An essay on the life and work of Archimandrite Leonid (Kavelin), the third head of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem, and his scientific works on the study of the Orthodox East

For the first time - Russian Thought, 1914. Book. IV, 1–26. With the subtitle “On Dostoevsky’s “Demons” in connection with the dramatization of the novel at the Moscow Art Theater” and with the note “Read at the Moscow Religious and Philosophical Theater society on February 2, 1914.” Published from: “Quiet Thoughts”, pp. 1–31. The premiere of the dramatization on the MXT stage under the name “Nikolai Stavrogin” took place on October 23, 1913. The production caused fierce controversy; in particular, it was preceded by M. Gorky’s article “On the Karamazovshchina” (Russian Word, 1913. September 22) with a protest against the expected premiere and was followed by his article “More about the Karamazovschina” (Ibid. 1913. October 27) with a negative assessment of the staged novel. As stated in the notice of the Moscow RFO, the statement served as the immediate reason for its above-mentioned meeting. The same notice publishes the abstracts of Bulgakov’s report, most likely formulated by the author himself: “Dostoevsky as a tragedian. “Demons” as a religious tragedy of the Russian soul, a negative mystery. “The Book of Christ” as Dostoevsky’s main idea, which was partially fulfilled in all of his novels, in particular in “Demons”. The secondary derivative character of his political motives and literary cartoons. Mediocrity, bad femininity of the Russian soul, which has not defined its spiritual center as the central theme of “Demons”. Nikolai Stavrogin is a medium of evil and Khpomonozhka is a medium of good. Faces of non-existence: the mystery of Stavrogin’s influence on Kirillov, Shatov, Pyotr Bepxovensky. The temptation of Kirillov (“man-god”). Seduction of Shatov (“the people are the body of God”). The temptation of Peter Bepxovensky (“Ivan Tsarevich”, impostor). Adventurism of life (Liza) and sacrificial love (Dasha). What is healing? - a positive idea of ​​tragedy, Dostoevsky and “Demons”. After reading the report, it will be discussed” (Department of Manuscripts of the Russian State Library, F. 746. K. 38. Ed. Xp. 56). Vyach actually made a presentation during the discussion. I. Ivanov. Having expressed satisfaction with the “respectful attitude towards Dostoevsky” that colored the report, the speaker reproached Bulgakov for his schematic approach to complexity the inner world of the heroes “Demons”. This especially applies to Stavrogin and Khromonozhka as the main male and female characters. Vyach. Ivanov gave a Christianized interpretation of Khpomonozhka’s attitude to “Mother Earth,” which Bulgakov correlated with pagan, “natural mysticism.” The thesis about mediamicity as the “bad femininity” of the Russian soul, which is fundamental for Bulgakov, was also criticized (see his letters to Andrey Belom // New World, 1989. No. 10); Shatov, described by Bulgakov as a bearer of the nationalist temptation, was also taken under protection. Stavrogin was redefined as a “renegade God-bearer” (and not just an ideological provocateur). In response, Bulgakov admitted that, “having given himself at some point an essay on a gymnasium theme” (meaning “characteristics of Stavrogin”), he “to the known I schematized the material to a degree and made drawings where a drawing was needed.” However, not agreeing with the opponent, he noted: “The monstrosity, although it really exists in the post-Epoxy era, but in its consciousness it belongs to pre-Christian or, rather, to the extra-Christian era." In exactly the same way, Bulgakov remained consistent with his interpretation of Shatov (“...it is no coincidence that Dostoevsky asserts that Shatov does not believe in God, believing in a God-bearing people...”). In his speech, S.H. Dyrylin shared the observation that in the novel “Demons” there is “more than one darkness” (as it seemed to the speaker), because it contains a “mystical choir”, “the people’s clergy of Christ”. In response, Bulgakov objected that in “Besax” there are also “opportunities of a different nature, there are Shpigylin’s, which operate during a fire.” Thus, the main participants in the discussion turned out to be more ardent neo-Slavophiles than the speaker, and reproached Bulgakov for his excessively gloomy assessment of the Russian psyche and its “temptations” (for the transcript of the meeting, see: Department of Manuscripts of the Russian State Library, F. 10d. K. 4. Item Xp. 50). Speech Vyach. Ivanov formed the basis of his article “The Main Myth in the Novel “Demons,” published in the same issue of Russian Thought as “Russian Tragedy” with the note: “The following considerations are caused by the report of S. N. Bulgakov in the Moscow Religious and Philosophical Society and serve as a supplement to my article “Dostoyevsky and "tragedy novel"..." - and then included in his collection. “Furrows and boundaries” (1916), to which Bulgakov responded with a review of “Dreams of Gaia” // “Quiet Thoughts”, pp. 134–135. The theme “Dostoevsky and Russian tragedy” was also delivered by Maximilian Boloshin: “... the Russian novel of the 19th century became the source of all the tragic experiences of the Slavic soul. Enter the world of Dostoevsky: the entire night soul of Russia cries through his lips with many voices. This is not an artist - this is a demoniac in whom all the demons of Russian life have taken up residence. In all European literature, there is not a single writer who would give a more tragically rich atmosphere... in Dostoevsky, Russian tragedy is already included in its entirety, and it is necessary only a strike of creative lightning for it to arise for the theater. “Besax” has the tragic intensity of “Seven against Thebes...”. (“Russian tragedy will arise from Dostoevsky” // Russian rumor, 1913. March 15, No. 93. P. 3; quoted from the book: Boloshin M. Faces of creativity. M., 1988. P. 363, 364). “...for a tragedy to arise, the existence of a myth and its epic treatment is necessary. The entire modern Russian myth and epic is hidden in the Russian classic novel of the 19th century...” (“The Brothers Karamazov” staged by the Moscow Art Theater” (1910) .. Decree P. 366). There is a direct analogy here with Vyach’s article. Ivanov “Dostoevsky and the novel-tragedy” (Russian Thought, 1911; Book V. pp. 46–61; Book VI. pp. 1–17) and an introduction to the ideas of his “Main myth in the novel “Demons”. Although Dostoevsky did not write a single page in dramatic form, nevertheless, in his great novels, in essence, he is also a great tragedian. This becomes completely obvious in the stage production of his novels, especially with such means as the Moscow Art Theater, which productions of “The Brothers Karamazov” and “Demons” helped to reveal the face of the tragic in Dostoevsky. What is tragedy in its internal meaning? As an artistic form, it must satisfy the requirements established by the literary canon (such as, for example, the Aristotelian unity of place, time and action); according to the internal meaning, the course and development of the tragedy is determined not by a person with his personal drama in his empirical, everyday, temporary shell, but suprahuman, superhuman (or, rather, nominally human) law, a kind of divine fate, which carries out its sentences with inevitability by force, He, this divine law, is the true hero of the tragedy, he is revealed in his meaning of Providence in human life, carries out his terrible judgment on earth and carries out his sentence. The content of the tragedy is therefore an internal law of human life, realized and revealed with complete evidence with any attempt to disrupt it, deviate from its orbit. Hence the elevating, and at the same time terrifying, character of the tragedy: both a certain higher doom of its heroes, and the indisputable truth of this doom. “Demons” is also a tragedy in this sense, despite the lack of an external dramatic form. Already in its first chords one can hear an inescapable verdict, the inevitable death of the heroes in the mutual intertwining of their fates is foreshadowed. The usual scale by which “Demons” are often judged and judged is a political assessment of the political tendencies of this novel. Some appreciate in it a deep and truthful portrayal of the Russian revolution, a direct homage to it, surprisingly anticipating many, many features of the genuine one, only a quarter later the century of the coming Russian revolution; others hate “Demons” as a political libel on the same revolution, in their eyes tendentious and harmful; This impression is strengthened by certain features of caricature and caricature that are undeniably present (in the images of Karmasinov, partly Stepan Fedorovich 1, individual characters from revolutionaries, etc.). It cannot be denied that the novel, or more precisely, its author, is characterized by well-known political trends that can be developed into a whole political worldview; Here one can see through political sympathies and antipathies, which are revealed more fully in “The Diary of a Writer.” After all, ancient tragedians, such as Aeschylus, also had their own political opinions and sentiments, which were felt by their contemporaries. However, what a pity would be that Greek who would disparage the tragedy of Aeschylus for the “blackness” of its author, and the same vandalism is now presented to us political party membership to weigh the work of Dostoevsky. For, if Dostoevsky really saw