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In response a. S. Khomyakov 242 Mr. Khomyakov's article aroused in many of us the desire to write an objection to him. Therefore, I wanted to first cede this pleasure to others and offer you an article on a different subject. But then, when I thought that our concept of the relation of the past state of Russia to the present does not belong to such questions about which we can have one opinion or another with impunity, such as about subjects of literature, about music or about foreign politics, but constitutes, so to speak, an essential part of ourselves, for it enters into the slightest circumstance, into every minute of our life; when I further thought that each of us has a different opinion about this subject from others, then I decided to write, thinking that my article could not prevent another from talking about the same thing, because this matter is important for everyone, everyone’s opinions are different and unanimity might not be useless for everyone. The question is usually proposed in this way: was the former Russia, in which the order of things was composed of its own elements, better or worse than the present Russia, where the order of things is subject to the predominance of the Western element? If the former Russia was better than the present one, they usually say, then one must want to return the old, exclusively Russian, and destroy the Western, which distorts the Russian peculiarity, but if the former Russia was worse, then one must try to introduce everything Western and destroy the Russian peculiarity 243. The syllogism, it seems to me, is not entirely correct. If the old was better than the present, it does not follow that it is better now. What was suitable at one time, under some circumstances, may not be suitable at another, under other circumstances. If the old one was worse, then it also does not follow that its elements could not themselves develop into something better, if only this development were not stopped by the forcible introduction of an alien element. The young oak, of course, is shorter than the same year-old willow, which is visible from afar, gives shade early, looks like a tree early and is suitable for firewood. But you, of course, will not serve the oak tree by grafting a willow tree onto it. Thus, the question itself is proposed unsatisfactorily. Instead of asking whether the old Russia was better, it seems more useful to ask: to improve our lives, is it now necessary to return to the old Russian, or is it necessary to develop the Western element, its opposite? Let's consider how we can benefit from resolving this issue. Let us suppose that, as a result of impartial research, we are convinced that the exclusive predominance of one of the two opposing ways of life would be especially useful for us; Let us assume that we are in a position to have the strongest influence on the fate of Russia, then even then we could not expect from all our efforts the exclusive predominance of one of the opposing elements, precisely because although one is chosen in our theory, the other exists together with it in reality. No matter how much we may be enemies of Western enlightenment, Western customs, etc., is it possible without madness to think that someday, by some force, the memory of everything that it received from Europe over the course of two hundred years will be destroyed in Russia? Can we not know what we know, forget everything we know? It is even less possible to think that the 1000th anniversary of Russia can be completely destroyed by the influence of the new European. Therefore, no matter how much we wish for the return of the Russian or the introduction of Western life, we cannot exclusively expect either one or the other, and involuntarily we must assume something third, which should arise from the mutual struggle of two warring principles. Consequently, this type of question is – which of the two elements is exclusively useful now? – also suggested incorrectly. The point is not: which of the two? But the question is: what direction should both of them receive in order to act beneficially? What should we hope or fear from their mutual action? Here is the question, how essential it is for each of us: the direction here or there, and not the acquisition of this or that. Considering the basic principles of life that form the forces of nationality in Russia and in the West, at first glance we discover one obvious commonality between them: this is Christianity. The difference lies in special types of Christianity, in a special direction of enlightenment, in a special sense of private and popular life. We know where the commonality comes from, but where does the difference come from and what is its characteristic feature? We have two ways to determine the peculiarity of the West and Russia, and one of them should serve as a verification of the other. We can either, going back historically to the beginning of this or that type of education, look for the reason for their differences in the first elements from which they were composed, or, considering the subsequent development of these elements, compare the results themselves. And if it turns out that the same difference that we notice in the elements turns out to be in the results of their development, then it is obvious that our assumption is correct, and, based on it, we will already know better what further conclusions can be drawn from it. Three elements formed the basis of European education: Roman Christianity, the world of uneducated barbarians who destroyed the Roman Empire, and the classical world of ancient paganism 244. This classical world of ancient paganism, which was not inherited by Russia, in essence represents the triumph of the formal mind of man over everything that is inside and outside him - pure, naked reason, based on itself, recognizing nothing above itself and outside itself and appearing in two forms characteristic of it - in the form of formal abstraction and abstract sensuality. The effect of classicism on European education should have been of the same nature. But whether because Christians in the West lawlessly succumbed to the influence of the classical world, or because heresy accidentally came into contact with paganism, only the Roman Church, in its deviation from the East, is distinguished by precisely the same triumph of rationalism over Tradition, external rationality over internal spiritual reason. So, as a result of this external syllogism, derived from the concept of the Divine equality of the Father and the Son, the dogma of the Trinity was changed, contrary to the spiritual meaning and Tradition 245; so, as a result of another syllogism, the pope became the head of the Church instead of Jesus Christ, then a worldly ruler, and finally, infallible 246; the existence of God throughout Christianity was proved by syllogism; the entire body of faith was based on syllogistic scholasticism 247; the Inquisition, Jesuitism - in a word, all the features of Catholicism developed through the power of the same formal process of reason, so