Libmonster ID: RS-576
Author(s) of the publication: N. I. TSIMBAEV

E. MOLLER. Russischer Intellekt in europdischer Krise. I V. Kireevskij (1806 - 1856). Bohlau Verlag. Koln - Graz. 1966 (XII + 512 S.).

Modern Western historiography is characterized by a great interest in the problems of social thought in Russia in the 19th century. Bourgeois authors turn not only to the progressive, but also to its conservative trends, the insufficient study of which by our science sometimes gives room for the most arbitrary constructions.

The book by E. Muller, a West German historian and researcher at the Institute for the Study of Eastern Europe in Tübingen, is devoted to the analysis of the philosophical, sociological and theological views of one of the initiators of Slavophilism, I. V. Kireevsky. This topic has not yet become the subject of special research in our literature; if the statements of I. V. Kireevsky in the 1840s and 1850s are often used to illustrate the views of Slavophiles, then his critical articles of the 1820s and 1830s attracted the attention of Soviet researchers only relatively recently. 1 E. Muller used the existing literature, and also attracted new ones materials stored in the Manuscript Department of the V. I. Lenin Library and in TsGALI 2 . As an appendix to the book napecha-

1 Yu. Mann. Ivan Kireevsky. Voprosy Literatury, 1965, No. 11; izd. Russkaya filosofskaya estetika (1820-1830 - e gody) [Russian Philosophical Aesthetics (1820-1830-e gody)]. Moscow, 1969.

2 Э. Мюллеру принадлежат также работы: "Zwischen Liberalismus und utopischem Sozialismus Slavophile sozialtheoretische Perspektiven zur Reform vor 1861" ("Jahrbiicher fur Geschichte Osteuropas", Wiesbaden, 1965,

page 192

tana in Russian "Note on the direction and methods of the initial education of the people in Russia", which I. V. Kireevsky wrote in 1839 for the trustee of the Moscow Educational District S. G. Stroganov3 .

The book is divided into two parts: the first one is devoted to the journalistic activity of I. V. Kireevsky; the second one attempts to systematize his philosophical views, to understand the origins of his religious and philosophical worldview, and to define his political views of the 1840s and 1850s. The author has chosen the following form of presentation: the material contained in Kireevsky's articles and describing the phenomena of Russian and Western European life, he groups into "pictures" of Russia and Europe, which are compared.

But this attempt to analyze the views of I. V. Kireevsky with the help of contrasting "pictures" does not seem to be successful, because it does not allow us to trace the evolution of his views in sufficient depth. Such significant years in the life of I. V. Kireevsky as 1838 - 1839 and 1855 - 1856, when he formulated the most important provisions of his historical and philosophical system, remain outside the framework of the "paintings". E. Muller traditionally divides the evolution of I. V. Kireevsky's views into two stages: Western and Slavophil, the boundary between which he considers to be 1838, when the novel "The Island" was written (p.25). The author sees his task not in determining which views of I. V. Kireevsky were typical of Slavophil ideology, but in recreating his individual worldview (p. IX). However, it is objectionable that the author seeks to portray the changes in the views of I. V. Kireevsky only as a result of the crisis of consciousness of a lonely, "European-minded" Russian intellectual, and to consider them in isolation from the development of Russian social thought in the first half of the XIX century and socio-economic phenomena.

In Muller's coverage, the young I. V. Kireevsky appears as an enthusiastic admirer of the West. This is especially noticeable when analyzing the article by I. V. Kireevsky "XIX vek" and the magazine "Evropeets"published by him4 . E. Muller characterizes the latter as "an actual forum of Western European spiritual life" (p. 151), citing as evidence the list of foreign periodicals used by the publisher in compiling the next issues of the journal, and considering the translations that appeared in it. It is indisputable that even the name of the magazine emphasized the relationship between Russian and Western European cultures, but it is also indisputable that it appealed to the Russian reader, was a phenomenon of Russian public life. Not translations from foreign journals, but the works of I. V. Kireevsky himself, as well as V. A. Zhukovsky, E. A. Baratynsky, and N. M. Yazykov determined the true face of the magazine. Muller's attempt to reduce the work of I. V. Kireevsky in this case to the task of "Europeanizing Russian spiritual life through intensive contact with modern literary products of the West" (p.147) is erroneous.

