Philosophical views of A.I. Herzen, B.G. Belinsky, N.G. Chernyshevsky.

Over a century before the emergence of these philosophical circles, the foundation had already been laid, leading up to the ongoing debate. During the reign of Peter the Great at the turn of the18 th century, Russia began her immersion into Western culture. A small group of young men were sent into Western Europe in order to learn languages, cultures, and new arts and skills,beginning a period of Westernization.

With newly acquired Western knowledge, Peter began implementing new changes economically and socially. Feudal Russia was now forced to accept new taxes and tariffs, strict military service laws, the creation of mining in the Ural Mountains, a new canal to facilitate trade, and the overall increase of imported and exported goods. Specifically in regards to culture and education, Peter the Great began to introduce Western dress, manners, and usage, despite an emergence of strong opposition. These new changes began a shift into Westernization that could not be reversed. Russia had taken her first step into a future that revolved around a centuries-long debate regarding the positive or negative effects of Westernization. As Riasanovsky explains, “Quite possibly Russia was destined to be Westernized, but Peter the Great cannot be denied the role of the chief executor of this fate.”

Throughout the 18 th century, Isaiah Berlin describes the Russian government as an alternating force of oppression and liberalism. Westernization continued to spread, especially with the increase of foreign relations with other European powers. Several emperors and empresses saw short ruling terms of power following Peter the Great, adding to the feeling of an unstable Russian government. Six different people held the throne during a period that spanned less than 40 years (1725-1762).

During these short terms, there was a growing German orientation in the Russian government, particularly with Anne’s reign from 1730 to1740.

After Anne, a series of German relatives took to the throne. They were, however, removed from the throne in 1741 by a coup led by Peter the Great’s daughter Elizabeth. With Elizabeth’s rule, Russia again felt the comfort of a Russian empress in rule. “The new monarch symbolized ... the end of a scandalous ‘foreign’ domination in Russia and even, to an extent, a return to the glorious days of Peter the Great.” In 1742, Peter III obtained the throne, however his wife Catherine, a German princess, replaced him in 1762 during a palace coup. Catherine the Great’s reign furthered the Westernization of Russia. Reigning until 1796, Catherine followed the footsteps of Peter the Great in encouraging Westernism to flourish in Russian government, foreign policy, and culture. She adopted French intellectualism (especially that of Montesquieu’s The Spirit of Laws) and was a model thinker in the Age of Enlightenment.

Culturally, Catherine the Great sought to “civilize” Russia by reforming the education system, encouraging the Edict of 1783, giving license to private publishing houses, resulting in a surge of journalism and literature.

The inconsistencies of the Russian government and the increasing Western presence on the throne only added to the feeling of a foreign rule over traditional Russia. This Westernization of Russian government mimicked the Westernization that was rising in Russian culture and life. By the end of the 18 th century, Russia’s experience with this new form of Westernization (resulting from Catherine’s encouragement of literature), gave way to the following new schools of thought that would be used to criticize and analyze Russia’s past and future.

A Call for New Russian Philosophy In 1829, Peter Chaadayev’s“Philosophical Letters” began circulating amongst Russian intellectuals and was published in the journal Teleskop in 1836. The publication was quite unpopular with the Russian government, claiming that Chaadayev was insane. Nicholas I relieved all duties of every individual involved with the publishing. Despite the strict government reaction, the writings offered the first glimpse into the future debates between Slavophiles and Westernizers. Chaadayev’s “Letters” offers a harsh criticism of everything Russian: the government, the society, and the culture. Chaadayev argued that Russia had intentionally severed itself from the rest of Europe by not embracing Western European Christianity; that it had been completely useless in offering any contributions to world history; and that Russia had neither a past, nor a future.

Historical experience does not exist for us... Isolated in the world, we have given nothing to the world, we have taught nothing to the world; we have not added a single idea to the mass of human ideas; we have contributed nothing to the progress of the human spirit... From the very first moment of our social existence, nothing has emanated from us for the common good of men; not a single useful thought has sprouted in the sterile soil of our country; not a single great truth has sprung from our midst...

Chaadayev, whether right or wrong in his allegations, spurred many to respond. His significant questions, “Where are our wise men, where are our thinkers? ... Who thinks for us now?” began a new calling for Russian intellectuals and members of the Intelligentsia to answer.

As aresponse, several new groups began to form, each seeking the answers to Russia’s future. From these new circles arouse the two most important schools of thought: Slavophilism and Westernism.

The Emergence of Slavophilism and Westernism As a response to Chaadayev’s “Letters,” a group emerged to defend Russia and her traditions.

The early Slavophiles were based upon a desire to save Russia from the West by emphasizing strong spirituality within the traditional Orthodox church and discouraging attachments to materialism and Western culture. The father of this ecclesiastical perspective was Alexei Khomiakov(1804-60), a nobleman with extensive knowledge of Orthodox theology and an affinity for German Romanticism.

Ivan Kireevsky (1806-1856) formulated the rest of the Slavophile philosophy. Other significant contributors to early Slavophilism include Konstantin Aksakov (1817-1860) and Yury Samarin (1819-1876).

After nearly 150 years of growing Westernization in Russia, the Slavophiles were attempting to embrace a new Russian identity. As opposed to Chaadayev’s call for a coming to Christianity, Khomiakov called for a return to traditional Orthodoxy. As Robert Bird mentions in the Introduction to On Spiritual Unity, “The question of Russia and Europe became a transcription of the question of Orthodoxy and Western Christianity.”

Khomiakov compares Western European Christianity as “the grain of sand [that] draws no new life from the heap into which it is cast by chance,” stating that “the brick laids in the wall in no way changes or improves as a result of the place allotted it by the bricklayer’s bevel.”

Khomiakov insists on the doctrine of sobornost, or “organic togetherness.”

Sobornost, as explained by Riasanovsky, is an integration of love, freedom, and truth which was the very fundamental nature of Orthodoxy.

Furthering the separation between Slavophiles and Westernizers, Khomiakov states that “the Slav cannot be fully a Slav without Orthodoxy.”

Satisfying a need for a more complete ideology beyond religion, Kireevsky expounded on this religious foundation by embracing Russian culture and general society. He states that “literature, music or foreign affairs ... as it were, [are] a fundamental part of our very being, insofar as it affects every circumstance and every moment of our lives.”

Kireevsky focuses on the cultural aspect of Slavophilism. In a letter to Count Komarovsky entitled “On the Nature of European Culture and on Its Relationship to Russian Culture,” he identifies a general sentiment that Russia is the living embodiment of the universal ideal of unity. This is due to the purity of its Orthodox culture, blaming the West’s deteriorating culture on the character of Western civilization, values, and society. Symmetrically, Russia’s cultural superiority is directly attributed to the character of the Russian people.

In the West, theology became a matter of rationalistic abstraction, whereas in the Orthodox world, it retained its inner wholeness of spirit. In the West, the forces of reason were split asunder, while here there was a striving to maintain a living totality. ... In the West, pagan and Christian civilization grew into one another, while here there was a constant effort to keep the truth pure. ...

In the West, laws issue artificially from the prevailing opinion, while in Russia they were born naturally out of the way of life. ... In the West we find the whim of fashion, here the stability of life. ... In other words, in the West we find a dichotomy of the spirit, a dichotomy of thought, a dichotomy of learning, a dichotomy of the state, a dichotomy of estates, a dichotomy of society, a dichotomy of familial rights and duties, a dichotomy of morals and emotions... We find in Russia, in contrast, a predominant striving for wholeness of being, both external and inner, social and individual, intellectual and workaday, artificial and moral.

The major ideas of Slavophilism, as penned by Khomiakov and Kireevsky, conclude that due to Russia’s pure Orthodox values and traditions, Russian life is superior to that of the West. The very character of the Western Europeans is despicable and contains a vile artificiality. Western Christianity does not incorporate the loving and inclusive traditions as the Orthodox Church and the true nation-loving Slav cannot adopt Catholicism and Western European Christianity without betraying his own culture and people.

These beliefs were universal amongst Slavophiles. The Russian Westernizers were seen as isolating themselves from everything that was distinctively Russian. As Slavophilism evolved, the answer to Russia’s future depended in a return to the “native principles, in overcoming the Western disease.”

Once cured, the mission of the Slavophiles would transcend into a purely evangelical goal of delivering Russian culture to the deteriorating West. Though many intellectuals supported the Westernization of Russia since the reign of Peter the Great, the term “Westernizer” had not been coined until the Slavophiles wanted to shed a poor light on the individuals, portraying them as being anti-Russian.

In the 1840s, the cohesive group of Westernizers appeared as a loose union of varying Western ideals that banded together in their opposition to Slavophilism.

Among the Westernizers were individuals such as Vissarion Belinsky (1811-1848) and Alexander Herzen (1812-1870). Due to such varying ideologies that fell within the Westernism group, there was not a specific identifiable theme or mission. Instead, each individual had his] own beliefs and theories and just happened to be lumped together since each did not adopt the Slavophile ideology. In addition, Riasanovsky indicates that the Westernizers changed positions quickly.

Some trends in the Westernizers’ philosophies did appear. Among these, was a general disregardfor religious overtones and most were agnostic and even atheistic. Most importantly, the Westernizers believed that Russia was not unique to the world and that, in order to prosper, the nation must embrace the historically Western path, which served as the role model to modernization. However, Belinsky warns that Russia should not merely imitate what the European countries have done. “Likewise, we shall not forget our own worth. We shall know how to take pride in our nationality... but we shall know how to be proud without vainglory which blinds one to one’s own defects...”

Herzen echoes this need for Western influence in asuccessful and flourishing Russia.

Before 1848, Russia neither should nor could have entered the revolutionary field. She had to learn her lesson, and now she has learned it. The Tsar himself has realized this and is raging against the universities, ideas and learning; he is trying to cut Russia off from Europe and destroy enlightenment. He is doing his job. ... There is no point in blindly believe in the future; every embryo has the right to develop, but not every one succeeds. The future of Russia does not depend on Russia alone. It is bound up with the future of Europe.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky and SlavophilismFyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) never completely committed himself to a specific ideologicalset. Instead, he has been seen as a type of wanderer amongst intellectual circles, mixing and matching certain ideas to best fit his own. In fact, from the beginning of his Winter Notes on Summer Impressions, Dostoyevsky defends Belinsky as a “a man more passionately Russian.”

However, he begins to explain that he is unsympathetic towards those who are “so blindly indignant ... toward much of what is native to us,” specifically identifying Chaadaev as one who “apparently disdained everything Russian.” Sarah Hudspith chronicles Dostoyevsky’s incorporation of Sobornost , the philosophy of essential organic unity adopted by Slavophiles.

Throughout his fiction and his non-fiction, Dostoyevsky draws conclusions about Russia’s past and future through his characters and his own musings. In

particular, the legendary The Idiot and the lesser-known Winter Notes on Summer Impressions both look at the sobornost and solidify the connection between Dostoyevsky and Slavophilism. Born in Moscow in 1821, Fyodor Dostoyevsky lived a life of tragedy and hardship. His first novel, Poor Folk, was published at the mere age of 24.

Though it gained wide success and quickly threw the young author into the spotlight, the difficulties of life soon caught up with him. In 1846, Fyodor began to experience symptoms of his oncoming epilepsy and in 1850, he suffered his first epileptic seizure. Shortly after publishing Poor Folk, Dostoyevsky was arrested for participating in an intellectual circle that discussed a letter from Belinsky to Gogol criticizing the Russian Church and State.

In 1849, he was condemned to death and while on the scaffolding, waiting to be executed, received a last moment pardon from Nicholas I. Instead of death, Dostoyevsky received four years at a labor prison in Sibera, then proceeded to have been made a soldier in the army. It was not until 1859 that Dostoyevsky was invited back to Russia, following a pardon by Alexander II.

In The Idiot, the main character Prince Myshkin is arriving to St. Petersburg from a Swiss sanitarium where he has been seeking treatment for an illness similar to epilepsy. The title is derived from the portrayal of Myshkin as an awkward idiot. He is unable to articulate himself, somewhat uneducated, and appears simple and innocent. Despite his idiotic tendancies, Myshkin is an honest, albeit overly generous, young man whose goodness consistently brings him trouble. Through a series of troubling events, it is concluded that the only place fit for Myshkin is the sanitarium from which he recently left. Dostoyevsky paints a portrait of a world filled with materialism, power hungry individuals, and overall corruption. His main character Myshkin represents all that is good and innocent and proceeds to prove that such righteousness cannot survive in this seemingly apocalyptic world.

This portrayal of a society obsessed with money, power, and material is an accurate painting of what many Slavophiles considered to be Western Europe. This is what Kireevsky was referring to in “On the Nature of European Culture.” “There (in the West) one finds the precariousness of individual autonomy, here the strength of family and social ties. There we see ostentatious luxury and artificial life, here the simplicity of vital needs and the courage of moral fortitude.”

The argument could be held that Myshkin himself is Russia, as the symbol of goodness cannot fit in the Western world of “ostentatious luxury and artificial life.” Myshkin repeatedly exhibits the sobornost philosophy. “Myshkin is the first of Dostoyevsky’s characters fully to understand the notion that each is responsible for all; for this reason he is so ready to say he is to blame, and to forgive all who wrong him...”

This idea of a innate unity of intuitiveness for one’s fellow brother is the driving force behind sobornost and Slavophilism. Myshkin continues to show love and compassion to fellow characters, seeking for a harmonious understanding and a resolution to the chaos that is consistently created. In Dostoyevsky’s Winter Notes on Summer Impressions , he gives a non-fictional account of his first travels outside of Russia. His writings are overtly anti-Western, harshly critical of the

European cities that he had visited, and unsympathetically judgmental of the people he meets along the way. Dostoyevsky even comments “even now, wherever they are encountered, all sentences like this, cutting foreigners down to size, contain something irresistibly pleasant for us Russians.” His writings relive his visits to countless cities, including Berlin, Dresden, Paris,

London, Geneva, Florence, and Vienna. The piece, though published in a book format, is more of a collection of essays that contain idle thoughts and musings. However, these idle thoughts are rife with insight and exhibit philosophical ideas in a true life environment. Dostoyevsky, like all Slavophiles, questions the validity of this alluring Westernization movement that has driven Russia since Peter the Great. “You see, our whole life, from earliest childhood, has been geared to the European mentality. Is it possible that any of us could have prevailed against this influence, this appeal, this pressure? How is it that we have not been regenerated once and for all into Europeans?” There is a distinct feeling of Dostoyevsky himself searching to understand the meaning of being Russian. He continually asks rhetorical questions and seemingly wrestles with trying to find truth amongst the Slavophile-Westernizer debate.

Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883) is one of the most extreme voices in literature. As noted previously, there was no specific shared doctrine amongst the Westernizers. In fact, an increasing number of radical Westernizers began to appear, challenging the entire Russian and European system, calling for a revolution. Among these, Turgenev’s nihilist hero Bazarov (Fathers and Sons) is placed. Additionally, the young radicals that he develops in Virgin Soil are models of the young revolutionary. This identification of a new generation serves as a social term, as the “fathers” of the 1840s begin to find conflict with the “sons” of the 1860s. Turgenev is focused on the coexistence of the older generation still immersed in romanticism and idealism, and the younger generation who spoke on such new terms as “nihilism,” “realism,” “utilitarianism,” and “materialism.”