Vasily Vasilievich Bolotov

On Great Saturday of this year, at the Nikolskoye cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, the body of the deceased ordinary professor of St. Petersburg was interred. Theological Academy, Department of General Church History, Doctor of Church History, D.S. With. Vasily Vasilyevich Bolotov. Many students, comrades and admirers of the deceased accompanied his body to his final home, and all - one can safely say: without exception - were overcome by one feeling: a feeling of bitter, irreplaceable loss, a feeling of some kind of almost embitterment at fate, which had taken from among the living, untimely and apparently suddenly, in only the 47th year of life, a rare person and a great scientific power. When we apply these epithets to the deceased, we know very well what we are doing. We would be extremely upset if any reader, unfamiliar with the personality and activities of Vasily Vasilyevich, saw in them even the slightest exaggeration ad majorem defunti gloriam, usual in obituaries. Even during V.V.’s life, highly authoritative judges had no doubt about applying these epithets to him; among such connoisseurs was our unforgettable you. Grieg. Vasilievsky. Calling the late Bolotov a great scientific force, we are saying, perhaps, too little, but not much. Great scientific power is a great scientist in opportunity; By calling a person this way, we seem to be saying that he, in his erudition and talents, could have created an era in science, if not for certain conditions. There can truly be no doubt about this, as applied to Bolotov. But, perhaps, when the works of the deceased are published in their entirety; when the learned world will become acquainted with his posthumous works, as well as with his excellent academic courses; when the intellectual legacy of the deceased, both his actual discoveries and his views and method, become as accessible and known to everyone as they deserve - who knows, maybe they will introduce the science of church history into a new era, at least in our fatherland, and then the title of a great scientist will be established for Bolotov. True, the deceased himself thought the least about revolutions in science. His mentality and talent predisposed him primarily to critical work. Familiar with both the sources and the historical ideas built on their basis about the religious and everyday life of Europe and Western Asia with Egypt, from hoary antiquity to our times, he clearly saw their weaknesses: the incompleteness and lack of development of the first, and as a consequence, the lack of evidence, inaccuracy, fantasticality and in many cases - the deliberate falsity of the second; and this is probably why he valued detailed, mathematically accurate (that is, at least with a precise indication of the limits of possible error) development of even a tiny question above brilliant broad concepts, the development of which sometimes takes a scientist’s entire life, and which, however, with close criticism of their Factual basis, often crumble into dust. And at the same time, neither familiarity with these concepts, nor the ability to appreciate them as the creation of a mind striving for generalizations, nor, finally, creative ability in this very direction, we think, no one who knew him will deny Bolotov. Thanks to this, he, a passionate lover and master of this “historical mpcrography” or “cellular history,” never lost sight of the fact that the ideal goal of science is generalization; and therefore “behind each of his phrases one can feel a broad general historical basis” 1, and he never fell into the study of the questions “on which cheek was Igor’s mole,” that is, questions that are obviously indifferent for the purposes of scientific generalization. So his spelling sketch is from. called “paravolanakh” 2 (according to Vasily Vasilyevich οἱ παραβαλανεῖν indeclinabile) apparently has one goal - to break up the established absurd spelling of this word; but when the reader reaches the end of the sketch, he feels with amazement that he has been given much more than was promised - a vivid picture is given of the brotherhood of the "workers" in Alexandria, its origin and activities, and it is proven that these Paravalanians, contrary to popular belief, were not found anywhere except Alexandria. In the article “The day and year of the martyrdom of St. Evangelist Mark" 3 the reader with difficulty and at the same time with admiration follows the author’s brilliant erudition and wit, first on the analysis and criticism of the acts of St. Mark, and then according to chronology and astronomy, experiencing the feeling of a timid traveler on a puzzling mountain path, walking in tow behind a cheerful, self-confident guide; but when he sees himself led to an unexpected and irresistible result: ap. Mark was killed in Alexandria on April 4, 63. AD, - then the enormous importance of this result suddenly arises before his consciousness. If St. Mark was killed in 63 in Alexandria, which means his Gospel (either ours or its prototype) was written no later than 62; and if it was written in Rome, then in the 50s; This means that Mark was Peter’s translator in the 50s, and then St. Peter was in Rome!... Looking everywhere for light, accuracy and reasonable grounds, V.V. sometimes deliberately deviated from the accepted incorrect spelling of words, the use of punctuation marks, etc. etc. and sometimes substantiated his “dissenting opinion” in detail and firmly in the press. This is partly the article about “paravolans”, with note 38 about the origin (), . . . . , and – - –, and their most reasonable and useful use; This is an excursion about the name Serdika (incorrect current spelling: Sardica) in the article “Liberius, Bishop of Rome, and the Councils of Sirmium” 4. But here, too, a sense of living reality always kept him from pedantry. Thus, he protested against the spelling of “Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrrhus,” finding that in the 5th century talking about the city of Kirre (vm. Cyrus) was as strange as in the 19th century writing Tfer instead of Tver. The biography of Vasily Vasilyevich is very poor in external interest. He was born January 1, 1854; his father, deacon of the Ostashkov Trinity Cathedral, soon died, and V.V., his mother’s only son, was placed at public expense in the Ostashkov religious school and then in the Tver seminary. Already here he attracted the general attention of teachers and comrades with his extraordinary thirst for knowledge, exceptional memory and strong critical mind. Here, by the way, without any guidance, he studied - and excellently - the Hebrew language, which was accidentally discovered in connection with one of his academic works. After completing a course at the seminary, in August 1875 he entered the SSB. Theological Academy and immediately occupied a completely exceptional position here: when he was in his third year, Honored Professor Cheltsov died on March 5, 1878, and the Academy Council then decided not to replace his department until the end of the course with student Bolotov. From then on, our famous, highly respected scientist Prof. became the head of his scientific studies. I.E. Troitsky, with whom V.V. Until the end of his days he was in the closest, most touching friendship. In the spring of 1879, Bolotov completed a course at the Academy, and on October 28 of the same year he received a master's degree in theology for his essay “The Teaching of Origen about St. Trinity." This book, for the author's deep insight into a complex issue, for the amazing title of the literature of the subject and its solid scientific-critical technique, would be a rare phenomenon in any literature; It’s hard to believe that it was completed by a man who had barely left his student days. Prof. Troitsky subsequently officially recognized this dissertation, based on its scientific qualities, as a doctoral dissertation; in private conversations he expressed that he could have given “three doctors” for her. From then on, V.V. began, within the walls of the Academy that raised him, scientific and teaching activities, which he left only with death. On October 24, 1885 he became extraordinary, on October 19, 1890 - ordinary professor; the degree of doctor was awarded by the council on May 21, 1896, according to a memorandum by prof. I.E. Troitsky, approved by St. Synod on July 15. He always remembered the possibility of any external changes in his destiny almost with fear: to such an extent his real activity and position met the needs of his spirit. It seemed that nothing existed for him except science and its teaching. But on the other hand, he was interested in science in the broadest sense of the word, throughout its vast expanse, keenly aware of the close connection of all its areas; and thanks to this, in personal relationships he did not at all seem like a narrow, dry person; on the contrary, he was a cordial, fascinating conversationalist, a wonderful, warm-hearted leader and comrade, alien to any shadow of envy of other people's talents and successes; the critic is strict and impartial to the essence of the matter, but always humanely and condescending to the face. Everyone remembers V.V.’s eloquence both as an interlocutor and as a professor; Schopenhauer’s words that “the whole secret of good style is that a person has something to say and that he fully understands what he wants to say” fits this eloquence perfectly; one can add: and so that the subject of thought and speech captivates the speaker himself. V.V.'s erudition was extraordinary. Had he lived in Byzantium, sometime in the 8th or 9th century, he, like Patriarch Photius, would certainly have been accused of having relations with evil spirits; and in our time it was an amazing testimony to the results achieved by the phenomenal ability to understand and assimilate thoughts and facts in union with a fiery all-consuming love of knowledge. Until the end of his days, V.V. was able to literally forget about sleep and food while working. In the last weeks of his life, when illness did not allow him to sit, he knelt days and nights on a chair in front of his desk. You don’t know, it happened that you were more surprised at what: the accuracy, abundance, or variety of his information, or that firmness and, so to speak, familiarity of it to his mind, thanks to which, on every occasion, at every moment, he seemed to easily find in his mental treasury and quickly combine into a solid and clear conclusion everything that was needed in a given case. Bolotov, it seemed, did not forget a single line of everything he had ever read. He knew up to twenty languages, living and dead, European and Eastern, and knew not just enough to understand their literacy, but even the subtleties of their style and dialectology, with their history and literature. He was also an expert in chronology - here he hardly knew his rivals in Russia. Chronology requires astronomy; and V.V. became an astronomer; astronomy rests on mathematics - and he became a mathematician. He showed the same special information in historical geography, and in the science of the antiquities of the peoples of the East, the Greeks and Romans, and in church archeology and iconography, and in metrology; and at the same time he was a brilliant dogmatist and historian of dogma, able to grasp the most elusive subtleties of theological systems, present them briefly, accurately and clearly to the point of tangibility, and indicate their meaning and significance. Thanks to such erudition, he could speak, and spoke without arrogance, but boldly, with his own independent opinion, against the greatest scientific authorities in any field of his subject. It is very instructive how relatively little Bolotov wrote, given his erudition and his tireless work. Μέγα βιβλίον - μέγα κακόν, he used to say, and he could not stand “freshly printed paper”, since it does not introduce anything essentially new or completely firmly founded into science, and only obscures the best old works on the same topic. But his articles, without exception, strictly meet the requirements that he set for scientific work. In terms of the news of conclusions, and partly also of questions, in terms of the strict logic of construction, the scrupulous completeness of the argumentation and, at the same time, the absence of everything superfluous and extraneous - all related remarks are highlighted in notes and excursions - these are exemplary works. V.V. did everything so as not to force his readers to work for nothing; but we must admit that studying his articles requires serious work. To understand and appreciate them, they must be studied line by line; with mild “perlustration” through the page they will give nothing but fog in the head. Added to the extraordinary conciseness of their style with an abundance of content is the fact that the author moves in his argumentation from one special SPHERE to another with lightning speed and confidence: a rare reader will immediately keep up with him. This, in our opinion, is the fair side of the opinion we have heard quite often that “Bolotov writes hard”: in essence, it is not “Bolotov writes hard”, but it is difficult for people of less erudition than him to keep up with his thoughts. But whoever works through his articles to the end will not lose money: he will get up from reading with pleasant fatigue, as if from a luxurious mental feast, feeling that the dishes offered to him were all of the best quality and offered to him in a strictly calculated combination. Among V.V.’s works there are no ones specifically devoted to Byzantine history 5 ; but many valuable individual comments and particular conclusions related to our science are found in almost all of his articles. Already in his dissertation “The Teaching of Origen about St. Trinity" (in addition to the important role that Origen plays in the history of Byzantine theology in general) there is a section: "The historical fate of Origen's teaching about St. Trinity”, where on pp. 388 – 435 the history of the relationship to Origen of Eastern theology up to and including the V Council is examined. Further, the articles “From the Church History of Egypt” about Reville’s publications: “Stories of Dioscorus about the Council of Chalcedon” 6 and “Archimandrite Victor of the Tabennisiots at the Court of Constantinople in 431.” 7 are important for the Byzantinist primarily because, proving the inauthenticity of the monuments being examined in the literal sense of the word, they warn against blind trust in them as sources of the history of the III and IV cathedrals; and in the notes to the issue. 1 there are many detailed “sketches and sketches” directly about the relationship between the Orthodox and Monophysite parties in the empire in the 5th century. Even more closely related to our discipline are the articles by V.V.: “Liberius, Bishop of Rome, and the Councils of Sirmium” 8 regarding Mr. Samuilov’s dissertation: “The History of Arianism in the Latin West” (written, by the way, under the leadership of V.V.), and his “Theodoretiana - Addenda-corrigenda” and “addendis superaddenda” to the work of Mr. N.N. Glubokovsky: “Blessed Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrrhus” 9. In the first article we find a thorough analysis of the question of for the sake of which creed Pope Liberius changed the Nicene symbol, and in connection with this - proof that there were not five Sirmian councils, but only four; further chronology of the dispute of Photinus, bishop. of Sirmium, with Vasily of Ancyra and a witty reconstruction of this dispute (a monument to the rare ability of V.V. get used to the smallest features of theological trends); and in the excursion: “Rehabilitation of four documents of 343.” it is proved that the criticism of Hefele, Langen and Friedrich in relation to these documents is unfounded, that they fully correspond to the spirit of the times and circumstances, as well as the style and character of Athanasius V.; with animation it is pointed out what vivid colors these documents provide (the epistles of the Serdica Council to Pope Julius and the Mareotians and the epistles of Athanasius to the clergy of the church in Alexandria and Paremvola, and to the same Mareotians). The meaning of “Theodoretiana,” which consists almost entirely of other additions, objections and amendments to Mr. Glubokonsky’s major work, is not easy to determine in a short obituary; but whoever studies them with Glubokovsky’s book in hand will finish reading with the joyful knowledge that this diamond of our church-historical literature sparkled even brighter after its final polishing by the hand of such a master as the late V.V. Everything we have stated is nothing more than ἐχ πολλῶν ὀλιγα; a true concept of both V.V.’s amazing erudition and general. The objective value of his works can only be obtained by reading them in the original. We have already spoken about his outstanding talents as a lecturer. His academic courses, when published, would constitute an invaluable manual for any Theological and Philological Faculty. Unfortunately, such a publication seems to be against the will of the deceased. He did not “read”, but improvised; in lithography there are only student notes, uncorrected by him. I put down my pen - and the picture of V.V.’s funeral appears in my memory... A solemn service, many speeches in praise of the deceased, the highest condolences, silent grief on all faces for the great loss - and in the middle there is a coffin, and in it a familiar, pale, dead face, almost still very young: not a gray hair in the dark hair - if only a man could live and live... What to do! Large Russian people rarely “stand”! Expression by I. E. Troitsky. See Christ. Reading 1892, vol. 2, pp. 18–37. Christ. Thurs. 1893, vol. 2, pp. 122–174 and 405–434. Christ. Thurs. 1891, vol. 1, pp. 511–517. Except perhaps “On the history of the Church of Constantinople under the Turkish yoke,” in Christian Reading 1882, vol. 1, pp. 138–172 and vol. 2, pp. 353–384. Christ. Thurs. 1884, vol. 2, pp. 581–625, 1885, vol. 1, pp. 9–94. Separate issue. I. Christ. Thurs. 1892, vol. 1, pp. 63–89, 335–361, and vol. 2, pp. 18 – 37. Separate issue. 3. Christ. Thurs. 1891, vol. 1, pp. 304–815, 434–459, 511–517; vol. 2, pp. 61–78, 79–109, 266–282, 386–394. Christ. Thurs. 1892, vol. 2, pp. 58–124, 125–164 and separately. We took some biographical data from the 10th issue of the “Church Bulletin” for the current year; This issue is entirely dedicated to the memory of the deceased scientist. There the reader will also find a complete list of his published works.