Иван Карамазов как философский тип (в романе Достоевского «Братья Карамазовы»)

Chitana in Kiev November 21, 1901 Dear ladies and gentlemen! Ivan Karamazov, sitting in a nasty tavern, says to his brother Alyosha: “How are Russian boys still operating? Others, that is? For example, there’s a stinking tavern here, so they come together and sit in the corner. All their lives they didn’t know each other before, but when they leave the tavern, they won’t know each other again for forty years, so what will they talk about while they caught a moment in the tavern? About world questions, no less: is there a God, is there immortality? And those who don’t believe in God, well, they’ll talk about socialism and anarchism, about remaking all of humanity according to a new state, but it’s the same damn thing, all the same questions, only from the other end. And many, many of the most original Russian boys do nothing but talk about eternal questions in our time. Isn't that right? “Yes, these are Russian questions about: is there a God and is there immortality, or, as you say, questions from the other end, of course the first questions and above all, and that’s how it should be,” Alyosha answered him. I, too, see in the unflagging interest in these questions the most characteristic feature of our youth and our intelligentsia, a feature deeply hostile to everything that bears the stamp of cultural bourgeoisism, and I also see in this feature the stamp of deep idealism, sublimity of mood, which from the inner world passes into the outer, from mood becomes action. As noted in Ivan’s words, our society approaches these issues from different ends, sometimes from sociology, sometimes from metaphysics. Of course, both sides do not exclude one another, or rather, they are always combined in one way or another, but usually one side is put forward with greater emphasis. More recently, we have experienced a period of fascination with the sociological side of the worldview; If I am not deceived, now the turn towards metaphysics begins. In any case, it can be considered indisputable that our intelligentsia is perhaps the most philosophically inclined, but at the same time completely insufficiently philosophically educated. The level of philosophical education in our country is extremely low, not only among the reading public, but also among the writing public. Until now, we Russians have contributed little to world philosophical literature, and Vlad remains our only original philosopher. Soloviev. However, if we do not have extensive and original scientific literature on philosophy, then we have the most philosophical elegant literature; that power of thought of our people, which was not expressed in scientific treatises, found its outcome in artistic images, and in this regard, during the 19th century, at least the second half of it, we, in the person of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, even Turgenev, and to a lesser extent Chekhov, go ahead of European literature, being a model for it. Great treasures of the spirit are accumulated in our literature, and one must be able to appreciate them. Unfortunately, I cannot say that we are faithfully fulfilling this natural and, in the best sense of the word, patriotic duty. Perhaps this has been done in relation to Turgenev, Tolstoy and our modern writers, but this has not yet been done to a sufficient extent in relation to the great sufferer of our literature, Dostoevsky. He remains, as it were, forgotten in our advanced literature, 58 offensive misunderstandings accumulate around his sacred name, thanks to which he is considered almost one of the reptiles of literature, and the best part of society does not feel their blood connection with him. Of course, to some extent the reason for this may be Dostoevsky’s peculiar political beliefs, but who would dare to confuse him with those who are the official representatives and guardians of these views? In Dostoevsky we have not only an undeniably brilliant artist, a great humanist and lover of the people, but also an outstanding philosophical talent. Of all our writers, the honorary title of artist-philosopher rightfully belongs to Dostoevsky; even Tolstoy, placed next to him, in this respect loses its colossal dimensions. And this side - to the shame of our literature - has remained least explained and appreciated by our criticism. In view of this, despite the enormous difficulty of assessing Dostoevsky as a philosopher, I feel an irresistible need to dwell on this particular side of him. And in this case, it is most natural to dwell on the work that, both philosophically and artistically, is the most brilliant of Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, and in this novel to choose the most philosophically striking point - the image of Ivan Karamazov. Of the entire gallery of types in this novel, this image is the closest, most dear to us, the Russian intelligentsia; We ourselves are sick with his suffering, we understand his requests. At the same time, this image lifts us to such a dizzying height to which philosophical thought has risen only in the person of its most courageous servants. But let's turn to the novel itself. Ivan Karamazov represents one of the central figures in this grandiose epic of Russian life, in which the latter was reflected from its highest to its lowest manifestations. He is one of the three Karamazov brothers, who, perhaps, in the eyes of Dostoevsky symbolically depicted the entire Russian society, the entire Russian life. But at the same time, Ivan is an episodic figure in the novel; he does not have any action in it. Ivan’s attitude towards the tragedy that took place within the walls of Karamazov’s house can be characterized at most as connivance. Although Ivan himself is subsequently tormented by the thought that he is the moral culprit of the murder, this is the delirium of his sick soul, more likely characteristic of the state of the latter than of determining Ivan’s actual participation in the murder. “You didn’t kill,” Alyosha tells him, through whose mouth the author himself most often speaks. Indeed, it is not difficult to see that the bloody event in the novel is approaching with fatal force, that the tragedy is inevitable and would have played out anyway without any participation of Ivan. Looking at the matter objectively, Alyosha can be considered just as conniving as Ivan. Perhaps, from the point of view of the novel's architecture, it will seem unfortunate that one of the central figures is at the same time episodic and superfluous to the development of the action. It is indisputable that almost all of Dostoevsky’s novels suffer from major shortcomings, even sloppiness in architecture and execution, and fanatics of the form have reason to be justly indignant. But it is somehow strange and inappropriate to talk about shortcomings of form when we are talking about such colossal works as The Brothers Karamazov. They are a law unto themselves, and reasonable criticism should limit themselves to only stating the facts, perhaps fully revealing the artistic intent. After what has been said regarding Ivan’s place in the novel, it is easy to understand that Ivan’s spiritual world is characterized in the novel least of all by his actions. The main and main source for understanding his soul is his own words about himself. The reviews of the characters about him are of comparatively secondary importance, but they receive significance only in connection with Ivan’s words. The characterization of Ivan is done in a dramatic form, mostly in the form of a monologue, less often a dialogue. This is like a dramatic episode in a novel; Although Dostoevsky himself avoided the form of drama, many pages of his novels rise to truly Shakespearean dramatic pathos. In terms of dramatic form, many of Ivan's dialogues and monologues can most likely be compared with the first, philosophical scenes of Faust. Deserves special mention as a masterly technique, available in our, and indeed in all world literature, to Dostoevsky alone, this is the characterization of Ivan’s soul by his delirium. We mean the amazing chapter - “Damn. Nightmare of Ivan Fedorovich." Thanks to delirium, accompanied by hallucination and painful split consciousness, we have here, as it were, a monologue in a dialogical form. Ivan Fedorovich’s devil is not a metaphysical Mephistopheles, depicting the abstract principle of evil and irony, it is a product of Ivan’s own sick soul, a particle of his own self. Everything that torments Ivan, that he despises and hates in himself, not only in the present, but also in the past, all this receives, as it were, personification in a trait. We leave it to psychiatrists to analyze this episode from a psychiatric point of view, which is of little interest; for us it is precious as a characteristic of Ivan’s state of mind. This is the highest point of nervous and mental irritation in which Ivan finds himself - the moment when his strength breaks down and illness finally takes possession of him. His appearance in court on the last pages of the novel adds little to his emotional drama. The love affair, his affair with Ekaterina Ivanovna, which Dostoevsky added, most likely for the sake of external connections, and, perhaps, weakness to overcomplicate the plot of the novel, adds little to the characterization of Ivan. The affair with Ekaterina Ivanovna is a completely external episode in Ivan’s life; it plays absolutely no role in his spiritual world and therefore is superfluous, not meeting the artistic goals of the author, in essence, as superfluous, we add, as an superfluous episode for the tragedy Faust is Faust’s affair with Margarita, which could have been perfectly ceded to any of the minor characters and which does not characterize Faust at all. Ivan is leading, in the words of our Herzen, a logical, I would even say, metaphysical romance, which obscures everything else for him. In Ivan’s spiritual life, all the characters in the novel, his father, Alyosha, Mitya, and especially Smerdyakov, have their own significance, and only Ekaterina Ivanovna and Grushenka do not have it. We will therefore not dwell further on this episode. I will add to this that Dostoevsky gives only, so to speak, a snapshot of Ivan’s soul. He speaks very briefly and abruptly about his past, about his childhood and youth - in the novel Ivan is 23 years old - and says nothing about his future. The story ends abruptly. The external reason for this was the death of the author, who took so many unspoken words with him to the grave. But it is unlikely that Ivan would have occupied a prominent place in the novel in the future - in the preface, Dostoevsky speaks, at least, only about Alyosha as the hero of the future novel, which, according to the author’s plan, was supposed to be a continuation of The Brothers Karamazov. It is characteristic that nowhere in the novel is there a description of Ivan’s appearance, although the appearance of all the main characters is described. It seems to me that this is not an accident, not sloppiness, but an inner artistic instinct. Ivan – spirit; he is an abstract problem, he has no appearance. Who, in fact, would think of demanding a description of Faust’s appearance, regarding which there is also no remark in the tragedy. Thus, all the author’s talent is aimed at revealing and illuminating the state of Ivan’s soul at the moment; it is, as it were, in the focus of the electric sun of Dostoevsky's talent. Ivan belongs to those higher natures for whom the last problems of existence, the so-called metaphysical questions about God, about the soul, about good and evil, about the world order, about the meaning of life, do not seem to be idle questions of a gray theory, but have the most living, immediate reality. Such natures cannot live without raising and resolving these questions. From a psychological point of view, it does not matter what the conclusions or answers that one or another person receives to these questions are. The important thing is that they cannot fail to be posed and answered. A characteristic feature of the state in which Ivan finds himself in the novel is distrust, loss of faith in the old, which has not yet been replaced by the new. This transitional state is extremely painful; Growing pains are sometimes fatal. I will remind you of that place in the Confession, this most precious psychological monument, where Tolstoy tells how, at the height of personal happiness, he hid the instrument of suicide from himself, he was so drawn to it. A similar state is described in Mill's autobiography, which describes the disease of unbelief, the moral crisis that befell him during the transition from youth to more mature age. Imagine, at the moment of such a transition, such a painful withdrawal, a man of enormous intelligence, logical fearlessness, passionate sincerity, a man absolutely incapable of making deals with himself, and you will get Ivan Fedorovich Karamazov. This intelligent and talented man, in the prime of life and strength, talks quite seriously about suicide, though not now, but by the age of 30, when the “most indecent” thirst for life has cooled down. And Ivan loves life and knows how to appreciate it. “Even though I don’t believe in the order of things, but dear to me are the sticky leaves that bloom in spring, dear to the blue sky, dear to me is another person whom sometimes, whether you believe it or not, you don’t know, for which you love it; dear to me is another human feat, in which you may have stopped believing long ago, but still, out of old memory, you honor him with your heart.” The soul of this person is open to everything great and beautiful. He says that he will go to Europe, which he considers an expensive cemetery, “the most, most expensive cemetery”: “Dear dead people lie there; every stone above them speaks of such a passionate past life, of such passionate faith in one’s feat, in one’s truth, in one’s struggle and in one’s science, that I know in advance that I will fall to the ground and kiss these stones and cry over them.” Thus, the entire European culture, which he so knows how to appreciate and honor, in the present seems to him to be a dear dead man. All life is tasteless for him. The state of moral deadness in which Ivan finds himself makes him a cold and indifferent egoist, to whom the life around him inspires only disgusting irritation. We get chills when he says about the possibility of Dmitry killing his father that “one bastard will devour another.” We are shocked, even outraged by his lordly, arrogant, rude attitude towards Smerdyakov, who accidentally had to become the real hero of his metaphysical novel; Much in Ivan’s mode of action and especially in his feelings seems harsh and repulsive to us. But at the same time, I can’t believe that all this reflects the true essence of the nature of this man, who knows how to be so moved by sticky spring leaves and kiss the stones of European culture, watering them with tears. Ivan himself can’t believe it when he says to Alyosha to himself: “I could never understand how you can love your neighbors.” The Ivan we see in the novel is not what he really is, just like Raskolnikov, preparing to kill the old woman, bears very little resemblance to the real Raskolnikov. Constant suffering, the burning pain of unresolved doubts force Ivan to be attentive only to his inner world; he does not have enough strength to participate in external life. Ivan is sick not only at the end of the novel, when he already has a real nervous fever, but he is sick from the very beginning, sick from the time when the questions tormenting him became clear to him, which he needs to resolve or morally die. The sophist and dialectician in Ivan sometimes obscures the martyr's ideas, but the latter is visible to the penetrating gaze of Elder Zosima, who with prophetic insight, after a memorable conversation about the church court, says to Ivan: “this idea (about the immortality of the soul) has not yet been resolved in your heart and torments him. But the martyr sometimes likes to amuse himself with his despair, as if also out of despair. While, out of despair, you are amusing yourself with both magazine articles and secular disputes, not believing your own dialectics and smiling to yourself at it with pain in your heart... This issue has not been resolved in you, and this is your great grief, for it urgently requires resolution...” These prophetic words contain the true key to Ivan’s soul. What question, or, better said, what questions are not resolved for Ivan and their unresolved causes his great grief? Pyotr Aleksandrovich Miusov, in the same scene in the monastery, tells the following thing about Ivan: “Not more than five days ago, in one local, mostly female, society, he solemnly declared in a dispute that on the whole earth there is absolutely nothing that would force people to love their own kind, that such a law of nature for a person to love humanity does not exist at all, and that if there is and has hitherto been love on earth, it is not from the natural law, but solely because people believed in their immortality. Ivan Fedorovich added in parentheses that this is what the whole natural law consists of, so if you destroy the faith in humanity in your immortality, not only love will immediately dry up in it, but also all living force to continue the life of the world. Moreover, then nothing will be immoral, everything will be allowed, even anthropophagy. But this is not enough, he ended with the statement that for every private person who does not believe in either God or his own immortality, the moral law of nature must immediately change in complete contrast to the former religious law and that selfishness, even to the point of villainy, should not only be allowed to a person, but even recognized as a necessary, most reasonable and almost the noblest outcome in his position. Ivan fully confirms the correctness of the transmission of his thought: “there is no virtue if there is no immortality.” But Ivan in the novel does not believe or does not yet believe in the immortality of the soul. His terrible double, the devil, repeats the same thought to him. He speaks of the future kingdom of freedom and science, when man, having finally abolished faith in God, will become a man-god. But “the question now is,” thought my young thinker (the devil makes fun of Ivan): is it possible for such a period to ever come or not? If it comes, then everything is decided, and humanity will be settled completely. But since, in view of the inveterate stupidity of man, this, perhaps, will not be settled in a thousand years, then anyone who is already aware of the truth is allowed to settle completely as he pleases, on new principles. In this sense, “everything is allowed” to him. Moreover: even if this period never comes, then since God and immortality still do not exist, then a new person is allowed to become a man-god, even at least one in the whole world, and certainly in a new rank, with a light heart, to jump over any previous moral barrier of the former human slave, if necessary. There is no law for God! Wherever God becomes, there is God’s place! Wherever I stand, there will immediately be the first place... “everything is permitted” and the Sabbath! That “everything is permitted” is generally a favorite idea, or, better, a favorite subject of conversation of Ivan Karamazov: he develops this idea to Alyosha, and Mitya in prison, and to Smerdyakov, and you know what fatal direction this view gives to Smerdyakov’s thoughts. But leaving aside the episode with Smerdyakov and focusing exclusively on the philosophical side of the matter, we see that here with unconditional decisiveness one of the most important, one of the most central problems of philosophy of all times and peoples is posed, a problem already posed by Socrates and even his antagonist predecessors, the Sophists, namely, the ethical problem, the question of the criteria of good and evil, of ethical sanction. It seems that in our days, of all philosophical problems, the ethical problem comes to the forefront and has a decisive influence on the entire development of philosophical thought. But, of course, this problem has never been completely eliminated and cannot be eliminated from philosophy and, I think, constitutes the most important, indeed the first most important question of philosophy. Ivan, with honest fearlessness and cruel consistency, draws ethical conclusions from the philosophy of atheism or, if we are allowed to use the philosophical term of our days, positivism, he comes to the bleak conclusion that the criterion of good and evil, and therefore morality, cannot be obtained without metaphysical or religious sanction. He has no religious faith, but with its loss, he horribly loses his morality. I am deliberately setting aside here a theoretical assessment of Ivan’s views; therefore, the question of whether he is right or wrong in connecting the criterion of good and evil with religion, people of different worldviews will answer this question differently. I emphasize only the universal human content of this question, which every person who begins to live a conscious life and moves from childhood traditional faith to conscious faith or disbelief asks himself. Ivan's tragedy is not that he comes to conclusions that deny morality; You never know there are people for whom the theoretical “everything is permitted” is only a convenient sign for practical immorality; it lies in the fact that his “higher heart, capable of suffering such torment” cannot reconcile with such a conclusion, as the elder described it. Suffice it to recall the torment of Ivan, who considered himself guilty of killing his father. Theoretical reason comes here into discord with the practical, what logic denies, raises its voice in the heart, exists, despite any denials, as a fact of immediate moral consciousness, as the voice of conscience. Nature is highly ethical, forced to deny ethics - such is this monstrous conflict. After all, it is the same as if someone is forced to deny the light of day that he sees with his own eyes, with the difference that this discord concerning a single fact of knowledge cannot be compared in importance with a question affecting the entire moral life of a person. Atheistic amoralism, as Ivan’s ethical views can be defined, involuntarily resembles similar quests of a restless spirit, which, at the whim of fashion, is destined to become the idol of the present day, Fr. Nietzsche. Anyone who is even superficially familiar with Nietzsche’s moral philosophy will easily see the identity of the main motives and basic ideas in Nietzsche and Ivan, which is quite understandable from the similarity of their main problem about the compatibility of absolute morality with positivism. (We leave aside, of course, the details of Nietzsche’s philosophy, considering everything else to be secondary in comparison with the ethical problem.) We have seen that not only the general view that places the “superman” Nietzsche or the “man-god” Ivan “on this side of good and evil” and makes “everything permissible” for them is characteristic of both, but also the principle of egoism, the denial of altruism, which takes the place of abolished morality, repeats itself here and there. The egoistic greatness of the superman, the morality of masters and the morality of slaves - these are the inevitable “fruits of the emptiness of the heart” remaining after the destruction of the morality of duty and love. Soulful drama from France. Nietzsche and Ivan Karamazov have one and the same theory of immorality, which is not compatible with the moral needs of the individual. The greatness of Nietzsche's spirit, in my opinion, is expressed precisely in the passion and sincerity of the experience of this drama, which ended tragically - in Nietzsche's madness. There is no other way from Nietzsche’s philosophy and there cannot be; if he, having written what he wrote, had remained a prosperous philistine, as, for example, Voltaire remained, having written Candide, this thing full of despair of disbelief, then Nietzsche would have been simply a fiction writer who practiced in exquisite prose and poetry on various philosophical topics. With his madness, more than with his writings, he showed the real importance and real meaning of the problems treated in them. Nietzsche's life is a necessary commentary, in which his writings are illuminated with a tragic glow, and the real suffering of Zarathustra becomes clear. With prophetic insight, Dostoevsky formulated Nietzsche’s problem, the problem of atheistic amoralism, but in contrast to Nietzsche, who was all about eliminating this contradiction, Dostoevsky, understanding it, rises above it; the spirit of our novelist, next to the soul of Nietzsche - Ivan, turns out to be able to accommodate the soul of Alyosha and the prophetic spirit of the elder Zosima. About Dostoevsky himself, one can say in the words of the devil about the ascetics whom the latter had to tempt and whose soul “is worth a whole constellation”: “such abysses of faith and unbelief can be contemplated at the same moment that, really, sometimes it seems that just one more hair and a person will fly “upside down” ... 59 The need to narrow our presentation forces us to decline here the difficult task of analysis and critical assessment of Dostoevsky’s general worldview, a debt of love and attention that our society has not yet fully paid to the great writer. Ivan expresses himself hesitantly and conditionally regarding morality: he says: if there is no God and immortality of the soul, then everything is permitted. But when he is asked: is there a God, sometimes he decisively answers: there is no God, sometimes he gives almost the opposite answer. This is the torment of Ivan’s situation, that he cannot come to any final conclusion. Ivan greedily seeks faith, he is tired of doubts. After all, this is what his mocking double, the devil, says about him: my dream is “to be embodied in the soul of a seven-pound merchant’s wife and light a candle for God.” But it is enough to take a closer look into Ivan’s soul to understand how far he is from the peace of faith, how inaccessible it is to him, how deep and wide his doubts are. Involuntary embarrassment overwhelms me when my presentation approaches those chapters of the novel where the conversation between the brothers Ivan and Alyosha in the tavern is described. Dostoevsky achieves here truly titanic power and courage. These chapters are written in blood, the only ones of their kind in all world literature. And what a unique plan lies even in this setting, where the brothers gather for the first time to talk, to talk about God and His world. Ivan, about whom it is said that he did not like drunkenness or debauchery and “is not at all fond of taverns,” and the novice Alexei are sitting in a dirty tavern, in the manner of the one in which Raskolnikov listened to Marmeladov’s story. They sit behind screens in the entrance room, “with a buffet against the side wall. The sexes were constantly scurrying across it. Of the visitors there was only one old man, a retired military man, drinking tea in a corner. But in the other rooms of the tavern all the usual tavern fuss was taking place, shouts of invitation were heard, beer bottles were uncorked, billiard balls were knocking, and the organ was humming.” And behind the screens, in the corner, the creative plans of God are subjected to a harsh assessment, the world-historical distance and depth of centuries open up, the bottomless depths of the legend about the great inquisitor open up, the incense of human thought ascends to the sky... There is something truly Russian in this simplicity and the absence of any external environmental