guise of Judge likewise judges a person by his deeds. Unfortunately, this is often done according to laws not human but heavenly, which a person may not know. Therefore cases are possible when a known righteous man receives punishment, and a sinner a reward. Still, it is precisely these last two guises of fate that are most compatible with free will.”