In general, the views and activities of the young I. V. Kireevsky are described in the book one-sidedly. Interesting observations about the similarity of historical and philosophical concepts of I. V. Kireevsky with the views of Guizot (p. 99-104), Hegel (p.110-111), comparison of the methods of literary criticism of I. V. Kireevsky and V. Menzel (p. 159-162, 197-202) serve E. Muller to prove the unoriginal thoughts of this Russian writer. The question of the connection of some of his opinions with European social thought is replaced in the book by the question of borrowing, which is also understood in an extremely straightforward way. As a result, the significance of I. V. Kireevsky in the development of Russian criticism remained undisclosed, and his historical and philosophical concept was divorced from the phenomena of Russian reality that caused it. The question of the formation of the Slavophil views of I. V. Kireevsky is solved by the author in the same spirit. In the European literature and journalism of the 1930s and 1940s, E. Muller notes a very widespread criticism of" industrial " (in other words, bourgeois) society.

Bd. 13, Hf. 4); "Das Tagebuch Ivan Vas. Kireevskij 1852 - 1854". Ibid., 1966, Bd. 14, Hf. 2).

3 The original is kept in the Department of Manuscripts of the GBL, f. 99, cardboard 23, unit xr. 13.

4 "Evropeets" is a monthly magazine published in 1831 in Moscow. Only two issues were published, after which it was closed, as opposition-minded writers began to group around it.

page 193

Among the critics he ranks (without bothering himself with precise social characteristics) and the followers of Saint-Simon, and the most moderate German liberals, and the exponents of the views of the feudal aristocracy, and I. V. Kireevsky with his "disillusionment" with Western European civilization and the European enlightenment. The discord between the vague dreams of the young I. V. Kireevsky and the European reality of the 1840s was, in the author's opinion, the reason for the conversion of the" Russian European " to Slavophilism. The book does not give an idea of the true motives that made him do this, because it does not analyze the then Russian reality.

E. Muller considers I. V. Kireevsky an inconsistent Slavophile, a fusion of "a European still fascinated by the West" and a Slavophil theorist; he explains this circumstance by the latter's mental duality, his highly reflective mindset (pp. 228-229). The explanation is hardly convincing. Indeed, there is ample evidence of the "difference of opinion" between I. V. Kireevsky and the rest of the Slavophils .5 However, the rejection of a number of provisions of Slavophilism ultimately brought Kireevsky closer not to Westerners (with whom he was connected only by a constant interest in Western European thought), but to conservative circles of Russian society. In his philosophical quest of the 1830s and 1850s, I. V. Kireevsky turned to the "Orthodox principles", to the mysticism of Paisii Velichkovsky, which brought him closer to, for example, such a figure as Professor of the Kiev Theological Academy Ya. K. Amfiteatrov, who dreamed of a time "when the human mind will be completely captured in the obedience of faith and when the whole philosophy is based on the living and effective word of the Lord. " 6
Kireevsky's religious mindset, which had grown considerably stronger over the years, eventually led him to create a religious and philosophical system designed in the spirit of Orthodoxy. Neither his philosophical nor socio - political views were typical of all early Slavophilism. Therefore, one should be extremely careful to use Kireevsky's statements to illustrate certain aspects of the Slavophil doctrine. All the more objectionable is E. Muller's attempt to bring I. V. Kireevsky closer to Westerners.

The author does not concern the political views of the young I. V. Kireevsky, and for a later period - 1840 - 1850-the state of a truly Christian society, whose members will unite on the basis of common religious beliefs in a free organic community of social solidarity, where the state, as a force of order, will be based on absolute postulates. Christianity" (p. 467). According to E. Muller, it was precisely the desire to realize this ideal that caused I. V. Kireevsky to oppose the liberation of the peasants, because he believed that in the conditions of the Nikolaev police state, it "inevitably had to lead to a typically Western antagonism of classes" (pp. 475-476). The author failed to connect the political theory of I. V. Kireevsky with the Russian reality of the 1840s and 1850s. As a result, it remains unclear why I. V. Kireevsky, despite all his opposition to the Nikolaev autocracy, opposed the emancipation of the peasants. In general, the question of I. V. Kireevsky's political views was the most poorly covered in the book.

5 See, for example, I. V. Kireevsky's letter to A. S. Khomyakov dated May 2, 1844, or his letter to " Moscow friends "(March - April 1847): I. V. Kireevsky. Essays, vol. 2, Moscow, 1911, pp. 232-233, 245-248.

6 V. I. Askochenskiy. Ya. K. Amfiteatrov. Biographical sketch. Kiev, 1857, p. 41.

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