Russian tragedy

I will try to answer the main points of your letter as briefly as possible. 1. I see the historical significance of the war of the Balkan peoples with Turkey not only in the fact that it is a war of liberation in general, but also that it completed the liberation of Christian Europe from the power of Islam, which, as the beginning of state building, turned out to be incompatible with the equality and free development of Christian peoples. Therefore, at the heart of this war is the clash between Christianity and Islam (“the cross and the crescent”), not directly as faiths, but as the principles of culture and statehood. Therefore, everything you say regarding the inadmissibility of religious violence to affirm faith does not apply to me at all. You would not need to dispute this idea at all, but consider whether the special nature of Islam and Christianity, in this case Orthodoxy, as historical principles matters in this struggle or not. This question has nothing to do with Jewish pogroms, missionaries, etc. 2. Your own attitude towards the war seems to me to be completely unclear. If war is the unconditional evil that you consider it to be, then how can you “bless those who are fighting,” albeit with a “fraternal, and not evangelical (?) blessing”? If you stood on Tolstoy’s point of view, there would be no such difficulties, but you declare yourself to be a supporter of “active participation in the fight against evil” and allow “educational violence that does not destroy the personality of the person being raped” (although the personality is actually destroyed by the death not of the body, but of the soul: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body, but kill the soul.” Obviously, you recognize the state and law, which is protected, as is known, by organized force and, moreover, armed force, otherwise it will not achieve the goal. But from this point of view, is there a fundamental, not quantitative, but qualitative difference between state and military violence? I don’t see it. Of course, war is evil and horror, but prison is also evil and horror: is a jailer necessarily more virtuous or more loving than a warrior as a type, as a profession? War is the greatest horror of suffering and death, but whether it is the greatest horror in the sense of evil - this can even be debated 1 . 3. It seems to me very doubtful that you contrast the “natural” and the religious, to what extent they are separated and even opposed to each other. The category of natural is too broad and vague. The natural element is precisely that material that should not remain in its immediacy, but should be religiously enlightened, in the personal life of each of us and in human history. This enlightenment has its own stages and ages, which are characterized by their own special sense of well-being, and, consequently, norms of behavior. The Gospel is a seed that grows in the soul of everyone, a leaven that takes possession of the dough, but not immediately and not entirely. This is precisely Tolstoy’s short-sightedness in understanding the Gospel, that it is not one morality, a set of rules and all sorts of nons - it opens up a new life, with which what was previously natural becomes incompatible. The Gospel covenants have the meaning, first of all, of indicating what this new life is accompanied by and leading to, and only then of commandments or prohibitions. Non-doing and non-resistance, which is usually considered the simplest fulfillment of the Gospel, in its real meaning is the most difficult, as the discovery of the highest work, the highest achievement. The fullness of Christianity is power, not flabbiness, love, not sensitivity, faith, not doctrine and not manilovism, holiness, not morality, humility, not cowardice, spiritual poverty, not squalor, crying, not tearfulness, etc. The most terrible parodies and fakes of Christian virtues stem precisely from their internal groundlessness: false monasticism, false humility, false love, false patience, which is also non-resistance. Christian life is not just correct behavior or ethical correctness, tested according to a moral recipe - it is born from the inspiration of goodness, it is creativity of the spirit, “art” (in the words of the ascetics). Isn’t there, as it were, artistic and creative inspiration in the life of St. Seraphim, whose external position was destined to become a small shopkeeper (and morality would demand - not to measure, not to deceive), or the life of the son of Peter Bernardone, or St. Alexy, the man of God, or the brilliant rhetorician Augustine, or the capital's lawyer - John Chrysostom, etc. They, indeed, seem to become “beyond good and evil”, free from morality. But this also forces us to admit that religious life has its own types and ages, which correspond to their own truth, which contains only a ray from the light of the Eternal Book, even if this is not the integral truth of the Kingdom of God, but this truth (partial “Christianization”, as you put it) is not separated from its source, although it does not contain it. Here's an example. The first Christians did not want to reckon with statehood, which they saw as a “beast,” St. Paul proclaimed the fundamental recognition of statehood (“power comes from God”) and state coercion (“the boss wears the sword not madly,” recognition of taxes) and thus actually introduced Christianity into the mainstream of history, with its incomplete, conditional, relative truth. Is this a falling away from the purity of the Gospel, a betrayal of it, or is it a recognition of the fact that Christianity is doomed to a history in which it is destined to play the role of leaven? Strictly speaking, between the Sermon on the Mount and Chapter 13. In Romans there is an obvious difference; what is the meaning of this difference? Is a compromise being introduced here (as you put it, a preaching of the sword on the part of the “ideologist of the Gospel”) or is this something completely different? At the stage of development at which present-day humanity is, for it the norm in the fight against evil is not non-resistance, but resistance, by those means that turn out to be possible. And if you choose between passivity and connivance, which has nothing to do with the gospel non-resistance, or the resistance that receives extreme expression in war, then you must prefer resistance. Religious truth is also on his side. We can and should want humanity to become incapable of war, to become above it, but the doctrinal denial of war according to the texts of Gospel 2 does not seem to me to be a solution to the issue in its vital, concrete complexity. Since you recognize the right purpose of the war, you justify the ethical war; ethics is inextricably linked with religion. And, I think, Rev. Sergius knew what he was doing when he blessed the Russian army in the person of Dmitry Donskoy for the Battle of Kulikovo, of course, not with a “brotherly, but with an evangelical blessing.” Although he was at that height of holiness at which the gospel virtues are a “natural state,” he did not apply this standard to the Russian army, for he knew that for the latter resistance is higher than non-resistance, and war is holier than peace. Between the first, liberating, Balkan war and the second, fratricidal, there lies a whole abyss - everyone must admit this; But what should this distinction be based on? If on ethical criteria, then there should be no ethics independent of religion for a religiously thinking person. This means that one inevitably has to make an assessment, although historically relative, but still religious. Tertium non datur. 4. Now about German immanentism. This part of your letter arouses the greatest surprise in me, and even what appeared on the pages of this magazine serves here as a sufficient answer to many things. Apparently, you decided that the mention of Drews has the significance of a decisive argument for me, and hasten to assure that “the direction of German religious thought is not as one-sided as it seems to me.” But what I had to express in the essay “Three Ideas” in a randomly encountered form actually represents one of the main and most summarized impressions that I gained from many years of diligent study of German religious, philosophical and scientific literature. It is possible that it is incorrect or inaccurate, but it was formed not from a fleeting impression, but after a concentrated and intense look into the spiritual face of Germanism. I believe that the German genius must inevitably enter into the self-determination of the modern spirit, simply by virtue of its exceptional role in the development of modern culture, and it is undoubtedly imprinted with a special spiritual anointing, which I define as immanentism (which is by no means the same as atheism). German mysticism: the author of “Das Biichlein vom vollkommenen Leben” n, the mysterious Eckhart with his students (Tauler, Seuse), Sebastian Frank, Angel Silesius, even the great J. Boehme; German philosophy: Kant and neo-Kantianism, Fichte, Hegel, Hartmann and his school, even Schelling; German theology: religious-historical school, Richlianism, modern apostles of immanentism Troeltsch and Hermann, monism (in its religious branches); German art: Goethe (even despite the mystical epilogue of the 2nd part of Faust) and Wagner, creator of the captivating Siegfried; German science, at least political economy - all of this, in different aspects, reveals the same bias. But this is most clearly revealed in the Reformation, which, although itself a spiritual creation of Germanism, essentially gave birth to the newest culture of Germany - its economy, its science, its philosophy. The Reformation is the triumph of immanentism in Christianity; it was at the same time both the secularization of Christianity and the Christian ethicization of culture. Two principles struggle in it, and its fatal anti-Christian bias is associated with the beginning of immanentism (which does not at all contradict the sincerity of Protestant piety). This is the type of the German genius, his noumenal appearance. And I consider this in him precisely what must be