Towards the Spiritual Convergence of America and Russia: American Mind and Russian Soul, American Individuality and Russian Community, and the Potent Alchemy of National Characteristics
- Автор: Lapeyrouse Stephen Ludger
- Год: 1990
- Язык: английский
- ISBN: 0-9628048-0-0
- Жанр: История
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“If my efforts in this work are adequate to the task, I wish to make substantial intellectual contributions towards a clear description of how essential and profound a spiritual, philosophical and psychological relation exists, between characteristic highest (“vertical”) conceptions and aspirations — and tasks — of Mankind in America and Russia. The hope is that such understanding could contribute, essentially, towards a clearer, creative, and mutually-beneficial spiritual orientation — in thoughtful and heartful individuals of both nationalities — which might lead to a more conscious spiritual meeting of “Russian” and “American”; and thereby, possibly, promote an alchemical blending of the American Mind and Russian Soul, American Individuality and Russian Community. Such a greater clarity towards a greater spiritual realization, and more complete wholeness, in some men and women of each country, and thereby, perhaps, in portions of Mankind as a whole.” — the Author
THEIR SEARCH FOR MAN,
In Moscow: Slavophilism, and in Boston: Transcendentalism… [94]
It is deeply heartening and enlightening, to enter into essential aspects of the contrasting and complementary psychologies of the American and Russian people, by examining and comparing their respective intellectual and spiritual histories. The intriguing story is that, often during the same years (or very near in time) and, in all likelihood, wholly unknown to each other [95]; in each separate country, great, definitive, essential acts and deeds were done by these creative spirits, these “voices” of each of their countries.
In Moscow, in the late 1830’s, where many of Russia’s “best and brightest” individuals [96] were gathered in the cultured Elagin salon; Khomyakov, Kireyevsky and others, were, in readings and passionate discussions, articulating the fundamental ideas which were to distinguish Russia and “Russian”, from the nationalities of Western Europe which they had encountered in travel and study. These presentations and discussions were later recognized to have been a fundamental contribution to the intellectual foundations of “Slavophilism”.
While such ideas were developing in Russia; in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1837, Emerson spoke his great call, in “The American Scholar Address” — later to be described as America’s “Intellectual Declaration of Independence”. [97] One year later — and within one year’s time of Khomyakov’s and Kireyevsky’s important presentations; yet completely separate in Moscow -Emerson gave what was, essentially, an even greater summons to America. This was his “Address to the Divinity Class”, at Harvard in 1838. Truthfully, this could be described as America’s “Spiritual Declaration of Independence”. [98]
Emerson, Kireyevsky and Khomyakov attempted to voice the uniqueness and distinctiveness of their respective peoples, nations and psychologies, in contrast to Europe. Interestingly, they all reached backward into history, towards the highest conception of Man in the Spiritual and Philosophical History of Western Man [99] — from which both of their nations, peoples and cultures were, as it were, late spiritual progeny. Yet while both — during the same period of the 19th century — reached back toward the highest idea as to the “spirit and nature of Man”; they emphasized distinct aspects; they looked from different perspectives; they stressed different portions of this highest conception of Man. Their understanding of the individual and the surrounding society; the relation of an individual person to himself, to Life, Death, God, etc., are contrasting — often in the most profoundly complementary ways. In these contrasting complements, one can find some of the needed, essential ideas, for understanding the spiritual, psychological, social and cultural relations of American and Russian, and attempting to consciously address the problems of the spiritual condition of Man in our own day and time. If we listen to what they said of us, and to us; we may be able to hear, vitally, of who we are; and how we might more consciously meet — and creatively act.
Emerson’s Man, as a Sovereign State
Let us begin with Ralph Waldo Emerson [100], who, even in a recent work by a prominent historian in the U.S., is described as the “quintessential American” [101].
The life and thought of Emerson could well be described as a search for the sovereign individual; or to use Emerson’s well known phrase “the infinitude of the private man”. [102] Born as he was, about one generation after the “Declaration of Independence” and the successful American Revolution, in 1803, into a prominent New England ministerial family; by the time Emerson had reached 35 years of age, he had quit die ministry as incompatible with what he would bring to expression from his own inner life. So that, by the year 1837, when he addressed Harvard’s Phi Beta Kappa Society, [103] he had already been tested in “self-reliance”, [104] before he gave his “The American Scholar Address”, one of the greatest definitive acts in America’s intellectual and cultural history, as well as an American contribution to that of Mankind. This “Intellectual Declaration of Independence” — as a later biographer, Oliver W. Holmes, was truly to name it — was essentially surpassed, or, perhaps better said, completed, one year later, in his “Address to the Divinity Class” of Harvard’s Divinity School, on Sunday, 15 July, 1838. It was a summons for the American man — or, more precisely, “Man” — [105] in America — to cast off his spiritual subservience and inner dependence on Europe and religious tradition, and to take his stand, independently, before human society, history, God, and the entire world. Neither Europe, nor its culture and tradition, were to be rejected. They were rather to be embraced; and surpassed.
Let us consider, directly, some of what Emerson stated in these two famous addresses; using, as seems necessary and helpful, rather fulsome passages from both of these speeches. For, conditions being what they have been during the past several decades in the Soviet Union, it seems safe to assume that Emerson’s thought is not widely or well-known there; if for no other reason than the inaccessibility and sparsity of his texts in the Russian language. For Americans, it is, regrettably, also appropriate to assume — for quite different, and often less noble reasons — little close acquaintance with his thought, or its content and significance. [106]
Nearing the conclusion of Emerson’s “American Scholar Address”, he spoke the following:
Another sign of our times,… is the new importance given to the single person. Everything that tends to insulate the individual -to surround him with barriers of natural respect, so that each man may feel the world is his, and man shall treat with man as a sovereign state with a sovereign state — tends to true union as well as greatness…Help must come from the bosom alone. The scholar is that man who must take up into himself all the ability of the time, all the contributions of the past, all the hopes of the future. He must be a university of knowledges. If there be one lesson more than another which should pierce his ear, it is, the world is nothing, the man is all; in yourself is the law of all nature, and you know not yet how a globule of sap ascends; in yourself slumbers the whole of Reason; it is for you to know all; it is for you to dare all. Mr. President and Gentlemen, this confidence in the unsearched might of man belongs, by all motives, by all prophesy, by all preparation, to the American Scholar. We have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe. The spirit of the American freeman is already suspected to be timid, imitative, tame. Public and private avarice make the air we breath thick and fat. The scholar is decent, indolent, complaisant. See already the tragic consequence. The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself. There is no mark for any but the decorous and the complaisant. Young men of the fairest promise, who begin life upon our shores, inflated by the mountain winds, shined upon by all the stars of God, find the earth below not in unison with these, but are hindered from action by the disgust which the principles on which business is managed inspire, and him drudges, or die of disgust, some of them suicides. What is the remedy? They did not yet see…that if the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him. Patience — patience; with the shades of all the good and great for company; and for solace the perspective of your own infinite life; and for work the study and communication of principles, the making those instincts prevalent, the conversion of the world. Is it not the chief disgrace in the world, not to be a unit; not to be reckoned one character; not to yield that peculiar fruit which each man was created to bear, but to reckoned in the gross, in the hundred or the thousand, or the party, the section to which we belong? [107]
[94] Basic information on the “philosophies” and histories of “Slavophilism” and “Transcendentalism” can, of course, be found in any standard reference work. These labels apply to persons and ideas, which looked at their respective cultures and peoples during the nineteenth century, and attempted to give voice to a “national philosophy” which was, in the noblest sense, characteristic of each. Some of the crucial ideas of each, will constitute the substance of this work; though the reader would do well to additionally acquaint themselves with the general ideas and perspective which belong to each.
It is noteworthy, that, independently, they began, developed, flourished and declined during the same general period of the nineteenth century. And that the “best and brightest” of America and Russia, were either direct participants and contributors, or otherwise involved or affected by these philosophical directions.
Emerson called Transcendentalism, Idealism; and stressed the central role which individual intuition held in the higher life of those who might be called Transcendentalists. (In such way they participated in the “transcendent”. See, for example, “New England Transcendentalism”, in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, [Paul Edwards, editor], vol. 5, p. 479.
[95] This author has been unable to discover whether Kireyevsky or Khomyakov had any direct, or indirect, knowledge of any of Emerson’s writings. It seems somewhat more possible, historically, that they might have had some knowledge of his work; rather than that he would have known of theirs. Emerson’s Nature was published in 1836. His first series of Essays were published in 1841. A bibliography of American literature in Russia, in the nineteenth-century, indicates that Emerson’s first appearance in Russian translation was in 1847. (For Kireyevsky’s very critical opinion of general conditions in the USA, see Note 132.)
[96] Some of the more well-known personalities who participated in the Elagin salon, at one time or other, were Gogol (where he read Dead Souls), Chaadayev, Herzen, Aksakov, Samarin, possibly Lermontov, et al. Cf. Peter К. Christoff, An Introduction to Nineteenth-Century Russian Slavophilism, A Study in Ideas, Volume II: I. V. Kireevskij, p. 88-89.
[97] So described by Oliver W. Holmes in his biography of Emerson: Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1885.
[98] So described by Oliver W. Holmes in his biography of Emerson: Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1885.
[99] See section “Adam, in America and Russia” in main text.
[100] The reader shall notice, that there is, in this essay, somewhat more use and development of the thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson, than of the Slavophiles; and this for a couple of reasons. First, I write from an American perspective; with a greater feeling, familiarity and understanding of how Emerson stands in America’s intellectual, cultural and spiritual history. Russian readers will, I believe, be more familiar with the thoughts and ideas of their own history’s Slavophiles — certainly than many Americans. But, as they will most often be less familiar with Emerson; I am thus able to more substantially introduce him to them.
On the other hand — and regrettably — Emerson, and his call, is not well or clearly known amongst Americans (who might have used their enormous “freedom” to know this important figure from their nations own history a bit more intimately). Hence, the use and stress of Emerson is helpful to both nations; with, I believe, enough developed contrast, in regard to the Slavophiles, to allow their thought to stand with sufficient substance, distinction and clarity, beside his.
[101] Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Cycles of American History, 1986, p. x.
[102] Emerson: “In all my lectures, I have taught one doctrine, namely, the infinitude of the private man.” Citation from Russel B. Nye, “The Search for the Individuaclass="underline" 1750-1850”, in Centennial Review, v. V, no. 1, Winter, 1961, p. 14. It is interesting to note that, at least in regard to the recent Soviet period of Russian history, the word “private” apparently has no ready, immediate counterpart, in current Russian language. Is this somehow valid for the individual person’s psyche, as well as for social conditions?
[103] Attending this famous address were the President of Harvard University Josiah Quincy, Henry David Thoreau, James Russell Lowell, Bronson Alcott, Margaret Fuller, Oliver W. Holmes, and more than two hundred other members of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, plus many undergraduate students.
[104] “Self-Reliance” is the title of an essay which Emerson published in 1841 in Essays (First Series). It became one of his most well-known and oft-quoted.
[105] See also “Adam, in America and Russia” in main text; especially pages 75-6. and Note 151.
[106] See Note 100.
[107] From “The American Scholar”, in Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays and Journals, ed. Lewis Mumford, 1968, p. 47.