N.V. Gogol, I.V. Kireevsky, F.M. Dostoevsky and K. Leontyev before the elders of Optina Pustyn

(From a letter to the editor of the magazine “Orthodox Conversation” from the head of the Optina monastery, Father Joseph [Litovkin]) The library of our monastery contains the book “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends” by N.V. Gogol (St. Petersburg, 1847). Attached to the book on a special sheet is a copy of a letter in which a review of its contents was expressed. Who exactly was the author of the letter and to whom it was addressed is now, after almost 50 years, due to lack of data, difficult to determine. A copy of the letter was rewritten by Elder Father Macarius [Ivanov] in his own hand. Therefore, we can conclude that the elder fully shared the review expressed in the letter about the book of the famous writer. With the continuing instability and fluctuations of Russian thought, the mentioned review has not lost its significance for the present time. If you agree with the opinion I have expressed, then I humbly ask you not to refuse, in view of the spiritual and moral benefit of the readers of “Soulful Reading,” to give the mentioned review a place in this journal. “With gratitude I return to you the book that you delivered to me. Hear my opinion about her. A man is seen turning to God with fervor of heart. But this is not enough for religion. In order for it to be a true light for a person and for it to emit genuine light from him for his neighbors, there must be certainty in it. This certainty lies in the exact knowledge of the truth, in its separation from everything false, from everything that seems true. The Savior Himself said this: The truth will set you free (John 8:32). Elsewhere in Scripture it is said: Your word is truth (John 17:17). Therefore, whoever wants to acquire certainty delves deeply into the Gospel and, according to the teachings of the Lord, straightens his thoughts and feelings. Then he will be able to separate in himself correct and kind thoughts and feelings from counterfeit and ostensibly good and correct ones. Then a person enters into purity, just as the Lord after the Last Supper said to His disciples, as if they had already been educated by the teaching of the truth: cleanse you by nature for the word that was given to you (John 15:3). But purity alone is not enough for a person: he needs revival, inspiration. So, for the lantern to shine, just washing the glass is not enough; a candle needs to be lit inside it. This is what the Lord did with His disciples. Having cleansed them with the truth, He quickened them with the Holy Spirit, and they became light for men. Before receiving the Holy Spirit, they were not able to teach humanity, although they were already pure. This move must take place with every Christian - a Christian in reality, and not in name alone: ​​first purification and truth, and then enlightenment by the Spirit. True, a person has an innate inspiration, more or less developed, arising from the movement of the feelings of the heart. The truth rejects this inspiration as mixed, it mortifies it, so that the Spirit, when it comes, resurrects it in a renewed state. If a person is guided by his inspiration before he is purified by the truth, then he will emit for himself and for others not pure light, but mixed, deceptive, because in his heart lies not simple good, but good mixed with evil more or less. Everyone, look into yourself and believe my words with the experience of your heart: you will see how accurate and fair they are, copied from nature itself. Applying these principles to Gogol’s book, we can say that it exudes both light and darkness. His religious concepts are not defined; they move in the direction of heartfelt inspiration, unclear, unaccountable, spiritual, not spiritual. Since Gogol is a writer, and in a writer, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth certainly speaks (Matthew 12:34), or: the composition is an indispensable confession of the writer, for the most part not understood by him, and understood only by such a Christian who is elevated by the Gospel to the abstract land of thoughts and feelings, and in it distinguished light from darkness, then Gogol’s book cannot be accepted entirely as pure verbs of truth. There is confusion here. It is desirable that this person, in whom self-sacrifice is visible, should moor to the haven of Truth, where the beginning of all spiritual blessings is. For this reason, I advise all my friends in relation to religion to engage only in reading the holy fathers, who acquired purification and enlightenment, like the apostles, and then wrote their books, from which pure truth shines and which convey to readers the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Outside this path, at first narrow and regrettable for the mind and heart, there is darkness everywhere, rapids and abysses everywhere! Amen". The late elder hieroschemamonk Father Macarius, predecessor and mentor of the elder Father Ambrose [Grenkov], personally knew N.V. Gogol, who came to Optina Pustyn twice to visit Father Macarius. Father Macarius mentions these visits in one of his letters, dated October 2, 1851 1 . The late elder possessed high spiritual wisdom and could, with the help of God’s grace, beneficially