N. A. BERDYAEV (BERDIAEV)
The Russian Spiritual Renaissance of Beginning XX Century
and the Journal Put'
(For the Decade Anniversary of Put')
Russian
I
The ten-year existence of Put' turns us towards the past, from which
the journal emerged, towards the spiritual movement in Russia at the
beginning of the XX Century. The beginning of the century was for
us a time of great mental and spiritual excitement, of tempestuous
searchings, of the rousing of creative powers. The purposes of the
world were disclosed for us in those years. Contemporary youth, living
amidst social catastrophes and cultural reaction, can but with difficulty
perceive those inner spiritual processes, which then occurred. At
present it is possible definitively to say, that the beginning of
the XX Century signified for us a renaissance of spiritual culture,
a philosophic and literary-aesthetic renaissance, an acuity of religious
and mystical sensitivities. Never yet had Russian culture attained
to such refinement, as at that time. It is scarcely possible to say,
that what we has was a religious renaissance. For that there was not
sufficiently strong a religious will, transfigurative life, and there
was not participation in the movement among the wider strata of the
people. This was nevertheless a movement among the cultural elite,
estranged not only from the processes occurring among the masses of
the people, but also from the processes occurring in the wider circles
of the intelligentsia. There was a similarity with the romantic and
the idealistic movement of the beginning of the XX Century. In Russia
there appeared souls very keen to every breath of spirit. There occurred
stormy and swift transitions from Marxism to idealism, from idealism
to Orthodoxy, from aestheticism and decadence to mysticism and religion,
from materialism and positivism to metaphysics and mystical world-perception.
The gusts of spirit carried over all the world at the beginning of
the XX Century. Alongside with the serious searching, with the profound
crisis of souls, there was also the foolish vogue in mysticism, in
occultism, in aestheticism, in a disdainful attitude towards ethics,
and there was a confusion of soul-erotic states with the spiritual.
There was no little of foolish chatter. But there occurred undoubtedly
also the emergence of a new type of man, oriented more towards the
inner life. The inner spiritual turnabout was connected with the transition
from an exclusive concern for "this here side", which long prevailed
among the Russian intelligentsia, towards a disclosing of the "thither
world side". The perspective was altered. Another direction of consciousness
resulted. There was disclosed a view upon other worlds, upon another
dimension of being. And for the right to contemplate other worlds
a terrible struggle was had. In part of the Russian intelligentsia,
the most cultured, the most refined and gifted, there occurred a spiritual
crisis, there occurred a transition towards another type of culture,
closer perhaps to the first half of the XIX Century, rather than to
the second half. This spiritual crisis was connected with the breakdown
of integrality of the revolutionary intelligentsia's world-view, of
an exclusively social orientation it was a break with Russian "enlightenment",
with positivism in the broad sense of the word, it was a proclamation
of rights to moreso a "thither-sidedness". It was a liberation of
the human soul from the oppression of socialism, the liberation of
creative powers from the oppression of utilitarianism. During the
second half of the XIX Century in Russia was formed an intelligentsia
soul-type, in which all religious energy inherent to the Russian people,
was directed to socialism ("socialism, socialism or death", exclaimed
Belinsky) and to the matter of revolution. In this was its own great
truth. But the rights of the spiritual were not acknowledged, spirituality
was completely dissolved into the social struggle, into the liberation
and welfare of the people. At the beginning of the XX Century there
resulted a differentiation, the region of the spiritual was detached
and set free. The entire social- revolutionary world-outlook of the
intelligentsia was rent asunder. The struggle was declared for the
right of spirit and of inner life, for spiritual creativity, for the
independence of the spiritual from social utilitarianism. This simultaneously
was the struggle for person-ness, for the fulness of creative life
of the person, a struggle with suppressive sociality. The person,
as free spirit, was set in opposition to society and to its pretensions
to define the whole of life of the person. The destiny of person was
set in opposition to the theory of progress. Philosophically this
signified, that the values of the cultural, the spiritual, the religious,
the cognitive, aesthetic and ethical, were set in opposition to the
exclusive supremacy of social welfare and need. Religiously this signified,
that the value of the human soul, that person-ness and personal destiny
were put higher than the kingdoms of this world. This transvaluation
of values signified another relationship towards sociality. But the
problem of society continued to disquiet our thought at the beginning
of the XX Century. The crisis of world-outlook of the intelligentsia
found its expression in the anthology "Problems of Idealism", which
had appeared at the very beginning of the century, and somewhat later
in the sensation-producing anthology "Signposts" ("Vekhi"). It came
out in conjunction with the "Religious-Philosophic Societies", at
Moscow, at Peterburg, at Kiev. In these societies occurred lively
discussions on very pertinently burning themes of the religio-philosophic,
the religio-cultural, the religio-social. The gatherings of the societies
was well attended. Formed first was the "Religio-Philosophic Society
in memory of Vl. Solov'ev" at Moscow, in which the chief figure was
Fr. S. Bulgakov, then not yet a priest, but a professor of political
economics at the Commerce Institute. Later there was founded on my
initiative at Peterburg the "Religio-Philosophic Society". In fact
I barely took part in the society founded by me, since I was gone
from Peterburg, and its chief actualisers were the Merezhkovskys.
I however actively participated in the Moscow society. In the Kiev
society, founded later, there actively participated professors from
the Spiritual Academy [trans. note: i.e. upper level seminary], which
did not occur at Moscow or Peterburg. These societies were one of
the expressions of the spiritual unrest, a transmitter of the thoughts
of that time.
The Russian spiritual renaissance had several well-springs.
However strange this may be at first glance, yet one of its well-springs
was the Russian Marxism at the end of the decade of the 90's of
the past century. About it I can speak, as about a lived-through
experience, since I myself was one of the spokesmen of the transition
from Marxism to idealism, and then to Christianity. The Russian
Marxism of the 90's was itself already in a crisis of consciousness
of the Russian intelligentsia. In it was subjected to critique the
traditional intelligentsia consciousness of the second half of the
XIX Century, which had expression mainly in populist socialism.
Russian Marxism, as an ideological tendency, was not initially adoptive
of a totalitarian Marxist world-outlook, it was not a continuation
of the whole of the revolutionary temperament of preceding generations.
In it was disclosed great cultural complexity, in it were roused
mental and cultural interests alien to the old Russian intelligentsia.
And first of all this was detected in the sphere of philosophy.
Part of the Russian Marxists from the higher intellectual culture
initially adopted for themselves the idealistic philosophy of Kant
and Neo-Kantianism and they attempted to conjoin it with the social
system of Marxism. This tendency was represented by S. Bulgakov
and myself, P. Struve, S. Frank and several others. Marxism in its
character was inclined towards the construct of broad and totalistic
historico-sophistical concepts in which were strong messianic elements.
Marxism had more philosophical sources, than did populism. I am
convinced, that for some, e.g. for Fr. S. Bulgakov, Marxism was
a peculiar sort of theology and they inserted into it their own
religious instincts. In my first book: "Subjectivism and Individualism
in Social Philosophy" ("Sub'ektivizm i individualizm v obschestvennoi
filosofii"), which came out in 1900, I myself attempted to construct
an integrated synthesis of Marxism and idealism. Perhaps more than
other Marxists of this tendency I confessed a proletarian messianism,
but I did not ground it on materialism. I was always an absolutist
in regards to truth, to meaning and to wholeness, and I remember,
how certain of my social-democrat comrades said, that in essence
I stand upon a religious grounding and am in need of a religious
meaning of life. My religious life involved not so much the consciousness
of sin and search for salvation from perdition, as rather a search
for eternity and for meaning. An abrupt conversion is not characteristic
to this type. I studied the philosophic school of German Idealism
and the idea about the existence of class truth or class justice
appeared to me absurd and meaning nothing. Truth and justice are
absolute and rooted in the transcendental consciousness, they are
not of social extraction. But psychological and social conditions
exist, propitious or non-propitious, for the perception of truth
by man or for the realisation by man of justice. There is not a
class truth, but there is a class falsehood, a class non-truth.
And herein I attempted to construct a theory, according to which
the psychological and social consciousness of the proletariat, as
a class free from the sin of exploitation and free from being an
exploiter, maximally is co-incident with the transcendental consciousness,
with the norms of absolute truth and justice. By such manner proletarian
messianism is affirmed on a non-materialist soil. Basically for
me it was a question about the relationship of the transcendental
and the psychological consciousness. The psychological consciousness
was however for me determined by the economic and by class social
circumstance. I wanted to surmount the relativism of Marxism and
conjoin with it faith in absolute truth and meaning. I remember
the sharp disputes, which I had on these themes with Lunocharsky
in the Marxist circles. When as a young student I had a meeting
in Switzerland with Plekhanov and argued with him about materialism,
he said to me: "You will not remain a Marxist, with such a philosophy
it is impossible to be a Marxist, remember my prediction". For him
Marxism was inseparably connected with materialism. When I saw Plekhanov
in 1904, he reminded me about his prediction. I was in the social
movement a Marxist leftist, I was connected with revolutionary circles,
but my social-democrat comrades always reckoned me an heretic and
often were in hostility against me. When I was in exile in the north
and had meetings with a vast number of exiled social-democrats,
among my comrades in exile were A. Lunocharsky and A. Bogdanov,
and I always sensed, that they reckoned me in spirit a man foreign,
a man of another faith, of another world-outlook. I then very soon
after published an article, "The Struggle for Idealism", in which
was marked for me the transition from Marxism to idealism. The book
of Fr. S. Bulgakov was entitled: "From Marxism to Idealism". In
1902 came out the anthology "The Problem of Idealism", in which
took part with the former Marxists also representatives of a more
academic and spiritual philosophy, such as P. Novgorodtsev and the
princes S. and E. Trubetskoy. Crossover of the several tendencies
occurred.
Another well-spring of the cultural renaissance of the beginning
of the century was literary-aesthetic. Already at the end of the
XIX Century had occurred fro us a change of aesthetic consciousness
and a transvaluation of aesthetic values. There was then a surmounting
of Russian nihilism relative to art, a deliverance from the relics
of Pisarevitism. There was then a deliverance of artistic creativity
and artistic values from the oppression of social utilitarianism,
a liberation of the creative live of person. A. Volynsky and D.
Merzhkovsky were among the first in this change of aesthetic consciousness
and the relationship to art. The transvaluation of values was first
of all expressed in a new appreciation for the Russian literature
of the XIX Century, which the old social-polemic criticism could
never properly appreciate. There appeared a type of philosophic
and even religio-philosophic criticism in line with the aesthetic
and impressionistic criticism. They saw the vast extents of the
creativity of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy and it began their more definitive
influence upon Russian consciousness and Russian ideological tendencies.
Already at the end of the 80's and the beginning of the 90's new
souls were formed, developed by the influence of Dostoevsky and
Tolstoy, independently of the new appearing criticism. It is necessary
to note L. Shestov, -- very involved with Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and
Nietzsche, an unique and original thinker with his own themes, but
standing aside from all the tendencies and from the Christian renaissance
in a proper context. For myself I can say, that Dostoevsky and Tolstoy
held fundamental significance in my inner life. The graft- shoot
received from them precedes the influence of German idealism and
Marxism. It is necessary to note the appearance of a book of D.
Merezhkovsky about Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, the best one of all those
written by him, in which he tried in his own way to reveal the religious
meaning of the creativity of the greatest of the Russian geniuses.
He adapted the religious meaning too much to his own schema about
spirit and flesh, but it is impossible to deny his service in this
regard. Merezhkovsky denoted the awakening of a religious concern
in culture, in religion. The artistic-aesthetic renaissance very
soon acquired for us a mystical and religious tint. They wanted
to go beyond the boundary of art and literature. And this was characteristically
a Russian phenomenon. During the years 1902-1903 there were organised
at Peterburg "Religio-philosophic gatherings"1, in which occurred
the meeting of groups of the representatives of Russian culture
and literature together with the clergy, with hierarchs of the Church.
There presided at these gatherings the then archbishop of Finland,
now Metropolitan Sergei, heading the Patriarchal Church. Among the
participants of these gatherings it is necessary to mention V. Rozanov,
D. Merezhkovsky, N. Minsky, V. Tarnavtsev, A. Kartashev. At these
gatherings was presented a whole series of acute problems of "the
new religious consciousness", directed to the hierarchs of the Church.
Basically it was the effect of the problematics of V. Rozanov. He
was a very conspicuous figure of the gatherings. In essence it was
a collision of Rozanov, a talented critic of Christianity and herald
of a religion of birth and life, a collision with traditional Orthodox,
monastic-ascetic consciousness. There were presented problems of
the relationship of Christianity towards sex and love, towards culture
and art, towards the state and social life. Often this was formulated
as a problem of Christianity towards "the flesh", which in my opinion
was philosophically incorrect terminology. In line with the themes
of Rozanov, a central role was played by the themes of Dostoevsky
and Tolstoy. The secular participants of the gatherings were too
much oriented towards literature while social problems in comparison
were weakly expressed. Among the wide circles of the left intelligentsia
"the religio-philosophic gatherings" encountered an hostile attitude.
Then however there began the influence of the upper strata
of Russian culture and literature -- of the western literary modernism,
of the French symbolists, of Ibsen, R. Wagner and particularly of
Nietzsche. Nietzsche, in my perception, was one of the inspirers
of the Russian renaissance of the beginning of the century and this
perhaps gave the movement an amoralistic tint. The creativity of
Ibsen held vast significance for me, and with him in part was bound
up for me the fracture during the transition to the new century.
Keen awareness of the problem of the person and its fate were for
me most of all connected with Dostoevsky and Ibsen. This problem
for me immediately assumed a religious character, it became the
centre of all my world-outlook and was posed contrary to my exclusively
social-oriented world-outlook. With this personalism is connected
a primordial anarchistic element in my world- outlook, which separated
me off from other Russian thinkers of the XX Century, and separated
me off also from the Marxists. Most characteristic of the mood and
tendency of the beginning XX Century were the so-called "Wednesdays
of Vyacheslav Ivanov". Thus were called the literary gatherings
on Wednesdays over the course of several years in the quarters of
V. Ivanov, a very sophisticated and universal in spirit representative
not only of the Russian culture of the beginning of the XX Century,
but perhaps of Russian culture in general. The quarters of V. Ivanov
were on the very top floor of an immense house opposite the Tavrida
Palace. Down below revolution raged and political passions clashed.
But up above at "the tower" transpired very refined conversations
on themes of the loftiest spiritual culture, on themes aesthetic
and mystical. I was perpetually a chairman of these gatherings over
the course of several years and therefore I well know their atmosphere.
Gathered there were the upper, "aristocratic" crust of Russian literature
and thought. Occasionally there appeared people of the other world,
e.g. Lunocharsky. Revolution percolated to the gatherings of "the
tower", it was impossible to be completely insulated from it. At
one of the "Wednesdays" there was a search-raid, lasting all the
night. But there was a breaking asunder amidst this, that on the
heights was occurring the Russian cultural renaissance and down
below, in the broad levels of the Russian intelligentsia and in
the masses of the people was sickness and terror. They lived in
different centuries, on different planets. An element of utopian
decadence entered into the Russian cultural renaissance and enfeebled
it. There was great refinement of thought and sensitiveness about
the absence of power and concentrated will, directed towards a changing
of life. But astonishingly, all the tendencies rested upon a religious
problematic. The journal "Questions of Life" attempted to conjoin
and mirror all the new tendencies, in existence all of but the one
year 1905. It co-incided with the first revolution. The journal
was edited by S. Bulgakov and myself. G. Chulkov managed the literary-artistic
section, D. Zhukovsky was the publisher. He emerged from the ruins
of "The New Way", an organ of the Merzhkovskys, reflecting the viewpoints
of "the religio-philosophic gatherings". The journal was an unification
of the current, issuing from Marxism and idealism, together with
the current, issuing from literature. "Idealists" inclining towards
Christianity had encounters with Merezhkovsky, with Rozanov and
others. The journal gave a place to the new currents in art and
in literature, which opponents defined as "decadence". At the same
time the journal stood upon the soil of social radicalism, it was
connected with the left wing of "the Union of Liberation" and even
printed articles not completely sundered from Marxism. All this
was new in the histories of Russian intelligentsia ideologies. The
journal expressed the crisis of consciousness and of the new searching.
But in it was no unity nor definiteness, it combined tendencies,
which then diverged into opposite directions. Into the journal entered
still another element, which likewise was one of the well-springs
of the Russian cultural renaissance.
One of the well-springs of the intellectual renaissance for
us was the German philosophy and the Russian religious philosophy
of the XIX Century, to the traditions of which there occurred a
return. Schelling was always to a remarkable degree a Russian philosopher.
In the decades of the 30's and 40's of the last century he had a
vast influence on Russian thought, on Schellingists in the peculiar
sense of the word and on the Slavophils, and he had also a great
influence also on the philosophy of Vl. Solov'ev, the philosophy
of which was in the lineage of Schelling. A re-worked Schellingism
entered into Russian theological and religio-philosophical thought.
The Schelling of the final period had particular significance, the
period of "the philosophy of mythology and revelation". The yearning
of Russian religio-philosophical thought for an organic wholeness,
for the surmounting of rationalist dissection is very much akin
to Schelling. I do not in the least deny the originality of the
Slavophil thought, it was perhaps the first original thought in
Russia. But it is impossible to deny, that the Slavophils received
a powerful grafting-shoot from German romanticism and idealism,
from Schelling and from Hegel. The idea of "organicity" was pre-eminently
an idea from German romanticism. The Slavophils attempted to surmount
abstract idealism and pass over into a concrete idealism, which
perhaps could be termed realism. Yet the closer of Schelling was
Fr. Baader, a free Catholic with strong sympathies for Orthodoxy.
Fr. Baader was least guilty of the rationalism, with which the Slavophils
unjustly were inclined to accuse all Western thought. Vl. Solov'ev
was very nigh unto him, although it is impossible to ascertain a
direct influence. At the beginning of the XX Century, after Kant
and Schopenhauer they again began to read and to esteem Schelling
and Fr. Baader and this contributed to the elaboration of the self-sustaining
Russian religious philosophy, which was one of the most interesting
phenomena of the spiritual renaissance. For myself I can say, that
I read Fr. Baader with a greater rapport than I did Schelling, and
this was for me a path towards Ja. Boehme, the encounter with whom
was an enormous event in my intellectual and spiritual life. It
was the finish of an epoch of the dominance of the positivism, hostile
to metaphysics in the consciousness of the most cultured stratum
of the Russian intelligentsia. This epoch continued through all
the second half of the XIX Century, although it is necessary to
remember, that at this same time there was also an opposite pole,
they were contra-polar. Alone and little accepted in their own time
were Vl. Solov'ev, Dostevsky and Tolstoy both, and the altogether
unknown and unacknowledged N. Fedorov. In the more recent, those
creative returned at the beginning of the century to the themes
of Dostoevsky and L. Tolstoy and to the philosophy and theology
of Vl. Solov'ev. For an entire generation Vl. Solov'ev became an
almost legendary figure. He as a person perhaps accomplished more
than did his philosophy, although it indeed was directed against
rationalism, but itself rational too much in form and style. Vl.
Solov'ev had an influence not only upon philosophy and theology,
but also upon the poet-symbolists, A. Blok, V. Ivanov, A. Bely.
I very highly regarded Vl. Solov'ev and I at present esteem him,
very close for me was his teaching about God-manhood. But the manner
in which Vl. Solov'ev philosophises was always foreign to me, I
was always inclined towards the type of philosophy, which at present
is called "existentialist". For my intellectual and spiritual life
more significant were the teachings of Khomyakov about Christian
freedom, and the second tome of "The Science of Man" of Nesmelov,
and the "Legend of the Grand Inquisitor" of Dostoevsky, than were
the books of Vl. Solov'ev. But all nonetheless, our generation esteemed
Vl. Solov'ev and returned to the problems posited by him. It returned
not only to Vl. Solov'ev, but also to Khomyakov, i.e. still further
towards the sources of Russian religious philosophy. The people
of my generation, the generation of the beginning of the XX Century,
returning to Christianity and to Orthodoxy, returned first of all
to the Orthodoxy of Khomyakov, to a Khomyakovic understanding of
the Church. But this signified Russian modernism on Orthodox soil.
Khomyakov was, certainly, a modernist, an innovator and reformer.
His teaching about Sobornost' was not traditional, in it there entered
into the Russian and into the Orthodoxy a transformative European
humanism, in his teaching about freedom, in his radical denial of
authority in the religious life there entered in the teaching about
autonomy from German philosophy. Khomyakov was uniquely original
as an anarchist in contrast with Vl. Solov'ev and this also made
him characteristically a Russian thinker. K. Leont'ev sensed the
modernist and reformist character of the ideas of Khomyakov, he
saw in them elements, detestable to him, of liberalism, democratism,
humanism. In rather later a period of the renaissance of the XX
Century, already during the time of the war, Fr. P. Florensky, one
of the most talented and original Russian thinkers of this era,
by his aesthetic taste for conservatism and reaction in a shrill
article rose up against Khomyakov, as not being Orthodox, as being
a modernist, as being imbued with German idealism, an immanentist,
a democrat, etc., etc. And undoubtedly, the ideas of Khomyakov might
for us have been one of the sources of reform, but this reform regretably
did not happen. Quantitatively the reactionary Church tendencies
prevailed. But in any case in the religious problematics of our
thoughts at the beginning of the century Khomyakov had no little
significance, just as also did Dostoevsky and Vl. Solov'ev, and
from thinkers of a later time V. Rozanov and N. Fedorov. Official
theology had no sort of significance, the upper church hierarchy
played no sort of role. Those, who entered more deeply into Church
life, turned themselves toward the traditions of the startsi (elders),
to the cult of St. Seraphim, but not towards academic theology nor
towards hierarchical authority. Such conservative a Church activist,
as M. Novoselov, acknowledged only the authority of the startsi
(elders), and quite entirely did not recognise the authority of
the episcopacy nor of the Synod. In the Russia of the XIX Century
there was an abyss betwixt the underground spiritual life, being
expressed in the startsi and sanctity, in the searchings for a New
Jerusalem and the Kingdom of God, in free religious thought, and
between official Church life, subordinate to the regime, deprived
of the breath of Spirit.
II
The weakness of the Russian spiritual renaissance was in its absence
of a broad social base. It emerged among the cultural elite. The struggle
for spirit, for spiritual life and spiritual creativity led to a rift
with the broad social movement and mass of the people and at the same
time it was not in union with the traditional-conservative popular
religiosity. The isolation of the creators of spiritual culture at
the beginning of the century increased all the more. The need for
surmounting the isolation pushed some to the right, they hoped to
merge themselves with those of the Old Russia, from which the intelligentsia
were cut off. But no one was properly successful at this. Often this
was more a stylisation. It was clear, that for example Fr. P. Florensky,
a man of the new form and having gone through the new experience,
that in him are features of refined decadence, completely foreign
to the traditional Orthodox type. The whole spiritual movement of
the beginning of the XX Century, all the religio-philosophic thought
of this time is a movement and thought of human souls, having gone
through the accretive experience of humanism and sensing the need
of a religious thinking-out of this experience. This fact is fundamental.
And the reaction against humanism is a product of the experience of
humanism in recent history, foreign and unperceivable to the traditional
Orthodox type. This experience of humanism with all its contradictions
was felt already by Khomyakov, by Dostoevsky, by Vl. Solov'ev. There
is an abyss betwixt us and Bishop Theophan and even Starets Amvrosii.
K. Leont'ev was himself an humanist of the type of the Italian Renaissance
of the XVI Century, but he always affirmed the traditions of the Orthodoxy
of Byzantium, of Philaret and Amvrosii, against the Orthodoxy of Khomyakov
and Dostoevsky. He had an aesthetic taste for dualism, for the two-sidedness
of being a man of the renaissance and a man of the Orthodox, monastic-ascetic
type. He did not desire a religious thinking-out of the humanistic
experience, but he possessed this experience. The Russian cultural
renaissance uncovered the absence of unity in Russian culture. We
did not have a single cultural type, nor was there a broad cultural
middle nor cultural tradition. Each decade they shifted directions.
What in common was there between about the cultural renaissance, about
which I now recollect, and the Russian "enlightenment", the culture
of P. Miliukov or G. Plekhanov? At the first half of the XIX Century
there was all a greater unity in this sense, what prevailed was a
type of idealist and romantic, having emerged in German culture. But
with the separation into Slavophils and Westernisers, the schism intensified
everything and in the XX Century reached the maximum. The representatives
of Russian religio-philosophic thought of the XX Century sense themselves
living on some completely different planet, than that, on which lived
Plekhanov or Lenin. This was also in that instance, if they partially
sympathised with them in the social attitude. Only afterwards did
the chasm between the upper and lower levels of Russian culture, only
afterwards did the breach in cultural growth and the alienation of
the elite from the broader strata of the intelligentsia and the people
in Russia become possible so apparent, as refined decadence. As regards
the growth of Russian culture, by its past there seemed possible no
place for decadence. And as regards this it was no less so for us
at the beginning of the XX Century. Vyacheslav Ivanov by the refinement
and universality of his culture, truly indeed, surpassed cultured
people of the West and he is the manifestation of advancingly declining
culture. This was paradoxical for a country full of youthful powers
and turned towards the future. The first revolution of 1905 was tragically
survived by the activists of the cultural renaissance. It repelled
many by its coarse and ugly sides, by its hostility to spirit and
this affected the tone of its subsequent course. This mood was expressed
in the sensation-making for its time anthology, "Vekhi" ("Signposts"),
in which the traditional world-outlook of the left intelligentsia
was subjected to penetrative criticism. The processes of dissolution,
having gained ground after the failed revolution, intensified the
gulf between the upper cultural stratum and the manifestations of
social activism. There was something fatal in this.
One of the manifestations of our renaissance was the creation
of Russian religious philosophy. At the beginning of the XX Century
there appeared for us a whole series of invaluable philosophic works,
in which was traced out an original lineage of Russian philosophy.
At this time when in Western Europe there still ruled positivism
and Neo-Kantianism, in Russia there appeared a turn towards metaphysics,
towards an ontological direction. Certain subsequent tendencies
of European thought were conceived of previously in Russia. Much
of what afterwards was affirmed by M. Scheler, N. Hartmann and existential
philosophy, earlier was expressed by Russian philosophers of the
beginning XX Century. For example, the shift of N. Hartmann towards
ontological realism in the theory of perception was anticipated
by S. Frank. Neo-Kantianism in general was overcome earlier in Russia
than it was in Germany. Such for example was the philosophy of N.
Lossky. Russian philosophical thought perceived itself essentially
as ontological. It speculated not so much about perception as about
being. It desired to appropriate perception, as a co-participation,
it however conceived of being as concrete existence. In Russian
philosophy, as also in the currents of the literature and art of
this era, there was disclosed a religious tendency, an egress beyond
the boundaries of the academic limits of philosophy. A religious
philosophy was created, as an original outgrowth of the Russian
spirit. As I already said, the ideas of Khomyakov, Dostoevsky and
Vl. Solov'ev had the most influence on its creation. But at the
basis of this religious philosophy lay an unique and new spiritual
experience, distinct from the people of the XIX Century. Even though
had we not esteemed Khomyakov, but between us and him there lies
an abyss, a survived catastrophe. For the construction of the religious
philosophy of the XX Century it was the survivors Marx and Nietzsche,
the critical philosophy and the new currents in art, socialism and
anarchism, aestheticism and apocalyptic mysticism, and the 1905
revolution. There was no solid ground beneathe us, the ground burned,
there was already no stable organic being as with the Slavophils,
we were alive in every respect, both in the spiritual and the social
sense, during the pre-revolutionary epoch. And this was expressed
in the apocalyptic and eschatological tone of many of the currents
of thought of that time. There was a turning towards the end. But
that turning towards the end not seldom also was accompanied by
a turning towards the sources. Russian Christian philosophy was
very distinct from the Western, from the Catholic and the Protestant.
The greatest kinship was nevertheless with German thought, not with
the official Protestant, the Lutheran, but with volitional thought,
with German Christian theosophy. It is possible to find points of
contact with German mysticism, with Fr. Baader, even with Hamann,
and particularly with the Schelling of the final period. For Germanic
thought enrooted in mysticism characteristically there is a connection
of the drama of salvation with the drama of cosmic life. This tendency
was also in Russian thought, although here there was no borrowing.
In the Russian religious philosophy of the beginning of the century
there were several tendencies and currents. The more prevalent tendency
wanted to return to the tradition of Platonism, -- ruptured off
in the Russian official theology, it wanted to return to Eastern
patristics. Vl. Solov'ev had already returned to Platonism, but
now they wanted to give this a more patristic and Orthodox character.
In line with this stood Fr. P. Florensky, in whom was a strong aestheticising
and stylistic element, and Fr. S. Bulgakov, who emerged from the
free religious philosophy of the beginning of the century, but then
put his thought in the form of a theological system. For this trend
characteristically it perhaps might be termed the cosmic orientation
of religious thought. Sophiology is connected with this cosmic orientation.
This is an ascent towards the idea of the transfiguration and divinisation
of the created world. Perhaps so to speak, it posited a problem
of primacy of Sophia or Logos, cosmos or person. Consciously the
problem was not posited thus, but such was its substrate. This was
likewise a problem about the Divine element in the creature, of
overcoming the extreme transcendentalism, attributive to Catholic
and Protestant thought, and likewise also Orthodoxy officially.
Russian religious philosophy definitely clashed with the official
theology, in which there was no sign of creative thought. I myself
stood not in this Platon-Sophiological line of Russian religious
philosophy. I am not a Platonist and not a sophiologist, unlike
V. Solov'ev, unlike P. Florensky, unlike Fr. Bulgakov. My religious
philosophy was always oriented anthropologically, not cosmologically,
and I was always closer to that type of thought, which they now
call existential philosophy. As regards my spiritual sources, I
was closer to German mysticism, than to Plato. The fundamental problems
for me were the problems of man, freedom, creativity. The problem
of the cosmos however represented for me a problem produced by the
problem of man. There are two orientations religiously of the philosophic
thought -- an orientation towards the praeternal Sophia, and the
orientation towards praeternal freedom. I belong to the second direction,
although I do not at all deny the problem connected with Sophia
and with the cosmic illumination. I say this, so as to stress the
complexity of direction in Russian religious philosophy, which cannot
be considered a single school. Generally for us there was an identical
opposition of religious thought to rationalism, which purports signification
of the knowledge of God to rational concepts. This meant acknowledgement
of an antinomy for reason, an acknowledgement of the mysteries of
the Christian revelation. Here I was in agreement with Fr. P. Florensky,
who represented for me an opposed and hostile type of religious
thought. And in general here it was that the religious problem of
the created world, the cosmos and man, was acridly put forth. We
were all pan-entheists (not pantheists). We all acknowledged the
existence of the incommensurability between man and God. The speculation
of Western Christianity, in particular Thomism, seemed to us in
this regard as naturalistic. Likewise foreign was the Protestant
concept of justification and salvation. Without doubt the idea of
transfiguration took precedence over the idea of salvation. The
chief powers of religio-philosophic thought were concentrated around
the publication "Put'" ("The Way"). The journal "Put'" continues
indeed with this tradition.
Russian religious thought of the beginning of the XX Century
was doubtless modernism on Orthodox soil, insofar as yet might be
called modernism whether the thought of Khomyakov, Vl. Solov'ev,
Dostoevsky, Bukharev. This was the exit-way beyond the frameworks
of the traditional official Orthodoxy. But this Russian modernism
is very distinct from Western modernism, Catholic or Protestant.
Its fundamental motifs were not those of a concurrence of Christianity
with contemporary science or contemporary political life and least
of all would this modernism signify doubting the Divinity of Jesus
Christ. Its motifs were purely religious, spiritual, mystical. The
Russian religious tendencies of various nuances were uniquely a
pneumo-centrism [i.e. spirit- centrism]. The Russian Christian thought
was essentially pneumo-centric and in this is its distinction from
the Western. Many awaited a new influence of the Holy Spirit on
the world. Sometimes this assumed the form of expectation of a new
revelation of the Holy Spirit and with this was connected the revealing
of the Christian attitude towards culture and social life, the revealing
of truth "about the earth", the revealing of religious meaning about
human creativity. This at the same time signified a thinking-out
of the experience of the humanism of recent history, as rather a
religious experience. At the centre stood the idea of God-manhood,
of the Divine-human life of the grace-abundant Holy Spirit. And
in the various religious tendencies there were encounters, interactions,
and sometimes mutual opposition of the two eternal principles of
religious life -- the sacramental principle and the prophetic principle.
For the one the transfiguration of the created world, the transfiguration
of the fulness of human life is signified first of all by the sacramental,
the sanctification of the flesh of the world and history by charismatically-graced
energies. For the other this transfiguration ought to signify first
of all a real change, not merely symbolic sanctification, a spiritual
and social transformation, towards which there ought to be a prophetic
attitude. Sacramentalism is the symbolised, propheticism is the
realised. I always sensed myself in the second tendency. The first,
the sacramental tendency, was particularly expressed by Fr. P. Florensky,
for whom this assumed an almost magic form. Just as then already
in the time of Khomyakov, in the religious movement at the beginning
of the XX Century there were stirrings and possibility of a Russian
reformation, using this word not in specifically a Protestant sense.
But the Russian reformation for various reasons did not succeed,
and the spiritual renaissance remained within a narrow circle. And
this had fatal results for the Russian revolution. The schism within
Russian life intensified and resulted in catastrophe. The duality
and indeed the dual-mindedness of the Russian spiritual renaissance
was connected with this, this into were entered pagan elements (they
were introduced by Rozanov, Merezhkovsky, V. Ivanov and partly even
by P. Florensky with his magicism, "the Kushite", as Khomyakov would
say). The problem of the synthesis of Christianity and humanism
sometimes was replaced by the problem of the synthesis of Christianity
and paganism. The problem of "spirit", i.e. freedom, was mixed up
with the problem of "flesh", i.e. magic necessity.
III
The Russian revolution disclosed straight off a terrible schism between
the upper cultural stratum and the masses of the people. The culture
of this upper level was foreign to the people. The people crossed
over from a naive Orthodox faith, in which pagan superstitions were
yet not entirely overcome, to a naive materialistic and communistic
faith. In the revolution there occurred a breakdown of Russian culture,
a sundering of cultural tradition, which did not occur, for example,
in the French revolution. A casting-down of the cultural stratum occurred.
N. Chernyshevsky was victorious over Vl. Solov'ev. All the complex
religious problematics of the beginning XX Century vanished behind
the elemental reactions against the persecution of Church and Christians.
In the Orthodox midst there began a reactionary and passively tinged
apocalyptic disposition or a more callously existing reactionary mood.
There was a forgetting of the critical thought of the beginning XX
Century, directed against a theocratic utopia and against the connection
of Church with sacred monarchy. They poorly perceived the religious
meaning of the revolution, its inevitability for Russian destiny.
Although the revolution was a sundering of the higher culture and
was perceived as a catastrophic rift in the cultural tradition, it
however was more traditional, than they think2. The very hostility
towards an higher quality culture was traditionally a Russian hostility.
This was already evidenced by the prevailing dispositions of the second
half of the XIX Century, by Russian nihilism. It is remarkable, that
our conservative and Orthodox currents were likewise nihilistic in
regard to higher culture. It mustneeds likewise be said, that the
simplification of thought, the degradation of the capacity of culture
is not a peculiarity of the Russian revolution, -- it is a worldwide
phenomenon. After the World War there began a worldwide epoch of the
masses, hostile to spiritual culture, interested exclusively in technical
civilisation. This, indeed, is an inevitable dialectic moment in the
process of social re-structuring of human societies. From the point
of view of intellectual culture this was a reactionary manifestation.
From another side it mustneeds be said, that the spiritual currents
of the beginning of the XX Century insufficiently understood the religious
significance of the social question. The problem of "bread" is not
only a material, but also a spiritual problem, a problem of the relationship
of man towards man.
The danger, to which spiritual culture was subjected during
the abating of the revolution, led to the creation on my initiate
at Moscow in 1919 of the "Free Academy of Spiritual Culture" ("Vol'naya
Akademiya Dukhovnoi Kul'tury", or "V.A.D.K."). I was president of
this academy until autumn 1922, i.e. until my expulsion over the
border and until its cessation. The "Free Academy of Spiritual Culture"
bore a different character than the religio-philosophic societies,
which discontinued after the revolution. It unified at Moscow the
then present cultural forces, which desired to struggle for spirit
and spiritual culture in an atmosphere of growing antagonism to
spirit. In it participated also people, who did not consider themselves
Christian, but advocated spiritual culture. On the whole it was
not a struggle with communism, as a social system, but rather a
struggle with materialism and atheism, a struggle with the denial
of spirit. There was nothing of the political in the "Free Academy
of Spiritual Culture". The sole lecture about communism was even
given by a communist, though also sufficiently free in a philosophic
regard. When they summoned me to the Moscow section of the Cheka
for an explanation concerning the activities of the "Free Academy
of Spiritual Culture", it was only with the greatest difficulty
that I succeeded to explain to the interrogator, what suchlike "spiritual
culture" was. The "V.A.D.K." was one of the reasons for my banishment
from Soviet Russia, demanded not for political but for ideological
reasons. At the "V.A.D.K." were read courses on questions of spiritual
culture, seminars were conducted, public lectures with debates were
organised. In the final winter certain of the lectures attracted
such a crowd of people, that I in the capacity of president received
a note, cautioning me about the possibility that the floor could
collapse at the hall of the Women's High School, where the gatherings
occurred. Suchlike were the lectures of Stepun about the book of
Spengler "The Decline of Europe", the lecture of Fr. P. Florensky
about the magic of word, and my lecture about Christianity and theosophy.
After the expulsion over the border of a whole group scholars and
writers in the autumn of 1922, I together with S. Frank, B. Vysheslavtsev
and others founded at Berlin a "Religio-philosophic Academy", which
was intended to be a continuation of the spiritual traditions of
the "religio-philosophic societies" and the "Free Academy of Spiritual
Culture" in a new setting. There assisted us in the organisation
of this institute, which exists more than 12 years being transferred
to Paris in 1924, -- the secretaries of the American Christian Union
of Young People, G. G. Kuhlmann and P. F. Anderson, were under the
customary sympathy for Russian matters of Dr. Mott. It was providential,
that Protestant Christians were found in the West, so very sympathetic
and actively giving help to the Russian movement. There began an
altogether new epoch of the emergence of Russian religio-philosophic
thought onto the European and world arena. There was an organic
connection with past Russian thought and the spiritual culture of
the XIX Century and the beginning XX Century, but it was also new,
connected with a survived lived-through experience. The experience
of the revolution was also a religious experience and after it,
it was impossible to return to the pre-revolutionary or the nigh-before
revolutionary moods of the beginning of the century. The difficulty
was in this, that the Russian foreign presence, in which it happened
to act, was considerably on its part religiously and socially reactionary.
Among the foreign Russian Christian youth the traditions of Russian
religious thought were forgotten, they simply did not know of them.
There had occurred a cultural reversion to the wild, seizing hold
even the older generation, beset by political passions. It had to
contend with the surroundings, to go against the prevailing current.
However, there was no growing accustomed to this. At the beginning
of the XX Century otherwise it had to go against the current prevailing
amidst the Russian intelligentsia. A new positive developement in
comparison with the beginning of the century was the emergence of
the Russian Christian movement for the youth abroad. Thanks to the
Christian Union of Young People the varied forms of Russian religious
activism were brought into synthesis. In 1925 was founded the journal
"Put'", as an organ of Russian religious thought. Ten years of existence
-- is a lengthy period in the conditions of the emigration. A large
role in the initiating and creating of "Put'" was played by G. G.
Kuhlmann, then secretary of the YMCA for Russian affairs, and now
involved with the League of Nations. There was a congress in Savoy
on the Swiss frontier, with the participation of Dr. Mott, at which
was decided the publication of the journal "Put'". When in the capacity
of chief editor -- I pondered the character of the emerging journal,
it certainly for me did not enter my mind, that "Put'" could have
a very definitive, an unique direction, let us say, "my" direction.
For me it was apparent, that such a journal could exist only as
a broad unification of available forces of Russian religious thought
and spiritual culture. "Put'" also united all the available intellectual
forces. Excluded were only the representatives of the clearly obscurantist
directions, hostile to thought and creativity, who had for their
sympathising part of the masses of the emigration. "Put'" provided
a place for theological works, but was not specifically a theological
journal. It was a journal of spiritual culture. It also printed
articles, which do not appear in a narrow sense confessionally-Orthodox.
"Put'" happened to struggle for the freedom of the religious, of
the philosophic, of social thought, for freedom of creativity. And
it mustneeds be considered, that "Put'" was successful somehow in
this regard to do so. It stood outside of and above the typical
political and ecclesial passions of the emigration. Despite the
"left" social orientation of the editor, the journal became removed
from the usual "right" and "left". The positive meaning and justification
of the emigration is altogether not in the area of politics. The
positive meaning might however be first of all in defense of freedom,
in the creation of a forum for free thought, in the creation of
an atmosphere of free creativity. This atmosphere, alas, is not
in the emigration. It is afflicted with political passions and reactionary
emotions, in it was memorised a "social opinion", bearing animosity
for free thought and creativity. And such manifests itself not only
by the "right wing" social opinion of the emigration, but also by
its so-called "left wing" social opinion. "Put'" was outside of
this. For me it was however immediately clear, that "Put'" ought
to creatively continue the traditions of the Russian free religio-philosophic
thought of the XIX and XX Centuries, to maintain the connection
with these best traditions. In Soviet Russia one cannot express
-- not only free religious and philosophic thought, but also in
general no sort of free thought. In this already is justification
of the existence of "Put'", for those abroad. "Put'" is likewise
a journal unique in the world, standing on the spiritual soil of
Orthodoxy. In "Put'" appear also articles not Orthodox in the narrow
sense of the word, but in basic orientation are Orthodox. It mustneeds
be said, that the word "Orthodox" possesses less definitive a meaning,
than many of the naive and insufficiently knowledgeable people presuppose.
There exist many interpretations of "Orthodoxy" as also of Christianity
in general, and there are perhaps many directions in "Orthodoxy"
[trans. note: (sic) Even Saints Cyril and Methodius initially rendered
it in Slavonic not as "pravo-verie" or "pravo-uchenie" -- "right-belief"
or "right- teachings" in the generic sense of "orthodox", e.g. "orthodox
Marxists", but rather they translated the word literally from the
Greek meaning of their time as "right-glory", -- where the Parmenidean
"doxa" meaning "opinion" has been supplanted by the NT "koina" Greek
meaning of "doxa" as "glory"]. Church conservatives and obscurantists
accuse "Put'" of modernism. For this, so that this would have somehow
a distinct meaning not distorted by the emotions, it is necessary
to decide what is suchlike a "modernism", whether "Put'" corresponds
to this, and most important, whether it be bad or good to be a "modernist".
Conservative useage of the word "modernism" signifies in general
the appearance of creative thought, independent thought of its own
time, of its own epoch in distinction from repetitive thoughts of
former epochs. In this sense invariably it is necessary to be a
"modernist", and "anti-modernism" is simply an ossification of thought,
bordering on complete mindlessness. Russian "anti-modernism" is
also pre-eminently an absurdity. In their own time the teachers
of the Church adapting Platonism to Christianity, and the scholastics,
adapting Aristotelianism to it, were "modernists". Thomas Aquinas
was reckoned an extreme "modernist" in his time. And in the old
teachers of the Church and the scholastics it is the "modernists"
namely that would bear the resemblance, and not those, who lifelessly
repeat their thoughts. The word "modernism" is both vague and perhaps
there is a perfectly negative modernism, signifying the weathering
of the Christian faith. But in principle the defense of "modernism"
is a defense of life, of growth, creativity, freedom, thought. I
would wish, that "Put'" were in this sense "modernistic" an organ
and I would contend, that it is insufficiently "modernised". A fidelity
in particular to the traditions of Russian religious thought, just
as also patristic thought, obligates it to be a "modernist" organ.
Fidelity to these traditions does not signify repetition of old
themes and thoughts. On the contrary, this fidelity obligates the
raising of new themes also for creative thought. The problematics
of the Russian spiritual renaissance of the beginning XX Century
remain. But these are problems, which are put forth with a greater
acuity, than at the beginning of the century. Suchlike is the ecumenical
problem, the problem of rapprochement and the re-unification of
the divided parts of the Christian world. Suchlike is the religio-social
problem, a problem of the re-structuring of the world in a religious,
a Christian illumination. Personally I give the social problem a
greater significance for the fate of Christianity. Such likewise
is the problem of the worldwide crisis of culture. The ponderings
of our era are more realistic, more free from romantic illusions,
than the ponderings at the beginning of the century. In the world
the power of "Put'" ("The Way") attempts to reflect this, i.e. to
correspond to the problematics of our era, i.e. to be a "modernist"
organ in the positive sense of the term. Within the present Russian
generations, just like everywhere in the world, there occurs a lowering
of cultural standards, a barbarisation, a decline of cultural intellectual
interests, and there obtains with the rule of the masses both an
affected and elemental, simplified thought. There is occurring a
transition from the rule of an intellectual cultural type, which
however never did take hold with the masses, to the rule of a militarist
and technical type, which does take hold with the masses. We live
in an era of obscurantist and clerical reaction. "Put'" in any case
cannot go in for this lowering of quality, it mustneeds struggle
for the quality of spiritual culture, even though but few remain
faithful to it. In our era it is most of all imperative to struggle
for man and humanity, to struggle religiously and socially. The
tasks of the Russian religio-philosophic and religio-social thought
remain creative, turned towards the future and not towards the past.
This is a task of sustaining the light, lest there become great
darkness. And if the present and the impending future are not for
us, then we mustneeds be turned towards a more distant future.
Nikolai Berdyaev
(Journal "Put'", oct./dec. 1935, No. 49, p. 3-22).
Notes:
- The religio-philosophic gatherings preceded the formation of
the religio-philosophic societies.
- [trans. note: Footnote "*" shown in original text, but footnote
missing from bottom of page.]
Copyright 19 March 1998 by translator Fr. S. Janos.
Permission granted for non-commercial distribution
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