surpassed, against which one must always be on guard, and this is all the more so since, as I said, Russian culture cannot bypass Germanism, although as a school. You are absolutely right, of course, that between the Slavs and the Germans there is a difference in cultural ages, and this difference should be fully taken into account when making comparisons; It is also true, of course, that German ideas had a strong influence on the teaching of the Slavophiles*, continue to do so now, and will inevitably and should have it. However, all this does not destroy the difference between spiritual types and, so to speak, their hierarchy. The Orthodox-Slavic, i.e., mainly, of course, Russian idea in its tasks goes above and beyond immanentism, just as Orthodoxy, with all its present image of a slave, is a spiritual force of a different order than Protestantism. The spiritual struggle of Russia with Germany should determine the future fate of Christianity, and in particular, Christian culture. It is not without reason that the question of the religious sanctification of culture provides the main content of Russian religious thought, starting with Vl. Solovyov and Dostoevsky (the latter, blinded by hostility to Catholicism, by the way, did not appreciate the full significance of Germanism and its world-historical role). It is not for nothing that even Tolstoy, who in his theology was so close to immanentism, in his philosophy of culture turned out to be so irreconcilable and did not want to accept the culture that bears the stamp of the “prince of this world,” and in this intransigence he discovered his popular element much deeper than in the crude rationalism that made him an outcast from the people 3 . 5. I do not forget for a minute how far Russian and Slavic reality is from its ideal, defined objectively by Orthodoxy, which, to a greater extent than other religions, gives room to the aspirations of the “coming city,” and subjectively by the nature of Russian religiosity. But no matter how much the soul is tormented by doubts, transitions from despondency to cheerfulness, from despair to faith, we must not forget that no reality can justify (or perhaps only excuse) our despondency, cowardice and unbelief. We must believe, first of all, because the homeland is not only our mother (or stepmother), but also our creation, our deed, our courage, our faith, our will. Are objects of faith by their nature can and should be proven more geometrically? But in this case, where would there be a place for our freedom, love, effort, if not in the fight against the deadly spirit of apathy, fear, disappointment? Did the prophets derive their faith in the “holy remnant” of Israel from “facts”, in times of general corruption, on the ruins of Jerusalem, in the anguish of exile? But they were not utopians who built subjective fantasies for themselves, for their faith in a national vocation was given to them in their religious hope and was interpreted by them in connection with all the impressions of thought and life. And our faith in Russia was given to us in religious faith, organically included in it. Death occurs when the heart stops. And Russia, as what we are looking for, as an ideal task, can only die in us and through us, in our hearts. There is no need for self-blinding. But, of course, it is not true in such a general form that “religious-mystical movements begin in the West.” Our current religious and philosophical movement, whatever it may be, arose completely independently of Western influences and to a certain extent forestalled similar Western movements. but there must be a measure of self-abasement. Russia has its word in universal Christianity, and this word has not yet been said, but it must first be suffered, experienced by us, the Russian people, as pain, as anxiety, as a question, for man always has the first word in the divine-human process; God is waiting for us to ask a question in order to give His answer. And no one else can do our part in history for us. To know and understand oneself is the great task that the Sphinx of history sets before Russia. And it is wrong to call war murder in the sense in which this crime, which was already prohibited by the Mosaic Decalogue, is spoken of: the will to kill a certain person and the criminal intent associated with it are completely absent in the psychology of war. In the first case, murder is the goal, in the second it is only a means that must be limited in every possible way; Moreover, in war, the one who kills is also the one killed, by the very essence of the relationship. By the way, the words of the Savior you quote were spoken by Him to the apostles who tried to defend Him in the Garden of Gethsemane, and their widespread interpretation does not correspond to the context and is as arbitrary as if someone for the opposite purpose began to quote the words of the Savior about “two swords”: “Sell the robe and buy a sword” (Luke 22:35-38). For the development of these thoughts, see my articles in the collection “The Religion of L. Tolstoy.” Ed. "Path". Moscow, 1911