Bibliographic articles

Contents Introduction About the novel by O. P. Shishkina “Prokopiy Lyapunov” “Faust”, tragedy, op. Goethe, trans. M. Vronchenko “Luka and Marya”, op. F. Glinka “Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian” “For the coming sleep”, op. gr. V. A. Solloguba “On raising children in the spirit of Christian piety” “On sin and its consequences” “The experience of the science of philosophy”, op. Nadezhdina Will the New Year 1845 be a new year for our literature? will he give her some great, brilliant creation that can lift her fallen spirit, revive her frozen forces, kill, destroy her petty activities and direct her to a new significant goal, to a living life, imbued with thought, warmed by sympathy, away from magazine gossip and commercial calculations? Or is our literature destined to languish this year in the same insignificance in which it has been for several years now? – It’s tricky to guess the future; it is even more difficult to predict what is brilliant. All calculations of ordinary considerations lead only to mediocrity. But if we allowed ourselves for a moment to indulge in that dreamy activity, that Yuletide pleasure, so that, looking at the past and present, we could guess the future, then it is unlikely that this pleasure of fortune-telling could give us much comfort. Whenever we had wonderful talents, we could amuse ourselves with waiting for them. If we did not have wonderful literary works, we could hope that they would appear. But we have people with high talents from whom we could expect great things; Sometimes their creations appear, filled with the highest merits, and yet our literature does not live, its interests are dormant, and sympathy with it is not noticeable almost anywhere. - Because the too rare high phenomena of our literature disappear almost without a trace among the vastness of petty insignificances; because our writers with the highest and even mediocre talents bear some strange burden of inaction, for which we cannot even blame any of them because we have no right to attribute to the fault of one person what is obviously a general condition. The past year has seen several brilliant literary phenomena: Nal and Damayanti, a creation filled with the freshest beauty, the brightest colors, the most delicate fragrances of the East, imbued with, animated by the quiet music of the heart's dreams; – Matteo Falcone, a work amazing in its mastery of verse, in its deep truth and exemplary simplicity of language, – and several other phenomena, which, however, had almost no influence on current literature; they rushed past her, above her - brilliant meteors - leaving no visible trace and remaining only in memory, sharply divorced from daily impressions. More than a few wonderful phenomena, the past year will be remembered in our literature for its irreplaceable losses. Baratynsky, the singer of love, sadness, heartfelt thoughts and heartfelt doubts, a unique poet, a tall, deeply feeling artist, sincere in every sound, clearly graceful in every dream, stolen by a premature death, left in our literature several beautiful creations, unappreciated in their dignity, but almost insignificant in comparison with what he could have done if the possibility of activity was measured by the power of talent alone. Lately he has written especially little and was even less understood and appreciated by the monopolists of literary opinions, the self-satisfied magazine judges, who often pronounced their verdict in semi-Russian language over his exemplary, deeply felt poems; often, according to the instructions of student notebooks, they dismantled, touched, broke his delicate, artistic creations and, perhaps out of good intentions, gave him their edifying advice and instructions. We don’t know whether this upset Baratynsky; We think that he could be consoled by the verdict of other, no less famous writers, such as for example. Zhukovsky, Pushkin, Vyazemsky, Yazykov, Khomyakov, Delvig, Denis Davydov, Shevyrev and many others. But who can calculate, according to the laws of prudence, the degree of sensitivity of the chosen talent? At least, it seems that recently, deceived by magazine reviews, he had little faith in the sympathy of the public. Or maybe, in fact, he was not mistaken. Perhaps the majority of the public, in their sympathies, is seriously guided by magazine reviews - those, of course, that are according to the hearts and minds and tastes of this majority. The place that belonged to Baratynsky in our literature will forever remain unoccupied and, perhaps, unappreciated for a long time. For, even after the news of his death, our magazines pronounced such a verdict on him, from which it is clear that the time has not yet come to give full justice to his poetry. One Contemporary was in this case, as in many others, a noble exception to the general mood of minds. The beautiful, intelligent, deeply compassionate and at the same time fair, friendly-warm and at the same time enlightened-impartial article about Baratynsky proves at least that he is the chosen one. the circle for which this magazine exists appreciated him and his poetry. We are not talking about Baratynsky’s poetry here. We hope to give ourselves the pleasure of expressing our full opinion about his creations in one of the nearest Moscow citizens. Now we mentioned it only because we were talking about our losses. Soon after Baratynsky, our literature lost another poet. I. A. Krylov died at the age of 77 from birth, and if we compare the two volumes of his fables with the time in which he began to write, then, contrary to general opinion, we will say about him the same as about Baratynsky, that he did a lot for our literature, but did very little in comparison with what a talent similar to his could have accomplished in any other literature. The greatness of Krylov's talent lies not so much in the great literary merit of his works, but in the beauty of their nationality. Krylov has the only honor, not shared with anyone: he knew how to be popular, and what is even more important, he wanted to be Russian at a time when any imitation was considered enlightenment, when the word: foreign, was unambiguous with the word: smart or beautiful; when, worshiping our discharged tutors, we did not know an offensive word, worse than the word: Moujik! - At this time, Krylov was not only Russian in his fables, but also knew how to make his Russian captivating even for us. Although the time continued for a long time when he was not given justice, they read with exceptional delight Dmitriev’s fables, however, filled with true beauties, and almost against their conscience they laughed at Krylov’s Russian stories. Krylov was beautiful for his nationality, but was unable to extend its influence to literature. This was left to someone else. What Krylov expressed in his time and in his fable sphere, Gogol expresses in our time and in a broader sphere. After the appearance of Gogol's Dead Souls, much was said for them and against them, not only in literature, but also in all circles of readers; - meanwhile, from enthusiastic praise and passionate condemnation, it seems that one common conviction remains that Gogol in our literature is a representative of that new, great, force that has not yet appeared in a clear form, whose innumerable results can produce a complete revolution in our literature, and which is called the force of the Russian people. Until now we have been and are still under the influence of the French and Germans. The life of our literature is divorced from the life of our people. But, reading Gogol, we understand the possibility of their connection. However, Gogol is not popular because the content of his stories is taken for the most part from Russian life; content is not character; Shakespeare is as much an Englishman in describing Rome and Venice as in his British dramas; This is also not why we call Gogol a people's Gogol, so that the people read him (thank God, our people still live in Slavic literature, and the few, enlightened by civic literacy, continue to be educated through Vyzhigin, Orlov and Polde-Kok); but because in the depths of his soul special sounds lurk, because special colors shine in his words, special images live in his imagination, exclusively characteristic of the Russian people, that fresh, deep people who have not yet lost their personality in imitating foreign ones. Even if it were possible to translate Gogol into a foreign language, which is impossible, even then the most educated foreigner would not understand the better half of his beauties. This feature of Gogol contains the deep meaning of his originality. It contains his right to great action in literature even more than the genius of his works. For if it is true that beauty belongs to all nations, that the Greek statue is equally liked by Germans and Russians, then we must admit that the concept of foreign beauty requires some reasonable distraction that cools its effect, while native beauty, surrounded by an invisible structure of sympathetic sounds, close and distant echoes, dark and clear, heartfelt, unconscious memories, does not separate the dream from the sphere of life; but, acting with double force, it connects artistic pleasure, which is subject to consciousness, together with the unconscious passions of our special life. This explains, perhaps, the immense sympathy for Gogol of some, and the incredible attacks on him by others. The Moskvitian has not yet had time to inform his readers about many books published last year. We will now try, at least partially, to complement this shortcoming. About the novel by O. P. Shishkina “Prokopiy Lyapunov” We hasten, with the permission of the venerable author, to share with our readers the pleasure that reading the first chapters of her new novel gave us. The great time that it evokes in the memory, the liveliness of the story, the beautiful style, the talent of the author, her love for the fatherland, her conscientious desire to understand and present in the present form the events of our past life - all this gives great dignity to her works and allows us to promise readers even more interest from this new work, for the subject of the story becomes even livelier and more meaningful here than in her first novel, to which this one serves as a continuation. But the respect that we have for the literary merits of the writer imposes on us the obligation, not limiting ourselves to general praise, to frankly express our opinion about this type of literature in our country and about its relation to her talent. The historical novel was born not only because Walter Scott understood in it the possibility of a new kind of literary work. It was a consequence of the then dominant desire in Europe: to revive in the minds, to resurrect in the imagination the old way of life, destroyed by the new and again returned by the restoration of the previous order of things, destroyed by the revolution and Napoleon. England, living by the inextricable development of tradition, England, the most fierce, implacable, sincere enemy of Napoleon, was naturally ahead of this desire to restore the old, the past; but even in England itself, the class that most sympathized with this trend was the class whose whole strength and all its significance lies in preserving the old, in the face of the pressure of newness. This is why the founder of historical novels could only appear in England, among its aristocracy, at a moment of general movement towards the former order of things. This is why his novels, as a new poetic and at the same time scientifically correct expression of this trend, had incredible success. And the followers of Walter Scott, of whom, however, not a single one equaled him in the historical fidelity of colors and the literary merit of presentation - therefore, even his most mediocre followers were not left without readers while this general trend continued. The historical novel has become on a par with Rococo furniture, with counterfeits of previous costumes, with coats of arms on the liveries of returning emigrants, that is, it has become a matter of fashion, always based on some hidden, although often mutilated, thought. But why are we Russians, for whom after Napoleon nothing was restored except the walls of Moscow, nothing was turned from new to old, why are we so carried away by this fashion? This can only be explained by the fact that our literary life is nourished by sympathy not with our life, but with foreign living rooms. Let us note, however, that this type of literature in itself, regardless of fashion, has great shortcomings. The main one is that his dignity depends not so much on literary talent, but on a deep study of history and on the fidelity of local colors. For at the slightest infidelity he falls below any fantastic invention, which even in the impossible has its own inner truth; Meanwhile, the truth of a historical novel is only external, relative to history, by insulting which, it insults the mind, memory, and feeling of the reader, and is deprived of all value in his eyes. The success of bad novels proves nothing; it only testifies that the majority of readers in knowledge of history were even lower than the writer, and nothing more. In our time, when the publication of so many precious and previously unknown monuments of antiquity has spread a new light on our past life, and has aroused general attention to it, the common love of thinking people, the historical novel could have a new significant meaning; but it also requires new, extremely difficult conditions. Besides the fact that now, having become more familiar with the subject, we have become more demanding in the fidelity of its image; Moreover, this exactingness requires from the author a deeper study not only of the compiled histories, but also of the very monuments of our antiquity; Moreover, such a deep study can no longer be accomplished casually, but must be the subject of constant, lifelong, difficult work and dry, vigilant research; Moreover, this study of the subject achieved through such efforts must be animated by fidelity of vision and the art of living presentation; Besides all this, it must also be added that this very study of all the details of history must necessarily limit the right of invention and fiction, and that those liberties of fantasy, which could even be an advantage of a novel with half-knowledge of the subject, become, with a shorter acquaintance with it, no longer advantages, but disadvantages that offend the inner feeling of the reader. That is why we think that if the historical novel is to appear in a new form in our country, then for this purpose a special genius must probably be born, and that until then all works of this kind will certainly be lower than what their author could create in any other literary field. Based on these considerations, we think that the venerable writer of the attached passage, possessing such remarkable talent, will not regard us as tasteless barbarians who do not know how to appreciate her brilliant literary merits, if we add to what has been said that the pleasure that the reading of this passage, full of many beauties, gave us, was experienced by us not without an admixture of some regret for the subject she chose, which in itself constitutes the brightest, most the deepest, most meaningful and greatest moment in our entire past life. Here the slightest infidelity is already a severe dissonance, the slightest application to the truth changes its meaning, just as the addition of any new decoration to the image of an ancient inscription, not yet fully understood, spoils without decorating. "Faust", tragedy, op. Goethe, trans. M. Vronchenko Translation of the first and presentation of the second part. M. Vroncheto. 1844 In priv. type. Fisher. St. Petersburg. It's amazing how much life there is in a brilliant creation! Faust is half-novel, half-tragedy, half-philosophical dissertation, half-fairy tale, half-allegory, half-truth, half-thought, half-dream, half-music, but least of all a theatrical spectacle; despite this, however, in 1829 Tieck staged it at the Dresden Theater. Everyone thought then that Faust would be killed on stage - and they were mistaken. The effect he produced in the theater further strengthened the impression he made in reading. Now another experiment was carried out on him: Faust, the untranslatable Faust, appeared in the Russian translation, literally correct, but far from poetically correct. We thought: Faust without the poetry of language is the same as a beauty without youth; we began to read it with this prejudice: the first pages were unbearable; Almost every word, reminiscent of the original, offended our memory the more unpleasantly. So what? When we read a few scenes, we could no longer tear ourselves away from the book. The inner poetry of Faust took possession of our imagination, and this pale, but conscientiously accurate and surprisingly true in meaning translation produced on us almost the same effect as a re-reading of the original could have produced. We thank Mr. Vronchenko for this pleasure; We also thank him for the fact that he did not distort the meaning with a false forgery, but with trust in the inner strength of a brilliant thought and with the author’s selflessness, worthy of respect, he preferred the colorlessness of the verse to false coloring. The first part of Faust has been completely translated; the second is stated only in essence; A general overview is attached to both parts. It is interesting to see what effect Faust will have on our literature. Of course, it is not entirely news, because most educated readers know it in the original. However, he was unfamiliar to everyone who did not know German, because the French translations do not give any idea about him. They say there is an excellent translation into English; but we never happened to see him. However, it is also true that a work of genius of foreign literature, although familiar to us in a foreign language, has a completely different effect on our literary education when it appears in the clothing of our native word. Even this does not remain without useful action when we notice the weakness of the translation, and how and why our word has not yet matured to certain meanings. It seems, however, that the enormous, amazing influence that Faust had on European literature cannot entirely be attributed to his poetic and philosophical merit. Much of its power lay in its modernity. He expressed the moment of transition of European education from French influence to German influence. Faust – the 19th century emerging. He is also a German, just as Candide was a Frenchman, Hamlet was an Englishman, Don Juan was a Spanish-Italian. It could contain within itself a universal meaning because at this hour of European life such was the meaning of German life; abstract thought, requiring the struggle and excitement of life; life is excited, discordant, demanding agreement and meaning of thought. In the translator's review, written with great wit and revealing a deep study of his subject, we will distinguish two parts. Everything that he said about the first part of Faust seems sensible and fair to us; but in his explanations of the second part, we think, the author was not entirely faithful to his own theory: to judge the thought of a work of art by the data contained in it itself, and not by guesses applied to it from the outside. “What is the use,” he says, “of finding out what the author wanted to say where, if he didn’t really say it? “Before us lies his work as it was written and finally corrected.” “We,” he says in another place, “put Goethe in intelligence and talent above all his interpreters and therefore decide to believe not them, but Goethe himself, that is, to see in Faust only what is really and clearly in him - to see no less than that, but no more. So, with impartial readers, we will go through both parts of the play, strictly adhering to the text, without allowing ourselves any additional implications.” In another place, he also speaks beautifully about reinterpretations and implication: “By means of implication, from everything in the world one can deduce whatever anyone wants. Let someone take at least the fairy tale about Bova Korolevich, and begin to do as interpreters do with Faust, that is, read the direct and natural meaning of any place as the rough outer shell of thought; by this shell one means, depending on the need, one or another distant, figurative meaning; finally, come up with an important meaning for each word, even if that word was apparently put only for the sake of roundness - there is no doubt that Bova Korolevich will come out with a confirmation of any philosophical system!” “At first glance, it may seem to someone that implied symbolism is just a game, although empty and fruitless, but at least harmless. Let, they tell us, eccentrics explain what and how they please; let, perhaps, Napoleon, the son of Letitia, be mistaken for Apollo, the child of light, and his twelve marshals for the twelve zodiac signs; let, in a word, let the decrepit mind amuse itself with a kaleidoscope of wisdom, like a dressed old man amuses himself with building houses of cards - why interfere with his pleasure? Interfering, of course, would not be worth the effort if the game remained with one player; but that’s not what happens at all: the crooked rumors confuse the public, and especially captivate the younger part of the public, always gullible, always seduced by mystery. In this way many mysterious judgments are spread; and the subject of the judgments is not only not explained, but, on the contrary, is obscured in its clearest parts.” Despite this rebellion of the author against the meanings, in the second part of Faust, although he does not see those abstract thoughts, sometimes philosophical, sometimes mystical, that other interpreters found in it, he does not notice in it the significance that Goethe himself, obviously, attached to it, who mysteriously kept it as the last testament of his entire poetic-philosophical life. If in the first part of Faust the translator recognizes a symbolic image of man in general, and not some specific, private person, not even a German, but a complete man, only in a German dress, then it seems that for the same reasons he did not have the right to see in the second part only the German and artistic personality of Goethe, instead of the universality of man, or, at least, the man of our time. Of course, the poet’s private impressions could not help but be connected with his general thoughts: these accidents of life give color to a poetic dream; it is a foil, says Jean-Paul, that gives shine and brightness to a colorless transparent thought. But it is not just accidents without thought that make up Goethe’s poetry, and especially allegorical poetry. Therefore, we are grateful to Mr. Vronchenko for revealing to us the connection between certain circumstances in Goethe’s life and his poetic images; this is very interesting and can be useful psychologically and artistically; but we cannot agree with him that poetic images are limited to this small meaning. It also seems to us not entirely fair that Mr. Vronchenko, while analyzing the meaning of the second part of Faust, did not mention the analysis of the Elena episode made by Mr. Shevyrev and published in the first years of the Moskovsky Vestnik. The analysis of Mr. Shevyrev is of such importance that Goethe, giving an account of it, himself declared that Shevyrev understood the idea of ​​​​his allegory and knew how to appropriate it to himself. In this case, it seems that Goethe’s testimony is more significant than any guesswork, against which Mr. Vronchenko himself so strongly and so rightly rebels. Mr. Vronchenko’s language is generally correct, free and pure. But sometimes you come across some expressions that are unforgivably incorrect, such as. scorched earth, rocky gates, clothed with old things, essential business, etc. "Luka da Marya", op. F. Glinka LUKA DA MARYA, folk story. Op. F. Glinka. The peculiarity of this little book, written for the people, lies in the masterful language in which it is written, in the moral goal towards which it strives, and in the good cause for which the proceeds from its sale are intended. But, in our opinion, the means chosen by the author to accomplish this good deed: to write a book for the people, is in itself not only a good deed, but also one of the most beneficial that a person with a compassionate heart can imagine. For our people need healthy mental food; in the absence of it, with a new, ever more widespread literacy, he can turn to the most harmful, the most empty, the most ignorant literature - and, unfortunately, he is already beginning to turn to it. The consequences of such a distortion of popular opinions can be the most unfortunate, unless writers with talent, who love the fatherland and its future destiny, who write not by order, but by inner necessity, and who know our people not by hearsay, but from real life relationships, quickly and strongly hasten to prevent this evil. The author of the pamphlet we are examining could, without any doubt, belong to the number of such venerable writers, if he wanted to devote himself to this wonderful goal. He has long since acquired and strengthened his fame in another sphere of literature. A new activity for a semi-literate people, of course, will not add anything to his literary name, will not bring any worldly retribution, no glory, no honors, no benefits, or perhaps even visible signs of gratitude from those for whose benefit he will work. But the very gratuitousness of labor has its own charm for some noble people, which constitutes their exclusive property and serves, perhaps, as the only sign of their difference from others. Meanwhile, having already begun to express our opinion about this important subject, on the occasion of a new book for the people, we consider ourselves obliged to finish it openly, and therefore we will say, in addition to our words, that the nature of folk literature, as it seems to us, requires other important qualities, in addition to those that we noticed in this book. The business of reading for the people involves some difficulty. Moral thought is respected by him; but if it was already known to him before, it does not constitute a new reason for reading. The simplicity of a simple story is also not the reason for undertaking this work. Finally, the nationality of the language, which is so difficult for writers to achieve, is an ordinary matter for the people themselves and does not strike them as much as it does us. Those who are not entirely right, I think, are those who look at our people as a child who still does not think anything and requires children’s toys, superficial instructions, half-joking language and light thoughts about the most ordinary subjects. True, people sometimes read fairy tales; but not in order to learn, but only in order to laugh, or to occupy your imagination with wonderful impossibilities. But in his serious thoughts he turns the interest of the mind no longer to private elementary truths, not to elementary concepts of morality; but, what may seem incredible to many, he directly proceeds to the highest, most abstract questions of philosophy; seeks to comprehend their internal connection and external relationship to life, without limiting his curiosity to the interest of self-interest, or the applicability of thought to everyday benefits. The subjects that occupy the minds of the people and serve as the basis for their thinking are drawn by them from the deepest truths of our faith. He first of all seeks to form a concept about the Supreme Being, about His relationship to the world and man, about the beginning of good and evil, about the creation and structure of the universe, about the moral legitimacy of human actions, about truth and sin, about the original law of human relations, family and social; about the possibility of internal improvement of man, about the nature of his higher union with God, etc. This is why the lives of the Saints, the teachings of the Holy Fathers and the Divine Service books constitute, or, more correctly, constituted the favorite subject of his reading, the decoration of his evening conversations, the source of his spiritual songs, the usual sphere of his thinking in old age, the consolation of his dying moments, when the whole meaning of life is concentrated in one last consciousness. This is the main basis of the entire totality of his developed and undeveloped beliefs. But it must be admitted that this character of popular thinking began to change for some time. The reason for this seems to be a change in the relations that previously existed between the concepts of the lower and higher classes. For before the spread of Western education among us, based primarily on the rationalism of science, all the enlightenment of Russia, the entire way of thinking of all classes of society, flowed from one common source: from the direct and immediate teaching of our Church. Our monasteries, spread out in a dense network throughout the Russian land, filled with people from all classes of the people, were in the same relationship to the mental enlightenment of the entire earth as European universities are to the Western peoples: they formed the center and determined the character of national thinking. In the silence of a solitary cell, a humble monk, renouncing all extraneous goals, not being entertained by the excitement of hopes and fears, the joys and sufferings of life, completely devoted himself to the study of the highest spiritual truths, combining speculation with prayer, thought with faith, the work of self-improvement with the work of self-knowledge, and thus trying not only with an abstract concept, but with the whole fullness of his being, to drown in the comprehension of the highest the wisdom revealed to him in the Divine Scriptures and in the wise thoughts of the Holy Fathers. Little by little, listeners and disciples gathered around the humble monk; around them are people from all classes of society. Speculation, to which the hermits from the world indulged, was both the foundation and crown of all thinking in the world. The upper classes, being in living and close contact with the monasteries and basing their beliefs on the same principles, developed in the matter of life relations the same concepts that in the matter of pure speculation developed in a solitary cell. The common people, having neither enough time nor enough means to form their own concepts, accepted them in parts, in fragments, but always imbued with the same meaning, from monasteries and from the upper class. Thus, the concepts of one class were a complement to the other, and the general thought held strong and intact in the common life of the people, constantly flowing from one source: the Church. Meanwhile, since the science of the West became another source of our thinking, the concepts of the upper class, emanating from it, were separated from the concepts of the people, if not by internal disagreement, then at least by a lack of external agreement. The monastery ceased to be the central receptacle of all ends of society and the living center of all its mental movements. The beliefs and concepts of the people, unsupported by contact with the prevailing education, have received that limitation that does not allow many of the enlightened to comprehend the depth of their first foundation. But meanwhile, these convictions, these concepts of the common people, torn into pieces, but still alive and retaining their inner strength, remain to this day the only content of his mental reflections, the basis of his heartfelt convictions, the connection of his various members, the reason for his morals and customs, and the only source of his moral strength. This character of the inner life of the people finds support in listening to church services, in weakened, but not yet completely interrupted, relations with the remaining monasteries, and, finally, in some spiritual books available to literate old people. Meanwhile, the inevitable necessity of the time requires the adoption of new education from the common people. Civil literacy is becoming almost universal; but, making the commoner more capable of acquiring new information, it, at the same time, removes him from studying the Church Slavic language, which contained the only source of his inner convictions. What will happen if, drawing his concepts from the new civil literature, he finds in it only books of easy reading, composed of monetary benefits, amusing the reader with the strangeness of effects, trying to arouse passions in him and to please him by relaxing moral rules - or books of heavy reading, compiled with the aim of teaching the people what they know, not adapted to their already ready-made concepts, explaining to him particular questions of science without regard to his central convictions, without even presupposing them existence and mistaking external ignorance for a childish emptiness of meaninglessness. The first books will ruin his inner life; the latter either will not be read, or will not be connected with his original thinking, and, consequently, will remain useless. In general, reading, instead of the purpose of edification, will have the purpose of pleasure. That is why we think that a writer who is able to resist this destruction of popular concepts can be one of the most beneficent figures of our time. And it is unnecessary to think that new education has the same effect on the people as it does on the upper classes. Here, being the common cause of a whole class, it communicates to it certain concepts, known rules, certain customs, mutually reinforcing each other and common to everyone. A private person, indulging in it, does not break away from his family and social relationships. On the contrary, in those classes that, having acquired Western education, must at the same time change their previous way of life and thought, a private individual who has given himself over to a new influence necessarily comes into disagreement with the entire range of his previous relationships. This separation of one person from the opinions and rules of his society opens his mind and soul to all the lures of personal whim. Others find enough inner strength in themselves to resist the pressure of passions and selfish views even in the solitude of their convictions. But others, not supported by respect for the general opinion of their circle, fall morally and mentally, becoming a victim of their isolation. For in the matter of moral strength and prudence in life, for the most part, one person stands leaning on another. , This is why many have noticed that from a family that adheres to the rules of antiquity, the first person who changes his Russian dress and customs to the so-called German ones is usually carried away by the charm of the most petty benefits of the new enlightenment, indulges in the most insane passions, frivolously lives his father’s estate, collected through long-term labors and deep calculations, and often even, along with the estate, drops the name, adorned with general respect. Only with the second and third generations of the newly formed family is that balance between the individual and society restored, which serves as the surest support for the morality of both. However, in addition to the noted disagreement between a private individual and his circle, the harmful effect of new education also comes from the fact that a person usually indulges in it not as a result of the development of his inner convictions, but as a result of external necessity, or external benefits, or only the pleasures of life. On the contrary, his inner conviction usually resists such an external change; but he sacrifices conviction for the benefits of life. Sometimes a scientist arises from the ruins of a man; but usually the fruits of such an act cannot but correspond to the seed. As for the reason for the disagreement between the new education and our old one, it does not lie in the fact that they were both irreconcilable in their principles; but the fact is that until now the character of European education is purely rational, based not on the recognition of the highest truth, but on the totality of personal opinions, on the preponderance of logic over all other sources of knowledge - while in the character of our education, logical development constitutes only one dependent part of mental conviction. This feature of the modern education of the West was the reason why in different countries of Europe the spread of science produced different effects: in Protestant lands, spreading among the people, enlightenment penetrated them even more with the unity of one basic principle; in Catholic lands, on the contrary, it was usually the cause of division and disorder. The relationship of our Orthodox teaching to the development of external science is as different from Roman-scholastic intolerance as from its opposite subordination of faith under the domination of personal reason. Our Church has never presented any human system, any scientific theology, as the basis of its truth, and therefore has not prohibited the free development of thought in other systems, nor persecuted them as dangerous enemies who could shake its foundation. Not recognizing, for example, any system of astronomy as unconditionally true, as exclusively its own, it had no need to persecute Galileo for the fact that the earth revolves around the sun, and did not call those who recognized or did not recognize Aristotle as heretics. On the other hand, our Church has never subjected the supreme truths to the judgment and power of personal opinions, and therefore has never changed its teachings. From this it is obvious that the attitude of our native education to Western enlightenment should be completely special. But before this relationship comes into correct order, before the sciences of the West are processed in our sense, what can a writer do for the people? – Transfer to him private discoveries of science? But this is not enough to establish his inner way of thinking and protect him from destructive influences. Exhort? But for this you need to convince first. What can he do? We think that his activities will only bear real fruit when, through the highest development of enlightenment, science itself becomes in harmony with our lives. But the strength of one writer is not enough for this. This requires the general assistance of all people who think and are not indifferent to the inner dignity of man in general and to the well-being of their fatherland in particular. However, if the well-intentioned activity of a private person perishes without any visible fruit, then can a work animated by a sincere thought of good perish completely without fruit? One cannot do anything; but if there is not one, how will there be two? "Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian" Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian, Conversations on the Holy Pentecost. Kharkov. At Univers. Type. 1844. “For the coming sleep”, op. gr. V. A. Solloguba FOR THE COMING SLEEP, excerpts from everyday life. Essay by Count V. L. Sollogub. Second edition. Part 1. St. Petersburg. 1844 Published by bookseller A. Ivanov. Mr. Sollogub's stories could, it seems, be recognized without a signature, among all other phenomena of our modern literature, by two qualities that are least common in modern literature, but which, it would seem, constitute a necessary condition for any work that has any claim to artistic merit: taste and genuine feeling. It cannot be said that our fine literature is poor in works: we publish many stories and novels, but very few that could be read. Our stories contain a lot of action, a lot of strong feelings, invented in cold blood, even a lot of thoughts, collected and mixed; but rarely will you find uninvented feelings, your thoughts carried through your heart; even rarer is the concept of artistic decency and proportionality. The first thing the ancient philosopher would have done with our philosophical novelists would probably have been to send them to sacrifice to the Graces. But Mr. Sollogub is in complete contrast to the majority of our writers in this respect. His stories are unusually fascinating, the language is simple and true, the story is lively, the feelings are truly felt and therefore involuntarily transmitted to the reader. All this makes us look forward to the second volume. If, as is likely, these stories wait until the third edition, then we would like to see only one change in them, and that is in the title. “Going to sleep” is not in Russian. There are prayers for the future to sleep, which probably gave rise to this confusion of sounds, which does not have a specific meaning. “On raising children in the spirit of Christian piety” On raising children in the spirit of Christian piety. Moscow. Type. Aug. Seeds. This book, translated from German, contains a lot of useful instructions, spoken in good, pure and correct language. This is probably only an introduction to a more complete exposition of the science of education; for the general truths expressed here will only receive their real value when they are combined with practical remarks that can indicate the path to achieving the goal outlined here. The best way to make good advice useful is to give it the opportunity to carry it out. "On Sin and Its Consequences" About sin and its consequences, Conversation on the Holy Pentecost, Kharkov. At the Univ. Type. 1844. Everything that comes from the pen of the Right Reverend Innocent does not belong to one theology; together it constitutes a rich decoration of our literature in general. In this last respect we wish to express the impression made on us by these two books. The works of the Right Reverend Innocent represent a special character of spiritual eloquence, expressed more or less in all of his works, but mainly identified in his two Weeks - Passionate and Light. However, despite the fact that this character trait is very noticeable for every reader, it can be more easily distinguished by feeling than expressed in words - and if we were required to define it, we would find it difficult to designate it with any formula. Eloquence, warmth, clarity of thoughts, liveliness of ideas - all these qualities can belong to other preachers; but meanwhile, reading the Right Reverend Innocent, you clearly understand that in the effect of his word there is something special, exclusively belonging to him. Due to the inability to express our thought briefly, we will try to explain it descriptively. Spiritual eloquence has two sides, is composed of two parts, of two forces with which it acts. One consists in the presentation of eternal truths that live unchangeably in the Church; the other is to apply these eternal, unchangeable doctrines to those ever-changing circumstances of time and place in which the preacher finds his hearers. If the first part, that is, the presentation of the truth, was the only one necessary for teaching, then in this case there would be no need to preach a sermon; It would be enough to repeat the catechism once composed. If the second element of preaching, i.e. That is, the application of eternal truths to changing circumstances related solely to those continuously recurring shortcomings of a person in which he, due to the constant weakness of his nature, can equally find himself at any time, despite the difference in times; if preaching, I say, were limited only to those exhortations and stimulations that in all ages and among all peoples are equally necessary to maintain the Orthodox faith and life against the ever-present hostility of passions, unreason and temptations, then in that case the rich inheritance of the ancient Fathers would be quite sufficient for us, and a new word might seem almost superfluous after everything that has already been said by the great pillars of the Church. But meanwhile, despite all the soul-nourishing things that we can glean from the writings of the ancient Teachers, we feel, however, that in addition we also need the supporting word of a contemporary shepherd, a close witness of our special perplexities and infirmities, a resolver of our new difficulties. a comforter in the face of new disasters, a pointer of the way in the face of new delusions, an enlightener in the face of new doubts, arising perhaps from the same root, but appearing at each time in a new form, with new self-justifications, with new seductions. Therefore, we think that, in addition to other essential qualities, the dignity of modernity is one of the necessary conditions for the strong effect of speech on listeners. All famous preachers have had this quality to a greater or lesser extent. The peculiarity of each time gave a special color to their eloquence. In our time, it seems, the main illness of man is not in the excess of any passion, not in ignorance of any truth, and not in an accidental misunderstanding of any issue; we notice, on the contrary, instead of one-sided tension, a more general relaxation of the heart, opposite to all passion and oppressing a person to low goals and motives, not from the excess of his unsettled impulses, but from the lack of internal ability for any strong aspiration. Instead of ignorance, we seem to suffer from excessive knowledge, caring equally about the study of the true and the false, equally recognizing the useful and the harmful, and, confused in many thoughts, we often confuse the most heterogeneous, submitting to the general, indifferent impression of the mutually annihilating influences of good and evil, equally accessible to our, neither hot nor cold, sympathy. Against this prevailing infirmity of our time, spiritual coldness and mental irascibility, cardiac lethargy and mental immobility, relaxed, selfish effeminacy, and intense dialectical daydreaming, two methods of healing are possible for a spiritual pastor: either to act directly on the heart and, warming it with living images, exciting it with obvious ideas, captivating with warm images of the Divine and the Holy - so to speak, following the traces of feeling, guiding thought on the path of salvation; or to act directly on the mind, with a strict judgment to clear the truth from lies, with a deep and clear argument to resolve the confused, to expose the imaginary, to clarify the dark, to cut off the doubtful, to affirm the true, to arrange a wandering thought, so to speak, to bring it to its senses, and then, on the previously approved basis of the inner consciousness, to edify the mental and heartfelt life of a person in the spiritual inseparability of all his particular abilities. These two opposing methods of acting against the two fundamental shortcomings of our time seem to belong primarily to two great modern teachers of our Church and constitute a feature of the character of their spiritual eloquence - not, however, so that one feature excludes the other, but so that each contains the opposite as its own necessary but subordinate force. Therefore, if the word of St. Innocent (for now we mean to express our opinion exclusively about the nature of his eloquence), if his word, imbued with the vividness of a seemingly direct view of the events he depicts, warmed by the application of higher truths to the obvious and, so to speak, tactile designation of our modern life, if it rarely concerns dogmatic issues, rarely seeks to resolve mental doubts - then nevertheless, acting first on the feeling, it not only does it not forget the mental structure of our modern multi-mindedness, but (which is the peculiarity of its eloquence), not to mention them, in the very way of heart stimulation it already answers those speculative questions, that refined splitting of the mind, which constitute the distinctive character of our age. Reading etc. Innocent, you feel that he is not unaware of your mental worries; that all the pride of rational development, all the intricacies of modern science, cannot present to him any new objection, still unfamiliar to his hard-working thoughts, still unconquered by faith in the depths of his inner consciousness. This, it seems, explains the universal effect of his sermon, which equally warms the heart of an illiterate and a learned man: this is the warm word of a firm faith, not unconscious, but which has already experienced a stubborn struggle with reason, a thinking faith and invincibly passed through all the attacks of secular wisdom, through all the difficulties of science that has become torn from heaven. But, if what we said is true, then it is also undeniable that the works of St. Innocent should have an effect all the more, the more the peculiarity of his power that we noticed is expressed in them. Applying what we have said to the two books about which we began this discussion, we confess that, despite all their merits, we were not able to find in them those distinctive qualities that characterize other works of the Right Reverend. Let us also admit that the fault for this lies not in the books we read, but in us who read them. Therefore, we do not judge their dignity, we only express their impression on us, knowing moreover that for the best part of the Eminence’s readers, the impression will be completely different, for the more fully, the higher the spiritual life in a person is revealed, the more completely he separates himself from the momentary unrest of time, the less he needs the new, the still unspeakable, the modern, and the more meaning the eternal truths, although known to everyone, are always new to his pious attention, receive meaning in his eyes soulful, holy, at all times equally belonging to the holy Church, and now clearly and faithfully repeated by its famous shepherd. "The Experience of the Science of Philosophy", op. Nadezhdina EXPERIENCE OF THE SCIENCE OF PHILOSOPHY. Sochin. F. Nadezhdina. St. Petersburg. There was a time when the appearance of such a book among us could have constituted an era in our literature; the word: philosophy, had something magical in it. Rumors about the wisdom of the German, spreading everywhere the news of some newly discovered America in the depths of the human mind, aroused, if not general sympathy, then at least general curiosity. Especially the younger generation greedily sought every opportunity to penetrate this mysterious world. The passion reached the point that they even read Velansky and Galich! - This is not enough: they were not only read, but even many admired their works, and what is most remarkable is that these admirers of the biological study of nature in its creative and created beginnings were among the most educated people of that time. Now such books no longer produce delight; Our relationship to German philosophy has changed. Instead of looking for an intermediary between the German thinker and us - an intermediary who often does not understand either his teacher or himself, we turned to the source itself and read German thought in the German language. Therefore, philosophical concepts have spread very widely among us. There is almost no person who does not speak in philosophical terms; there is no young man who does not talk about Hegel; There is almost no book, no journal article, where the influence of German thinking would be imperceptible; ten-year-old boys talk about concrete objectivity. Therefore, the Russian book on philosophy can no longer produce the same effect as before. But it is surprising that when we look a little more closely into this universal dissemination of philosophical knowledge, we will see that its real source is not in the study of philosophical writers, not in the assimilation of this or that system, but, so to speak, in the air that we breathe. In fact, talk to any thinker, of which we now have so many: you will notice at first glance that all his opinions are based on the recognition of Hegel's philosophy as the highest truth; that he rejects this, accepts another, acts in this way, even feels this way and not otherwise, only because this way of thinking and acting agrees with the system in which he is convinced more than in any other truth, and which, therefore, he places as the foundation of his entire mental and active life. Meanwhile, if you look closely at the mental process by which this admirer of Hegel acquired his fundamental conviction, you will be surprised to see that there was no process at all. For the most part, he didn’t even read Hegel at all. Of those who read, another only read the application of the principles to other sciences, another read only aesthetics, another only began to read his philosophy of history, another only read the end of his history of philosophy, another a few pages from logic, another saw phenomenology; the majority have read something about Hegel’s philosophy, or heard about it from people worthy of faith, from educated people who follow modern enlightenment and know very well that Hegel’s philosophy in our time is definitely recognized as the highest and the only possible one. This is how rationalist philosophers are formed in our country - by believing in the beliefs of others. Yes, the acceptance of other people's beliefs is such a common thing that out of several hundred Hegelians known to me, I could hardly name three who actually studied Hegel. This fact is all the more remarkable because here we are not talking about a more or less probable opinion, but about the conscious development of one basic, logically necessary principle, according to the laws of strict inevitability: the spontaneous birth of mind into consciousness. The whole essence of Hegel's philosophy lies in this method of self-development. And yet it is accepted in the latest results, without testing the fidelity of the basic process itself. We cannot explain the possibility of this fact. But we think that he himself can serve as an explanation for many strange phenomena in our literary world, which without him would remain incomprehensible. By the way, this also explains to us why we can produce philosophical books that contain, so to speak, one application of a certain way of thinking, without deducing the process of its compilation. We forget that this process cannot be assumed; that each special rational view on philosophical questions requires a special preliminary logical process, and that, finally, in the current state of science, no plausibility, no comprehensibility, no separate reasonableness of an opinion gives it the right to recognition as a philosopher, if it is not derived from the laws of logical necessity, from the self-development of one fundamental principle. This uncertainty of the main point of view, or, better to say, this absence of a logical conclusion of the first foundation, is, by the way, the main drawback of the book we are talking about - a drawback that, however, can be considered a virtue from all those readers who accept philosophy according to its results. In addition, this book has many wonderful qualities: the language is clear, distinct, and sometimes not devoid of new happy expressions. – But the thoughts, taken in particular, are presented as comprehensible, and not as logically inevitable. We especially emphasize this shortcoming because we would like to see in our literature, above all other philosophical works, precisely this scientific development of the very foundation of rational speculation; for we think that in turning thought to its basis there is the only possibility of its success. This success seems all the easier to us at the present time, since the state of the modern science of thinking has long since assumed a new character in Germany, while we continue to tinker with the same questions.