effects with which great ideas are expressed here. It is in such and such an environment that the brothers first meet each other. Ivan gives the answer to Alyosha’s silent question: “what does his beloved brother believe in and how does he live?” First, Ivan, in the spirit of positivism, says that where can my “Euclidean earthly” mind “understand about God” and decide whether He exists. But then he continues: “I accept God, and not only willingly, but, moreover, I accept His wisdom and His purpose, which are already completely unknown to us, I believe in order, in the meaning of life, I believe in eternal harmony, in which we all seem to merge, I believe in the Word, towards which the universe strives and which “is not towards God” and which is God himself, well, and so on, and so on, etc. into infinity. A lot of words have been said about this. Looks like I'm on a good road, huh? Well, imagine that in the final result I do not accept this world of God, and even though I know that it exists, I do not allow it at all. I don’t accept God, understand this, I don’t accept the world He created, the world of God, and I can’t agree to accept it. I’ll make a reservation: I am convinced, like a baby, that suffering will heal and smooth out, that all the offensive comedy of human contradictions will disappear, like a pathetic mirage, like a vile invention of the weak and small as an atom of the human Euclidean mind, that, finally, in the world finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will happen and appear that it will be enough for all hearts, for the satisfaction of all indignations, for redemption all the atrocities of people, all the blood they shed, is enough to not only make it possible to forgive, but also to justify everything that happened to people; let it all happen and appear, but I don’t accept it and don’t want to accept it!” Ivan does not want to accept with his “Euclidean” mind the expediency and rationality of human suffering. I don’t say a word about all the “human tears that permeate the entire earth from the crust to the center... I am a bug and I admit with all humiliation that I cannot understand anything, why everything is arranged this way. People themselves, therefore, are to blame: they were given paradise, they wanted freedom and stole fire from heaven, knowing themselves that they would become unhappy, which means there is no point in pitying them," But the children are innocent, they did not “eat the apple,” and their suffering makes it clearer therefore the uselessness, the meaninglessness of suffering in general. And here come the terrible pages about children stabbed to death, shot at the moment when the child was playfully reaching for a pistol, languishing in a nasty place, tortured, hunted by dogs in front of their mother - a long, bloody gallery. “It’s completely unclear,” thunders Ivan, “why did they have to suffer and why should they buy harmony with suffering? Why did they also get into the material and manure the future harmony for someone?” Ivan refuses harmony at such a price. “It is not worth the tear of even one tortured child who beat his fist in his chest and prayed in his stinking kennel with his unredeemed tears to “God”! It’s not worth it, because the tears remained unredeemed. They must be redeemed, otherwise there can be no harmony. But how, how will you atone for them? Is this possible? Is it really that they will be avenged? But why do I need their revenge, why do I need hell for the tormentors, what can hell do to correct them when they are already tortured?” “They valued harmony too dearly,” concludes Ivan, “we can’t afford to pay that much for admission. That’s why I’m in a hurry to return my entry ticket. And if I am only an honest person, then I am obliged to return it as early as possible. This is what I do. I don’t accept God, Alyosha, but I most respectfully return the ticket to Him.” “This is a riot,” Alyosha said quietly and with downcast eyes. 60 Yes, this is a rebellion, a rebellion of man against God, or, to express the same thought in an atheistic manner, a rebellion of a powerless human personality against the objective order of things. The fiery spirit of Byron's Cain, the spirit of world sorrow has risen in Ivan! Ivan answers Alyosha: “A riot. I wouldn't want such a word from you. Is it possible to live by rebellion, but I want to live.” Yes, you cannot live by rebellion, and this mood or this worldview must somehow be overcome or survived, otherwise there is no outcome. The crooked mirror of Ivan’s soul, his devil, with vulgar mockery, develops the same idea of ​​​​the need for evil in world disharmony. He contrasts himself with Mephistopheles, who always wants evil. “I am perhaps the only person in all of nature who loves the truth and wants good.” The devil tells how he wanted to shout “Hosanna,” but “what would come of my Hosanna? Everything in the world would have immediately died out and no incidents would have happened. And so, solely due to duty and my social position, I was forced to suppress the good moment in myself and remain with the dirty tricks. Someone takes all the honor of goodness for himself, but only dirty tricks are left for me.” “I know,” the devil complains, “there is a secret here, they will never tell me it, because then, perhaps, having guessed what the matter is, I will bark “Hosanna”, and the necessary minus will immediately disappear and prosperity will begin throughout the world.” “I wake up and reluctantly fulfill my purpose: to destroy thousands so that one can be saved. How many souls, for example, had to be destroyed and honest reputations disgraced in order to get only Job, on whom I was so viciously deceived during it! No, until the secret is revealed, for me there are two truths: one there, theirs, completely unknown to me, and the other is mine.” Ivan groans from this devil’s mockery of his ideas. The question that Ivan poses here with such tragic force and insane courage, the question of the origin and meaning of evil in the world and the rationality of the world order, is an eternal question of metaphysics, as old as the world, a question that since the time of Leibniz has come to be called the problem of theodicy. This question was answered by both theologians, for whom it is formulated into the problem of God's providence, and philosophers - both optimists, like Leibniz, and pessimists, like his evil critic Voltaire or Schopenhauer and Ed. Hartmann, and spiritualists, and materialists, and deists, and atheists. One should not think that this question was asked only by the religious view; it remains also for the atheistic one, emphasizing with even greater force the harmony of the future, which, however, is bought by the disharmony of the present. An example of such a worldview can be the modern materialist understanding of history and the teaching of socialism based on it: the future harmony of socialism is bought here by the inevitable victim of the suffering of capitalism: the “birth pangs” of the new society, according to Marx’s famous comparison, are irremovable. 61 Consequently, with full right and with full force, here too Ivan’s question about the price of this future harmony can be raised, and, of course, every conscious person inevitably poses it to himself. There is not and cannot be a universal philosophical system that would not take this issue into account in full. This is, in the full sense of the word, a world question; its peculiarity as such lies not only in its persistence, but also in its intractability in the sense that no progress of science, no power of thought can give it a solution that would destroy the question itself. On the contrary, no matter how perfectly it may seem to have been resolved by one philosopher, it must necessarily be raised again by another. Every philosopher, or rather, every thinking and therefore philosophizing person, must resolve this question at his own peril and expense, not from reason, not from logic only, but from his entire being. Even if the decision is not independent, someone else’s thought must pass through the holy of holies of every person and thus become the blood property of the person who has assimilated it. This is the property of all world questions, which at the same time constitute the main problems of metaphysics, and this, by the way, is the property of all the questions tormenting Ivan Karamazov. We personally think that the problem of theodicy, as posed by Ivan, is insoluble from the point of view of the eudaimonic understanding of progress, which sees in the latter an increase in the happiness of the greatest number of people. This problem can be resolved or eliminated only through metaphysical and religious synthesis. 62 But we have not touched upon one of the most painful doubts troubling Ivan’s heart, the world question, the answer to which constitutes the faith and hope of our days; we mean the problem of the world-historical development of mankind, or, what is the same, the problem of democracy and socialism. It is not difficult for us, children of the 19th century, to understand the essence of this problem. The 19th century in the minds of many destroyed, or at least shattered, the old beliefs and the old idea of ​​this earthly life as a preparation for the future, heavenly one. He put forward the view that our life is indeed a preparation for the future, but not a heavenly, but an earthly life. The place of religion was temporarily taken by the theory of progress, or, in the old Comtean expression, the religion of humanity. It was calculated and scientifically proven that future humanity is destined to a kingdom of free and bright development, in which the joyful principles of freedom, equality and fraternity will be realized. Everything that is heavy and deadening in our present life, all forms of exploitation and enslavement of man by man will die a natural death, and a new, free man, scientifically master of nature, a man-god, in the words of Dostoevsky, will appear to the world. Regardless of whether the soul prays or does not pray to the new gods, it is necessary to note that the basis of the new understanding of life, despite its scientific garb and even sometimes the truly scientific formulation of individual questions included in it, is still faith, which for brevity can be characterized as faith in the man-god, which replaced the previous faith in the God-man. Let them not think that I am saying this as a reproach to the new worldview. No, but in general I think that at the bottom of every worldview, so broad and effective that it directly turns into religion (even an atheistic one), there is faith; At the heart of every religious worldview lies something that is unprovable and stands even above proof. Believe what your heart says So, in order to live in the hope of a bright and wonderful future for humanity and work for this distant prospect, you need to believe in humanity; to believe that a person is really capable of being a man-god, that humanity as a whole can really rise to unprecedented heights, and not degenerate into moral squalor, even having achieved animal happiness. You need to believe in it and you don’t have to believe in it. Consequently, there is a problem here in the sense that here there is the possibility of different understandings, here doubts are possible, in short, here we also have a world question, that is, a question that is ultimately insoluble, but nevertheless necessarily posed by every conscious being. And this question is posed, and this doubt is expressed in the “legend of the Grand Inquisitor.” “The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor” is one of the most precious pearls created by Russian literature. This bizarrely ingenious creation combines the greatness of the gospel image with a completely modern content, expressing the anxious quests of our days, just as the majestic story of the book of Job, translated into the language of concepts of modern times, once already served as a frame for one of the greatest creations of European literature, the wondrous prologue to “Faust” in the sky. “The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor” represents an episodic insertion in the novel: although it is the most important document for characterizing Ivan’s soul, it can be isolated and considered as an independent work. The legend is a “boundless fantasy,” a philosophical poem by a young student who never wrote two poems in his life. This, if I may allow a bold comparison, is a religious painting by Vasnetsov, deliberately neglecting the realism of matter for the sake of the realism of the idea. It brings Christ to earth a second time, in the midst of religious violence and the Inquisition, in the most fanatical and dark country - in Spain. The appearance of Christ is described in miraculous terms: “He appeared quietly, unnoticed, and now everyone—this is strange—recognizes Him. This could be - adds Ivan - one of the best places in the poem, that is, why exactly they recognize Him. The people strive towards Him with invincible force, surround Him, grow around Him, follow Him. He silently walks among them with a quiet smile of infinite compassion. The sun of love burns in His heart, rays of Light, Enlightenment and Power flow from His eyes and, pouring out on people, shake their hearts with reciprocal love.” This is a purely Russian manner of artistic interpretation of the image of Christ, and it brings together such in all respects different and distant in spirit writers as Turgenev and Dostoevsky. Remember, isn’t it the same manner of drawing the captivating image of the Lover of Humanity in one of Turgenev’s most beautiful “prose poems” “Christ”. Christ performs miracles, raises the dead. The Grand Inquisitor, the official servant of His teaching, sees and recognizes Him and orders Him to be arrested. The crowd parts, and Christ is taken to prison. And at night, on a stuffy Seville night, an inquisitor, a 90-year-old old man, comes to Christ in prison, and here a conversation full of philosophical grandeur and sacred mysticism takes place. However, the Grand Inquisitor says all the time; Christ speaks silently, although you hear this silent response all the time, the speech of love and forgiveness. Do not look for historical fidelity in the speeches of the inquisitor. You will soon become convinced that in the fantastic image of the medieval inquisitor you will recognize the mournful and restless soul of Ivan; 63 the son of the 16th century turns out to be able to accommodate the most painful doubts of our days, the sovereign despot with unbridled courage, with Karamazov-like audacity, poses the problem of democracy and socialism. The Inquisitor confesses his faith, or, more precisely, his disbelief in humanity, which, in his opinion, cannot live with its own mind and conscience. He reproaches Christ for the fact that He, based on an ideal understanding of humanity and its tasks, placed an unbearable burden on his shoulders. The Gospel story about the temptation of Christ in the desert and the three temptations that the devil presented to him serves as a symbol for him of the entire historical problem. “In these three questions, as it were, the entire future history of mankind is combined into one whole and predicted, and three images are revealed in which all the insoluble historical contradictions of human nature throughout the entire earth will converge.” “Turn these stones into bread, and humanity will run after You like a flock, grateful and obedient, although forever trembling that You will withdraw Your hand and Your bread will cease for them. But You did not want to deprive a person of freedom and rejected the offer, for what kind of freedom, You reasoned, if obedience is bought with bread?” But people can't do this. After difficult trials, people “will finally understand for themselves that freedom and enough earthly bread for everyone are unthinkable together, for they will never, never be able to divide among themselves! They will also be convinced that they can never be free, because they are weak, vicious, insignificant and rebels.” This is how the inquisitor depicts the economic problem of socialism, the free democratic organization of production, a problem posed from eternity by the “terrible and evil spirit” in its prophetic temptations. “Having accepted the “bread”, You would answer the universal and eternal longing of man, both of an individual being and of the whole of humanity together, this: “before whom should I bow?” There is no more incessant and more painful concern for a person than how, having remained free, to quickly find someone before whom to bow.” The inquisitor reproaches Christ for rejecting the second offer of the devil, to throw himself off a cliff and perform a miracle. “But You did not know that as soon as a person rejects a miracle, he will immediately reject God, for man seeks not so much God as miracles.” The crucified Christ did not want to come down from the cross. “You did not come down because, again, you did not want to enslave a person by miracle, and you thirsted for a free faith, and not a miraculous one. He thirsted for free love, and not for the slavish delight of a slave before the power that had horrified him once and for all. But even here You judged people too highly, for, of course, they are slaves, although they were created as rebels.” “We corrected Your feat and based it on miracle, mystery and authority. And the people rejoiced that they were again led like a herd and that such a terrible gift, which had brought them so much torment, was finally removed from their hearts.” The inquisitor's speech breathes heat. What childish babble do the speeches on this and similar topics by some now fashionable and famous “Doctor Shtokman” and so on seem like in comparison? The Inquisitor reproaches Christ for the third time that He did not want to take from the great spirit the power, the kingdom of the earth, which he offered him, rejected the sword, hoping only for the word of free conviction. We corrected Your deed, says the inquisitor, we took the sword to help the cross, violence to help free conviction, “we are not with You, but with him.” A chosen few have taken over the control of the human race, basing it on sweet deception. “And everyone will be happy, all the millions of beings, except for the hundreds of thousands who control them. For only we, we who keep the secret, only we will be unhappy. There will be thousands of millions of happy babies, and a hundred thousand sufferers who have taken upon themselves the curse of the knowledge of good and evil.” So, to the question whether humanity is capable of emerging from its present, humiliated state, incorporating within itself the beginning of a new, free, autonomous moral life, and fulfilling the task indicated to it in the future, the inquisitor answers with an angry and passionate no. Dostoevsky seems to give a hint in which direction one should look for a way out of the despair of the inquisitor’s views; he gives it in the speeches of his silent interlocutor - Christ. With what inimitable skill the artist makes one feel the presence of this silent interlocutor. “And why do you silently and soulfully look at me with your gentle eyes? - the inquisitor suddenly becomes irritated in the midst of his blasphemous speech, - get angry, I don’t want Your love, because I myself don’t love You... What I have to tell You, You already know everything, I read it in Your eyes.” You feel how haunted and deprived of confidence this silent loving gaze of the Savior is. And with what a wondrous chord the legend ends: “When the Inquisitor fell silent, he waited for some time for his Prisoner to answer him. His silence is hard on him. He saw how the Prisoner listened to him all the time, soulfully and quietly looking into his eyes, and apparently not wanting to object to anything. The old man would like him to tell him something, even if it was bitter and terrible. But He suddenly silently approaches the old man and quietly kisses him on his bloodless ninety-year-old lips.” That's the whole answer. The Inquisitor releases the Prisoner, whom he only recently wanted to burn. Although the old man remains with the same ideas, “a kiss burns on his heart.” Here, I say, a hint is given of a possible solution to poisonous questions, which, perhaps, consists in removing them from being raised, and they can be removed not by the logic that raised them, but by the effective power of love, a kiss burning on the heart of the inquisitor. This is the thought that is so solemnly expressed in Vlad’s wonderful poems. Solovyova. Death and time reign on earth, Everything swirls and disappears into the darkness, Only the sun of love is motionless. It was not in vain that the Inquisitor wanted to burn Christ, for his ideas are a direct negation of the ideas of Christianity, not because he speaks blasphemous speeches, but by their very essence. The main idea of ​​Christianity is the ethical equality of all people, an idea formulated as the equality of all before God. We are not talking about a mechanical equalization of rights and duties, not about the imaginary equality of people who, according to their natural data, are necessarily different and unequal among themselves, but about the recognition in every person, in every being, of a full-fledged moral personality, having certain rights and, therefore, imposing certain duties. No personality - this same idea was later repeated in Kant's ethics - should never be a means, it is an end in itself. The idea of ​​ethical equality formed the basis of our European culture; ancient life denied this idea; it was based on the opposition between the morality of masters and the morality of slaves. The Christian idea of ​​ethical equality and moral autonomy requires, for its implementation in people’s lives, the elimination of external obstacles, that is, such human institutions that contradict this equality; it therefore requires the elimination of such forms of life in which man is a means to man and not an end, forms of exploitation of man by man. In this sense, the newest European culture is a Christian culture, and the basic postulates of the ethics of Christianity merge with the basic postulates of the teachings of modern democracy, economic and political, to the point of complete identification. That is why the Grand Inquisitor, denying democracy and freedom in the name of enslaving the individual, is “with him, and not with You,” is, in Nietzsche’s proud expression, the Antichrist. Not because he doubts the feasibility of certain forms of political or social order - one can doubt and nevertheless consider this a moral ideal, the pursuit of which is morally obligatory - but because he denies the basic covenant of Christ about the equal dignity of all people as moral persons and about love for these people as bearers of the same divine principle. “Your inquisitor doesn’t believe in God, that’s his whole secret!” - says Alyosha, and Ivan fully confirms this. Dostoevsky wants to point out the inconsistency of the atheistic (or naturalistic) doctrine of equality, its unnaturalness, in the sense of its contradiction to the crude, animal instincts of man. People are equal in God, but not equal in nature, and this natural inequality defeats the ethical idea of ​​their equality where this idea is deprived of religious sanction. The idea of ​​equality of people is a moral axiom, a moral postulate, formulated in the great commandment of love; equality of people in this sense is a supranatural, metaphysical principle that finds its fulfillment in history, but it is precisely this history that testifies to the constant desecration of this idea, to the persistent, chronic, in this sense, sinfulness of people who exert violence against each other. 64 This violence is what the Grand Inquisitor, alien to Christian love, which the kiss of Christ wants to ignite in his heart, elevates to an ideal. The Inquisitor wants to divide people into two races, into two different breeds, between which an unfillable abyss opens; In this way, two moralities are established - the morality of masters and the morality of slaves, according to Nietzsche's famous expression. We have already mentioned Nietzsche's name more than once when speaking about the Inquisitor. This is not accidental, for we see a striking similarity in the original ideas of anti-Christianity between the inquisitor and the author of Zarathustra. The main motive of Nietzsche's social philosophy is the same idea as that of the Great Inquisitor - the denial of the ethical equality of people, the recognition of different moralities of slaves and masters. “Only in relation to equals there are duties; in relation to beings of a lower order one can act at discretion.” This is the highest breed of people and is the goal of history. From the point of view of this idea, Nietzsche comes to all the pathological ugliness of his teaching - the denial of love, compassion, the glorification of war, the complete denial of democratic ideals, etc., etc. The brilliant insight of Dostoevsky, who saw through one of the most characteristic moral diseases of our century, is amazing. The image of the “superman” persistently disturbed Dostoevsky’s creative imagination; in his two greatest creations: Crime and Punishment (Raskolnikov) and The Brothers Karamazov, not to mention the secondary ones, he returns to this image. All the problems that Ivan poses (and of which we have touched only on the most important ones), as is easy to see, are in an organic connection with each other. They concern the most essential aspects of the worldview of the 19th century. The fundamental faith of this age is the belief in the endless progress of mankind; in this belief all theories of progress agree, no matter how different they may be. This progress is a goal in itself; there is no external imperative that would justify this goal or turn it into a means for another higher goal. The meaning of this progress is the greatest possible happiness for the greatest possible number of people. The basic rule of morality of the 19th century was altruistic service to this progress. The most striking and decisive expression of this worldview is the theory of so-called scientific socialism or socialism in general. I will make a reservation that the doctrine of socialism is theoretically only a special case of the theory of progress in general; There are other ways to imagine the future development of mankind, but historically this is the most important, at least in our days, almost the only widespread theory of progress. In this sense, between the theory of progress in general and socialism in particular, we can put an equal sign for the present time. Therefore, all of Ivan’s doubts directed against the dominant teaching of progress are at the same time directed against the theory of socialism, understood not as an economic teaching alone, but as a general worldview, or, more broadly, as a religion. Ivan expresses doubt about the three main beliefs of this religion: about the obligatory moral norms that command one to sacrifice one’s personal well-being and interests to this impersonal progress or the good of other people, then about what can be called the price of progress, in which the happiness of future generations is purchased at the expense of the misfortune of the present (a purely eudaimonic version of the theory of progress), and finally, about the future of this humanity, for which all these sacrifices are made. From what has been said, you see that in the small town where the Karamazovs live, the pulse of world thought beats. Ivan Karamazov is a world image (although still far from sufficiently understood and appreciated). Dostoevsky in this novel is the all-man whom he so passionately and eloquently described in his speech about Pushkin. The global significance of the image of Karamazov will become clearer to us when we compare it with another world image - Faust. Perhaps someone will find this comparison of the immortal creation of Goethe, this, as Heine put it, the secular Bible of the Germans, and the entire cultural world, and our Ivan Karamazov, bold - we are so not accustomed to fully valuing our national heritage in comparison with the West. But I make this comparison deliberately and consider it quite legitimate. The comparison does not concern, of course, the form of both works, which is incomparable, but their ideological content. And from the point of view of the latter, Faust and Karamazov are in an undoubted genetic connection, one expresses the doubts of the 18th century, the other of the 19th century, one criticizes theoretical, the other practical reason. What is the focus of the pathos of the tragedy Faust? This is a drama of the limitations of human knowledge, a drama, if I may use a philosophical term here, epistemological. The first scenes of the first part of "Faust", this, undoubtedly, the most brilliant part of the tragedy, express the skepticism of Hume and Kant. To Kant's question: is knowledge (experience) possible and what price does this knowledge have, Faust, at the end of his life given to the search for truth, answers: "und sehe, dass wir nichts wissen können. Das will mir schier das Herz verbrennen". This is - Criticism of Pure Reason, skeptically understood. Faust surrenders to magic in order to magically obtain complete knowledge. With the spell of magic, he summons the spirit of the earth - a symbol of universal cosmology - trying to understand it and bring it closer to himself, but receives from him a destroying answer that plunges him into despair: “Du gleichst, den du begreifst, nicht mir”, embodied doubt and irony - both over himself and over everything in the world. - stands next to Faust in the person of Mephistopheles. Faust symbolizes European thought, renouncing the tutelage of theology, trying to walk on its own two feet and for the first time realizing its own powers. The first part of Faust, I repeat, is a tragedy of doubt, even despair in knowledge. This motif, specifically characteristic of a certain historical era or, more precisely, eras, at the same time never loses its significance for humanity. Faust's doubt must be experienced by every consciously living person; Human thought constantly returns to the problem of knowledge - this is the eternal problem of philosophy. Together with other world questions, this question does not allow a solution that would destroy the question itself. Faust's questions will be asked as long as humanity lives and thinks; That’s why even now, 100 years after Faust was written, his drama is something familiar, close and completely understandable for us. This is the nature of world problems. The historical Faust, humanity of the 18th century, emerges from his office into the arena of social struggle; he strives to escape from his doubts and forget himself in social activity. The center of gravity of life is transferred from the inside out, the purpose of life is proclaimed to be activities for the benefit of people. You see that Faust of the second part is already a son of the 19th century, a preacher of social activity, public morality. In short, the decrepit and dying Faust becomes the prophet of 19th century socialism. His worldview is almost the worldview of O. Comte and the religion of humanity, endless progress, which is an end in itself. Nach drüben ist die Aussicht uns verrannt, Thor, wer dorthin die Augen blinzelnd richtet, Sich über Wolken seinesgleichen dichtet! Er stehe fest und sehe hier sich um. Dem Tüchtigen ist diese Welt nicht stumm, Was braucht er in die Ewigkeit zu schweifen! Was er erkennt, lässt sich ergreifen. Er wandle so den Erdentag entlang; Wenn Geister spucken, geh'er seinen Gang: Im Weiterschreiten find'er Qual und Glück, Er, unbefriedigt jeden Augenblick! And Faust’s dying commandment is the motto of modern socialism, constantly repeated by its representatives! Das ist der Weisheit letzter Schluss: Nur der verdient sich Freiheit wie das Leben, Der täglich sie erobern muss. So, Faust ends with the theory of progress. This is the last theoretical step that he manages to take before his death, often indicating the lack of internal unity between the first and second parts of Faust. This indication is correct in the sense that the second part is not an answer or resolution of the questions posed by the first. Faust does not solve the epistemological problem he posed, but he avoids it and stops dealing with it. He finds the harmony of the spirit in the balance of his various abilities, the voice of the heart also gives an answer to the requests of the mind. Thus, social activity for Faust is a theoretical pis aller, a practical rather than theoretical solution to the issue. Social activity is for him only a fact, and not a theoretical postulate. But as one generation ends, another begins. And what for one generation represents a result obtained with blood, for another, starting from this point, forms a problem; Thus, Faust's Testament is a problem for Karamazov. As stated above, all of Ivan’s doubts form in their totality the problem of socialism, not in the economic sense, as it has been posed recently by, say, Bernstein and all economic literature, but in the sense of a moral worldview, as modern philosophy, especially Nietzsche, poses it, therefore, not his theory, but his religion. Ivan is not a socialist, at least nothing gives reason to consider him an active socialist, but he is completely embraced by this worldview, he is a child of socialism, but a child of little faith, doubting. One does not need to consciously share the ideas of the century in order to nevertheless be its son; sometimes denial indicates a much more passionate attitude towards the denied teaching than its indifferent acceptance. In this sense, we can, by the way, say that Nietzsche, with his hostility to socialism, is completely a product of the worldview of socialism, its illegitimate spiritual son. The great spirit of Dostoevsky grasped all the main features of the new worldview; without dividing it, he constantly thought about it, and traces of this intense and passionate thought were preserved in many of his works of art (for example, “Demons”) and, in journalistic form, in the Diary of a Writer. And he expressed these thoughts, his disbelief with artistic brightness in Ivan Karamazov. "The Brothers Karamazov" is the last and most mature work of the great writer. Perhaps his disbelief helped him look deeper into the problems of this worldview; his eye was open to its weaknesses, to its theoretical gaps. Dostoevsky looked at the worldview of socialism, as well as at the spiritual state of Ivan, as something of a moral illness, but growing pains, as a transitional worldview preceding a higher synthesis, which, we add on its own, should consist in merging the economic demands of socialism with the principles of philosophical idealism and justifying the former with the latter. The incompatibility of philosophical materialism or positivism and the ethical scope that socialism requires, the disease of religious unbelief, which also paralyzes social idealism - this is the diagnosis that Dostoevsky, in the person of Ivan Karamazov, gave to European advanced society. And it seems to us that history confirms the validity of this diagnosis. Perhaps Dostoevsky, by the way, attributed to the worldview of the 19th century the great words of the Gospel, which he took as the epigraph to the novel and expressing the law of all healthy development: “Truly, truly, I say to you: unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). So, Ivan Karamazov expresses the torments and doubts of the 19th century, like Faust does the 18th century. If the latter is a representative of the era of the worldview of individualism, then Ivan Karamazov is the skeptical son of the era of socialism. This is the global significance of Karamazov’s image. But everything great appears in a national guise, and while pointing out the global, non-national features of a given image, we must also note the national ones. The immediate impression speaks quite definitely that Faust, while remaining a world image, is at the same time a German from head to toe, from whom at times even smacks of philistinism; There is also no doubt that Ivan Karamazov is a completely Russian person, with whom each of us cannot help but feel a blood relationship. To be more specific, Ivan is a Russian intellectual, from head to toe, with his passion for world issues, with his penchant for protracted conversations, with constant introspection, with his sick, tormented conscience. In the last sign I see the most striking and characteristic feature of the Russian intelligentsia, a feature noted many times in literature: in a certain sense, we can say that all of our fiction and a good part of journalistic literature speak directly or indirectly about this disease of conscience. I confess that I love and appreciate this feature of the Russian intelligentsia, which, in my opinion, distinguishes it from Western Europeans. It gives an aura of moral martyrdom and purity, it excludes complacency and cultural bourgeoisism, it spiritualizes. So sometimes the face of a seriously ill person seems more beautiful, more intelligent, more noble than a healthy and rosy face. The disease of conscience, this amazing disease, determines the entire character of our culture and, I think, our entire philosophical development. I have already mentioned the comparative theoretical sterility of Russian philosophical thought; Meanwhile, we Russians are tormented by a constant and intense metaphysical and religious thirst; as Ivan notes, we are constantly rushing around in one form or another with world issues; the powerlessness of our philosophical thought, despite this, has its reason in the same sick conscience. In every theory, we first of all look for answers to the queries of conscience, we look for practical instructions. We are thus approaching theory from the practical end, from which it is impossible to arrive at valuable theoretical conclusions. Hence the lack of calm, excessive passion, which is involuntarily introduced into the theory and obscures its clarity. For the same reason, of all the great problems of philosophy, our favorite problem is the ethical one. The ethical problem, for example, constitutes the entire content of the philosophy of gr. Tolstoy, this typically Russian philosophy. This is its vitality, this is its complete metaphysical weakness. Based on an ethical problem, especially limiting itself to it, it is difficult to build a complete and valuable philosophical or metaphysical worldview. Kant from the Critique of Pure Reason came to the Critique of Practical Reason and to the positive teaching of morality, we are going just the opposite. Ivan Karamazov is a true Russian precisely in that he is entirely occupied with the ethical problem; The indifference of this strong philosophical mind to all other problems of philosophy, for example, the theory of knowledge, is amazing. And vice versa, Faust, speaking with an epistemological problem, is a real German, with their amazing power of philosophical thought and with their philosophical Grübelein (you won’t even find a Russian word for this concept). We thus felt in Ivan Karamazov our own illness, which constitutes our national difference, an illness of conscience, and saw in it his main psychological trait. Why is illness of conscience such a national feature of ours? The answer to this question is clear to everyone. Because there is a huge gap between the ideal and reality, between the demands of conscience and reason and life, there is a terrible discord, and from this discord we become sick. The ideal, by its very concept, does not correspond to reality, it denies it; but the degree of this discrepancy can be different, and in Russia this discrepancy is measured by the difference of several centuries, for, while the intelligentsia keeps pace with the most advanced European thought in its ideals, our reality in other respects is many centuries behind Europe. That is why nowhere in Europe does life so deeply offend at every step, does not torment, does not cripple, as in Russia. And all this moral grief from this discrepancy in the consciousness of the intelligentsia is expressed in a sense of moral responsibility to the people, a full and fruitful union with which is prevented by stupid, but not yet defeated forces. Dostoevsky expressed this sorrow of the Russian intelligent heart with brilliant simplicity and stunning power in one image in the same novel. Mitya Karamazov, exhausted from the interrogation of the forensic investigator and lighting a cigarette on a simple chest, has a dream. “It’s as if he’s riding somewhere in the steppe, where he served a long time ago, even before, and he’s being driven into the slush on a cart driven by a couple of men. It’s just cold, as if in Mitya, at the beginning of November, and the snow is falling in large wet flakes, and when it falls to the ground, it immediately melts. And his man drives him briskly, he waves nicely, he has a fair-haired, long beard, and he’s not like an old man, but he’ll be 50 years old, with a gray man’s coat on him. And here is a village nearby, you can see black huts, and half of the huts are burnt, only charred logs stick out. And as we were leaving, women lined up on the road, a lot of women, a whole row of them, all thin, worn out, their faces somehow brown. There’s especially one on the edge, so bony, tall, it seems she’s forty years old, or maybe only twenty, her face is long, thin, and in her arms a baby is crying, and her breasts must be so withered, and not a drop of milk in them. And the child cries, cries, and stretches out her arms, naked with little fists, completely bluish from the cold. -Why are they crying? Why are they crying? – asks Mitya, dashing past them. “Child,” the driver answers him, “the child is crying.” And Mitya is amazed by the fact that he said in his own way, in a peasant’s way: “child,” and not a child. And he likes that the man said “child”: there seems to be more pity. Why is it crying? - Mitya pesters like a fool. - Why are his arms bare, why don’t they wrap him up? But the child is cold, his clothes are frozen, and they don’t warm him up. - Why is this so? Why? - Stupid Mitya still doesn’t lag behind. “And the poor, the burnt, there is no bread, they ask for a burnt place.” “No, no,” Mitya doesn’t seem to understand everything, “you tell me: why are these burnt mothers standing, why are the people poor, why are the children poor, why is the bare steppe, why don’t they hug, don’t kiss, why don’t they sing joyful songs, why are they so black from black misfortune, why don’t they feed the “child”? This dream was constantly dreamed by the Russian intelligentsia throughout the entire 19th century. Even now, in 1901, she dreams that in many provinces, over many thousands of miles and among many millions of people, children are starving and crying. But his cry reaches us mutely, and we cannot even help him on our own initiative. Let us dream this dream, and let our conscience hurt until we have the power to teach the “child”, we cannot feed him, until he is “poor and blackened by black misfortune”, until “they hug, kiss, sing joyful songs!” In recent years, Dostoevsky has attracted increasing attention. Wed. excerpt from Dostoevsky's notebook: “The Inquisitor and the chapter on children. In view of these chapters, you (apparently Kavelin) could treat me, although scientifically, but not so arrogantly in terms of philosophy, although philosophy is not my specialty. And in Europe there is no such power of atheistic expressions and there never was. Therefore, it is not like a boy that I believe in Christ and confess Him, but through a great crucible of doubts my hosanna has passed.” In one letter from 1870, Dostoevsky says that “the question with which I have been tormented, consciously and unconsciously, all my life is the existence of God.” One involuntarily begs for comparison with an image inspired by the same mood and belonging to one of the most thoughtful and noble philosophers of modern France, namely the untimely deceased Guyot: “One night some angel or seraphim took me on his wings to carry me to the gospel paradise to the “creator,” and I felt myself flying in the heavens, above the earth. As I rose, I heard a drawn-out and sad noise rushing from the ground towards me, similar to the monotonous song of streams heard from the mountains in the silence of the peaks. But this time I can distinguish human voices; these were sobs mixed with requests for mercy, groans interrupted by praises, these were desperate pleas, sighs of a dying breast, bursting out along with praise; and all this was mixed into one mighty voice, into such a tearing symphony that my heart overflowed with pity. The sky seemed to me darkened, and I no longer saw either the sun or the joy of the universe. I turned to the one who accompanied me. “Don’t you hear?” – I told him. The angel looked at me with a calm and clear face: “These,” he said, “are the prayers of people who rush from the earth to God.” And as he said this, his white wing sparkled in the sun; but it seemed black and full of horror to me. “I would burst into tears if I were this God,” I exclaimed, and really felt that I was crying like a child. I let go of the angel’s hand and fell to the ground, believing that I still had too much humanity left for me to live in heaven” (M. Guyau. Esquisse d'une morale sana obligation, ni sanction. 5-me ed, Paris, 1900, p. 12). For me personally, this Karamazov question existed at the time of the greatest enthusiasm for Marxism. Wed. previous article “The Law of Causality and Freedom of Human Action”, p. 48. Wed. below about its resolution in Solovyov’s philosophy (article “What does the philosophy of Vladimir Solovyov give to modern consciousness?”). I know that in the image of the inquisitor they want to see a characteristic of the Catholic Church. But these historical interpretations, essentially controversial, only interfere with a clear understanding of the philosophical content of the legend. For a more detailed development of these ideas, see below in the article “On the Social Ideal.”