Reflections on nationality

In relation to the problem of nationality, as well as to other problems of the philosophy of culture, it is necessary to reveal the nature of the general worldview or those general philosophical premises that are invariably co-present - sometimes even beyond the consciousness of the judges - and partly predetermine the course of reasoning. The question of nationality - this must be said frankly and affirmed with all decisiveness - is by no means one of those questions that would be considered and studied outside of these premises, “voraussetzungslos” (if such questions exist at all), by the strict application of scientific methods alone. No matter how important the scientific study of various manifestations of nationality is, it does not pose and does not contain the general metaphysical problem of the nation, that is, questions about its nature, value, idea. As in other cases, science only leads to these questions, provides its material for posing them, but stops there, unless it is critical, that is, it is aware of its actual competence. That nationality generally exists as a completely special, unique historical force, of course, no one argues about this, not even those who would like to destroy this fact. We are learning more and more about how a nation is expressed in history, in everyday life, in morals, in institutions from expanding life and historical experience and from scientific study. But the question of what a nation is takes the discussion to an even more general level. In answering this question, basic metaphysical disagreements must inevitably emerge. Two main directions, naturally, have emerged in the history of philosophy, adopting different formulations in it: nominalism and realism of medieval philosophy in modern philosophy correspond to positivism, empiricism or idealism (of course, “transcendental”) in their opposition to realism, mystical or spiritualistic. For the first view, being is exhausted by the immediate givenness of states of consciousness, which in its expression and logical processing is clothed in the symbolism of general concepts and judgments. For another view, reality is incomparably deeper than the experimental data, the testimony of experience is only the touch of genuine res on our subjectivity, its changeable and imperfect, inadequate symbols (“alles Vergängliche ist nur ein Gleichniss”). If the first view, nominalism, inevitably resolves the world into the subjective illusionism of closed, immanent experience (moreover, artificially limited and prepared), then the second view postulates and strives to comprehend in a form accessible to us now the world of things, existing (τὸ όντως ὄν). When applied to the question of the nation, this bifurcation of philosophical thinking gives the following results. For positivistic or idealistic nominalism and illusionism, the nation is completely resolved into a totality of facts, one way or another connected with national life, and is only an abstraction from these facts, or a collective concept in the sense in which, for example, a forest is a collection of many trees. The totality of national traits and manifestations, defined through a possibly complete enumerationem simplicem, fundamentally exhausts the content of the concept of a nation, while the explanation of its origin by means available to history completely resolves its problem. This is the point of view of the philosophy of enlightenment, old and new; This is how Chernyshevsky talked about the nation, and this is approximately how Miliukov now talks. This is how the current supporters of neo-Kantian idealism should argue, while remaining consistent, although, due to some misunderstanding, some of them talk about the creation of a national culture. The question of the nation is illuminated in a completely different way by the philosophy of realism. For her, a nation is not only the totality of its phenomenological discoveries, counted and studied by science, but first of all a certain substantial principle that creatively produces its discoveries, but is not entirely contained in any of them and therefore does not merge with them. The idea of ​​“national spirit”, which was operated by the historical school of law, was not thought out by it precisely from this metaphysical side, but the actual relationship of things was formulated in it (however, when applied to the particular issue of legal formation) absolutely correctly, albeit in terms of positivistic historicism. A nation exists, not as a collective concept or logical abstraction, but as a creative living principle, as a spiritual organism, the members of which are in an internal living connection with it. When we experience a national feeling, feel a nation in ourselves or ourselves in a nation, we recognize the existential, and not the epiphenomenal, only our definition. The usual comparison of the attitude towards the fatherland with the attitude towards the mother becomes especially interesting and instructive when comparing these two opposing worldviews. What are the relationships of sonship, paternity, motherhood, or the mysterious and enigmatic force so beloved by natural scientists, called heredity? For some, this is sexual conception, then the development of the body in the mother’s womb, a “nine-month apartment,” then a set of everyday relationships, childhood memories, habits, etc., etc., and, in addition, the inheritance, along with diseases and predispositions to them, sometimes of the smallest character traits. For others, here is a secret of secrets, an almost direct self-discovery of the beyond. In nowhere, perhaps, are the mystery and depth of life and the real unity of humanity revealed as much as here. Fatherland (patria, patrie, Vaterland, fatherland, πατρίς) is only an expanded concept of fatherhood and sonship, a collection of fathers and mothers who gave birth to and continuously give birth to sonship. 1 This idea of ​​a nation as a real, blood unity received plastic expression in the language of the Bible (however, not in it alone) in the fact that tribes and peoples are here designated as persons by the names of their ancestors or leaders (the names of the tribes of Israel, Assur, Moab, Gog, etc.), and this personification of nationalities, of course, is not only an artistic image or a way of expression, but implies a certain religious-metaphysical idea. So, both philosophical worldviews, nominalism and realism, necessarily lead to a different metaphysics of the nation, in one case resolving it entirely into phenomenology, in the other - affirming it as a transcendental reality, intuitively recognizable in direct experience. These metaphysical disagreements do not at all concern the experimental study of the nation, the science of the nation, which, if faithful to its methods, can be conducted to a certain extent independently of philosophical premises. But they become very sensitive when questions about values ​​are discussed, and in general in such cases when a person acts not only as a scientific recorder, but also as an actor guided by certain ideas, moods, and volitional impulses. Based on the premises of mystical realism, we must think of nationality as a certain substantial being that exists before consciousness and constitutes its existential prius. We recognize ourselves as members of the nation, because we really belong to it as a living spiritual organism. This belonging of ours is completely independent of our consciousness; it exists before him, and besides him, and even in spite of him. Not only is it not a creation of our consciousness or our will, rather, on the contrary, this very consciousness of nationality and the will to it are the essence of its generation in the sense that in general, conscious and volitional life already presupposes for its existence some existential core of personality as a nutritious, organic environment in which they arise and develop, of course, then gaining the ability to influence the personality itself. No matter how we define this core of personality - as instinct with Bergson, or subliminal consciousness with James, or in any other rationalistic concepts created in the light of daytime, already manifested consciousness, all of this will be practically, for orientation for “instrumental” purposes, more or less suitable, but essentially, of course, equally inadequate attempts to express in words, to logicize what is illogical, or superlogical, or even antilogical, but at the same time serves as a substrate for logos. Consciousness walks the line between being and non-being; it is a distinction, or, as Hegel showed, every Werden is synthesized from Sein and Nichtsein, omnis definitio est negatio. Therefore, the empirical self not only does not express our true, substantial personality, but also cannot lay claim to it, it is inadequate to it; it only reveals it, reveals it, moreover, in a state of affection with a different being and in accordance with the nature of this affection. However, although man received creative powers along with the image of the Creator, he is still a creature, and not his own creator; in this sense, he is a given for himself, that is, a creation. And man is created, according to the immutable definition of the Creator, as a son and, together, a father, as a daughter or mother, not in a verbal sense only, but in a real sense, just as tree branches do not grow in a forest directly from the air or from the ground, but grow from the trunk. And in this reality, again, it is powerless to change anything essentially our consciousness, just as a Russian cannot be reborn as a foreigner, even if he were as French at heart as the Fonvizin brigadier. In scientific thinking, living in a world of abstractions, the abstract and therefore more general becomes more familiar than the real and concrete; science, as it were, only condescends, allowing the existence of a separate instance of a given species or genus in all its rebellious and disobedient individuality; in any case, for science, individuality is an accidentia, while general, specific characteristics are essentia. One cannot, of course, reproach science for this convention, which stems from its “pragmatic” goals and the limitations of human cognitive powers, forcing him to resort to the help of abstraction, but at the same time one must always fight against the spread of this habit of thought beyond the boundaries of science. According to this habit, it is customary to think that humanity or man in general directly exists (homo sapiens - also a characteristic species definition of natural science), although this person, by the way, belongs to a certain nation, speaks a certain language (before the invention of Esperanto), and, finally, is a member of a family. The actual relationship is exactly the opposite of what is depicted. In reality, there is a concrete person, an individual, he will be born in a certain family, in a certain tribe, nation, and he enters into each of these broader groupings only through his immediate concreteness, without destroying it, but only in a certain sense outgrowing it. Abstract, cosmopolitan all-humans, of which abstract all-humanity consists, do not exist at all; in reality it is made up of nations, and nations are made up of tribes and families. One has only to shift the abstract language of science into the concrete language of reality, and the whole problem of the relationship between the universal and the national or individual receives a complete rearrangement and what becomes problematic is no longer the existence of the national next to the universal, as before, but, on the contrary, the possibility of the universal in the national, the universal in the concrete. So, reality is concrete, and this concreteness is experienced. In it, if we do not arbitrarily narrow it and close our eyes to its testimony, we also find such primordial feelings as fatherhood, sonship, and nationality. These are, first of all, feelings or, if you like, instincts, and only at the moment of reflection are they recognized as ideas. Here, as in other cases, being or instinct is not generated by consciousness, but consciousness is generated by being. Nationalities cannot be invented or created by a conscious, reflective ideology; it exists before it as its basis. One can look for various explanations for the genesis of this feeling, for example, the prevailing evolutionary doctrine seeks to resolve the issue by allowing insensitive, infinitesimal changes, adaptations, which, held in place by “heredity,” then create an explainable phenomenon. This type of explanation completely destroys the essence of the question and dissolves it in evolution. No matter how we explain the evolutionary genesis of man, it still remains irrefutable that people will be born, that is, that there is some kind of unexplored scientific transcensus, behind which a new individuality, a new man, suddenly appears. Erasing this fatal line with all its might, evolution thinks to resolve the issue by abolishing it. In the same way, nationalities, although they historically arise from complex ethnographic mixtures, but at the same time it remains true that nationalities will be born, that is, that there is a historical line beyond which an ethnographic mixture turns into a nation with its special existence, self-awareness, instinct, and this nation then leads an independent life, fights, defending its existence and identity. And the entire logical focus of the theory of “the origin of man from the ape” in its crude form only comes down to the silent destruction of precisely this limiting line that separates man from the ape, so that no explanation is given for the origin of man from the ape, but only the destruction of their difference occurs, which is substituted as such an explanation. So, nationality is recognized in the intuitive experience of reality or in mystical experience, in which noumenal being is revealed as an entity underlying its phenomenology. But this latter does not contain this being itself, but only reveals, reveals it. The national spirit is not exhausted by any of its discoveries, does not merge with them, does not ossify in them. The national spirit, the living and creative principle, cannot be finally attributed to any of them, no matter how valuable it is. This is the condemnation of the wingless, exclusively conservative attitude towards nationality, for in it the living is actually thought of as dead or mortified, but this also lies the condemnation of the frivolous and irreverent attitude towards the past, for it historically expresses the same spiritual substance. The noumenal is recognized by us in mystical experience as a being, but it is cognized by us only in its phenomenology. We can get to know ourselves in the national sense not by looking inside our bosom or looking at ourselves through a magnifying glass, but by studying national creativity, objectified in its individual products. This learning is inductive and not intuitive, although without this initial intuition it would be blind. Only a strong direct feeling can make him sighted. That is why, in eras of excited, heightened national self-awareness, eyes are opened to national phenomenology, the folk language, lyrics, epics, art, customs, etc. are studied, and everything that was not noticed or was not distinguished by the dormant national self-awareness comes to life, becomes colorful and colorful. The very turn of attention in this direction, its sophistication, the awakening of love for the native is already a merit to national self-consciousness, for it is brought up on this. Instinct becomes consciousness, and consciousness becomes self-knowledge. And from here new national creativity can be born. Of course, one cannot be national to order or intentionally, because nationality is basically a subconscious or, better, superconscious instinct, and everything instinctive is not intentional and in this sense is naive (that’s why any deliberate attempts at nationalism are so cloying and unpleasant), but national consciousness and feeling can be cultivated in a certain way, and, of course, also perverted. The instinct of nationality, from the blind becoming sighted, passing into consciousness, is experienced as a certain deep, mystical attraction to one’s people, as love, not in the meager, moralistic understanding of rationalistic ethics (as, for example, in Tolstoy), but in a mystical sense, as a certain kind of eros, giving birth to the wings of the soul, as finding oneself in unity with others, the experience of conciliarity, a real way out of yourself, special transcensus. Of course, this natural unity or conciliarity is fundamentally different from the single, truly catholic conciliarity in the kingdom of grace, the Church, and to the extent that any such natural conciliarity (people, class, humanity, state) puts itself in the place of this catholic conciliarity, it becomes a false conciliarity, in the name of the lower and elemental, denying the highest and gracious. In the order of conciliarity there is also a certain hierarchy, the sequence of steps of which cannot be violated with impunity. But a person experiences any overcoming of his individualistic isolation from the whole, his natural “Protestantism”, any feeling of conciliarity as some kind of erotic pathos, as love, which gives the lover special clairvoyance regarding the beloved. The stronger the love, the stronger the faith: one relies on the other and supports the other. Our basic and deepest Feelings are not born from reasoning; they arise before reasoning from the dark depths of our personality. Therefore, evidence is of secondary importance here. They strive to realize themselves, to reveal the love felt more fully, but it would be a mistake to think that because of them it will be born. 2 Thus, the idea of ​​a national vocation is born and strengthened. National messianism, in addition to any specific content invested in it, is, first of all, a purely formal category into which national self-consciousness, love for one’s people and faith in them are inevitably cast. This content, together with the Slavophiles, can be seen in the church-religious mission - in the manifestation of the “Russian Christ” to the world; one can, together with Herzen and populism, see it in the socialist inclinations of the people; finally, together with the revolutionaries of recent years, one can see it in the special, “apocalyptic” Russian revolutionism, thanks to which we will make a social revolution ahead of Europe - these opposite or different contents have a formal similarity, they are different expressions of the national missions. And this messianism appears in all eras and among all peoples at the time of their national rise; it is a general form of consciousness of national individuality. The national spirit is spontaneously expressed in different aspects of national creativity, but is not affirmed in any of them in particular, as is rightly pointed out. But completely mistakenly, however, from here sometimes a further conclusion is drawn that one should not strive to realize it. The desire to find the logos of national feeling, to understand and bring to possible clarity the ideal of national vocation is ineradicably rooted in this very feeling, which, like any deep feeling, is not content with instinctive self-awareness, but seeks its logos. Even if all attempts to define it are relative and change in history, this is in no way an objection to their legitimacy. The work of national self-awareness goes on non-stop along with the historical growth of the nation, and in this growth it makes ever new attempts at self-determination. Something similar happens here to what we see with the growth of personal self-awareness. This self-determination is organically connected with the entire religious and philosophical worldview and represents one of its particular applications. Therefore, given the general difference in worldviews, which determines the difference in perceptions and assessments, the same national ideology cannot in any way be obtained. So, for example, a religious thinker like Solovyov, Khomyakov, Dostoevsky, of course, cannot have the same philosophy of Russian history as a rationalistic, non-religious intellectual, and what for one seems to be an experienced aberration of the mind, for another will be the most valuable. Therefore, with all the spontaneity of national feeling, it is hardly possible for a nation to have the same philosophy, but at the same time it is hardly possible for this reason alone to refrain from such a philosophy. The ideal of national messianism requires its expression in some ideal projection, and at the same time inevitably becomes the norm for judging reality. Nationality represents an ideal value not as ethnographic material, not in its outer shell - bad for national self-awareness, if only this is what it boils down to - but as the bearer of an ideal calling, a higher mission. Therefore, the purest expression of the spirit of a people is represented by its “heroes” (in the Carlylean sense) or “saints” (in the religious sense). That is why every living people has and honors, as best it can, its saints and its heroes. They are the righteous for whose sake the raw material of the ethnographic mass exists; in them the mission of the people is carried out. They are the most beautiful and delicate flower that blooms on the branches of a tree that has a thick and rough trunk and roots that go deep into the ground. This idea, that the very existence of a people is justified only by its righteousness, fidelity to its calling and its service, received classical expression even among the Jewish prophets; This opposition of the entire people as ethnographic material and the “holy remnant” of “holy Israel”, for the sake of which God chose this people, takes on an exclusively tragic character in them. The entire understanding of the external history of Jewry, its tragic destinies is concentrated in this opposition between the mass of the people who betrayed their calling and the “holy remnant” for whom the immutable promises remain valid. The people are not only elevated by their high calling, but they are also judged by it. The national faith is in tragic conflict with sad reality; it fluctuates, sometimes seems to go out, then is reborn again under the waves of different impressions. Our national faith in “Holy Rus'”, in that “holy remnant”, for the sake of which – in the highest sense – alone “Russia” exists, is now subjected to such a fiery test. National faith, as the Jewish prophets showed by their example, not only does not authorize complacency and self-praise, but it obliges us to be demanding, unforgiving, tough, it forces us to self-flagellation and self-accusation. Those whose hearts were bleeding from pain for their homeland were at the same time its unhypocritical denouncers. But only suffering love will give the right to this national self-destruction, but where it does not exist, where it is not felt, defamation of the homeland, mockery of the mother, resulting from frivolity or spiritual opportunism, causes a feeling of disgust and indignation. National messianism is therefore a burning feeling, always oscillating between hope and despair, full of fear, anxiety, and responsibility. Not only does it not hide the unsightly reality that stands in such contradiction with the high mission, but it emphasizes it more strongly. “Oh, unworthy of being chosen, you are chosen,” Khomyakov once blurted out. And this feeling of unworthiness in election, which nevertheless remains irrevocable for the believing heart, fills the soul with confusion, fear, worries and torments it. In the national feeling, therefore, there is a terrible and always lurking danger of changing catholicity, pan-humanity for the sake of it, just as it is easy for the national church to separate itself from the universal church, “one, conciliar and apostolic.” Nationality, although organic, is not the highest form of human unity, for it not only connects, but also separates. National messianism, especially in times of historical prosperity, too easily turns into national exclusivity, that is, into what is usually called nationalism. A classic example of such nationalism is given to us by the same history of Jewry; but it can be observed everywhere. National feeling must therefore always be kept in check, subjected to ascetic regulation and never given over to it undividedly. The idea of ​​election too easily degenerates into a consciousness of special privilege, whereas it should give rise to a heightened sense of responsibility and increase demands on oneself. With the correct development of national feeling, it should generate historical humility, despite faith in one’s calling, just as the height of the Christian ideal and the sublimity of promises does not puff up, but humbles their true bearers. In a word, national asceticism must set a limit to national messianism, otherwise it turns into a caricatured, repulsive nationalism. However, going further in this direction, we encounter a peculiar difficulty. The fact is that nationality not only needs to be humbled within oneself, but at the same time it must also be protected, because in this world everything develops in confrontation. And as much as nationalism is reprehensible, patriotism is just as obligatory. Nations do not exist without a historical veil, or a shell that encloses them. This shell is the state. Of course, there are nations that do not have their own state; the nation in this sense is more primary than the state. It is she who will give birth to the state as a necessary shell for itself. The national spirit seeks its embodiment in the state, according to the beautiful expression of Lassalle in his speech on Fichte (used as applied to the German people). It is extremely significant that states are created not by an agreement between cosmopolitan people and not by class or group interests, but by self-affirming nationalities seeking an independent historical existence. States are national in their origin and in their core - this is the fact on which thought inevitably stops. Even those states that in their final form consist of many tribes and nationalities arose as a result of the state-forming activities of one people, which is in this sense “dominant” or sovereign. You can go as far as you like in recognizing the political equality of different nations, but this still will not establish their historical equivalence in the state. In this sense, Russia, of course, remains and will remain a Russian state, with all its multi-tribalism, even when implementing the broadest national equality. The coexistence of many nations under one state roof creates between them not only relations of solidarity, but also competition and struggle. In this struggle, the sense of nationality is strained, and it, of course, always threatens to turn into nationalism, although the external manifestations of the latter can vary greatly in different eras of history. The moral consciousness of modern man is less and less reconciled with the oppression of weaker nationalities by the dominant one; in this he sees, first of all, humiliation for the latter and blatant injustice. However, next to these political relations, there are also moral relations between nationalities, and these relations are not always distributed according to political ones. As a result of the rationalistic cosmopolitanism of our intelligentsia, which sets the tone in the press and public opinion, we somehow ended up with such a state of affairs that the Russian nationality, due to its odious political privilege in the public consciousness, finds itself under some kind of moral boycott; any discovery of Russian national self-consciousness is met with distrust and hostility, and this boycott or self-boycott of Russian self-consciousness in Russian society reflects its spiritual weakness. The entire abnormality of this situation, which is sufficiently felt from direct everyday experience, is clearly revealed even with the most delicate touch on this issue. 3 The growth of individualism, apparently, brings with it an intensification of national feeling, and at the same time its differentiation. Along with the national or national self-awareness, local, tribal patriotism develops, the tapestry of nationalities becomes more colorful and colorful, and their struggle takes on a more complex, and not only political, but also cultural character. In any case, future state scientists still have a lot of work to do to satisfactorily resolve the political side of these issues, which our wonderful political thinker Drahomanov thought about with insight back in the last century. 4 With all the struggle and competition of nationalities within one state, this latter is still their common home, and the greater their political initiative, the higher the consciousness of this community. Thus, from individual manifestations of national patriotism, national patriotism is formed. The state, or power, contains an independent mystical principle; power is like the will to power and the ability to obey in a person. The empirical state does not bring to life, but only reveals this super-empirical principle of power as God's institution, according to the definition of St. Pavel. Therefore, it would be superficial and ahistorical to consider the state as a means invented by someone and created for a specific purpose under a social contract, as it seemed to the rationalists of the 18th century. The state is in us and therefore only exists outside of us, otherwise, without this assumption, the existence of power in general would be a completely incomprehensible miracle 5 and the state would always be defeated by anarchy or, more precisely, the state would never be born from anarchy. But this does not prevent, however, the fact that in the hierarchy of values ​​the state is lower than the nation and serves as an organ or means for it. Although there is no life outside the state, an independent national state is not the only possible form of existence of a nation, as the history of the Jewish people (and in modern times the Polish) too convincingly shows. But an independent state represents an enormous national value, and therefore patriotism inevitably extends to the state, to the political body of the people. The Russian state is dear to me not as a state, or as a certain definite form of organization of the legal order in general (we know how great its imperfections are in this regard), but as a Russian state in which my nationality has its own home. And to the extent that other nationalities under the Russian Empire can feel at home in it, and to the extent that they are historically connected with the Russian people, this same feeling should be shared by them, although to varying degrees. This feeling does not remain platonic; it is expressed in concern for the state, its external security and power, and internal well-being. Therefore, during an external war, patriotic feeling flares up with such force, and its absence can be explained either by defects in citizenship, or by the predominance of various rationalistic sentiments over instincts. The patriotic character is acquired under normal conditions by the liberation movement with a program of internal reforms. The national economy is also closely connected with a healthy and strong statehood, which develops only in a national-state organization, although it outgrows this form over time. One cannot help but wish for one’s country to successfully develop economically (need further proof of this!) and strengthen politically, so that the national-state body is healthy and strong. And this means a whole state-economic program of healthy national egoism, as it should be said directly and without guile. For, if you think about the nature of the modern political and economic struggle, in its historical development, starting from the era of mercantilism, this naive, and at the same time classical expression of national egoism, and ending with modern imperialism, then one cannot help but see here an intense world struggle, in which the lagging behind or the weak inevitably falls and is knocked out of action. Therefore, national egoism, a sense of national-state self-preservation (as well as, if we take a narrower sphere, concern for the well-being of one’s family) inevitably becomes the guiding norm of politics, a political virtue. For we have both duties and responsibilities both to our loved ones and to our descendants. But even here we are faced with a conflict between higher and lower norms. For in caring for the national body, in serving national egoism, it is too easy to cross the line, and then politics becomes simply international robbery, and the victorious nation itself degenerates into a predator. Consequently, here too an adjustment is necessary, and here national self-restraint, the asceticism of nationality must always be on guard. But even apart from these conflicts, the task of creating or maintaining state power and economic power, although infinitely important, is not the first one. It is not for the sake of getting fat and collecting fat, threatening every opponent with an armored fist, that nationality exists in history. If health is a good and care for it is necessary, then it is impossible to make concern for maintaining health the highest or only norm of behavior. And if such goals become dominant, moral and then state degeneration occurs. At the same time, ideal goals recede into the distance, while less-than-ideal ones obscure them in the mind. The conflict between spirit and “flesh” is reproduced here on a national-state scale. Next to the national and state unity of people there is also their economic grouping, based on “class” interests. There is a widespread belief that puts class above nation. “Proletarians have no fatherland”, “proletarians of all countries, unite” - who is not familiar with these slogans these days. The power of class solidarity and the unifying effect of common economic interests and struggle on this basis cannot be diminished. And yet, for all this, nationality is stronger than class feeling, and in fact, despite all the proletarian ideology, the workers are still more intimately connected with their fellow entrepreneurs than with foreign proletarians, as is recognized in the case of an international conflict. Not to mention the fact that economic life also takes place within the framework of the national state (indicating this connection is the immortal merit of Fr. List), but the classes themselves exist within the nation, without cutting it into parts. The latter, if possible, is only as a pathological case. Economic groupings are rooted in the changing external conditions of life, in historical empirics; nationality is noumenal, its roots are laid deeper than this empirical foundation. People are not born, but are made proletarians or capitalists; they can move up the social ladder, but people are born sons of a given people, but they are not made. There is a national culture, national creativity, a national language, but the world has not yet seen a class culture. The nerves of national solidarity penetrate the armor of class division. If this is not recognized under ordinary living conditions, then it is only for the same reason that a low hillock can obscure a high mountain at a close distance, but it becomes visible if you step back a few steps from it. Class is the external attitude of people, which can give rise to common tactics, determine behavior in accordance with the norm of class interest, but it does not unite people from within, as a family or as a nation. Between the individual and humanity stands only the nation, and we participate in the general cultural work of humanity as members of the nation. 6 Nationality is manifested in cultural creativity. Cultures should not, of course, be identified with the latest education, for cultural creativity is more primordial and older than it. The most powerful instrument of culture, in which the soul of a nationality is imprinted, is language (it is not for nothing that in Slavic the language directly designates the people, and it is not for nothing that Fichte in “Speeches to the German People” considers the purity and originality of the language to be the main sign of nationality). In language we have an inexhaustible treasury of cultural possibilities, and at the same time both the reflection and creation of the people's soul. That is why, while loving your people, you cannot help but love, first of all, your language. That is why, with all his skepticism and Westernism, such a master of the Russian language as Turgenev was so clearly aware that “the great Russian language can only be given to a great people.” At the early stages of history, folk faith turns out to be as national as language, which is reflected in popular usage: Christians or Orthodox as a synonym for Russians. Non-Christian, natural religions arise in the dark depths of the religious instinct exclusively as national ones. They express the religious self-awareness of an entire people. The national character of religions is, of course, something generally known, and yet, we think, this connection between religion and nationality is still not sufficiently appreciated. The phenomena of religious syncretism and the supposed migration of religious beliefs, sought with such enthusiasm and even passion by modern science, do not at all deny this fact; rather, one can even say about them that exceptions only confirm the general rule. In addition, even undoubted, and not merely assumed, phenomena of religious syncretism do not imply mechanical borrowing of a foreign novelty, but some assimilation, an organic process, which modern historians do not take into sufficient account. From the point of view of the realistic understanding of the nation that we adhere to, these national religions represent stages of natural revelation, touching the divine world, the rays of which are refracted through the prism of the national soul and its peculiar perceptions. And the theology of these religions, or their mythology, is a symbolic expression of these peculiar experiences and revelations. Of course, if we see in it only mythologems or fables, then the phenomena of religious syncretism receive a very simple explanation: it comes down almost to a statement of literary borrowings and influences. If we abandon this completely unscientific and at the same time non-religious understanding of the nature of natural (or “pagan”) religions and see in them, first of all, a certain religious experience and systematization of these experiences, then the problem of religious syncretism takes on a completely different character and the independent question of the internal conditions of this assimilation, or assimilation, of elements of one religion by another comes to the fore. There is only one supra-national, truly catholic religion - the Incarnate Word, and therefore it addresses “all languages.” It contains the revelation of absolute truth and is therefore free from national limitations. However, even though it is super-national in its content, it remains not non-popular in its method of assimilation. She addresses the individual, no matter what nation she belongs to, with the same good news; she thereby creates a supra-national common man. But this person remains a living, concrete personality, clothed in national-historical flesh and blood. Everyone hears the one gospel in their own way, translated into the language of their national soul, and responds to it also in their own way. The universal preaching of the Gospel does not make a person an abstract, impersonal being; each soul vibrates in its own way in response to the call of the Risen One. That is why we observe in history that Christianity is perceived and implemented in life also nationally; the special national character of the local churches is established - and very early - and this difference subsequently leads to the great schism between the Eastern and Western churches. We do not at all want to reduce religious differences (especially in such basic contradictions as between church Christianity and Protestantism) entirely to differences in national types, especially since different faiths can be observed, although, however, only as an exception, within the same people (Germans). But there is no doubt that they are still in some correspondence with national characters. Even within the same religion, these national features are felt. Therefore, the Slavophile expression “Russian Christ” can be understood, among other things, in the sense of stating the fact that different nationalities, as truly different from each other, each perceive Christ in their own way, and are changed by this acceptance. In this sense, one can speak (quite seriously and without a shadow of any blasphemy) not only about the Russian Christ, but also about the Greek, Italian, German, as well as about national saints. Of course, directly, from the inside, by the nature of our own religious experience, it is our Russian Christ, the Venerable Christ, that is closer and more accessible to us Russians. Seraphim and Rev. Sergius than the Christ of Bernard of Clairvaux or Catherine of Siena or even Francis of Assisi. We by no means turn religion into an attribute of nationality; rather, on the contrary, nationality here becomes an attribute of religion, more precisely, that individual form in which the universal truth is perceived, its receiver. And it is precisely this ability of a very special perception of divine fullness, of isolating one’s own special ray from the divine pleroma, that is what seems most valuable and important in the nature of nationality for religious views. “Holy Rus'” is that side of the soul of the Russian people through which they perceive Christ and the Church and which, in relation to the entire life of the people, is a light shining in the darkness. The opposition that is often made between the national and the universal is deeply erroneous. The universal can have a dual character - abstractly human, impersonal and non-national, or concretely human, individual and national. In the first sense, any technical invention put into general circulation will be universal; scientific truth, once established and made common property. And the technology of life, that which is stuffed with external culture, and theoretical and applied science equally belong to this type, they are the impersonal anonymous property of a single humanity, the many-armed Briareus, in its collective existence generating and developing both this “technology” and this “science”. Here nationality manifests itself relatively weakly, only as a degree of general talent or special abilities, and cultural age, the stage of historical development, is much more important. In the second sense, we receive what is universal through the most complete revelation of our individuality, personal or national: when Nietzsche throws out dried pieces of blood and bile from himself, reveals his tormented soul, when Goethe creates such a work as national in language and spirit as “Faust,” we have no doubt that this is a universal heritage, which at the same time could only be born from the depths of the individual and national spirit. There is no doubt that neither Faust nor a similar work will ever be written in Esperanto. The replacement of concrete homo with an abstract homunculus, fortunately, is not so easy, and homunculism triumphs mainly in the field of external culture, technology of life. Yet cultural creativity that creates spiritual values ​​is concrete and national. This position can now be considered generally accepted regarding art, the mystical roots of which for everyone clearly go to the mother earth and are directly nourished by its juices. The situation is much more complicated and controversial with that activity of the human spirit that belongs to both areas, that is, both abstractly human and concretely human. We mean philosophy. Undoubtedly, there are departments or problems of philosophy that completely fall into the realm of science, for example, logic, methodology, particular problems of the theory of knowledge (however, in addition to the main and central one - about the nature of knowledge and truth). Here only differences of cultural age matter, and younger nations naturally become disciples of their elders. In this sense, one should, of course, directly admit (yes, as far as I know, no one has ever denied it) that young Russian philosophy has to learn from more mature Western philosophy and in general should join the movement of world philosophical thought. However, are the tasks of philosophical thought exhausted by this? In answer to this question, the main difference in philosophical worldviews - realistic and idealistic, which we talked about at the beginning, will inevitably affect. For idealistic illusionism (“transcendentalism”), the task of philosophy is exhausted by the logical processing of the ultimate concepts of experience and problems of the theory of knowledge. In this sense, philosophy is declared to be a science, and, of course, as such it is devoid of special national features. But philosophy also has other, creative, tasks that bring it closer to religion and art. She strives to build a holistic worldview, which is based on a unique worldview. She also feeds on the mystical roots of existence, and a qualitatively defined national individuality inevitably manifests itself in her work. This will be reflected in the predominance of favorite problems and special ways of approaching them, in a special direction of philosophical interest. Using the expression of Marxism, we can say that philosophy is the ideology of metaphysical being, which determines philosophical consciousness. Of course, all significant works of national philosophical thought inevitably become a universal property, but this does not prevent Plato or Plotinus from remaining true Greeks, and Kant (or even Rickert) a typical German, just as James is an American from head to toe. With such an understanding of the tasks of philosophy and its nature, it is quite appropriate to talk about Russian philosophy, even if it was still very young in comparison with European philosophy, and in its first steps and early beginnings to lovingly look for and internally recognize its national features. This does not mean that there is no single philosophical truth. But it is of a different nature than scientific; it is not abstract, but concrete, and in different aspects can be accessible to knowledge. It is impossible to deny the possibility that this loving focus on one’s native will turn away or weaken attention to the work of Western thought at a time when an overseas school is still so necessary, but no less natural is another fear that the students of this school will turn into “eternal students”, unwilling or no longer able to spiritually return to their homeland. The strength of Western culture, the obvious seniority of her age, also predisposes her to internal capitulation to it to such an extent that for now we have to fight more against the inclination towards this latter than against cultural nationalism. And therefore, turning our thoughts to the old dispute between Slavophiles and Westerners, we remember with involuntary gratitude the special merit of the Slavophiles to Russian culture, namely, their feat of national faith. Our generation should inherit their broad and thorough philosophical education, but then, armed with it, continue their national and cultural work. Until now, our society has not been able to achieve spiritual balance in its national well-being. As before, it suffers from the rationalistic cosmopolitanism of its intelligentsia and from the militant nationalism of the ruling spheres and leading parties. In matters of culture, where it is time to be imbued with the desire for national self-determination and self-awareness, we indulge in cosmopolitan or Westernizing sentiments; on the contrary, in matters of statehood and politics, where it is high time to take the path of freedom and equality of nationalities, we have again embarked on the path of reactionary nationalism (as both the latest Finnish law and all the latest Polish politics show). Meanwhile, the path that history imperatively shows us should lead us to the rise of cultural patriotism and the weakening of political nationalism. The Russian people, of course, will remain and must remain sovereign in the Russian state, but let this be the position of the first among politically equal and free nationalities, united by a common statehood, a common home. Nationalism in our country kills patriotism and indirectly supports cosmopolitanism, and in this latter, in turn, militant nationalism finds its spiritual support. It turns out to be a vicious circle. However, there has been some improvement in this regard recently. In an educated society, national self-awareness seems to be beginning to awaken. He has to make his way among prejudices brought up by our official nationalism and cosmopolitan or Westernizing prejudices, but the main difficulty in this remains the weakness of our cultural tradition. But all the more should we value, albeit weak, our cultural shoots, for only by sincerely loving our native land and striving to be faithful to it, can we work fruitfully to create a national culture and, to the best of our ability, prepare for the setting of high tasks for which, we believe, our great people are called. The greatest merit of N.F. Fedorov is his indication of the enormous philosophical significance of the idea of ​​fatherhood and sonship. “Whoever really loves believes, cannot help but believe that the loved one has in any respect exceptional merits, represents an individual and, as such, irreplaceable value. Moreover, he sees these advantages, he feels this value. This does not mean that all possible perfections and a complete absence of shortcomings are attributed to the beloved person, no, but something is seen in him that no one else in the world has. And what happens in individual love also happens with love for the homeland, from which faith in the national vocation will be born.” (This is what I wrote in the essay “Herzen’s Mental Drama”, published in “Vopr filosof i psikhol”, 1902, IV-V, reprinted in the collection “From Marxism to Idealism”, St. Petersburg, 1903, and published separately: Kyiv, 1905, p. 34). This recently happened, for example, in a typical episode with the controversy about the “national figure”. It was enough for P. B. Struve to express the simple idea that Russians are Russians and have the right and duty to feel like Russians in the same way that Jews feel like Jews, so that a newspaper storm would arise over this recognition of the elementary spiritual equality of nations. Meanwhile, it is the Jewish question, in which the problem of Russian national identity is posed in an extremely acute, but at the same time disguised form, that requires especially sincere discussion. This discussion could benefit the internal mutual relations of that at least part of the Russian and Jewish intelligentsia who are looking for a truthful and undisguised self-determination. See the Collected Works of M. P. Drahomanov, vol. I, and the introductory essay by B. A. Kistyakovsky, which provides an excellent orientation to Drahomanov’s ideas. Wed. on this topic there is a thoughtful essay by S. L. Frank “The Problem of Power” in the collection “Philosophy and Life”. St. Petersburg, 1910. Wed. N.A. Berdyaev’s apt judgments about this in the preface to his book “The Spiritual Crisis of the Intelligentsia.” St. Petersburg, 1910.