The character of the Russian people Lossky summary. Russian philosophers about the Russian national character - abstract

, Wundt, Wilhelm , Florensky, Pavel Alexandrovich

Followers: Rand, Ain, Lossky, Vladimir Nikolaevich

Nikolai Onufrievich Lossky(December 6, Kreslavka, Russian Empire - January 24, Paris) - an outstanding representative of Russian religious philosophy, one of the founders of the direction of intuitionism in philosophy.

Biography

Philosophy

Intuitionism Lossky is a theory that develops philosophical problems associated with the Christian interpretation of the world. Starting with epistemological aspects, Lossky also deals with other main sections of philosophy.
Epistemology Lossky is built on the basis of the position that the cognized object, even being part of the external world, is included by the consciousness of the cognizing subject directly into the personality, and therefore the existence of the object is not put in connection with the act of cognition. Such a doctrine has been called intuitionism in the history of philosophy. Lossky distinguishes three types of intuition - sensual, intellectual and mystical. To explain the possibility of such intuitive cognition, Lossky considers and develops many provisions of ontology.
Ontology In Lossky's ontology, one of the main ones is the position that the world is a kind of organic whole. Intuition, as a direct contemplation of other entities, is possible in this world, since man is also an extra-temporal and extra-spatial being, closely connected with the whole world.
Axiology
Ethics
Aesthetics

The theme of reincarnation in the works of N. O. Lossky

N. O. Lossky adhered to the theory of reincarnation of the soul (reincarnation). So in the work "The Teaching of Reincarnation" he wrote:

The theory of the pre-existence of the soul and reincarnation, developed by Leibniz and assimilated by me ... has never been condemned by the Church. ... At church prayers, for example. the content of the memorial service, the doctrine of reincarnation should not be reflected in any way. In the memorial service, all attention is focused on the ultimate goal of a person’s life, on his entry into the Kingdom of God, where there is “no sickness, no sorrow, no sighing, but endless life.” But in an individual prayer for the departed, a supporter of the doctrine of reincarnation can, of course, turn to God with a request to bless the deceased on the new paths of his life, to send down on him the gifts of the Holy Spirit, etc. ...

Major works

Compositions

"The Justification of Intuitionism" (1906),
"The World as an Organic Whole" (1917),
"Basic questions of epistemology" (1919),
"Free Will" (1927),
"Value and Existence" (1931, 1935, in the modern Russian edition "Value and Being"),
"God and the kingdom of God as the basis of values" (1931),
"Sensual, Intellectual and Mystical Intuition" (1938);
"Intellectual intuition and ideal being, creative activity",
"Evolution and Ideal Being",
"Mystical Intuition"
"God and World Evil" (1941);
"Conditions of Absolute Good" (1944),
"Dostoevsky and his Christian worldview" (1945),
The World as the Realization of Beauty.

Translations

Among the most important creative achievements of Lossky is his Russian translation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (the third in a row). Published for the first time in 1907, it became the basis for all subsequent Russian editions of this work by the German philosopher.

Compositions

N. O. Lossky, History of Russian Philosophy. - M.: Svarog and K, 2000.
N. O. Lossky, Value and Being. - M.: AST, 2000.

Literature

Nikolai Lossky: Bibliography / Comp. B. and N. Lossky. Paris, Institut d "etudes slaves. 1978. 129 p.
Ermichev A.A. Strokes to understanding the philosophy of N.O. Lossky // Bulletin of the Moscow University. Series 7. Philosophy. 1993. No. 4.S.64-69.
Ermichev A.A., Nikulin A.G. A.I. Vvedensky and N.O. Lossky: criticism and intuitionism at St. Petersburg University // Veche. Almanac of Russian Philosophy and Culture. Issue 12. St. Petersburg, 1999. pp.87-105.
Ovcharov A.A. Fundamentals of the ideal-realistic theory of intuition: (Analysis of N.O. Lossky's intuitionism in the context of phenomenology and philosophy of unity) Kemerovo state. uni-t. Kemerovo: Kuzbassvuzizdat, 1999.-215 p.
Korolkova E.A. The ontology of evil in the philosophy of N.O. Lossky // Russian Philosophy. Concepts. Personnel. Methods of teaching SPb., 2001. S. 74-75.
Veselovskaya E.V. The relationship of ontological, epistemological and logical elements in philosophical system BUT. Lossky // Bulletin of the Russian Philosophical Society No. 1 (29), 2004. P. 111-114.
Polovinkin S.M. Hierarchical personalism of N.O. Lossky // Bulletin of the Orthodox St. Tikhon Humanitarian University. Series: Philology. Philosophy. History. 2004. No. 3. P.48-80.
Zemlyanoy S. Clerical-conservative mythological dystopia: Alexey Losev

Notes

Russian philosophy
Westernism	Chaadaev Belinsky Herzen Granovsky
Slavophilism, Pochvenism and Pan-Slavism	Khomyakov I. Kireevsky I. Aksakov Dostoevsky Strakhov Leontiev Danilevsky
revolutionary democracy	Chernyshevsky Dobrolyubov Pisarev
Russian religious philosophy	Solovyov Rozanov Shestov Lossky Bulgakov Berdyaev Karsavin Florensky Franc Ilyin Losev
Populism and anarchism	Bakunin Lavrov Kropotkin Mikhailovsky
Russian cosmism	Fedorov Tsiolkovsky Vernadsky Chizhevsky

Author	Description	Year	Price	book type
Smirnov A.	This book contains essays that set out the family customary law of the Russian people. The main task of the author is to consider from a historical point of view the customs and concepts of the Russian people in the sphere ... - URSS, (format: 140x200, 120 pages)	2019	456	paper book
A. Smirnov	This book contains essays that set out the family customary law of the Russian people. The main task of the author is to consider from a historical point of view the customs and concepts of the Russian people in the sphere ... - LKI, (format: 60x90 / 16, 264 pages) academy fundamental research: ethnology	2015	590	paper book
Smirnov A.	Academy of Fundamental Research. Ethnology	2019	590	paper book
Smirnov A.	This book contains essays that set out the family customary law of the Russian people. The main task of the author is to consider from a historical point of view the customs and concepts of the Russian people in the sphere ... - URSS, (format: 60x90/16, 264 pages) Academy of Basic Research	2019	793	paper book
Ryabtsev Yury Sergeevich	This disc is the first part of an unparalleled electronic study guide dedicated to the life of the Russian people. It tells about his home and household utensils, meal… - AstraMedia, (format: 140x200, 120 pages)	2013	520	paper book
Maksimenko Yury Vladimirovich	According to modern school textbooks, the semi-wild tribes of our ancestors, who did not have statehood, built numerous cities and controlled a gigantic territory - from Staraya Ladoga to ... - Conceptual, (format: 60x90 / 16, 264 pages) -	2017	519	paper book
Maksimenko Yury Vladimirovich	According to modern school textbooks, the semi-wild tribes of our ancestors, who did not have statehood, built numerous cities and controlled a gigantic territory - from Staraya Ladoga to ... - Conceptual, (format: 60x90 / 16, 264 pages) History	2017	618	paper book
Ryabtsev Yury Sergeevich	This disc is the second part of an unparalleled electronic textbook dedicated to the life of Russian people - townspeople, nobles, emperors. It tells about their dwelling… - AstraMedia, (format: 140x200, 120 pages)	2013	520	paper book
Ryabtsev Yury Sergeevich	This disc is the third part of an unparalleled electronic textbook dedicated to the life of Russian people - townspeople, nobles, merchants of the 19th century. It tells about their… - Direct-Media, (format: 140x200, 120 pages)	2013	505	paper book
Sontsov	Dmitry Petrovich Sontsov (1803 - 1875) - numismatist and collector of antiquities, his works were published, in particular, in the Archaeological Bulletin, Proceedings of the Moscow Archaeological Society, Izvestia ... - ЁЁ Media, (format: 140x200, 120 pages) -	1875	1689	paper book
Priest Andrei Gorbunov, N. O. Lossky	This book contains two complementary works. In the first of them, "For everyone and for everything," our contemporary priest Andrei Gorbunov talks about things that relate to the responsibility of everyone ... - Publishing House of the Holy Trinity Brotherhood, (format: 140x200, 120 pages) More ... Wikipedia POCHAEV DEPARTMENT OF THE UNION OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE- (PO SRN), the most numerous department of the Union of the Russian People (SRN). The NRC PO was created in 1906 in Volyn, its center was the small town of Pochaev, or rather the Pochaev Lavra located there. Archim. Lavra Vitaly ... ... ALL-RUSSIAN ORTHODOX BROTHER UNION OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE- (PVBSRN) Saratov right monarchist organization. PVBSRN was created on May 30, 1907 at the initiative of Bishop. Saratov and Tsaritsyn schmch. Hermogen (Dolganov). The charter of the Union was approved by Bishop Hermogenes on July 8 on the day of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, ... ... Black Hundred. Historical Encyclopedia 1900–1917 The struggle of the Russian people for independence. The defeat of the Polish invaders- After, with the assistance of the "seventh boyars" who betrayed the interests of the homeland, recognizing Prince Vladislav as the Russian tsar, Polish interventionists captured Moscow, and Novgorod the Great fell into the hands of the Swedish invaders, the struggle populace… … The World History. Encyclopedia character- n., m., use. often Morphology: (no) what? character for what? character, (see) what? character than? character about what? about character; pl. what? characters, (no) what? characters for what? characters, (see) what? characters, what? characters about what? about… … Dictionary Dmitrieva - Kazan Department of the "Russian Assembly" (KORS) Leader: Solovyov, Alexander Titovich Date of foundation: end of 1904 / December 6 (19), 1905 Date of dissolution: no earlier than February March 1917 Ideology ... Wikipedia Flag of the Kingdom of Russia- Flag Russian Federation State flag The Russian Federation is its official state symbol (along with the emblem and anthem). It is a rectangular panel of three equal horizontal stripes: top white, middle ... Wikipedia

The first chapter of the religiosity of the Russian people

The main, most profound feature of the character of the Russian people is its religiosity and the search for absolute good associated with it, therefore, such good that is feasible only in the Kingdom of God. Perfect good without any admixture of evil and imperfections exists in the Kingdom of God because it consists of persons who fully realize in their behavior the two commandments of Jesus Christ: love God more than yourself and your neighbor as yourself. Members of the Kingdom of God are completely free from selfishness, and therefore they create only absolute values - moral goodness, beauty, knowledge of the truth, indivisible and indestructible blessings that serve the whole world. Relative goods, that is, those the use of which is good for some people and evil for others, do not attract members of the Kingdom of God to themselves. The pursuit of them is the main content of the life of people with an egoistic character, that is, people who do not have perfect love for God and prefer themselves to their neighbor, if not always, then at least in some cases.

Since the members of the Kingdom of God are completely free from selfishness, their body is not material, but transfigured. In fact, the material body is a consequence of egoism: it is obtained as the conquest of a certain part of space by acts of repulsion, creating a relatively impenetrable volume. Such a body is susceptible to injury and destruction, it is full of imperfections and is necessarily connected with the struggle for existence. The transformed body consists of the processes of light, sound, heat, aromas created by the celestials and serves as an expression of their spiritual creativity, which creates absolute values. Such a spiritual-corporeal whole has an ideal beauty. Without containing within itself the acts of pushing, the transformed body cannot be subject to repulsion; therefore, it is able to penetrate all material barriers, it is not accessible to any wounds and cannot be destroyed by anything. Members of the Kingdom of God are not subject to bodily death. In general, there are no imperfections and no evil in this Kingdom.

The search for absolute good, of course, does not mean that a Russian person, for example, a commoner, is consciously attracted to the Kingdom

See my book Conditions of Absolute Good. Paris; "Des conditions de la morale absolue". Ed. de la Baconniere, Neuchatel.

God, having in his mind a complex system of teachings about him. Fortunately, in the human soul there is a power that attracts to good and condemns evil, regardless of the degree of education and knowledge: this power is the voice of conscience. Russian people have a particularly sensitive distinction between good and evil; he vigilantly notices the imperfection of all our actions, morals and institutions, never being satisfied with them and never ceasing to seek perfect goodness. b

The religion and philosophy of all peoples long before Christianity established that man and even the entire world existence is drawn consciously or unconsciously upward to absolute perfection, to God*. The difference between people and nations lies in the form and degree in which this striving upward is realized in them, and to what temptations they fall under this. A significant part of my notes on the Russian people is devoted to the question of the nature of their search for absolute good.

Let's take the grandiose work of S. M. Solovyov "History of Russia from ancient times." In it we find the texts of the annals, the relations of the princes with each other, the relations of the squads with the princes, the influence of the clergy, the relations of the boyars with the prince, the reports of diplomats, commanders. All these documents are full of references to God, thoughts about the will of God and obedience to Him. Before death, princes usually took the vows "in the monks and in the schema." An example is the behavior of Prince Dimitry Svyatoslavich Yuryevsky. To the bishop of Rostov, who tonsured him into the schema, he said: “Lord Father, Vladyka Ignatius, fulfill, Lord God, your work, which prepared me for a long journey, for eternal summer, equipped me with a warrior to the true King Christ, our God” (T. 4. Chapter 3, pp. 1172 (3rd ed.; see in general pp. 1172-1174).

In the 18th century, when many Voltaireans appeared among the Russian nobility, the activity of Masons developed widely in the second half of the century, striving to deepen the understanding of the truths of Christianity and implement them in personal and public life. In the 19th century, the religiosity of the Russian people was expressed in great literature, imbued with the search for absolute goodness and the meaning of life, as well as in the flowering of religious philosophy.

The listed manifestations of the religiosity of the Russian people refer to the behavior of its higher strata. As for the lower classes of the people, especially the peasants, their religiosity is revealed with no less obviousness. Let us remember Russian wanderers, pilgrims to holy places, especially to such famous monasteries as the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, Solovki, Pochaev Monastery, and beyond Russia - to Athos, to Palestine. The thirst for worship of the miraculous icons of the Mother of God and the meaning of the pilgrimage to various icons of the Mother of God seems like idolatry to people who do not have a specific religious experience. These phenomena are thoughtfully explained

_________________

See my book Value and Being. Ch. II. pp. 52-54; "Value and Existence". George Alien and Unwin.

about. Pavel Florensky in his book "The Pillar and Ground of Truth". “Each legitimate icon of the Mother of God,” he says, “is revealed,” that is, marked by miracles and, so to speak, received OK and statement from the Virgin Mother herself, attested in its spiritual truthfulness by the Virgin Mother Herself, there is an imprint of only one side, a bright spot on the earth from one only a ray of grace, one from her picturesque names. From here... seeking to bow different icons. The names of some of them partly express their spiritual essence” (p. 369 et seq.).

To what a high spiritual life simple, poorly educated people can reach, an example is the book “Frank stories of a wanderer to his spiritual father”. Dostoevsky finds the synthesis and completion of all the good qualities of the Russian people in its Christian spirit. “Perhaps the only love of the Russian people is Christ,” Dostoevsky thinks (Diary of a Writer, 1873, V). He proves this idea in the following way: the Russian people accepted Christ into their hearts in a peculiar way, as an ideal philanthropist; therefore, he possesses true spiritual enlightenment, receiving it in prayers, in tales about saints, in veneration of great ascetics. His historical ideals are Saints Sergius of Radonezh, Theodosius of the Caves, Tikhon of Zadonsk (A writer's diary. 1876. February, 1, 2). Recognizing holiness as the highest value, striving for absolute goodness, the Russian people, says Dostoevsky, do not elevate earthly relative values, such as private property, to the rank of "sacred" principles. In the novel Demons, Dostoevsky expresses through Shatov his idea that the Russian people are a “God-bearing people” (Part II, Ch. 1).

The researcher of Russian religiosity G. P. Fedotov in his book “Russian Religions Mind. Kievan Russia" showed that Christianity fell on fertile ground in Russia: already in Kievan Rus, before the Mongol yoke, it was assimilated, at least, by the highest strata of the people in its true essence, precisely as a religion of love. Vladimir Monomakh; the Grand Duke of Kyiv (died in 1125), in his “Instruction” to children, condemns pride and vanity, speaks out against the death penalty, sees the beauty and glory of God in nature, highly appreciates prayer. “If, while riding a horse, you are not doing business,” he writes, “then, if you don’t know other prayers, constantly repeat: Lord, have mercy. This is better than thinking about trifles ”(think trifles). To all people, he advises to be benevolent: “Do not go past a person without greeting him, but tell him good word". Metropolitan Nikifor of Kievan Rus, in his "Message" to Monomakh, says that he loves to cook sumptuous dinners for others, while he himself serves the guests; “Those who are subject to him eat and drink to their heart’s content, and he just sits and watches, being content with little food and water.” At the same time, it should be noted that Vladimir Monomakh was a man of courageous character, who showed outstanding courage both in war and in dangerous hunting.

In the further history of Russia, following the upper strata

society and thanks to the influence of the great saints also the lower strata of the population assimilated Christianity to such an extent that the ideal of the people was not the mighty, not rich, but "Holy Russia". “In ancient Russian holiness,” says Fedotov, “the gospel image of Christ shines brighter than anywhere else in history.”*

Russian saints especially realize in their behavior the "kenosis" of Christ, his "image of a slave", poverty, humility, simplicity of life, selflessness, meekness (p. 128). Heroic philanthropy and miracles of St. Nicholas was so loved by the people that he became a national Russian saint (44). Sermons of St. John Chrysostom and St. Ephrem the Syrian became a favorite reading; in the first, it attracted a call to mercy, and in the second, to repentance.

Leo Tolstoy, whose life and works serve as a vivid example of the search for absolute goodness and the meaning of life, knew the Russian people well. In the article "Songs in the Village" he says that the Russian people are "meek, wise, holy." Two years before his death, in the "Preface to the album" Russian peasants "by N. Orlov" he says about the Russian peasants that they are "a humble, laboring, Christian, meek, patient people. Orlov and I love in this people their muzhik, humble, patient soul, enlightened by true Christianity. Looking at Orlov's paintings, Tolstoy experiences the consciousness of "the great spiritual strength of the people."

S. L. Frank in his excellent article "Die Russische Weltanschauung" says: "The Russian spirit is permeated through and through with religiosity."** Berdyaev often repeated in his discourses on Russia that Russians are not interested in the middle area of culture. “The Russian idea,” he says, “is not the idea of a flourishing culture and a powerful kingdom, the Russian idea is the eschatological idea of the Kingdom of God.” “Russian Orthodoxy does not have its own justification of culture, it had a nihilistic element in relation to everything that a person creates in this world. In Orthodoxy, the eschatological side of Christianity was most strongly expressed. “We Russians are apocalyptic or nihilist.”

The historian and philosopher Lev Platonovich Karsavin finds that the essential moment of the Russian spirit is religiosity, including militant atheism. The Russian ideal is the interpenetration of the Church and the state. But, unfortunately, he says, Russian Orthodoxy has a serious shortcoming - its passivity, inactivity. "Confidence in the future deification secures the present." Moreover, the ideal is unattainable "through partial reforms and isolated efforts"; meanwhile, the Russian person wants to act "always in the name of something absolute or absolutized." If the Russian doubts the absolute ideal, then he can reach the extreme bestiality or indifference to

__________________

* Fedotov G. Saints Ancient Russia. Paris, 1931. S. 251.

**Philosophische Voiträge, veröffentlicht von der Kantgesellschaft. 1926. Nr. 29.

*** Berdyaev N. Russian idea. pp. 144, 132, 131.

everything; he is able to go "from incredible law-abidingness to the most unbridled boundless rebellion." Striving for the infinite, Russian people are afraid of definitions; hence, in Karsavin's opinion, the ingenious reincarnation of Russians is explained*. Walter Schubart, a Baltic German who probably knew the Russian language and Russian culture as intimately as the Russians themselves, wrote a wonderful book "Europa und die Seele des Ostens", translated into Russian and English languages. Schubart opposes to each other mainly two types of man: the Promethean, heroic man and the Johannine, messianic man, that is, the man who follows the ideal given in the Gospel of John. He considers the Slavs, especially the Russians, to be representatives of the John type. Prometheevsky, “a heroic person sees chaos in the world, which he must shape with his organizing power; he is full of lust for power; he moves farther and farther away from God and goes deeper and deeper into the world of things. Secularization is his destiny, heroism is his life feeling, tragedy is his end.” Such are the "Romance and Germanic peoples of our time"**.

Ioannovsky, “Messianic man feels himself called to create a higher divine order on earth, whose image he fatally bears in himself. He wants to restore around him the harmony that he feels in himself. This is how the first Christians and most of the Slavs felt. “The Messianic man is inspired not by a thirst for power, but by a mood of reconciliation and love. He does not divide in order to dominate, but seeks the divided in order to reunite it. He is not driven by feelings of suspicion and hatred, he is full of deep trust in the essence of things. He sees in people not enemies, but brothers; in the world, however, it is not prey to be thrown at, but gross matter to be illuminated and sanctified. He is driven by a feeling of some kind of cosmic obsession, he proceeds from the concept of the whole, which he feels in himself and which he wants to restore in a fragmented environment. He is haunted by the desire for the all-encompassing and the desire to make it visible and tangible” (5 et seq.). “The struggle for universality will become the main feature of the Johannine man” (9). In the era of Johannine, the center of gravity will pass into the hands of those who strive “for the superearthly as a permanent feature of the national character, and such are the Slavs, especially the Russians. A huge event that is now being prepared is the ascent of the Slavs as a leading cultural force” (16).

Schubart's goal in his book is to influence "European self-knowledge through contrast" (25). “The West,” he says, “gave humanity the most perfect forms of technology, statehood and communications, but it deprived it of its soul. Russia's task is to return it to the people" (26). "Only Russia is capable of

*Karsavin L. East, West and the Russian idea. pp. 15, 70, 58, 62, 79.

** Schubart V. Europe and the soul of the East, 3rd ed. pp. 5, 6. In English: Russia and Western Man.

to spiritualize the human race, mired in materiality and corrupted by the thirst for power”, and this despite the fact that at the moment “she herself is tormented in the convulsions of Bolshevism” (26 et seq.). The stream of the Promethean worldview spread in Russia in three waves, Schubart says, “it went through the Europeanization policy of Peter the Great, then through the French revolutionary ideas and, finally, atheistic socialism, which seized laying in Russia in 1917” (56). The reaction of the Russian soul to this Promethean spirit is sometimes asceticism, but more messianic: it wants to formalize external world"According to heavenly inner image”, his ideal is “not pure this-worldliness, like that of a Promethean man, but the Kingdom of God” (58 et seq.).

The Bolshevik regime is a parody of the Promethean spirit. Judging by the information coming from Russia, he causes horror, disgust and the growth of religiosity in the Russian people. Therefore, one can hope that after the fall of the Bolshevik power, the Johannine spirit of Russian culture will be restored and will have a beneficial effect on all mankind.

Schubart's book testifies to his deep love for the Russian people and Russian culture. Loving gaze reveals the ideal depths of the beloved being, even those that are far from being fully realized and require further development. Such a character of insight into the depths and possibilities lurking in the spirit of the Slavs, and especially the Russians, has the entire book of Schubart. Therefore, it is useful to read it, especially for us Russians, in order to ask God's help for the perfect development of those spiritual properties that Schubart found in the Slavs, and for the knowledge of deviations along this path, which should be feared.

The most important expression of the nature of the religiosity of the Russian people is realized in the Russian Orthodox Church. Berdyaev is right that Russian Orthodoxy is focused on eschatology, on striving for the Kingdom of God, i.e., for superearthly absolute goodness. This character of Orthodoxy is vividly expressed in all divine services and in the annual cycle of church life, in which the "holiday" is Pascha, the Resurrection of Christ, which marks the victory over death in the form of the Transfiguration, i.e., life in the Kingdom of God. Icons of the Russian Orthodox Church, like Byzantine icons, are profoundly different from the religious painting of the Italian Renaissance: their beauty is not earthly prettiness, but superearthly spirituality.

Orthodox monasticism leads a life dedicated to prayer for one's soul and for the whole world. Being engaged in ascetic exploits and monastic labor, it takes little part in earthly life. A vivid idea of this character of Russian monasticism can be obtained from Hieromonk Sophrony's book Elder Silouan, recently published in Paris. Relying on living prayerful communion with the Lord God and the Kingdom of God while venerating the saints, Orthodox person guided in his religious life and in theological works without reference to

authorities and not by complex conclusions, but by living religious experience *. The fact that the Orthodox Church is not subject to external authority in developing the dogmas and foundations of church life is Khomyakov's considerations. Dealing with the question of how to combine in church life two difficult-to-combine principles—freedom and unity—Khomyakov worked out a remarkable, original concept of catholicity. He says that in the Catholic authoritarian Church there is unity without freedom, while in the Protestant Church there is freedom without unity. According to his teaching, catholicity should be the principle of the structure of the Church, meaning by this word the unity of many persons on the basis of their common love for God, for the God-man Jesus Christ and for the truth of God. Love freely unites believers in the Church as the Body of Christ.

Khomyakov loses sight of the fact that the Catholic Church, being a superstate and combining European, Asian, American, etc. Catholics into one whole, maintains its unity also thanks to catholicity, i.e. thanks to the love of Catholics for the same lofty values. But the high dignity of Orthodoxy lies in the fact that the principle of catholicity is recognized in it as a higher foundation of the Church than any earthly authorities. Khomyakov admits that the principle of catholicity has not been fully implemented in Orthodoxy, that the higher clergy are often prone to despotism, but such a phenomenon is understandable in the conditions of earthly sinful life, and it is good that the principle of love, and therefore freedom, is proclaimed in Orthodoxy.

The concept of catholicity developed by Khomyakov is so valuable and peculiar that it is impossible to translate it into other languages, and the word "sobornost" is already accepted in German and Anglo-American literature. The fellowship (fellow, ship) of Anglican and Orthodox Christians, which exists in some cities in Great Britain and the United States of America, even publishes a magazine called Sobornost.

The legal doctrine of salvation is rejected by the Orthodox Church. Its spirit corresponds to the teaching that behavior guided by perfect love for God and neighbor, in itself, without any external rewards, is bliss. A detailed work on this issue, "The Orthodox Doctrine of Salvation," was written in late XIX century archimandrite (future patriarch) Sergius.

The spirit of the Orthodox Church, which is based on love, is expressed in the "good" nature and even appearance of many Russian clerics. This feature of the Russian clergy was well noted by Schubart. He writes: “Harmonic spirit. lives in all ancient Russian Christianity. “Harmony lies in the image of a Russian priest. His soft features and wavy hair are reminiscent of old icons. What a contrast to the Jesuit heads of the West with their flat, austere, Caesarist faces.” “Compared to the businesslike, almost theatrical behavior

*Cm. book by V. Lossky "Essay sur la théologie mystique de l" Eglise d "Orient".

For the paramount importance of religious experience, see S. L. Frank's God with us.

Europeans, Kireevsky notes the humility, calmness, restraint, dignity and inner harmony of people who grew up in the traditions of the Orthodox Church. This is felt in everything, right down to prayer. The Russian does not lose his temper with emotion, but, on the contrary, pays special attention to maintaining a sober mind and a harmonious state of mind” (51). The same properties of the Russian priest are also noted by Tolstoy in War and Peace. In Moscow on Sunday, July 12, 1812, the Sovereign's manifesto was received on the beginning of the war with Napoleon, and a prayer was sent from the Synod to save Russia from enemy invasion. The priest in the church, “a gracious old man,” writes Tolstoy, reads a prayer: “Lord God of strength, God of our salvation,” the priest began in that clear, unpompous and meek voice that only spiritual Slavic readers read and which has such an irresistible effect on the Russian heart. (T. III. Part 1. Ch. 18).

In general, Vladimir Filimonovich Martsinkovsky speaks of the benevolent nature of Russian Orthodoxy in his wonderful book Notes of a Believer. Martsinkovsky, having become a religious preacher, traveled all over European Russia, met with many people and, based on his rich experience, speaks of the deep religiosity of the Russian people in all its strata and of their thirst for religious enlightenment. He fearlessly continued his lectures under the Bolshevik government, until it expelled him from Russia in 1923. Imprisoned in Moscow in the Taganka prison, he met the hieromonk Fr. George, who served as a nurse in the prison. “A great acquisition for me,” he writes, “was acquaintance with this type of true Russian Orthodoxy, or simply Russian Christianity, with all its simplicity containing both wisdom and strong will, and most importantly, amazing gentleness, breadth and love, love without end. .."

Father George was at first a novice of the Optina elder Ambrose. According to him, Martsinkovsky gives an amazing report about Leo Tolstoy.

"O. Georgy also saw Leo Tolstoy, how he came to Optina, having left Yasnaya Polyana. I did not get an appointment with Elder Joseph, who was then seriously ill. Lev Nikolaevich walked along the forest path, deep in thought. He sees two monks walking, carrying baskets of mushrooms. Hello. “It’s good for you here!.. I would like to build a hut here and live with you.” “Well, it’s possible,” one of the monks affectionately answered. Then Lev Nikolayevich, after a second unsuccessful attempt to get to Fr. Joseph went to Shamordino to his sister, nun Maria Nikolaevna. He loved her very much. Father Georgy assures that Lev Nikolaevich then said to his sister: “Masha, I repent of my teaching about Jesus Christ ...” This conversation was stopped with the arrival of Chertkov and Makovitsky, who took Lev Nikolaevich from Shamordin. Very hard

_________________

* Martsinkovsky VF Notes of a believer. Prague, 1929. S. 171 et seq.

prove whether Fr. George reliable information about the conversation between Leo Tolstoy and his sister during their last meeting. Towards the end of his life, Tolstoy ceased to viciously attack the traditional teachings and practices of the Church. Therefore, there is some probability of the correctness of the message about. George. But there is one important inaccuracy in his story. When Tolstoy left Yasnaya Polyana, Dr. Makovitsky accompanied him all the time. Alexandra Lvovna Tolstaya joined them in Shamordino. Chertkov was not in Shamordin, he joined Tolstoy after his departure from Shamordin, where Tolstoy hastened to leave, fearing that his wife Sofya Andreevna would overtake him there. It should also be noted that the words: “I repent of my teaching about Jesus Christ” were not communicated by Lev Nikolayevich's sister herself to other members of his family. It is not known who gave them to Fr. Georgiy and did he accurately convey *. Therefore, there is no reason to confidently assert that Leo Tolstoy at the end of his life recognized the God-manhood of Jesus Christ, but there is no doubt that he began to refrain from rude attacks on Christianity.

The religiosity of the Russian people and the meek goodness of the clergy, it would seem, should have been expressed in the preaching of social Christianity, i.e., in the teaching that the principles of Christianity should be implemented not only in personal individual relations, but also in legislation and in the organization of public and state institutions. Leroy-Beaulieu, in the third volume of his vast work on Russia, says: the originality of Russia can be manifested in the realization of the evangelical spirit, namely “in the application of the ethics of Christ in public no less than in private life” (III, 506). The Orthodox clergy in the 19th century tried to come up with this idea in literature, but the government systematically suppressed such aspirations and helped to strengthen the idea that the goal of religious life is only concern for the personal salvation of the soul. In the work of George Florovsky "Ways of Russian theology" can be found in the chapter " historical school There is a lot of information about how the government hampered the literary activities of the clergy and, to the detriment of the Church and society, hindered the development of religious ideology. Relegating the Church to the level of a servant of the state, the government turned the clergy into officials. The essence of such a policy was well expressed in Leskov's novel "Soboryane" by the swindler Termosesov: "Religion can only be tolerated as one of the forms of administration. And as soon as faith becomes a serious faith, then it is harmful and it must be picked up and tightened up” (Part II, Ch. 10). A stunning example of the “humility” of bishops, members of the Synod, who, against the dictates of their conscience, obey the demand of state power, is the story of the appointment of the monk Barnabas to the bishopric, told by Milyukov in “Essays on the History of Russian Culture”. Submission of the higher (black)

*Cm. book: Tolstaya A. L. Father. Publishing house named after Chekhov.

The clergy of the supreme power and its representative, the chief procurator of the Synod, even increased during the reign of Sabler, who continued the tradition of Pobedonostsev, says Milyukov. An extremely characteristic episode from the era of this submission is the story of the blasphemous consecration of Rasputin’s protégé monk Barnabas as a bishop, told by a direct participant, Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky in a private letter to Metropolitan Flavian dated August 2, 1911: Bishop of Kargopol; his consecration in Moscow. How did it happen? That's how. Vl. K. Sabler declared that the Sovereign wishes to see him as a bishop. Rev. Dmitry said: "And then Rasputin will have to be consecrated." I began to offer to explain the inconvenience of this desire; then V.K. took out his most humble petition for resignation from his briefcase and explained that he would see in the refusal of the Synod his inability to mediate between the Sovereign and the Synod and would leave this matter to another. Then, on behalf of the hierarchs, I said: “In order to keep you in office, we will consecrate the black boar as a bishop, but is it possible to send him to Biysk, consecrate him in Tomsk, etc.” On the evening of August 8, we secretly gathered at St. Sergius and, having lifted up many sighs, decided to choose the lesser of two evils ”(T. 2.4. 1. P. 183).

Thinking with chagrin about the degraded state of that Church, which can be called "official", one must remember that in Russia, nevertheless, the true Christian Church was preserved in the depths in the person of ascetics revered by the people, who lived in the silence of monasteries, and especially in the person of the elders, to whom thousands of people from all strata of the Russian people resorted to instruct and comfort. The artistic depiction of how the elder acts is known to the whole world from Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov, where the image of the elder Zosima is given.

Information about really existing elders can be obtained from the book of Fr. Sergiy Chetverikov "Optina Pustyn"*.

The clergy, subject to special spiritual censorship, could not develop the idea of social Christianity, but secular people did a lot of work on this problem. Slavophiles Khomyakov, K. Aksakov were supporters of this idea, as far as one could try to express it under the regime of Tsar Nicholas 1. The doctrine of social Christianity was developed in various ways in the works of Vl. Solovyov, especially in his Justification of the Good, and in the works of S. N. Bulgakov, N. A. Berdyaev.

We should also not forget Russia's participation in attempts to apply the principles of Christianity to international relations. Let us recall the participation of Russia in the Holy Alliance under Alexander 1 and the proposal that came from Emperor Nicholas II at the end of the 19th century to establish an international tribunal to resolve disputes between states not by war, but by court. the most wonderful

____________________

*Cm. See also: Karsavin Starzen. Starzen; SmoUtsch lgor. Leben und Lehre der

the idea of a normal relationship of peoples to each other was expressed by Vl. Solovyov: the commandment of Jesus Christ: "Love your neighbor as yourself" - he also applied in relation to peoples to each other: "Love all other peoples as your own."

It is said about the Russian intelligentsia of the second half of the 19th century that it was the most atheistic. This is not true: she was indeed the most non-church, but this does not mean that she was atheistic. The falling away from the Church was partly due to the false idea that the dogmatic content of Christianity was inconsistent with the scientific worldview, but to an even greater extent the reason for the cooling off towards the Church was the absurd policy of the government, which hampered the free development of religious life. Let me give you one example from a wonderful book by Fr. Georgy Florovsky “Ways of Russian Theology”: “The brilliant book of the Moscow professor M. D. Muretov against Renan was stopped by censorship, since in order to refute it was necessary to state the refuted “false teaching”, which did not seem trustworthy. Renan continued to be read in secret, and the book against Renan was 15 years late. And the impression was created that the reason for the prohibitions was the impotence to defend oneself” (421).

Educated people who have departed from the Church have lost the Christian idea of the Kingdom of God, but many of them have retained their striving for perfect goodness and are tormented by the unrighteousness of our sinful earthly life. This mood is found, for example, in the search for social justice. characteristic phenomenon public life Russia was what Mikhailovsky called the words "repentant nobleman" and Lavrov expressed the thought of the need to pay "a debt to the people." This mood of the Russian people, who belong to the privileged classes of society, was well expressed by Dostoevsky: he said in the "Diary of a Writer" that he could never understand such a system in which one tenth of the people enjoy many of life's blessings, and nine tenths are deprived of them.

Even among the big bourgeoisie, among the wealthy industrialists and merchants, there were moods that showed that they were, as it were, ashamed of their wealth and, of course, would consider it blasphemy to call the right to property "sacred." Among them were many patrons and donors of large sums of money for various public institutions. Let us recall, for example, such names as the Tretyakovs, Morozovs, Mammoths, Shanyavsky, Serebryakov, Shchukin, Ryabushinskys. There were also such rich industrialists who gave money to revolutionaries who fought against capitalism.

N. I. Astrov, the last elected head of the city of Moscow, reports the characterization given by Kobylinsky-Ellis * of his brother Pavel Ivanovich Astrov, a member of the Moscow District

Who is Kobylinsky-Ellis, you can learn from the memoirs of Andrei Bely.

court. The ideal of P.I. Astrov was the reconciliation of three principles - integral religiosity, public in the spirit of peaceful and humane evolution, creative culture. Walking with Andrei Bely and Kobylinsky, he once said: "Our ideal of the future is the face of a cultural righteous man, a holy future."*

I will give an example of one such cultural righteous man. It was a public school teacher, Vyacheslav Yakovlevich Avramov, a landowner in the Kostroma province. He received his higher education at the Mining Institute, but decided to devote his life not to engineering, but to enlightening the lower classes of the people. He became a teacher at a folk school in St. Petersburg near the Volkov cemetery. His Russian literacy lessons and even arithmetic lessons were something of a performance art. Teachers from all over St. Petersburg came to his school to learn the art of teaching. In his youth, he fell in love with a girl who wanted to get a higher education and go to Switzerland for this purpose. Her parents didn't give her permission. She did not respond to the feelings of Vyacheslav Yakovlevich, but entered into a fictitious marriage with him, as was often done in the sixties, and immediately went abroad. So Avramov remained a bachelor for life. He sold his estate and, with the proceeds, set up several zemstvo folk schools in the Kostroma province.

Among the Russian revolutionaries who became atheists, instead of Christian religiosity, there was a mood that can be called formal religiosity, namely, a passionate, fanatical desire to realize a kind of Kingdom of God on earth, without God, on the basis of scientific knowledge. S. N. Bulgakov wrote a number of articles about this character of the Russian intelligentsia and reprinted them in the collection Two Cities. He says that government persecution evoked in the revolutionary intelligentsia "a sense of well-being of martyrdom and confession," while forced isolation from life developed "dreaminess, utopianism, and a generally inadequate sense of reality" (180). Being a deputy of the Second State Duma and observing its political activity, “I clearly saw,” Bulgakov writes, “how, in essence, these people stand far from politics, that is, the daily prosaic work of repairing and lubricating the state mechanism. This is not the psychology of politicians, not prudent realists and gradualists, no, this is the impatient exaltation of people waiting for the realization of the Kingdom of God on earth. New Jerusalem, and, moreover, almost tomorrow. One involuntarily recalls the Anabaptists and many other communist sectarians of the Middle Ages, apocalyptics and chiliasts, who were waiting for the imminent onset of the millennium Kingdom of Christ and clearing the way for it with a sword, popular uprising, communist experiments, peasant wars; I remember John of Leiden with his retinue of prophets in Münster” (135).

____________________

*Astrov N.I. Memories. S. 220.

Further, Bulgakov shows how the passionate thirst for the realization of the Kingdom of God on earth without God and, consequently, without absolute goodness, leads to the replacement of the idea of the God-Man by the human-God, and after this to the bestialization of man, or, more precisely, I would say, to the rabidization of man, which occurs in the USSR.

Not only Russian writers, but also foreigners who have closely observed Russian life, in most cases note the outstanding religiosity of the Russian people. I will refer to several foreigners and of those whose opinions I will also give in the future, I will briefly report who they are and how they got to know the Russian people.

Remarkable in its thoroughness, research on Russia and the Russian people was carried out by the French scientist Leroy-Beaulieu (1842-1912). He was in Russia four times in 1872-1881. and published his work in three large volumes, L "Empire des Tsars et les Russes" (1881-1889). The Russian masses, he says, have not lost their sense of connection "with the inhabitants of the invisible world" (T. III. Book I. Chapter II, p. 11. Among the common Russian people, he finds a peculiar combination of realism and mysticism, veneration of the cross, recognition of the value of suffering and repentance (45). literary works even unbelieving Russians have a religious-Christian character. The originality of Russia, thinks Leroy-Beaulieu, can be manifested in the realization of the evangelical spirit, namely in the application of the ethics of Christ in public life no less than in private life (Book III, Ch. XI, p. 568).

The Englishman Stephen Graham traveled to Russia many times; he became acquainted with all strata of Russian society, especially with the peasants. Having mastered the Russian language well, dressing simply in order to be mistaken for a Russian worker in the crowd, he walked many hundreds of kilometers and observed Russian life from Arkhangelsk to Vladikavkaz. Together with the pilgrims, he went to worship saints in monasteries, traveled on a Russian steamer along with pilgrims to Palestine. Traveling on foot in northern Russia near the White Sea, he spent the night in peasant huts *.

In the book "The Way of Martha and the Way of Mary" Graham says that with the English the conversation ends with a conversation about sports, with a Frenchman - a conversation about a woman, with a Russian intellectual - a conversation about Russia, and with a peasant - a conversation about God and religion (54, 72) . Russians can talk about religion for six hours straight. The Russian idea is a Christian idea; in the foreground in it - love for the suffering, pity, attention to the individual personality (93-96).

_____________________

* I will point out the following books written by him about Russia and the Russian people: “Undiscovered Russia”, 1912; "With the Russian pilgrims to Jerusalem", 1913; "Changing Russia", 1913; "The way of Martha and the way of Mary", 1915; Russia and the world", 1915; "Russia in 1916", 1917.

The Russian considers our mortal life not true life and material force not real force (III). In other words, Graham wants to say that Russian Christianity is focused on the idea of the Kingdom of God and absolute perfection in it. The Eastern Church, he says, follows the path of Mary. The Russian is surrounded in the Church by "witnesses of the truth", the faces of saints looking at him from icons; from them comes the light of Transfiguration; entering the Assumption Cathedral in Moscow, a person enters the "other world" (201-203).

In the book “Unknown Russia”, Graham speaks with admiration of the icon lamp glowing in front of the icon, radiating peace, that such an icon lamp in front of the icon can be seen everywhere in Russia, both at the station and in the bathhouse; therefore, the nearness of God is felt everywhere. “I love Russia,” he says. “For me, in a sense, it is something more than my native country. Sometimes it seems to me that I am a happy prince who has found the Sleeping Beauty ”(7).

The Englishman Maurice Baring (Maurice Baring, 1874-1945), a poet and journalist, met in Copenhagen the family of the Russian envoy Count Benckendorff, whose wife was a highly cultured Russian intellectual. Since 1901, he often traveled to their estate Sosnovka in the Tambov province. During the Russo-Japanese War, he was in Manchuria with the Russian army as a correspondent for the Morning Post newspaper. In 1905-1906. he watched the Russian revolution*.

Living on the estate and being with the army, Baring observed the religiosity of the Russian people, fasts, prayers, candles in front of icons, uplifting spirits during the Easter holiday, but among educated Russian people, he says, there are more atheists than in Western Europe (Russian people. With .72). In the book “The Main Sources of Russia”, he says that the Russian peasant is deeply religious, sees God in all things and considers a person who does not believe in God to be abnormal, stupid (p. 46). Pushkin's poem “I outlived my desires, I fell out of love with my dreams; Only suffering remains for me, The fruits of emptiness of the heart.” Baring translated perfectly, conveying not only its content, but also the music of the verse.

The Englishman Harold Williams, the husband of Ariadna Vladimirovna Tyrkova, thanks to his connection with her highly cultured family and life on her parents' estate on the banks of the Volkhov, became well acquainted with the character and life of Russian peasants. In his book "Russia of the Russians" he speaks of the high religiosity of the Russian people. The people, he says, not only receive aesthetic emotions from worship, but also acquire religious

___________________

*Baring has written many books about Russia. I will point out the following from them: “With the Russians in Manchueria”, 1905; "A year in Russia", 1907; "The mainspring of Russia", 1914; The Russian people, 1911. She wrote a book about Baring's life and work, Ethel Smith: Hon. Maurice Baring. 1938.

convictions thanks to the Gospel read in the church, as well as drawing them from the lives of saints and legends. Williams knows that since the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian intelligentsia has awakened an interest in religion and a return to the Church has begun.

Professor Bernard Pares, who was director of the School of Slavic Studies at the University of London and editor of the Slavonic Review, traveled to Russia many times since 1890, lived not only in cities, but also in the countryside, for example, on the estate of Mashuk Ivan Ilyich Petrunkevich in Novotorzhsky district of the Tver province. In Russia, he speaks lovingly of the idealism of the Russian people (25).

R. Wright in his book "The Russians" (1917) says that religion is the basis of life in Russia, its pulse: concern not for the present, but for heavenly life (11).

Sorbonne professor Jules Legras wrote the book "L" ame russe "(1934). In it, he talks about the freedom of Russians to go or not go to church, that Russians are the least disciplined people in Europe, but this people is vague attraction to the higher and in its own way it is a deep religiosity, more mystical than in France Orthodox worship, he says, makes a deep impression (167-179).

German K. Onasch (Onasch) in the book "Geist und Geschichte der Russischen Ostkirche" (1947) indicates that the well-known Protestant theologian Adolf Harnack misunderstood the Orthodox Church, who considered faith in the sacraments and the veneration of icons as a manifestation of barbarism (8). Russian understanding of life and religiosity, says Onash, is distinguished by remarkable integrity (7): it is based on a passion for absolute values and the transformation of the world (34); Russian icons testify to the overcoming of earthly existence (32).

Hans von Eckardt in his book Russisches Christentum (1947) considers that a characteristic feature of Russian religiosity is the desire to free oneself from temporary material existence and the attraction to a transfigured life in the Kingdom of God (14 et seq.). The examples given are enough to show that even foreigners who are well acquainted with Russia note the deep religiosity of the Russian people. Considering the main property of the Russian people to be Christian religiosity and the search for absolute good associated with it, realizable only in the Kingdom of God, I will try in the following chapters to explain some other properties of the Russian people in connection with this essential feature of their character.

Among all the works of N. O. Lossky, the book "The Character of the Russian People" occupies a special place. These are his own reflections and conclusions, as well as a consistent and scrupulous study of the works of his predecessors and contemporaries on this issue. In his work, Lossky means “the soul of individual Russian people, and not the soul of the Russian nation as a whole, since ... the character of the soul of a social whole can sometimes or in some respects differ profoundly from the character of the people included in it” (Lossky N. O On the Russian Character, Moscow, 1990, p. 2).

However, some properties of the character of individuals who are part of a social whole also belong to this whole, therefore N. O. Lossky considers the properties of the Russian character in relation not only to an individual, but also to Russia as a whole.

The main character trait of the Russian people is its religiosity and the search for absolute good associated with it, which is feasible only in the Kingdom of God. In the soul of a Russian person there is a force that draws him to good and condemns evil - the voice of conscience. Even with the loss of the Christian idea of the Kingdom of God, having become an atheist, a Russian person retains the desire for perfect good (the search for social justice by Russian revolutionaries, etc.). The most important expression of the nature of the religiosity of the Russian people was carried out in the Russian Orthodox Church. Russian Orthodoxy is focused on eschatology, on striving for the Kingdom of God, for superearthly absolute goodness. However, the official church in Russia is in a belittled state, being one of the forms of administration. real Christian church- in the person of elders, ascetics revered by the people.

The ability of the Russian people to the highest forms of experience (religious, moral experience, perception of someone else's spiritual life, intellectual intuition) Lossky traces, starting with religious experience. Orthodox religiosity is in close connection with mystical religious experience and has a mystical contemplative character, which helps to realize the experience of closeness to God.

The high development of moral experience is manifested in a special interest in distinguishing between good and evil, as well as in a sensitive distinction between impurities of evil in good. “Despite the fact that a Russian person often sins, he is always aware of what he has done bad deed and repents of it."

Especially valuable is such a quality of a Russian person as a sensitive perception of someone else's spiritual mood. Hence - live individual communication even among unfamiliar people.

Religiosity, associated with the search for absolute goodness, makes a person think about the meaning of life. A Russian person is characterized by a “religious-emotional” understanding of life. This interest inevitably leads to philosophizing and attempts to build a holistic worldview. Metaphysics should be at the center of a philosophically developed worldview, for the successful pursuit of which it is necessary to have “... the ability to speculate, i.e. intellectual intuition, meaning the ideal foundations of the world, meaning by the word ideal ideas in the sense of Plato's philosophy. The search for absolute goodness and the meaning of life was expressed in Russian culture in the fact that the most important place in the history of Russian thought is occupied by religious philosophy.

The aesthetic experience necessary for artistic creativity is also highly developed among the Russian people.

The second primary property of the Russian character, along with religiosity, is a mighty willpower. It is with her that the passion of the Russian person is connected, the product of which is maximalism, extremism and fanatical intolerance. The higher the value, the more strong feelings and activity it causes in people with a strong will. Examples of this are the self-immolation of thousands of Old Believers, the history of the Russian revolutionary movement. Even insignificant values, such as the accumulation of property, can become the subject of an all-consuming passion.

Along with passion and willpower in the Russian character, one can also find "Oblomovism", laziness, passivity. They are found in all classes and in many cases are the reverse side of such high qualities of the Russian character as the desire for complete perfection and sensitivity to the shortcomings of reality. The idea is often very valuable, but sensitivity to the shortcomings of one's own and other people's activities causes a cooling in the work begun by a Russian person.

Among the primary properties of the Russian people is the love of freedom, as well as its highest manifestation - the freedom of the spirit. This property is associated with the search for absolute goodness. In the real world, it does not exist, therefore, each person makes an independent choice for himself. the best way actions, own way. In public life, the love of freedom is expressed by Russians in a propensity for anarchy, in repulsion from the state.

Freedom of spirit, broad nature, the search for perfect goodness and the associated testing of values by thought and experience led to the fact that the Russian people developed the most diverse, and sometimes opposite, forms and ways of behavior (despotism of the state and anarchy; liberty, cruelty and kindness , humanity, individualism, heightened consciousness of the individual and impersonal collectivism, etc.). The search for absolute goodness has developed among the Russian people a recognition of the high value of each individual. This is where the increased interest in social justice comes from.

Kindness is another primary basic property of the Russian people. Thanks to religiosity and the search for absolute goodness, it is maintained and deepened. Sensitivity to goodness is combined in a Russian person with a satirical direction of the mind, with a tendency to criticize everything, and it is kindness, along with a vivid imagination, that often becomes the cause of lies.

Despite the fact that kindness is the predominant character trait of a Russian person, there are quite a few manifestations of cruelty in his life (cruelty as a means of education, as a means of intimidating criminals, etc.). A very peculiar phenomenon - the cruelty of organs state power. Representatives of state power very severely and inexorably demand the implementation of laws. However, this behavior is not a manifestation of their personal cruelty. Through the feelings and will of this person, the state itself acts, so the individual properties of the person recede into the background.

The search for absolute goodness is the source of diverse experiences and various abilities. Hence - the rich development of the spirit and the abundance of talents. The quick-witted practical mind of a Russian person manifested itself in the very successful development of science and technical inventions, and the love of beauty and gift creative imagination have become contributing factors high development Russian art. Russian fiction, music, theater, ballet, painting, architecture are known all over the world. Unfortunately healthy development Russian spiritual life in Russia was interrupted, according to Lossky, by the Bolshevik revolution.

Since the time of the Pskov monk Philotheus, Russian national messianism has received its vivid expression. The Russian people are characterized by the search for good for all mankind, the 19th century in the history of Russia is marked by the separation from the order of the life of the “fathers”, the loss of religion and materialism. All this led to nihilism - the reverse side of the good qualities of the Russian people. Having become a materialist, the Russian intellectual set himself the goal of creating a paradise on earth according to his own plan, even if it had to be done by force. Among the workers and peasants, nihilism found its expression in hooliganism and mischief.

There are many shortcomings in the Russian character that can lead to a disorder (sometimes very dangerous) of social life: maximalism, extremism, lack of character development, lack of discipline, a daring test of values, anarchism, excessive criticism. However, it should be noted that all these negative traits secondary, they are only the reverse side of the main primary properties of the Russian character.

Krasnoyarsk State Technical University

Correspondence Faculty

P H I L O S O P I A

Test No. 2

Topic : Russian national character (in the works of Russian philosophers).

Completed: Startsev A.G.Specialist.: 18.04 Cipher: 149836

Checked: ____________

Krasnoyarsk 2001.

PLAN:

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1.The study of the national character of the people according to their fairy tales and epics (according to the worksB.P. Vysheslavtsev);

CHAPTER 2The main features of the Russian national character (according to the works of N.O. Lossky);

CHAPTER 3The role of the national character in the fate of Russia (according to the works of N.A. Berdyaev).

CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTION

Since ancient times, from its very formation, Russia has established itself as an unusual country, unlike others, and therefore incomprehensible and at the same time extremely attractive.

Tyutchev once said about Russia:

The mind of Russia cannot be understood

Do not measure with a common yardstick:

She has a special become -

One can only believe in Russia.

These lines are certainly relevant to this day. Russia is a country that does not fall under any standards, patterns and laws of logic. But Russia, its character is the character of its people, the character is complex and very contradictory.

Modern researchers are increasingly paying attention to the role of the national character, which largely determines the trajectory of the development of society as a whole. The problem of national character is quite complex, and its study requires an integrated approach of historians, political scientists, philosophers, sociologists, ethnographers, psychologists, and art historians.

The national character of any nation is an integral system with its inherent hierarchy of qualities, traits that dominate the motives, way of thinking and acting, in culture, stereotypes of behavior inherent in this nation. The national character is very stable. The continuity of his qualities, traits is ensured by social means of transferring socio-historical experience by generations. It cannot be "corrected" by administrative measures, but at the same time, being determined by the social and natural environment, it is subject to certain changes. A society with an underdeveloped and strong national character is doomed to defeat and setbacks, be it a severe economic crisis or external aggression.

For a long time, the Russian national character, its unusualness and incomprehensibility, has aroused the liveliest interest and desire to understand, explain one or another of its characteristic features, to find the roots of the tragic circumstances that accompany the history of Russia. However, it seems that the Russian people still cannot understand themselves, explain or at least justify their behavior in this or that situation, although they recognize some illogicality and non-linear behavior, as evidenced by endless stories and anecdotes that begin with the words: "Caught the king of the Russian, German and Chinese ...".

Today the Russian people are experiencing a turning point in their history. One of the irreparable losses that befell Russia in the 20th century is associated with the decline of national self-consciousness and the loss of centuries-old spiritual values. The awakening of Russia, of course, must begin with the spiritual rebirth of its people, i.e. from the attempt of the Russian people to understand themselves, to resurrect their best qualities and eradicate shortcomings. For this, I think, it is worth turning to the works of Russian philosophers who, at one time, were engaged in the study of the Russian national character, its negative and positive features.

CHAPTER 1. The study of the national character of the people according to their fairy tales and epics (according to the works of B.P. Vysheslavtsev);

In his report “Russian national character”, read by B.P. Vysheslavtsev in 1923 at a conference in Rome, the author writes that we are interesting, but incomprehensible to the West, and perhaps that is why we are especially interesting because we are incomprehensible. We do not fully understand ourselves, and, perhaps, even the incomprehensibility, the irrationality of actions and decisions constitute a certain trait of our character.

The nature of the people, according to Vysheslavtsev, its main features are laid down at the unconscious level, in the subconscious. This applies especially to the Russian people. The area of the subconscious in the soul of a Russian person occupies an exceptional place.

How can we penetrate into the unconscious of our spirit? Freud, writes Vysheslavtsev, thinks that it is revealed in dreams. To understand the soul of a people, therefore, one must penetrate into its dreams. But the dreams of the people are their epic, their fairy tales, their poetry...

So the Russian fairy tale shows us what the Russian people are afraid of: they are afraid of poverty, they are even more afraid of labor, but most of all they are afraid of “grief”, which somehow terribly appears to them, as if by their own invitation, becomes attached to them and does not lag behind. . “It is also remarkable that “woe” here sits in the person himself: this is not the external fate of the Greeks, based on ignorance, on delusion, it is one’s own will, or rather some kind of own lack of will.” 1 But there is another fear in the tales of the Russian people, a fear more sublime than the fear of deprivation, labor and even “grief” - this is the fear of a broken dream, the fear of falling from heaven.

What are the unconscious dreams of the Russian soul, hidden in the Russian epic? It is remarkable, Vysheslavtsev notes, that the whole gamut of desires is deployed in a Russian fairy tale - from the most sublime to the lowest. We will find in it both the most cherished dreams of Russian idealism and the basest worldly "economic materialism". This is how the dream of the Russian people about such a “new kingdom” is known, where distribution will be built on the principle “to each according to his needs”, where you can eat and drink, where there is a “baked bull”, where there are milk rivers and jelly banks. And most importantly - there you can do nothing and be lazy. Such, for example, is the well-known tale of the lazy Emel, who appears by no means as a negative character.

In the same vein, Vysheslavtsev analyzes here the fairy tale "about a cunning science", in which ".. you can not work, eat sweetly and walk cleanly ..". There are a number of tales in which "cunning science" turns out to be nothing more than the art of stealing. At the same time, happiness usually accompanies a lazy person and a thief.

Vysheslavtsev rightly noted the fact that fairy tales are merciless: they expose everything that lives in the subconscious soul of the people, and, moreover, in the collective soul, embracing even its worst sons. The tale reveals everything that is carefully hidden in life, in its official piety and in its official ideology.

All these funny fabulous dreams of the Russian people, however, turned out to be prophetic and prophetic. Thus, for example, the "cunning science" of "easy bread" turned out to be Marx's "scientific socialism". This science taught the people that theft is not theft, but "the expropriation of the expropriators." "Cunning Science" explained how to get into that realm where you can eat and drink, where you can lie on the stove and everything will be done "at the command of the pike": you can safely jump there, to put it vulgarly; and in the language of rigorous science: "make a leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom."

True, all this reality, in turn, turned out to be a dream and dissipated like a dream; but this is foreseen by the Russian fairy tale. After all, not only folk stupidity lives in it, but also folk wisdom.

Many prophecies can be found in our fairy tales, but there is one epic in our epic that has positive clairvoyance, writes Vysheslavtsev, this is an epic about Ilya Muromets and his quarrel with Prince Vladimir. Ilya Muromets, the beloved national hero, comes from a peasant family and embodies the main support and strength of the Russian land. At the same time, he is the main and constant support of the throne and the church.

“Once, Prince Vladimir arranged an “honorable feast” “for princes, for boyars, for Russian heroes,” “and forgot to call the old Cossack Ilya Muromets.” Ilya, of course, was terribly offended. He pulled on a tight bow, put in a red-hot arrow and began to shoot at "God's churches, and at miraculous crosses, at your gilded domes."

Here is the whole picture of the Russian revolution, which the ancient epic saw in a prophetic dream. Ilya Muromets - the personification of peasant Russia, arranged, together with the most disgusting mob, with drunkards and loafers, a real defeat of the church and state, he suddenly began to destroy everything that he recognized as sacred and that he defended all his life. one

Of course, the whole Russian character is clearly visible in this epic: there was injustice, but the reaction to it was completely unexpected and spontaneous. This is not a Western European revolution; with its acquisition of rights and the struggle for a new order of life, this is spontaneous nihilism, instantly destroying everything that the people's soul worshiped, and, moreover, conscious of its crime. This is not the restoration of violated justice in the world, it is the rejection of a world in which such injustice exists.

However, in his report, Vysheslavtsev tells the epic to the end and rightly notes that it ends more happily than the Russian revolution ended. “Vladimir, seeing the “pogrom”, was frightened and realized “that the inevitable disaster had come.” He arranged a new feast especially for the "old Cossack Ilya Muromets." But it was a difficult task to invite him, it was clear that he would not go now. Then they equipped Dobrynya Nikitich, a Russian nobleman-bogatyr, who generally carried out diplomatic missions, as an ambassador. Only he managed to persuade Ilya. And now Ilya, who was now seated in the best place and began to be treated with wine, tells Vladimir that he would not have come, of course, if it were not for Dobrynya, his “named brother”. 2

This prophetic warning, quite clearly expressed in the Russian epic epic, was not understood by the Russian monarchy, which doomed itself to inevitable collapse.

Such is the wisdom of the epic - the subconscious soul of the people expresses in it what it secretly desires or what it fears. All the past and the future are contained in these subconscious forces.

Those images and symbols that are given above are by no means, however, the pinnacle of folk art, the limit of the flight of fantasy.

Further, Vysheslavtsev writes that the flight of the imagination of the Russian people is always directed to "another kingdom", to "another state". He leaves far below everything daily, everyday, but also all dreams of satiety, and all utopias of a fat sky. The fairy tale laughs at them, her flight is not directed here, this is not her best dream. "Another Country" - infinitely distant, beckons the hero of a Russian fairy tale - Ivan Tsarevich. But why does he fly there? He is looking for a bride, "beloved beauty", and according to other tales, "Vasilisa the Wise." Here is the best dream of a Russian fairy tale. It is said about this bride: “When she laughs, there will be pink flowers, and when she cries, then pearls.” It is difficult to find, it is difficult to kidnap this bride, and at the same time it is a matter of life and death.

What is his beloved Vasilisa the Wise? She is beauty and wisdom beyond, otherworldly, but in a strange way connected with the beauty of the created world. The whole creature obeys her: at her wave, creeping ants thresh uncountable stacks, flying bees mold a church from wax, people build golden bridges and magnificent palaces. It is connected with the soul of nature, and it also teaches people how to build life, how to create beauty. While the Tsarevich is with her, for him there are no difficulties in life, Vasilisa the Wise rescues him from any trouble. The real trouble is only one: if he forgets his bride. Such, judging by the fairy tales, is the main and most beautiful dream of the Russian people.

CHAPTER 2. The main features of the Russian national character (according to the works of N.O. Lossky).

An invaluable contribution to the study of the Russian national character was also made by the book of the Russian philosopher N.O. Lossky "Character of the Russian people". In his book, Lossky gives the following list of the main features inherent in the Russian national character.

Religiosity of the Russian people. Lossky believes that the main and deepest feature of the Russian people is their religiosity and the search for absolute truth associated with it ... The Russian person, in his opinion, has a sensitive difference between good and evil; he vigilantly notices the imperfections of all our actions, morals and institutions, never being satisfied with them and never ceasing to seek perfect goodness.

“Foreigners who carefully observed Russian life, in most cases, note the outstanding religiosity of the Russian people ... Russians can talk about religion for six hours in a row. The Russian idea is a Christian idea; in the foreground in it is love for the suffering, pity, attention to the individual personality ... ". one

In this regard, Christianity, as Lossky writes, fell on fertile ground in Russia: already in Kievan Rus, before the Mongol yoke, it was assimilated in its true essence precisely as a religion of love. And following the logic of the development of events, the religiosity of the Russian people, it would seem, should have been expressed in the preaching of social Christianity, i.e. teachings that the principles of Christianity should be implemented not only in personal individual relationships, but also in legislation and in the organization of public and state institutions.

However, despite the fact that in the 19th century the Orthodox clergy tried to come out in literature with this idea, the government systematically suppressed such aspirations and helped to strengthen the idea that the goal of religious life is only concern for the personal salvation of the soul.

But, despite the deliberate belittling of the significance of the Church, in Russia the true Christian Church was still preserved in the depths in the person of the ascetics revered by the people, who lived in the quiet of monasteries, and especially in the person of the “elders”, to whom they always came for instruction and consolation.

Very interesting is Lossky's observation that among Russian revolutionaries who became atheists, the place of Christian religiosity was taken by a mood that can be called formal religiosity - this is a passionate, fanatical desire to realize a kind of Kingdom of God on earth without God, on the basis of scientific knowledge.

The ability of the Russian people to the highest forms of experience. Lossky sees the high development of moral experience in the fact that all sections of the Russian people show a special interest in distinguishing between good and evil and sensitively distinguish the impurities of evil in good.

Among the especially valuable properties of the Russian people is a sensitive perception of other people's mental states. This results in live communication even between unfamiliar people with each other.

“... The Russian people have highly developed individual personal and family communication. In Russia there is no excessive replacement of individual relations by social ones, there is no personal and family isolationism. Therefore, even a foreigner, once in Russia, feels: “I am not alone here” (of course, I am talking about normal Russia, and not about life under the Bolshevik regime). Perhaps it is these properties that are the main source of recognition of the charm of the Russian people, so often expressed by foreigners who know Russia well ... ". 2

Such a feature of the Russian national character as the search for the meaning of life and the foundations of being is excellently depicted in Russian literature, in particular, in the works of Tolstov, Dostoevsky and others.

Feeling and will. Among the primary basic properties of the Russian people, according to Lossky, is a mighty willpower. Passion is a combination of a strong feeling and an effort of will directed towards a loved or hated value. Naturally, the higher the value, the stronger feelings and energetic activity it causes in people with a strong will. From this one can understand the passion of the Russian people, manifested in political life, and even greater passion in religious life. Maximalism, extremism and fanatical intolerance are the products of this passion.

As proof of his correctness, Lossky cites such an example of the mass manifestation of Russian passion for fanatical intolerance as the history of the Old Believers. A stunning manifestation of religious passions was the self-immolation of many thousands of Old Believers.

The Russian revolutionary movement, according to Lossky, is also replete with examples of political passion and mighty willpower ... The unbending will and extreme fanaticism of Lenin, together with the Bolsheviks led by him, who created a totalitarian state in such an excessive form that it was not, and God willing, will no longer be on earth.

Russian maximalism and extremism in its extreme form is expressed in the poem by A.K. Tolstoy.

If you love, so without reason,

If you threaten, it's not a joke,

If you scold, so rashly,

Kohl cut, so off the shoulder!

If you argue, it's so bold

Kohl to punish, so for the cause,

If you ask, so with all your heart,

If there is a feast, then a feast is a mountain!

Passion and powerful willpower can be considered as belonging to the number of basic properties of the Russian people. But Lossky also does not deny that in the Russian people there is also the familiar "Oblomovism", that laziness and passivity, which is excellently portrayed by Goncharov in the novel "Oblomov". Here he shares the position of Dobrolyubov, who explains the nature of "Oblomovism" in this way: ... Russian people tend to strive for an absolutely perfect kingdom of being and, at the same time, are excessively sensitive to any shortcomings of their own and other people's activities. From this arises a cooling towards the work begun and aversion to its continuation; the idea and general outline of it is often very valuable, but its incompleteness and therefore the inevitable imperfections repel a Russian person, and he is too lazy to continue finishing trifles. Thus, Oblomovism is in many cases the reverse side of the high qualities of a Russian person - the desire for complete perfection and sensitivity to the shortcomings of our reality ...

However, the strength of the will of the Russian people, as Lossky writes, is also revealed in the fact that a Russian person, noticing some of his shortcomings and morally condemning him, obeying a sense of duty, overcomes him and develops a quality that is completely opposite to him.

The Russian people have many shortcomings, but the strength of their will in the fight against them is able to overcome them.

Freedom. Among the primary properties of the Russian people, along with religiosity, the search for absolute goodness and willpower, Lossky includes love for freedom and its highest expression - freedom of the spirit ... He who has the freedom of the spirit is inclined to test every value, not only with thought, but even from experience... As a result of the free search for truth, it is difficult for Russian people to come to terms with each other... Therefore, in public life, the love of freedom of Russians is expressed in a tendency to anarchy, in repulsion from the state.

One of the reasons, according to Lossky, why an absolute monarchy, sometimes bordering on despotism, developed in Russia, is that it is difficult to govern a people with anarchist inclinations. Such people make excessive demands on the state.

Kindness. It is sometimes said that the Russian people have a feminine nature. This, according to Lossky, is wrong, he, unlike Berdyaev, adheres to a different point of view: the Russian people, he writes, especially the Great Russian branch of it, the people who created a great state in harsh historical conditions, are extremely courageous; but in him the combination of a masculine nature with feminine gentleness is especially remarkable. Those who lived in the countryside and interacted with the peasants will probably have memories of this wonderful combination of courage and gentleness in their minds.

The kindness of the Russian people in all its layers is expressed in the absence of vindictiveness. Often a Russian person, being passionate and prone to maximalism, experiences a strong feeling of repulsion from another person, however, when meeting with him, in case of need for specific communication, his heart softens and he somehow involuntarily begins to show his spiritual softness towards him, even sometimes condemning himself for this, if he believes that this person does not deserve a good attitude towards him.

“Life according to one’s heart” creates the openness of the soul of a Russian person and the ease of communication with people, the simplicity of communication, without conventions, without outward instilled politeness, but with those virtues of politeness that flow from a sensitive natural delicacy ...

However, as Lossky rightly notes, positive qualities often have negative sides. The kindness of a Russian person sometimes prompts him to lie due to his unwillingness to offend his interlocutor, due to the desire for peace and good relations with people at all costs.

Russian woman. In his book, Lossky especially notes Russian women and quotes the words of Schubart, who writes about a Russian woman as follows: “She shares with an English woman a tendency to freedom and independence, without turning into a blue stocking. With the Frenchwoman, she is related by spiritual mobility without pretensions to thoughtfulness; she has... the taste of the Frenchwoman, the same understanding of beauty and grace, but without becoming a victim of conceited predilection for dresses. She has the virtues of a German housewife without forever smoking over the kitchen utensils; she has the maternal qualities of an Italian, without coarsening them to a monkey's abundance of love ... ". one

Cruelty. Kindness is the predominant feature of the Russian people. But at the same time, Lossky does not deny that there are also many manifestations of cruelty in Russian life. There are many types of cruelty, and some of them can occur, paradoxically, even in the behavior of people who are not at all evil by nature.

Lossky explains many of the negative aspects of the behavior of the peasants by their extreme poverty, the many insults and oppressions experienced by them and leading them to extreme bitterness ... He considered the fact that in peasant life, husbands sometimes severely beat their wives, most often in a drunken state ...

Until the last quarter of the 19th century, the structure of the family life of the merchants, philistines and peasants was patriarchal. The despotism of the head of the family was often expressed in acts close to cruelty.

However, the strength of the Russian people, as already mentioned above, is expressed ... in the fact that, noticing any shortcoming in itself and condemning it, Russian society begins a decisive struggle against it and achieves success. According to Lossky's deep conviction, it was thanks to this quality that the structure of family life in Russian society freed itself from despotism and acquired the character of a kind of democratic republic.

CHAPTER 3. The role of the national character in the fate of Russia (according to the works of N.A. Berdyaev);

The problem of the Russian national character found comprehensive coverage in such works by N.A. Berdyaev, as "The Fate of Russia", "The Spirits of the Russian Revolution", "The Origins and Meaning of Russian Communism", "The Russian Idea", "Self-Knowledge", "The Soul of Russia", etc.

The Russian national character occupied a special place in the works of Berdyaev. Berdyaev saw an essential feature of the Russian national character in its inconsistency.

At the same time, Berdyaev noted the influence of the Russian national character on the fate of Russia, for example: “The Russian people are the most apolitical people who have never been able to organize their land.” And at the same time: "Russia is the most state-owned and the most bureaucratic country in the world, everything in Russia is turning into an instrument of politics." Further: “Russia is the most non-chauvinistic country in the world. ... In the Russian element there is truly some kind of national disinterestedness, sacrifice ... "And at the same time:" Russia ... a country of unprecedented excesses, nationalism, oppression of subject nationalities, Russification ... The reverse side of Russian humility is an extraordinary Russian conceit. On the one hand, “the Russian soul burns in a fiery search for truth, absolute, divine truth… It is eternally sad about the grief and suffering of the people and the whole world…”. On the other hand, "Russia is almost impossible to budge, she has become so heavy, so inert, so lazy ... she puts up with her life so humbly." The duality of the Russian soul leads to the fact that Russia lives "inorganic life"; it lacks integrity and unity. one

In his works, Berdyaev lists the following factors that, in his opinion, influenced the formation of the Russian national character.

Geographically, Russia is a gigantic territory covering a sixth of the land. The boundless land, in the words of Berdyaev, is the "national flesh" that has to be cultivated and spiritualized. However, the Russian person is passively related to the elements of the earth, does not seek to ennoble, “formalize” it. “The power of breadth over the Russian soul gives rise to a whole series of Russian qualities and Russian shortcomings. Russian laziness, carelessness, lack of initiative, a poorly developed sense of responsibility are connected with this. The expanse of the Russian land and the expanse of the Russian soul crushed Russian energy, opening up the possibility of moving towards extensiveness. This expanse did not require intense energy and intensive culture. ... The vastness of Russian spaces did not contribute to the development of self-discipline and amateur performance in a Russian person ... ”- notes Berdyaev.

Berdyaev attached great importance to the collective-tribal principle in the development of the national character and in the fate of Russia. According to Berdyaev, "spiritual collectivism", "spiritual catholicity" is "a high type of brotherhood of people". Such collectivism is the future. But there is another collectivism. This is "irresponsible" collectivism, which dictates to a person the need to "be like everyone else." The Russian man, Berdyaev believed, is immersed in such collectivism, he feels himself immersed in the collective. Hence the lack of personal dignity and intolerance towards those who are different from the rest, who, due to their work and abilities, are entitled to more.

However, Berdyaev did not deny the attractive aspects of Russian traditional collectivism. “Russians are more sociable… more inclined and more able to communicate than people of Western civilization. Russians have no conventions in communication. They have a need to see not only friends, but also good acquaintances, share their thoughts and experiences with them, argue.” 2

In Russia, according to Berdyaev, there is no middle and strong social stratum that would organize the life of the people, and, accordingly, there is no “middle culture”. The desire for "angelic holiness", for good is paradoxically combined in Russia with "bestial meanness" and fraud. A sincere thirst for divine truth coexists with "everyday and outwardly ceremonial understanding of Christianity", which is far from genuine religious faith.

Features of the national character are manifested in the way of thinking of the Russian people. Berdyaev wrote about the "original Russian existentiality of thinking", in connection with which, Russian people are characterized by such features as a deep personal experience, the desire to "discover themselves", to take everything to heart when considering any problems.

Ultimately, Berdyaev saw the features and contradictions of the Russian character in the absence of the correct ratio of “masculine” and “feminine” principles in him. It is the balance of "masculinity" and "femininity" that is inherent in a mature national character. Russian "national flesh" is, according to Berdyaev, feminine in its passive susceptibility to good and evil. The "Russian soul" lacks courageous temper, firmness of spirit, will, and independence.

For the maturity of the Russian nation, Berdyaev believed, “there is only one way out: the disclosure within Russia, in its spiritual depths, of a courageous, personal, shaping principle, mastery of one’s own national element, the immanent awakening of a courageous, luminous consciousness.” one

At the same time, Berdyaev is far from thinking that the shortcomings of the Russian national character are connected with the feminine principle. Thanks to the feminine soul, the Russian people have such wonderful national qualities as sincerity, mercy, the ability to renounce blessings in the name of the bright faith.

How did Berdyaev imagine the future path of Russia? Is it true that the meaning of his "national program" was "deep and comprehensive Europeanization"?

Of course not, Berdyaev saw the path of world development in the mutual meeting of East and West, in the mutual enrichment of cultures, in the rapprochement of all nations. In his opinion, not only the West influences Russia, but also the spiritual forces of Russia can determine and transform the spiritual life of the West. In addition, Berdyaev believed that another era would follow, associated with spiritual transformation, where Russia would play a leading role. However, for this, she herself must be transformed, resurrect in herself the extinct rudiments of spirituality.

What is the real program of Berdyaev for the "re-education" of the Russian national character? Sikorsky B.F. in his work “N.A. Berdyaev on the role of the national character in the fate of Russia” writes that Berdyaev believed that man is a natural, social and spiritual being. Berdyaev saw the future society as one in which every person rises to true spirituality and realizes himself in unity with other people. The fate of society, from the point of view of Berdyaev, turns out to be dependent on the “personal principle”. Society will be what its people are.

N. O. Lossky.
(From the article Character of the Russian people). 1957

A person who strives for the ideal of an absolutely perfect being, lives in his dreams and vigilantly notices the imperfections of our life in general and the shortcomings of his own activity, is disappointed at every step in other people, and in their enterprises, and in his own attempts at creativity. He takes on one thing, then another, does not bring anything to the end, and finally stops fighting for life, plunges into laziness and apathy. Such is precisely Oblomov.

In his youth, Oblomov dreamed of "valor, activity"; He had access to the pleasures of high thoughts, he imagined himself a commander, a thinker, great artist And these are not empty dreams, he is really talented and smart If hard work of processing details were added to this talent, then he could become a poet works of art. To achieve this goal, you need to develop the habit of systematic work. But the first steps of Oblomov's independent life did not contribute to the development of such a habit.

Finally descending, Oblomov sometimes cries with cold tears of hopelessness over the bright, forever lost ideal of life But Stolz even at this time says that his soul will always be pure, light, honest, and after the death of Oblomov, Stolz, together with Olga, recalls pure as crystal, the soul of the deceased

What is "Oblomovism"? Dobrolyubov explained it by the influence of serfdom and extremely contemptuously evaluates the character of Oblomov; he denies the attractive features of his soul and thinks that introducing them into the novel is an incorrect depiction of reality
Of course, serfdom contributed to the spread of Oblomovism among people who enjoy the fruits of serf labor, and among the peasants who were oppressed by them, but only as a secondary condition. Goncharov, being a great artist, gave the image of Oblomov in such fullness that it reveals the deep conditions leading to evasion from systematic labor full of boring trifles and eventually giving rise to laziness.

Oblomovism is in many cases the reverse side of the high qualities of a Russian person - the desire for complete perfection and sensitivity to the shortcomings of our reality.
astic Oblomovism is expressed by Russian people in negligence, inaccuracies, slovenliness, being late for meetings, the theater, and appointments. Richly gifted Russian people are often limited only to the original idea, only the plan of some work, without bringing it to implementation.

Women's Portal Flero

The character of the Russian people Lossky summary. Russian philosophers about the Russian national character - abstract

Biography

Philosophy

The theme of reincarnation in the works of N. O. Lossky

Major works

Compositions

Translations

Links

Compositions

Literature

Notes

Other books on similar topics:

The first chapter of the religiosity of the Russian people

Krasnoyarsk State Technical University

P H I L O S O P I A

Test No. 2

Checked: ____________

The ability of the Russian people to the highest forms of experience. Lossky sees the high development of moral experience in the fact that all sections of the Russian people show a special interest in distinguishing between good and evil and sensitively distinguish the impurities of evil in good.

Women's Portal Flero

Biography

Philosophy

The theme of reincarnation in the works of N. O. Lossky

Major works

Compositions

Translations

Links

Compositions

Literature

Notes

Other books on similar topics:

The first chapter of the religiosity of the Russian people

Krasnoyarsk State Technical University

P H I L O S O P I A

Test No. 2

Checked: ____________

The ability of the Russian people to the highest forms of experience. Lossky sees the high development of moral experience in the fact that all sections of the Russian people show a special interest in distinguishing between good and evil and sensitively distinguish the impurities of evil in good.

RELATED ARTICLES