in life its tragic regularity, then we can certainly say that it is not politics as such that is essential for this tragedy and there is the most important thing in it. Politics cannot form the basis of tragedy, the world of politics remains outside the tragic, and there cannot be a political tragedy in the proper sense of the word. Political values relate to the world of the phenomenal, temporary, derivative, while tragedy always strives to penetrate to the supertemporal, deep, nominally, although, of course, from the outside it can take on at least political forms. And politics in Besax is something derivative, and therefore secondary. It is not in a political authority that the cause of the revolution is discussed here and the verdict is pronounced on it. Here is a different, higher destiny, here the competition is not between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, not Socialist Democrats and Socialist Revolutionaries, not Black Tensians and Cadets. No, here “God fights the devil, and the battlefield is the hearts of people” 2, and therefore the tragedy “Demons” has not only a political, temporary, transitory meaning, but also contains itself a grain of immortal life, a ray of unfading truth, like all great and genuine tragedies, which also take their form from a historically limited environment, in a certain epoch. In this sense, although in appearance “Demons” seem to represent a page from the political history of Russia, in reality this work is not at all related to it, remains free from it and rises above it. This is by no means, at the same time, a historical, “realistic” novel from the history of the Russian revolution, it is not even its “War and Peace”, where some psychological contemplation is connected with the historical era, contains historical insight. The novel “Demons,” like all of Dostoevsky’s work in general, belongs to symbolic art, and its symbolism is only outwardly covered by an everyday shell, it realistic only in the sense of realistic symbolism (according to the terminology of Vyach. I. Ivanov); here symbolism is the ascension of a realibus ad realiora 3, the comprehension of higher realities in the symbols of the lower world. And Dostoevsky himself was aware of this nature of his creativity when he wrote about himself in his notebook: “They call me a psychologist: it’s not true 4, I’m only a realist in the highest meaning, that is, I depict all the depths of the human soul.” With its roots, the human soul goes into another, divine world, and Dostoevsky’s realism extends therefore not only to the human world, but also to the divine world, i.e. is symbolism. So, “Demons” is a symbolic tragedy. But at the same time, this is essentially a Russian tragedy, depicting the fate of the Russian soul. More specifically, this is a tragedy of the Russian intelligentsia, a certain spiritual structure of the individual. For Dostoevsky, as well as for us, who listen to his covenants, the Russian tragedy is primarily religious, a tragedy of faith and unbelief. “I believe, Lord, help my unbelief,” - this is what breaks out from his soul in the life and work of Dostoevsky, and in particular in “Demons.” For him there is only one truth of life, one truth - Christ, and then one tragedy - not at all religious, but precisely Christian. The desire for Christ, the powerlessness to be with Him and the struggle against Him with raging self-will - this is its intended content. It is known biographically that Dostoevsky intended for himself to write a book about Christ as the completion of his life’s work; it was, so to speak, a literary projection of all his religious aspirations, thoughts and feelings. It seems that he would never have written this book, because such books are not written at all, this goes beyond literature, the world of books. But we can say that all the books written by him, in essence, were written about Christ, and how could he write about anything other than about Him, having come to know Him and loved Him? For love for Christ in Dostoevsky, as in his heroes, is firmer and more undoubted even than faith in Him itself. And the book “Demons,” no matter how paradoxical it may sound, is written about Christ, beloved and desired by the Russian soul, about the Russian Christ, and about the struggle with Him, about resisting Him—about the Antichrist, and also about the Russian antichrist. Externally, this is sufficiently evidenced by the epigraph to the novel, taken from the Gospel story about the healing of the Gadarene demon. Russian Christ is the real, albeit invisible, non-appearing hero of the tragedy “Demons,” only He has the power to cast out “demons,” and is able to heal the possessed. In the Middle Ages, stage performances in which the characters were Christ and the saints were called mysteries, and in this sense “Demons” is a mystery. However, “Demons” have the right to this name not only in the literary and historical sense, they have the beginnings of that sacred and reverent authenticity that should the future mystery - God-worship - will appear, longed for and cherished in our souls. And this brilliant character of Dostoevsky’s tragedy is felt with all its strength when it is staged in the Art Theater: one feels that this is not ordinary a performance for the “entertainment” of the theater public, hungry for entertainment, but something already on the border of stage art, standing and surpassing it. True mystery cannot be just a spectacle, it obliges to a lot, not allowing the viewer to remain a passive-aesthetic contemplator, like the actor - only let's act; the role of only the viewer or only the actor seems already blasphemous, and it’s as if a dynamic trembling runs through the hall... In these highest achievements of the stage, the conditionality, artificiality and even limitations of art are most strongly reflected, since it remains abstractly aesthetic. For it was not about this art that Dostoevsky pronounced his prophecy: “beauty will save the world.” The world will be saved not by theatrical, not aesthetic beauty; it itself is valuable and important only as long as it calls to this saving beauty, and does not distract from it, does not fascinate, does not deceives. Dostoevsky's tragedy is called “Demons.” The forces of evil, and not good, rule the Russian soul in it, not the Savior, but the tempter, whose name is “Legion, because there are many of us,”—the many-sided evil itself. Religious nature does not tolerate emptiness; and once the soul has awakened to God and, however, is not able to be born to a new life, to find its true self in God, it becomes a mask of itself, a playground of evil power. In this obsession, she loses her natural balance, which was instinctively supported by nature before her awakening; like the Gadarene demoniac, she “lives not in a house, but in tombs,” tormented and shaken in frenzy and rebellion. She becomes a medium of evil force, not even being evil herself, and not convinced, but forced by it into submission. This is no longer a state of religious unawakening or blindness; on the contrary, sight is sharpened here to the extreme. What is lacking here is not knowledge, but strong-willed, vital self-determination. In the Gospel, demons invariably recognize Christ before people do, but what do they say to Him? “What do you have to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg You, do not torment me” (Luke 8:28). He who is Joy itself, Who said to His disciples: “My joy will be in you and your joy will be complete” (John 14:10), He torments the spirits of evil with Himself and with them obsessed. The main characters of “Demons” also experience this state of torment for Christ. “God has tormented me all my life,” says Kirillov and, in fact, not only about himself, but also about Shatov, Stavrogin, Fedka, even about the rest of the characters who the destined role of the Gadarene pigs, i.e. blind weapons of evil power. Obsession—some kind of strange mediamicity—is indeed the main feature of the heroes of “Demons.” All of them are in a painful paralysis of personality. It’s as if it’s missing, eaten out by someone, and instead of a face there’s a face, a mask. The face of Stavrogin, the central character of “Demons,” not only resembled a mask, but, in essence, it was a mask. A mysterious and almost insurmountable difficulty for the staging of “Demons” is the absence of a living Stavrogin, his personality. Stavgin is the hero of this tragedy, in him it is the knot, all its threads are connected to him, all aspirations, hopes and beliefs are directed towards him, and at the same time he is not there, scary, ominous, Hell no, no not at all because it was not a success for the author or performer, but precisely because it was a success. Dostoevsky knew what he wanted, or rather, his mystical and artistic genius knew it. Stavrogin is not there, because he is possessed by the spirit of non-existence, and he knows about himself that he does not exist, hence all his torment, all the strangeness of his behavior, these surprises and eccentricities, with which he wants, as if to convince himself of his non-existence; and equally the death that he inevitably and inexorably brings to the creatures associated with him. What will remain of him is only a psychological skeleton—iron will, temperament, fearlessness and even an adventurous search for danger as an acute impression, but spirit he is “bound” with chains and bonds, and a “legion” lives in him. How is such rape possible of the free human spirit, the image and likeness of God, what is this obsession, this black grace of demonlessness? However, doesn’t this question relate to another question, namely, how the healing, saving, regenerating, liberating grace of God works, How is redemption and salvation possible? How is deification possible? forgiveness of sins that become as if they had never happened? Here we come to the deepest mystery in the relationship between God and man; and Satan, who is the monkey of God, a plagiarist and a thief, sows his black grace, binding, paralyzing the human personality, which only Christ frees. “And when they came to Jesus, they found a man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind” (Luke 8:35). Medium-mindedness, feminine receptivity, paralysis of the masculine principle of Logos distinguish Stavrogin, as do most of the characters in “Demons”. K, by the way, in modern literature there is a writer who, in his artistic comprehension of the mediality of the soul, sometimes comes close to Dostoevsky, this is Andrey White. In “Silver Dove”, as well as in “Petersburg” 5, this mediumistic state of the soul, its possession by dark forces from other “planes” of existence, other worlds. “Petersburg” turns out to be a direct continuation of “Demons”, and this is all the more amazing because it is obviously alien to premeditation. However, in the work of A. Bely (as well as his spiritually related Gogol) still lack those very features of Dostoyevsky’s work that make it possible to recognize his novels (not excluding “Demons”) “a book about Christ”; At least, until now this cannot be said about the author of “Silver Dove” and “Petersburg”. It seems that his future depends on whether he finds salvation from the whirlwinds piercing his soul, from their “legion” “at the feet of Jesus.” But let’s return to “Demons”. Stavrogina, this face of non-existence, has a central place in the novel, almost everyone is more or less in love with him, both men and women, the best hopes and dreams are associated with him, everyone has their own, - and only the prophetic Chromonozhka, this medium of Good, from his “dreams” learns the terrible secret that he is an impostor, a guise, a shell, that his no, and this court of Chromonozhka, or a higher power speaking through her, finally decides the fate of Stavrogin: after him he (like Ivan Karamazov in a conversation with Smerdyakov about murder of his father) internally agrees with the murder of Chromonozhka. Bishop Tikhon (see appendix to “Demons” 6) Stavrogin admits that a demon is coming to him (as well as to Ivan Karamazov). “Tikhon looked questioningly. “And... do you really see him... do you really see any image?” “It’s strange that you’re asking about this, when I’ve already told you that I see... of course, I see, I see the same way as you...” But what’s important is that this is the question with which Stavrogin presents himself: “Is it possible to believe in a demon without believing in God at all?” “Oh, it’s very possible, quite often,” was Tikhon’s answer, and this was the answer about Stavrogina. In the state of obsession in which Stavrogin is, he is, as it were, an outlet from the underworld, through which hellish fumes pass. It is nothing more than an instrument of provoking evil. In Dostoevsky’s novel, this problem of provocation is artistically posed, understood not only in the political sense, but in a more significant, vital-religious sense. Stavrogin is at the same time both a provocateur and an instrument of provocation. He knows how to influence what the individual aspiration of a given person is, push him to death, igniting a special fire in each of his, and this The scorching, evil, hellish flame shines, but does not warm, burns, but does not cleanse. After all, it is Stavrogin who directly or indirectly destroys Liza, and Shatov, and Kirillov, and even Bepxovensky and others like him, and in reality it is not he who destroys, but it, that which acts in him, through him and besides him. Each of those subordinate to his influence is deceived by his mask, but all these masks are different, and not one is his real face. He simultaneously stirs up a mental storm in Shatov and inspires Kirillov with his nonsense, knightly and capriciously marries Khromonozhka and takes part in a sadistic society, molests a child so as not to talk about the rest. His healing was never completed, the demons were not driven out, and the “citizen of the canton of Uri” suffered the fate of the Gadarene pigs, like everyone else around him. None of them finds complete healing at the feet of Jesus, although others (Shatov, Kirillov) are already looking for it, but... “Well,” says Bishop Stavrogin. Tikhon, - complete atheism is not only more honorable than secular indifference, but a complete atheist stands at the penultimate highest stage to perfect faith (there he will step whether it is, or not), and the indifferent person has no faith except bad fear.” Here, as in other novels, Dostoevsky tries to penetrate into the depths of “complete atheism,” that religious despair from which faith is tragically born (or never born). Christ or the Gadarune abyss - this is the religious meaning of the tragedy, this is its truth, its preaching: it is impossible otherwise, there is no other way out, tertium non datur 7. This is how it stood in Dostoevsky’s soul, in which perfect faith always tragically struggled with complete unbelief, now victorious, now vanquished, and this same tragedy through He felt his own spirit both in the Russian soul and in the spiritual body of Russia, in which Holy Russia is fighting the kingdom of Karamazovism. In “Besax” there is still no such division of light and darkness as in “The Brothers Karamazov”, where the old man Fyodor Karamazov is opposed by the elder Zosima, and Ivan-Alyosha, there are only the Gadarenes are possessed, one darkness. But it is condensed to the last torment, and this sharpness of it, its unbearability, makes it pre-dawn, not the darkness of indifference and chaos, but that “shadow of death”, in which gives birth to “great light.” And in this sense, “Demons,” we repeat, is a book about Christ, there is a negative mystery. The Kingdom of Light is outlined here in a few, albeit highly dignified, touches, in the form of Ep. Tikhon (however, not included in the novel by the author) and the things of Khpomonozhka, this most amazing creation of Dostoevsky’s work. Chronozhka is a clairvoyant, she is from the family of sibils who read the book of fates with their eyes closed. But she also does not belong to the positive heroes of Good, the bearers of the courageous principle of religion, and she is also a medium, although in the purity of her heart and under the shield of her foolishness, In her debility and weakness, she is inaccessible to the power of anger and open to goodness. She is protected from evil spells by the cover of pure femininity; This is not the bad, barren, witch-like femininity of a sorceress, but filled with the will to motherhood and in her virginity the unwanted infertility - a reflection of the unfading light of the “Virgin and Mother.” She tells Shatov about her child, of course, who never existed, and this is not only nonsense, this is what birth-giving femininity itself says, I want to believe, that this child exists, although he was never born. However, Chromonozhka's sight strongly resembles what in theosophical language is called astral clairvoyance and is significantly different from religious inspiration. She is a sibyl, but not a priest. Through dreams she finds the road to reality. “Now dreams are not good (she complains to Stavrogin), and dreams are not good because you have arrived.” To this beloved creation of his muse, this beloved daughter of Mother Earth, Dostoevsky puts into the mouth his most intimate, most significant, most sacred words. thoughts. There are few fiery words in the entire world literature that would be consonant with this otherworldly music surrounded by speech. “- But in my opinion, I say, God and nature are all one. They all said to me in one voice: “Here we go!” The abbess brightened up, whispered something to the lady, called me, caressed me.... Well, and the monk immediately began to tell me a lesson, and it’s so affectionate and He spoke humbly and with such a mind one must be: I sit and listen. “Do you understand?” “- asks, “No,” I say, “I didn’t understand anything, and leave me,” I say, “completely alone.” ...And in the meantime, whisper to me, leaving the church, one of our elders, in repentance, she lived with us for priesthood: “What is the Mother of God, as you think?” “Great Mother,” I answer, “the hope of the human race.” “So,” he says, “the Mother of God is the great mother of the damp earth, and this is great joy for man. And every earthly melancholy, and every earthly tear is our joy; and as soon as you water the ground under you with your tears to a depth of half an apex, then you will immediately recover from everything. And there will be no, no, - he says, - there will be no sorrow of yours, that is, - he says, - there is a prophecy.” Then this word stuck with me. From then on I began to pray, bowing to the ground, kissing the ground every time, kissing myself and crying. I’ll tell you, Shatyshka: there is nothing bad in these tears; and even if you don’t have any grief, your tears will still run from joy. The tears themselves are flowing, that’s true. I used to go to the shore of the lake: on one side is our monastery, and on the other is our sharp mountain, so they call it Mount Sharp. I will climb this mountain, I will turn my face to the east, I will fall to the ground, I cry, I cry and I don’t remember how long I cry, and I don’t remember then, and I don’t know then nothing. Then I’ll get up, turn back, and the sun will set, so big, so magnificent, so nice, - do you like to look at the sun, Shatyshka? It's good, but sad. I turn back to the east again, and the shadow, the shadow from our mountain far across the lake, like an arrow, runs, narrow, long, long, and a mile further, all the way to the lake of the island, and that stone island will cut it in half, and as soon as it cuts it in half, the sun will go down and everything will suddenly go out.” The little leg is pierced by alien rays, she hears alien voices, so the mask will not deceive her, she will not accept the identity of the face and will not believe the impostor. And yet, in essence, she is not there as a person, as an individual, she is all as if split by her weakness, her foolishness, even her clairvoyance. She is from the genus of those about whom Plato spoke in the Timaeus, referring their priestly gift not to the head, not to the heart, but to the liver: “The part of the soul settled near the liver... without being involved thoughts and reason, but it is used at night, when he leads a life of random dreams... There is also sufficient proof that God has appropriated the power of insight namely human incomprehension, for no one in a sober state of mind possesses the gift of divinely inspired and true reproach, but people possess it either when the power of their thinking is associated with sleep, or in a state of perversion brought either by illness, or by a certain kind of delight. But then it’s up to the thinking person to remember and discuss what this prophetic or divinely inspired nature has spoken to him, in a dream or in reality... while he is still in extirpation, there is no point in judging about his own ideas and words” 8 . And the fact that Plato already fully knew and understood Khpomonozhka is the best evidence of her religious nature, she is his religious contemporary, she belongs to pre-Christian era. Should I say it? After all, maybe she doesn’t know Jesus at all, doesn’t know the face of Christ, and speaks about “Theotokos” in a completely special, cosmic sense. She is righteous and holy, but only by the natural holiness of Mother Earth, her natural mysticism, lives from “the words written in the hearts of the pagans,” and has not yet been born to Christianity. Of course, Chromonozhka, already as the bearer of Eternal Femininity, grows with all her being into the Church, there is one of Her human hypostases, however, only in in its natural aspect, as the Soul of the World, the Mother of the 3rd, the “Mother of God,” but not yet the Mother of God. In the image of Khpomonozhka lies Dostoevsky’s greatest insight into Eternal Femininity, albeit faceless. This is a pre-Christian or extra-Christian soul, which understands the whisper of the Dodon oak 9, listens to the opgiastic babble of the Pythian priestess on her tripod and in honor of the Vestal Virgin. She knows well the holiness of the earth, for her “God and nature are one,” but she does not yet know that God who bowed the heavens and incarnated himself in the Perfect Man so that to unite in oneself the divine and the human, both God and nature, because they are one, but at the same time not one. And on Golgotha, along with the last breath of the Crucified, “the great Pan died” 10 so that he would no longer be resurrected, and the spell of natural grace, the new covenant, was broken abolished and swallowed up the old - both the old law and the old nature. And she can’t curse the Stavrogin demon, she can only name him, rip off his mask. And she herself dies as a martyr from the vengeful anger of the exposed impostor, by the fate of Kaccandra, her ancient sister. Dasha, the “nurse,” was noted for her courageous and positive traits, and Chromonozhka singled out one of all those gathered at Varvara Petrovna’s: “Dasha is the only angel.” Only she is not afraid of Stavrogin and knows his value: “Never, nothing can you destroy me, and you yourself know this better than anyone... If not to you, then I will go to the sisters mercy, as a nurse, to go after the sick, or as a bookstore, to sell the Gospel.” She knows that he will come to her, he will want to lay his weak head on her shoulder, he will click. She will become his nurse. However, she is not able to revive Stavrogin. He treats her, her virtue is too insipid, elemental, and limited for him. Moreover, in her very feeling, in the nature of her attachment to Stavrogin, there is something unworthy, reminiscent of a dog’s devotion. And her secret connection with Stavrogin, obviously based not on mutual love or even respect, but on pain humility on the one hand and capriciousness on the other (and this is even more emphasized by the developing combination with Stepan Trofimovich). “He’ll come after the bench!” he (Stavrogin) whispered, getting up, and disgusting contempt was expressed in his face. “Nurse!” hmm! But maybe that’s what I need!” He did call her when the ground beneath him was finally crumbling, but he did not receive the strength to live from her, and then he could not use her services. However, it was not a woman’s love that could save Stavrogin, and how can one demand from a woman what Femininity itself could not accomplish (Chrome). Of all the women surrounding Stavrogin, Lisa is the most similar to her. Unlike a whole series of people, in relation to whom Stavrogin acts as an intellectual tempter, in this case there is absolutely no place for ideological seduction. In Liza’s relationship with Stavrogina, one observes rather some kind of enchantment of will, magical hypnosis, with which the boa paralyzes the bird doomed to be eaten. Between Stavrogin and Liza there is a musical correspondence of souls, Wahlvegwandschaft 11, but this is a form of obsession, because Liza does not belong to herself, and she is attracted to blind and evil force. Some kind of irrational adventurism, the sweetness of death, the desire for the abyss are awakened in her. Stavrogin once expressed Lebyadkin’s thought, which made a great impression on him (for after all, Stavrogin’s charm extends to him): “You have to be really great.” a person in order to be able to resist even against common sense.” Liza challenges not only common sense, but also much more respectable feelings when, without remembering her mother and Mavriky Nikolaevich, she rushes into Stavrogin’s carriage. She does not deceive herself regarding Stavrogin, and when she gives herself up to him, she is not looking for him, but for death, she is looking for that unknown freedom that the transition promises. the last facets, but, deceived by the demonic haze, she finds despair and emptiness; it is not without reason that, already entering Skvoreshniki, she is recommended as a “corpse.” “It always seemed to me,” she says to Stavrogin on this fateful morning in Skvoreshniki, “that you would lead me to some place where a huge evil prick lives in the human growth, and we will be there all our lives looking at it and being afraid of it. That’s how our mutual love will pass.” And truly, she does not deceive herself, does not fall into illusions. Well, if so, then what kind of evil force threw her into the arms of Stavrogin? Is it love? But it’s not love that speaks with its tongue on Skvoreshnikov’s morning, it’s not that divine gift that will show the eternal image of the beloved in erotic radiance. These are not the wings with which the soul soars into the eternal blue sky, these are fetters, demonic spells, this is love from the inside out, love-hate, also possessing clairvoyance, only not good, but evil, seeing a person in love and at the same time hated not the creation of Divine love, but the prey of hell, an evil ration or a “golden imp with a runny nose from “unfulfilled”, this is not eros, but anti-eras, some kind of black love. This is the kind of love Liza loves Stavrogina with, and almost the same love he responds to her. Stavrogin plays an exceptional role in the lives of not only women, but no less, if not more, men. “Remember how much you meant in my life,” Kirillov, Shatov, Pyotr Bepxovensky, and even Lebyadkin tell him in one voice. Kirillov and Shatov in the novel burn in the fire of a fire lit in their souls by Stavrogin. With their flesh and blood they clothed abstract, seemingly ownerless ideas, which, like sparks from a fire, fly out, phosphorescently luminous and cold, from the non-living Stavrogin, who has lost his personal existence and turned into a guise, a medium. That’s why he becomes a spiritual provocateur, he ignites others with something that he himself doesn’t burn with and is obviously incapable of catching fire—the icy reflection of someone else’s fire and light. He is an actor, but not on stage, not in art, but in life. After all, an actor is also a medium and also a provocateur - he, as a living person, is not in his role, he gives himself, his mental mechanism, as a means, as material for medial reproduction of someone else's content, which, however, must reflect a genuine experience in the soul of its viewers. This is the nature of the actor, and this is the boundary of the stage: the latter presupposes, so to speak, legitimate, recognized mediumism, illusionism, mirroring. This mediatic, provocative character of the stage precisely establishes the line between stage performance and teurgic art, as it is thought of in modern times. aspirations: this line presupposes a true transformation, equally extending to the performers, who cease to be empty faces, and to the spectators, who also cease to be empty or idle, passive contemplatives. The difference between stage art and mystical action is determined, therefore, by the mirror illusory nature of the achievements of the first and the vital reality of the second. This line is felt quite clearly in the difference between worship, liturgical rite, which always represents some kind of action, real the same for the clergy, and for the people, and between the stage performance, which, no matter how perfect it is, is always only a mirror, deceptive and feigned. The stage is an area of ​​bad idealism of mirroring and ghostliness, in contrast to the reality of the liturgical rite. Medium, provocation, mirroring is the very basis of stage art, this is its strength, because it expands the boundaries of empirically limited individuality: in one Human skin can accommodate several bodies; many different makeups can be applied to one face, but this is its limitation. According to his nature, an actor can be a medium of both good and evil, although in the service of beauty he has in each case a healing beginning, before to whom the power of evil will disappear. On the contrary, acting, transferred to life, inevitably becomes a provocation. This is Stavrogin, this actor in life, a mask of masks, a provocateur. Stavrogin, according to Kirillov’s apt definition, is “looking for a burden” in order to overcome his internal strife, cope with the breakdown of personality, be born into life, feel its invisibility reality, but remains defeated in this fight. And in the last letter to Dasha we read a bitter confession: “One denial poured out of me, without any generosity and without any strength. Not even denial came out. Everything is always small and sluggish.” And non-existence absorbs its victim, dead before death. And so many people believed in this dead man, so many hopes were associated with him: madness and obsession! This also determines Stavrogin’s role in the fate of Shatov and Kirillov, in whom he aggravated the mental drama inherent in them, thereby disturbing their mental balance. Both of them are unable to bear the fetus conceived in the soul and born prematurely, and both are drawn to death. Shatov says to Stavrogin: “In America, I lay for three months on the straw, next to one... unfortunate man, and I learned from him that at the same time when you planted God in my heart and homeland, at the same time, even, perhaps, on those very same days, you poisoned the heart of this unfortunate man, this maniac, Kirillov, with poison. You confirmed lies and slander in him and brought his mind to the point of frenzy.” And Stavrogin confirms: “Your assumption that all this happened at the same time is almost correct, but so what of all this? I didn’t deceive you either,” is a sincere and typical answer. Otherwise, to say, according to Kirillov’s definition, “Stavrogin, if he believes, then he does not believe that he believes. If he doesn’t believe, then he doesn’t believe that he doesn’t believe.” Of course, Stavrogin did not and could not implant neither God nor his homeland equally both in the soul of Shatov and in the soul of Kirillov. He appeared as a tempter for both, seducing them with illusory truth and illusory good. Temptation always deals with half-truth, presented as complete truth, and the consequence in it is presented as an end in itself, so The result is a chase instead of a cause following an effect. Temptation deceives, disrupting the harmony and order of the whole, subverting the wisdom of integrity - chastity, and this is precisely the destructive effect it has on the soul Kirillova and Shatova Stavrogin, seducing one with the idea of the divinity of every individual person, and the other with the divinity of the people. Kirillov represents one of the deepest and most amazing creations of the mystical genius of Dostoevsky; the religious abysses of the human spirit are revealed in him. An engineer by training, Kirillov lives only by religious interests. “God has tormented me all my life.” It is also characteristic that despite all his doubts and denials, his faith in Christ remains intact in his heart, or rather, completely exclusive, without any arguments justified, but not needed, love for Him. One must think that it was the same with Dostoevsky himself. In his last conversation with Peter Bepxovensky, Kirillov unexpectedly refers to the words of the Savior: “Here he said.” “And with feverish delight he pointed to the image of the Savior, in front of whom the lamp was burning.” And then follow the crazy and great words of unbelieving love. “You know that, in my opinion, you believe, perhaps, even more than a priest.” - In whom? in Him? “Listen,” Kirilov stopped, looking ahead of him with a motionless, frantic gaze. “Listen to the big idea: I was on earth one day, and in the middle of the earth there were three crosses... Listen. This man was the highest on the whole earth, he determined what she should live for. The whole planet, with everything on it, without this person is just madness. There was nothing like this either before or after Him, and never before, even before the miracle. The miracle is that there has never been and will never be the same.” We had to meet this complete love for Christ in Kirillov and Stavrogin, and in relation to the latter the following feature is especially interesting. In Shatov’s conversation with Stavrogin there is the following reference: “Didn’t you tell me that if they had mathematically proven to you that the truth is outside of Christ, then you would agree better stay with Christ rather than with the truth?” In this alternative, which, obviously, even more than for Shatov, is intended for Kirillov, under the guise of love and admiration there is subtle slander and disbelief 12: “No Do you betray the Son of Man with a kiss? This contrast of Christ, who for the believer is the Way, Truth and Life, with some abstract truth is a disguised blasphemy intended for deception of simple-minded hearts. Christ-Truth is here replaced by an idol chosen by whim, caprice of taste, subjective attachment, i.e. in the end, too... of our own free will. Kirillov’s heart on this side remained, apparently, inaccessible to the temptations of Stavrogin: with him, his love for Christ, and even the direct feeling of God, his general religious worldview. “I pray to everyone,” this “atheist” confesses, “you see, the ration is crawling along the wall, I look and am grateful to it for the fact that it is crawling.” Probably, by making this prayer of Spinoza, which continuously flows from him, 13 he lights a lamp in front of the one to whom, in addition to his knowledge, his soul is praying. He also resurrects religious faith in Fedka the convict, with whom he reads the Apocalypse. And yet Stavrogin poisoned his consciousness, made him a maniac of one deep and important idea, which, having taken possession of him completely, became godless and delusional character This is the idea of ​​human freedom and human divinity, “you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.” There are two paths of human freedom: “Thy will be done,” the path indicated by the Son of Man, who came not in His name, but in the name of the Father, and who did not His will, but Who sent Him, and “my will be done,” the path of self-will, of resistance to God, relying, however, on the feeling of one’s power, on the consciousness of one’s divinity. There are two paths to human divinity: the path of the Son of God, who “considered it not a predator” to be equal to God, but, having berated himself, took on the “form of a servant” and was obedient to death godmother, having exhausted himself and his divinity, and the path of the one who wants to be an opponent of God, a rival of God, by stealing wealth and appropriating for himself what is not his own. Simple, naively denying atheism remains infinitely inferior to the mystical demands of Kirillov: the latter does not reject God, but does not want Him, this is not atheism, but antitheism, and antitheoc is the one who wants to put himself in place of God. And for this second god, the self-impostor god, the rebel, the usurper, the plagiarist, rebellion and self-will inevitably turn out to be attributes of deity, self-confidence in divinity, its breakdown and implementation. “For three years I searched for the attribute of my deity and found it: the attribute of my deity is self-will! This is all I can do at the main point to show my disobedience and terrible freedom. Because she is very scary. I kill myself to show my disobedience and my terrible freedom.” Just as Satan is a caricature of God, so self-will is a caricature of freedom, so religious rebellion is a parody of power. Divine freedom is Love and therefore Humility. St. The Trinity is an eternally realized act of Love-Humility, in which each hypostasis exhausts itself in humility-love in order to find itself in the other, then for the Trinity, this freedom in humility, there is no place in the kingdom of discord and self-will: Satan is a unitarian, cosmically sticking out his self. And the very creation of the world as an act of divine love, providing peace and human peace with all freedom and renouncing for the sake of this freedom the unlimitedness of the divine omnipotence, there is an act of humility, self-denial: in the “let it be” of the first day of creation, Golgotha and the last divine self-exhaustion are already destined: “My God, God my, abandoned me all the time? Satan is incompatible with the free world, he can only want the world as a thing, as a toy, and humanity as slaves who can be pushed around, He is always a claim and claim, embodied uper or Über: Überwelt, Übermensch, Übergott 14, he is all – effort, envy, competition. He always needs to assure himself and prove to himself this illusory and false divinity of his. And if the attribute of God is to give life and resurrection - “resurrection is a document of the true God” (B. Solovyov 15), then the attribute of the opposite of God is arbitrary destruction without the power of creation. And the most radical proof of this self-proclaimed deity is the destruction of oneself, one’s own life, suicide for religious reasons. Here is the general pattern of Kirillov’s temptation, which becomes more complex and grows in his psychology, this theme sounds overflowing in the mystical music of his soul. “All freedom will exist when it is all the same to live or not to live. That’s the purpose of everything.” “God is the pain of the fear of death. Whoever conquers pain and fear will become a god himself.”... “There is no further freedom; everything is here, but beyond that there is nothing. Whoever dares to kill himself is God.” Suicide as a religious experiment, as proof of self-will, from which a new era in the history of mankind will begin—this is Kirillov’s idea. But this new god or anti-god, tempting Kirillov, is a deceiver and an impostor, for he can only destroy. He does not lie in that a person must know and recognize both his freedom and his power in order to give them to God in the humility of self-denial. For God also wants to have as his sons not stepsons, not slaves and not mannequins. He does not need our passivity and laziness, but our activity, freedom and power. But when we affirm them in ourselves, we are on the edge of a knife, we are exposed to the greatest danger of substitutions, in which will appears as freedom, in the quality of daring is daring, instead of power it is destructive vandalism. So Kirillov is drunk with the felt freedom and the recognized power of his own, but he is also a slave of it, because he does not know and does not feel its actual boundaries and true nature, a slave, because he has lost humility, an actual “attribute” of God-Love, a servant because he sees power in vandalism and self-destruction. To steal life from God, declaring it your own, while it is only entrusted to us, this is the work of an impostor, and not of a true human god: “if there is no God, then I God,” says the Messiah of mankind, “because all will is mine,” but outside of God it is zero, non-existence, powerless, unquenchable thirst. This is the core of Kirillov’s religious drama, the like of which is not found in world literature. Kirillov inevitably loses his sense of the reality of both God and the world and falls into idealistic subjectivism. If God is only an idea, which, like time, can fade away in the human mind, then man in his spiritual world is shrouded in a ghostly Maya, which can change at will. “Everything is good, everything. Everything is good for those who know that everything is good. If they knew what was good for them, then they would be good, but as long as they don’t know what was good for them, then they wouldn’t feel good... They are not good, because they don’t know that they are good... over them find out that they are good, and everything will immediately become good, every single one of them.” Next to Kirillov, surrounded by Stavrogin, stands Shatov. As if from the pulpit, one hears his cherished, endlessly moving words about the people - the body of God, about the God-bearing people. Here we have one of the earliest expressions of the most secret beliefs and of Dostoevsky himself, more fully revealed in The Brothers Karamazov and in The Diary of a Writer. What are people? What is its religious nature? And what are the Russian people like? Dostoevsky answers these questions through the mouth of Shatov quite definitely, considering these answers as axioms of a religious worldview. People have their own religious unity, the “body of God,” nations are created by their religions, and deepened and heightened national self-awareness inevitably leads to the conviction of God-bearingness of the people. Every people is potentially God-bearing, insofar as it harbors within itself its own religious idea and gives room within itself for the revelation of divinity. Nations live by faith, they are built by it, and with the loss of it they are disintegrated. The specificity and individual intensity of national-religious self-awareness does not allow one to limit oneself only to abstractly resonating statements about the equality and equivalence of all peoples before God, for this does not make them equal before man. A living sense of one’s own national vocation cannot be reconciled with the renunciation of one’s identity. Expressed on behalf of the first person, it inevitably receives an additional overtone, namely the awareness of exclusivity, the uniqueness of its calling and meaning. This is an ardent, living, non-resonating faith. Approximately this order of ideas is expressed with amazing force in Shatov’s speeches, and these very ideas were implanted in him at the moment of spiritual crisis, two or three years ago before that, Stavrogin. Shatov, in a certain sense, is also one of the real reflections of Stavrogin, his vampire doubles, whom he sent around himself, and they touched his heart and drank the blood of their captives – Shatov, as well as Kirillova. Just as the latter has become a maniac of humanity, the former is becoming a maniac of the national idea. If you take a closer look, then all of Shatov’s fiery statements, as if containing true ones, and in some cases even axiomatic positions, suffer, however, religious ambiguity, present a series of distortions, just as in a slightly curved mirror, through subtle lengthening and widening it turns out, with great similarity, and precisely because of such similarity, an offensive caricature. Such a crooked mirror is represented, of course, not by Shatov, but by Stavrogin, who aggravated precisely this problem in him to such a degree. We know from the novel that Shatov became passionate about the religious idea of ​​nationality at a time when he did not yet have faith in God, although he passionately wanted to have it; He believed in the God-bearing people before he believed in God, and this ghost, which he chased, and this dream, on which he spent, although simple and not rich, but the concentrated forces of his spirit distorted his spiritual personality. He also became a victim of provocation and deception - an unbelieving preacher of the idea of ​​the people of God. From this it is clear that he has such a burning need to rely on Stavrogin, because for him God really becomes an attribute of nationality. By placing such an excessive emphasis on the idea of ​​the particularity and nationality of religion, Shatov falls into an obvious conflict with Christianity, the preaching of which is addressed to all languages. Shatov therefore stands on the Old Testament or even polytheistic point of view, which allows for many equal nationalities fighting among themselves gods “God is the synthetic personality of the entire people, taken from its beginning to the end. It has never happened that all or many peoples had one common God, but each one always had a special one. The stronger the people, the more powerful God is.” It is clear that, based on these provisions, it is impossible to approach Christianity as a religion of tongues, and therefore, it is impossible to approach the question of the “Russian Christ.” In Shatov, the religious balance is disturbed; what should be only a derivative has taken the place of the main thing - there has been a shift in the religious center. Religious temptation consists here in this violation of spiritual proportions, thanks to which partial truth, receiving a place that does not belong to it, from the field of truth becomes a lie. In Christianity, the idea of nationality undoubtedly has its own specific place, but if Christianity itself is understood and interpreted only from the idea of nationality, then not from Christ as the one, living and abiding center, then, obviously, we have a substitution: the people are no longer the body of God, but faith itself becomes the body of the people. Shatov truly turns out to be the ideological predecessor of that painful trend in Russian life, in which nationalism becomes higher than religion, and Orthodoxy is often turns out to be a means for politics. This bias was also present in Dostoevsky, who knew it in himself and artistically objectified in the image of Shatov this temptation of demonic nationalism, hiding behind religious vestment. This temptation awaits everyone whose heart beats with love for their homeland, because the national feeling is inevitably torn apart by this antinomy - exclusivity and universalism - and, in all honesty, which of those in whom it is alive does not know Shatov’s soul in its hiding places? This is the same ancient temptation with which the people of God have been tempted all the time, having imagined that they were not chosen by Jehovah, but Jehovah was chosen by them. As for Stavrogin, for him Shatov is not feverish, manic, fanatic, but healthy, balanced, believing Shatov is what he himself sees as salvation from the demon non-existence, what he