XXVII. Эстетизм и религия (к стр. 7, 99 и др.)

In the text of the book, the idea of ​​​​the supremacy of beauty and the unique art that constitutes the essence of Orthodoxy was repeated so many times that, perhaps, it would not be superfluous to distinguish this religious aestheticism from the religious aestheticism developed and ardently defended by K. N. Leontyev. 1012 I dare to say that these two aestheticisms, in their essence, have nothing in common, despite their external similarity. In fact, K. N. Leontiev’s views on this issue can be briefly represented by his own scheme, namely 1013: Thus, for K. N. Leontiev, “aesthetics” is the most general attribute; but, for the author of this book, he is the deepest. There beauty is only a shell, the most external of the various “longitudinal” layers of existence; and here it is not one of many longitudinal layers, but a force that penetrates all layers across. There beauty is further from religion than anything else, but here it is expressed most of all in religion. There the understanding of life is atheistic or almost atheistic; right there – God is the Supreme Beauty, through participation in Which everything becomes beautiful. For Leontyev, God is the geometric center of the system, almost an abstraction, but not at all the Living Uniting Principle; here He is Ens realissimum. Therefore, in Leontyev’s graceless understanding of life, personality is mechanically composed of various layers of existence, and, according to the author of this book’s understanding of life, personality, with the help of God’s grace, vitally and organically assimilates all layers of existence. Everything is beautiful in a person when he is turned towards God, and everything is ugly when he is turned away from God. And, while in Leontyev beauty is almost identified with Gehenna, with non-existence, with death, in this book beauty is Beauty and is understood as Life, as Creativity, as Reality. If we conditionally agree on Leontiev’s terminology, then these are the diagrams in which the graceless and godless aestheticism of Leontiev (Prof. V. Zavitnevich even identifies it with materialism 1014) and the spiritual and theocentric aestheticism of this book should be depicted. . Here we must add: St. K. N. Aggeev, - Culture and its relationship to the improvement of earthly life, Kyiv, 1909 and reviews of this book by prof. V. Ekzemplyarsky and V. Zavitnevich (“Extract from the journals of the Council of Kiev. Dukh. Ak.” for the 1909–1910 academic year. Kiev, 1910, pp. 243–272). V. Zavitnevich, – Review of the dissertation of priest. K. I. Aggeeva.