It is well known that Slavophilism left a significant mark on the history of Russian social thought in the 19th century. However, not all the links in the evolution of this ideological phenomenon, as well as the individual identity of the main figures of the Slavophil camp, are sufficiently understood in the literature. Researchers mainly focus on the ideological legacy of the founders of the Slavophil doctrine-K. S. Aksakov, A. S. Khomyakov, brothers I. V. and P. V. Kireevsky, whose activity falls on the 1840s-1850s. To a lesser extent, the history of post-reform Slavophilism1 is covered . This article presents an experience of comparative characterization of the socio-political positions of the Slavophils of the "second call" - I. S. Aksakov, Yu. F. Samarin, A. I. Koshelev during the first bourgeois reforms, at the time of the culmination and decline of the first revolutionary situation in Russia.
In the 1850s, I. S. Aksakov kept to himself in the Slavophil circle. A man of a practical turn of mind, little inclined to abstract theorizing, he, more than any of the Slavophiles, felt and painfully experienced the separation of Slavophil constructions from reality. In the idealization of pre-Petrine Russia, Aksakov saw a disregard for personal development. They regarded the worship of external forms of patriarchal life as an unnecessary hindrance to the natural course of national life. Dear to the Slavophiles ,the " Russian principles "did not look so perfect in his eyes: they were mixed with a lot of" Great Russian abomination","great Russian folk corruption". His own program in the 1950s was openly Westernized. "And we ourselves, the champions of the people," he wrote, "know of no other tools for healing evil than those indicated by European civilization: railways, changes in serfdom, magazines, newspapers, glasnost." 2 This" pure and bright " Westernism of Aksakov was very embarrassing for the editor of Russkaya Beseda, A. I. Koshelev3 .
Aksakov, in turn, was critical of the direction of the "Russian Conversation". The words" narodnost"," Orthodoxy", and" Russian spirit "that abounded in the magazine gave it a"nervous shudder". By the end of 1858, when he became head of the editorial board of Russkaya Bespoke, he immediately tried to put the magazine in a more independent position in relation to the government and the church. However, his editorship turned out to be-
1 This is also evidenced by the contents of two recent monographs devoted to Slavophilism: Yu. Z. Yankovsky. From the history of Russian social and literary thought of the 40s-50s of the XIX century. Kyiv. 1972; V. I. Kuleshov. Slavophiles and Russian Literature, Moscow, 1976.
2 "I. S. Aksakov in his Letters", vol. III, Moscow, 1892, pp. 290-291.
3 "Notes of A. I. Koshelev". Berlin, 1884, p. 75.
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elk is as fleeting as the experiments on the publication of "Rumor" and"Sail". "Cut off", according to Khomyakov, by the indifference of society, "Russian Conversation" ceased to exist in 1860. Publishing failures did not stop Aksakov. He hatched a plan to start a periodical with an appendix in the form of a weekly newspaper. Permission was granted only for the publication of the newspaper, and even then without the political department. On October 15, 1861, the first issue of the Aksakov Day was published.
"The banner of our newspaper is the banner of the Russian Conversation, the banner of the Russian nation understood and defined by the Kireevskys, Konstantin Aksakov, and the entire so - called Slavophil school" - this is how I. S. Aksakov defined his ideological credo in the first issue of Den .4 How did it happen that after revising Slavophil theory for a long time, he returned to its foundations and made them the banner of his newspaper? The first thing that usually comes to mind as an explanation for this turn is the special situation in which I. S. Aksakov found himself in 1860 after the deaths of A. S. Khomyakov and K. S. Aksakov. "Called by circumstances and constantly called upon by all my remaining friends to replace Konstantin," he wrote to his younger brother Grigory in January 1861, " I must at every step experience, in addition to grief, an offensive sense of my personal inadequacy... Meanwhile, one has to serve them all at least as an external center. Not only will I not give up on society in general, but I will do my best to keep in touch and influence society, and through this I will support the memory and influence of Khomyakov and Konstantin."5
By the will of fate, Aksakov becomes the central figure of Slavophilism. He suddenly felt, as A. A. Kornilov noted, "if not the heir, then the executor and responsible guardian of the spiritual inheritance left behind." 6 In this situation, the publication of the newspaper was seen as a continuation of the work started by the older generation of Slavophiles. "When I started the newspaper," Aksakov wrote to V. A. Cherkassky, "I set out with a modest goal - not to let the voice of a well-known direction be completely interrupted." 7 But was it only the need to "prevent the interruption of the traditions" at all costs that made Aksakov drop his previous hesitation and declare himself the guardian of the purity of Slavophil teaching? Was it only his debt to the deceased Khomyakov and K. S. Aksakov that obliged him to return to their positions? It is easy to see that the new role was not just an external, forced duty for Aksakov. "I fully believe," he confessed in a letter to A.D. Bludova dated February 7, 1861,"that the idea of Khomyakov and his brother is a completely vital and fruitful one, and it is precisely this idea that makes me return to the journal field." 8 After all, I. S. Aksakov never completely broke with Slavophilism. And yet, if we take this into account, we can nevertheless speak of a serious revaluation of ideological values that took place in Aksakov's worldview at the turn of the 1850s-1860s.
"Only now is our social revolution beginning to fully affect the landlords and all social life," we read in one of Aksakov's letters of the early 60s... - With the destruction of serfdom, not only the life of the landlords is destroyed, but also the entire building of our state.
4 "Day", 1861, N 1, p. 2. In the following, references to "Day" with the year, number and pages are given in the text.
5 Manuscript Department of the Institute of Russian Literature of the USSR Academy of Sciences (Pushkin House), f. 3, op. 16, d. 16, l. 10 (hereinafter-PD).
6 "History of Russian literature of the XIX century". Edited by D. N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky, T. V. Moscow, 1910, p. 110.
7 PD, f. 3, op. 2, d. 67, l. 4.
8 "I. S. Aksakov in his letters", Vol. IV. Moscow, 1896, p. 182.
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societies " 9 . The breakdown of the feudal system and the revolutionary ferment give Aksakov a sense of social disorganization. In fear of the unknown future, he tries to find "positive elements" capable of a new social "synthesis", and finds them precisely in the teaching of the Slavophiles. The social ideal of Slavophilism, whose propaganda seemed out of place at the time of waiting for the peasant reform, now assumed the significance of the only "healthy food" for the sick public consciousness. "The time has come," Aksakov wrote to N. S. Sokhanskaya (Kokhanovskaya) at the beginning of 1862, "and the emancipation of the peasants has indicated the need for self-consciousness and understanding of our nation: moreover, all other foundations and supports have proved untenable." 10 Aksakov attributed the success of the first issues of Den solely to the fact that the very course of historical events brought to life precisely the social force that Slavophilism represented. He defined his own task as follows:"I would like the newspaper to respond to every phenomenon of social life, exposing it to judgment from a certain point of view, illuminating it with the light of Slavophil thought, and at the same time, in a real maze, in a chaos of aspirations, concepts and directions, pointing out the guiding thread" 11 . The Day was conceived by Aksakov as an organ dedicated to "mainly Russian", "internal" issues.
