Heroism and asceticism

(From reflections on the religious nature of the Russian intelligentsia) Paragraph I II III IV V VI VII Russia went through a revolution. This revolution did not give what was expected of it. The positive gains of the liberation movement still remain, in the opinion of many, to this day, at least problematic. Russian society, exhausted by previous stress and failures, is in a kind of numbness, apathy, spiritual confusion, and despondency. Russian statehood has not yet shown signs of renewal and strengthening, which are so necessary for it, and, as if in a sleepy kingdom, everything in it has again frozen, shackled by an irresistible slumber. Russian citizenship, overshadowed by numerous death penalties, an extraordinary increase in crime and a general coarsening of morals, went positively backward. Russian literature is flooded with a turbid wave of pornography and sensational products. There is reason to become despondent and fall into deep doubt about the future of Russia. And in any case, now, after everything we have experienced, both the naive, somewhat beautiful-hearted Slavophile faith and the rosy utopias of the old Westernism are no longer possible. The revolution called into question the very viability of Russian citizenship and statehood; Without taking into account this historical experience, with the historical lessons of the revolution, one cannot make any statement about Russia, one cannot repeat either the Slavophile or the Westernizers. After the political crisis came a spiritual crisis, requiring deep, concentrated thought, self-reflection, self-examination, and self-criticism. If Russian society is indeed still alive and viable, if it harbors within itself the seeds of the future, then this vitality must manifest itself first and foremost in the readiness and ability to learn from history. For history is not just a chronology, counting down the succession of events, it is life experience, the experience of good and evil, which constitutes the condition for spiritual growth, and nothing is as dangerous as the deathly immobility of minds and hearts, inert conservatism, in which one is content with repeating butts or simply brushes aside the lessons of life, in the secret hope of a new “uplift”, spontaneous, accidental, unreflective. Thinking about what we have experienced in recent years, one cannot see in all this a historical accident or just a play of elemental forces. Here a historical judgment was pronounced, an assessment was made of the various participants in the historical drama, and the results of an entire historical era were summed up. The “liberation movement” did not lead to the results it was supposed to lead to, did not bring reconciliation, renewal, did not yet lead to the strengthening of statehood (although it left a sprout for the future - the State Duma) and to the rise of the national economy, not only because it turned out to be too weak to fight the dark forces of history, no, it could not win because it itself was not up to the task, it itself suffered from weakness from internal contradictions. The Russian Revolution developed enormous destructive energy and became like a gigantic earthquake, but its creative forces turned out to be far weaker than its destructive ones. For many, this bitter consciousness was deposited in their souls as the most general result of their experience. Should this consciousness be hushed up and isn’t it better to express it in order to ask the question why this is so?.. I have already had occasion to express in print the opinion that the Russian revolution was an intellectual revolution 1 . Its guiding spiritual engine was our intelligentsia, with its own worldview, skills, tastes, even social habits. The intellectuals themselves, of course, do not recognize this - that’s why they are intellectuals - and will, each in accordance with their own catechism, name one or another social class as the only engine of the revolution. Without disputing the fact that without a whole set of historical circumstances (among which, of course, the unfortunate war occupies the first place) and without the presence of very serious vital interests of various social classes and groups, it would not have been possible to move them from their places and draw them into a state of ferment, we still insist that all the ideological baggage, all the spiritual equipment, together with the advanced fighters, skirmishers, agitators, propagandists, was given to the revolution by the intelligentsia. She spiritually shaped the instinctive aspirations of the masses, ignited them with her enthusiasm, in a word, she was the nerves and brain of the gigantic body of the revolution. In this sense, the revolution is the spiritual brainchild of the intelligentsia, and, therefore, its history is a historical trial of this intelligentsia. The soul of the intelligentsia, this creation of Petrov, is at the same time the key to the future destinies of Russian statehood and society. Whether it is good or bad, the fate of Peter’s Russia is in the hands of the intelligentsia, no matter how persecuted and persecuted, no matter how weak and even powerless our intelligentsia may seem at the moment. She is that window cut by Peter into Europe, through which Western air enters us, at once life-giving and poisonous. To her, this handful, belongs the monopoly of European education and enlightenment in Russia, she is its main guide into the mass of a hundred million people, and if Russia cannot do without this enlightenment under the threat of political and national death, then how high and significant is the historical calling of the intelligentsia, how enormous and terrifying is its historical responsibility to the future of our country, both immediate and distant! That is why for a patriot who loves his people and is concerned with the needs of Russian statehood, there is now no more exciting topic for reflection than about the nature of the Russian intelligentsia, and at the same time there is no more painful and alarming concern than whether the Russian intelligentsia will rise to the height of its task, whether Russia will receive the educated class it so needs with a Russian soul, an enlightened mind, a strong will, for, otherwise, the intelligentsia in alliance with the Tatars, of which there is still so much in our statehood and public, will destroy Russia. Many in Russia after the revolution and as a result of its experience experienced acute disappointment in the intelligentsia and its historical suitability; at the same time, in its failures they saw the failure of the intelligentsia. The revolution exposed, emphasized, strengthened such aspects of its spiritual appearance, which before it were guessed in full meaning only by a few (and above all by Dostoevsky); it turned out to be a kind of spiritual mirror for all of Russia and especially for its intelligentsia. To suppress these features now would be not only impermissible, but downright criminal. For on what can all our hope now be based, if not on the fact that the years of public despondency will at the same time be years of saving repentance, in which spiritual strength will be revived and new people will be raised, new workers in the Russian field. Russia cannot renew itself without renewing (along with many other things) first of all its intelligentsia. And speaking about this loudly and openly is a duty of conviction and patriotism. A critical attitude towards certain aspects of the spiritual appearance of the Russian intelligentsia is by no means connected even with any one specific worldview, which is most alien to it. People of different worldviews, distant from each other, can unite on this point, and this best shows that the time has indeed come for such self-criticism, and it meets the vital needs of at least some part of the intelligentsia itself. The character of the Russian intelligentsia in general was formed under the influence of two main factors, external and internal. The first is the continuous and merciless pressure on her from the police press, capable of flattening and completely destroying a weaker group in spirit, and the fact that she retained life and energy even under this pressure testifies, in any case, to her absolutely exceptional courage and vitality. The isolation from life in which the entire atmosphere of the old regime placed the intelligentsia, strengthened the features of “underground” psychology, already characteristic of its spiritual appearance, froze it spiritually, supporting and to a certain extent justifying its political monoideism (“Hannibal’s oath” of the fight against autocracy) and complicating the possibility of diversified spiritual development. Such an opportunity and such a need can arise only now, and in this, in any case, one cannot help but see the spiritual acquisition of the liberation movement. The second, internal, factor that determines the character of our intelligentsia is its special worldview and its associated spiritual makeup. This essay will be entirely devoted to the characterization and criticism of this worldview. I cannot help but see the most basic feature of the intelligentsia in its attitude towards religion. It is also impossible to understand the main features of the Russian revolution if we do not keep this attitude of the intelligentsia to religion in the center of attention. But the historical future of Russia also depends on the solution to the question of how the intelligentsia will self-determine in relation to religion, whether it will remain in the same state, or whether a revolution, a true revolution in minds and hearts, awaits us in this area. It has been pointed out many times (following Dostoevsky) that the spiritual makeup of the Russian intelligentsia contains features of religiosity, sometimes even approaching Christian. These properties were cultivated, first of all, by her external historical destinies, on the one hand, by government persecution, which created in her a sense of martyrdom and confession, on the other, by a forced isolation from life, which developed daydreaming, sometimes great-heartedness, utopianism, and generally an insufficient sense of reality. In connection with this, there is that feature of hers that the firmly established, “philistine” way of life of the West remains psychologically alien to her - although, however, perhaps only for now. Europe, with its everyday virtues, with its labor-intensive economy, but also with its winglessness and limitations. We have a classic expression of the spiritual clash between the Russian intellectual and the European philistinism in the writings of Herzen 2 . Similar sentiments have been expressed more than once in modern Russian literature. The completeness, attachment to the earth, and spiritual creep of this way of life are abhorrent to the Russian intellectual, although we all know how much he needs to learn, at least, the techniques of life and work from Westerners. In turn, the Western bourgeoisie is disgusted and incomprehensible by this wandering Rus', an emigrant freemen, still feeding on the inspirations of Stenka Razin and Emelka Pugachev, even if translated into modern language, and in the last revolutionary years this spiritual antagonism has apparently reached its greatest tension. If we try to break down this “anti-bourgeoisism” of the Russian intelligentsia, it turns out to be a mixtum compositum, made up of very different elements. There is also a share of hereditary nobility here, free in a number of generations from worries about their daily bread and, in general, from the everyday, “philistine” side of life. There is a significant dose of simply lack of culture, unaccustomed to hard, disciplined work and a measured way of life. But there is, undoubtedly, also a certain, although perhaps not so large, dose of unconsciously religious aversion to spiritual philistinism, to the “kingdom of this world,” to calm complacency. A certain otherworldliness, an eschatological dream about the City of God, about the coming kingdom of truth (under various socialist pseudonyms) and then the desire to save humanity - if not from sin, then from suffering - constitute, as we know, the constant and distinctive features of the Russian intelligentsia. The pain from the disharmony of life and the desire to overcome it distinguish even the most prominent intellectual writers (Gl. Uspensky, Garshin). In this desire for the Coming City, before which earthly reality pales, the intelligentsia retained, perhaps in the most recognizable form, the features of the lost churchliness. How many times in the Second State Duma, in the stormy speeches of the atheistic left bloc, did I hear - strange to say! - echoes of the psychology of Orthodoxy, the influence of its spiritual inoculation was suddenly revealed. In general, the spiritual skills fostered by the Church explain not one of the best features of the Russian intelligentsia, which they lose as they move away from the Church, for example. some puritanism, rigoristic morals, a kind of asceticism; strictness of personal life; such, for example, the leaders of the Russian intelligentsia as Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky (both seminarians, brought up in religious families of clergy), retain almost intact their former moral character, which, however, is gradually being lost by their historical children and grandchildren. Christian traits, perceived without knowledge and will, through the environment, from the family, from the nanny, from the entire spiritual atmosphere, imbued with church views and customs, shine through in the spiritual appearance of the best and greatest figures of the Russian revolution. In view of the fact that, thanks to this, the entire real opposition between the Christian and intellectual mentality is obscured, it is important to establish that these traits have an superficial, borrowed, in a certain sense atavistic character and disappear as Christian skills weaken, with a more complete manifestation of the intellectual type, which revealed itself with greatest force in the days of the revolution and then shook off the last vestiges of Christianity. The Russian intelligentsia, especially in previous generations, is also characterized by a feeling of guilt before the people, this is a kind of “social repentance”, of course, not before God, but before the “people” or “proletariat”. Although these feelings of a “repentant nobleman” or a “non-class intellectual”, in their historical origin, also have some social flavor of the nobility, they also leave an imprint of special depth and suffering on the face of the intelligentsia. To this we must also add its self-sacrifice, the constant readiness to make sacrifices among its best representatives and even the search for them. Whatever the psychology of this sacrifice, it also strengthens the otherworldliness of the intelligentsia, which makes its appearance so alien to the philistinism, and gives it the features of religiosity. And yet, despite all this, it is known that there is no more atheistic intelligentsia than the Russians. Atheism is the general faith into which those who enter the fold of the intellectual-humanistic church are baptized, and not only from the educated class, but also from the people. And this is how it happened from the beginning, from the spiritual father of the Russian intelligentsia, Belinsky. And just as every environment develops its own habits, its own beliefs, so the traditional atheism of the Russian intelligentsia has become, as it were, a self-evident feature of it, which is not even talked about, a sign of good form. A certain amount of education and enlightenment is, in the eyes of our intelligentsia, a synonym for religious indifference and denial. There is no debate about this among different factions, parties, “trends”; it all unites them. The meager culture of the intelligentsia, with its newspapers, magazines, trends, programs, morals, and prejudices, is saturated through and through with this, just as breathing oxidizes the blood, which then spreads throughout the entire body. There is no more important fact in the history of Russian enlightenment than this. And at the same time, we have to admit that Russian atheism is by no means a conscious denial, is not the fruit of complex, painful and lengthy work of the mind, heart and will, the result of personal life. No, it is most often taken on faith and retains these features of naive religious faith, only inside out, and this does not change due to the fact that it takes militant, dogmatic, scientific forms. This faith is based on a number of uncritical, untested and, in its dogmatic form, of course, incorrect statements, namely, that science is competent to finally resolve questions of religion and, moreover, resolves them in a negative sense; To this is added a suspicious attitude towards philosophy, especially metaphysics, which was also rejected and condemned in advance. This faith is shared by scientists and unscientists, old and young. It is assimilated in adolescence, which occurs biographically, of course, for some earlier, for others later. At this age, it is usually easy and even natural to accept the denial of religion, which is immediately replaced by faith in science and progress. Our intelligentsia, once it has taken this stand, in most cases remains with this belief all its life, considering these questions to have already been sufficiently clarified and finally resolved, hypnotized by the general unanimity in this opinion. Adolescents become mature men, some of them acquire serious scientific knowledge, become prominent specialists, and in this case they throw into the balance in favor of the adolescently believed, dogmatically accepted atheism on the school bench, their authority as scientific specialists, even if in the field of these issues they would be no more authoritative than every thinking and feeling person. This is how a spiritual atmosphere is formed in our higher school, where the growing intelligentsia is formed. And it is amazing how little impression was made on the Russian intelligentsia by people of deep education, intelligence, genius, when they called it to religious deepening, to awakening from dogmatic slumber, how little was noticed by our religious thinkers and Slavophile writers, Vl. Soloviev, Bukharev, book. S. Trubetskoy and others, how deaf our intelligentsia remained to the religious preaching of Dostoevsky and even L.N. Tolstoy, despite the external cult of his name. What is most striking about Russian atheism is its dogmatism, that is, one might say, the religious frivolity with which it is accepted. Indeed, until recently, the religious problem, in all its enormous and exceptional importance and burning, was simply not noticed or understood by Russian “educated” society; it was generally interested in religion only insofar as it was associated with politics or with the preaching of atheism. The ignorance of our intelligentsia in matters of religion is astonishing. I say this not to accuse her, for this may have sufficient historical justification, but to diagnose her spiritual state. In relation to religion, our intelligentsia simply has not yet emerged from adolescence, it has not yet thought seriously about religion and has not given itself conscious religious self-determination, it has not yet lived in religious thought and therefore remains, strictly speaking, not above religion, as it thinks of itself, but outside of religion. The best proof of all this is the historical origin of Russian atheism. It has been adopted by us from the West (it is not for nothing that it became the first member of the creed of our “Westernism”). We accepted it as the last word of Western civilization, first in the form of Voltairianism and materialism of the French encyclopedists, then atheistic socialism (Belinsky), later the materialism of the 60s, positivism, Feuerbachian humanism, in the modern times of economic materialism and - the very last years of criticism. On the many-branched tree of Western civilization, with its roots going deep into history, we have chosen only one branch, not knowing, not wanting to know all the others, in full confidence that we are instilling in ourselves the most genuine, European civilization. But European civilization has not only a variety of fruits and numerous branches, but also roots that feed the tree and, to a certain extent, neutralize many poisonous fruits with their healthy juices. Therefore, even negative teachings in their homeland, among other powerful spiritual movements that oppose them, have a completely different psychological and historical meaning than when they appear in the cultural desert and claim to be the only ones that become the foundation of Russian enlightenment and civilization. Si duo idem dicunt, non est idem. No culture has ever been built on such a foundation. Nowadays it is often forgotten that Western European culture, at least half, has religious roots, built on the religious foundation laid by the Middle Ages and the Reformation. Whatever our attitude to Reformation dogmatics and to Protestantism in general, it cannot be denied that the Reformation caused a huge religious upsurge throughout the Western world, not excluding that part of it that remained faithful to Catholicism, but was also forced to renew itself in order to fight its enemies. The new personality of European man, in this sense, was born in the Reformation (and this origin left its mark on it), political freedom, freedom of conscience, human and civil rights were also proclaimed by the Reformation (in England); The latest research also reveals the importance of Protestantism, especially in Reformation, Calvinism and Puritanism, and for economic development, in the development of individuals suitable to become leaders of the developing national economy. In Protestantism, modern science and especially philosophy developed predominantly. And all this development proceeded with strict historical continuity and gradualism, without cracks or collapses. The cultural history of the Western European world represents one coherent whole, in which both the Middle Ages and the Reformation era, along with the trends of modern times, are still alive and have a necessary place. Already in the era of the Reformation, the spiritual direction that turned out to be decisive for the Russian intelligentsia was also identified. Along with the Reformation, in the humanistic renaissance, revival, and classical antiquity, some features of paganism were also revived. In parallel with the religious individualism of the Reformation, neo-pagan individualism also intensified, exalting the natural, unregenerate person. According to this view, man is good and beautiful by nature, which is distorted only by external conditions; it is enough to restore the natural state of man, and this will achieve everything. Here is the root of various natural law theories, as well as the latest teachings about progress and the omnipotence of external reforms alone to resolve human tragedy, and, consequently, all of the latest humanism and socialism. The external, apparent closeness of religious and pagan individualism does not eliminate their deep, internal differences, and therefore we observe in modern history not only a parallel development, but also a struggle between both of these currents. The strengthening of the motives of humanistic individualism in the history of thought marks the era of the so-called “Enlightenment” (Aufklärung) in the 17th, 18th, and partly 19th centuries. The Enlightenment draws the most radical negative conclusions from the premises of humanism: in the field of religion, through deism, it comes to skepticism and atheism; in the field of philosophy, through rationalism and empiricism, to positivism and materialism; in the field of morality, through “natural” morality, to utilitarianism and hedonism. Materialist socialism can also be considered as the latest and most mature fruit of the Enlightenment. This trend, which is partly a product of the disintegration of the Reformation and is itself one of the disintegrating principles in the spiritual life of the West, is very influential in modern history. It inspired the great French revolution and most of the revolutions of the 19th century, and, on the other hand, it provides the spiritual basis for the European philistinism, whose dominance has so far replaced the heroic era of enlightenment. However, it is very important not to forget that although the face of the European land is increasingly distorted thanks to the popular philosophy of enlightenment spreading widely among the masses and frozen in the cold of philistinism, in the history of culture the enlightenment has never played and does not play an exclusive or even dominant role; tree of European culture and still, even invisible to the eye, feeds on the spiritual juices of old religious roots. These roots, this healthy historical conservatism, maintain the strength of this tree, although to the extent that enlightenment penetrates the roots and trunk, it also begins to wither and rot. Therefore, Western European civilization cannot be considered irreligious in its historical basis, although it is, indeed, becoming more and more so in the consciousness of recent generations. Our intelligentsia, in its Westernism, did not go beyond the external assimilation of the latest political and social ideas of the West, and accepted them in connection with the most extreme and harsh forms of the philosophy of enlightenment. Western civilization in its organic whole is essentially not even to blame for this selection, which was made by the intelligentsia itself. In the perspective of its history, for the Russian intellectual, the role of the “gloomy” era of the Middle Ages, the entire reformation era with its enormous spiritual acquisitions, the entire development of scientific philosophical thought, in addition to extreme enlightenment, completely disappears. In the beginning there was barbarism, and then civilization dawned, that is, enlightenment, materialism, atheism, socialism - this is the simple philosophy of history of the average Russian intellectual. Therefore, in the struggle for Russian culture, we must fight, among other things, even for a more in-depth, historically conscious Westernism. Why did it happen that our intelligentsia adopted the tenets of the Enlightenment with such ease? Many historical reasons can be given for this, but, to a certain extent, this selection was also a free matter of the intelligentsia itself, for which it is to the same extent responsible before the homeland and history. In any case, thanks to this, the connection of times in Russian enlightenment is broken, and our homeland is spiritually sick with this break. Rejecting Christianity and the standards of life it establishes, together with atheism, or, better said, instead of atheism, our intelligentsia perceives the dogmas of the religion of man-divinity, in any of the variants developed by Western European enlightenment (and, moreover, in a simplified elementary form). Its main dogma, characteristic of all its variants, is faith in the natural perfection of man, in endless progress carried out by human forces, but, at the same time, its mechanical understanding. Since all evil is explained by the external disorder of human society, and therefore there is neither personal guilt nor personal responsibility, then the whole task of the social order lies in overcoming these external disorders, of course, with external reforms. Denying Providence and any original plan realized in history, a person puts himself here in the place of Providence and sees his savior in himself. This self-assessment is not hampered by the mechanical, sometimes crudely materialistic understanding of the historical process, which clearly contradicts it, which reduces it to the activity of elemental forces (as in economic materialism); man remains still the only rational, conscious agent, his own providence. This mood in the West, where it appeared already in the era of cultural flourishing and the felt power of man, is psychologically colored by the feeling of cultural complacency of the rich bourgeoisie. Although for a religious assessment this self-deification of European philistinism - equally in socialism and individualism - seems to be disgusting complacency and spiritual theft, a temporary dulling of consciousness, but in the West this man-deity, which had its own Sturm und Drang, has long ago become (no one, however, will say for how long) tame and calm, like European socialism. In any case, it is powerless for now to undermine (although it is slowly steadily doing so) the labor foundations of European culture and the spiritual health of the European peoples. The centuries-old tradition and historical discipline of labor practically still overcome the corrupting influence of self-deification. It’s different in Russia, with the rupture of the connection between historical times occurring here. The religion of man-divinity and its essence - self-deification in Russia were accepted not only with youthful fervor, but also with an adolescent ignorance of life and one’s own strengths, and received almost feverish forms. Inspired by her, our intelligentsia felt called to play the role of Providence regarding their homeland. She recognized herself as the only bearer of light and European education in this country, where everything, it seemed to her, was engulfed in impenetrable darkness; everything was so barbaric and alien. She recognized herself as her spiritual guardian and decided to save her, as she understood and as she could. The intelligentsia has taken a position of heroic challenge and heroic struggle in relation to Russian history and modernity, while relying on their self-esteem. Heroism is the word that expresses, in my opinion, the basic essence of the intelligentsia’s worldview and ideal, moreover, the heroism of self-deification. The entire economy of her mental strength is based on this feeling. The isolated position of the intellectual in the country, his isolation from the soil, the harsh historical environment, the lack of serious knowledge and historical experience inflated the psychology of this heroism. The intellectual, especially at times, fell into a state of heroic ecstasy, with a clearly hysterical tinge. Russia must be saved, and its savior can and must be the intelligentsia in general and even the name in particular, and besides him there is no savior and no salvation. Nothing affirms the psychology of heroism more than external persecution, persecution, struggle with its vicissitudes, danger and even death. And - we know - Russian history did not skimp on this, the Russian intelligentsia developed and grew in an atmosphere of continuous martyrdom, and one cannot help but bow before the shrine of the suffering of the Russian intelligentsia. But admiration for these sufferings in their vast past and difficult present, before the “cross”, voluntary or involuntary, will not force one to remain silent about what still remains the truth, about which one cannot remain silent, even in the name of reverence for the martyrology of the intelligentsia. So, suffering and persecution most of all canonize the hero both in his own eyes and for those around him. And, since, due to the sad peculiarities of Russian life, this fate often befalls already at a young age, this self-awareness also appears early and further life is then only a consistent development in the accepted direction. In the literature and from one’s own observations, one can easily find many examples of how, on the one hand, the police regime cripples people, depriving them of the opportunity for useful work, and how, on the other hand, it contributes to the development of a special spiritual aristocracy, so to speak, patented heroism in its victims. It’s bitter to think how much of the reflected influence of the police regime was in the psychology of Russian intellectual heroism, how great its influence was not only on the external destinies of people, but also on their souls, on their worldview. In any case, the influences of Western enlightenment, the religion of man-divinity and self-deification found an unexpected but powerful ally in Russian living conditions. If a young intellectual 3 - say, a student or student - still has doubts that he is already ripe for the historical mission of the savior of the fatherland, then recognition of this maturity on the part of M. vn. d. usually eliminates these doubts. The transformation of a Russian youth or yesterday's everyman into a heroic type due to the internal work required for this is a simple, mostly short-term process of assimilation of some tenets of the religion of man-deity and quasi - scientific “program” and a corresponding change in one’s own well-being, after which heroic buskins grow. In further development, suffering, embitterment due to the cruelty of the authorities, heavy sacrifices, losses complete the development of this type, which can then be characterized by anything but doubts about its mission. The heroic intellectual is therefore not content with the role of a humble worker (even if he is forced to limit himself to it); his dream is to be the savior of humanity, or at least the Russian people. What is needed for him (of course, in dreams) is not a guaranteed minimum, but a heroic maximum. Maximalism is an integral feature of intellectual heroism, which was revealed with such amazing clarity during the time of the Russian revolution. This is not affiliation to any one party, no - this is the very soul of heroism, for the hero does not put up with little at all. Even if he does not see the opportunity to realize this maximum now and will never see it, in his thoughts he is occupied only with him. He makes a historical leap in his imagination and, with little interest in the path he has jumped, fixes his gaze on a bright point, on the edge of the historical horizon. Such maximalism has signs of ideological obsession, self-hypnosis; it fetters thought and develops fanaticism, deaf to the voice of life. This also gives an answer to the historical question of why the most extreme trends triumphed in the revolution, while the immediate tasks of the moment were defined more and more to the maximum (up to the implementation of a social republic or anarchy). That’s why these more extreme and obviously insane trends became stronger and stronger and, with the general leftward movement of our cowardly and passive society, easily subject to force, pushed aside more and more moderate ones (just remember the hatred of the “cadets” on the part of the “left bloc”). Each hero has his own way of saving humanity and must develop his own program. Usually, for this, one of the programs of political parties or factions is adopted, which, without differing in their goals (usually, they are based on the ideals of materialist socialism, or, more recently, also anarchism), differ in their ways and means. It would be a mistake to think that these programs of political parties psychologically correspond to what they represent in the majority of parliamentary parties in the Western European world; it is something much more, it is a religious credo, the most certain way of saving humanity, an ideological monolith that can only be either accepted or rejected. In the name of faith in the program, the best representatives of the intelligentsia make sacrifices of life, health, freedom, and happiness. Although these programs are usually also declared “scientific”, which increases their charm, it is better not to talk about the degree of their actual “scientificness”, and, in any case, their most ardent adherents may, in terms of their degree of development and education, be bad judges in this matter. Although everyone feels like heroes, equally called to be providence and saviors, they do not agree on the methods and ways of this salvation. And, since program disagreements actually touch the very central strings of the soul, party discord becomes completely irremovable. The intelligentsia, suffering from “Jacobinism”, striving for a “seizure of power”, for a “dictatorship” in the name of saving the people, inevitably breaks up and disperses into factions warring among themselves, and this is felt the more acutely the higher the temperature of heroism rises. Intolerance and mutual strife are such well-known features of our party intelligentsia that it is enough just to mention it. Something like self-poisoning is happening to the intellectual movement. It follows from the very essence of heroism that it presupposes a passive object of influence, a people or humanity being saved, while the hero - personal or collective - is always thought of only in the singular. If there are several heroes and heroic means, then rivalry and discord are inevitable, because several “dictatorships” at the same time are impossible. Heroism, as a generally widespread attitude, is not a collecting principle, but a separating one; it creates not collaborators, but rivals. 4 Our intelligentsia, almost universally striving for collectivism, for the possible conciliarity of human existence, in its structure represents something anti-conciliar, anti-collectivist, for it carries within itself the dividing principle of heroic self-affirmation. The hero is, to some extent, a superman, becoming in relation to his neighbors in the proud and defiant pose of a savior, and with all their desire for democracy, the intelligentsia is only a special kind of spiritual aristocracy, arrogantly opposing itself to the “philistines”. Anyone who has lived in intellectual circles knows well this arrogance and conceit, the consciousness of one’s own infallibility and disdain for dissenters, and this abstract dogmatism into which every teaching is cast here. Due to their maximalism, the intelligentsia remains inaccessible to the arguments of historical realism and scientific knowledge. Socialism itself remains for her not a collective concept, denoting a gradual, socio-economic transformation, which is composed of a number of private and very specific reforms, not a “historical movement”, but a supra-historical “ultimate goal” (in the terminology of the famous dispute with Bernstein), to which it is necessary to make a historical leap through an act of intellectual heroism. Hence the lack of a sense of historical reality and the geometric straightforwardness of judgments and assessments, their notorious “principledness.” It seems that not a single word comes out of the mouth of an intellectual as often as this; he judges everything first of all “in principle,” that is, in fact, abstractly, without delving into the complexity of reality and thereby often freeing himself from the difficulty of properly assessing the situation. Anyone who has had to deal with intellectuals at work knows how expensive this intellectual “principled” impracticality is, sometimes leading to straining out a mosquito and devouring a camel. This same maximalism of hers constitutes the greatest obstacle to raising her education precisely in those issues that she considers her specialty, in social and political issues. For if you convince yourself that the goal and method of movement have already been established, and “scientifically” at that, then, of course, the interest in studying the intermediate, closest links weakens. Consciously or unconsciously, the intelligentsia lives in an atmosphere of expectation of a social miracle, a general cataclysm, in an eschatological mood 5 . Heroism strives to save humanity on its own and, moreover, by external means; hence the exclusive assessment of heroic deeds that embody the program of maximalism to the maximum extent. You need to move something, do something beyond your strength, and give up what is most precious to you, your life - this is the commandment of heroism. You can become a hero, and at the same time the savior of humanity, by a heroic act that goes far beyond the limits of ordinary duty. This dream, living in the intellectual soul, although feasible only for a few, serves as a general scale in judgments, a criterion for life assessments. To perform such an act is both unusually difficult, because it requires overcoming the strongest instincts of attachment to life and fear, and unusually simple, because it requires a volitional effort for a relatively short period of time, and the implied or expected results of this are considered so great. Sometimes the desire to leave life due to inability to cope with it, powerlessness to bear life’s burdens merges to the point of indistinguishability with heroic self-denial, so that you involuntarily ask yourself: is this heroism or suicide. Of course, the intellectual saints can name many such heroes who made suffering and prolonged volitional effort their entire life as a feat, however, despite the differences depending on the strength of individual individuals, this general tone remains the same. Obviously, such an attitude is much more adapted to the storms of history than to its calm, which torments the heroes. The greatest possibility of heroic deeds, irrational “elation,” exaltation, intoxication with struggle, creating an atmosphere of some kind of heroic adventurism - all this is the native element of heroism. That is why the power of revolutionary romanticism among our intelligentsia, its notorious “revolutionism,” is so great. We must not forget that the concept of revolution is negative, it does not have independent content, but is characterized only by the denial of what it destroys, therefore the pathos of revolution is hatred and destruction. But another one of the greatest Russian intellectuals, Bakunin, formulated the idea that the destructive spirit is at the same time a creative spirit, and this faith is the main nerve of the psychology of heroism. It simplifies the task of historical construction, because with such an understanding it requires, first of all, strong muscles and nerves, temperament and courage, and, reviewing the chronicles of the Russian revolution, one often remembers this understanding... The psychology of intellectual heroism is most appealing to such social groups and situations for which it is most natural in the entire sequence of straightforward maximalism. The most favorable combination of these conditions is represented by our students. Thanks to youth with its physiology and psychology, the lack of life experience and scientific knowledge, replaced by ardor and self-confidence, thanks to the privileged social position, which, however, does not reach the bourgeois isolation of Western students, our youth expresses with the greatest completeness the type of heroic maximalism. And if in Christianity eldership is the natural embodiment of spiritual experience and leadership, then among our intelligentsia such a role was naturally occupied by student youth. Spiritual pedocracy 6 is the greatest evil of our society, and at the same time a symptomatic manifestation of intellectual heroism, its main features, but in an emphasized and exaggerated form. This ugly relationship, in which the assessments and opinions of “student youth” turn out to be guiding for the elders, turns the natural order of things upside down and is equally detrimental to both the elders and the younger. Historically, this spiritual hegemony stands in connection with the truly advanced role that student youth played with their impulses in Russian history, but psychologically this is explained by the spiritual make-up of the intelligentsia, which remains for the rest of their lives - in their most tenacious and brightest representatives - the same student youth in their worldview. Hence the deeply regrettable and habitual indifference and, what is much worse, the tacit or even open approval with which we watch how our youth, without knowledge, without experience, but with a charge of intellectual heroism, takes on serious social experiments that are dangerous in their consequences, and, of course, with this activity they only strengthen the reaction. The fact of the very low age composition of groups with the most maximalist actions and programs has hardly been sufficiently noticed and appreciated. And, what is much worse, many people find this quite in the order of things. “Student” became a common name for an intellectual during the days of the revolution. Every age has its advantages, and youth with its hidden strengths has especially many of them. Those who care about the future are most concerned about the younger generation. But to be spiritually dependent on him, to curry favor with him, to fawn on his opinion, to take him as a criterion - this testifies to the spiritual weakness of society. In any case, it remains a signature of an entire historical period and the entire spiritual structure of intellectual heroism that the ideal of a Christian saint and ascetic was here replaced by the image of a revolutionary student. The maximalism of goals is also associated with the maximalism of means, which has sadly manifested itself in recent years. In this illegibility of means, in this heroic, “everything is permitted” (predetermined by Dostoevsky in “Crime and Punishment” and in “Demons”), the human-divine nature of intelligentsia heroism, its inherent self-deification, putting oneself in place of God, instead of Providence, is reflected to the greatest extent, and this is not only in goals and plans, but also in the ways and means of implementation. I realize my idea and for the sake of it I free myself from the bonds of ordinary morality, I allow myself the right not only to property, but also to the life and death of others, if this is necessary for my idea. In every maximalist there is a little Napoleon from socialism or anarchism. Immorality, or, in the old expression, nihilism, is a necessary consequence of self-deification; here the danger of self-destruction lurks, and inevitable failure awaits. And those bitter disappointments that many experienced in the revolution, that indelible picture of self-will, expropriation, mass terror, all this was not accidental, but was the revelation of those spiritual potentials that necessarily lie hidden in the psychology of self-deification 7 . The rise of heroism is actually accessible only to selected natures and, moreover, at exceptional moments in history, meanwhile life is made up of everyday life, and the intelligentsia does not consist of heroic natures alone. Without real heroism, or the possibility of its manifestation, heroism turns into a pretension, into a defiant pose; a special spirit of heroic hypocrisy and irresponsible criticism, constant “principled” opposition, an exaggerated sense of one’s rights and a weakened consciousness of duties and personal responsibility in general are developed. The most ordinary man in the street, who is not at all higher, and sometimes lower, than the environment, putting on an intellectual uniform, already begins to treat it with arrogance. This evil is especially noticeable in the life of our province. Self-deification on credit, but always making a hero, is capable of educating arrogants. Thanks to it, a person is deprived of absolute norms and unshakable principles of personal and social behavior, replacing them with self-will or self-made work. Nihilism is therefore a terrible scourge, a terrible spiritual ulcer that is corroding our society. The heroic “everything is allowed” is imperceptibly replaced by simply unprincipledness in everything that concerns personal life, personal behavior, which fills everyday life. This is one of the important reasons why we, with such an abundance of heroes, have so few simply decent, disciplined, able-bodied people, and those very heroic youth, according to whose course the older generation defines themselves, in life so imperceptibly and easily turn into either “superfluous people”, or into Chekhov and Gogol types and end up with wine and cards, if only not worse. Pushkin, with his truthfulness of genius, lifts the veil over the possible future of the tragically and untimely death of Lensky and sees behind it a very prosaic picture. Try to mentally do the same for another young man, now surrounded by the halo of a hero, and imagine him simply in the role of a worker after the affectation of heroism has faded, leaving an emptiness of nihilism in his soul. It is not for nothing that the intellectual poet Nekrasov, the author of “A Knight for an Hour,” felt that early death is the best apotheosis of intellectual heroism. Don't cry so madly over him: Merciless vulgarity not a shadow I didn’t have time to put it on it, etc. This same heroic affectation, superficial and fragile, explains the amazing instability of intellectual tastes, beliefs, and moods, changing at the whim of fashion. Many now stand in surprise at the change of mood that has taken place in recent years, from a heroically revolutionary mood to a nihilistic and pornographic one, as well as at this epidemic of suicides, which it is wrong to explain only by political reaction and the difficult impressions of Russian life. But this alternation and this hysteria seem natural for the intelligentsia, and it itself did not change in its being, which was only more fully revealed during this change of historical holiday and everyday life; False heroism does not go unpunished. The spiritual state of the intelligentsia cannot but inspire serious concern. And the greatest concern is raised by the young, rising generation and especially by the fate of intellectual children. The lifeless intelligentsia, divorced from the organic structure of life, not having its own solid foundations, with its atheism, straightforward rationalism and general looseness and unprincipledness in everyday life, passes on these qualities to its children, with the only difference that our children, even in childhood, remain deprived of those healthy juices that their parents received from the people. I am afraid that the features of degeneration should appear with increasing speed. The concepts of personal morality, personal self-improvement, and personality development are extremely unpopular among the intelligentsia and, conversely, the word social has a special sacramental character. Although the intelligentsia's attitude towards the world represents extreme self-affirmation of the individual, his self-deification, in their theories the intelligentsia mercilessly persecutes this very individual, sometimes reducing it completely to the influence of the environment and the spontaneous forces of history (according to the general teaching of the Enlightenment). The intelligentsia does not want to admit that the individual contains living creative energy, and remains deaf to everything that approaches this problem: deaf not only to Christian teaching, but even to the teaching of Tolstoy (which nevertheless contains a healthy grain of personal self-deepening) and to all philosophical teachings that force one to reckon with it. Meanwhile, the absence of a correct doctrine of personality lies in its main weakness. The perversion of personality, the falsity of the very ideal for its development is the root cause from which the weaknesses and shortcomings of our intelligentsia, its historical failure, stem. The intelligentsia needs to straighten itself not from the outside, but from the inside, and only it itself can do this, through a free spiritual feat, invisible, but quite real. The peculiar nature of intellectual heroism becomes clearer to us if we compare it with the opposite spiritual image - Christian heroism or, more precisely, Christian asceticism 8, for a hero in Christianity is an ascetic. The main difference here is not so much external as internal, religious. A hero who puts himself in the role of Providence, thanks to this spiritual usurpation, ascribes to himself greater responsibility than he can bear, and greater tasks than are available to man. A Christian ascetic believes in God the Provider, without whose will a hair does not fall from his head. History and an individual human life appear in his eyes as the implementation of God’s construction, although incomprehensible to him in individual details, before which he humbles himself by the feat of faith. Thanks to this, he is immediately freed from heroic poses and pretensions. His attention is focused on his direct business, his actual duties and their strict, strict execution. Of course, both the determination and fulfillment of these duties sometimes requires no less breadth of outlook and knowledge than intellectual heroism claims. However, attention here is focused on the consciousness of personal duty and its fulfillment, on self-control, and this shifting the focus of attention to oneself and one’s responsibilities, liberation from the false sense of well-being of the uncalled savior of the world and the pride inevitably associated with it, heals the soul, filling it with a sense of healthy Christian humility. Dostoevsky called the Russian intelligentsia to this spiritual self-denial, to the sacrifice of their proud intellectual “I” in the name of the highest shrine in his Pushkin speech: “Humble yourself, proud man, and first of all break your pride... You will conquer yourself, you will humble yourself, and you will become free as you never imagined, and you will begin a great work and you will make others free, and you will see happiness, for your life will be filled”... 9. There is no word more unpopular among the intelligentsia than humility; there are few concepts that are subject to greater misunderstanding and distortion, about which intellectual demagoguery could so easily sharpen its teeth, and this, perhaps, best testifies to the spiritual nature of the intelligentsia, exposes its proud heroism, based on self-deification. At the same time, humility is, according to the unanimous testimony of the Church, the first and fundamental Christian virtue, but even outside of Christianity it is a very valuable quality, testifying in any case to a high level of spiritual development. It is easy for an intellectual to understand that, for example, a real scientist, as his knowledge deepens and expands, only more acutely feels the abyss of his ignorance, so that the success of knowledge is accompanied for him by an increasing understanding of his ignorance, an increase in intellectual humility, as is confirmed by the biographies of great scientists. And, conversely, self-confident complacency or the hope of achieving complete, satisfying knowledge on one’s own is a sure and indispensable symptom of scientific immaturity or simply youth. The same feeling of deep dissatisfaction with his work, its inconsistency with the ideals of beauty, the tasks of art, distinguishes a real artist, for whom his work inevitably becomes torment, although in it he only finds his life. Without this feeling of eternal dissatisfaction with one's creations, which can be called humility before beauty, there is no true artist. The same feeling of limited individual strength in the face of expanding tasks embraces the philosophical thinker, the statesman, the social politician, etc. But if the naturalness and necessity of humility is relatively easy to understand in these particular areas of human activity, then why is it so difficult in relation to the central area of ​​spiritual life, namely, moral and religious self-examination? This is where the decisive importance of one or another higher criterion, an ideal for the individual is revealed: whether this criterion of self-test is given by the image of the perfect Divine personality embodied in Christ, or by a self-deified person in one or another of his earthly limited shells (humanity, people, proletariat, superman), i.e., in the end, by his own “I”, but who has stood before himself in a heroic pose. The refined spiritual gaze of the ascetic in a limited person, distorted by sin and passions and, above all, in himself, reveals more and more new imperfections, the sense of distance from the ideal increases, in other words, the moral development of the individual is accompanied by an increasing awareness of his imperfections or, what is the same, is expressed in humility before God and in “walking with God” (as this is constantly explained in church, patristic literature). And this difference between heroic and Christian self-esteem penetrates into all the bends of the soul, into all well-being. Due to the absence of an ideal of the individual (more precisely, its perversion), everything that concerns the religious culture of the individual, its development, discipline, inevitably remains completely neglected among the intelligentsia. It lacks those absolute norms and values ​​that are necessary for this culture and are given only in religion. And, above all, there is no concept of sin and a feeling of sin, so much so that the word sin sounds to the intelligentsia’s ear as almost wild and alien as humility. The whole power of sin, its tormenting severity, the comprehensiveness and depth of its influence on all human life, in a word - the whole tragedy of the sinful state of man, the outcome of which in God’s eternal plan only Golgotha ​​could give, all this remains outside the field of consciousness of the intelligentsia, who are, as it were, in religious childhood, not above sin, but below its consciousness. She believed, together with Rousseau and with all the enlightenment, that natural man is good by nature, and that the doctrine of original sin and the fundamental corruption of human nature is a superstitious myth that has nothing corresponding in moral experience. Therefore, in general, there cannot and should not be any special concern for the culture of the individual (about such despicable “self-improvement”), and all energy should be entirely spent on the struggle to improve the environment. By declaring the personality to be entirely its product, this same personality is offered to improve this environment, like Baron Munchausen pulling himself out of the swamp by his hair. This lack of a sense of sin and at least some timidity before it explains many features of the mental and lifestyle of the intelligentsia, and - alas! - many sad aspects and events of our revolution, as well as the spiritual insanity that followed it. Our intelligentsia fed and feeds itself with many savory dishes from the table of Western civilization, completely upsetting its already spoiled stomach; Isn’t it time to remember simple, coarse, but certainly healthy and nutritious food, about the old Mosaic Decalogue, in order to then reach the New Testament!.. Heroic maximalism is projected entirely outward, in achieving external goals; Regarding personal life, outside the heroic act and everything connected with it, he turns out to be minimalism, that is, he simply leaves it out of his attention. Hence its unsuitability for developing a stable, disciplined, efficient personality, standing on its own two feet, and not on the wave of public hysteria, which then gives way to decline. The entire type of intelligentsia is determined by this combination of minimalism and maximalism, in which maximum claims can be made, with minimal preparation of the individual both in the field of science and life experience and self-discipline, which is so clearly expressed in the unnatural hegemony of student youth, in our spiritual pedocracy. The world is perceived differently by Christian asceticism. I will not dwell much on clarifying what is the goal of world and historical development in atheistic and Christian faith: in the first - the happiness of the last generations, triumphant on the bones and blood of their ancestors, however, in turn, also subject to the inexorable fate of death (not to mention the possibility of natural disasters), in the second - faith in the general resurrection, a new earth and a new heaven, when “God will be all in all.” Obviously, no positive atheistic maximalism in its faith even remotely approaches Christian teaching. But it is not this aspect of the matter that interests us here, but how this and that teaching is refracted in the life of the individual and his psychology. And in this regard, in complete contrast to the pride of intellectual heroism, Christian asceticism is, first of all, maximalism in personal life, in the demands placed on oneself; on the contrary, the severity of external maximalism is completely eliminated here. A Christian hero or ascetic (according to our, of course, somewhat conventional terminology), without setting himself the tasks of Providence and without, therefore, linking the destinies of history and humanity with his own, or anyone else’s, individual effort, sees in his activity primarily the fulfillment of his duty to God, God’s commandment addressed to him. He is obliged to fulfill it with the greatest completeness, as well as to show possible energy and dedication in finding what constitutes his work and duty; in a certain sense, he must also strive for maximalism of actions, but in a completely different sense. One of the most common misunderstandings regarding humility (however, it is presented not only bona, but also mala fide) is that Christian humility, the internal and invisible feat of struggle with selfishness, with self-will, with self-deification, is certainly interpreted as external passivity, as reconciliation with evil; as inaction and even sycophancy 10 or as non-doing in the external sense, and Christian asceticism is confused with one of its many forms, albeit a very important one, namely monasticism. But asceticism, as an internal structure of the individual, is compatible with any external activity, since it does not contradict its principles. They are especially willing to contrast Christian humility with a “revolutionary” mood. Without going into this issue in detail, I will point out that the revolution, that is, certain political actions, in itself does not prejudge the question of the spirit and ideals that inspire it. The speech of Dmitry Donskoy, with the blessing of St. Sergius, against the Tatars is a revolutionary action in the political sense, as an uprising against the legitimate government, but at the same time, I think, in the souls of the participants it was an act of Christian asceticism, inextricably linked with the feat of humility. And, on the contrary, the newest revolution, as based on atheism, in its spirit is very far from not only Christian humility, but also Christianity in general. In the same way, there is a huge spiritual difference between the Puritan English revolution and the atheistic French one, as well as between Cromwell and Marat or Robespierre, between Ryleev or in general the believers of the Decembrists and the later leaders of the revolution. In fact, given the presence of appropriate historical circumstances, of course, individual acts called heroic are completely compatible with the psychology of Christian asceticism, but they are committed not in their own name, but in the name of God, not heroically, but ascetics, and even with external similarities with heroism, their religious psychology still remains different from it. “The kingdom of heaven is taken by force, and those who use force delight it” (Matthew 11:12), “effort” is required from everyone, the maximum effort of his strength to accomplish good, but even such effort does not yet give the right to a sense of heroism, to spiritual pride, for it is only the fulfillment of duty: “when you have fulfilled everything commanded to you, say: we are worthless slaves, because we did what we had to do” ( Luke 17:10). Christian asceticism is continuous self-control, the fight against the lower, sinful sides of one’s self, asceticism of the spirit. If heroism is characterized by outbursts, the search for great deeds, then here, on the contrary, the norm is the evenness of the flow, “measuredness”, endurance, unrelenting self-discipline, patience and endurance - qualities that are precisely absent among the intelligentsia. Faithful fulfillment of one's duty, each bearing his own cross, denying himself (that is, not only in the external sense, but even more in the internal sense), leaving everything else to Providence - these are the features of true asceticism. In monastic life there is an excellent expression for this religious-practical idea: obedience. This is the name of any occupation assigned to a monk, no matter whether it is scientific work or the crudest physical work, as long as it is performed in the name of religious duty. This concept can be extended beyond the monastery and applied to any work, whatever it may be. A doctor and an engineer, a professor and a politician, a manufacturer and his worker alike, in the performance of their duties, can be guided not by their personal interests, spiritual or material - it doesn’t matter, but by conscience, the dictates of duty, and be obedient. This discipline of obedience, “secular asceticism” (in the German expression: “innerweltliche Askese”), had a huge influence on the development of personality in Western Europe in various fields of work, and this development is still felt. The flip side of intellectual maximalism is historical impatience, lack of historical sobriety, the desire to cause a social miracle, and the practical denial of theoretically professed evolutionism. On the contrary, the discipline of “obedience” should contribute to the development of historical sobriety, self-control, and endurance; it teaches to bear the historical burden, with the yoke of historical obedience, it fosters a sense of connection with the past and appreciation for this past, which is now so easily forgotten for the sake of the future, it restores the moral connection of children with their fathers. On the contrary, humanistic progress is contempt for fathers, disgust for one’s past and its complete condemnation, historical and often even simply personal ingratitude, legitimizing the spiritual strife between fathers and children. The hero creates history according to his plan; he, as it were, begins history out of himself, considering existing things as material or a passive object for influence. The severance of the historical connection in feeling and will becomes inevitable. The parallel drawn allows us to draw a general conclusion about the relationship between intellectual heroism and Christian asceticism. Despite some external similarity between them, there is no internal affinity, no even subsurface contact. The task of heroism is the external salvation of humanity (more precisely, the future part of it) on one’s own, according to one’s own plan, “in one’s own name.” A hero is one who realizes his idea to the greatest extent, even if he breaks his life for it, this is a man-god. The task of Christian asceticism is to transform your life into invisible self-denial, obedience, to perform your work with all the effort, self-discipline, self-control, but to see in it and in yourself only an instrument of Providence. A Christian saint is one who, to the greatest extent, has transformed his personal will and his entire empirical personality through continuous and unrelenting feat to the fullest possible penetration of the will of God. The image of the fullness of this penetration is the God-Man, who came “to do not his own will, but the Father who sent Him” and “coming in the name of the Lord.” The difference between Christianity (at least in its ethical teaching) and intellectual heroism, which historically borrowed from Christianity some of its most basic dogmas - and above all the idea of ​​​​the equal value of people, the absolute dignity of the human person, equality and brotherhood - is now generally tended to be downplayed rather than exaggerated. This was facilitated, first of all, by the intelligentsia’s misunderstanding of the entire real gap between atheism and Christianity, due to which they more than once “corrected” the image of Christ with the usual self-confidence, freeing him from “church distortions” by portraying him as a social democrat or a socialist revolutionary. An example of this was set by the father of the Russian intelligentsia, Belinsky 11. This tasteless and unbearable operation for religious feelings was performed more than once. However, the intelligentsia itself is not at all interested in this rapprochement as such, resorting to it primarily for political purposes or for the convenience of “agitation.” Much more subtle and seductive is another, no less blasphemous lie, which in various forms has begun to be repeated especially often lately, namely the assertion that intellectual maximalism and revolutionism, the spiritual basis of which is, as we have seen, atheism, essentially differs from Christianity only in religious unawareness. It is enough to replace the name of Marx or Mikhailovsky with the name of Christ, and “Capital” with the Gospel or, even better, the Apocalypse (for the convenience of quoting it), or you can even not change anything, but you just need to strengthen its revolutionary nature and continue the intellectual revolution, and then a new religious consciousness will be born from it (as if there were no examples in history of a sufficiently continued intellectual revolution, with the discovery of all its spiritual potentials, namely the great French Revolution). If before the revolution it was still easy to confuse the suffering and persecuted intellectual, bearing on his shoulders the heroic struggle against bureaucratic absolutism, with a Christian martyr, then after the spiritual self-discovery of the intelligentsia during the revolution, this became much more difficult. At the present time, one can also observe the intellectual counterfeiting of Christianity, especially characteristic of our era, the assimilation of Christian words and ideas while maintaining the entire spiritual appearance of intellectual heroism. Each of us, a Christian intellectual, deeply finds this spiritual fold in himself. The easiest way for intellectual heroism, dressed in Christian clothes and sincerely accepting its intellectual experiences and habitual heroic pathos as Christian righteous anger, is to manifest itself in church revolutionism, in opposition to its new holiness, new religious consciousness to the untruths of the “historical” church. Such a Christian intellectual, sometimes unable to truly satisfy the average requirements of a member of the “historical church,” most easily feels like Martin Luther or, even moreover, a prophetic bearer of a new religious consciousness, called upon not only to renew church life, but also to create new forms of it, almost a new religion. Also in the field of secular politics, the most ordinary intellectual maximalism, which constitutes the content of revolutionary programs, is simply seasoned with Christian terminology or texts and offered as true Christianity in politics. This is intellectual Christianity, which leaves untouched what is most anti-religious in intellectual heroism, namely its mental structure, is a compromise of opposing principles, which has a temporary and transitional significance and does not have independent vitality 12. It is not needed by true intellectual heroism and is impossible for Christianity. Christianity is jealous, like any other religion; it is strong in a person only when it takes him entirely, his whole soul, heart, will. And there is no need to shade or soften this contrast. Just as between the martyrs of early Christianity and the revolution, in essence, there is no internal similarity, despite all the external identity of their feat, so between intellectual heroism and Christian asceticism, even with the external similarity of their manifestations (which, however, can only be admitted partially, and conditionally), there remains an abyss, and it is impossible to be on both sides of it at the same time. One must die in order for the other to be born, and as one dies, the other grows and strengthens. This is the true relationship between both world relations. You need to “repent”, i.e. reconsider, change your mind and condemn your previous mental life in its depths and bends in order to be reborn to a new life. That is why the first word of the preaching of the Gospel is a call to repentance based on self-knowledge and self-esteem. “Repent (μετανοεῖτε), for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:1–2; 4:17; Mark 1:14–15). A new soul must be born, a new inner man who will grow, develop and strengthen in the feat of life. This is not about changing political or party programs (outside of which the intelligentsia usually does not think of renewal), not about programs at all, but about much more - about the human personality itself, not about activity, but about the doer. This rebirth takes place invisibly in the human soul, but if invisible agents turn out to be the strongest even in the physical world, then their moral power cannot be denied on the sole grounds that it is not provided for in special paragraphs of the programs. For the Russian intelligentsia, there lies ahead a slow and difficult path of personal re-education, on which there are no leaps, no cataclysms, and only persistent self-discipline wins. Russia needs new leaders in all fields of life: state - to implement “reforms”, economic - to improve the national economy, cultural - to work for the benefit of Russian education, church - to raise the strength of the teaching church, its clergy and hierarchy. New people, if Russia waits for them, will, of course, look for new practical ways for their service, and, in addition to existing programs, and - I believe - they will open up to their selfless search 13. In its attitude towards the people, whose service the intelligentsia sets as its task, it constantly and inevitably fluctuates between two extremes - people-worship and spiritual aristocracy. The need for people-worship in one form or another (whether in the form of the old populism, originating from Herzen and based on faith in the socialist spirit of the Russian people, or in the newest, Marxist form, where instead of the whole people the same properties are attributed to one part of it, namely the “proletariat”) flows from the very foundations of the intelligentsia’s faith. But the opposite necessarily follows from it - an arrogant attitude towards the people, as an object of saving influence, as a minor in need of a nanny to educate them to “consciousness”, unenlightened in the intelligentsia sense of the word. Our literature has many times pointed out the spiritual isolation of our intelligentsia from the people. According to Dostoevsky, it was already prophetically predicted by Pushkin, first in the image of the eternal wanderer Aleko, and then Eugene Onegin, who discovered a whole series of “superfluous people.” And, indeed, the feelings of a blood historical connection, sympathetic interest, love for one’s history, and aesthetic perception of it are surprisingly few among the intelligentsia; two colors predominate on its palette, black for the past and pink for the future (and, in contrast, the more clearly appears the spiritual greatness and sharpness of sight of our great writers, who, descending into the depths of Russian history, extracted from there “Boris Godunov”, “Song of the Merchant” Kalashnikov", "War and Peace"). History is, most often, material for the application of theoretical schemes that dominate the minds of a given time (for example, the theory of class struggle) or for publicistic and propaganda purposes. The cosmopolitanism of the Russian intelligentsia is also known 14 . Brought up on abstract schemes of enlightenment, the intellectual most naturally takes the pose of the Marquis of Pose, feels like a Weltbürger, and this cosmopolitanism of emptiness, the absence of a healthy national feeling, which impedes the development of national self-consciousness, is associated with the non-nationality of the intelligentsia. The intelligentsia had not yet thought through the national problem, which occupied the minds of only Slavophiles, being content with “natural” explanations of the origin of the nationality (starting from Chernyshevsky, who carefully destroyed the independent significance of the national problem 15, to modern Marxists, who completely dissolve it in the class struggle). The national idea is based not only on ethnographic and historical foundations, but primarily on religious and cultural ones; it is based on religious and cultural messianism, into which every conscious national feeling is necessarily cast. This is how it was with the greatest bearer of the religious-messianic idea - ancient Israel, and this is how it remains with every great historical people. The desire for national autonomy, for the preservation of nationality, for its protection is only a negative expression of this idea, which has value only in connection with its implied positive content. This is precisely how the greatest exponents of our national consciousness understood the national idea - Dostoevsky, the Slavophiles, Vl. Soloviev, who connected it with the world tasks of the Russian church or Russian culture. Such an understanding of the national idea should not at all lead to nationalist exclusivity; on the contrary, it only positively substantiates the idea of ​​​​the brotherhood of peoples, and not nationless, atomized “citizens” or “proletarians of all countries” who renounce their homeland. The idea of ​​nationality, thus understood, is one of the necessary positive conditions for the progress of civilization. With their cosmopolitanism, our intelligentsia, of course, throws off many difficulties that inevitably arise in the practical development of national issues, 16 but this is bought at the dear price of the death of an entire side of the soul, moreover, directly addressed to the people, and that is why, by the way, this cosmopolitanism is so easily exploited by representatives of militant, chauvinistic nationalism, who, thanks to this, have a monopoly of patriotism. But this is not even what creates the deepest gap between the intelligentsia and the people, since this is still only a derivative difference; The main difference remains the attitude towards religion. The people's worldview and spiritual way of life are determined by the Christian faith. No matter how far the distance between ideal and reality may be, no matter how dark and unenlightened our people may be, their ideal is Christ and His teaching, 17 and the norm is Christian asceticism. What, if not asceticism, was the entire history of our people, with the Tatars oppressing them first, then the Moscow and St. Petersburg statehood, with this centuries-old historical burden, standing at the post of guarding Western civilization both from wild peoples and from the sands of Asia, in this cruel climate, with eternal hunger strikes, cold, suffering. If our people could endure all this and retain their spiritual strength, come out alive, even if crippled, it was only because they had a source of spiritual strength in their faith and in the ideals of Christian asceticism, which formed the basis of their national health and vitality. Like the lamps that glowed in monastic monasteries 18, where people flocked for centuries, seeking moral support and teaching, these ideals, this light of Christ, shone for Rus', and, since it possesses this light, our people - I will say this without hesitation - despite all their illiteracy, are more enlightened than their intelligentsia. But it was precisely at this central point that the intelligentsia treated and still treats everything that concerns the people’s faith with complete misunderstanding and even contempt. Therefore, the contact between the intelligentsia and the people is, first of all, a clash of two faiths, two religions, and the influence of the intelligentsia is expressed primarily by the fact that, while destroying the people’s religion, it also corrupts the people’s soul, shifting it from its hitherto unshakable age-old foundations. But what does she give in return? How does she herself understand the tasks of public education? She understands them in an educational way, that is, first of all, as the development of the mind and the enrichment of knowledge. However, due to a lack of time, opportunity and, more importantly, education among the enlighteners themselves, this task is replaced by a dogmatic presentation of the teachings that are dominant at a given time in a given party (all this, of course, under the guise of the most rigorous scientificity), or by the communication of scattered knowledge from different areas. At the same time, our general lack of culture, the lack of schools, teaching aids and, above all, the lack of simple literacy, have a strong impact. In any case, the task of enlightenment in the intellectual sense is placed ahead of initial education, i.e. messages of basic knowledge or just literacy. For intellectual educators, these tasks are inextricably linked with political and party tasks, for which superficial enlightenment is only a necessary means. We have all already seen how the people's soul shuddered after it was inoculated with a significant dose of enlightenment in the indicated sense, how regrettable was its reaction to this spiritual emptiness in the form of an increase in crime, first under an ideological pretext, and then without this pretext 19 . The intelligentsia mistakenly thinks that Russian enlightenment and Russian culture can be built on atheism as a spiritual foundation, with complete disregard for the religious culture of the individual and with the replacement of all this by the simple communication of knowledge. The human personality is not only intellect, but first of all will, character, and neglect of this cruelly avenges itself. The destruction of centuries-old religious and moral foundations among the people frees the dark elements in them, of which there are so many in Russian history, deeply poisoned by the evil Tatars and the instincts of nomadic conquerors. In the historical soul of the Russian people, the covenants of the monastery of St. Sergius and the Zaporozhye Sich or the freemen who filled the regiments of impostors, Razin and Pugachev 20.: And these formidable, unorganized, elemental forces in their destructive nihilism only apparently approach the revolutionary intelligentsia, although it is accepted by them for revolutionism in its own spirit; in fact they are of very old origin, much older than the intelligentsia itself. They were overcome with difficulty by Russian statehood, which placed external borders on them and fettered them, but they were not completely defeated by it. Intellectual enlightenment, with one side of its influence, awakens these dormant instincts and returns Russia to the chaotic state that weakens it and which it overcame with such difficulties and sacrifices in history. These are the lessons of recent years, the morality of the revolution among the people. This explains the main reasons for the deep spiritual strife that is tearing Russia apart in modern times; splitting it, as it were, into two incompatible halves, into a right and left block, into the Black Hundreds and the Red Hundreds. Division into parties, based on differences in political opinions, social status, property interests, is a common and widespread phenomenon in countries with popular representation and, in a certain sense, is an inevitable evil, but this division nowhere penetrates so deeply and does not violate the spiritual and cultural unity of the nation to such an extent as in Russia. Even the socialist parties of Western Europe, which most distinguish themselves from the general composition of “bourgeois” society, in fact remain its organic members and do not destroy the integrity of culture. Our distinction between right and left is different in that it is based not only on the difference in political ideals, but also, in the overwhelming majority, on the difference in worldviews or faiths. If we look for a more accurate historical comparison in the history of Western Europe, it is much more similar to the division of Catholics and Protestants with the resulting religious wars in the era of the Reformation, rather than to the current political parties. It is enough to decompose this right and left block into its basic spiritual elements to see this. Russian enlightenment, which the Russian intelligentsia is called upon to serve, had to fight against the age-old Tatarism, deeply ingrained in various aspects of our life, against the arbitrariness of bureaucratic absolutism and its unsuitability for the state, previously against serfdom, against the institution of corporal punishment, currently against the institution of the death penalty, against the rudeness of morals, and generally to fight for better living conditions. This is what the ideal content of the so-called liberation movement boils down to, the difficulty and weight of which the intelligentsia took on their shoulders, and in this struggle won numerous crowns of martyrdom. But, unfortunately for Russian life, she connected this struggle inextricably with her negative worldview. Therefore, for those who held the treasure of the people’s faith dear and who felt called to protect it, first of all, for the people of the church, the need arose to fight against intellectual influences on the people in order to protect their faith. The struggle of political and cultural ideals was mixed with religious strife, the full seriousness of which, together with all its threatening significance for the future of Russia, our intelligentsia is still not able to sufficiently understand. The almost complete departure of the intelligentsia from the church and the cultural isolation in which this latter found itself, as a result, resulted in a further deterioration of the historical situation. It goes without saying that for someone who believes in the mystical life of the Church, one or another of its empirical shells at a given historical moment is not of decisive importance; whatever it may be, it cannot and should not give rise to doubts about the final triumph and obvious enlightenment of the church for everyone. But, reasoning empirically and considering the Russian local church as a factor in historical development, we cannot consider the fact that almost all of the Russian educated class is atheist to be unimportant. Such bloodletting, of course, could not but affect the cultural and mental level of the remaining church leaders. Among the intelligentsia there is usually gloating over the numerous ills of church life, which we do not at all want to reduce or deny (however, all the positive aspects of church life remain incomprehensible or unknown to the intelligentsia). But does the intelligentsia have a real right for such criticism of church life, while it itself remains with the same indifferentism or fundamental denial of religion, while it sees only darkness and idiocy in religion? A church intelligentsia that would combine true Christianity with an enlightened and clear understanding of cultural and historical tasks (which is so often lacking in modern church leaders), if one were to be born, would respond to an urgent historical and national need. And even if during this period they had to undergo persecution and persecution, which the intelligentsia endures so much in the name of their atheistic ideals, then this would have had enormous historical, religious and moral significance and would have resonated in a very special way in the soul of the people. But while the intelligentsia uses all the power of its education to decompose the people's faith, its defense with sad inevitability increasingly takes on the character of a struggle not only against the intelligentsia, but also against enlightenment, since it actually spreads only through the intelligentsia - obscurantism becomes a means of defending religion. This unnatural situation for both sides, which has worsened in recent years, makes our current situation especially painful. And to this is added the fact that the struggle with the intelligentsia in defense of the people's faith is used as a pretext by self-interested supporters of reaction, swindlers, fishermen in troubled waters, and all this is woven into one historical and psychological tangle, habitual trains of thought are developed, historical associations of ideas that begin to be considered by both their supporters and opponents as internally binding and indissoluble. Both poles become increasingly charged with dissimilar electricity. On this ugly scale, actual groupings of people into camps are established, and a corresponding psychological environment, conservative, despotic, is created. The nation is split in two, and its best forces are wasted in a fruitless struggle. This situation was created by our entire spiritual past, and the task of time is to overcome this division, to rise above it, realizing that it is based not on internal, ideal necessity, but only on the power of historical fact. It's time to start unraveling this Gordian knot of our history. The soul of the Russian intelligentsia, like all Russian life, is woven from contradictions, and it arouses contradictory feelings within itself. You can’t help but love her, and you can’t help but be repulsed by her. Along with negative traits, which are a symptom of lack of culture, historical immaturity and force us to strive to overcome the intelligentsia, in its suffering appearance, traits of spiritual beauty shine through, which make it look like some very special, expensive and delicate flower, nurtured by our harsh history; as if she herself was that “red flower”, saturated with tears and blood, which was seen by one of its noblest representatives, the great-hearted Garshin. Along with the antichrist principle, the highest religious potentials, a new historical flesh awaiting its spiritualization, are also felt in this intelligentsia. This intense search for the City of God, the desire to fulfill the will of God on earth, as in heaven, is deeply different from the attraction of petty-bourgeois culture to lasting earthly well-being. Ugly intellectual maximalism with its practical unsuitability is a consequence of religious perversion, but it can be defeated by religious recovery. The religious nature of the Russian intelligentsia. Dostoevsky in “Demons” compared Russia and, above all, its intelligentsia with the evangelical demoniac, who was healed only by Christ and could find health and restoration of strength only at the feet of the Savior. This comparison remains valid today. A legion of demons has entered the gigantic body of Russia and is shaking it in convulsions, tormenting and maiming. Only through a religious feat, invisible but great, is it possible to heal her, to free her from this legion. The intelligentsia rejected Christ, they turned away from His face, tore His image from their hearts, deprived themselves of the inner light of life, and are paying, together with their homeland, for this betrayal, for this religious suicide. But it’s strange - she is unable to forget about this heart wound, restore peace of mind, calm down after the devastation she has caused to herself. Having abandoned Christ, she bears His stamp on her heart and rushes about in unconscious longing for Him, not knowing how to quench her spiritual thirst. And this restless anxiety, this unearthly dream of an unearthly truth puts its special imprint on her, makes her so strange, frantic, unbalanced, as if possessed. Like that beautiful Shulamite who lost her groom: on her bed at night, through the streets and squares, she looked for the one whom her soul loved, asked the city guards if they had seen her beloved, but the guards going around the city, instead of answering, only beat and wounded her (Ps. 3:1-3;4,1). Meanwhile, the Beloved, the One for whom her soul yearns, is close. He stands and knocks on this heart, a proud, rebellious, intelligent heart... Will His knock ever be heard?.. In the essay “Religion and the Intelligentsia” (Russkaya Mysl, 1908. III; published separately. Wed. This is what my essay “Herzen’s Mental Drama” is about in the collection “From Marxism to Idealism” and in a separate publication. A word or two may be missing - this place is hushed up in the book. – Wikisource Editor's Note. Discord is, of course, also observed in the history of Christian and other religious sects and confessions. To a certain extent, the psychology of heroism is observed here, but these divisions, however, also have their own special reasons that are not related to it. There is no need to show how different this atheistic eschatology is from Christian eschatology. Pedocracy is the rule of children. The revelations associated with the name of Azef revealed how far this promiscuity in means can go with heroic maximalism, in which one no longer distinguishes where the revolutionary ends and the security guard or provocateur begins. Carlyle, in his book “Heroes and the Heroic in History,” under the name of heroism, describes a spiritual disposition, which, according to the terminology we accept, approaches the type of asceticism and, in any case, differs significantly from atheistic heroism. Collection Op. F. M. Dostoevsky, ed. 6th, vol. XII, p. 425. Of course, everything allows for counterfeiting and distortion, and the name of humility is and has been used to cover up traits that actually have nothing in common with it, in particular, cowardly and hypocritical sycophancy (just as intellectual heroism and revolutionism often hide licentiousness and hooliganism). The higher the virtue, the more evil its caricatures and distortions. But it is not by them that one should judge its essence. Belinsky wrote in his famous letter to Gogol, this fiery and classic expression of the intellectual mood: “What have you found in common between Christ and any, and especially the Orthodox Church? He was the first to announce to people the teachings of freedom, equality and brotherhood, and through martyrdom he sealed and established the truth of his teaching... But the meaning of Christ’s teaching was discovered by the philosophical movement of the last century.” (V.G. Belinsky. Letter to Gogol. With a preface by S.A. Vengerov. S.-P.B. 1905, p. 13). I take all these questions in their psychological formulation, leaving aside consideration of their essence. Post-scriptum pro domo sua. Regarding the harsh characterization of the intelligentsia's way of life (chapters III-V), I may be reproached that I am pronouncing judgment here on selfless, suffering, persecuted people, at least I myself have asked this question more than once. But no matter how lowly I think about myself, I feel an obligation (at least as a public “obedience”) to say everything that I see, what lies in my heart as the result of everything I have experienced, felt, changed my mind about the intelligentsia; this commands me a sense of responsibility and painful anxiety both for the intelligentsia and for Russia. But when criticizing the spiritual appearance and ideals of the intelligentsia, I do not at all mean to judge individual individuals, just as when I present my ideal, the truth of which I am convinced, I do not at all mean that I myself am closer to it than others. And is it possible to feel closer to the absolute ideal?.. But calling for it, pointing it out to those who do not see it is not only possible, but also must. It’s better to keep silent about the peculiar and ominous expression that he received during the Russian-Japanese War, so as not to poison these burning and painful memories. In his notes to the “Foundations of Political Economy” D. St. Millya. Therefore, the real movement of “neo-Slavism” remains fundamentally unfounded. “Even if there is atrocity and sin in our people, this is what is undeniable in it: this is precisely the fact that in its entirety, at least, it never accepts and will not want to accept its sin as truth... Sin is a transitory matter, but Christ is eternal. The people sin and commit dirty tricks every day, but in their best moments, in Christ’s moments, they will never be mistaken in the truth. That is precisely what is important is what the people believe in as their truth, what they believe it to be, how they imagine it, what they set as their best desire, what they love, what they ask from God, what they cry for in prayer. And the ideal of the people is Christ. And with Christ, of course, enlightenment, and in their highest, fatal moments, our people always decide and have always decided every common national matter in a Christian way” (F. M. Dostoevsky, complete collection of works, ed. 6, vol. XXI, 441). It is interesting to compare with this understanding of the people’s soul, which Dostoevsky shares with the greatest Russian artists and thinkers, the intellectual view expressed in Belinsky’s already quoted letter: “Take a closer look and you will see that this is a deeply atheistic people by nature. There is still a lot of superstition in him, but there is not a trace of religiosity (sic) ... mystical exaltation is not in his nature; he has too much common sense, clarity and positivity in his mind for this, and this, perhaps, is the enormity of his historical destinies in the future.” (Letter to Gogol, p. 14). For a competent and masterful description of the moral significance of the monastery in Russian history, see the speech of Prof. V. O. Klyuchevsky “The Gracious Educator of the Russian Folk Spirit (Venerable Sergius)” (Trinity Flower, No. 9). Wed. also V. A. Kozhevnikov “Christian asceticism in its past and present” (ready for publication). I already had to talk about this in the essay “Intellectuals and Religion.” Wed. characteristics of the Cossacks and Zaporozhye from prof. Klyuchevsky. Russian history course. Part III. M. 1908.