himself would like to become, but, however, cannot. “I wasn’t joking with you then,” says Shatov Stavrogin, “convincing you that perhaps I was even more worried about myself than about you.” “If I believed,” he adds later, “then, without a doubt, I would repeat it now; I did not lie, speaking as a believer.” Stavrogin’s head knows perfectly well where salvation is, but it is separated from his heart, and from this knowledge no spiritual fruit is born. So the demons recognized the passing Christ and shouted through the demons: “You are Christ, the son of the living God,” but He forbade them these fruitless confessions. In Shatov’s soul, Stavrogin could only cause a storm, striking his imagination and preventing him from growing up and maturing to his idea. Stavrogin’s work here also turned out to be spiritual provocation. Broken by his past and poisoned by the spells of Stavrogin, Shatov, however, belongs to those already being healed, he frantically clung to the “feet of Jesus”, and touched him healing hand: he straightens up and grows before his eyes, as evidenced by the heartbreaking story about the return of his wife, the birth of a child and the death of Shatov, this amazing Night 16, luminous lightning cuts through the darkness, the hymn of love, joy, forgiveness rings in Shatov’s soul - he is healed. But at this moment an evil and vindictive hand points the pistol of the simple Erkel at him... Shatov was not destined to tell people about his healing. Pyotr Verkhovensky also turns around Stavrogin, like a small light around a great light. He can be called a political provocateur. At the same time, he is by no means a traitor for self-interest, not a coward, he is even an enthusiast, according to Stavrogin’s competent definition, he is capable of making sacrifices and is essentially playing all the time with danger. And, however, at the same time, he is a cynic who openly despises and misleads his “fives,” viewing them as cannon fodder. That’s why he so calmly moves through the murders and at the same time does not feel any “problems” or doubts, pricks of conscience. It’s as if someone had taken out his moral gut, and only a fanatical and fantastic idea has stuck in his brain. Under the guise of a democrat, egalitarian and socialist, he completely openly treats everything, viewing people as checkers in a chess move. One cold, mocking, contemptuous will reigns over everything. But at the same time, Bepxovensky, sober and calculating in his villainy, is in fact a maniac and obsessed. And he feels himself to be a superman and a man of God no less than Kirillov, and this self-feeling creates from him an organic opponent of the democratic idea, which is suitable for him only for official political hypocrisy. He is ready to allow democracy for the human herd, to make them happy, he allows them to settle in his anthill, subject to obedience to his dictatorship. The image of the Great Inquisitor shines through in Bepxovensk. This impression is further replenished by Shigalev’s social structures, which already quite definitely contain the main melody of “The Legend of the Great Inquisitor.” This is how Shigalev Lame presents his ideas. “He proposes, as a final solution to the issue, the division of humanity into two unequal parts. One tenth share receives personal freedom and unlimited rights over the remaining nine-tenths. They must lose their personality and turn, as it were, into a herd and, with boundless obedience, achieve a series of rebirths of primitive innocence, something like a primitive paradise, although however, they will work.” Shigalevsky’s speeches are repeated in self-forgetfulness by Bepxovensky himself in the scene with Stavrogin. It is this human-godly self-awareness that places Bepxovensky “beyond good and evil”; he believes that for him everything is permitted, even the most risky and unusual means, and it is this sense of self that makes him a provocateur in the political sense. A provocateur-traitor, a “collaborator” who betrays the secrets of the party for money, is a degeneration of this type, its reverse side, or its complication and contamination, however, probable and inevitable. But the motives of one baseness and petty self-interest cannot in any way be explained, and at its basis must lie the superhuman self-divine self-feeling of Bepxoven, for which there are no barriers on the path to the blessing of the human herd, mockingly led to the “earthly paradise.” Bepxovensky remains completely consistent and sincere in his deceit, and in his adventurism, and in his courage, which cannot be denied - he serves his idea. And if he is terrible and even disgusting, it is because his idea is terrible. Despite the appearance of a jester, he is always serious and focused to the last degree; he despises people, is covered in blood and is full of crimes, but remains devoted to his idea to the point of self-denial. For her sake, he is capable of personal self-detachment, and he actually believes not in himself, not in his own strength, but in Stavrogin, in “Ivan Tsarevich,” whom he kisses in selflessness pyky; he cherished a dream about him in his soul and believed in it: a man-god kneeling before a super-man-god! “Stavrogin, you are handsome! - Pyotr Stepanovich cried almost in ecstasy, - do you know that you are handsome! What is most valuable to you is that sometimes you don’t know about it. Oh, I studied you! I often look at you from the side, from the corner... You are my idol... You are exactly what you need. I, I need exactly what you need. I don’t know anyone except you. You are the leader, you are the sun, and I am the worm... I need you, I need you, without you I am nothing. Without you, I’m a mooch, an idea in a bottle, Columbus without America.” “There is no one else on earth like you! I invented you from abroad: I invented you while looking at you.” Stavrogin “means” for Bepxovensky no less, if not more, than for Shatov and Kirillov, he is his revealed self, his projection outside, a living “impostor.” But isn’t everyone so blind, and the sober, calculating Bepxovensky doesn’t see that Stavrogin is not at all what he needs, doesn’t see that Stavrogin is an empty place, an outlet for the inspirations of evil, medium? But then Bepxovensky does not see this, that basically he is not sober at all, he is obsessed, like everyone else, for him Stavrogin is also only a mirror, a double. The impostor that Bepxovensky wants to find in Stavrogin, of course, is himself, and even more so, the one who owns him is a real and genuine impostor. Thus, the provocateur himself turns out to be a victim of provocation, the force of evil possessing him does not meet resistance in him and, turning him into his mask or “shell,” makes him with your opy. And insofar as the movement that is generated and led by Bepxovenians is the product of spiritual provocation, in which provocation is only one of the special cases political: Even if you kill me, there is no trace visible, We are lost, what should we do? Apparently the demon leads us into the field These lines of Pushkin, taken as an epigraph to “Demons,” determine the social philosophy of the novel. The revolution in it is seen as a religious drama, a struggle of faith with unbelief, a clash of two elements in the Russian soul. Is Dostoevsky right or wrong in his understanding of the religious nature of the Russian revolution? It is obvious, in any case, that this is not a question of political teaching or social doctrine, but above all a question of religious understanding of the world. What is significant here is not the political doctrine of Dostoevsky himself (which, moreover, is absent in the novel), but the religious diagnosis of the intelligentsia that belongs to spiritually leading role in the Russian revolution. Therefore, a thoughtful attitude to the problem of Dostoevsky requires, first of all, to completely free it from politics and generally from connection with any political worldview (after all, not Let’s forget that not only the “social revolutionary” Bepxovensky, but also the “Black Secularist” Shatov are presented as possessed). The question about the religious meaning of the revolution is posed in “Besakh” this way: is it spiritually defining humanity, which by the power of things becomes demonic, turns into obsession? Stavrogin and Bepxovensky, an attack and a victim of spiritual provocation, is there a significant symptom for her or just an accidental phenomenon, scale? This question, which Dostoevsky posed with such amazing clairvoyance a quarter century before the revolution, can be translated into the language of our historical pasts as follows: does it represent Azef-Bepxovensky and Azefovism in general is only a random phenomenon in the history of the revolution, a painful growth that might not have existed, or in this the root spirituality of it is revealed illness? Azef’s terrible problem in all its enormous significance remained unvalued in the Russian consciousness, and they tried to brush it off with a political gesture. Meanwhile, Dostoevsky had already given in advance, so to speak, the artistic theory of Azef and Azefism, its problem was posed. Of course, it is possible to disagree with Dostoevsky in assessing the symptomatic significance of the phenomena he discovered; one can see in them the non-spiritual essence of the Russian revolution, but illness. Let it be so, let Dostoevsky be mistaken in his historical judgment, let this novel be not about the Russian revolution, but about the disease of the Russian soul. But even then, its deep life truth, and the greatest importance of the artistic analysis that is subject to the problem here, remains beyond all dispute “obsession”, loss of spiritual center. And now, when the artist again poses the same question to Russian society with his images, they try to drown it out with abuse of Dostoevsky, stomping, coughing, protesting. No, the novel “Demons” is needed by modern Russia no less than before, it must go deeper into itself and commit metanoeia 17, a revolution in thoughts and feelings, then “repentance”, o which is said at the very beginning of the gospel sermon. In this novel, Dostoevsky brought repentance for his homeland, in the image of Moses, the seer of God, who rebelled against God, arguing for his people. “And Moses returned to the Lord and said: O (Lord!) this people has committed a great sin, they have made for themselves a golden god; forgive them for their sins; and if not, then blot me out from Your book in which You wrote me” (Exodus 32:31-32). This is the main content of the tragedy “Demons”. Tragedy looks at life from above, and this elevation as spiritual liberation is experienced above all by its author. When he manages to objectively objectify, to remove from the depths of his spirit its torment and its split. This was Dostoevsky’s attitude towards “Demons”. A popular writer of our days recently stated that Dostoevsky, although a genius, is an evil genius who should be brought under the supervision of the morality police. In this concept of “evil genius” I see a contgadictio in adjecto and as a witness to the prize of Pushkin, who through the mouth of Mozart defined the purity of a genius: Like you and me, and genius and villainy And indeed, a true genius, one who has as his homeland the “homeland of flame and word,” cannot be evil, cannot be deceitful in his natural inspiration of God. Of course, the bearer of genius may have both vices and passions; in general, genius does not necessarily imply personal holiness, but since he creates brilliantly, he rises above personal limitations, and therefore equating Dostoevsky as a genius with one of his creations is simply a judgment of bad taste. Unfortunately, this point of view also found a quite serious exponent in the person of Dostoyevsky biographer N.N. Strakhov; in a recently published letter to L, N, Tolstoy, Strakhov gives the most devastating characteristics of Dostoevsky’s personality, which produces especially difficult attraction in the mouth of a person who is truthful and close to him. Giving due credit to Strakhov’s moral qualities, I still find in her signs of undeniable limitations and short-sightedness: Strakhakhov was simply too rational alien and unsympathetic is all the contradictory complexity of Dostoevsky’s personality with its failures, underground, epilepsy not only in the nerves, but also in the moral character, but also with its solar insights and spiritual insights. Feeling bad about the latter, Strakhov pushed away from the first, hence the image of Dostoevsky, made also in a letter to the straightforwardly moralizing Tolstoy, and has such an unpleasant aftertaste. In this letter, Dostoevsky is compared to his heroes. “The people most similar to him are the hero of “Notes from the Underground,” Svidrigailov in “Crime and Punishment” and Stavrogin in “Demons.” When Strakhov characterizes Dostoevsky based on personal impressions, it is difficult to argue with him, because we personally can no longer know Dostoevsky; however, one has the right to find this characteristic musically detonating. But when, along with this, the just mentioned technique is applied, we can already sit and protest against the infidelity and short-sightedness of this statement, and even more than that, This technique makes the value of all other considerations questionable. There is no doubt that all the “demons” that Dostoevsky talks about in his novel were possessed by himself, and all his heroes, in a certain sense, are also himself, in all his antinomy dyxa. And he lived out the spiritual struggle that is tearing Russia apart in his all-embracing spirit. But since he artistically understood and objectified her, he was already freed and rose above her; When they say that Dostoevsky himself is Fyodor Karamazov or Stavrogin, or Svidrigailov, they forget that each of them, exhausted and limited by his given aspiration, does not see himself and cannot write either his artistic self-portrait or the rest of the content of the novels. Dostoevsky was not a saint or a righteous man; in his soul there was a terrible struggle between God and the devil, but, I believe, he came out of it not defeated, but a winner. After all, if we equate Dostoevsky with his heroes, then why not say that in him there is not only Fyodor Karamazov or Svidrigailov, but also the Idiot, and the Crooked Man, and Alyosha, and Zosima, and most importantly, the One who lit the Kirillov lamp and Whom the Great Inquisitor imprisoned. After all, if you give faith to an artistic genius and its truthfulness, then you have to give it to the end. And this means that Dostoevsky’s soul was not in the darkness in which Stavrogin is, or in the rot in which Fyodor Karamazov lives, although she knew these states as her own illness and escaped from it “at the feet of Jesus.” “The healthy do not need a doctor, but the sick,” “I did not come to the righteous, but to sinners,” said the One who was surrounded by fornicators, sinners and tax collectors, who healed the possessed, and He came to supper to that long-suffering soul in which the “legion” lived, shaking it. And, sensing His approach, the patient began to see his illness, understand his obsession, and thereby freed himself from it. This dawning hour in the life of the gigantic Russian soul is captured in the novel “Demons.” ...in the image of Karmasinov, partly Stenan Fedorovich... -Bulgakov is inaccurate in naming the characters “Demons”. Need: Karmazinov; Stepan Trofimovich (Verkhovensky). “God fights with the devil, and the battlefield is the hearts of people” - Inaccurate quote from Dmitry Karamazov’s monologue about beauty. ...a realibus ad realiora – “from the real to the most real” (Latin); the principle of symbolism, declared in Russia by Vyach. Ivanov: “from visible reality and through it - to a more real reality of the same things, internal and most intimate” // And in a n o in B i h. Two elements in symbolism // By the stars. Philosophical, aesthetic and critical experiences. St. Petersburg, 1909. P. 305. “They call me a psychologist: it’s not true...” -From the notes of 1881. Cf.: Dostoevsky. T, 27. C 65. In “Silver Dove”, as well as in “Petersburg”... this medial state of the soul is depicted... - Andrey Bely’s novel “Silver Dove” was published in 1909, novel “Petersburg” was published in 1913–1914. Bulgakov wrote to Andrei Belom about “The Silver Dove” (Dec. 13–17, 1910): “...you have been given such insight into the people’s soul as we have not had before the times of Dostoevsky. ...The innermost secrets of the people’s soul in its naturalistic and inescapably demonic element were revealed to your creativity” // New World, 1989, No. 10. P. 238. ... appendix to “Demons”... – We are talking about chapter nine of the novel “At Tikhon’s” with Stavrogin’s confession, withdrawn at the request of the editors of “Russian Herald”, where the novel was published, and subsequently published in the collection. op. Dostoevsky as a supplement to “Demons”. tertium non datur – there is no third option (lat.). “Part of the soul ~ representations and words.” – Bulgakov quotes from the publication: Plato. Works, trans. from Greek and explained by Karpov. 2nd ed., rev. and additional T. 1–6. St. Petersburg, 1863–1879. Cp. in Sovp. ed.: Platon. Op. T. 3. 4. 1. M., 1971. P. 517. Transl. S. Averintseva. ...a soul that understands the whisper of the Dodona oak... - oak in the ancient Greek sanctuary of Dodona; the rustling of its leaves was considered prophetic. (The patron saint of the sanctuary is the son of Zeus and Europe.) ... “the great Pan died”... -Pan in Greek mythology is the deity of the elemental, fruitful forces of nature; in ancient philosophy with its “secondary mythologization” - a unifying principle; Plutarx in his treatise “On the Ceased Oracles” (Mor. De def. orac.) told the legend about the death of the Great Pan (which became a symbol of the departure of the ancient world). On this topic, I. S. Tyrgenev wrote a famous prose poem “Nymphs” (December 1878), the refrain words from which probably served as a source for Bulgakov. Wahtvegwandschaft – “Selective People” (German), title of Goethe’s novel (1809). This alternative... contains subtle slander and unbelief... - “The alternative” was experienced by Dostoevsky himself: “... if someone could prove to me that Christ is outside the truth... then I would rather stay with Christ rather than with the truth (from a letter to N.D. Fonvizina in February, 1854, // Dostoevsky. T, 28. Book, 1. P. 176). ...Spinoza's prayer... - This refers to Spinoza's pantheism, the identity of God and nature he affirms. uper or Über – “overx” (Greek; German), Überwett; Übermensch; Übergott – superworld, superman, supergod (German) “...the resurrection is a document of the true God.” – Solovyov V. S. “Three Conversations.” The words of Mr. Z. in a polemic with the Prince, who stands on the position of Tolstoy. . ..amazing Night... – This refers to chapter 6 “A difficult night” in the 3rd part of “Demons”. (metanoeia – lit.: “change of mind” (Greek), repentance.