The manifesto and the Regulations of February 19, 1861, provoked a sharply negative reaction from Aksakov. He wanted to see peasant reform as one of the "greatest social revolutions of the whole world," which would restore "the inner integrity of the social organism." But I had to admit that the emancipation of the peasants in its actual outlines was very far from the expected result. The two-year period allotted for drawing up the charter documents and the temporary state of obligation postponed for a long time the final denouement of the former relations between landlords and peasants, and thus deprived the reform of its "organizing power". Aksakov was most dissatisfied with the fact that the reform documents ignored the principle of the "historical right of the people to land" sanctified by the Slavophil tradition. However, neither this circumstance nor the fact that he sincerely resented the military-police methods of "liberating the peasants" give grounds to suspect Aksakov of being a democrat. Complaining to one of his correspondents about the incomprehensible, "gibberish" language of the manifesto, Aksakov drops the following phrase: "This is truly a huge, vast, great and holy matter, but what is important here is the actual spoken word, the destruction of serfdom as a right and the declaration of the principle of the indivisibility of the peasants with the land." 12 Aksakov, as we can see, is disgusted not by the predatory nature of the reform against the peasants, but by the verbal design. The impression is further reinforced by the verification of epistolary evidence by the materials of the Day.
Constantly repeating the need to maintain loyalty to popular views in the reform, Aksakov was not at all going to sacrifice "legal law", in other words, the interests of the landowner, to these views. "The violation of this right, "we read in one of the leading articles of the Day," would lead to the ruin of an entire estate and would fall with all its weight on the innocent, on those who were not at all involved in the original admission of untruth and only inherited a position that they themselves would not have the power to change. Therefore, it is necessary to meet all the requirements of fairness with respect to ma-
9 PD, f. 3, op. 2, d. 20, l. 57.
10 Russkoe Obozrenie, 1897, No. 5, p. 66.
11 PD, f. 3, op. 2, d. 48, ll. 27-28.
12 "I. S. Aksakov in his letters." Vol. IV. p. 48.
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From the point of view of the material interests of the landed estate" (1861, No. 7, p. 2). It was precisely from the point of view of the material interests of the nobility that Aksakov rejected the possibility of speeding up the reform by providing the peasants with a quarter, endowment allotment everywhere. The reconciliation of the" popular "and" legal "views was acceptable to the editor of the Day only in a form that did not allow for a reduction in the economic benefits of his class. That is why he wholeheartedly supported Yu. F. Samarin, who came up in his newspaper with the idea of transferring corvee and dues for the use of allotments to the state tax and returning the latter to the landlords in the form of an annual rent (1861, No. 7, pp. 3-5). By standing between the landowner and the peasant, the government, Yu and F. Samarin believed, would support the peasant illusion of an unconditional right to land and "dissect at once all the present relations between them."
The initial positions from which Yu. F. Samarin and A. I. Koshelev then evaluated the" Situation " of February 19 and the course of the peasant reform were already determined by the beginning of 1858. The author of the most radical Slavophil project for the abolition of serfdom, Koshelev persistently pursued the idea of the need to liberate the peasants "directly and definitively, without moving from less to more freedom." 13 Agreeing with Koshelev in demanding the transfer of the existing allotment to the peasants, Yu. F. Samarin at the same time became a staunch supporter of the transition period. The transition period was seen by him as a reliable guarantee of the peasant right to land. This point of view was shared by representatives of the liberal bureaucracy, and the author of the biography of Samarin had every reason to believe that in the main lines the peasant reform was the implementation of the Samarin concept .14
The triumph of bureaucratic regulation, which Koshelev hated, in the reform documents predetermined his mostly negative attitude to what was going to happen in the countryside after the manifesto was announced. "I have always been convinced," he wrote to P. A. Valuev in May 1861, " that a situation which contains much, very much good in itself is very difficult to implement and must lead to terrible clashes between landlords and peasants. Unfortunately, this is now becoming a reality. The corvee of free people is impossible in Russia. Write what you want, drive through the ranks, put dozens or hundreds of people on the spot, and you will not receive the mandatory corvee served by free people. " 15 The reality of the reform, coupled with a certain infringement of one's own material interests, and the difficulties of transferring the landowner economy to capitalist rails supplemented the reason for the depressed state in which Koshelev was in 1861-1862. The" intractability "of the peasants, economic troubles, and so on made Koshelev quickly forget his "radicalism": he agreed with V. A. Cherkassky's proposal to strengthen "disciplinary measures". "For corvee estates, the rod in the hands of elders is necessary," he believed, and considered it obligatory to grant the right of corporal punishment of elders to world mediators. The institutions of peasant self-government did not inspire Koshelev with any confidence. If in 1861-1862 the prospects for reform were painted in gloomy colors, then by the spring of 1863 his mood had noticeably changed. The decline in the activity of the peasant movement and the first successes in capitalist management instilled a certain confidence in the future, and the landowner cheered up.
13 "Notes of A. I. Koshelev", appendix 5, p. 128.
14 B. E. Nolde. Yuri Samarin and his time. Paris, 1926, p. 132.
15 PD, f. 559, d. 47, ll. 6-6 vol.
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Yu. F. Samarin was immediately distinguished by a great conviction in the successful completion of the peasant reform. The fact that the peasants "postponed" their hope for freedom until the introduction of statutory instruments served as a guarantee for him. As one of the authors of the "Regulations" of February 19, Samarin was hostile to any attempts to revise their main grounds. He was particularly indignant at the desire of the majority of landlords for immediate redemption. He did not find any economic benefits in the termination of temporary binding relations, but still defended them both as a condition for preserving the peasant allotment (especially in the steppe provinces), and as an institution that, in his view, had "educational significance" for the people. The development of events in the countryside mostly suited him, and already at the beginning of 1862 he was sure that Russia had safely passed the "thresholds of serfdom".
Aksakov, too, like Samarin and Koshelev, was not concerned with defending the real interests of the peasantry, but with finding means to paralyze its resistance to reform. Dissatisfaction with the postponement of the final settlement of the dispute between the two estates did not make him a principled opponent of the government's program on the peasant question. And it was not surprising that as tsarist success in suppressing peasant protest increased, Aksakov's irritation and desire to correct certain aspects of the reform gave way to a calm, even complacent view of the situation. However, it was not only the decline of peasant discontent, which meant the victory of the government and the nobility, that transformed Aksakov from a critic of the "Regulations" into their zealous defender. The liberalism of the editor of Den began to resent attempts to revise the peasant reform in the spirit of serfdom. Aksakov's newspaper becomes the main opponent of Vesti and Moskovskiye Vedomosti, where the previous ownership claims, hostility to the community and institutions of peasant self-government were reinforced by slogans of "economic freedom".
