«Alter ego» as a premium social topos in history

Cultural and all humanitarian situation of XXI century is increasingly inclined to interpretation of humanity phenomenon, its background and evolution. The article faces to given problem in connection with the structural-and-semiotic approach. It focuses on the social and motivationally-psychological background of personal consciousness formation. The starting point of analyses is semiotic opposition «ego — alter ego», implicitly containing «designation», «limit», «mask» as the attributive forms of human being, generating in its historical and cultural evolution of different forms of «ego» social actualization. While showing the personal- ity formation in the context of its internal guidelines and social roles, the author relates the dramatic twists of the process with invisible, but essential psycho-physical and social-cultural limits, within which the person is born, knows himself and his possibilities.