influence N.V.’s way of thinking. Gogol, in the sense of confirming and enlightening his mind and heart with the truths of the Orthodox faith of Christ. Here, perhaps, it would be appropriate to say that under the influence of conversations with Father Macarius, he developed in the same direction as N.V. Gogol, a radical turn in the views of I.V. Kireevsky. It is known that he was a powerful and multifaceted mind, standing at the height of contemporary Western European philosophizing thought. I.V. Kireevsky had written and personal relations with the main representatives of this thought - for example, with Hegel and Schelling 2. But, however, he was not satisfied with his knowledge: his soul was looking for the highest truth. Conversations with Father Macarius illuminated and expanded his mental horizons and at the same time crowned his philosophical knowledge with the cover of heartfelt faith. “Dissolved with the salt of unearthly wisdom, a fatherly word, a deep word and at the same time a simple word, bearing the seal of the anointing of the Holy Spirit, bringing peace and tranquility to every soul thirsting and hungering for truth and truth, this word completely satisfied his inquisitive mind, and from then on he devoted himself entirely to diverting the attention of his learned friends from the philosophical speculations of Hegel, Schelling and Co., these “broken treasures” of German thought, and draw their attention to the sources of “living water” forgotten by some and unknown to others - the Word of God and the works of the holy fathers. Two remarkable articles remained a monument to this period of his mental activity: “On the nature of the enlightenment of Europe and its relation to the enlightenment of Russia” and “On the need and possibility of new principles for philosophy” 3 This is also stated in the materials for the biography of I.V. Kireevsky 4. “Dolbino 5 is forty versts from the Kozelskaya Optina Hermitage. Kireevsky often went here and spent whole weeks here, spiritually respecting many of the elders of the holy monastery and especially Father Macarius, his spiritual father, whom he highly valued. The Optina Monastery is known in Russia for publishing many translations of the holy fathers and other edifying books. Kireyevsky took an active part in these publications; almost all proofs were corrected in his house; the manuscripts and translations themselves were also reviewed by Kireyevsky. In the silence of his village solitude,” it is said further in the same book 6, “Kireevsky continued to work for his future philosophical work, studying the writings of the holy fathers. Here are his own words: “The doctrine of the Holy Trinity attracts my mind not only because it appears to it as the highest concentration of all the holy truths communicated to us by revelation, but also because, while writing about philosophy, I reached the conviction that the direction of philosophy depends in its first beginning on the concept that we have about the Most Holy Trinity.” By the same period of time, i.e. to the end of 1852, a letter from I.V. Kireevsky to Koshelev. In this letter, he says, among other things: “I have not lost my intention to write, when it becomes possible to write, a course in philosophy, in which there will be many new truths, i.e. new ones from human forgetfulness. It’s a pity, it’s a pity that Western madness has now hampered our thought, precisely now, when it seems the real time for Russia to have its say in philosophy, to show them, the heretics, that the truth of science is only in the truth of Orthodoxy. However, it is also true that these concerns about the fate of the human mind can be left to the Master, Who knows when and who to send to His work.” I.V. Kireevsky died on June 12, 1856 and was buried in Optina Pustyn. On the gravestone there is an inscription: “I have loved and sought wisdom from my youth. Knowing that I would not prevail otherwise, unless the Lord gave it, I came to the Lord 7 . They see the guilt of the righteous and do not understand that the Lord has advised about him. Lord, receive my spirit!” Among the old-timers of our monastery there is a memory of a visit there in 1877 by another famous writer of ours, F.M. Dostoevsky. His conversations with the elder Father Ambrose lasted for a long time about many pressing issues of spiritual life and the salvation of the soul. Soon after, The Brothers Karamazov appeared in print, written partly under the impression of his visit to Optina Pustyn and conversations with Father Ambrose. K. Leontyev, the author of many articles on the Eastern question, also sometimes lived for a long time in Optina Pustyn and talked with Father Ambrose. K. Leontyev died at the Trinity-Sergius Lavra in 1891, having been honored to take monastic vows before his death... Collection of letters of the Optina Elder of blessed memory, Fr. Macaria. Ed. Optina Pustyn. M., 1862. P. 220. Works by I.V. Kireevsky. M., 1862. T. I. S. 46, 56. Historical description of the Kozelskaya Vvedenskaya Optina Hermitage. Ed. 4th. 1885. P. 184 and Works by I.V. Kireevsky. M., 1861. T. II. Works by I.V. Kireevsky. T. I, p. 100. The village of Dolbino is the family estate of the Kireyevskys, 7 versts from the city of Belev, Tula province. Works of Kireyevsky. Volume I. P. 100.