The editor of Moskovskiye Vedomosti, M. N. Katkov, and his associates were not averse to replacing peasant self-government with the justice of the peace, in whose hands the judicial and executive powers would be united. The noble character of this institution was not in doubt. Aksakov, therefore, had reason to see in the position of the Katkov publications a desire to restore the "landowner with serfdom"to his former place. The Slavophiles were particularly concerned about the attack on the commune launched by the "phalanx of serf liberals" in Vesti and Moskovskiye Vedomosti. The liberal-economic argument against the inalienable rights of peasant plots was challenged in the speeches of Samarin and Koshelev. The latter, for example, considered it far from proven "that large-scale property in general was more productive than small-scale property" (1864, No. 10, p. 9). In defending the communal organization, Den constantly pointed out the danger of "proletarianization" of the peasantry, which threatened in the event of the violent destruction of the community.
Aksakov often compared the peasant reform to a breach in a fortress wall. It was not just an image that he liked, but a rather capacious characteristic that incorporated a Slavophil understanding of the changes in the socio-political structure of Russia that the abolition of serfdom brought. "This wall," Aksakov wrote to D. A. Obolensky on March 20, 1861, " on the one hand, held the population captive, on the other hand, it held the pressure of the state principle, now the state will rush into the breach with all its terrible strength, and on the other, the people will also come out into the light
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god's gift. I am afraid that the first phenomenon will overpower the last, and I am afraid of the terrible development of statehood. " 16 The violation of the" balance " between the zemstvo and state principles in favor of the latter, which Aksakov speaks of here, could not be prevented by any political constitution. He also did not believe in its possibility in Russia. "Only one thing will help," Aksakov believed, "if we nobles, having solemnly recognized that the historical mission of the nobility as a class has ended, turn completely and sincerely to the zemstvo and introduce into the zemstvo class a new element of enlightenment, consciousness and personality, moderate and enlightened by the element of nationality." 17 Thus, the "land" will be able to resist the state only by accepting the nobility. The demand for the merger of estates in the zemstvo element was dictated not only by Aksakov's desire to ensure the vitality of the Slavophil social ideal. The desire to moderate class antagonism as much as possible was characteristic of the aristocratic liberalism of the late 1850s and early 1860s. It directly reflects the interests of the nobility.
The editor of the Day strongly recommended that the nobility" commit the great act of destroying themselves as a class "(1862, No. 12, p. 2). The future of social organization in Russia was pictured to him as follows :" In the zemstvo we see, or will soon see, two beginnings, two elements of everyday life: the beginning of the community and the beginning of the individual, the beginning of communal land ownership and the beginning of personal land ownership, community members-peasants and personal landowners, most of whom are almost exclusively nobles. We don't expect any other divisions. The mutual union of these elements, which are alien to isolation and exclude mutual one-sidedness, their sincere rapprochement and friendly action, a rapprochement not only external, but also moral in the field of historical and spiritual principles of the whole people, could serve, it seems to us, as the guarantee of a rich future development " (1861, No. 8, p. 3). In Aksakov's view, and his fellow Slavophiles were confronted with an ideal of such social greatness that, as they thought, the most notorious Fourierist should have been dizzy before. It did not follow from what was said that the nobility, deprived of a class organization, should have lost its significance. Aksakov sought to secure for the landlord class a "moral", "domestic" predominance, justifying the latter with the advantages of education.
The same desire to remove obstacles to the establishment of class peace in post-reform Russia explains the position taken by Aksakov in relation to the qualification. Insisting on the elimination of the legal barriers that existed between the estates, he went further and wanted to prevent the possibility of allocating a new landowning estate now on the basis of a property qualification. Aksakov seriously feared that the censorship system of zemstvo and judicial institutions would preserve the former class inequality. The editor of the" Day "considered it unacceptable to transfer the purely "Western" principle of qualification, which determined the order of elections in noble assemblies, to new institutions. The idea of censorship was declared absolutely immoral and untenable in the" Day".
How were these "improvisations" received in the Slavophil milieu? "Your article on censorship," V. I. Lamansky wrote to Aksakov on December 27, 1861, " introduces confusion into concepts, only increases the confusion and chaos prevailing in our society. No article in our journalism has ever made such a sad, heavy impression on me. Let it be in Sovremennik. Or not, and your "Day"
16 PD, f. z, op. 2, d. 30, ll. 50-50 rev.
17 Ibid., l. 50 vol.
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it begins to confuse and confuse, rather than purify our consciousness " 18 . The "obscure and false theory" of the editor of the Day, A. I. Koshelev and V. A. Cherkassky, who found in it "a complete suppression of the element of private property", were equally categorically condemned .19 Koshelev was particularly indignant. Aksakov found it possible to put the differences that had suddenly emerged on the pages of his newspaper, where Koshelev, in the form of letters to the editor, outlined the essence of the position of the Slavophil majority. He was dissatisfied with the fact that Aksakov's nihilism with regard to qualifications deprived the condition of personal landowners of any certainty and significance. Aksakov's egalitarian Romanticism represented, in Koshelev's opinion, a lack of understanding of the tasks facing the nobility. Having renounced exclusive civil privileges, parted from its former isolation, and purged itself of landless elements, it was now to be revived as part of the landed estate, and only on the basis of a qualification.
Finding in the censor the only instrument for distinguishing the landowning estate, Koshelev could not imagine new public institutions without it. Like Aksakov, he cherished the idea of "national unity", but considered naive the opinion of the editor of "Day" that the censorship deprives the vast majority of the poor of the right to vote. "The poor or the poor," he wrote, " can form a special state and have special representatives and estate administrators; by means of the qualification, only the size and types of general popular representation are determined, fortunes are delimited, and it is avoided that the "vast majority of the poor" does not crush or crush the minority of the "haves", which, of course, must be done. to be in the shape of any well-ordered state " (1862, No. 18, p. 7). Having made sure that it is not a question of an electoral qualification that deprives a part of the people of the right to vote, but of a qualification in general and the distribution of citizens according to wealth, the parties came to an agreement. Its meaning consisted in the adoption by Aksakov and Koshelev of a multi-price system, where personal owners, divided into three categories, would have an equal number of elected representatives, and the total number of the latter would be equal to the number of representatives from volosts.
For understanding the socio-political position of I. S. Aksakov in the first half of the 60s of the XIX century, the content of those new moments that he brings to the historical and sociological concept of Slavophilism is important. In his theoretical constructions Aksakov was not content with the legacy bequeathed to him by the older generation of Slavophiles. The fundamental concepts of "land" and "state" in K. S. Aksakov's historical scheme are now supplemented by the new category of "society", which becomes a decisive factor for the "correct" historical development of the Russian people. This theory of society was expounded in a number of articles of the "Day" of 1861-1862. "It seems to me," I. S. Aksakov shared his thoughts in a letter to Yu. F. Samarin dated March 22-23, 1862 , " that these articles fill in a certain gap in the Slavophil teaching, especially in the teaching of Constantine on the state and land. There was no place for society, literature, or the work of self-awareness. The immediacy of the people's existence and the activity of consciousness, the impersonality of the units that make up the people, and their personal activity in society - all this was not expressed, and therefore confused the public and readers, because these concepts and ideas, as undivided, were constantly mixed " 20 .
Repeating after K. S. Aksakov the idea of the need to counteract the "ugly" development of the state at the expense of the people,
18 Russkaya Mysl, 1917, No. 2, ed. II, p. 85.
19 Trubetskoy Island. Book by V. A. Cherkassky and his participation in the resolution of the peasant question. Materials for Biography, vol. I, book 2, Moscow, 1904, pp. 345, 355.
20 PD, f. 3, op. 2, d. 48, l. 40.
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The editor of Den saw the salvation of the inner, organic power of the people in stimulating its activity in the process of absorbing the core of the Koroi. "This activity is in the people's organism," he wrote, "in the activity of society, or rather, society is nothing but the people's organism in its active development, nothing but the people themselves in their progressive movement" (1862, No. 22, p. 2). Thus, society as a whole is not only the people's organism in its active development. the environment in which the conscious mental activity of the people is carried out is designed to ensure its development according to the laws of "inner truth". Society, according to Aksakov, serves not only the conscious expression of folk principles, but also the internal integrity of the national organism. Therefore, he could not allow the manifestation of elements of class exclusivity in the public environment. Aksakov tried to protect society from introducing elements of politics into its sphere. By sacrificing its moral essence, it, in his understanding, ceases to be a society and becomes infected with the disease of statehood, and it will retain its apolitical character only if the word is the only instrument of its activity.
Created as a result of Peter's reforms, he argues further, the new Russian society until very recently had a predominantly noble character and could not boast of a correct understanding of folk principles. Having shown signs of life in the course of preparing for the peasant reform, it later failed to cope with the spread of the most extreme political errors and thus showed its complete impotence. However, Aksakov did not lose hope for a social revival. Speaking about the Day's program, he put the task of developing and strengthening society in the first place. Its solution had to be combined with efforts to re-educate society in the spirit of the Russian nationality, as it was interpreted by the Slavophiles. These Aksakov articles about the society were highly appreciated by Yu. F. Samarin, whose opinion the editor of the Day greatly valued .21
The socio-political situation in Russia in the spring and summer of 1863 corresponded to Aksakov's intentions to "bring Russian society back to life" and make it imbued with an understanding of folk principles. The excitement caused by the uprising in Poland and the threat of war against a coalition of European powers that arose in connection with it, he initially accepted as a long-expected recovery of social forces. Following its program setting to activate public opinion, Aksakov's Den partnered with Katkov to raise expectations of war and chauvinist frenzy. "I wish for war," Aksakov wrote to V. A. Elagin on June 30, 1863, "I wish for us a shake-up of the body, I hope that it will bring out the element of the people, without which there is nothing to think of a sincere society." 22
While Aksakov enjoyed the rise of chauvinist sentiment in Russian society, he could not say that he was completely satisfied. He was no longer interested in quantitative, but in qualitative characteristics of the social state. And when he carefully examined this side of the movement, he found signs of an exclusively "external", "state" patriotism. At the beginning of the summer of 1863, the Day's pages were still full of appeals "not to be deceived by hopes of a peaceful outcome." But Aksakov's publicist's attention is mainly focused on the problem of" high-quality processing " of patriotic feeling. He ironically assesses the efforts of the "zealous flatterer of patriotism" Katkov, finding echoes of "old Nikolaev patriotism" in the leading articles of Moskovskiye Vedomosti, and offers readers his understanding
21 See I. S. Aksakov's letter to V. A. Elagin dated June 2, 1862 (PD, f. 3, op. 2, d. 17, ll. 2-2 vol.,).
22 PD, f. 3, op. 2, d. 17, l. 8.
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a truly patriotic mood and indicates the fragility of patriotism, which appeals only to state forces to solve public problems.
As a supporter of the decisive suppression of the uprising in Poland, Aksakov at the same time believed that military measures alone were insufficient to defeat Polonism as an "enlightenment principle". In addition to being faithful to Russian principles, he demanded from society "the strictest vigilance", "maintaining moral tension", and that internal activity that is the essence of its activity and protects people's life from state interference. However, attempts to translate "external patriotism" into reviving the" internal " activities of society on the basis of anti-Polonism failed. At the beginning of 1864, Aksakov admitted with undisguised disappointment :" As for patriotism, frankly speaking, the patriotism of '63 did not present us with anything particularly new" (1864, No. 1, p.2).
As for Koshelev, overcoming the crisis caused by the peasant reform and further moving along the path of transformation were possible, in his opinion, only if the bureaucracy was neutralized and eliminated. In the proposed alternative (revolutionary overthrow of the "autocracy of the bureaucracy" or "well-intentioned, sincere and complete unity of the tsar and the people") Koshelev accepted only the latter. A form of such unity - the Zemstvo Duma was hatched by a Slavophil publicist since the mid-50s of the XIX century. Finding in the Duma the only means of resolving the crisis and finding himself in line with the constitutional movement of the nobility, Koshelev immediately made a reservation that he did not mean to limit the autocracy. The consultative Duma, as a form of identifying the opinion and needs of the people in the face of the monarch, did not, he believed, reveal any analogies in the constitution and parliament. However, Koshelev did not act as an absolute detractor of the constitutional order. His criticism of constitutionalism was specific and based on the belief that there was no historical basis for it in Russia.
When Koshelev demanded "a general council of elected representatives from the entire Russian land", he did not think about proportional or equal representation of all estates. Only in the first instance - the county assembly-did it provide for elective representatives from "states". Deputies from the "localities"were to appear in the provincial assemblies and in the Duma. With the help of the old Slavophil thesis about the absence of historically formed estates in Russia, Koshelev opened the way to his Duma to "the best people in general", in whom it is not difficult to discern representatives of the nobility .23 The uprising of 1863 in Poland confirmed, as it seemed to Koshelev, the correctness of his view. Representation now assumed the significance of an instrument for the final settlement of the Polish question. Koshelev also had such a like-minded person as the editor of Moskovskiye Vedomosti, Katkov.
The demand for consultative representation was not supported in Slavophil circles. In 1862, Aksakov, Samarin, and Cherkassky were still united in condemning Koschelevsky's "liberalism into the hands of the nobility." Samaritan criticism of the constitutional claims of the nobility, in particular Koshelev's aspirations, was based on the concept of"people's autocracy". Its content is clearly defined in the draft statement on the supposed address of the nobility to grant the constitution (1862). Any manifestations of opposition to the autocracy in Russia, from the point of view of Samarin, were a "purely negative" force. The only positive force was the people.
23 See for more information: A. I. Koshelev. The Constitution, the autocracy, and the Zemstvo Duma. Leipzig, 1862.
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As for the autocracy, in Samarin's understanding it also received the meaning of a positive force, but because it was "put forward" by the popular force and thereby recognizes its personification in the monarch. "As long as autocracy has these two conditions, it is legitimate and invincible." 24 If the nobility risks limiting autocratic power, bypassing the people, it will find itself "between two ramparts going towards each other." So, a constitution outside the people is impossible in Russia. The idea of a constitution at the will of the people was even more utopian, if not ridiculous. Samarin relied on a supra-class (as it seemed to him, "popular") autocracy, supposedly capable of moderating social contradictions. He trusted this force, which was not burdened with representative institutions, to ensure the interests of the nobility in bourgeois reforms. From the conviction that in Russia the construction of a public building should start from the bottom, from the foundation, grew his interest in the reconstruction of local institutions.
The idea of the maturity of Russian society and how strong the manifestations of nationality and unity are in it determined Aksakov's attitude to the constitutional movement of the first half of the 60s of the XIX century. The Slavophil idea of a Zemsky Sobor was dear to him. "Russia can be renewed and find the integrity of the organism only by the Zemsky Sobor," he assured V. I. Lamansky in 1861, intending to gradually carry out this idea in his newspaper .25 But in speaking of this intention, Aksakov did not deviate from the orthodox Slavophil interpretation of the Council as an institution that crowns the unity of the people, and therefore did not see the ground prepared for it. However, the argument about the" untimeness " of this institution might not be enough to stay out of the mainstream of the constitutional movement. Therefore, while dissociating himself from both the democratic and openly noble tendencies, the editor of Den emphasized the apolitical nature of the Council, which has nothing to do with constitutional forms of limiting autocracy. Even on the eve of the Moscow Assembly of the nobility (early January 1862), where the mood of noble constitutionalism was most pronounced, Den protested against attempts to " build a building without a foundation." In an editorial about the noble assembly in Moscow, Aksakov sharply condemned the "liberal idea", which showed annoyance at the loss of ownership rights. Aksakov disliked the statist spirit of the Samarin theory of "people's autocracy", but in 1861-1862 they were both strongly united by hostility to the idea of a constitution.
The events of 1863 not only restored Aksakov's lost faith in the creative forces of society for some time, but also forced him to reconsider his previous thesis about the impossibility of zemstvo representation. "I myself," Aksakov wrote to N. P. Gilyarov - Platonov on February 27, 1863, " come up with the idea of a Duma not only to resolve the Polish question, but also to resolve all sorts of questions. This is the only remedy that remains for us. " 26 Aksakov did not confine himself to stating a new view of the problem of popular representation in Russia, but immediately gave it a historical and theoretical justification. "The fact is that the moral balance that existed in pre-Petrine Russia between the government and the people no longer exists," the same letter said, " the unity and communication among themselves that the tsar, society and people had in ancient Russia are broken. The body lost its integrity. The people and the zemstvos still maintain their old relations with the authorities, but the authorities are no longer the same. That's why it comes out
24 "Rus", 1881, N 29, p. 13.
25 "Russkaya mysl", 1916, N 12. otd. II. PP. 101-102.
26 "I. S. Aksakov in his letters", Vol. IV, p. 270.
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constant dissonance, constant misunderstanding. It turns out that the love, faith, and aspirations of the people relate to some historical ideal, but in any case not to an existing phenomenon, not to reality." In addition, the dynasty has long been reborn, and unlimited power now belongs not to the Russian tsar, as the people think, but to the "Germans" surrounded by the"German bureaucracy". In such a case, the people have the right to propose their own terms to the Government .27
However, the demand for a Council as an urgent practical measure did not last long in the program of the "Day". Not finding in the Russian "patriotic" movement of 1863 signs of real social strength and understanding of the nation, Aksakov abandoned the idea of the possibility of zemstvo representation. The last splash of the constitutional initiative of the nobility was the address of the Moscow nobility Assembly, presented to the government on January 11, 1865. There was no longer, as in 1862, a purely noble formula of representation. It was about " calling a general meeting of elected people from the Russian land to discuss the needs common to the entire state." But Aksakov did not forget about the presence of a strong oligarchic tendency in the Moscow assembly and perceived the address as another harassment of the noble constitution.
The abolition of serfdom and the subsequent zemstvo and judicial reforms did not constitute an unambiguous series in Aksakov's mind. It wasn't that he didn't feel a connection between them. But he constantly opposed the "great, vital revolution of February 19" to other reforms, and did this not in favor of the latter. As a supporter of transformations that would follow from the everyday needs and ideas of the people, and not "imposed" on them, Aksakov was pleased to point out the" organic "and purely" negative " nature of the peasant reform. The zemstvo and judicial reforms, designed to introduce Russian life in a new direction, had a different content. He noted the active formative stage of these transformations and feared that the "popular legal customs" that had not yet been raised to the level of scientific fact would be sacrificed to "abstract theories" or "fashionable doctrines" when liberal haste would turn into a distortion of "Russian principles". That is why, even understanding the inevitability of the next reforms, Aksakov was skeptical about the efforts of bureaucratic liberalism and repeatedly spoke about the prematurity of introducing zemstvo and judicial institutions.
For Samarin, who viewed the nobility and bureaucracy as "one public body, one legal entity," the favorable assessment of the government's initiative in zemstvo and judicial reforms was more than natural. Finally, Koshelev refused to accept the gift from the hands of the bureaucracy and predicted complete failure of the upcoming reforms. But no matter how passionate his criticism of the government bureaucracy was, he failed to maintain his dislike for its activities in the first half of the 60s of the XIX century. In his "Notes", which were created during the 70s of the XIX century, he assessed the content of the following reforms differently. And his own position in retrospect seemed different from the one he actually held earlier .28
Reforms were becoming a reality that could not be shut out. In the face of this reality, the opinion of the editor of the Day also split. Aksakov, a liberal, couldn't help but welcome the new institutions. But as the heir and successor of the Slavophil tradition-
27 PD, f. 3, op. 2, d. 13, ll. 6-6 vol. The published text of the letter contains large bills.
28 "Notes of A. I. Koshelev", p. 142.
