In response to A. S. Khomyakov

Mr. Khomyakov's article aroused in many of us the desire to write an objection to him. Therefore, I wanted to first cede this pleasure to others and offer you an article on a different subject. But then, when I thought that our concept of the relation of the past state of Russia to the present does not belong to such questions about which we can have one opinion or another with impunity, such as about subjects of literature, about music or about foreign politics, but constitutes, so to speak, an essential part of ourselves, for it enters into the slightest circumstance, into every minute of our life; when I further thought that each of us has a different opinion about this subject from others, then I decided to write, thinking that my article cannot prevent another from talking about the same thing, because this matter is important for everyone, everyone’s opinions are different, and unanimity might not be useless for everyone. The question is usually proposed in this way: was the former Russia, in which the order of things was composed of its own elements, better or worse than the present Russia, where the order of things is subject to the predominance of the Western element? – If the old Russia was better than the present one, they usually say, then one must want to return the old, exclusively Russian, and destroy the Western, which distorts Russian peculiarities; if the former Russia was worse, then we must try to introduce everything Western and destroy the Russian peculiarity. The syllogism, it seems to me, is not entirely correct. If the old was better than the present, it does not follow that it is better now. What was suitable at one time, under some circumstances, may not be suitable at another, under other circumstances. If the old one was worse, then it also does not follow that its elements could not themselves develop into something better, if only this development were not stopped by the forcible introduction of an alien element. The young oak, of course, is shorter than the same year-old willow, which is visible from afar, gives shade early, looks like a tree early and is suitable for firewood. But you, of course, will not serve the oak tree by grafting a willow tree onto it. Thus, the question itself is proposed unsatisfactorily. Instead of asking: was the old Russia better? – it seems more useful to ask: to improve our lives, is it now necessary to return to the old Russian, or is it necessary to develop the Western element, the opposite of it? – Let's consider how we can benefit from solving this issue? Let us suppose that, as a result of impartial research, we are convinced that the exclusive predominance of one of the two opposing ways of life would be especially useful for us; Suppose, even though we are in a position to have the strongest influence on the fate of Russia, even then we could not expect from all our efforts the exclusive predominance of one of the opposing elements, precisely because although one is chosen in our theory, the other exists together with it in reality. No matter how much we are enemies of Western enlightenment, Western customs, etc.; But is it possible without madness to think that someday, by some force, the memory of everything that it received from Europe over the course of two hundred years will be destroyed in Russia? Can we not know what we know, forget everything we know? It is even less possible to think that the 1000th anniversary of the Russian can be completely destroyed from the influence of the new European. Therefore, no matter how much we wish for the return of the Russian or the introduction of Western life, we cannot exclusively expect either one or the other, and involuntarily we must assume something third, which should arise from the mutual struggle of two warring principles. Consequently, this type of question is – which of the two elements is exclusively useful now? – also suggested incorrectly. The point is not: which of the two? but this is: what direction should both of them receive in order to act beneficially? What should we hope or fear from their mutual action? Here is the question, how essential it is for each of us: the direction here or there, and not the acquisition of this or that. Considering the basic principles of life that form the forces of nationality in Russia and the West, at first glance we discover one obvious commonality between them: this is Christianity. The difference lies in special types of Christianity, in a special direction of enlightenment, in a special sense of private and popular life. We know where the commonality comes from; but where does the difference come from and what is its characteristic feature? We have two ways to determine the peculiarity of the West and Russia, and one of them should serve as a verification of the other. We can, either going back historically to the beginning of one or another type of education, look for the reason for their differences in the first elements from which they were composed; or, considering the subsequent development of these elements, compare the results themselves. And if it turns out that the same difference that we notice in the elements turns out to be in the results of their development, then it is obvious that our assumption is correct, and based on it, we will already know better what further conclusions can be drawn from it. Three elements formed the basis of European education: Roman Christianity, the world of uneducated barbarians who destroyed the Roman Empire, and the classical world of ancient paganism. This classical world of ancient paganism, which was not inherited by Russia, in essence represents the triumph of the formal mind of man over everything that is inside and outside him - pure, naked reason, based on itself, recognizing nothing above itself and outside itself and appearing in two forms characteristic of it - in the form of formal abstraction and abstract sensuality. The effect of classicism on European education should have been of the same nature. But whether because Christians in the West lawlessly succumbed to the influence of the classical world, or because heresy accidentally came into contact with paganism, only the Roman Church, in its deviation from the East, is distinguished by precisely the same triumph of rationalism over the tradition of external rationality, over internal spiritual reason. So, as a result of this external syllogism, derived from the concept of the Divine equality of the Father and the Son, the dogma of the Trinity was changed, contrary to the spiritual meaning