that Protestantism itself, which Catholics reproach for rationality, arose directly from the rationality of Catholicism 248. In this final triumph of formal reason over faith and Tradition, a discerning mind could already see in advance in the embryo the entire present fate of Europe as a consequence of a vainly begun beginning, i.e. and Strauss, and new philosophy with all its forms, and industrialism as the spring of social life, and philanthropy based on calculated self-interest, and an educational system accelerated by the power of excited envy, and Goethe 249, the crown of new poetry, the literary Talleyrand 250, changing his beauty, as he did his governments, and Napoleon, and the hero of modern times, the ideal of soulless calculation, and the material majority, the fruit of rational policy, and Ludwig Philipp 251, the last result of such hopes and such expensive experiments! I have no intention at all of writing a satire on the West: no one appreciates more than me those conveniences of public and private life that come from the same rationalism. Yes, to be frank, I still love the West, I am connected with it by many inextricable sympathies. I belong to him by my upbringing, my habits of life, my tastes, my controversial turn of mind, even my habits of heart; but in a person’s heart there are such movements, there are such demands in the mind, such a meaning in life that are stronger than all habits and tastes, stronger than all the pleasures of life and the benefits of external rationality, without which neither a person nor a people can live their real life. Therefore, fully appreciating all the individual benefits of rationality, I think that in its final development, with its painful unsatisfactoriness, it clearly reveals itself as a one-sided, deceptive, seductive and treacherous principle. However, it would be inappropriate to dwell on this here. I only remember that all the high minds of Europe complain about the current state of moral apathy, about the lack of convictions, about general egoism, they demand a new spiritual strength outside of reason, they demand a new spring of life outside of calculation - in a word, they are looking for faith and cannot find it in themselves, for Christianity in the West has been distorted by its own thoughts. Thus, rationalism was initially an unnecessary element in the education of Europe, and is now an exclusive character of education and European life. This will be even more obvious if we compare the basic principles of public and private life in the West with the basic principles of that public and private life, which, if not fully developed, was at least clearly identified in the former Russia, which was under the direct influence of pure Christianity, without the admixture of the pagan world. The entire private and public life of the West is based on the concept of individual, separate independence, which presupposes individual isolation. From there, the sanctity of external formal relations, the sanctity of property and conventional regulations are more important than the individual. Each individual - a private person, a knight, a prince or a city, within his rights, is an autocratic, unlimited person, giving laws to himself. The first step of every person into society is to surround himself with a fortress, from the interior of which he enters into negotiations with other and independent authorities. Last time I did not finish my article, and therefore I am obliged to continue it now. I talked about the difference between education in Russia and the West. Our educational beginning lay in our Church. There, together with Christianity, the still fertile remnants of the ancient pagan world acted on the development of enlightenment. Western Christianity itself, having separated from the Universal Church, took into itself the germs of that principle that constituted the general shade of all Greek-pagan development: the beginning of rationalism. That is why the character of European education is distinguished by its preponderance of rationality. However, this advantage was revealed only later, when logical development, one might say, had already crushed Christian development. But at the beginning, rationalism, as I said, is only in embryo. The Roman Church separated from the Eastern Church by the fact that it changed some dogmas that existed in the Tradition of all Christianity to others, as a result of inference. Some were spread as a result of the same logical process, and also in opposition to Tradition and the spirit of the Universal Church. Thus, logical conviction formed the very first foundation of Catholicism. But this was the extent of the effect of rationalism at first. The internal and external structure of the Church, which had already been completed in a different spirit, until then existed without obvious change, until the entire body of church teaching passed into the consciousness of the thinking part of the clergy. This happened in scholastic philosophy, which, due to the logical principle at the very foundation of the Church, could not reconcile the contradiction of faith and reason otherwise than by the power of syllogism, which thus became the first condition of any conviction. At first, naturally, this same syllogism proved faith against reason and subordinated reason to it by the power of reasonable arguments. But this faith, logically proven and logically opposed to reason, was no longer a living, but a formal faith, not faith as such, but only a logical negation of reason. Therefore, during this period of scholastic development of Catholicism, precisely because of its rationality, the Western Church is an enemy of reason, an oppressive, murderous, desperate enemy of it. But, having developed to the extreme, by the continuation of the same logical process, this unconditional destruction of reason produced that well-known counteraction, the consequences of which constitute the character of modern enlightenment. This is what I meant when I spoke about the rational element of Catholicism. Eastern Christianity knew neither this struggle of faith against reason, nor this triumph of reason over faith. Therefore, his actions towards enlightenment were not like Catholic ones. Considering the social structure of former Russia, we find many differences from the West, and firstly: the formation of society into small so-called worlds 252. Private, personal identity, the basis of Western development, was as little known to us as public autocracy. Man belonged to the world, peace be upon him. Landed property, the source of personal rights in the West, was a part of society in our country. A person participated as much in the right of ownership as he was part of the society. But this society was not autocratic and could not organize itself, invent laws for itself, because it was not separated from other similar societies governed by uniform custom. The countless number of these small worlds that made up Russia were all covered with a network of churches, monasteries, and the dwellings of solitary hermits, from where the same concepts about relations between public and private were constantly spreading everywhere. These concepts little by little had to turn into a general conviction, a conviction into a custom, which replaced the law 253, arranging throughout the entire expanse of lands subject to our Church one thought, one view, one aspiration, one order of life. This universal monotony of the custom was probably one of the reasons for its incredible strength, which has preserved its living remains even to our time, despite all the resistance of the destructive influences that for two hundred years have sought to introduce new principles in its place. As a result of these strong, uniform and widespread customs, any change in the social structure that was inconsistent with the structure of the whole was impossible. Everyone's family relationships were determined before he was born; in the same predetermined order, the family was subordinated to the world, the wider world to the gathering, the gathering to the vech, etc., until all private circles closed in one center, in one Orthodox Church. No private understanding, no artificial agreement could establish a new order, invent new rights and advantages. Even the word right itself was unknown to us in its Western sense, but it meant only justice, truth. Therefore, no power could either grant or concede any right to any person or class, for truth and justice can neither be sold nor taken, but exist on their own, regardless of conditional relations. In the West, on the contrary, all social relations are based on a condition or strive to achieve this artificial basis. Outside the condition, there are no correct relations, but arbitrariness appears, which in the governmental class is called autocracy, in the governed class - freedom. But in both cases, this arbitrariness proves not the development of internal life, but the development of external, formal life. All forces, all interests, all social rights exist there separately, each on its own, and are united not according to normal law, but either in a random order or in an artificial agreement. In the first case, material force triumphs, in the second, the sum of individual understandings. But material strength, material superiority, material majority, the sum of individual understandings, in essence, constitute one beginning, only at different moments of their development. Therefore, the social contract 254 is not an invention of the encyclopedists 255, but a real ideal, which all Western societies strived for unconsciously, and now strive with consciousness, under the influence of the rational element, which outweighed the Christian element. In Russia, we do not know well the boundaries of princely power before the subordination of the appanage principalities to Moscow, but if we realize that the power of unchangeable custom made any autocratic legislation impossible; that the analysis and trial, which in some cases belonged to the prince, could not be carried out in accordance with comprehensive customs, nor could the interpretation of these customs, for the same reason, be arbitrary; that the general course of affairs belonged to the worlds and orders, which also judged according to centuries-old custom and therefore known to everyone; finally, that in extreme cases, a prince who violated the correctness of his relations with the people and the Church was expelled by the people themselves - having realized all this, it seems obvious that the princely power itself consisted more in the leadership of squads than in internal government, more in armed patronage than in the possession of regions 256. In general, it seems that Russia was just as little known to the petty rulers of the West, who used society as soulless property for their personal benefit, just as it was unknown to the noble knights of the West, who relied on personal strength, fortresses and iron armor, who did not recognize any other law than their own sword and conditional rules of honor based on the law of arbitrariness. However, we did not have knighthood for other reasons. At first glance, it seems incomprehensible why something similar to chivalry did not arise among us, at least during the time of the Tatars? Societies were scattered, power had no material force, everyone could move from place to place, the forests were deep, the police had not yet been invented; Why, it seems, would not societies of people be formed who would take advantage of the superiority of their strength over peaceful farmers and townspeople, plunder, rule as they wanted, seize individual lands, villages and build fortresses there; would they formulate known rules among themselves and thus form a special class of the strongest class, which, due to its strength, could be called the noblest class? The Church could take advantage of them, forming from them separate orders, with separate charters, and using them against infidels, like the Western crusaders. Why didn't this happen? Precisely because, I think, our Church at that time did not sell its purity for temporary benefits. We had heroes only before the introduction of Christianity. After the introduction of Christianity, we had robbers, organized gangs, still preserved in our songs, but gangs rejected by the Church and therefore powerless. Nothing would be easier than to incite crusades among us, classifying the robbers among the ministers of the Church and promising them forgiveness of sins for killing infidels: everyone would become honest robbers. This is how Catholicism acted: it did not raise people up for the faith, but only directed those who wandered to one goal, calling them saints. Our Church did not do this, and therefore we did not have knighthood, and with it that aristocratic class that was the main element of all Western education. Where there was more disorder in the West, there was greater and stronger chivalry; in Italy there was just less of it. Where there was less chivalry, there society was more inclined to the people's structure, where there was more, there it was more towards autocratic. Autonomy is naturally born from the aristocracy, when the strongest conquers the weakest, and then the ruler, on conditions, becomes an unconditional ruler, uniting against the noble class with the vile class, as Europe called the people. This class of the vile, according to the general formula of the social development of Europe, entered into the rights of the noble, and the same force that made one autocratic, by its natural development, transferred power to the material majority, which is already inventing for itself some kind of formal structure and is still in the process of invention. Thus, just as the Western Church formed knights from the robbers, from the spiritual power the secular power, from the secular police the Holy Inquisition, which all, perhaps, had its temporary benefits, it acted in the same way in relation to the sciences and pagan arts. She did not produce new Christian art from within herself, but directed the old one, born and nurtured by a different spirit, a different life, to decorate her church. That is why romantic art sparkled with a new brilliant life, but ended with the worship of paganism and now bows to the abstract formulas of philosophy, until the world returns to true Christianity and a new servant of Christian beauty appears to the world. The sciences, in their essential part, that is, as knowledge, belong equally to the pagan and Christian worlds and differ only in their philosophical side. Catholicism could not communicate this philosophical side of Christianity to them because it itself did not have it in its pure form. That is why we see that the sciences, as a pagan heritage, flourished so strongly in Europe, but ended in godlessness as a necessary consequence of their one-sided development. Russia did not shine with either arts or scientific inventions, not having time to develop in this regard in an original way and not accepting foreign developments based on a false view and therefore hostile to its Christian spirit. But on the other hand, it contained the first condition for the development of the correct, requiring only time and favorable circumstances: in it that organizing principle of knowledge, that philosophy of Christianity, which alone can provide the correct foundation for the sciences, gathered and lived. All the Greek holy fathers, not excluding the most profound writers, were translated and read, copied, and studied in the silence of our monasteries, these holy embryos of unfulfilled universities. Isaac the Syrian 258, the most profound of all philosophical writings, is still found in the lists of the 12th–13th centuries. And these monasteries were in living, constant contact with the people. What enlightenment in our vile class are we not entitled to conclude from this one fact! But this enlightenment is not brilliant, but deep; not luxurious, not material, aimed at the convenience of external life, but internal, spiritual; this is a social structure, without autocracy and slavery, without noble and vile; these customs are centuries-old, without written codes, emanating from the Church and strong in the agreement of morals with the teachings of the faith; these holy monasteries, nurseries of the Christian system, the spiritual heart of Russia, in which all the conditions for the future original enlightenment were kept; these hermits, who retired from a luxurious life into the forests, studied the writings of the deepest sages of Christian Greece in inaccessible gorges and came out from there to teach the people who understood them; these educated rural sentences; these city meetings; this expanse of Russian life, which was preserved in songs - where did all this go? How could it be destroyed without bearing fruit? How could it succumb to the violence of an alien element? How was Peter, the destroyer of the Russian and the introducer of the German, possible? If the destruction began before Peter, then how could the Principality of Moscow, having united Russia, crush it? Why did the combination of various parts into one whole not happen in a different way? Why should the foreign principle, and not the Russian principle, triumph in this case? One fact in our history explains to us the reason for this unfortunate revolution; this fact is the Hundred Head Cathedral 259. Just as soon as heresy 260 appeared in the Church, discord in the spirit was bound to be reflected in life. Parties appeared that more or less deviated from the truth. The party of innovation defeated the party of antiquity precisely because antiquity was torn apart by differences of opinion 261 . From there, with the destruction of the spiritual, internal connection, the need for a material, formal connection arose, from there localism 262, oprichnina 263, slavery, etc. From there, the distortion of books due to error and ignorance and their correction according to private understanding and arbitrary criticism. From there, before Peter, the government was at odds with the majority of the people, rejected under the name schismatics 264. That is why Peter, as the head of the party in the state, forms a society within a society and everything that follows. What is the result of all this? Do we want to return the past to Russia and is it possible to return it? If it is true that the very peculiarity of Russian life lay in its living origin from pure Christianity and that the form of this life fell along with the weakening of the spirit, then now this dead form would have absolutely no importance. Returning her by force would be ridiculous, even if it were not harmful. But only those who do not believe that Russia will someday return to that life-giving spirit that its Church breathes can destroy the remaining forms. We now have only one thing left to wish for: that some Frenchman would understand the originality of Christian teaching, as it lies in our Church, and write an article about it in a magazine; so that a German, having believed him, would study our Church more deeply and begin to prove in lectures that in it, quite unexpectedly, exactly what the enlightenment of Europe now requires is revealed. Then, without a doubt, we would believe the French and the German and ourselves would know what we have. On the twenty-eighth of March, the day of the 700th anniversary of Moscow, despite the terrible road, despite some domestic circumstances that required my presence at home, I went across all of Moscow to Deviche Pole to M.P. Pogodin 266 because I knew that some of my friends were gathering with him on that day, people united with each other, in addition to many heterogeneous relationships, especially by the love they all shared for Moscow, with whose name more or less less the way of thinking of each of us, representing from this side mainly the point of mutual sympathy 267 . I hoped that when such people come together in the name of Moscow, which already unites their thoughts, then this very circumstance will revive in them the consciousness of their mutual sympathy. This consciousness, I thought, will awaken in them the need to realize what exactly is common between everyone and everyone; to find out what remains discordant 268, to look for means to resolve this disagreement and, finally, to understand the possibility of sympathy that is more complete, more alive, more life-giving and fruitful. I expected a lot from this day. I trudged along the rocks and mud in the sled for an hour and a half, bouncing quite painfully on the bumps and bumps. But the more difficult the journey was, the more comforted I was in the thought that people who decide to undertake such work will probably do it not without a purpose. How often before, being in the circle of these people, imbued with one noble aspiration, but separated by a thousand misunderstandings, I suffered internally from those monotonous repetitions of certain phrases, common to all, but understood differently by everyone, from that incompleteness of every thought, from those endless, hot and at the same time dry, learned, intelligent and at the same time empty disputes that filled all their mutual relations and clearly indicated that the dark sympathies between them not only did they not develop into unanimity, but that even they did not see this disagreement or, having seen it, were not burdened by it, did not feel the need to delve into the very root of their convictions and, having strengthened themselves with one mind at the beginning, then agree in all its essential applications and thus unite all into one living force for the common cause of life and thought. “What could these people do,” I thought, “if they were fully aware of their convictions and consciously united together. How many years of life were lost in vain just because, when uniting by chance, they never thought about a conscious union! But now they are finally gathering in the name of one common thought, a new life will finally begin in their chosen circle.” Should I continue? Each of you knows what this union of yours consisted of in the name of a common thought. You dragged yourself steadily over rocks and mud, over bumps and bumps, without any purpose. When I saw that your meeting was ending in nothing, I wanted to remind you of the reason that united us, of the need for greater connection between our opinions, of the ambiguity in which our convictions are, not only regarding others, but even regarding ourselves, then some of you could not talk about it because you had to listen to Plessis, others were going to the evening, others were on business, and some even expressed the idea that there were no misunderstandings between us; that if there are some differences of opinion, then they are insignificant and arise solely from the differences in our individuals and, therefore, can never be resolved into agreement; that, however, we have all given ourselves the most complete and extreme account of our convictions and, therefore, we can neither find out ourselves nor tell each other anything new, except for some facts learned by chance one way or another. Against this opinion, which I consider not only unfair, but also downright pernicious, destructive of any possibility of a common cause between us, it will not be useful, I think, to clarify the differences that exist in our opinions, and to explain those contradictions that prove the underdevelopment of our inner consciousness. Firstly, we call ourselves Slavs, and everyone understands a different meaning by this word. Another sees in Slavicism only language and unity of tribe, another understands in it the opposite of Europeanism, a third sees the desire for nationality, a fourth sees the desire for Orthodoxy. Each person presents his own concept as the only legitimate one and excludes everything that comes from another principle. But do these concepts and aspirations contradict one another, or is there something in common between them that connects them into one principle? This has not yet been explained between us. If, in fact, our differences in this respect are only different types of one common principle, then, having realized this, we would subordinate our private views to it and would not weaken each other with endless contradictions. 2. The very concept of nationality between us is also completely different. By this word he means one so-called simple people; the other - that idea of ​​​​national peculiarity that is expressed in our history; the third is those traces of church structure that remain in the life and customs of our people, etc., etc. In all these concepts there is something common, and there is also something special. Taking this particular for the general, we contradict each other and interfere with the correct development of our own concepts. Moreover, each of these special concepts contradicts itself and therefore proves the underdevelopment of consciousness. So, for example, in the desire for nationality they consider the condition, so to speak, of our salvation, and the possibility of Russian enlightenment, and the salvation of Europe, and the development of science and grace, etc., etc., and yet to limit nationality to the common people means to cut off from the beginning of the people everything that is not contained in this common people, and what is truly popular in it is accepted in a one-sided form, i.e. His special reflection in the common people is revered as his normal expression. If we add that with this concept it is required of everyone who does not want to perish like brushwood in an oven, that he use all the efforts of his spirit to pacify within himself everything that may be contrary to this nationality, and to educate himself both internally and externally according to the concepts and tastes of the common people, then one cannot but agree that this requirement contains even more unconsciousness. For if it is possible to demand from a person that he work on himself in view of the Prototype of truth, then this is understandable because we are talking about the Prototype of truth; and it would be possible to work on oneself to achieve common people only if this common people were the direct embodiment of the truth itself. But since it is incongruous to assume this, the demand remains as impossible. It can also be easily proven that other special concepts of nationality contain an internal contradiction, as soon as we accept them as the full expression of our nationality in general. Meanwhile, nationality in its general beginning has not yet been recognized and expressed by us. That is why our concepts are mixed, our demands are unnecessary and our sympathies are unfruitful. The third important disagreement between us lies in the concept of the relationship of the people to statehood. Here the most extreme extremes of opinion make any agreement completely impossible. Meanwhile, we do not give each other, and perhaps even ourselves, an account of those principles from which the peculiarity of our opinions stems, and, moreover, for several years now we have been standing next to each other, without uniting, and, constantly turning in roundabout thoughts, we are not moving a single step forward. While disagreeing on these concepts, it is natural that we also disagreed on the countless number of derivative and secondary concepts that, when applied to life, give it decisively one meaning or another. Do we disagree because our basic concepts are completely different? Or did they not give the final report themselves? Or can we not agree on the disagreement of the fundamental principles of our beliefs? This question, it seems, cannot but be a matter of first importance for us. For me, at least, sympathy with you constitutes, so to speak, half of my moral life. Therefore, whoever sympathizes with me in this regard, I propose the following means to resolve our perplexities or, at least, to some approach to this goal: make it our duty and give each other the word so that, at least once a week, one or two of us state, albeit in general terms, our opinion on any of the subjects in which we do not agree, and, having read this opinion to others, give everyone the opportunity to express their judgment about it, not in order to clarify only the contradiction his own, but in order to find in the contradiction itself a line of general sympathy. Thus, ascending from beginning to beginning, we will perhaps reach those foundations on which agreement can give new life to our thoughts and new meaning to our life. Perv. publ.: Kireevsky I.V. Complete. collection cit.: In 2 vols. M., 1861. T. 1. P. 188–200. Publ. by: Kireevsky I.V. Complete. collection cit.: In 2 vols. M., 1911. T 1. P. 109–120. The article was written in the winter of 1839, when the Kireevskys organized weekly evenings in their house on Wednesdays, at which each of the guests read his new work. For these evenings, Alexey Stepanovich Khomyakov (1804–1860), a poet, publicist, ideologist of Slavophilism, wrote an article “On the Old and the New” (see: Khomyakov A.S. About the Old and the New // Complete collected works: In 4 vols. M., 1861. T. 1. pp. 359–377). The article was not intended for publication and contains some statements that contradict the author’s later views on Russian history. It is possible that Khomyakov wrote the article precisely with the intention of provoking a response from I.V. Kireevsky (or the Kireevsky brothers). The repetition contained in the middle article by I.V. Kireevsky indicates that the author read it over two evenings. Having put forward the thesis at the beginning of the article “On the Old and the New”: “They say that in the old years everything was better in the Russian land...”, A. S. Khomyakov subsequently gives judgments both confirming this thesis and contradicting it, and ends the introduction with the words: “The question seems complex and the solution is difficult: which is better, old or new Russia? How many alien elements have entered its current organization? Are these elements appropriate for her? How much has it lost of its fundamental principles, and were these principles such that we should regret them and try to resurrect them? (Khomyakov A.S. About the old and the new. P. 363). This idea, first expressed by I. V. Kireevsky in 1832 in the article “The Nineteenth Century,” was one of the fundamental ones in his worldview. In this article, he wrote that the classical world of ancient paganism (in other words, ancient culture) had consequences in the history of Europe: firstly, the formation of free cities, secondly, the political influence of the Catholic Church, which “became not only a source of spiritual education, but also the head of the political structure... it was the only node between all discordant elements and all different peoples; she gave one spirit to all of Europe, raised the Crusades and, being a source of unanimity and order, stopped the raids of the barbarians and put a barrier to the invasions of Muslims.” (Kireevsky I.V. Complete collection of works: In 2 vols. M., 1911. T. 1. P. 100). Due to the absence of such a unifying political influence of the Church in Ancient Rus', the fragmented principalities fell under the first. blows of the Tatars, from which “we could get rid of... the only physical, material connection, which we could only achieve over the course of centuries” (Ibid. P. 101). In the article “In response to A. S. Khomyakov,” I. V. Kireevsky, as we see, comprehends the influence of ancient culture on the internal life of the Catholic Church. This refers to the Catholic doctrine of the Filioque (the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son). The separation of the Roman Catholic Church from the Ecumenical Church, which began with the doctrine of the Filioque, continued with the idea of ​​​​the primacy of Rome. throne on the basis that the High Priest of the Roman Church was the Supreme Ap. Peter. This dogma was adopted in 1564 by Pope Pius the Fourth. Dogma of Infallibility Rom. popes have also been established over the centuries; Among his apologists were the scholastic theologian Thomas Aquinas and Pope Gregory VII Hildebrand. Dogma of Infallibility Rom. Pope, as well as the dogma of the immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, was adopted in 1870 at the Vatican Council. In the IX-XV centuries. In the Catholic Church, scholasticism became widespread, which set itself the task of building a scientific and theological system in which Christian teaching could be proven by the totality of human knowledge. Scholasticism widely used the achievements of ancient philosophy, primarily Aristotle, whose works were especially widely distributed in Europe in the 12th-13th centuries. The Holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church also used the achievements of ancient logic, but only as a method, keeping human thinking from proving divinely revealed knowledge (the existence of God, the creation of the world, etc.). About the Western Church A. S. Khomyakov writes: “Connected with everyday and pagan life in the West, for a long time it was dark and unconscious, but active and dryly practical; then, breaking away from the East and trying to explain herself, she turned to rationalism, lost her purity, contained within herself the poisonous beginning of the future fall, but took possession of rude humanity, developed its material and mental powers and created a beautiful, seductive world, but doomed to destruction, the world of Catholicism and Reformation” (A. S. Khomyakov. About the Old and the New. P. 369). Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749–1832) – German genius. literature, who entered the literary field in the era of the late Enlightenment. His life is full of contradictions: from poetic rebellion (the Sturm und Drang movement) to civil service (minister at the court of the Dukes of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach), from rejection of revolutionary ideas to admiration for Napoleon. To artistically comprehend contemporary reality, the poet used subjects borrowed from antiquity, oriental poetry, and the European Middle Ages. I. V. Kireevsky highly appreciated Goethe’s work in the review “Faust.” Tragedy, Goethe’s work” (see: I. V. Kireevsky Complete collection of works: In 2 vols. M., 1911. Vol. 2. pp. 128–131). We find a characteristic of the late Goethe in the article by I. V. Kireevsky “Review of the Current State of Literature”: “In the last era of his life, most of the poetic occasions that aroused his inspiration were a court ball, an honorary masquerade, or someone’s birthday. The fate of Napoleon and the Europe he turned upside down barely left traces in the entire collection of his creations. Goethe was an all-encompassing, greatest and, probably, the last poet of individual life, which had not yet penetrated into one consciousness with the life of all mankind” (Kireevsky I.V. Complete collection of works: In 2 vols. M., 1911. T. 1. P. 122). Charles Maurice Talleyrand-Périgord (1754–1838) – French. politician He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1797–1807, 1814–1815. under the Directory (the Directory is a government body in France from October 1795 to November 1799), during the period of the consulate and the empire of Napoleon. In 1814, he was an active participant in the deposition of Napoleon and the enthronement of King Louis the Eighteenth. Louis Philippe Bourbon (1773–1850) – French. king. During the July Revolution of 1830 he was elevated to the throne. Overthrown as a result of the February Revolution of 1848, he fled to England. The concepts of peace, community, communal land use are key in the historiosophy of the Slavophiles. For their presentation, see the article by P. V. Kireevsky “On ancient Russian history (letter to M. P. Pogodin)” (Moskvityanin. 1845. No. 3, department “Science”. P. 11–46). A. S. Khomyakov writes about the relationship between custom and law: “A comparison of all the monuments, if I’m not mistaken, will lead us to the simple conclusion that before, as now, there was a constant disagreement between law and life, between written institutions and living folk customs. Then, as now, the law was sometimes better, sometimes worse than custom and, rarely enforced, was sometimes spoiled, sometimes corrected in application. Let us accept this interpretation as truth, and all the changes in Russian life will be explained. We will understand how easily visible relations could change, and at the same time we will know that changes rarely concerned the essence of the relationship between people and institutions, between the state, citizens and the Church" (Khomyakov A.S. About the old and the new. P. 363). The social contract is the most important provision of such a theory of the origin of the state, according to which it, the state, arose through the renunciation of individuals' rights in favor of public power. The theory of “social contract”, first put forward at the beginning of the 17th century. Netherlands lawyer and public figure Grotius, became widespread in the era of bourgeois revolutions thanks to the French. educators. One of the works of J.-J. Rousseau’s title was “The Social Contract” (1762). Encyclopedists are called French. enlighteners - creators of the “Encyclopedia, or Explanatory Dictionary of Sciences, Arts and Crafts” (1751–1780), which became a reflection of the rationalistic ideas that dominated the public consciousness of that time. The editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia was D. Diderot, among its employees were Voltaire, K.-A. Helvetius, J.-J. Rousseau, E.-B. de Condillac et al. About the boundaries of princely power in pre-Mongol Rus', A. S. Khomyakov writes: “The Varangian government represents the outside; regional councils are the internal side of the state. Throughout Russia, executive power, border protection, and relations with neighboring powers are in the hands of one Varangian-Russian family, commanding a hired squad; the court of truth, the preservation of customs, and the resolution of all issues of internal government are left to the people's conference. Everywhere, throughout Russia, the structure is almost the same” (Khomyakov A.S. About the old and the new. P. 368). We find the definition of the holy fathers in the work of the archbishop. Philaret (Gumilevsky) “Historical teaching about the Fathers of the Church” (In 3 volumes, 2nd ed., revised and supplemented. St. Petersburg, 1882. Vol. 1. P. IV): “The Fathers of the Christian Church are actually called the teachers of the Church who followed the Apostles, who left their writings to subsequent times with the power to revive spiritual children in Christ; these are those successors of the apostolic spirit who, by the gifts of a God-enlightened mind, and who, by the grace-filled purity of their souls, were able to offer, and who offered in the scriptures the pure truth of Christ, the seed of God, working for salvation.” Archbishop Filaret proposes the following periods in the history of the Fathers of the Church (see: Filaret (Gumilevsky), Archbishop. Historical teaching... Vol. 1. P. XVII): 1) 70–312. - the century of the apostolic men, “the closest successors of the apostolic tradition, who labored primarily against paganism and Judaism,” among them schmchch. Clement, Pope, Ignatius the God-Bearer; 2) 312–620 - “encompasses those who... defended against human self-will the frank teaching about the Son of God and the Holy Spirit”; At this time, five Ecumenical Councils were convened to eradicate the heresies of Arius, Nestorius and Monophysites (who recognized that our Lord Jesus Christ had only a Divine nature and denied the human nature of Christ) and to establish the dogmas of Christian doctrine. Their participants were St. Athanasius the Great, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory the Theologian, Gregory of Nyssa, Leo the Great and other saints. fathers; 3) 620–850 is the time of the establishment of the liturgical canon and the struggle of the Church against the heresies of the Monothelites (who recognized the two natures of our Lord Jesus Christ - Divine and human, but found in Him a single - Divine - will) and iconoclasts, for which the VI and VII Ecumenical Councils were convened. The most famous St. fathers of this period: St., Abba Dorotheos, Maximus the Confessor, Anastasius of Sinaite, John of Damascus, Theodore the Studite; 4) 850–1450 - the period of separation of the Roman Church from the Ecumenical Church. In these centuries such saints became famous. fathers like Sts. equal to app. Cyril and Methodius, Slovenian teachers, St. Simeon the New Theologian, St. Gregory Palamas and his students; 5) 1450 – to this day: St. the fathers of this period denounced the resurgent heresies of the first. centuries, as well as new heresies and schisms. The Monk Isaac the Syrian, Bishop of Nineveh (t VI), a Syrian by birth, retired to a monastery in his early youth, then retired to the desert. He was appointed bishop of the city of Nineveh, but soon left the see and lived in the desert until the end of his life. “Saint Isaac devoted his entire life to the solitary study of his soul, and no one’s teachings are filled with such deep psychological information as the teachings of Saint Isaac; Having himself passed through the degrees of spiritual contemplative life, Saint Isaac presents exalted instructions on contemplations and based on solid experiences. Spiritual life is depicted in his teachings as applied to the most elusive states of the soul” (Filaret (Gumilevsky), Archbishop. Historical teaching... Vol. 3. P. 135). The most ancient Slavs, translations of the teachings of St. Isaac the Syrian, located in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra and on Mount Athos, were copied and used when working on their own translation from Greek. St. Paisiy Velichkovsky (see: The Book of St. Isaac the Syrian. Nyamets: Publishing house of the Nyamets Moldovan Lavra Monastery, 1812). Another Slavs, translation (XIV) of the teachings of St. Isaac was kept in the library of the Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra. I.V. Kireevsky himself took part in the publication. the book “Our Holy Father Isaac the Syrian, Bishop of the former Nineveh, words of spiritual asceticism, translated from Greek by Elder Paisius Velichkovsky” (M., 1854). The Moscow Council of the Hundred Heads, convened during the reign of Ivan IV Vasilyevich the Terrible in 1551, was dedicated to resolving the following church issues: 1) on the canon of worship, liturgical books, icon painting, the sign of the cross, etc.; 2) about church administration and spiritual court; 3) on the management of church property; 4) about the piety of the laity. Tsar Ivan the Terrible proposed questions to the Council, one hundred answers to which were compiled in the collection. “Stoglav”, and gave the name to the Cathedral. The Council's decrees on double fingers, special hallelujah, and the salting walk were abolished by the Council of 1655. This refers to the heresy of the Judaizers, which spread on Tuesday. floor. XV century from Novgorod; among her secret followers were both courtiers and the Moscow and Novgorod clergy. The doctrine of the heresy was close to Judaism. St. Petersburg contributed to its eradication. Joseph Volotsky and St. Gennady Novgorodsky. The Judaizers were condemned at the Councils of 1488, 1490 and 1503. Venerable St. spoke in favor of mitigating the punishment for heretics. Nil Sorsky. The attitude towards monastic land ownership, the abuse of which often had a detrimental effect on the monastics, was the second contradiction between St. Nil of Sorsky, who believed that monks should feed themselves from their labor, and so on. Joseph Volotsky, who used the income from land ownership for widespread church charity and spiritual enlightenment. The issue of monastic land ownership was considered at the Council of 1503, where the supporters of St. Petersburg received the support of the majority. Joseph Volotsky. Contradictions between prpp. Nil Sorsky and Joseph Volotsky were greatly exaggerated by their followers, who formed the church parties of non-possessors and Josephites. The problem of correcting liturgical books, and therefore the order of worship and requirements, raised at the Stoglavy Council, suggested two solutions: 1) correction in Greek. samples, which should have brought our worship into conformity with the worship of the Universal Church, and 2) correction according to the “good” lists that were available in places, which in fact did not mean the correction of errors, but their confirmation and, as a consequence, the further isolation of the Russian Church. At the Stoglavy Council, the latter was adopted, which served a century later as one of the reasons for the Old Believer schism, i.e., in the words of I.V. Kireevsky, while “the old days were torn apart by differences of opinion” between non-covetous people and the Josephites, it was overcome by supporters of the national-protective direction. Since the 15th century Appanage princes of Northern Rus' and immigrants from Lithuania began to enter the service of the Moscow Sovereigns. At the Moscow court they were supposed to have equal rights with the boyars. Controversial official positions were occupied by princes in accordance with their nobility of origin. This custom was called localism. Oprichnina, which existed in 1565–1572. under Tsar Ivan the Terrible, it was called a special royal inheritance with its own land, army and administration. During the oprichnina, their estates were taken away from the boyars and princes and transferred to new nobles - the oprichniki. By the end of Ivan the Terrible’s life, more than half of the Russians were part of the oprichnina. lands. The so-called Old Believer schism finally formed after the Local Council of 1666. The essence of the schismatics’ claims, as Metropolitan wrote. Macarius (Bulgakov), “was precisely that the Russian church books printed before Patriarch Nikon were correct in everything, Orthodox and did not require correction, that the Moscow Council of 1654, which determined their correction, was an illegal Council, that the Greek books, according to which the correction of our books was carried out under Nikon, were damaged and filled with heresies and the Greek Patriarchs themselves, being under the yoke of the infidels, they deviated from Orthodoxy” (Makarii (Bulgakov), Metropolitan. History of the Russian Church: In 7 books. M., 1996. Book 7. P. 318). In church rituals (two fingers and special hallelujah), the Old Believers adhered to the repealed decrees of the Stoglavy Council. The split quickly spread across the northern outskirts of Russia, in the Volga region and the Don. We must not forget that the non-Slavic population of these outskirts professed Islam or paganism; captive Livonians were settled in the Kazan region and the Volga region even under Ivan the Terrible, and in the upper reaches of the Volga in the first. floor. XVII century The Kapiton sect, which preached false eschatological ideas, became widespread. The accession to the throne of Peter I was preceded by the Peasant War - a revolt of the Cossacks led by Stepan Razin - and the Moscow Streltsy revolt of 1682, which had a certain connection with the schismatics. Perv. publ.: Russian archive. 1904. Book. 2. Issue. 8. P. 495–498 (published by S. I. Kireevsky). In note to publ. It is reported that the autograph bears the note: “A. I. Koshelev said not to publish.” Publ. by: Kireevsky I.V. Complete. collection cit.: In 2 vols. M., 1911. T. 2. P. 245–248. Official celebrations on the occasion of the 700th anniversary of Moscow took place on January 1, 1847. For Slavophiles, Moscow was the personification of Russian history: “Before Moscow, Rus' could have been enslaved, the Russian people could have been trampled by foreigners. In Moscow we learned the will of God that no one can crush this Russian land, no one can break this Russian people” (Khomyakov A.S. Speech on the reasons for the establishment of the Society of Literature Lovers in Moscow // Complete collection of works. M., 1861. T. 1. P. 693). On the very first day. chronicle mention of Moscow, March 28, which in 1847 fell on the Friday of Bright Week, the celebration of the icon of the Mother of God of the Life-Giving Spring, after the liturgy a gala dinner was held in the house of M. P. Pogodin on the Devichye Pole. In addition to the owner of the house, I.V. Kireevsky, prof. Imperial Moscow University S.P. Shevyrev, the inspirer of the Slavophile circle A.S. Khomyakov, publicist K.S. Aksakov, Moscow historian I.M. Snegirev, Sanskritologist K.A. Kossovich, and writers N.F. Pavlov and M.A. Dmitriev, who collaborated in “Moskvityanin”. The Moscow circle of Slavophiles did not have any specific composition or a single ideology. I.V. Kireevsky, in a letter to A.S. Khomyakov dated May 2, 1844, stated: “Perhaps you consider me a sworn Slavophile and therefore offer me “The Moskvitian”... Then to this I must say that I share this Slavophile way of thinking only in part, and the other part of it I consider further from myself than the most eccentric opinions of Granovsky” (Kireevsky I. V. Complete collection: In 2 volumes. M., 1911. T. 2. P. 233). The circle included, as we see, “Muscovites” Pogodin, Shevyrev, spokesmen for the “official nationality,” and other employees of the magazine. Jeanne-Sophie Arnoux-Plessis (1819–1897) – French. actress (French troupe of the Mikhailovsky Theater in St. Petersburg), who performed in Moscow in the spring of 1847. You might be interested in: