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
The whole private and public life in the West is based on the concept of the separate, individual independence presupposing individual isolation, hence the sacredness of external formal relations, the sacredness of property and of conditioned decrees, which are considered more importantly than personality. Every individual, whether a private person, a knight, a prince, or a town is, within his rights , an absolute, unlimited personality issuing its own laws. The first step of every person in society is to surround himself with a fortress [123] from within which he enters into negotiations with other independent authorities. [124]
In this oft-quoted passage of Kireyevsky, it becomes immediately apparent just how deeply contrasting are the conceptions of Man to the “American Scholar” Emerson and the Russian “Slavophile” Kireyevsky. Emerson’s is an affirmation of individualism; though indeed, as I hope to have already made clear, “individuality” only in its highest, noblest sense. For Kireyevsky and Khomyakov, it is quite otherwise. They sought rather in the social being of man: the individual as an inseparable member of the community. Certainly, also to Emerson, the common, mundane condition of the isolated, ignoble individual, was as repugnant as it was to the Slavophiles. But in their search for a deep, true, noble conception and understanding of Man — individually and collectively considered — the “Slavophiles”, did not search in the direction of the “sovereign state” individual. They looked, rather, to those ideas which brought the individual human being into a wholeness of self, which was intimately bound into relationship with the community of which they were an essential member — the communal individual. [125]
These “Slavophiles” rejected the “rationalized” character of the individual western psyche, as well as the rationally organized aspects of the social order in the Western countries. They searched back — not without some illusory nostalgia — into the historical past of “Holy Russia” [126] for an understanding of the individual and social community, acceptable to their Russian souls. In the “integral personality” [127], exemplified par excellence in the idea of the “holy man”, and in the old Russian “obschina” and “mir” [128] — influenced by the Russian Orthodox conception of both — they sought to articulate the character and ideal of the Russian people as to the individual and the collective. The individual could only fully realize his life, healthfully, and in fullness and truth, by living as a physical, intellectual, psychological, and spiritual member of a community. The “obschina”, with the “mir”, was an earthly, human example; “sobornost” (for Khomyakov) was an ideal, spiritual, somewhat “otherworldly” conception, of, essentially, the same goaclass="underline" community. And it was in the community, and the communal individual, that the true way of living for the human being — whether earthly-human as in the “obschina” and the “mir”, or human-divine as in “sobornost” — was to be found. (More below on these.)
In their reaction to the secular “Age of Reason”, the Enlightenment in Europe, with its “rationalism” — which as they viewed it, not only isolated members of society from each other, but also dis-integrated the personality-, they sought for an idea of human wholeness and integrity which could be described as spiritual, religious. Here we have the “vertical” conception of the individual and the community. Both Kireyevsky and Khomyakov were, among other intellectual sources and cultural influences — including some directly from the West — strongly influenced by the Orthodox Christian conception of men and Man, which helped to bind their understanding (religion) into the deep past of “Holy Russia”.
Emerson, Kireyevsky and Khomyakov all rejected the mundane, common, “horizontal” life, culture and civilization of the Western European (or American, or ‘Westernized’ Russian [129].) We shall come to see how profoundly kin were, not only their reactions to the common inner and outer life of the individual and society, but also their conceptions as to the higher, spiritual being of men and Man.
Kireyevsky’s Heart and Soul
First, let us consider more fully the thought of Ivan Kireyevsky in regard to his understanding of the individual human being. (Later we shall examine Khomyakov concerning spiritual community.) Kireyevsky had traveled, for just short of one year, to Europe in 1830. Originally he had planned a broad-ranging journey there during a four year period. But, for various reasons, he visited only German-speaking Central Europe, in what would be his only trip abroad. Yet, considering the personalities whom the young Kireyevsky encountered; we would need to describe this single trip to Europe as a rich one indeed. For, during his ten and one-half months in Central Europe, he was able, by attending lectures — and sometimes in personal meetings and relations — to experience, among others: Hegel, Schleiermacher, Schelling, Savigny, Karl Ritter and Oken. This time in the West would later help to substantiate his gradual, developing articulation of the difference of the West and Russia.
Contents of his later ideas can be found clearly present, for example, in his description of Schleiermacher. In a letter written on March 30,1830 — the same day on which he had heard a lecture by Schleiermacher concerning the Resurrection of Christ — he suggested, after noting his own lack of thorough acquaintance with Schleiermacher’s thought, the following:
…one may just as little deny his sincere devotion to religion as the philosophical autocracy of his mind. His emotional convictions were formed separately from his intellectual convictions; while the former developed under the influence of life, classical reading and studies of the Church Fathers and the Gospel, the latter grew and became ossified in the struggle with the reigning materialism of the eighteenth century. This is why he believes with his heart and endeavors to believe with his mind. His system resembles a pagan temple transformed into a Christian church in which everything external — every stone, every adornment — reminds one of idolatry, while the interior resounds with hymns to Jesus and the Mother of God. [130]
Here we find, even in the twenty-three year old Russian Kireyevsky, a clear conception of the distinction of heart and mind, faith and reason; one, incidentally, which was also developed in Schleiermacher’s thought on religion. This difference, of “heart” and “head”, would continue to be an essential concern of Kireyevsky, throughout his life; constituting a principle element in his contrast of Western and Russian. As he later wrote:
Thinking, separated from the aspiration of the heart, is a diversion for the soul; it seems that the more profound and important such thinking is, the more essentially thoughtless it makes the thinker. [131]
Generally considered, Ivan Kireyevsky returned to Russia disappointed with the Europe he had found; not only with the common middle-class way of life, and its culture, but also with some of the outstanding spirits and leading figures which he had encountered there. To him, gradually, the West came to be seen and understood, as a rationalized, ‘inorganic’, atomized, fragmented society and people. [132] The autocracy of the mental, the rational life — a secular life in fact — he considered to be one of its prime psychological characteristics. His unresolved dissatisfaction with the West eventually led him to look more deeply into Russia itself, in his search for a healthier and more complete idea of the individual, society, and life. He did not have too far to look; for, during the mid-1830’s, and with the unexpected contributions of his devoutly religious wife, Kireyevsky gradually came into a deeper contact and understanding with Russian Orthodoxy, and its comprehension of Man. His wife — not surprised or uncomprehending of Schelling’s thought, which he exposed to her (though she had no personal interest, or education, in such Western philosophers) — told him that Schelling’s ideas were to be found, in essence, in the writings of the Church Fathers, which she knew well. He came eventually to study closely the thought of the Greek Church Fathers. Therein he found an understanding of the human being which was to him immensely more profound, truthful and satisfying than most of the ideas — or “incarnations” of Man and life — which he had encountered, or learned of, in Central Europe; especially all of those secular, “Enlightenment” (“Age of Reason”) conceptions, which were to be found permeating so much of the intellectual, psychological, literary and cultural life of the West — including the United States of America. Indeed, Kireyevsky came to develop a close personal relationship with Father Makarii of Optina Pustyn monastery. They both worked on translating writings of early Christian Church Fathers: St. Isaac the Syrian and Maximus the Confessor, et al, into Russian. In the Orthodox Church, and the writings of the Greek Fathers, he came to find a comprehension of the human being, which satisfied his heart, soul, and mind, as being the deepest, fullest, truest conception of the inner and outer life of Man.
[123] Compare this characteristic Slavophile idea of Kireyevsky, to this essential quote of Emerson: “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.” See fuller quotation in the main text section “Emerson, and Man as a Sovereign State” above.
[124] It was written in ‘38, spoken in ‘39. Cf. Peter K. Christoff, An Introduction to Nineteenth-Century Russian Slavophilism, A Study in Ideas, Volume II: I. V. Kireevskij, p. 81,222 [Kireevskij Socinenija, I, p. 192-3].
[125] “Kireevskij’s new orientation was perhaps best exemplified in his contrast of the Western individualistic point of view, which he deplored, with the communal principle in Russian economic, political and social life.” Peter K. Christoff, An Introduction to Nineteenth-Century Russian Slavophilism, A Study in Ideas, Volume II: I. V. Kireevskij, p. 81-82.
[126] On “Holy Russia”, see, for example, Alexander V. Soloviev, Holy Russia, The History of a Religious-Social Idea, The Hague 1959; and M. Chemiavsky, “Holy Russia”: A Study in the History of an Idea”, in American Historical Review, vol. 63 (1957-58) p. 617-637. This latter article also briefly considers the Third Rome idea; touching many of the deeper spirits of Russia on this theme, e.g. Khomyakov, Dostoyevsky,V. Soloviev, Berdyaev, et al.
[127] Cf. Andrzej Walicki, “The Image of Personality”, in “Personality and Society in the Ideology of the Russian Slavophiles”, in California Slavic Studies, vol. II (1963), p. 13-18.
[128] “In ancient Russia the basic social unit was the village commune (obshchina), which was founded on the common use of land, mutual agreement, and community of custom, and which was governed by the mir — a council of elders who settled disputes in accordance with hallowed traditions and were guided by the principle of unanimity rather than the mechanical majority of a ballot. Society was held together by what was primarily a moral bond — a bond of convictions — that united the entire land of Rus’ into one great mir, a nationwide community of faith, land and custom.” See Andrzej Walicki, A History of Russian Thought, p. 96.
[129] Khomyakov considered “Westernized” Russians to be “colonizers in their own country.” See Andrzej Walicki, A History of Russian Thought, p. 99.
[130] Peter K. Christoff, An Introduction to Nineteenth-Century Russian Slavophilism, A Study in Ideas, Volume II: I. V. Kireevskij, II, p. 42.
[131] Cited in Zenkovsky, History of Russian Philosophy, p. 218.
[132] Kireyevsky held, at least at one time during his life, a very critical, extreme comprehension of life in the USA. In 1845 he wrote: “What a brilliant fate seemed to belong to the United States of America, built on such a rational base, after such an auspicious beginning! — And what came of it? Only the external forms of society developed and, deprived of the inner source of life, they crushed man under a surface mechanism. The literature of the United States, according to the accounts of the most impartial judges, serves as a clear expression of this situation. An enormous factory of inept verse…; a total insensitivity to everything artistic; a blatant contempt of all thinking not conducive to material gain; petty personalities without general principles;…”
“an obvious disrespect of all moral principles, so that it is evident that underlying all this mental activity is the most petty life, cut off from everything that raises the heart above personal gain, sunk in the business of egoism and recognizing as its highest aim material comfort and all its subsidiary aspects”. Quotation from Dale E. Peterson, “Solzhenitsyn’s Image of America: The Survival of a Slavophile Idea”, in Massachusetts Review, Spring, 1978, p. 148-49. [See in Polnoe Sobranie sochinenii I. V. Kireevskogo, I, 113-116]. (This full quotation of Kireyevsky, from 1845, reveals no awareness of anything creative or spiritual in American literature or life. It is certainly historically possible that Kireyevsky could have heard, or read, of Emerson; but I have found no indication that he did. It would probably be interesting to know the history of Emerson’s writings in the Russian and Slavic world in general.)