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However, he immediately questioned their vitality and real social significance. It was the idea of bringing the new court closer to the moral and everyday ideas of the people, as the Slavophiles understood them, that guided Aksakov when he expressed his comments and suggestions on the "Main Provisions" of the judicial reform of 1864. His proposals were primarily aimed at weakening the "external", "formal" character of the new judicial regulations by strengthening the moral element in them as much as possible. Having never overcome his dislike for reforms that did not have "solid popular ground", Aksakov later made significant progress in evaluating the same judicial reform. At the time of the announcement of the new judicial statutes, he put this reform in the first place after the liberation of the peasants. In his view, the judicial reform expressed the concept of the zemstvo more accurately than the "Regulations on zemstvo Institutions". The zemstvo reform also did not show, Aksakov believed, any signs of" organic " legislation. For this reason, he refused to approach the government project of zemstvo institutions "with all the severity of criticism." However, through the skepticism generated by the discrepancy between the ideal aspirations of Slavophilism and the actual results of the reform, there was a recognition of its positive practical significance, especially the all-orthodox nature of zemstvo institutions.
Samarin, who made a detailed analysis of the draft zemstvo institutions in the Day, also had no doubts about the" sincerity and integrity " of the government's initiatives. Analyzing the project, he was more concerned with the question: will the zemstvo be internally well-off and viable? Samarin's amendments and additions to the draft were mainly aimed at ensuring that the zemstvo institutions, within the limits of their assigned competence, were internally stable and realistic. Proceeding from this premise, he found unjustified the desire of the authors of the project to ensure the" greatest possible " independence of the actions of county economic institutions and to duplicate provincial institutions in the county. Samarin proposed a three-step system of division of counties, in which only the last and highest degree of uyezds would have the type of organization that was defined in the government draft. He also pointed out that it was premature to remove the government element from the zemstvo institutions. Fearing that such a measure would lead to "a sudden interruption in local administrative practices and traditions," Samarin considered it necessary to allow the zemstvo assemblies themselves to receive experienced and authoritative representatives of the government administration with the right to vote.
As a theorist of social equilibrium, Samarin could not allow its formal violation in local government institutions. Therefore, the attempt to legislate the predominance of the nobility in them caused a rebuff in the articles of Samarin. In the "combination" proposed by him, three main social groups were named: personal landowners, rural communities, and the clergy who occupied the "middle place" with urban inhabitants. Each of them would receive an equal number of representatives in a pre-determined number of members of the zemstvo assembly. The proclamation and defense of the principle of equal representation in the zemstvo may at first give the impression that in the person of Samarin there was an opponent of the dominance of the nobility in local self-government. This impression will be deceptive, because, having spoken out in favor of equality, Samarin was convinced from the very beginning of the actual primacy of representatives of the nobility and petty-bourgeois land ownership. He should have made an exception
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only the Polish nobility of the western provinces, for which he demanded a decisive preponderance of the Orthodox clergy and peasants. There was a lot more practicality and sobriety in these opinions of Samarin. And the theoretical maximalism professed by the editor of Den seemed to him an unforgivable naivety.
There was no room for restraint or skepticism in Aksakov's opinions at all when it came to freedom of the printed word. Aksakov consistently and passionately advocated the liberation of the press from censorship restrictions, because free speech was for him the only acceptable tool of public activity. Only the transformation of censorship could open up space for "organic legislation". This is why censorship reform has taken on a key role, giving meaning to other reform initiatives. Freedom of the press was not only a priority program requirement for Aksakov, but also an essential condition for his legal capacity as a publisher and editor. This deeply personal aspect made the issue of eliminating censorship pressure particularly acute and topical. Aksakov did not sin against the truth when he complained about his strange fate in Russian journalism. Faced with the previous prejudice of government circles towards Slavophil periodicals even at the time of the Day's foundation, he later received more and more confirmation of the censorship's special "concerns" about his newspaper. His editorials began to move through the administrative maze with a special censor sent from St. Petersburg, passed through the presence of the Moscow Censorship Committee, the hands of two ministers - People's Education, the Interior, and, finally, Alexander II himself, and often did not return to the pages of the Day. Censorship restrictions, culminating in the suspension of the publication of Den in June 1862, along with the journals of revolutionary democracy, were the main source of Aksakov's hostility to the government bureaucracy. While outstripping the Day's editor's aspirations for judicial and zemstvo reforms, the government also displayed an incomprehensible conservatism with regard to the central point of its program, the question of freedom of the press, and forced Aksakov to make harsh judgments on this subject. "If anyone should be hanged," he wrote to N. S. Sokhanskaya (Kokhanovskaya) in 1862, "it is not arsonists or nihilists, but G[olovnin] and V[Aluyev], who now sacrilegiously encroach on the freedom and independence of opinion and speech." 29 However, he warned that his opposition to the government is not political in nature. To want freedom of speech did not mean, according to Aksakov, to encroach on the principle of power.
Aksakov placed the peasant reform above the French Revolution of the late eighteenth century, emphasizing the exclusively "social" nature of the revolution in Russia. However, such a high assessment of the abolition of serfdom did not mean that Aksakov was reconciled with the government. The depth of the accomplished "social revolution" even more sharply set off the failure of the policy of police and administrative oppression. In his mind, the government bureaucracy was the" greatest, most hated enemy " of the Russian people. Bureaucratic liberalism for Aksakov is one of the varieties of "Western despotism". He repeatedly said that the current state of relations between society and the state does not correspond to the theoretical ideas of the Slavophiles. The "moral balance" of the two main historical counterparties was broken in favor of the state, and the first condition for returning to it is the" reasonable self-restraint " of the government. But this balance can be consolidated and maintained only if the society itself discovers the capacity for historical change.-
29 Russkoe Obozrenie, 1897, No. 6, p. 502.
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professional self-activity. That is why the level of Aksakov's opposition to the government was not constant, but fluctuated depending on the state of Russian society. The public mood of 1861-1862 caused the editor of Den nothing but disappointment and pessimism. But the chauvinist campaign of 1863 did not give Aksakov the expected result, although it is noteworthy that it was during it that he rose to the demand for the convocation of a Zemsky Sobor. Returning after 1863 to the opinion that the social forces of Russia were not working properly, Aksakov removed this point from his program.
The problem of overcoming public "apathy" became the leading topic of Aksakov's journalism in 1864-1865. He had not yet given up his dissatisfaction with the liberal bureaucracy, which was hastily piling up reforms, and complained about the lack of public freedoms. But the main charge of his criticism is addressed not to the government, but to society. Aksakov comes to a bleak conclusion: the liberal nobility, with whom he pinned his hopes as the "healthiest and most reasonable" part of society, was losing all traces of opposition, was absolutely unable to present to the government its own positive program for strengthening the social edifice of post-reform Russia, and at the same time showed no desire to understand and appreciate the "life-giving" force ideas that were proposed by Slavophiles. Having finally lost faith in the creative powers of the contemporary generation of the noble intelligentsia, Aksakov felt that it was pointless to continue preaching to this particular generation. "I must confess to you that I now bring little love or faith to my work," he wrote to Yu. F. Samarin in July 1864. "There is little love because I make sounds in an empty space: no resonance, no response, you feel and know that you can repeat the same thing in two years, that for many things the time has not yet come to understand, much less to realize"30 . Awareness of the futility of these efforts hastened the decision to stop publishing the Day.
The re-evaluation of Aksakov's criticism was accompanied by conciliatory assessments of the complex of government measures of the first half of the 60s of the XIX century. This kind of characterization was also in the last editorial of the Day. "We need not lay the blame on the government or expect from it such new reforms," Aksakov wrote, saying goodbye to his readers, " that would instantly put us on our feet and restore us to health. The most important thing is the emancipation of the serfs and the freedom (even if not complete) of the printed word; we already have the most necessary things: further development belongs to society itself. Everything that depends on external state power has already been given or will be given" (1865, No. 52, p. 1229). Another evidence of the decline in Aksakov's opposition is his recognition of the autocracy's "Russian" character (1865, No. 34, p.798).
An organic part of the Slavophiles ' ideological position was the struggle against materialist and revolutionary tendencies. As if following Katkov's example, the Aksakov newspaper began this struggle by attacking the philosophical foundations of the revolutionary-democratic movement. Already in No. 2 of Denya, the first of Samarin's "Letters on Materialism" was published, containing "thoughts and impressions" about L. Buchner's book "Force and Matter", which was very much revered by the Democrats of that time. Aksakov and his collaborators did not bother to analyze the true content of the philosophical views of the leaders of revolutionary democracy. Their noted concessions to the vulgar materialism of Buchner, K. Focht, and J. Moleschott in the articles of Sovremennik, and especially in Pisarev-
30 PD, f. 3, ot. 2, d. 48, l. 89.
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The popularity of these ideas among the youth was quite sufficient for them to make the entire revolutionary movement one of the " peddlers of cheap materialism." By passing off their ideas as the last word of materialism, the Slavophil publicists gained ground that was convenient for trying to compromise the supporters of the materialist doctrine.
But the struggle against materialism was only one part of the frontal offensive against the ideological positions of the revolutionary movement. At the same time, Den also tried to discredit the socio-political ideals of revolutionary democracy. According to Aksakov, the democratism of Sovremennik and Russkoe Slovo had nothing in common with the true interests of the people. Democratic ideas, as the legitimate child of bourgeois Europe, lost all meaning for him when applied to Russia. Aksakov protested against the confusion of the concepts of "democracy "and" narodnost", and the expression of sympathy for the Russian people in the name of democracy was qualified by him as a moral oppression of the national spirit. In this sense, he believed, "Petersburg democracy" is extremely close to"Petersburg bureaucracy." Rejecting the idea of people's power as "absolutely alien" to the Slavic world, Den demonstrated the same intransigence regarding socialism. Aksakov's historical function of socialism was limited to the denial of the" untruth " of Western life. At the same time, he emphasized the "incapacity" of socialism for practical creation. In the field of view of Aksakov and his authors were socialist theories not only of Western origin. The concept of "Russian socialism"aroused an even more negative reaction in them. The Slavophiles did not want to cede the peasant community, which was the main element of their own utopia, to the "home-grown" socialists.
The editor of the " Day "also condemned the instigators of the" riots " at the St. Petersburg University. When the events were repeated in Moscow, Aksakov responded with an editorial that he said was "quite well-intentioned, even from a government point of view." 31 The proclamation movement caused Aksakov a lot of trouble. He was appalled by the scale of the spread of "underground literature," as he called the proclamations, and was dismayed that the censors did not allow them to be openly combated. Aksakov admitted the existence of a direct link between the revolutionary authors of Young Russia and the May 1862 fires in St. Petersburg: arson "logically followed" from the teachings preached by its authors, although the editor of Den found no grounds for a frontal turn towards reaction. Banning magazines and closing Sunday schools was, from his point of view, "stupid."
Starting the Day's publication, Aksakov did not intend to engage in direct polemics with the journals of Russian democracy. He found a more appropriate form of combating them in " polemics against ideas and principles." Indeed, there were few materials in his newspaper that were direct responses to certain speeches of Sovremennik and Russkoe Slovo, and they usually belonged not to Aksakov, but to a few employees. This peculiarity of the Slavophil newspaper was due not only to the peculiar tactical attitude of its editor. We must also take into account the longer silence of these journals, as compared with Den, after the suspension of their publication in June 1862. Finally, the Polish events of 1863 turned Aksakov's attention to the activities of the editorial staff of Herzen's Kolokol and M. A. Bakunin.
31 Russkaya Mysl, 1916, No. 12, ed. II, p. 105.
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The history of relations between I. S. Aksakov and A. I. Rerzen began with their personal meeting in London in August 1857.Aksakov, who was then distinguished among Slavophiles by radicalism and keenly felt the inappropriateness of Slavophil conservatism on the eve of reforms, made a favorable impression on Herzen. After the London Rendezvous in the fourth book. Aksakov's "Court Scenes", which fell into the hands of Herzen along with articles for Voices from Russia, were published in the Polar Star. Aksakov owned the revealing material that was used by Herzen in the article "La regata in front of the windows of the Winter Palace" 32 . Contacts with Aksakov were much more important for Herzen than just personal acquaintance. In the face of the break with the right wing of liberal Westernism that had been marked by 1858, Herzen sought to maintain and strengthen his ties with the Slavophils. Although his relations with the Slavophil camp in the late 1950s were far from idyllic, he still found in the Slavophil teaching "the true consciousness of a living soul among the people", "the aspirations of the next century", and the prospect of allied relations with its representatives seemed real to him. From this point of view, the figure of Aksakov Jr. acquired a special interest for Herzen. Inclined to reject the most rigid features of the Slavophil doctrine, I. S. Aksakov was suitable for the role of a connecting link between the publishers of Kolokol and the Slavophil circle. And some of Aksakov's isolation among the older Slavophiles reminded Herzen of his own isolation among Westerners.
A year before the peasant reform, Herzen had called on Aksakov to "take general measures, a real line of action." 33 But February 19, 1861, arrived, and the further Russia moved away from this boundary, the more clearly the illusory nature of Herzen's hopes for mutual understanding and agreement with the Slavophiles became clear. As early as June 1861, Aksakov thanked Herzen for his response to the death of his brother Konstantin, and a year later justified the publication of Katkovskaya's "Notes for the publisher Kolokola". Herzenism was now a serious threat to him, too. Neither in 1861 nor in 1862 was Herzen's name mentioned in the "Day". But the anti-revolutionary, anti-materialist direction of Aksakov's newspaper was regarded by contemporaries as a struggle primarily against the revolutionary-democratic attitudes of Kolokol, as an "antidote to Herzen". The memoirist A. O. Smirnova (Rosset), who defined the role of the Aksakov newspaper in the ideological struggle of the early 60s of the XIX century, wrote to its editor: "Your task is not easy: to master the already spoiled youth and cure the ulcers inflicted by Herzen and Westerners in general." 34
The fact that the Kolokol editorial board unconditionally supported the Polish uprising of 1863 finally convinced Aksakov of the need for open opposition to Herzen. "And what about Herzen and Bakunin, especially the latter, who now lives in Sweden and now incites the Swedes to Russia. Here they are, the democrats, dipping their hands in the blood of the Russian people, " he wrote to Yu. F. Samarin on May 5, 186335 . A week later, a third letter from Kasyanov (Aksakov's pseudonym)" From Paris "appeared in the Day, which gave full scope to speculation about" treason. Herzen and Bakunin. Emphasizing Herzen's moral superiority over Bakunin, Aksakov expressed the hope that the publisher of Kolokol would eventually return to a "correct understanding" of the social and historical demands of the Russian people.
32 N. Ya. Eidelman. Secret Correspondents of the Polar Star, Moscow, 1966, pp. 82-92.
33 A. I. Herzen. Collected works. In 30 vols. Vol. XXVII, book 1. Moscow, 1963, p. 12.
34 TsGALI, f. 10, op. 3, d. 207, l. 73.
35 PD, f. 3, op. 2, d. 48, l. 78 vol.
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Kasyanov's letter was the beginning of the anti-Herzen campaign in Den. While approving of Aksakov's attacks, Koshelev had earlier pointed out to the government the danger of "an agreement between the peasants and the bourgeoisie, which would be joined by young and middle-aged people, writers and adherents of Velikoruss, Young Russia, and which could prove much stronger than the" moderate, well-meaning and independent opposition. " 36 He justified the government's tactics of corruption and intimidation and pushed the autocracy to exterminate the "desperate heads"37 .
In Samarin, the struggle against materialism in the pages of Den and the unfulfilled plan of public lectures, also aimed against revolutionary and materialist ideas, found their logical conclusion in a clash with Herzen. Mindful of the intimacy that had existed between them in the mid-1940s, Samarin asked Herzen for a meeting in July 1864, hoping to make the publisher of Kolokol "come to his senses". Samarin, like Aksakov, did not abandon hopes for the" moral revival " of Herzen and expected from his repentance a "sobering effect" on the younger generation. We can judge the content of the London conversation that took place at that time partly from Samarin's letter to Herzen dated August 3, 1864, which is similar in its genre to the" Indictment " of the liberal B. N. Chicherin. Samarin could not boast of originality in the dispute with Herzen. The publisher of "Kolokol" was charged, which by that time had already been voiced in the Russian liberal-protective press. Beginning by denouncing the preaching of materialism, Samarin blamed Herzen for supporting the Polish movement and encouraging revolutionary ideas within Russia .38 Presumptuously believing that the result of his visit to London might be a "rebirth" of Herzen, Samarin left disappointed.
Let's sum up the results. Aksakov's attempt to resurrect Slavophil ideas in the early 60s of the 19th century was logical in its own way. It reflected the desire of some theorists of noble liberalism to find an alternative to the bourgeois-democratic version of Russia's development, while maintaining some independence from the bureaucratic autocracy. The content of the reform of 1861, while making possible the propaganda of the Slavophil social utopia, also made it necessary to turn to it as a means of neutralizing the revolutionary-democratic ideology. Feeling the onslaught of the revolutionary movement, the liberals feverishly groped for ways to adapt the nobility to the new historical conditions. They were caught up in the idea of establishing a type of social relations that did not pose a threat to landownership. The Slavophiles 'thoughts focused on the problem of establishing just such a" conflict-free " social structure. The results of their search were organically included in the system of socio-political ideas of post-reform liberalism. An example is the socio - political concepts of the conservative liberal K. D. Kavelin and Katkov, in which Westernist ideas were partially transformed into Slavophil in nature judgments and forecasts about the future fate of Russia.
Called, in the opinion of its ideologues, to solve the task of a new social synthesis set by the peasant reform, Slavophilism did not reveal internal unity. The Samaritan version of externally ordered," correct " bourgeois evolution
36 A. I. Koshelev. The Constitution, the Autocracy, and the Zemstvo Duma, pp. 50-51.
37 See V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 5, pp. 31-32.
38 "Rus", 1883, N 1, pp. 35-42.
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under the tutelage and on the initiative of the bureaucratic autocracy, it contrasted sharply with the "free play" of social forces defended by Koshelev against the encroachments of the bureaucracy. The difference in the degree of trust in the social and political activity of the Russian nobility, which was observed in the process of preparing for the abolition of serfdom, is even more sharply revealed in the assessments of the practical implementation of peasant reform and the role of the government in conducting zemstvo and judicial reforms. Thus, Aksakov did not share either Samarin's orientation towards a liberal bureaucracy, or Koshelev's views, which tended towards noble constitutionalism. Demanding the elimination of the class isolation of the nobility and its dissolution in the zemstvo, he incessantly denounced the constitutional plans hatched among the nobility, although this circumstance cannot hide the noble-landowner nature of his program. At the same time, he was skeptical about the government's reform efforts, which, in his opinion, were devoid of any understanding of nationality. Aksakov's moral opposition to the autocracy proved practically fruitless. Bold as was his protest against the suppression of thought and speech, and resolute as were his calls for the liberation of public opinion, the emphatic apoliticalism of his position turned out in fact to justify those police and bureaucratic institutions without which an unlimited monarchy is unthinkable. Without ever rising to the level of a truly political opposition, Aksakov, like Samarin and Koshelev, consciously supported the government in its struggle against the Polish national liberation movement. Irreconcilable hostility to Russian revolutionary democracy made the Slavophils, whether they liked it or not, allies of government reaction.
In an effort to give Slavophilism the importance of an effective ideological factor that could influence the course of social development after the peasant reform, Aksakov tried to muffle the retrospective sound of his ideas. The" Russian principles " were released from the historical and everyday shell and established in the sphere of consciousness. In the person of I. S. Aksakov, Slavophilism tried to get closer to the new social movement and went to modernize its old historical and sociological scheme for this purpose. At the same time, the contradiction between the subjectively anti-capitalist nature of the Slavophil utopia and the objectively bourgeois content of the socio-political program that the Slavophils presented at the turn of the 1850s and 1860s became increasingly apparent. 39 The failed attempt to mobilize public consciousness for the assimilation of Slavophil ideas clearly showed their complete lifelessness. In addition, the position of the Slavophiles in the first half of the 60s of the XIX century testified to the exhaustion of their internal ideological resources, about the dying of noble liberalism.
39 Om. E. A. Dudzinskaya. Bourgeois tendencies in the theory and practice of Slavophiles. Voprosy Istorii, 1972, No. 1.
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