and tradition; so, as a result of another syllogism, the pope became the head of the church instead of Jesus Christ, then a worldly ruler, and finally infallible; the existence of God throughout Christianity was proved by syllogism; the whole body of faith was based on syllogistic scholasticism; the Inquisition, Jesuitism, in a word, all the features of Catholicism developed through the power of the same formal process of reason, so that Protestantism itself, which Catholics reproach for rationality, arose directly from the rationality of Catholicism. In this last triumph of formal reason over faith and tradition, a discerning mind could already see in advance in embryo the entire present fate of Europe, as a consequence of a vainly begun beginning, that is, Strauss, and the new philosophy with all its forms, and industrialism, as the spring of social life, and philanthropy, based on calculated self-interest, and the educational system, accelerated by the power of excited envy, and Goethe, the crown of the new poetry, the literary Talleyrand, changing his beauty, like his governments, and Napoleon, and the hero of modern times, the ideal of soulless calculation, and the material majority, the fruit of rational politics, and Ludwig Philipp, the last result of such hopes and such expensive experiments! I have no intention at all of writing a satire on the West; no one appreciates more than I those conveniences of public and private life that come from the same rationalism. Yes, to be frank, I still love the West, I am connected with it by many inextricable sympathies. I belong to him by my upbringing, my habits of life, my tastes, my controversial turn of mind, even my habits of heart; but in a person’s heart there are such movements, there are such demands in the mind, such a meaning in life that are stronger than all habits and tastes, stronger than all the pleasures of life and the benefits of external rationality, without which neither a person nor a people can live their real life. Therefore, fully appreciating all the individual benefits of rationality, I think that, in its final development, its painful unsatisfactoriness clearly reveals itself as a one-sided, deceptive, seductive and treacherous principle. However, it would be inappropriate to dwell on this here. I only remember that all the high minds of Europe complain about the current state of moral apathy, about the lack of convictions, about general egoism, they demand a new spiritual strength outside of reason, they demand a new spring of life outside of calculation, in a word, they are looking for faith and cannot find it in themselves, because Christianity in the West has been distorted by its own thoughts. Thus, rationalism, at the beginning, was an unnecessary element in the education of Europe, and is now the exclusive character of education and European life. This will be even more obvious if we compare the basic principles of public and private life in the West with the basic principles of that public and private life, which, if not fully developed, was at least clearly identified in the former Russia, which was under the direct influence of pure Christianity, without the admixture of the pagan world. The entire private and public life of the West is based on the concept of individual, separate independence, which presupposes individual isolation. From there, the sanctity of external formal relations, the sanctity of property and conventional regulations are more important than the individual. Each individual - a private person, a knight, a prince or a city, within his rights is an autocratic, unlimited person, giving laws to himself. The first step of every person into society is to surround himself with a fortress, from the interior of which he enters into negotiations with other and independent authorities. Last time I did not finish my article, and therefore I am obliged to continue it now. I talked about the difference between education in Russia and the West. Our educational beginning lay in our Church. There, together with Christianity, the still fertile remnants of the ancient pagan world acted on the development of enlightenment. Western Christianity itself, having separated from the Universal Church, took into itself the germ of that principle that constituted the general shade of the entire Greek-pagan development: the beginning of rationalism. That is why the character of European education is distinguished by a preponderance of rationality. However, this advantage was revealed only later, when logical development, one might say, had already crushed Christian development. But in the beginning, rationalism, as I said, is only in embryo. The Roman Church separated from the Eastern Church by the fact that it changed some dogmas that existed in the tradition of all Christianity to others, as a result of inference. Some were spread as a result of the same logical process, and also in opposition to the tradition and spirit of the Universal Church. Thus logical conviction formed the very first foundation of Catholicism. But this was the extent of the effect of rationalism at first. The internal and external structure of the Church, which had already been completed in a different spirit, until then existed without obvious change, until the entire body of church teaching passed into the consciousness of the thinking part of the clergy. This happened in scholastic philosophy, which, due to the logical principle at the very foundation of the Church, could not reconcile the contradiction of faith and reason otherwise than by the power of syllogism, which thus became the first condition of any conviction. At first, naturally, this same syllogism proved faith against reason and subordinated reason to it by the power of reasonable arguments. But this faith, logically proven and logically opposed to reason, was no longer a living, but a formal faith, not faith as such, but only a logical negation of reason. Therefore, during this period of scholastic development of Catholicism, precisely because of its rationality, the Western Church is an enemy of reason, an oppressive, murderous, desperate enemy of it. But having developed to the extreme, by the continuation of the same logical process, this unconditional destruction of reason produced that well-known counteraction, the consequences of which constitute the character of the present enlightenment. This is what I meant when I spoke about the rational element of Catholicism. Eastern Christianity knew neither this struggle of faith against reason, nor this triumph of reason over faith. Therefore, his actions towards enlightenment were not like Catholic ones. Considering the social structure of former Russia, we find many differences from the West, and firstly: the formation of society into small so-called worlds. Private, personal identity, the basis of Western development, was as little known to us as public autocracy. Man belonged to the world, peace be upon him. Landed property, the source of personal rights in the West, was a part of society in our country. A person participated as much in the right of ownership as he was part of the society. But this society was not autocratic, and could not organize itself, invent laws for itself, because it was not separated from other similar societies governed by uniform custom. The countless number of these small worlds that made up Russia were all covered with a network of churches, monasteries, and the dwellings of solitary hermits, from where the same concepts about relations between public and private were constantly spreading everywhere. These concepts, little by little, had to turn into a general conviction, a conviction into a custom that replaced the law, arranging, throughout the entire expanse of lands subject to our Church, one thought, one look, one aspiration, one order of life. This widespread uniformity of the custom was probably one of the reasons for its incredible strength, which has preserved its living remains even to our time, despite all the resistance of destructive influences that for 200 years have sought to introduce new principles in its place. As a result of these strong, uniform and ubiquitous customs, any change in the social structure that was inconsistent with the structure of the whole was impossible. Everyone's family relationships were determined before he was born; in the same predetermined order, the family was subordinated to the world, the wider world to the gathering, the gathering to the veche, etc., until all private circles closed in one center, in one Orthodox Church. No private understanding, no artificial agreement could establish a new order, invent new rights and advantages. Even the word itself: right, was unknown to us in its Western sense, but it meant only justice, truth. Therefore, no power, no person, no class, could either grant or concede any right, for truth and justice can neither be sold nor taken, but exist on their own, regardless of conditional relations. In the West, on the contrary, all social relations are based on a condition, or strive to achieve this artificial basis. Outside the condition, there are no correct relations, but there is arbitrariness, which in the government class is called autocracy, in the governed class - freedom. But in both cases, this arbitrariness proves not the development of internal life, but the development of external, formal life. All forces, all interests, all social rights exist there separately, each on its own, and are united not according to normal law, but either in a random order or in an artificial agreement. In the first case, material force triumphs, in the second, the sum of individual understandings. But material strength, material superiority, material majority, the sum of individual understandings, in essence constitute one beginning, only at different moments of their development. Therefore, the social contract is not an invention of the encyclopedists, but a real ideal, which all Western societies strived for unconsciously, and now strive with consciousness, under the influence of the rational element, which outweighed the Christian element. In Russia we do not know well the boundaries of princely power before the subordination of the appanage principalities to Moscow; but if we realize that the force of unchangeable custom made any autocratic legislation impossible; that the analysis and trial, which in some cases belonged to the prince, could not be carried out in accordance with comprehensive customs, nor could the interpretation of these customs, for the same reason, be arbitrary; that the general course of affairs belonged to the worlds and orders, which also judged according to centuries-old custom and therefore known to everyone; finally, that in extreme cases, a prince who violated the correctness of his relations with the people and the Church was expelled by the people themselves - having realized all this, it seems obvious that the princely power itself consisted more in the leadership of squads than in internal government, more in armed patronage than in the possession of regions. In general, it seems that Russia was just as little known to the petty rulers of the West, who used society as soulless property for their personal benefit, just as it was unknown to the noble knights of the West, who relied on personal strength, fortresses and iron armor, who did not recognize any other law than their own sword and conditional rules of honor based on the law of arbitrariness. However, we did not have knighthood for other reasons. At first glance, it seems incomprehensible why something similar to chivalry did not arise among us, at least during the Tatars? Societies were scattered, power had no material force, everyone could move from place to place, the forests were deep, the police had not yet been invented; Why, it seems, would not societies of people be formed who would take advantage of the superiority of their strength over peaceful farmers and townspeople, plunder, rule as they wanted, seize individual lands, villages, and build fortresses there; would they draw up known rules among themselves, and thus form a special class of the strongest class, which, due to its strength, could be called the noblest class? – The Church could take advantage of them, forming separate orders from them, with separate charters, and using them against infidels, like the Western Crusaders. Why didn't this happen? Precisely because, I think, our Church at that time did not sell its purity for temporary benefits. We had heroes only before the introduction of Christianity. After the introduction of Christianity, we had robbers, organized gangs, still preserved in our songs, but gangs rejected by the Church and therefore powerless. Nothing would be easier than to incite crusades among us, classifying the robbers among the servants of the Church and promising them forgiveness of sins for killing infidels; everyone would become an honest robber. Catholicism did just that; he did not raise up the nations for their faith, but only directed those who wandered to one goal, calling them saints. Our Church did not do this, and therefore we did not have knighthood, and with it that aristocratic class that was the main element of all Western education. Where there was more disorder in the West, there was greater and stronger chivalry; in Italy there was just less of it. Where there was less chivalry, there society was more inclined towards the people's structure; where there is more, there is more towards the autocratic. Autonomy is naturally born from the aristocracy, when the strongest conquers the weakest, and then the ruler, on conditions, becomes an unconditional ruler, uniting against the noble class with the vile class, as Europe called the people. This class of the vile, according to the general formula of the social development of Europe, entered into the rights of the noble, and the same force that made one autocratic, by its natural development, transferred power to the material majority, which is already inventing for itself some kind of formal structure, and is still in the process of invention. Thus, just as the Western Church formed knights from the robbers, from the spiritual power the secular power, from the secular police the Holy Inquisition, which all, perhaps, had its temporary benefits, it acted in the same way in relation to the sciences and pagan arts. She did not produce new Christian art from within herself, but directed the old one, born and nurtured by a different spirit, a different life, to the decoration of her church. That is why romantic art sparkled with a new brilliant life, but ended with the worship of paganism, and now bows to the abstract formulas of philosophy, until the world returns to true Christianity, and a new servant of Christian beauty appears to the world. Sciences in their essential part, that is, as knowledge, belong equally to the pagan and Christian worlds, and differ only in their philosophical side. Catholicism could not communicate this philosophical side of Christianity to them because it itself did not have it in its pure form. That is why we see that the sciences, as a pagan heritage, flourished so strongly in Europe, but ended in godlessness, as a necessary consequence of their one-sided development. Russia did not shine with either arts or scientific inventions, not having time to develop in this regard in an original way, and not accepting foreign developments based on a false view and therefore hostile to its Christian spirit. But for this reason, it contained the first condition for correct development, requiring only time and favorable circumstances; in it gathered and lived that organizing principle of knowledge, that philosophy of Christianity, which alone can give the correct foundation to the sciences. All the Greek Holy Fathers, not excluding the most profound writers, were translated and read, copied, and studied in the silence of our monasteries, these holy embryos of unfulfilled universities. Isaac the Syrian, the most profound of all philosophical writings, is still found in the lists of the 12th and 13th centuries. And these monasteries were in living, constant contact with the people. What enlightenment in our vile class are we not entitled to conclude from this one fact! But this enlightenment is not brilliant, but deep; not luxurious, not material, aimed at the convenience of external life, but internal, spiritual; this is a social structure, without autocracy and slavery, and without noble and vile; these customs are centuries-old, without written codes, emanating from the Church and strong in the agreement of morals with the teachings of the faith; these holy monasteries, nurseries of the Christian system, the spiritual heart of Russia, in which all the conditions for the future original enlightenment were kept; these hermits, who from a luxurious life went into the forests, studied the writings of the deepest sages of Christian Greece in inaccessible gorges, and came out from there to teach the people who understood them; these educated rural sentences; these city meetings; this expanse of Russian life, which was preserved in songs - where did all this go? How could it be destroyed without bearing fruit? How could it succumb to the violence of an alien element? How was it possible for Peter, the destroyer of the Russian and the leader of the German? If the destruction began before Peter, then how could the Principality of Moscow, having united Russia, crush it? Why did the connection of various parts into one whole happen in a different way? Why should the foreign principle, and not the Russian principle, triumph in this case? One fact in our history explains to us the reason for this unfortunate revolution; this fact is the Stoglavy Cathedral. As quickly as heresy appeared in the Church, discord in the spirit was bound to be reflected in life. Parties appeared that more or less deviated from the truth. The party of innovation defeated the party of antiquity, precisely because the antiquity was torn apart by differences of opinion. From there, with the destruction of the spiritual, internal connection, the need for a material, formal connection arose, from there localism, oprichnina, slavery, etc. From there, the distortion of books due to error and ignorance, and their correction according to private understanding and arbitrary criticism. From there, before Peter, the government was at odds with the majority of the people, rejected under the name of schismatics. From this, Peter, as the head of the party in the state, forms a society within a society, and everything that follows. What is the result of all this? Do we want to return the past to Russia, and is it possible to return it? If it is true that the very peculiarity of Russian life lay in its living origin from pure Christianity, and that the form of this life fell along with the weakening of the spirit; now this dead form would have absolutely no importance. Returning her by force would be ridiculous, even if it were not harmful. But only those who do not believe that Russia will someday return to that life-giving spirit that its Church breathes can destroy the remaining forms. Now we can only wish for one thing: for some Frenchman to understand the originality of Christian teaching, as it lies in our Church, and write an article about it in a magazine; so that the German, having believed him, would study our Church more deeply and begin to prove in lectures that in it, quite unexpectedly, exactly what the enlightenment of Europe now requires is revealed. Then, without a doubt, we would believe the French and the German, and we ourselves would know what we have. You might be interested in: