K.S. Aksakov, A Study in Ideas, Vol. III: An Introduction to Nineteenth-Century Russian Slavophilism [Course Book ed.] 9781400853502

Table of contents :
Preface
Contents
Illustrations
Part One. The Nobleman's Nest
1. The 1820's: Family and Friends
2. The 1830's: The University of Moscow and the Stankevich Circle
3. Expanding Friendships
4. Belinsky and Gogol'
5. The 1840's: Toward Slavophilism
6. Samarin and the Russian Road
7. Ideological Conflicts and the Victory of the Narod
8. The 1850's: Slavophilism Victorious
9. Last Years
Part Two. The Choric Principle and the "Land"
10. From Hegelianism to Orthodoxy
11. Slav Awakening and the Question of Language
12. Orthodoxy and the Slav World
13. Narod, Commune, and Clan
14. Philosophy of History, Egalitarianism, and History
15. Literary Criticism and Education
16. Commune, Choir, and Zemsky Sobor
17. Reformism: Emancipation and Government; Advice to the Tsar
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

K . S . AKSAKOV A S T U D Y IN IDEAS

Κ. S. AKSAKOV A STUDY IN IDEAS by Peter K. Christoff

VOLUME III of

An Introduction to Nineteenth-Century Russian Slavophilism

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY

Copyright © 1982 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Guildford, Surrey All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data will be found on the last printed page of this book Publication of this book was assisted by a grant from the Publications Program of the National Endowment for the Humanities This book has been composed in Linotron Melior Clothbound editions of Princeton University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and binding materials are chosen for strength and durability Printed in the United States of America by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey

To NANCY AND THE CHILDREN AGAIN AND ALWAYS

The concept of freedom contributed by the Russian people in the development of mankind is superior to and broader than that worked out up to the present by other nations: for to the right of being free it adds the actual possibility of utilizing this right. To per­ sonal freedom, an abstract right, it aspires to give a material foundation. — Aleksander Fedorovich Gil'ferding, 1865

PREFACE

ALTHOUGH no final summary of Moscow Slavophilism can be at­ tempted until Iurii Samarin's thought has been explored in a manner similar to that which resulted in my studies of Alexei Khomiakov, Ivan Kireevsky, and Konstantin Aksakov, the three full-length stud­ ies so far published will, I hope, be seen as a unit, the central theme of which is the nature and development of "early," or "classical," Moscow Slavophilism. In the present volume, particularly in the Conclusion, I have made frequent references to the two preceding volumes, as background to the central theme of Aksakov's Slavo­ philism. The detailed studies of the four individuals thus overlap and interweave. It is my hope that when my draft of the Samarin manuscript has been revised and published, completing the original design of this work, it will make clear my belief that Slavophilism, for the most part an ideological current, kept its organic contact not only with religion and philosophy on the level above ideology but also with reformism and action on the level below. Of the four early Slavophils, Samarin was the only one who lived to see the emancipation reform, and the only one who was actively involved in the reform movement at the end of the 1850's while Khomiakov and Konstantin Aksakov were still alive. Samarin, who died in 1876, was also the sole early Slavophil to participate in the rise of the Russian pan-Slavism of the late 1860's and 1870's. In the study on Samarin a distinction will be made between Slavophilism and pan-Slavism, two kindred but by no means identical currents. Looking back on the first drafts of the four studies—begun more than three decades ago and completed within less than ten years of their beginning—and on the revision and publication of the first three, I now see two major problems in bolder relief. The first is that any definitive treatment of Slavophilism would require that one be an expert on philosophy, classical and modern; on theology, Ortho­ dox, Catholic, and Protestant; on history, Russian, Western Euro­ pean, and, to a degree, Byzantine; on cultural anthropology and so­ ciology; on literature, Western European and Russian, and in part classical; on government, political science, and economics; and on psychology. This breadth of knowledge is needed not because the Slavophils were themselves experts—they were far from being so— but because at various times they raised some serious questions over

viii

PREFACE

a wide range of subject matter. Perhaps any definitive study of Sla­ vophilism ought to be undertaken by a well-coordinated team of scholars rather than by an individual. The second realization, also clearer now than before, is that the place for such a study is the Soviet Union, where source materials are most complete. That a broad investigation of this sort may be under way is indicated by the recent publication of a work under the editorship of Κ. N. Lomunov et al., Literaturnye vzgliady i tvorchestvo slavianofilov, 18301850 gody (Moscow: Soviet Academy of Sciences, 1978). This work is obviously too recent to have played any part in my study of Aksakov, but I note with interest Lomunov's statement that in the study of Slavophilism there should participate "representatives of nearly the whole cycle of humanistic sciences," listing the following dis­ ciplines as represented in the works of the Slavophils: "sociology, politics, economics and law, history and philosophy, folk study [narodovedenie], religion, ethics, aesthetics, literary theory and crit­ icism, folklorism, and artistic creativity" (p. 5). In the appendix to the first draft of this volume I included in translation Aksakov's well-known Memorandum (Zapiska) to Alex­ ander II (1855). As I have indicated in the text, however, this Mem­ orandum has since been published in English, and I therefore have omitted it here. This introductory study of Moscow Slavophilism has immensely benefited from the brilliant work of men such as George Florovsky, Nicholas Berdiaev, Dmitrii Chizhevsky, V. V. Zenkovsky, N. 0. Lossky, T. G. Masaryk, A. A. Galaktionov, P. F. Nikandrov, and others, and especially from that of Professor Ν. V. Riasanovsky, whose Rus­ sia and the West in the Teaching of the Slavophiles remains the most complete summary of Moscow Slavophilism so far produced, one which I have constantly consulted. I am also grateful to Professor Riasanovsky for his meticulous reading of the manuscript of this volume. His many suggestions have been extremely helpful in spite of a certain divergence in our respective interpretations. I am also indebted to Professor George L. Kline for his editorial corrections and improvements, and to the late Professor George Vernadsky, who many years ago read the first draft of this manuscript and favored me with his customary sound counsel. My gratitude also extends to the American Philosophical Society and the Social Science Research Council for help in the past, to IREX for a grant which enabled me to spend three months in the U.S.S.R. in 1969 gathering valuable source materials, to the American Council of Learned Societies for a grant-in-aid which defrayed part of the cost of editing and typing the final draft of the manuscript, and to

PREFACE

ix

the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., for a fellowship which facilitated completion of the last several chapters of this volume. I must express thanks also to the libraries and library staff at Stanford University and the Uni­ versity of California at Berkeley. Finally this work with all its imperfections would have been much inferior without the services of the typing pool of San Francisco State University under Lorraine Whittemore's direction, the final typing by Betty Herring and Jane Edwards, and particularly without Shirley R. Taylor's ever ready and painstaking editorial work. PETER K. CHRISTOFF Redwood City, California October 1979

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

PART ONE: THE NOBLEMAN'S NEST The 1820's: Family and Friends The 1830's: The University of Moscow and the Stankevich Circle Expanding Friendships Belinsky and Gogol' The 1840's: Toward Slavophilism Samarin and the Russian Road Ideological Conflicts and the Victory of the Narod The 1850's: Slavophilism Victorious Last Years

xiii

3 13 39 64 79 99 116 139 158

PART TWO: THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND" From Hegelianism to Orthodoxy Slav Awakening and the Question of Language Orthodoxy and the Slav World Narod, Commune, and Clan Philosophy of History, Egalitarianism, and History Literary Criticism and Education Commune, Choir, and Zemsky Sobor Reformism: Emancipation and Government; Advice to the Tsar

181 205 249 272 293 329 358

CONCLUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

425 447 467

394

ILLUSTRATIONS

Frontispiece: Konstantin Sergeevich Aksakov, from a portrait by Vasnetsov 1. Sergei Timofeevich Aksakov 2. Ol'ga Semenovna Aksakova, from a watercolor by an unknown painter, the 1840's 3. The Aksakov family home in Znamenskoe, Orenburg guberniia, described in A Family Chronicle 4. Hegel, from a sketch by M. A. Bakunin 5. Konstantin Aksakov 6. AliteraryeveningattheAksakovs' 7. Abramtsevo, from a photograph by the author, summer 1969 8. Konstantin Sergeevich Aksakov, from a family album

175 175 176 176 177 177 178 178

PART ONE THE NOBLEMAN'S NEST

CHAPTER 1

THE 1820's: FAMILY AND FRIENDS

IN Semeinaia khronika (A Family Chronicle) Sergei Aksakov de­ scribes a family and a life dominated by a benevolent but authori­ tarian patriarchal order. The Bagrov family is essentially Sergei's own, and the life is the one that he knew as a boy. It was a simple, rustic life, unembellished by urban comforts and pleasures or by the society of men and women of wit and talent and ideas. Born in 1791, Sergei Aksakov grew up on Russia's eastern frontier, in the village of New Aksakovo, where his grandfather had a medium-sized estate and a number of serfs. Sergei's grandfather (Stephan Mikhailovich Bagrov of Semeinaia khronika) was strong, fearless, generous, and kind, but he was also subject to embarrassing fits of temper and uncontrolled passion. He was a man whom Sergei could love without wishing to emulate. Yet there were certain traits that carried over into the large house­ hold that Sergei himself later guided. Superficially, Sergei's Moscow establishment could not have been more different from the far-off household in New Aksakovo. It was urban, literary, artistic, filled with society. But it was also close-knit and traditional; and for his son Konstantin, the first of nine children, it was essential and ab­ sorbing enough, and comfortable enough, for his whole life. On him, if not on his brothers, the influence of the father, as well as his companionship and advice, was sufficient to make any other, more independent, life unnecessary. Sergei Aksakov has been aptly described as the "benevolent genius of his family and friends." He had no desire to be the "head or command-giver of the family" but rather sought to be the "good friend, kindhearted master, pleasant conversationalist, and not in­ frequently, the vigorous and absorbed partner at card games." Re­ lations within the family were "based on complete freedom and mutual good will; of despotism or drilling there was not even a trace." As the years passed and the children grew, this unusually congenial family became more firmly united through many shared "convictions and sympathies." All the children habitually signed

4

THE NOBLEMAN'S NEST

their letters to one another "your brother [or sister] and friend," as Sergei signed his "your father and friend." And it was apparently not a meaningless form; S. A. Vengerov, Konstantin's biographer, has said that the "power of this [familial] love was so great that it infected" even outsiders.1 S. I. Mashinsky, the most recent biographer of Sergei Aksakov and an editor of his works, who had at his disposal not only all the published material on Aksakov but also archives including the vo­ luminous family correspondence, confirms the picture of this family that contemporary sources suggest. He describes Sergei as "a man with a big heart [dusha], mild [-mannered], good, responsive," who "attracted people of the most diverse political convictions. On ques­ tions regarding life and literature, he invariably served as a moral authority." And in the biography he says: "In Aksakov's large family there always prevailed an atmosphere of friendship, cordiality, and mutual respect. It was particularly intimate in the relations between 'otesen'ka' (this is what all children [endearingly] called S. T. Ak­ sakov) and Konstantin."2 The warmth and affection within this extraordinarily close-knit yet gregarious family were ample enough to include many more than just themselves. The Aksakovs welcomed the world and drew friends to their home with generous and enthusiastic hospitality. 1.1. Panaev, the well-known memoirist who has given us many firsthand obser­ vations and impressions about the "men of the thirties and forties" and who met the Aksakovs in 1839, described the Aksakov home as "full of guests from morning till evening. . . . In the dining room the long and wide family table was daily set with at least twenty places. The hosts were so natural in their manner with all visitors and so warm and lacking in ceremoniousness that one could not but get attached to them."3 The Aksakovs easily took their place among the gentry families in Moscow's social and intellectual life. To the Thurs­ days at the Pavlovs', the Fridays at the Sverbeevs', and the Sundays 1 V. I. Shenrok, "S. T. Aksakov i ego sem'ia," ZhurnaI Ministerstva Narodnago Prosveshcheniia, 1904, October, pp. 387-388; S. A. Vengerov, Peredovoi boets slavianofil'stva. Konstantin Aksakov (St. Petersburg, 1912), p. 2; vol. Ill of Vengerov, Sobranie sochinenii. 2 See S. T. Aksakov, Sobranie sochinenii ν chetyrekh tomakh, ed. S. I. Mashinsky (Moscow, 1955), I, 40, and S. I. Mashinsky, S. T. Aksakov. Zhizn' i tvorchestvo (Leningrad, 1961), p. 182. The Aksakov family correspondence that has been pub­ lished is an extremely valuable source of information on the mores and literary and cultural life of Russia during the period. Although much is in print—Ivan Aksakov's letters alone take up four volumes—a great deal has yet to be gathered together, edited, and published. 3I. I. Panaev, Literaturnye vospominaniia (Leningrad, 1950), p. 151.

FAMILY AND FRIENDS

5

at the Elagins' were added in the 1820's the Saturdays at the Aksakovs'; and their house soon became known as "one of the liveliest centers of the cultural life of Moscow."4 The Aksakovs, like the other Slavophil families, derived most of their income from estates worked by numerous serfs. This was oc­ casionally supplemented in the early years by Sergei's salary when he held government posts, but after Sergei succeeded to ownership of the family estates upon the death of his father in 1837 he aban­ doned that form of employment altogether, partly for reasons of prin­ ciple, and tried to live on the proceeds of the lands. The property was only moderately large by the standards of the time: "about 850 serfs and several thousand desiatinas of land."5 (By way of compar­ ison, two other Slavophil families, the Khomiakovs and the Koshelevs, possessed several thousand serfs each, and more extensive lands than the Aksakovs.) But the Aksakovs' estates were sufficient to provide them with a large home in Moscow, which they rented, a summer home in Bogorodskoe, and after 1843 the famous Abramtsevo estate, about forty miles northeast of Moscow, with income and household help sufficient to maintain a large family and to pro­ vide for constant entertaining, education for the children, and oc­ casional travel for some of them. Through the years, however, under the burdens of the entertaining and the family, the Aksakov finances worsened. Though Sergei's publications in the 1850's brought him additional income, only Grigorii was married and financially independent at the end of the 1840's. Konstantin was apparently under no pressure to become fi­ nancially self-supporting and establish a home of his own or leave the "nobleman's nest," and it is clear from many accounts that he had no desire to do so. Ivan Aksakov in 1849 described his brother, who was then thirty-two years old, as helping his father to manage the estates, but all that we know about Konstantin makes it seem unlikely that he had the knowledge, the will, or the inclination for 4Istoricheskie

siluety; Jiudi i sobytiia (Berlin, 1931), pp. 218-219. desiatina is equal to 2.7 acres. Mashinsky gives this figure of 850 serfs in his introduction to the first volume of Aksakov's collected works, but in the biography of Aksakov six years later he raises it to 1,000. Different figures, more in accord with the first, are given in another source. In March 1849, when Ivan Aksakov was arrested on charges of sedition, he stated in an official questionnaire that his father's material resources were "extremely limited" in view of his large family. He listed about 500 serfs in the Orenburg guberniia, Belev district; about 300 serfs in the Simbirsk guberniia, Korsun district (this estate was mortgaged); and about 40 on the Abramtsevo estate, probably mostly household serfs. See S. T. Aksakov, Sochineniia, I, 38; Mashinsky, Aksakov, I, 53, 264-265; Μ. I. Sukhomlinov, "I. S. Aksakov ν sorokovykh godakh," Istoricheskii vestnik, 1888, vol. XXXI, p. 336. 5 One

6

THE NOBLEMAN'S NEST

estate management. In any event, it must have been increasingly evident to all the younger Aksakovs that their way of life was doomed, that there was little future for them in estate management, and that it was hopeless to try and secure extensive lands for every member of the family. This must have intensified their nostalgia for a culture and a mode of life that were inexorably coming to an end. One gathers from impressions and generalities in the literature about the Aksakovs that this warm and hospitable family acted in a benevolent but not particularly enlightened way toward its serfs. Konstantin's biographer says that "even serfdom caused no discord" in Sergei Aksakov's household, and he further comments that "con­ cerning the numerous domestic serfs, in the absence of even a sug­ gestion of tyranny, and in the presence of sincere respect for the kind master, serf relations in the Aksakov family assumed the aspect of some sort of dignified patriarchality." In reference to the agricultural serfs, much more numerous than the domestic, who tilled the estates in the distant Orenburg guberniia, the same author also states that "Sergei Timofeevich [Aksakov] did not see his peasants for as long as twenty-five years."6 Even allowing for the great distance between Moscow and the eastern frontier and for the arduousness of travel, the landlord's prolonged absence from his properties seems to sug­ gest indifference more than care and concern. Without a doubt, Sergei Timofeevich was the heart of the family, the enlightened patriarch adored by all; but his wife, Ol'ga Semenovna, was perhaps no less an influence on the children. Ivan, the third surviving son and a future prominent pan-Slav, thought that Konstantin had more in him of his mother than of his father. The vignettes that Ivan drew of his father and mother contain the sub­ stance of their personalities and of their respective relationships to Konstantin. Ivan described them as follows: In the personality of Konstantin . . . there was nothing similar to the personality of Sergei Timofeevich. As the saying goes, he was his mother all over. His whole moral makeup, his exalted thoughts and endeavors, the sternness of his attitude toward himself, his rigorous demands, the element of prowess and her­ oism—all this was the heritage from his mother. . . . All this came to Konstantin . . . as in his mother, not in the form of rules to guide life but as a natural element. The image is of an upright, rather stern and puritanical woman, strong both emotionally and physically. (She died at eighty-five, 6 Vengerov,

Konstantin Aksakov, p. 2.

FAMILY AND FRIENDS

7

having outlived her husband and most of her children.) Konstantin's father was of a quicker temperament, and though, as Ivan says, he "highly respected his wife and her moral demands ... in his personal life he frequently went against them." Sergei Timofeevich loved life, loved pleasure; he was an artist at heart, and treated every pleasure as art. A passionate actor, a passionate hunter, a passionate card player, he was an artist in all his enthusiasms. . . . He was subject to all the weaknesses of a passionate man . . . and though married, he spent whole days hunting, whole nights playing cards; but being aware of these weaknesses he had a humble opinion of himself. He was not a stranger to pride—on the contrary he was constantly dis­ tinguished by condescension. It was this quality that enabled him to develop in himself the warm objectivity that lends such charm to A Family Chronicle.. . . [Only] when age and sickness moderated his ardor and bridled his passion, and his mind was freed from their oppression, did he reach the degree of calm and objective attitude toward life that so strikes the readers of his works. His thought became transformed into wisdom.7 Ol'ga Semenovna (1792-1878) was "full of the most heroic and patriotic aspirations, which she symbolized to her sons from child­ hood." Her father, Semen Grigor'evich Zaplatin, was an officer in the Russian army who fought under General Suvorov in Poland and Turkey and later against Napoleon, and retired as a major general. Her mother, Igel'-Siuma, a girl of great beauty, was said to be of emir parentage and descended from Mohammed. She was captured by the Russians at Ochakov during one of the campaigns and was married to General Zaplatin as a young girl. She bore him four children before her death at the age of about thirty, and Ol'ga, the eldest, grew up to be her father's secretary and companion in his retirement, sharing with him memories of his active military life. As the firstborn and as a male, Konstantin Aksakov was destined by circumstance and tradition to occupy a special place in Sergei Aksakov's egalitarian but not undifferentiated household. His close relationship to his father is particularly noteworthy (biographers usually emphasize that Konstantin was physically separated from 71. S. Aksakov, Ivan Sergeevich Aksakov ν ego pis'makh (Moscow, 1888), I, 16,1214. (Hereafter cited as I. S. Aksakov, Pis'ma.) The brief, unfinished family biography which constitutes the introduction to these letters is the most intimate account we have of Konstantin's childhood.

8

THE NOBLEMAN'S NEST

his father for only four or five months during his life).8 Sergei Aksakov's marriage was only a year old when Konstantin was born on March 29, 1817, in the village of Znamenskoe or New Aksakovo in the trans-Volga Orenburg guberniia (called New Bagrovo in Semeinaia khronika). By 1821 there were three more children. In that year Sergei received from his father the village of Nadezhino, in the same locality (Parashino of the Khronika), and from then until 1826, with the exception of most of the year 1821-1822, during which the family was in Moscow, the Aksakovs lived on their estate there. Konstantin thus spent his first seven or eight years deep in the rural areas of the Orenburg guberniia, where frequent contacts with peasants and con­ stant observation of them were a natural part of his life. Vengerov sees these circumstances as having had a bearing on Konstantin's later Slavophil views: "Since Konstantin Sergeevich was characterized by uncommonly early mental development, there is no doubt that the initial idyllic circumstances in which the future enthusiastic advocate of the necessity of a union of the intelligentsia and the people spent his childhood, did not remain without influ­ ence on his optimistic views of the possibility of such a union."9 The dominant influence, however, was the home—meaning not only Ser­ gei but also Ol'ga Semenovna, whose toughness, discipline, and sense of service were almost absent in Sergei's artistic and occa­ sionally self-indulgent temperament. Gogol', a longtime friend of the Aksakovs, said that "in her heart she was much more a Christian than all the rest of the family together," and a recent scholar adds that Gogol' "understood by this her living, active goodness and af­ fable care for all without dividing people into 'easterners' or 'west­ erners,' her own or strangers."10 Throughout the many years the Aksakovs were in the midst of Moscow's social and intellectual life, Ol'ga Semenovna seems never to have yielded to those conventions of social intercourse that too often replace substance with appearance and character with man8 Ν. M. Pavlov, son of Professor M. G. Pavlov, the well-known Schellingian and a godson of Sergei Aksakov, wrote in 1885: "In my personal recollections of Konstantin Sergeevich [Aksakov] he is inseparable from my recollections of his father. . . . Both images arise before me fused, inseparable one from the other . . . in reality such was the unusual life of this unusual man. 'He lived and died together with his father.' In this respect this life and this death were entirely unique. No such other example could be found." N. Bitsyn [Ν. M. Pavlov], "Vospominanie ο Konstantine Sergeeviche Aksakove," Russkii arkhiv, 1885, book I, p. 397. (Hereafter cited as Bitsyn, "Vospom­ inanie.") 9 Vengerov, Konstantin Aksakov, pp. 8-9. 10 S. N. Durylin, "Gogol' i Aksakovy," Zven'ia, nos. III-IV (Moscow-Leningrad, 1934), pp. 326-327, 332.

FAMILY AND FRIENDS

9

ners. She has been described as a person without "worldly wisdom," and as "incapable of hiding her sympathies and antipathies." Some thought her so "incapable of hypocrisy and duplicity" as to be naive. She showed respect for her husband but kept her own high moral principles, and he deferred to her on such matters. "She was not only not willing to but simply could not act against her convic­ tions."11 As the firstborn, Konstantin was naturally the center of the parents' attention in those early years. The usual abundance of domestic servants made it possible for his mother to tutor him, with Sergei's help. Whatever this education lacked in systematic approach, curricular balance, and mental discipline, it made up in parental love, devotion, and attention. It was distinguished not by variety of subject matter nor by rigors of mental discipline but by the intensity of the sentiments and emotions that it stimulated. When Konstantin learned to read at the age of four, his mother used a history of Troy as a primer. The text seemed to combine her predilection for the austere and heroic with his father's love of literature and poetry. But stories from Russia's past, even more than the tales of Greek antiq­ uity, caught the imagination of the future Slavophil, and their hold upon him never slackened. It was also in his early, tender years that he acquired the powerful love of Moscow, as city and symbol, which became the distinguishing trait of his personality and Slavophilism. Readings from the works of eighteenth-century Russian authors, Μ. M. Kheraskov, la. B. Kniazhnin, Μ. V. Lomonosov, and others, formed a major portion of his early education, and when at the age of eight his father presented him with a volume of I. I. Dmitriev's poems, he soon memorized such lines as "Moscow, Russia's daughter beloved, / Where could thy equal be found!"12 The family move from Nadezhino to Moscow in 1826 had farreaching consequences for all the members. Except for one summer in Germany and rare trips inside Russia, Konstantin, like his father, would never again move farther from Moscow than the Abramtsevo estate. Sergei took a government post as a censor, but his heart then, as later, was in literature and the theater. By the end of the 1820's he had established himself as a theater critic of competence and authority, respected by most, feared by some. He became the kind friend, willing helper, and courageous defender of P. S. Mochalov and Mikhail Shchepkin, two of Russia's greatest actors, who were beginning to make their mark, as tragedian and comedian respecVengerov, Konstantin Aksakov, p. 7. N. P. Barsukov, Zhizn' i trudy M. P. Pogodina, 22 vols. (St. Petersburg, 18881910), III, 107. (Hereafter cited as Barsukov, Pogodin.) 11

12

10

THE NOBLEMAN'S NEST

tively, in the new "Moscow" school of acting. Sergei allied himself with them to sponsor and encourage the new style as against the old "St. Petersburg" school, which adhered to eighteenth-century clas­ sical concepts of the theater emphasizing form, labored art, and styl­ ized acting. In rebellion against the St. Petersburg school, symbolized by its greatest actor, V. A. Karatygin, the Moscow school of Mochalov and Shchepkin emphasized inspiration and talent in acting, and free, realistic technique in both acting and staging, believing that the thea­ ter should be of the people and should appeal to all the people rather than just to the court and the aristocracy.13 One of Sergei's first friends in Moscow was Mikhail P. Pogodin. They met in 1827 while Aksakov was a member of the Moscow censorship committee. Pogodin (1800-1875), later a professor of his­ tory at the University of Moscow, was editor of the Moskovskii vestnik, which had lately been launched by the former members of the Philosophical Society, V. F. Odoevsky, I. V. Kireevsky, V. P. Titov, and D. V. Venevitinov, along with S. P. Shevyrev and Ν. M. Rozhalin, and with Pogodin's journalistic help.14 Sergei Aksakov described his new friend in these words: "With the editor of the Moskovskii vestnik, M. P. Pogodin, and his collaborator, S. P. Shevyrev, I became acquainted and on intimate terms very rapidly. I even proposed to Pogodin to write articles about the theater with evaluation of the acting of Moscow actors and actresses."15 Pogodin accepted the offer and Aksakov kept his word, thereby providing Russian literary crit­ icism with the earliest, and some of the best, examples of reviews written in the spirit of "naturalism" and "realism" in acting, and urging creation of a "people's theater."16 Pogodin soon became a frequent and favored guest of the Aksakovs, 13When the government decided in 1804 to transform the Kazan gymnaziia into the new Kazan University, thirteen-year-old Sergei Aksakov found himself a univer­ sity student. Even then, he showed an interest in the theater and literature, and in time, through personal effort and theater connections, he became one of Russia's earliest and greatest experts on the theater. One student of the Russian theater has described him as "a brilliant critic, incomparable in accuracy, taste, and the extent of his knowledge of the theater." A contemporary and a friend of Aksakov's has said of him that, having no official position in the Russian theater and "no authority whatever, just the same, he became an authority and a power" in it. Mashinsky credits him "as the first theater critic who was able to appreciate Shchepkin and Mochalov on their merits," and says that because Aksakov never held a position in the theater he helped actors and actresses "absolutely without mercenary consideration, accord­ ing to the dictates of his heart." Mashinsky, Aksakov, pp. 58, 69, 81-82. 14 For more on this journal see P. K. Christoff, The Third Heart (The Hague-Paris, 1970), pp. 21n, IOOn1 102, 104, 109, 114. 15 Barsukov, Pogodin, II, 217. 16 Mashinsky, Aksakov, pp. 80, 86-88.

FAMILY AND FRIENDS

11

and thus, according to family practice, a friend of the children as well. His diary contains frequent references to the Aksakov children, whom he usually saw on his visits. In one of the earliest entries he writes: "What a fine family man is Aksakov! His children are very dear, particularly Grisha and Olia."17 It was a friendship that was to continue for the rest of the lives of Sergei and Konstantin, up to 1859-1860, passing through several phases as Pogodin developed different relationships with different members of the family, and surmounting crises, usually touched off by the vagaries in Pogodin's friendship with Konstantin Aksakov. But in the early years, when the Aksakov children, Konstantin particularly, were small, Pogodin had nothing but admiration for the family. On February 19,1829, he wrote to Shevyrev: "I visit only the good Aksakovs. I love more and more this honorable family. What a fine woman is Ol'ga Semenovna!"18 Pogodin, then in his late twenties was hopelessly infatuated with the Countess Aleksandra Ivanovna Trubetskaia, and Ol'ga Semenovna, who had an understanding heart and a sympathetic ear, be­ came a confidante. She also encouraged his aspirations to go beyond journalism into the realm of fiction and drama.19 He dedicated his story "Adel" to her. On Sergei's initiative, in 1828 Pogodin began publishing a "Drama Supplement" to Moskovskii vestnik. Mashinsky says that Sergei did not "merely collaborate, but actually directed the theater section." His own contributions, written under the pseu­ donym "Lover of the Russian Theater," were of unquestionable ex­ cellence and "doubtless represented a significant and noteworthy phenomenon," since for the first time "they reveal young Aksakov's tendency toward realism."20 Though Pogodin's friendship was continuous, if uneven, and of considerable consequence in the life of the Aksakovs and in Kon­ stantin's career, it was not necessarily the most important of the family's friendships. Concern with it here and in later chapters is dictated by its continuity over several decades, by its relative inti­ macy, and by its accessibility through the good running account of Moscow's social and intellectual life that Pogodin kept in his diary and correspondence. Some of this life, naturally, revolved around the Aksakovs' salon. As Mashinsky puts it, "During the celebrated Aksakov 'Saturdays,' which came into being in the second half of the twenties, the most 17 Barsukov,

Pogodin, II, 218.

18 Ibid.,

p. 304.

19 Ibid.,

II, 320-324; III, 315-317. Aksakov, pp. 61-62.

20 Mashinsky,

12

THE NOBLEMAN'S NEST

diverse matters in contemporary art and literature were fervently disputed." Besides Pogodin, regular Saturday visitors at the Aksakovs in the early years of their salon were Shchepkin, the actor; Ν. I. Nadezhdin, publisher, author and professor; N. F. Pavlov, writer, translator, and critic; and S. P. Shevyrev, writer, professor, friend and collaborator with Pogodin. The Aksakov salon, whose "heart and soul" was Sergei Timofeevich, also provided the intellectual environment in which precocious Konstantin and his serious-minded brothers and sisters seemed to flourish. Thrown in with grownups, they became used to adult conversation. For companionship, they had one another. It was a world within itself, this "nobleman's nest," and it was the center of Konstantin's life.

CHAPTER 2

THE 1830's: THE UNIVERSITY OF MOSCOW AND THE STANKEVICH CIRCLE

IVAN AKSAKOV, in his biographical essay published posthumously in 1888, speaks of a sort of arrest in his brother Konstantin's spiritual and emotional life. Whereas "in most people," he says, "there is almost a whole chasm between childhood and mature age," in Kon­ stantin's "heart and soul there was no break with his youth. His mind matured, it was enriched with knowledge; but with respect to his moral makeup there was no change, no deterioration. He pre­ served the same purity of heart and body, the same faith in people." Ivan attributed this in great part to the fact that Konstantin was virtually never separated from his parents. Not only did he never marry, but he seems to have remained a child in the household of his father. "Even when our parlor was full of guests," Ivan says, Konstantin "would kiss my father's hand and engage in endearments with him as he did in his childhood." Konstantin knew no "false fear" and had no need to conceal anything, but at the same time he seems never to have outgrown his emotional dependence on his father.1 Konstantin's "Moscowphilism," too, bore something of this child­ like character. Ivan tells how, as a child, Konstantin had a dream of Red Square and of Minin, a hero of the Time of Troubles, there in chains. Though he does not explain how this affected the boy's mind and emotions, he feels sure that his "love of Moscow as a sponta­ neous feeling was kindled in him in those days." All Slavophils used Moscow as a symbol and a focus of their ideology, but Konstantin was by far the most extreme and uncompromising in his Moscow­ philism. Moscow was the heart of Russia, and he early seemed to equate St. Petersburg with Russian Westernism. Ivan says that this had something to do with Konstantin's intense dislike of Russian high society and its use of French instead of Russian. 1 1.

S. Aksakov, Pis'ma, I, 19.

THE NOBLEMAN'S NEST

14

Konstantin was moved by "sincere respect for the native language and by indignation, aroused by its neglect." As for high society, it was "the object of his constant ridicule." Between the mid-1830's and the mid-1840's he was to experience a brief but intense infa­ tuation with German poetry, particularly Schiller's, and German idealism, specifically Hegelianism, but the Slavophilism which he eventually embraced had its roots in his childhood and youth. Ivan was probably not unduly exaggerating when he wrote of Konstantin: "Endowed with felicitous abilities, an enthusiast full of the purest and most exalted aspirations, and at the same time with spontaneous love for Russia, the Russian people, and Moscow, Konstantin Sergeevich grew up in a world of literature and art, astonishing his father's friends with his gifts."2 Like many closely knit families, the Aksakovs tended toward mu­ tual admiration and idealization. Both Sergei and Ol'ga enjoyed their children's love and admiration, and even as late as the 1880's, in the unfinished chronicle, Ivan is remarkably uncritical of them. For ex­ ample, although he makes it clear that one of the important reasons for the move to Moscow in 1826 was his father's failure to make a financial success of the Nadezhino estate, he implies that ethical considerations stood in his father's way: he would not convert to grape growing and go into the profitable wine industry as some of his neighbors were doing. (In truth, of course, Sergei also had a taste for urban life and the Moscow theater; and it is possible, too, that the soil on the Nadezhino lands was not suitable for the usual crops, or that Sergei was reluctant to push his serfs too hard, which would be to his credit.) For Konstantin the family move to Moscow in the autumn of 1826, when he was nine years old, meant above all a new phase in his education and new associations. Following the established practice among the gentry, the family engaged private tutors. Iu. I. Venelin taught him Latin; Dolgomost'ev, Greek; P. G. Frolov, geography. Venelin wrote to Pogodin at the end of the 1820's that Konstantin had "a glorious head only [is] lazy," and in another letter he advised, "Keep a sharp eye on Kostia, his is an excellent head. His teachers would do very well to use the Socratic method of interrogation, thus compelling him to think. This will make a good writer out of a good head, therefore perhaps it will do the same to Kostia." By the autumn of 1830 Konstantin had learned enough Latin to write a five-line birthday greeting to Pogodin.3 His biographers also tell us that he 2 Ibid.,

p. 23.

3 Barsukov,

Pogodin, III, 107-108.

THE STANKEVICH CIRCLE

15

read Russian history and was particularly fond of Ν. M. Karamzin's History of the Russian State, a recently published and much dis­ cussed work, parts of which he read aloud to his younger brothers and sisters.4 The new decade opened when Konstantin was thirteen. The July revolution in France and the unrest in Poland were echoed in Russia, particularly the Polish insurrection and its suppression by the Rus­ sian army. Neither event seems to have been of much concern to the Aksakovs, preoccupied as they were with day-to-day matters. Even the massive outbreak of cholera in Moscow in September that same year touched them far less than it did Pogodin, for example, who had to close his boarding school. None of the Aksakovs was stricken with the disease, and though their regular salon had to be curtailed, the interruption was only temporary.5 As the new year approached, the Aksakovs were giving particular thought to Konstantin's education. They decided to enroll him at the University of Moscow. The undergraduate course then consisted of three years, and it was not unusual for bright youths like Konstantin to enter the university at the age of fifteen. Partly because of his age, his parents decided to give him additional training at Pogodin's boarding school during the summer of 1832. Reluctantly, his mother agreed "not to see Kosten'ka for a month, if only he would stay healthy." One of the reasons for hesitation may have been the strained relationship between Pogodin and Sergei Aksakov over a money matter—one of the first strains that they were to survive in their long friendship. Pogodin had borrowed 2,000 rubles from Aksakov, and when he was slow about paying it back, Aksakov re­ minded him that "friendship is friendship and money is money."6 Konstantin's education, from elementary instruction through the university, conformed to the established pattern for his class. Like 4Vengerov,

Konstantin Aksakov, p. 13. cholera epidemic seems to be the major reason for the "decline" in the ac­ tivities of the Aksakov salon in 1830-1831, as noted in a letter from N. A. Mel'gunov in Moscow to S. P. Shevyrev in Rome (dated September 21,1831). Mel'gunov writes that the Aksakov Saturdays were no longer what they had been, and that "it would be difficult to recognize them for many reasons." But it is obvious that he was facetious about the whole matter when he added, "Come back and they will again flower." Although the epidemic was declining when the letter was written, the memory of it was fresh. St. Petersburg, for instance, was hit hard in the summer of the same year. See N. A. Belozerskaia, "Kniaginia Zinaida Volkonskaia," Istoricheskii vestnik, 1897, no. 4, pp. 147-148; Mashinsky, Aksakov, p. 84. For a full account of the epidemic see R. E. McGrew, Russia and the Cholera, 1823-1832 (Madison and Milwaukee, 1965), pp. 75-128. 6 See Barsukov, Pogodin, III, 322-323; IV, 51,181-182; also Shenrok, "S. T. Aksakov i ego sem'ia," pp. 394, 397; Russkii arkhiv, 1882, no. 6, pp. 187-188. 5 The

16

THE NOBLEMAN'S NEST

the Khomiakovs, the Samarins, the Kireevskys, and other gentry fam­ ilies, the Aksakovs shunned the public schools up to the university. The education code of December 1828 called for the establishment, alongside the gymnaziia, of "gentry pensions" (such as Pogodin's), which were private boarding schools at the secondary level for the children of the landed nobility. It goes without saying that in the days of serfdom and a backward economy there were few other than the gentry who could afford an education. Some gymnaziia had to close for lack of students; academic standards in the private pensions declined, and some were run merely for economic gain. On Novem­ ber 4,1833, the government prohibited the opening of new pensions in the two capitals and called for their "constant observation" by the Ministry of Education.7 Pogodin's pension was conducted during the summer of 1832 at the Pogodin estate in Serkovo, a village about forty miles from Mos­ cow. Venelin, Konstantin's Latin tutor, was one of the instructors, and no doubt one of the attractions for the Aksakovs. But they missed their son desperately.8 Sergei was worried that Konstantin was too young for the university and might not be ready for the entrance examinations that autumn, but Pogodin was confident, and Konstantin soon justified his high hopes. Konstantin's success in the examinations may or may not have been influenced by his month with Pogodin, but that summer marked the start, of their lifelong friendship. Pogodin was now established as Konstantin's mentor, and Pogodin looked upon Konstantin as his protege—a fact that Konstantin later did not care to remember, though Pogodin could not forget it. In 1832, under Nicholas I, the educational system still favored the aristocracy, and therefore Konstantin, for admittance to the Univer­ sity of Moscow, needed not only to pass the entrance examinations but also to produce a birth certificate showing that he belonged to the nobility. He had no difficulty proving that the Aksakov family tree reached far back into Russian antiquity, tracing descent from the Varangian Prince Shimon.9 7 N. S. Tikhonravov, "I. S. Turgenev ν moskovskom universitete 1833-1834 gg.," Vestnik Evropy, 1894, no. 2, pp. 708-710. University professors who ran private pensions, like Pogodin and M. G. Pavlov, were required to close them. Barsukov, Pogodin, IV, 202-203. 8Barsukov, Pogodin, IV, 51-52, 59. 9 A succinct account of the Aksakov family tree can be found in F. A. Brockhaus and I. A. Efron, Entsiklopedicheskii Slovar (St. Petersburg, 1890), I, 303. Konstantin's application for enrollment in the University of Moscow's faculty of literature (slovesnoe otdelenie), dated August 1832, his certificate of nobility of February 18,1832, and his "diploma," a certificate of graduation from the university on June 28, 1835,

THE STANKEVICH CIRCLE

17

Important changes were underway, however. Up to the time of the Decembrist revolt it had been customary for the sons of the gentry to enter the prestigious and socially prominent regiments as officers; now, a good many were choosing university studies instead, mainly in the humanities, with the idea of pursuing careers in government service or, as in the case of the four "early" Slavophils, in writing and journalism, along with part-time estate management. In the words of one writer, "The talented and the generous-minded, the patriotic and the idealistic largely deserted the army for the uni­ versities."10 This shift in emphasis did not spell an end to gentry military service, but it did help Moscow, with its university, to be­ come the capital of the gentry (and, in Konstantin Aksakov's Sla­ vophil view, of the people), as distinguished from St. Petersburg, the capital of the government and the bureaucracy. Moscow was proud to be the home of Russia's oldest and most respected university, and it made the most of its relative freedom from the restrictions of the St. Petersburg court and bureaucracy. Much of the protest in Russia after the Decembrist revolt was cen­ tered in Moscow, and most of it was related in one way or another to the university or its recent graduates. St. Petersburg had a salon life, but in Moscow in the 1830's there were in addition numerous university circles or kruzhoks. They supported a lively periodical press, and though continually harassed by the government and the servile "reptile" St. Petersburg press led by the hated triumvirate of Bulgarin, Grech, and Senkovsky, they somehow kept going, adding a great deal to the intellectual climate of the city.11 Another invigorating element was the new university blood. Throughout the reign of Alexander I the sons of the gentry, respond­ ing to the grave emergency created by Napoleon's imperial dreams, filled the officer corps of the Guard regiments, while the University of Moscow, not yet out of its adolescence, drew an increasing number of students from outside the gentry class. From a recent study of the roster of all two hundred students in the school of literature at the University of Moscow in 1832, we know that "half were sons of the lower middle class, merchants, clergy, minor civil servants and even artisans—that is, typical representatives of the classless intelligentare now in the Central State Archives of Literature and Art in Moscow, fond #10, opis no. 1, ed. khr. no. 76. 10 Martin Malia, Alexander Herzen and the Birth o f Russian Socialism, 1812-1855 (Cambridge, Mass., 1961), p. 58. 11 Ibid., p. 59.

18

THE NOBLEMAN'S NEST

sia."12 As a social unit, the University of Moscow was thus somewhat more democratic than Russian society in general, in which court nobility and gentry dominated. University life was a totally new experience for Konstantin. In the often quoted Reminiscence of My Student Days (written in 1855), he begins by saying that he was fifteen years old when he entered the university and that the transition from his home schooling to the university was "very abrupt." The public entrance examination, he says, "a phenomenon unknown to me up to that time, seemed to me frightful." Once past that terror, however, he felt a warmth and a closeness to his fellow students. In the department of literature in which he enrolled there were "twenty to thirty people," which was "a rather large number at that time." "Here," he says about his first days, "while silent we felt that we were comrades—a feeling new to me."13 Although he continued to live at home, now for the first time in his life he could leave his family, with its constant adult company, and for a good part of the day be with friends of his own age, some of them brilliant and destined for fame.14 Whereas in discussing the great German universities, for example, one speaks of the days when Kant or Schelling or Hegel or Ranke taught there, in discussing the University of Moscow during the 1830's one speaks of the students. Those were the days of Belinsky, Lermontov, Turgenev (before he transferred to St. Petersburg], Herzen, Stankevich, Goncharov, Samarin, Ogarev, and also the days of the two intellectual-ideological circles, the Herzen circle and the Stankevich circle. Looking back on his university life, Konstantin declared that his fellow students and the informal circles were far more important to him than the academic curriculum and formal training. Indeed, in the Reminiscence he is not very kind to his professors, either as a group or as individuals, and he even says that his university could claim no great success in its primary goal, the pursuit of truth: "On the part of the professorship this goal was achieved for the most part very faintly. The sun of truth illuminated our minds very dimly and 12 K. Petrova, "Spisok studentov slovesnogo otdeleniia moskovskogo universiteta za 1832 g.," Literatumoe nasiedstvo, no. 56 (Moscow, 1950), p. 417; Μ. V. Nechkina, "Obshchestvennye techeniia 1826-1848 gg.," in Istoriia Moskvy (Moscow, 1954), III, 400; Malia, Herzen, p. 58. 13 K. S. Aksakov, Vospominanie studentstva (St. Petersburg, n.d.), p. 9. 14 In the winter of 1833, Pogodin tried to persuade Sergei to permit Konstantin to live in his pension, but Sergei would not agree. He could not understand why Pogodin should feel "offended," and explained in a note to him: "I cannot pay and cannot take advantage free of charge of your good intentions." There is some suggestion of overpossessiveness in Pogodin's attitude as well. See Barsukov, Pogodin, IV, 181-182.

THE STANKEVICH CIRCLE

19

coldly." The faculty was at fault: "It is a strange thing! The professors taught badly. The students were not learning but were rather for­ getting whatever they already knew, yet their hearts [dushi], not being choked by formalism, were opened." Even in 1833-1834, Konstantin had the approach of the poet; he expected to pursue the truth more through the heart and soul than through the mind. The hearts of the students were opened, he says, "and Homer's immortal words lifted themselves above the professor and the listeners, speaking eloquently for themselves, and the expres­ sions of theology full of profound meaning, and the events of history appearing in their greatness even in Gastev's lectures."15 Exhilarated by the joy of an inner freedom which struck so many of the young men of the thirties and forties, Konstantin ruefully wondered "what would have happened, given the freedom of life of the university student, if we had had the living, profound word of the professor!"16 Konstantin's criticism of his professors was for the most part jus­ tified. The quality of the instruction at the University of Moscow improved considerably when younger men, members of Konstantin's brilliant generation, succeeded to the faculty—thanks in part to Uvarov, who, in spite of an otherwise reactionary career as minister of education (1833-1849), began sending some of the most promising university graduates to Germany for further study at government expense. During the late thirties and early forties some of these grad­ uates, such as P. G. Redkin, Τ. N. Granovsky, Ν. I. Krylov, D. L. Kriukov, and A. I. Chivilev, were returning to their alma mater as faculty members to build up the quality and reputation of the uni­ versity. Not all of Konstantin Aksakov's professors were undistinguished mediocrities. Ν. I. Nadezhdin, who began to lecture in 1831 on the theory of art and architecture, was a favorite among his students. "He always improvised," Aksakov writes, but from his "wise, fluent speech" one could sense "so to say the air of thought," although he disappointed them because of his "detachment from his subject and insufficiency of serious preparation" for his lectures. S. P. Shevyrev, professor of the history of Russian literature, made a very favorable 15 Mikhail Stepanovich Gastev, in Aksakov's words, presented as lecture material "some sort of mixture of statistics, history, heraldry, and something else," and "the lectures in theology were read in the most scholastic manner." He describes both Gastev and M. A. Korkunov (geography) as "completely colorless" but calls V. I. Obolensky, who taught Greek literature, "very amazing." While he was translating Homer the students gave "more attention to the funny figure of the professor than to the marvelous words of the Odyssey." K. S. Aksakov, Vospominanie, pp. 11-13. 16 Ibid., p. 14.

20

THE NOBLEMAN'S NEST

first impression, but for reasons that Aksakov did not explain, the "fascination did not last long." About Pogodin, Konstantin says little in 1855, perhaps because the intervening years had colored Pogodin's image. Konstantin remembered that in his first lecture on Russian literature Pogodin "spoke with ardor." The lecture made a "favorable and strong impression," but, Konstantin added with a sense of mild despair, "God knows how Pogodin with so many virtues arouses almost all persons against himself." In the course of three years at the University of Moscow the pro­ fessor who stood out most vividly in Konstantin Aksakov's mind was his professor of Russian history, Μ. T. Kachenovsky. In this respect Konstantin was not an exception. In fact he was voicing a consensus when he said, "in our time they loved and appreciated and at the same time feared Kachenovsky more than anyone else." The reason for Kachenovsky's popularity, in Konstantin's words, was that "youth freely believes, but it also freely doubts."17 Kache­ novsky personified the so-called "skeptical school" of Russian his­ tory, which was questioning the veracity, and thus also the value, of legends (predaniia) and chronicles, specifically the famous Chron­ icle of Nestor, as historical source materials. He started the Uchenye zapiski Moskovskago Universiteta (Learned Transactions of the University of Moscow) to make it possible for his students to publish their research papers written in the spirit of "historical skepticism." His article opening the series, "0 basnoslovnom vremeni ν russkoi istorii" (About the Legendary Time of Russian History), was a dis­ cussion of the significance to history of every people's tendency, in their early, more primitive periods, to produce legends and fables rather than factual written documents. "Legends are the most ancient and the most unauthentic source of history," and since in the Russian chronicles there was "much that was legendary," he concluded that "we must agree, with sorrow, that our ancient history in not au­ thentic."18 17 Ibid.,

pp. 23-24. Pogodin, IV, 215-216. Kachenovsky's views on ancient Russian history were inspired by the new Western concepts about the earliest phases of history of all modern nations, particularly by the work of B. G. Niebuhr in the field of early Roman history. (The last volume of his Homische Gesehichte was published in 1832.) Miliukov summarizes the new principle as holding that between an event and the writer in very early times there is of necessity a period of "popular oral transmission." This renders tales and legends unreliable as historical sources. Seen in the light of Western European developments, Miliukov concludes that Kachenovsky's school of historical skepticism (the tatige Skepsis of Niebuhr) was "entirely natural and lawful," since "Russian sources, like all others, contain legendary representations of the ancient period of history." This occurred not because of "conscious falsification, but because 18 Barsukov,

THE STANKEVICH CIRCLE

21

As to why Kachenovsky was feared, the novelist I. A. Goncharov, who was one of Kachenovsky's outstanding students, gives us the fullest answer. He says that Kachenovsky's "was a fine and analytical mind," and that he was "a skeptic on questions of scholarship and, in part it seems, about everything. And at that a fair-minded and honest man." He lectured not in a relaxed, calm, narrative manner but as "if he faced his professional adversaries." Kachenovsky thus considered the "Lay of the Host of Igor" a fourteenth-century "im­ itation." This matter became the cause of a heated argument between Kachenovsky and Pushkin. Fifty years later Goncharov remembered it well: "Pushkin ardently defended the authenticity of the ancient Russian epos while Kachenovsky thrust into it his merciless ana­ lytical knife." In recent work on the 1820's and 1830's, Iurii Mann correctly refers to Konstantin Aksakov's parody, Oleg pod KonstantinopoJem (Oleg before the Walls of Constantinople), written while he was in the Stankevich circle, as evidence of Aksakov's youthful devotion to Kachenovsky and his historical skepticism.19 Konstantin Aksakov and Goncharov (who seem never to have met) agree on Kachenovsky's unrivaled influence on the students. Aksakov, even in the period of his mature Slavophilism, confessed that he was "carried away" by Kachenovsky's thesis.20 Kachenovsky's of conscientious error." Miliukov considers that the "skeptical school" marks a "step forward" in Russian historical scholarship but that application of this principle was not necessarily free of error. Kachenovsky had a ready target for his historical criticism in Karamzin's History of the Russian State, eleven volumes of which were published between 1816 and 1824. Kachenovsky referred to Karamzin as a "historian-artist" and seriously doubted his veracity. Ikonnikov says, for instance, that in Kachenovsky's view Karamzin's Marina Mnizhek belongs to a novel, not to a historical work, and that later S. M'. Solov'ev showed repeatedly how Karamzin's style and method got in the way of his history. Professor Mazour has described Karamzin's approach to history as "sentimental-patriotic." Kachenovsky objected to all this, saying that for science and scholarship "there is nothing more proper than skepticism, not superficial and thoughtless, but based on comparison of texts and criticism of evidence." See P. N. Miliukov, GIavnyia techeniiα russkoi istoricheskoi mysli, 3rd ed. (St. Petersburg, 1913), pp. 234, 239, 241, 245; V. S. Ikonnikov, Opyt russkoi istoriografii, 2 vols., in 4 (Kiev, 1891-1908), I, 171, 225; V. I. Picheta, Vvedenie ν russkoi istorii (MoscowPetrograd, 1923), p. 109; V. I. Illeritsky and I. A. Kudriavtsev, eds., Istoriografiia istorii SSSR ... (Moscow, 1961), pp. 161-162; A. G. Mazour, Modern Russian Historiography, 2nd ed. (Princeton, N.J., 1958), p. 72. 19 Cf. I. A. Goncharov, "Iz universitetskikh vospominanii. Kak nas uchili 50 let nazad," Vestnik Evropy, 1887, no. 4, pp. 501-503 (hereafter cited as Goncharov, "Vospominaniia"); Iurii Mann, Russkaia filosofskaia estetika (1820-1830-e gody) (Moscow, 1969), p. 205; K. S. Aksakov, Oleg pod Konstantinopolem, dramaticheskaia parodiia (St. Petersburg, 1858), pp. m-iv. 20 K. S. Aksakov, Vospominanie, p. 24. Kachenovsky had the support of some very bright and devoted students. Ν. N. Murzakevich, for instance, after taking his course and graduating from the university, enrolled again in order to listen "to the beloved

22

THE NOBLEMAN'S NEST

skepticism was somewhat puzzling. He was a Ukrainian by birth, and in good standing with his fellow Ukrainians; yet whether he intended it or not, his doubts about the authenticity of major and basic sources of ancient Russian history tended to undermine the importance of Kiev and the Ukraine in the overall stream of Russian history. Even closer to the central topic of this study was the effect that Kachnovsky's historical skepticism had on Konstantin Aksakov's Moscowphilism and Great Russianism, both of which preceded his Slavophilism and eventually became fused with it. Konstantin was not simply "carried away" by Kachenovsky as a young impres­ sionable student: Kachenovsky's emphasis on the Moscow period, at the expense of the Kievan period, became part of Konstantin's own belief. In 1855 he noted: "I remember how high Kachenovsky held Moscow. . . . His testimonial to Moscow was a new reason for my sympathy for him." This was the stuff that nourished his child­ hood dream about Minin and Moscow. As for Kachenovsky, Goncharov diagnosed his motivation by saying that "for him there was no room in scholarship for sacred patriotic sentiments."21 Admirable as Kachenovsky's devotion to scholarly objectivity and nonpartisanship was, he proved incapable of maintaining contact for long with the men of the thirties. The young students soon moved in a direction which to him and his generation was perhaps strange. The philosophy of history was a far more fascinating subject than painstaking scholarly investigation, exegesis, and historical criti­ cism. As against the specialized craft of the professional research historian there stood before the "brilliant pleiad" of university stu­ dents in the 1830's the story of man's social growth, and the heady speculative thought of the masters of German idealism, Hegel in particular, purporting, in the opinion of later students of his thought, to discern not merely the past but also the present and the future. That the University of Moscow, Russia's leading institution of higher learning, and Moscow, Russia's unrivaled hero city, should be the center of such discussion seemed only fitting.22 It did a great deal to Kachenovsky." On the Pogodin-Kachenovsky relationship and the publications of their respective students while still in the university see Barsukov, Pogodin, IV, 213217; P. N. Miliukov, GJavnyia techeniia, 3rd ed. (St. Petersburg, 1913), pp. 243-253; Ikonnikov, Opyt Husskoi istoriografii, I, 78-82. 21 K. S. Aksakov Vospominanie, p. 24; Goncharov, "Vospominaniia," p. 503. 1 22 Herzen, even in his days of leftist radicalism, spoke of an organic, elemental blood-bond between Moscow, its university, and the Russian people, narod. In his memoirs he says: "After 1812 the University of Moscow grew in significance along with Moscow. Degraded by Emperor Peter from the capital of the tsars, Moscow was promoted by Emperor Nicholas (willy-nilly) into the capital of the Russian people [narod). The narod sensed, from the pain that it felt from the news of its capture by

THE STANKEVICH CIRCLE

23

lift the students' spirits in the midst of the crassness of the contem­ porary public order. Whenever the Herzen circle of the 1830's is discussed, the inspi­ ration that the Decembrist revolt exerted on its members, specifically on Herzen and Ogarev, is rightly stressed. But the spell of the Napo­ leonic wars and of Moscow, the "city of glory," was no less powerful. "The students of the thirties," Brodsky says, "grew up under the fascination of the stories about the heroic epopee of the years 18121814." Students relived the glorious days as they read about them in novels, lyrical poems, memoirs, and articles, and sometimes con­ tributed in their zeal to the patriotic storehouse, as in these lines from A. D. Zakrevsky, a friend of Herzen and Lermontov: "1812 remains the most important and brilliant era in the general biography of man. The Russian people . . . with unprecedented self-denial offered their heart—Moscow—to the general conflagration."23 Zakrevsky's sentiments were "completely shared" by Lermontov and others. On the other hand, the Polish rebellion of 1830-1831, though it aroused some of the Polish students in Moscow and men like Prince P. A. Viazemsky, found little response either among the Rus­ sian students or among the older generation. Pushkin, fearing French intervention, took a nationalistic attitude, as did Lermontov, Zhukovsky, Tiutchev, and others. In the early 1830's a strong feeling of nationalism and patriotism pervaded articulate Russia. A special ingredient of this sentiment was loyalty to Moscow, participant and witness to some of the most stirring events in Russian history. This loyalty knew no personal, political, or ideological lines, and it had a lasting impact on men whose ultimate positions were poles apart. Here was an idea of and from the Russian soil, and so deeply rooted in it that no critic of the Slavophils should ever have overlooked it when attributing all im­ portant Slavophil ideas to second-rate Western European thinkers. Clearly in the same category is the kindred concept symbolized by the differences and dichotomy between Moscow and St. Petersburg.24 the enemy, its blood tie with Moscow. From that time a new epoch began for it. Its university became more and more the focus of Russian culture. It combined all the conditions for its growth: historical significance, geographical location, and absence of the tsar." Goncharov wrote that he and his fellow students "looked upon the university as upon a sanctuary," much as had Griboedov at a somewhat earlier date: "On the University of Moscow as upon all of Moscow, lay a special imprint." A. I. Gersten, Sobranie sochinenii ν tridtsati tomakh (Moscow, 1954-1966), VIII, 106 (here­ after cited as Herzen, Sochineniia); Goncharov, "Vospominaniia," pp. 490-491. 23 N. L. Brodsky, M. Iu. Lermontov. Biografiia (Moscow, 1945), I, 257, 282, 290. 24 For Herzen's strong pro-Moscow sentiments as late as the 1850's, see his Sochi­ neniia, VIII, 132-133. The idea and sentiment of "Moscowphilism" was not born in

24

THE NOBLEMAN'S NEST

The University of Moscow in the 1830's was not all intellectual activity. The students were lighthearted and youthful, meeting in their informal circles and often in the larger community of the city itself. Vistengof, reminiscing about his student days in Moscow in the early 1830's, wrote: "In the good old time they loved to make merry. All kinds of pleasures flourished: balls, assemblies, theaters, circuses, invitations to dinners, and a hospitable reception every time in every home."25 Konstantin Aksakov, not without traces of youthful conceit, said that the university taught him and his fellow students little, and that extracurricular activities were what really mattered. No one familiar with the period would deny the quality and extraordinary significance of such manifestations of Russian intellectual-ideological life as the student circles and the salons that flourished in the 1830's and 1840's. But Herzen's appraisal seems more balanced. He thought that the university was successful be­ cause there were some good men on its faculty as well as lively student groups and circles: "The University of Moscow was doing its job. The professors who were instrumental through their lectures in the growth of Lermontov, Belinsky, I. Turgenev, Kavelin, Pirogov may calmly play Boston, and even more calmly lie in the grave."26 During this period at the university, although there were some dormitories, students from Moscow lived at home, and those from out of town occupied rented quarters. The social life of the students centered on the circles or kruzhki, in which young men with similar interests and purposes could pursue ideas on their own, somewhat isolated from other groups and individuals.27 These circles sprang up spontaneously, and some disbanded quickly. Often they were inspired by one dominant individual whose personality held sway and determined the course, and the graduation of that individual the 1830's, of course, but began with the establishment of Peter's new capital. For two eighteenth-century views (of Lomonosov and Shcherbatov), see B. I. Syromiatnikov, Heguliarnoe gosudarstvo Petra Pervogo i ego ideologiia (Moscow-Leningrad, 1943), p. 158. 25 P. F. Vistengof, "Iz moikh vospominanii," Istoricheskii vestnik, 1884, no. 5, pp. 336-337. Herzen, writing of the same period, talks of "feasts" and "orgies," but they were mild and innocent affairs, such as a celebration of St. Nicholas' Day (December 6), the name day of four of Herzen's friends (Ogarev, Satin, Ketcher, and Sazonov). For this festive occasion they had some wine and learned how to make hot "poonsh." Herzen, Sochineniia, VIII, 152-155. 26 Ibid., p. 123. Boston was a card game resembling whist. 27 Goncharov gives the following roughly defined groups in the early 1830's: (1) the circle of Stankevich, Stroev, and others; (2) state students on government board and room; (3) seminary students; and (4) small circles. Members of these groups "gathered together, took lecture notes, read books, and prepared for examinations and of course they were often together outside the university." "Vospominaniia," p. 517.

THE STANKEVICH CIRCLE

25

meant the end of the group. None of the circles of the 1830's survived into the next decade. Since in Goncharov's class, which was also Aksakov's, there were only about forty students, the circles were small and intimate, and they were often the basis for quick, strong friendships. The students soon discovered that, in spite of the larger atmosphere of governmental repression, within their small groups or circles they could enjoy an exhilarating sort of freedom, compa­ rable to that in the salons. Much as the Elagina (Kireevsky) salon has been described as the "free republic by the Red Gate," so the student groups and circles were "university republics." Goncharov was par­ ticularly fond of that designation: "Our young crowd," he said, "con­ stituted a small, learned republic," and "there was no authority over us save the authority of scholarship and its teachers." But, he noted, in this "golden age" of the university republic (that is, the period 1832-1833], he and his friends, "having grown used to our republican freedom," became suspicious of outsiders.28 The circles were the meeting places of the so-called "idealists of the thirties." The common notion is that these young idealists were precocious aristocrats who had nothing better to do than speculate endlessly about literature, particularly of the current German and English romantic variety, and about German idealism—first Kant­ ianism and Schellingism, then Hegelianism—or about French Uto­ pian socialism. One gets the impression that these young Russians, having subsisted on a foreign diet from childhood, yearned for noth­ ing more than to prove worthy of their Western mentors by being certain that whatever they thought, said, or wrote would bear the stamp of Western thinking and preferences. All this is a great over­ simplification. Most of the "men of the thirties and forties" did not react in this manner—not because they were Russians, but because they were human. It is true that, notwithstanding Gogol' and everything he achieved for Russian prose, the decade of the thirties was still the age of poetry. The men of the thirties were "poets," in an age when all men aspired to poetry—and poets, according to the common notion, are expected to be dreamy, impractical, and romantic, with little or no sense of reality. But there was another side to these poets—Konstantin Aksakov among them—which is borne out in their questioning of the reasons for Russia's backwardness in literature. Between 1828 and 1836, for example, men of such sharply different background, per­ sonality, and, ultimately, opinions as Nadezhdin, I. V. Kireevsky, Ν. M. Iazykov, Lermontov, Belinsky, and Chaadaev bemoaned the 28

Ibid., pp. 498-499, 514-515.

26

THE NOBLEMAN'S NEST

poverty of Russia's literary heritage as compared with that of Western Europe, and Kachenovsky's doubts about the "Lay of the Host of Igor" cast a shadow even on one of the few literary masterpieces of Russian antiquity. Essentially these men were asking, when they compared the two literatures, the underlying and much more complex question of whether Russian culture could bear comparison with Western cul­ tures. Not only was Russian literature inferior to Western; Russian culture was also inferior, or at least wanting. The recognition was psychologically devastating to a generation raised on the glories of Russian military skill and on the heroism and noble sacrifices of Moscow and the Russian people in 1812 and 1814. The reasons for this immense cultural lag, as well as its remedy, had to be sought in the Russian condition, in the many centuries of historical evo­ lution and in the circumstances of the time. This explains the intense interest in the philosophy of history, which outweighed, it seems, the attractions of Western romanticism, German idealism, and French Utopian socialism, strong as these were, whenever they did not serve to reveal the continuous Russian historical process, past, present, and future. What was not imported (and could not be imported) from the West were the most potent ingredients in the thought and attitudes of the "idealists of the thirties," and for that matter of the "men of the forties"—the sense of outrage at existing conditions at home, the acute social consciousness, and the strong sense of self-respect among the young men and university students. No Russian needed the help of Western thought and literature, although contrast between Russia and the West was inescapable, to recognize the dismal con­ ditions at home in the wake of the Decembrist attempt and to want to do something to improve them. The longer the reign of Nicholas I wore on, the deeper became the awareness of Russia's internal order, and the stronger the demand for change. This much can justly be said without implying that there were no major differences in the thirties, forties, and fifties among the several ideological camps, or even within a single camp. The three major Westernisms—radical, liberal, and Chaadaev's—manifested themselves as the new gener­ ation began to consider and to chart the future course of Russia, bending and adapting whatever they felt was necessary to fit the Russian condition. Even then, there was often a great difference between what these Westernisms might have inspired and what ac­ tually came about. Thus the search for an ideology, indispensable for the social, political, and economic life of modern nations, and the search for the fundamental religious or philosophical principles upon which ideologies rest, appeared to be a series of mental gym-

THE STANKEVICH CIRCLE

27

nasties. As we shall soon see, ideological considerations were never far from even the most intensely philosophical of the Moscow circles, the Stankevich. This conclusion, though legitimate, is but one component of a complex situation. For in addition to the historical elements during the three decades, one also notices the powerful pull of ideas. Among the men of the thirties and forties, there were some to whom ideas for ideas' sake appealed strongly without pushing out all other con­ siderations. In fact, not a single one of the men of the thirties and forties, with the possible exception of Ivan Kireevsky, became a "professional" or lifelong philosopher. Their intense absorption with philosophy was a means to an end—the goal being an ideology which could offer a solution for Russia's internal problems. Each in his own way, the radical Westerners Herzen, Belinsky, and Bakunin, and the Slavophils Samarin and Konstantin Aksakov, discarded philosophy and turned to the next step in the descent of an idea, toward a working out of an ideology, and, in a few cases, to its embodiment in action. Even in the early 1830's there were students at the University of Moscow who, keenly attuned to Russia's internal needs, were im­ patient with long philosophical and ideological preparation. Armed, as a rule, with a few ideological and programmatic principles, they sought immediate change through revolutionary action. Some of these students belonged to the radical Sungurov circle. Its leader, N. P. Sungurov, was inspired by the Decembrists and considered himself a "leftover of December 14."29 Another circle along the same lines was the one led by V. I. Sokolovsky. Like the Sungurov circle, this consisted of some non-students as well as students, representing both the gentry and the classless intelligentsia, and it was similarly inspired by the Decembrists. It may have been less revolutionary in its program than the Sungurov circle, which advocated armed revolt to bring about a constitutional monarchy, but the government ar­ rested members of both circles.30 29 Ivan Kireevsky seems to have been instrumental in the transfer of money from the Stankevich circle to the arrested members of the Sungurov group. See Nechkina, "Obshchestennyie techeniia," pp. 423-424. This circle included, among others, the son of an Orthodox priest and the son of a Lutheran minister. See Nechkina, pp. 408409; see also S. I. Mashinsky, ed., Poety kruzhka Ν. V. Stankevicha . . . (MoscowLeningrad, 1964), pp. 14-16; Brodsky, Lermontov, pp. 258-259. 30 The charge against those in the Sokolovsky group was the singing of "libelous verses." Nechkina, "Obshchestennyie techeniia," pp. 406, 409-411. Nechkina, whose study of the Moscow circles is the most up-to-date, admits to the scarcity of docu­ mentary materials about the Herzen-Ogarev and Stankevich circles. This is doubtless also true of the more obscure ones (see pp. 412-413).

28

THE NOBLEMAN'S NEST

To the right of the Sungurov circle on the ideological spectrum, but to the left of center, was the Herzen circle. Along with the Stankevich, it is the best known of Moscow's intellectual-ideological circles of the period. Its moving spirit, as the name indicates, was Alexander Ivanovich Iakovlev, born in 1812 and better known in Russia as Gertsen, in the West as Herzen, and sometimes known under his pen name, Iskander. There are few descriptions of Her­ zen—who wrote so brilliantly of others—especially few of him as a university student. Kostenetsky, a fellow student who belonged to the Sungurov circle, left the following two-line sketch in 1872: "Herzen was a thin, small youth with closely cut light hair and a yellow, pimply face. He was very lively, clever, always smiling, and per­ petually on the move."31 Tolstoy, who met him in London in 1861, "remembered him as a not very large, plump little man, who gen­ erated electric energy. Lively, responsive, intelligent, interesting."32 Herzen had a strong, inquisitive mind, a vivid imagination, and a temperament that was sanguine, emotional, romantic. Capable of strong attachments, he seems to have demanded them from others. At the age of twenty he considered himself an incomplete person and wrote to Nicholas P. Ogarev, his fellow student and lifelong friend: "You, Vadim [Passek], and I—we constitute a whole." But before Passek became one of that threesome, Herzen had gathered, around himself and Ogarev, the "five"—N. I. Sazonov, Ν. M. Satin, and A. N. Savich, who had graduated from the University of Moscow in 1829, being the other three. A half-dozen or so others, some stu­ dents and some recent graduates, completed the roster. The nucleus of Herzen's circle was thus formed as early as the autumn and winter of 1830, but because of the disruptions of the cholera epidemic the circle did not become fully active until 1831.33 To some extent the Herzen-Ogarev circle (and for that matter the Stankevich), with its occasional emphasis on the esoteric, was ju­ venile, "idealistic," and almost self-centered. But its founders and members did not regard it as an end in itself, and it did not, as some critics have thought, degenerate into a purely social-intellectual fraternity, frivolously taking up one new idea after another. Though 31 la. I. Kostenetsky, "Vospominaniia iz moei studencheskoi zhizni," Russkii arkhiv, 1887, book 1, p. 111. 32 Quoted by Isaiah Berlin in "Herzen the Great," New York Review of Books, March 14, 1968, p. 9. 33 Herzen makes it clear in a letter to Tat'iana Passek written during the epidemic that Ogarev left Moscow with his father, two of fifty thousand of Moscow's inhabitants who tried to flee from the cholera. See T. P. Passek, Vospominaniia. Iz dai'nikh let (St. Petersburg, 1906), I, 315. See also McGrew, Russia and the Cholera, p. 76.

THE STANKEVICH CIRCLE

29

its basic inspiration had come from the West—from England, France, Germany—its raison d'etre was to carry on the Decembrist tradition by fighting against serfdom and autocracy. In the later phase of the Herzen circle another element was intro­ duced. Herzen and his coterie thought they had found the solution to Russia's problems in Saint-Simonism, in which emancipation from serfdom, freedom from autocracy, and escape from economic exploitation could somehow become harmonized. It was character­ istic of Herzen, the university student and the mature publicist, just as it was of his Slavophil friends, that in his search for a way to end oppression in Russia he should have chosen not the rampant indi­ vidualism of laissez-faire England (only a decade away from the Corn Laws) and not bourgeois France, with its corruption, but a rationally worked out socialist system. For despite everything that has been written in the West about liberalism in nineteenth-century Russia, its appeal to Russians, with few notable exceptions, was negligible. In choosing Saint-Simon's doctrine, the Herzen circle made a "Rus­ sian," socially conscious choice. A little earlier, the French Revo­ lution had caught the fancy of the young citoyens from the Imperial University of Moscow, but, unlike the July revolution, it took them some time to see its true character. Eventually Herzen learned, with considerable disillusionment, that although the Revolution of 1789 had swept away feudal vestiges, it had not brought liberty, or equal­ ity, or fraternity. Ironically, it had instead cleared the way for one of the world's most aggressive military dictatorships. The interests of the Herzen circle ranged widely, notwithstanding its Decembrist inspiration. Ν. I. Sazonov, one of the "five," described the activities of the circle years later in much detail: Everything, beginning with our clothes, gave evidence of the most fanciful melange. In the winter we wore black velvet berets a la Karl Sand, and French Tricolor scarves. At the meetings of our circle we recited the forbidden poems of Ryleev and Pushkin and sang Beranger's Napoleonic verses together with the antiFrench songs of Arndt, Uland, and Koerner. Our reading was even more diverse. We discussed with equal zeal the still rare documents with respect to the French Revolution, and the works of Schelling and Oken on Naturphilosophie. Beginning with the mystical divinations of Jakob Boehme and up to Barbier's heroic verses and Balzac's La peau de chagrin, everything excited us, everything interested us and evoked our enthusiasm, sometimes monotonous and fruitless but always sincere.34 34

Quoted in Brodsky, Lermontov, p. 269. Similarly, Tat'iana Passek in her recol-

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THE NOBLEMAN'S NEST

Much the same thing might have been said about the Stankevich circle, and Herzen in his memoirs rather simplifies the differences between the two, though he is essentially correct in his analysis.35 "We could coldly respect the Stankevich circle but we could not effect a rapprochement with its members," he says. "They traced philosophical systems, engaged in endless analysis of themselves, and found inner calm in luxurious pantheism, which did not exclude Christianity. We dreamed of ways of starting a new union in Russia on the model of the Decembrists, and considered speculative phi­ losophy [nauka] a means to this end."36 The Stankevich circle did not limit itself to the study of German philosophy, nor did the Herzen circle limit itself to Decembrism, or later to Saint-Simonism. It is well known, for instance, that Ogarev gave some attention to lin­ guistics and philosophy and toyed with Cousin's eclecticism; as a university student he "vacillated between Cousin and Schelling." Herzen, too, had some knowledge of Schelling, even before he en­ tered the university. Not satisfied to keep Schelling to himself, in the words of Tat'iana Passek, "during the intermissions between lectures [Sasha] orated with his friends about philosophy, politics, and lit­ erature. Schelling was in first place."37 A great deal of what was discussed in the circles was ephemera, since the young Muscovites greeted every new author, particularly poets, and every new Western philosopher with enthusiasm, and in their eagerness to search and test they were often more emotional than intellectual. In their youth, some of the most prominent of these young intellectuals performed striking mental and spiritual somer­ saults. Herzen, an agnostic at nineteen, passed through a brief but, it seems, deep Christian experience while in exile in Viatka. Then, after discovering the revolutionary potential of Left Hegelianism, he found his particular brand of political philosophy in agnostic, hu­ manistic Russian socialism. Belinsky's mental and emotional pere­ grinations are no less striking. As a university student he was in lections of her brother Vadim quotes him as saying, "That life left in us the memory of a continuous feast of friendship, a feast of ideas, a feast of scholarship and of dreaming, uninterrupted, solemn, sometimes stormy, sometimes gloomy, riotous, but never depraved." Passek, Vospominaniia, 1, 285. But the Herzen circle was not all work. For "an orgy in full swing" see p. 417. 35 Konstantin Aksakov describes the Stankevich circle as "sober," loving "neither wine nor revelry, which occurred seldom if at all." "During the evenings in Stankevich's home we drank a frightful quantity of tea and ate a frightful quantity of bread." Obviously, whatever was thought and said in the Stankevich circle could not be attributed to inflamed imaginations. K. S. Aksakov, Vospominanie, pp. 19, 27. 36 Quoted in Nechkina, "Obshchestvennye techeniia," p. 422. 37 Quoted in Brodsky, Lermontov, pp. 267-268.

THE STANKEVICH CIRCLE

31

sympathy with the downtrodden in Russian society; a little later he embraced reactionary Hegelianism and justified the "rational reality" of Nicholas I, only to attack it at the turn of the 1830's all the more passionately as "cursed reality." He was enraged by "pure" philos­ ophy or any idea that had no direct and immediate relationship to a humane, socialistic order. Bakunin's seemingly abrupt conversion from an ardent and absorbed student of Hegel and a self-conscious member of the Russian gentry into "Jules Elysard," and soon into the man of action and apostle of world conflagration in the name of a godless, stateless, universal brotherhood, was even more remark­ able. Less remarkable, but no less chracteristic, was the change in Ivan Kireevsky from a mild and rather ill-defined "Westerner," before the ban of his Evropeets in 1832, into one of the leading Slavophils by 1839; and, as well, the conversion in the early forties of Konstantin Aksakov and Iurii Samarin from Hegelianism to Orthodoxy under Khomiakov's strong influence. It is clear in retrospect that, by the early 1840's, German idealism had lost much of its appeal for the men of the thirties. They were already turning to other intellectual interests.38 Nor was philosophy a traditional Russian endeavor. Though Russia was producing great novelists, poets, publicists, and literary critics, it did not by the middle of the nineteenth century have one philosopher of note unless we concede such standing to Ivan Kireevsky. Kireevsky's philo­ sophical thought, moreover, is in no way an extension of German idealism or any other Western system but rather an effort to provide Russia—and perhaps Europe as well—with a successor to Western philosophy rooted in Orthodox Christianity.39 Was the feverish in­ terest in philosophy by many of the men of the 1830's spurious? Was there any profound disappointment in it that would explain its aban­ donment? Was there a nationalistic reaction to a foreign import, and therefore a recoil from it? Was, finally, the "Russian soul" in the first half of the nineteenth century basically unreceptive to German ide­ alism, and to Western philosophy in general, or had Western phi­ losophers said all there was to say about philosophy? 38 In the words of a recent Soviet scholar: "Several of the former members of the [Stankevich] circle found rest in the quiet profession of scholarship (Stroev, Bodiansky, Efremov); Belinsky became a revolutionary democrat and socialist; Botkin, a liberal Westerner; Katkov moved in an evolutionary manner to the right, becoming later a pillar of reactionary journalism; Bakunin's ideological restlessness brought him to the position of revolutionary anarchism; while Konstantin Aksakov found his new faith in Slavophilism." Mashinsky, Poety, p. 65. 39 See Peter K. Christoff, An Introduction to Nineteenth-Century Russian Slavo­ philism: A Study in Ideas, vol. II, I. V. Kireevskij (The Hague-Paris, 1972), pp. 176204.

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THE NOBLEMAN'S NEST

Without suggesting that a single inclusive answer to this complex problem has been found, I can advance a possible explanation as to why the interest in philosophy, for all its intensity, was of short duration. Granted the rare mental endowment of the men of the thirties and forties, they do not seem to have been interested in philosophy for its own sake, and certainly not in the academic, schol­ arly manner of the German idealists. What they looked for in phi­ losophy seems to have been similar to what they sought in the equally well-cultivated field of the philosophy of history, something appli­ cable to the solution of the Russian dilemma, a way out of "cursed reality." In philosophy they thought they could find the "substra­ tum" for a solution to the fundamental problems of Russia, and of life as a whole. In the philosophy of history they felt they could discern not only the correct internal order for Russia but also its proper place among the other nations of the world, particularly the European. Though mindful of Russia's military and diplomatic po­ sition in post-Napoleonic Europe, they could not feel at ease about its lesser position in literary and cultural matters. Above all, they were troubled by the problem of autocracy and serfdom. Every day, wherever they turned, they were confronted with evi­ dence of the appalling state of Russia's internal order. The conclusion was inescapable that as long as serfdom continued, Russia was doomed to cultural stagnation and subservience to the West. It was a nagging sore, for national as well as individual pride. Small wonder that the men of the thirties and forties, having passed through an intense study of philosophy, mostly the reigning German idealism, hurriedly descended to the level of ideology in an effort to come to grips with the Russian problem. Belinsky, Herzen, Bakunin, Katkov, Kavelin, Granovsky, Chaadaev, Khomiakov, Kireevsky, Samarin, K. S. Aksakov, A. A. Grigor'ev, Pogodin, Shevyrev, even the repre­ sentatives of the "reptile" press of St. Petersburg, different as they all were one from another, were alike in one important respect. With the exception of Bakunin, they were not men of action (nor could they easily be, under the regime of Nicholas I). Publicists, editors, literary critics, scholars, teachers, essayists, writers, advocates and defenders of ideas, they were for the most part ideologists. If the nineteenth century was the age of ideology, as it has been charac­ terized, it was perhaps nowhere more so than in Russia during the decades of the thirties, forties, and fifties. Although in the character and quality of their individual ideologies these men ranged from the extreme left to the extreme right, they all had ideas and convictions on how to deal with the Russian dilemma. Nikolai Stankevich and his circle were swept up in the fervor of

THE STANKEVICH CIRCLE

33

German idealism, culminating in a brief Hegelian phase. Stankevich did not take up the study of Hegel's works in the original until 1836, barely a year before he left for Western Europe. While still in Moscow, having already formed certain opinions about Hegel, he engaged in a lively controversy with Nadezhdin and Shevyrev. The crux of the matter, as Iurii Mann cogently stated a few years ago, was the ques­ tion of whether Hegelianism could be considered a "universal sci­ ence" (speculative philosophy). Whereas Stankevich, in his own words, was in search of "complete unity" in the realm of his knowl­ edge and was perhaps satisfied that he had found it in philosophy and Hegelianism, Nadezhdin and Shevyrev, who previously had differed in their views on philosophy and aesthetics, now drew closer together in opposition to Stankevich's "universal science."40 Before Stankevich and his friends began to concentrate on Hegel they had already examined, with varying degrees of thoroughness and mastery, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Cousin. Stankevich, and some of the circle, had also read Herder, Ewers, Heeren, and Guizot. All of them knew and admired Goethe, and many, Schiller.41 But up to the mid-1830's the Stankevich circle was primarily concerned with literature and history. They read, recited, and translated poetry, mostly German and English, and nearly every­ one engaged in some versifying. There was also some interest in the theater and art, mainly Greek and Roman, following the English and French example. Thus when Konstantin Aksakov joined the Stankevich circle as a college freshman he found himself in a small group of students in­ terested in historical, literary, and broadly cultural questions rather than in any specific school of philosophy, and as one of the early members of the circle he saw its rapid evolution. These circum40 For the controversy between Stankevich and Nadezhdin symptomatic of the "cri­ sis in the Russian aesthetic consciousness" in the 1830's see Mann, Russkaia filosofskaia estetika, pp. 222-223. 41 Stankevich's correspondence also mentions Homer, Herodotus, and Thucydides, among the classical Greeks; the modern historians Michelet, Schorn, and Luden; Salvador and his history of the Jews; Balzac, A. H. Hoffmann, Hugo, also Shakespeare, Byron, and Sir Walter Scott; and among the Russians, Karamzin, Pushkin, and Gogol'. He also read in the Bible. Specifically, Stankevich mentions the Epistle of St. John, which he read during Holy Week in 1834. He wrote to Neverov June 14, 1836, that he was "rereading Schiller, Faust, Werther" and would read "the Bible and the iiiad." He was evidently a believing Christian. Of the many references on this subject I cite only one in regard to the Epistle of St. John and the Bible. P. V. Annenkov, ed., Nikolai Vladimirovich Stankevich. Perepiska ego i biograflia (Moscow, 1857), pp. 98, 183. It is perhaps not farfetched to assume that many if not all of these writers were discussed in the circle.

34

THE NOBLEMAN'S NEST

stances, and Konstantin Aksakov's vivid memory, have made his short Reminiscence one of the primary and most frequently quoted sources on Stankevich and his circle. Stankevich, born in 1813, en­ tered the university in the autumn of 1830. The beginning of his circle dates to 1831.42 Its early members were I. M. Neverov, Stankevich's closest friend; I. P. Kliushnikov, a poet; V. I. Krasov, also a poet and a teacher; Sergei Stasov, later a historian; and la. I. Pocheka and I. A. Obolensky, both of whom had contacts with the Herzen circle. 0. M. Bodiansky (Slavicist), Pavel Petrov (Sanscritologist), A. P. Efremov (geographer), and Aleksei Beyer were also in the circle. A recent study lists the following as having entered the circle in 1833: "Vissarion Belinsky, Konstantin Aksakov, Aleksander Keller, Aleksei Topornin, Osip Bodiansky, Pavel Petrov, and somewhat later, in 1835, Vasilii Botkin, Mikhail Bakunin, Mikhail Katkov, Kaetan Kossovich."43 There is some question about exactly when Aksakov joined the circle. Aksakov says in his Reminiscence: "While still in the first academic year [na pervom kurse] I became acquainted with Stan­ kevich, through Dmitrii Topornin, who was then in his second ac­ ademic year."44 That would mean either late in the calendar year 1832 (which seems to have been the case) or in the first half of 1833. Belinsky, who had had his own circle for a brief time,45 became a member in 1833, but Bakunin and Katkov did not join until some­ what later.46 42 Nechkina is convinced that the circle was in existence by the summer of 1831. Brodsky says that it could not have appeared earlier than the academic year 18311832. Mashinsky dates it to the winter of 1831-1832. See Nechkina, "Obshchestvennye techeniia," p. 421; Brodsky, Lermontov, p. 273; Mashinsky, Poety, p. 13. 43 Mashinsky, Poety, p. 13. Katkov later became an influential conservative journalist often attacked by liberals and radicals. On his participation in the Stankevich circle, see S. Nevedensky, Katkov i ego vremia (St. Petersburg, 1888), pp. 10-62; N. A. Liubimov, Mikhail Niki/orovich Katkov (St. Petersburg, 1889), pp. 20-24; Martin Katz, Mikhail N. Katkov: A Political Biography, 1818-1887 (The Hague-Paris, 1966), pp. 17-31. 44 K. S. Aksakov, Vospominanie, p. 17. 45 The Belinsky circle, brought to light in 1954, met in his government dormitory room no. 11 and became known as the "Literary Society of Number Eleven." Its main interest was literature, but it also took up K. F. Bachman's aesthetics and political literature. "They copied forbidden verses, including some by Pushkin, Ryleev, and Polezhaev, and resolutely protested against the autocratic serf order" of Russia. Nech­ kina, "Obshchestvennye techeniia," pp. 418-420. 46 These dates are not certain. Mashinsky gives 1833 on one page but quotes Aksakov, suggesting, I believe, 1832, on the preceding page. Brodsky and Nechkina agree on 1832. Nechkina dates Bakunin's membership to 1834, whereas Mashinsky, Brodsky, and Kornilov, who clearly set Bakunin's first meeting with Stankevich, agree on 1835. Granovsky and Turgenev, who studied at the University of St. Petersburg after 1834,

THE STANKEVICH CIRCLE

35

Stankevich lived in rented quarters in the home of Professor M. G. Pavlov, a professor of physics, mineralogy, and agriculture and a leading exponent of Schelling's Naturphilosophie, well liked by stu­ dents. The circle met in Stankevich's rooms, in Aksakov's words, "every day."47 In a recently published fragment of Aksakov's, this is how he remembered the gatherings: In 1832 the better students gathered at Stankevich's. They were ... still in the first season of their youth. Comradeship, common interests, mutual inclinations held together ten students. If some evening someone had looked in on the small low-ceilinged rooms full of tobacco smoke, he would have seen a lively and variegated picture: the noisy sound of the piano .. . singing and loud voices, young and cheerful faces on all sides, and at the piano a handsome young man whose dark, almost black, hair covered his temples, and whose face was lit up by beautiful, bright, intelligent eyes.48 Stankevich, the youth with the "beautiful, bright, intelligent eyes," was the center of the circle, and it was the force of his personality that drew and held together these young men of such diverse tem­ peraments, convictions, and personalities. Turgenev, Granovsky, Bakunin, Belinsky, K. S. Aksakov, Pogodin, Shevyrev, and others wrote about him in strikingly unrestrained terms, and even those who never knew him reacted to his personality in retrospect.49 Withcame into Stankevich's life later. Granovsky met Stankevich through Neverov in early April 1836, and two years later he introduced Stankevich to Turgenev in Berlin. All four frequented Elisaveta Pavlovna Frolova's salon there. See K. S. Aksakov, Vospominanie, p. 17; Mashinsky, Poety, pp. 12-13, 79-80; Brodsky, Lermontov, pp. 269273; Nechkina, "Obshchestvennye techeniia," pp. 421-422. See also E. J. Brown, Stankevich and His Moscow Circle, 1830-1840 (Stanford, 1966), pp. 8, 21, 26-31,115118; A. A. Kornilov, Molodye gody Mikhaila Bakunina (Moscow, 1915], p. 90; Ch. Vetrinsky [V. E. Cheshikhin], T. N. Granovsky i ego vremia (Moscow, 1897), pp. 17, 33-38. 47 Brodsky (Lermontov, p. 269) agrees with Aksakov (Vospominanie, p. 17) that the circle met daily, but Brown in his fine study (Stankevich and His Circle, p. 8) refers to Friday meetings. 48 Mashinsky, Poety, pp. 12-13. 49 A year after Stankevich's correspondence was published in 1857, the young writer L. N. Tolstoy, in a letter to B. N. Chicherin, commented; "Have you read Stankevich's correspondence? My God, what charm! He is a man whom I could love like myself. Do you believe that I have tears in my eyes? I have just finished reading him and cannot think of anything else." And to Countess A. A. Tolstoy he wrote: "I have never loved anyone so much as this man whom I have never seen. What purity, and ten­ derness, and love with which his whole being is permeated, and such a man suffered all his life, and died in suffering." Quoted in D. I. Chizhevsky, GegeJ' ν Rossii (Paris, 1939), p. 69; see also pp. 70-72.

36

THE NOBLEMAN'S NEST

out him, latent antagonisms burst into open conflicts. But for a few short years in the middle thirties, young Stankevich presided over one of Moscow's most extraordinary student gatherings. In spite of Uvarov, who in 1833 proclaimed the famous triple formula—Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationalism—as the ideolog­ ical guide for all Russians, and in spite of the censorship of imported books (and, presumably, ideas) and the watchful eye of the Third Section, many students at the University of Moscow were eagerly receptive to Western thought, scholarship, and literary works. In the Stankevich circle, youths who a generation or so earlier would have been in the uniforms of the Guards, leading their peasant soldiers against Napoleon's Grand Army, animatedly discussed poetry, "soft lyricism," "self-contemplation," and "inner man." They talked of "self-consciousness" and "self-knowledge," of "confessions of the heart" and "reflections" (the so-called "contagion" of the aristocratic youth of the thirties). Some of them placed "feeling" above "reason and will"; others reversed the order. At no time before, unless it was in the Philosophical Society of the preceding decade, had the poet, and the poetry of philosophy, occupied so lofty and exalted a ped­ estal as in the Stankevich circle. In accordance with the times, many of those in the circle wrote poetry, some—notably Krasov, Kliushnikov, and Aksakov—with fair talent. Konstantin explained his respect for poetry to his cousin Maria Kartashevskaia in January 1837 this way: "Poetry is creativity: the poet does not labor, he creates; and is it possible that for the creator one thing could be difficult and another easy? Difficulty and ease can exist [only] where there is effort." The comparison of Konstantin with Prince V. F. Odoevsky, his contemporary, was irresist­ ible, and it has been made: "He is not a poet who understands what he writes and in whose inspiration intelligence interferes. Only he is a poet who is a mere instrument in which providence places thoughts incomprehensible to the instrument."50 Not all in the Stankevich circle shared this view, least of all Stankevich. Mediocre as a poet, he had a logical mind which inclined naturally toward thought and philosophy. Late in 1833, after some flirting with "life," "love," and "feeling," he wrote to Neverov, "I wish that reason should precede everything."51 Under his direction, 50Quoted in Mashinsky, Poety, pp. 27, 31, 52. See also P. N. Sakulin, Iz istorii russkago idealizma (Moscow, 1913), part 1, pp. 498-499. Sakulin discusses the source and meaning of poetry as conceived in the 1820's and 1830's.

51 This assertion is quoted by both Chizhevsky and Mashinsky. In general, Chizhevsky de-emphasizes Stankevich's romanticism and doubts whether even in his Schellingian period he was a romantic. But Mashinsky sees Stankevich in this instance

THE STANKEVICH CIRCLE

37

the circle moved ever deeper into the study of philosophy. For the first year or so, until the end of 1833, the emphasis was on history and literature, and though these disciplines were never wholly aban­ doned, they were gradually pushed aside by philosophy. This in­ terest coincided with the appearance of Belinsky, who entered the circle a year after being expelled from the university on trumped-up charges of incompetence, and perhaps of one or two others who also were not students. Stankevich began the study of Schelling's System des transzendentalen Idealismus (1800) in the autumn of 1834, and in 1835 he took up Hegel, using secondary sources. In 1836 he and the circle began reading Hegel in the original.52 Stankevich described philosophy, followed by history, as the "the two basic human disciplines [nauki]," and the poet was "the elected of God."53 Konstantin Aksakov's view of philosophy and nauka was no more precise than that of the rest of the Stankevich circle, and furthermore his preference for poetry was never completely over­ shadowed, not even during his most pro-Hegelian phases. Stankevich perhaps summed up the difficulty of integrating these pur­ suits most succinctly when he wrote to Neverov in 1833 that "the soul asks for will, the mind for food, love for an object, life for action."54 Stankevich's letters, particularly those to Neverov, betray his rest­ lessness and frustration. Though he must have realized that he him­ self was not destined to lead a life of action (he died in 1840 of tuberculosis), he seemed to be increasingly aware of the futility of too much talk. "The necessity for action does not give me peace," as "expressing the contradictions of the romantic consciousness." See Chizhevsky, GegeI' ν Rossii, pp. 76, 78; Mashinsky, Poety, p. 40; Annenkov, Stankevich, pp. 22, 101. 52 The following chronology of Stankevich's readings in German idealism has been abstracted from Chizhevsky: in 1834-1835 he studied Schelling; in March 1835 he read Schelling again with Kliushnikov; in November 1835 he summarized Kant and Schelling in letters to Bakunin; in the spring of 1836 he read Fichte and began to "better understand" Hegel. In November 1836 he had Hegel's thirteen volumes "in his hands." Chizhevsky, GegeJ' ν Rossii, pp. 73-78. 53 Mashinsky, Poety, pp. 26, 27. Stankevich in June 1836 advised Granovsky, at the University of Berlin, not to be satisfied with the collection and correlation of facts or with mere systematization of data but to "animate science [nauka] with a single, bright idea" (p. 23). The word nauka was used with considerable imprecision then (as later). As Chizhevsky says, it had no "definite" meaning. It could stand for a discipline, social science, the humanities, or the physical sciences, or even philos­ ophy, as Samarin used the word in 1842: "by science [nauka] I understand philosophy, and by philosophy Hegel." Quoted in Chizhevsky, Gegel' ν Rossii, pp. 86-87, 176. 54 Stankevich, "Perepiska," p. 218; Annenkov, Stankevich, pp. 158-159; Mashinsky, Poety, p. 21.

THE NOBLEMAN'S NEST

38

he wrote in 1836. "Fate constantly interferes with my taking up the deed at the very time when I feel a particular desire for action." He also commented to Bakunin: "The need for civic action is beginning to concern me strongly.. . . It is a pity that our small society, despite its good intentions, suffers from an incurable malady—anguish and lack of confidence in life. Without these we would have accom­ plished more."55 In Berlin in 1837 Stankevich, though still absorbed in Hegel, au­ dited university lectures on the history of rural economy, with an eye to improving the agriculture on his family's estates and thereby also, perhaps, the lot of his serfs.56 More than that neither he nor the others would be apt to do. They were all aware of the deplorable internal conditions of their country and of the cultural miasma that prevailed. That was the "cursed reality." But while Stankevich was in charge of his circle its members did not become revolutionists, nor would their ability to provide solutions ever match their sense of the enormousness and complexity of the problem. 55 Annenkov, 56

Stankevich, p. 148; Mashinsky, Poety, pp. 21-22. Chizhevsky, Gegel' ν Hossii1 p. 73.

CHAPTER 3

EXPANDING FRIENDSHIPS

KONSTANTIN AKSAKOV'S Reminiscence contains a succinct firsthand

account of the sorrow and pain with which the members of the Stankevich circle viewed Russia's internal conditions and its unen­ viable cultural position. "In the course of seven years," Aksakov remembered in 1855, in the Stankevich circle "a general view on Russia, on life, literature, and the world was elaborated; this view was for the most part negative."1 The reasons were not far to seek: "The artificiality of Russian classical [i.e., official] patriotism, pre­ tenses that fill our literature, the accelerated fabrication of verses, the insincerity of published lyricism—all this gave birth to a just desire for simplicity and sincerity, it gave birth to a strong attack on every phrase and effect." The members of the circle were "distinguished by independent opinions, free of any authority," and their views, Aksakov says, were one-sided and extreme. This bothered him as a student: "The most one-sided attacks were on Russia, provoked by the government's praises of it." Although these were "particularly painful"—for, he explains, "I loved Russia from my earliest years"—he remained in the circle: "Seeing the constant intellectual interest. . . hearing con­ stant discourse about moral questions . . . I could not shake off this circle and resolutely spent every evening there."2 The negative view of Russia's past and present about which Konstantin complained was the result partly of Kachenovsky's "skep­ ticism" and partly of other influences. Years before Chaadaev's first "Philosophical Letter," the refrain that Russia had neither literature nor philosophy was heard from some of the Decembrists and from the members of the Philosophical Society in the mid-1820's, as well as from Nadezhdin, Ivan Kireevsky, Iazykov, and most recently Belinsky in his "Literary Reveries" of 1834. It had a depressing effect on many students at the University of Moscow. Pushkin and Gogol' had given hope for a better day for Russian literature, but their full 1 2

K. S. Aksakov, Vospominanie, p. 17. Ibid., pp. 17-18.

40

THE NOBLEMAN'S NEST

impact was yet to come. For the moment, they were still in the shadow of the dazzling heights of German philosophy. Besides, there was the ever present reality of Russian life—the iniquities that were ignored by a government whose sole interest seemed to be a stolid defense of the status quo. The "constant discourse on moral ques­ tions" that young Konstantin heard in the Stankevich circle could hardly have dodged serfdom, the issue that weighed most heavily on the conscience of the more sensitive landlords old and young. If during his brief career Stankevich seemed to some of his friends, such as Granovsky, to be engaged in "do-nothingness" (nichegonedelanie), it was because in his scheme of things he put first things first. When he appeared remote and lacking in "practicality," it was perhaps because he started further back or deeper down than the rest of his friends, and therefore had a longer way to go. It seems, however, that he could not have escaped for long the move toward ideology.3 This transition was essential for him and his friends in order that they could come to grips with Russia's complex and baffling prob­ lems. But like Bakunin, Aksakov, Belinsky, and others, Stankevich would no doubt have moved on from Hegel and "rational reality" to a more specific application of what he had learned from the kruzhok speculations. Aksakov is probably exaggerating somewhat in saying that "when Stankevich went abroad the whole lie of one-sidedness rapidly de­ veloped in his friends." Although there is no doubting the respect and esteem that the members of the circle had for Stankevich, it seems highly unlikely that Stankevich's personality could have con­ tinued to dominate the group even after its members left the uni3 In his reconstruction of Stankevich's philosophical views, Chizhevsky brings out two points that are especially pertinent here. One is the "practical" nature of Russian philosophical concerns, which in this study have been associated with ideology, the other is Stankevich's unified view of life and the role of philosophy in it. For him philosophical truth was not "abstract" (otvlechennaia). It was rather the highest of all "sciences," and at the same time their "basis, soul, and aim." Furthermore "it is in Russia that Stankevich (like Pecherin) sees preponderance of 'practical interest' over the rest. For this reason philosophy has a special meaning, being able to awaken the 'human side' in Russian man." Chizhevsky further says, "Stankevich does not understand people who yield to 'dark poetic feeling,' but he understands even less interest directed at factual, empirical knowledge which is not animated by search for the 'universal.' " Stankevich yearned to satisfy the "thirst of the soul, which looks in everything for itself and its oneness with the life of nature and God." "I wish complete oneness in the world of my knowledge," he said; "I wish to give myself an accounting of every phenomenon, I wish to see its bond with the life of the whole world, its necessity, its role in the development of a single idea." Quoted in Chizhevsky, Gegel' ν Rossii1 pp. 79-80.

EXPANDING FRIENDSHIPS

41

versity. Could Stankevich have held in check the differing ideolog­ ical developments of Bakunin, Belinsky, and Aksakov? Probably Stankevich's departure for Germany in 1837 merely hastened the growing rift between Aksakov and the other two. Although Bakunin's blustering and dictatorial manner did not sit well with a number of those in the circle, it especially did not sit well with Aksakov and Belinsky, and the incompatibilities among those three were too much even for Stankevich to have handled.4 Stankevich was not, in other words, a great reconciler or synthe­ sizer of different views but only a temporary pacifier. As time went on, his circle was anything but harmonious. Besides the ideological differences, there were personality conflicts and emotional rivalries, at first latent, then open; and especially after Bakunin joined the circle in late 1835 or 1836, it became a highly charged and volatile group. Until 1835, when Katkov came into the circle, Konstantin Aksakov was the youngest member.5 Perhaps because of this, he seems to have 4 Belinsky's and Bakunin's correspondence and recently published excerpts from Konstantin Aksakov's letters testify to the following conflicts: (1) between Belinsky and Aksakov, Bakunin, Botkin, Efremov, Katkov, and Kliushnikov; (2) between Ba­ kunin and Aksakov, Botkin, Efremov, Katkov, and Stankevich (Bakunin and Katkov almost came to a duel); (3) as already indicated, between Aksakov and Bakunin and Belinsky. The encounters were of varying duration and intensity and often had more than one cause—personality frictions, rivalries in love and friendship (involving the four Bakunin sisters, Alexandra, Varvara, Liubov, and Tat'iana; Alexandra M. Shchepkina, daughter of the great actor; and the Beer sisters, Alexandra and Natalia), and deep ideological differences. The texts of two of three of Belinsky's surviving "dis­ sertations," one nineteen, the other thirty-seven printed pages, and Bakunin's "antidissertation about reality" reflect their social, temperamental, and ideological differ­ ences and incompatibility. Bakunin, from the heights of his abstract philosophical position, condescendingly addressed Belinsky as "good little boy," in return for which Belinsky dubbed him a "half-baked" (nedopechenyi) philosopher. The last two full years of their association (1837-1839) were stormy, and Belinsky referred to his first and second "rebellions" (vosstaniia) against Bakunin. On this and other troubled relationships of Belinsky, see M. Ia. Poliakov et al., eds., V. G. Belinsky. Izbrannye Pis'ma, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1955), I, xxi, 61-80, 81, 90, 93, 95, 109, 115-117, 121, 141145, 176-213, 216-222, 232-234, 237, 258-259, 301-303, 319-322. (Hereafter cited as Belinsky, Pis'ma.) See also A. Osokin, ed., "Belinsky ν neizdannoi perepiske sovremennikov (1834-1848)," Literaturnoe nasledstvo, v. 56 (Moscow, 1950), pp. 90-92. (Hereafter cited as Belinsky, "Perepiska.") 5 Katkov (born 1818) was a year younger than Aksakov. Of the other most prominent members of the circle, Stankevich was born in 1813, Belinsky in 1811, Neverov in 1810, Bakunin in 1814. For brief biographical notes on these and other members, see V. Gur'ianov and V. Sorokin, "Biograficheskii slovar' universitetskikh tovarishchei Belinskogo," Literaturnoe nasiestvo, 1950, no. 56, pp. 422-436.

42

THE NOBLEMAN'S NEST

been treated with a certain condescension, especially by Stankevich.6 Certainly he never developed a warm and close friendship with the magnetic leader as did Neverov, Krasov, and Kliushnikov. Stankevich's published correspondence contains no letters to Konstantin, and he is mentioned only a few times in passing in Stankevich's letters to other members of the circle, with some of whom Stankevich corresponded regularly.7 Stankevich was acquainted with the Aksakov family but was not a regular visitor at their salon.8 In the Reminiscence Konstantin carries on the Stankevich legend, as it were, but with no special warmth. And during the summer Kon­ stantin spent abroad in 1838, he made no effort to see his friend, although he undoubtedly knew him to be in poor health. Konstantin's attitude toward Stankevich may have reflected his rather detached attitude toward the circle as a whole. If Konstantin was ever thoroughly at home there, it was during the brief period between Bakunin's coming and Stankevich's departure for Germany in the late summer of 1837. We know this from the Reminiscence, hints in Belinsky's letters, and, especially, recently published ex­ cerpts from Konstantin's correspondence. The "one-sidedness" that Konstantin stresses in the Reminiscence was difficult for him to put aside. "I was a fifteen-year-old youth," he says, "in general trustful, and ready to believe everyone. But there was much that I had not thought through. . . . I was dumbfounded by such an orientation ... particularly painful for me were the attacks on Russia, which I loved from childhood."9 On March 15,1837, after four years in the circle, he commented in a letter to his brother Grigorii: "You know my relations with Stankevich and his circle 6 According to Mashinsky, Stankevich reproached Belinsky for his "too polemical tone" in his writings. Mashinsky further says: "But Konstantin Aksakov's conduct called forth in Stankevich a much stronger objection. The immaturity and absence of depth in Konstantin's judgments, and a sort of puerile, stubborn conviction in his exclusive uprightness" annoyed and at times antagonized members of the circle. This judgment, though not implausible, would be more convincing if the author gave us his source for it. Elsewhere, Mashinsky says that Stankevich scoffingly called Kon­ stantin a "yawning enthusiast" and that the "very young Konstantin Aksakov de­ fended his schemes fervently and with fanatical vehemence." See Mashinsky, Poety, p. 30, and "Stankevich i ego kruzhok," Voprosy literatury, 1964, no. 5, pp. 132, 138. 7 At the end of a note to Krasov, dated October 16, 1834, Stankevich says: "1 wish I could get some news about dear Aks[akov], Please shake his hand heartily for me in the Slav manner, and bow to him from the waist in the Russian manner." Annenkov, Stankevich, p. 103. 8 On December 2, 1835, Stankevich wrote to Neverov: "I live like a recluse. I don't go anywhere except to Kliushnikov and Belinsky. I rarely visit Br., Aks[akov]." Ibid., p. 159. 9 K. S. Aksakov, Vospominanie, p. 18.

EXPANDING FRIENDSHIPS

43

. . . you knew that I kept my distance from them. I used v y [the formal "you"] with all of them and did not seek their friendship and good­ will."10 But, he continues, "matters have now changed. They them­ selves came to me. The first to become friendly was Bakunin—such a glorious youngster! [Bakunin was three years older than Aksakov.] Now I am on ty terms with him, Stankevich, and Belinsky. Of course this is very pleasant for me." He was, he said, helping Bakunin with a translation from German into Russian.11 The difficulties that Konstantin encountered in the circle—which prompted Stankevich to caution Belinsky in August 1836 that it was "necessary" for him to be "more delicate"12 with Konstantin—were not helped by pressure from outside. Ol'ga Semenovna apparently disliked Belinsky, and both Pogodin and N. F. Pavlov were openly critical of the circle, Pogodin because it was too preoccupied with philosophy. "Unpleasant news about Konstantin Aksakov, who is going out of his mind with ambition," he wrote. "Interprets philos­ ophy. This could actually cause him harm."" In conversations with Sergei and Ol'ga Semenovna, Pogodin spoke of their son as the "unfortunate Kostia," and urged them to convince him to quit the circle. Konstantin may not have been aware of Pogodin's attitude, but he knew how Pavlov felt, for at the end of April 1836 he wrote to Grigorii that Pavlov wished that he would "quarrel with the Stan­ kevich circle."14 The wishes of these family friends were soon fulfilled. In the spring of 1837 Konstantin finally felt fully accepted by his fellow members. In August Stankevich departed for Germany, and by June 1838, when Konstantin himself left for Germany, his first crucial quarrel and break were already in the making. The person who was instrumental in Konstantin's change from vy to ty in the Stankevich circle now became the object of his scorn. To his brothers Ivan and Grigorii, in St. Petersburg, he wrote on December 5, 1838: "I have completely broken with Bakunin, and I am convinced that this man is worthy only of contempt . . . he is a wicked, and even a despicable man. Even before my trip [abroad] I found much in him that was dis­ gusting. Belfinsky] and Bot[kin] agree with me, and we have all 10Belinsky, "Perepiska," p. 103. " This was Heinrich Schmidt's General History. Bakunin undertook the translation in February 1836, at the invitation of Count S. G. Stroganov, curator of the Moscow school district. He was to be paid for the work. But instead of doing it himself he farmed it out to his sisters and friends, including Aksakov, Botkin, and Katkov. The work was not completed. Belinsky, Pis'ma, I, 70-77, 302-303. 12 Belinsky, "Perepiska," p. 104. 13 Quoted in Barsukov, Pogodin, IV, 307. 14 Belinsky, "Perepiska," pp. 103-104.

44

THE NOBLEMAN'S NEST

started a correspondence with him in which we have decided to tell him the truth." Bakunin responded with long letters, but he only "showed his bad traits more strongly." At first Konstantin was in a quandary, for "I had become accustomed to love in him a beautiful person," but now he has decided on a clean break, and "in my letters to Botfkin] and Bel[insky]" from abroad, "I did not mention him a single time." The sense of alienation from the circle, which Konstantin had lost for a brief time, now returned. In the same letter to his brothers he says that he has resumed the use of the formal pronoun with Bakunin: "Recently I wrote a tremendous letter to Bakunin . .. [which] begins . . . I beg you [vas] . . . and ends, yours [vash] . . . K. A." Belinsky, who himself was beginning to quarrel with Bakunin, kept Stankevich, in Berlin, informed about the affairs of the circle. Early in October 1838, he told him that he had "completely broken with Mikhail [Bakunin]."15 Stankevich, whose health was deteriorating rapidly, could not have been happy with the melancholy news. It signaled the end of his circle. The reasons for Konstantin's final break with Bakunin are not wholly clear. The explanation may lie in Aksakov's unpublished correspondence, perhaps in a letter written between the middle of March 1837 and December 5, 1838. One incident, which occurred after the two became estranged, particularly rankled Aksakov: when Bakunin rated the members of the circle according to ability and merits, he put Konstantin in last place.16 It was the sort of thing that 15 Ibid., pp. 118-119, 138. Nechaeva states that in 1838 and 1839 Aksakov and Bakunin disagreed on the merits of Schiller's work, but she gives neither source nor an explanation except to stress Konstantin's well-known fondness for Schiller. See V. S. Nechaeva, V. G. Belinsky. Zhizn' i tvorchestvo (Moscow, 1961), III, 148-149, 363. 16 Barsukov, Pogodin, IV, 306-307. This is how Lampert narrates this episode: "Konstantin Aksakov describes in his Reminiscences how Bakunin proceeded to 'sort out' all the members of the Circle a la Hegel and in accordance with their respective 'stages of development.' On Aksakov he bestowed the lowest degree of 'Schonseligkeit' and promoted himself to the highest stage of the 'illuminated spirit.' Most of the other members were placed in the region of 'reflectiveness'; and all, with the exception of Bakunin himself, continued to dwell in 'abstractness.' " Evgenii Lampert, Studies in Rebellion (New York, 1957), p. 114. What seems to have started as a half-serious play, thanks to a rigidly construed Hegelian scheme, grew into a matter of some conse­ quence. Belinsky demoted Bakunin in his own terms from the level of "illuminated spirit" to that of "Schonseligkeit." Nechaeva, Belinsky, III, 89. Aksakov and Bakunin also disagreed about Schiller, and Aksakov resented Bakunin's overbearing attitude after Stankevich left for Berlin. Dmitrij Tschizevskij, and more recently Sigurd Fasting, consider Bakunin "dictator" in the circle. See the former's Hegel bei den Sloven, 2nd ed., p. 166, and the letter's V. G. Belinskij, Die Entwicklung seiner Literaturtheorie (Bergen, 1972), p. 205. Bakunin's published correspondence contains no letters to

EXPANDING FRIENDSHIPS

45

made Bakunin a trial to all his friends. (Belinsky attributed much of this to Bakunin's "officer-like" behavior, ofitserstvo.)17 Within one year Konstantin could move from seeing a "glorious person and a friend" in Bakunin—dedicating his poem "Young Cru­ sader" (dated April 8, 1838) to him—all the way to the opposite opinion, finding him worthy of "contempt" only.18 His relations with Belinsky underwent a similar rapid decline. Vissarion Belinsky, six years older than Konstantin, had been ex­ pelled from the university in 1832, some months before Konstantin entered, and thus the two were never fellow students. Nor were they close friends in the circle; it took four years for them to adopt the familiar form of address with each other. Belinsky was somewhat like Bakunin in temperament. Bakunin was more arrogant and dom­ ineering than Belinsky was, but they were both outspoken and in­ tolerant of other people's ideas.19 And since Konstantin, too, put loyalty to ideas above loyalty to individuals, it was probably inev­ itable that his friendships with these two young men with such strong personalities should end in clashes over ideas. Konstantin's friendship with Belinsky flourished between the late summer of 1838 and October 1839, when Belinsky moved to St. Petersburg. Not much earlier, in the spring of 1838, Konstantin was still referring to Belinsky (and also Botkin and Kliushnikov) as his "acquaintances." In May he found himself on the side of Belinsky and Botkin when Bakunin antagonized the editorial staff of the Mos­ cow Observer, on which they all served. Shortly before Konstantin left for Germany, the first week in June, he told Ivan, "I am writing a rather long article about Belinsky's Grammar" (this was a textbook Aksakov. We know, however, that Bakunin dined at the Aksakovs' in May 1836 and that the "Moscow aristocracy" he met there left him quite indifferent, but he says nothing about Konstantin. See Iu. M. Steklov, ed., M. A. Bakunin. Sobranie sochinenii i pisem 1828-1876, 4 vols. (Moscow, 1934-1935), I, 301, 463. For a discussion of the Belinsky-Bakunin relationship see II, 451-453. 17 Bakunin was a young army officer when he first established contact with the Stankevich circle in the spring of 1835. Belinsky, Pis'ma, I, 214-215. See also Kornilov, Bakunin, p. 129. 18 Bakunin was in fact treating Konstantin very badly at the time "Young Crusader" was being dedicated to him. A letter of May 1838 from Belinsky to Bakunin chides him for his behavior: "Your relations with Aksakov cast a horrible shadow on you. It seems to all of us that you hate him. I have now learned that you wish to explain things to him, and I feel better." Belinsky, Pis'ma, I, 122. 19 Bakunin saw in Belinsky something that he considered "my own, kindred," while Belinsky recognized in Bakunin his own "manner of thought" and "certain traits of [his own] character close" to Bakunin's. See Nechaeva, Belinsky, III, 354.

46

THE NOBLEMAN'S NEST

that Belinsky had published with Sergei Aksakov's help and counted on as a way of improving his always precarious finances). Belinsky's attitude toward Konstantin was somewhat patronizing. In a letter to Bakunin on November 1, 1837, for example, he com­ mented: "The better I know Konstantin Aksakov the more I love him. He is one of the few sons of God. . . . He is still a child, still only little developed. . . . Poverty and need are necessary for complete development."20 Writing to Panaev (August 10, 1838), whom Konstantin had visited in St. Petersburg en route to Germany, he made a similar comment: "I am glad that you liked Aksakov. This is a pure, virgin soul, and he is a gifted man."21 During the spring and summer of 1838 Belinsky saw a good deal of the Aksakovs. He admired Sergei as a great theoretician of the theater, and Sergei in turn helped him secure a temporary post teach­ ing Russian at the Moscow Surveying Institute, of which he was director. Though Ol'ga Semenovna did not share her husband's opinion, she did not interfere.22 Belinsky was at that time going through a particularly low period. He was in financial straits, worse than usual, and had quarreled with Botkin over Bakunin's sister Alexandra. Alexandra rejected Belinsky for Botkin, and when Belinsky turned his affections to Alexandra Shchepkina, he found that she was in love with Katkov. For a while, "passionate" Vissarion was moneyless, friendless, and loveless. Konstantin returned to Moscow from his summer aboard to find him in the midst of this turmoil, very unhappy, and certain that his friends were conspiring against him. As he complained in a letter to Bakunin on October 12, "You have gone so far that you have begun to punish 20 Belinsky,

Pis'ma, I, 87. p. 140; Belinsky, "Perepiska," pp. 109-110; Panaev, Literaturnye vospominaniia, pp. 150, 388-389. 22 The evidence on this point is fragmentary and perhaps inconclusive. Panaev says about the end of the 1830's: "At one time Belinsky felt quite intimate in the Aksakov home but. .. something happened between him and this family ... Belinsky told me that Mrs. Aksakov did not quite like him and did not look very agreeably on his friendship with Konstantin. Just the same, Konstantin Aksakov defended Belinsky for a long time from the attacks of his mother." On February 21, 1839, when Belinsky thought that he would move to St. Petersburg, Konstantin's mother wrote to his younger brothers, then in school in the capital: "Belinsky is going to St. Petersburg. The journal [Moscow Observer] is coming to an end, and everything is collapsing. You can guess how I received this news. Patience and waiting are always necessary." Soon after this, Vera Aksakova wrote to her brothers that the Observer would continue, that Belinsky would remain in Moscow, but that "his harm will disappear of itself." Presumably she meant Belinsky's harmful influence on Konstantin. See Panaev, Literaturnye vospominaniia, p. 150; Belinsky, "Perepiska," p. 125. 21Ibid.,

EXPANDING FRIENDSHIPS

47

me with open scorn and have drawn Aksakov into the coalition."23 This last remark was apparently an exaggeration, for Belinsky seems to have had Konstantin on his side against Botkin that autumn and winter.24 But by the summer of 1839 Belinsky was complaining about what he called the "Chinese element" in Konstantin. On August 19 he wrote to Panaev: Konstantin Aksakov could not be better in his relations with me. His participation in my life sometimes moves me to tears. . . . A glorious and wonderful man! But he is so young that even Katkov could be his grandfather. He has everything—strength, and energy, and profundity of spirit. . . . [But] he has one defect that distresses me. This is not his Schonseligkeit, which will pass with the years, but a sort of Chinese element which has become mixed with the beautiful aspects of his spirit.25 On September 29, in a letter to Stankevich telling him that Botkin and Bakunin had asked for the return of their letters (by the unwritten protocol of the time, the usual last step in terminating a friendship), Belinsky expanded the complaint: "My relations with Aksakov are good. . . . when I see him I love him; but when I do not. . . I feel a sort of hostility toward him. A wonderful and fine man . . . but I do not know when he will abandon the Chinese walls that surround his perceptions and feelings—the childishness . . . and immobility ά la mandarin. A strange fellow! He dreams that he is a grownup man." As for Konstantin's reactions, Belinsky noted: "When they tell him that he is still a child, he becomes angry."26 Konstantin was well aware that his friendships with most of the members of the Stankevich circle were coming to an end. An excerpt from a letter to Ivan and Grigorii, dating from February or March 1839, goes into some detail on the subject: "What should I tell you about my relations with friends? . . . I have parted with their . . . circle without quarrel and . . . animosity, giving them full credit for what is good in them. . . . Belinsky is my best friend. There is true merit in him, but even with him I am no longer in the relationship I once was in, although I love him more than the rest." Furthermore, Belinsky, Pis'ma, I, 203. Ibid., p. 220. 25 Ibid., p. 233. The adjective "Chinese" was often used by the men of the thirties in a derogatory sense, an example of Western ethnocentrism and prejudice. As has recently been explained, "For Belinskij, as for Hegel, China was the epitome of a stagnant, ahistorical, vegetable existence." See Victor Terras, Belinskij and Russian Literary Criticism (Madison, Wis., 1974), p. 97. 26 Belinsky, Pis'ma, I, 258-259, 262, 234. 23

24

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THE NOBLEMAN'S NEST

"I now have only one true friend, and that is Dmitrii Shchepkin," who, he explained, was never a member of the circle. That his es­ trangement from the circle was in large measure due to his break with Bakunin was underscored when he told his brothers, "Bakunin is here. I have not seen him and will not see him."27 The final break between Konstantin and Belinsky was still a few years off, but their feelings were already fading as the circle fell apart. Belinsky's September 29 letter to Stankevich has a continuation (dated October 2) containing a gloomy report on the state of the circle. Aksakov, the letter says, "has changed much yet remains the same. He has strength, profundity, and energy . . . and is in the highest degree noble, but thanks to his Chinese element, which pre­ vents him from moving forward by way of negation, he still dwells in the realm of phantoms and fantasies and has not yet even sniffed reality."28 Since Belinsky was then on the threshold of his brief re­ actionary period, his remarks on the "Chinese element" in Konstantin are curious. He may have been alluding to Konstantin's distress at hearing the extremely negative attitudes toward Russia that were expressed in the circle. On the other hand, Konstantin was at this time, under the influence of Kachenovsky's "skepticism" and of the circle, writing two historical parodies in the Kachenovsky spirit. Bakunin also commented on this attitude of Konstantin's, though one should perhaps not accept what he has to say as evidence. I refer to a letter of May 3, 1867, from Bakunin to Herzen and Ogarev, addressed to "the publishers of the Kolokol." Konstantin Aksakov had then been dead for six and a half years; Bakunin had probably not seen him since 1838, or possibly 1840. His memories of Konstantin thus went back to the 1830's and were apparently colored by later impressions at second hand.29 "I knew him intimately, and loved and respected [him] from my heart," he recalls, "despite all the differences in thought so profoundly separating us. As I remem27 Ibid.,

pp. 125-126, Dimitrii Shchepkin was the son of the actor. pp. 246-247, 251-252. 29 Bakunin went to Germany in June 1840. In the winter of 1841-1842 the Bakunin of orthodox Hegelianism and "rational reality" had swung all the way to radical neoHegelianism. Young Bakunin became "Jules Elysard" and took the road to interna­ tional revolutionary anarchism. In 1848 he was on the barricades in Paris, the fol­ lowing year on those in Dresden. Handed over to the tsarist police by the Hapsburgs in 1851, he spent the next six years in prison, and the following four in Siberian exile. He escaped to Japan in 1861, traveled to San Francisco and then to England, never to see Russia again. In London he saw much of Herzen and Ogarev, who most likely brought him up to date on Konstantin Aksakov's activities. For a summary of Bakunin's ideological transformation see E. H. Carr, Michael Bakunin (New York, 1961), pp. 114-117. 28Ibid.,

EXPANDING FRIENDSHIPS

49

ber, I was a revolutionary from that time on" (not exactly true; he was still a defender of "rational reality"). Konstantin, he goes on, "despite his ardent and truly heroic heart, ceaselessly sacrificing his nature to theory, was an obedient Slavophil and a meek Orthodox Christian." (Bakunin's memory is faulty here; at no time during the 1830's was Konstantin a Slavophil in the usual meaning of the term. Slavophilism itself was only just beginning at the end of the 1830's.) Bakunin further says that Konstantin was "an old Moscow fanatic .. . but his fanaticism always stood with respect before human right, deafening in him neither the voice of conscience nor the demands of fairness. His old, wily Moscow fanaticism was always subordi­ nated to the supreme religion of what in our time was called hu­ maneness." Bakunin also raised the intriguing suggestion that Konstantin may have held some anarchist views as a youth. Speaking of "the idea of the state [gosudarstvennost']," Bakunin says, "Konstantin Sergeevich, together with the above-mentioned friends [Khomiakov and Kireevsky], was already then an enemy of the Petersburg state, and in general of statism, and in this respect he even outstripped [operedil] us."30 When Bakunin wrote this letter he had been a declared revolutionary for twenty-five years and a foremost leader of European anarchism. In placing Khomiakov, Ivan Kireevsky, and Konstantin Aksakov together in the 1830's, and in placing the Slavophil brand of anarchism in that decade, he was attributing to the 1830's devel­ opments of the 1840's and 1850's. Konstantin's convictions as a Sla­ vophil indeed contained elements of a brand of anarchism, but did he hold such views while he was in the Stankevich circle? This is a question which Bakunin raised but to which he gave a rather enig­ matic answer. As A MEMBER of the Stankevich circle Konstantin Sergeevich had acquired a taste for and an appreciation of German poetry and phi­ losophy and also a fondness for Germany and the German people. His sojourn in Germany in the summer of 1838 intensified these sentiments for a time—though without displacing his devotion to 30 M.

P. Dragomanov, ed., Pis'ma M. A. Bakunina k A. I. Gertsenu i N . P . Ogarevu (St. Petersburg, 1906), pp. 308-310; Iu. M. Steklov, Mikhaii Aleksandrovich Bakunin, ego zhizn' i deiatel'nost' (1814-1876) (Moscow, 1926), I, 60. Pyziur, in his study of Bakunin's anarchism, sees in Aksakov's attitude toward the state the "first germ of Bakunin's later political anarchism." His conclusion is based on the letter quoted above. See Eugene Pyziur, The Doctrine of Anarchism of Michael A. Bakunin (Mil­ waukee, 1955), pp. 26, 30, 117. For Aksakov's anarchism and its moralistic, quietistic character, which will be given further attention, see Benolt-P. Hepner, Bakounine et Ie panslavisme revolutionnaire (Paris, 1950), pp. 70-71, 82.

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THE NOBLEMAN'S NEST

Russia—and, not surprisingly, increased his dislike for France, French culture, and the French language. France was little admired in the Stankevich circle or by the early Slavophils, and Konstantin was no exception. But whereas Khomiakov considered England his favorite Western country, Aksakov, and to a lesser extent Ivan Kireevsky in his earlier years, admired German thought and scholar­ ship. The Aksakovs decided that Konstantin should go abroad for the same reason that had suggested Ivan Kireevsky's tour in 1830—to ease the pain of a love affair. Konstantin had fallen in love with his cousin Mariia Grigor'evna Kartashevskaia, the daughter of Sergei's sister. Mariia was an intelligent and cultivated young girl, but mar­ riage between first cousins was forbidden by the church and therefore impossible. It is perhaps a measure of their affection for each other that neither of them married anyone else. They remained friends and faithful correspondents.31 The plan was that Konstantin should stay abroad about a year. In fact he stayed away less than five months, visiting only Germany and Switzerland before returning to Moscow in October. In June, while still on Russian soil on his way to East Prussia, he set himself two ambitious goals. In addition to sightseeing, he intended to study Greek and Latin and begin work on a Russian grammar.32 The study of Greek and Latin grammar would doubtless have been of great help to him in writing a Russian grammar, particularly since he was in search of universally valid linguistic rules. In Germany he bought several German grammars, thus keeping up his interests in the subject that a number of his friends considered to correspond best to his aptitude. His first book review, of Belinsky's grammar, and his read­ ing of Lomonosov, the subject he was to choose for his master's degree, were also pointing in the right direction. Although Belinsky's unsuccessful venture into textbook publish­ ing had come at a time when he was much in need of funds, he had accepted Sergei Aksakov's offer of help in the matter of publication with some trepidation. Sergei, it seems, urged Konstantin to review the grammar, hoping to arouse interest in the book. Konstantin pro­ crastinated but eventually finished the review in Bern, in July.33 The 31 Only snatches from this valuable correspondence have been published in spite of the fact that it has been almost completely preserved. See Mashinsky, Poety, p.

282. 32 K.

S. Aksakov, Kosmopolis (St. Petersburg, 1898), IX, 75. Aksakov had to sign a financial guarantee before the publisher would agree to accept the grammar. See Konstantin's letter of July 30, 1838, to his family. Ibid., XI, 157. 33 Sergei

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review, under the title "About Grammar in General: In Regard to Mr. Belinsky's Grammar,"34 was published in the January 1839 issue of the Moscow Observer, which was under Belinsky's editorial direc­ tion. Konstantin's review could hardly have helped the sales of the book. He says a good deal about the beauty of the Russian language, about universal "laws of grammar" and "general laws of reason and grammar," but not very much about Belinsky's textbook. "In Mr. Belinsky's grammar," he concludes, "there are many true and fine observations, but since his division (and therefore the basis of gram­ mar) is untrue, these observations can be only partly beneficial. This is our judgment of this book, remarkable in its purpose to construct grammar not on the basis of external differences . . . but according to the laws of reason."35 In the introductory remarks Aksakov, like so many of his gener­ ation, reached beyond the subject toward something more "pro­ found," to the "substratum" and the "essence" of that which merely showed on the surface. Generalizing about human speech, he says, "In language we find the first degree of nationality [narodnost']." Later in the review—written, it must be remembered, when his en­ thusiasm and admiration for Germany were at a peak—he could not resist singling out for praise the Russian language, the embodiment of Russian nationality. He claimed not to be prejudiced when he said, "Not a single one of the contemporary European languages is so alive, so capable of transmitting the thoughts of other nations as our language."36 On the whole, during his years in the Stankevich circle, Konstantin had shown relatively little interest in the subject of nationality, on which he was to become so obsessed; nor is there any evidence to show that it was a major concern to the circle during those years. The reason may have been Stankevich himself. Stankevich left his view on the question of nationality in a sum­ mary in his diary, and it is said that Belinsky concurred in it. In 1837 while in Prague, a stronghold of Czech and Slav national conscious­ ness, Stankevich loftily dismissed the whole subject: "Why are peo­ ple so concerned about nationality? One should look for that which is human; that which is characteristically national will come of its own accord. Every sincere and nonarbitrary movement of the spirit 34 1. S. Aksakov, ed., Poinoe sobranie sochinenii Konstantina Sergeevicha Aksakova, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1861-1875), II, 3-21. (Hereafter cited as K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia.) 35 Ibid., pp. 5, 7,14, 16. 36 Ibid., pp. 3, 13.

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THE NOBLEMAN'S NEST

is freely stamped by its [characteristics], and the closer this is to the common the better."37 From Stankevich's highly insensitive point of view, all his fellow Russians needed to do was to cultivate the human, the universal, and the civilized; the native and national would come sponta­ neously. But some went to extremes. In the mid-1830's Chaadaev was already challenging in print the very existence of a Russian historical past and a Russian culture, and pontifically condemning Russia to oblivion unless somehow it managed to throw the mantle of the Catholic West over its shoulders. But the crux of the matter, then as now, is not to disregard or suppress nationality and national consciousness, with their great cultural and artistic wealth, but to restrain them from degenerating into nationalism, jingoism, and messianism. For Konstantin Aksakov, the Russian past, as well as present, was becoming more and more a focus. It is as if the five months abroad opened his eyes to his love of his country and made him see what it was to be Russian. Traveling through Prussia, he found the people "in general polite," but he detected a certain "hostility" toward Rus­ sians. In Berlin, especially, he was on guard not to be "defrauded," and he stayed there only four days. But in Dresden his mood changed and his spirit soared: "Ah Dresden, Dresden! What a beautiful city! Only here have I found my dear Germany . . . I stood, and Schiller, and Hoffmann, and Goethe, and Fichte passed in front of me in my thought." On the streets he saw "beautiftil faces expressing . . . the beautiful inner life of the soul. . . . Oh, my Germans, how long have I loved them . . . and this marvelous, exalted, poetic, and learned nation, Germany."38 37 With respect to personal and national character Stankevich says: "He who has his own character will display it in all his actions. But to create a character, to educate oneself—this is possible only on general human principles. To invent or to compose the character of a nation from its old customs and ancient history is simply to wish to prolong its infancy. Give the nation that which is of general human [quality], and see to it that it is able to acquire whatever it lacks. That is the thing to do. But to sustain the old by means of strained interpretations and jingoism, this is no good at all. Annenkov, Stankevich, pp. 219-220. On the strength of this and similar pro­ nouncements, Iurii Mann considers Stankevich "one of the first opponents of Sla­ vophil ideology, an 'anti-slavophil,' even before a complete Slavophil current had been formed in Russia." See Russkaia filosofskaia estetika, p. 224. Granted that the Slavophils at times carried their views on narodnost' to a reprehensible extreme, it is questionable whether they alone saw its inevitability, and whether the great achieve­ ments of Russian art and literature in the nineteenth century would have been possible without awareness of it. For an example of such an awareness in Belinsky, a good Westerner, see Terras, Belinskij and Russian Literary Criticism, pp. 92-101. 38 K.

S. Aksakov, Kosmopolis, IX, 191; X, 75, 77, 82-83.

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The rest of the seven-page letter, dated Dresden, July 15, contains more of the same, and then suddenly and unexpectedly he abandons the reverie: "But with all this, one's nationality does not disappear at all. I am Russian, Russian, and will remain Russian." He has to reassure himself that he is not betraying Russia. His mind turns to grammar: "I think about the word, about its laws, which so power­ fully preoccupy my mind." To underline Germany's virtues, he draws a contrast with France: "And at this time one remembers the French, their literature, their philosophizing, and it becomes ridiculous; and so are those who are enraptured by them."39 From the impression of a single Frenchman whom he has met as a traveler, he generalizes, "Ah, what a nation these Frenchmen! Phrases, phrases, and phrases from beginning to end; not a single well-defined true thought." The French are, he admits, a "brave, good, and passionate people who strive for the lofty, but they are not on the right road but on an external road." The closer he got to France the stronger his Francophobia became. En route to Geneva he met a Frenchman who, hearing that he was of the Greek Orthodox faith, inquired, "La Grece, adore-t-elle JesusChrist?" "What a question!" Konstantin exclaims in his letter. One preconception led to another. From bias against the French he con­ ceived bias against Paris and the French language. The Frenchman who was so ignorant about the Eastern Orthodox church had "con­ firmed" Konstantin's decision not to go to Paris: "It will be unpleas­ ant for me there." More complaints about the French are contained in a letter to his uncle Kartashevsky, written at about the same time: "You know that I never loved the French."40 Denying that this was a prejudice, he says, "Now I think much worse of them than before." In this letter Konstantin revealed another thought, a view of Chris­ tianity that, during his membership in the Stankevich circle, inclined him heavily toward German idealism and beyond, perhaps to Neoplatonism. As a result he reduced the role of faith in Christianity to "consciousness" (soznanie). It also clarifies some of his preferences and prejudices and gives advance notice of vague messianic tend­ encies, which later assumed Slavophil and, toward the end of his life, pan-Slavistic content: And so to the devil with the French. Their influence has never brought us anything except harm. We imitated their literature and killed our own . . . Germany—here is the Jerusalem of con­ temporary humanity. . . . Up to now Christianity was truth in contemplation . . . it was faith. Now it must be truth in con39 40

Ibid., X, 84. Ibid., XI, 247-249.

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sciousness, in philosophy. Yes, German philosophy is as clear and distinct as mathematics. The development and explanation of the Christian teaching, as a teaching, is based on the idea of love, and on the idea of the elevation of man to divinity by way of consciousness. It seems to me that young and virgin Russia must bequeath to Germany its family life, and its social virtues, and its world-encompassing philosophy [miroobemliushchaia].41 Whatever one may think of Konstantin's convictions, the begin­ ning of this remarkable summary is as clear as its second half and end are murky in thought and insupportable in fact. What "social virtues" did he find in the serf-ridden Russia of the 1830's that were worth exporting to Germany, and what "world-encompassing phi­ losophy" did Russia possess at that time? His thinking at the age of twenty-one was that of a heedless, immature rationalist who believed that Christianity and its revealed core could be, and should be, ap­ proached through reason and philosophy. The possible incompati­ bility between revelation and reason does not seem to have occurred to him, not even to the extent to which it occurred to Belinsky when he wrote to Bakunin in October 1838 somewhat dejectedly that "Hegel has not said a word about personal immortality."42 A few years later, the notion of a "developing" religion stemming from Hegelianism was to cause Aksakov and Samarin difficulty in their efforts to embrace Slavophil Orthodoxy. As with other members of the Stankevich circle, Aksakov's Germanophile proclivities had several focal points—notably Goethe, Schiller, Schelling, and Hegel.43 He experienced them all, but not in equal measure. In the intensity of emotion and the degree of adu­ lation that they evoked in him, Schiller exceeded the others. Both Aksakov and Stankevich rated Schiller above Shakespeare as a poet, and Aksakov did numerous translations, some quite skillful, of lines from his favorite poems. A visit to Weimar in July 1838 touched off an outpouring of emotion and elation which he hastened to share with his family: "Do you know where I have just been, dearest par­ ents? I visited . . . the graves of Schiller and Goethe. You know what 41

Ibid., p. 250. Pis 'ma, 1,181-182. Christianity, personal immortality, and Hegel caused Belinsky, Stankevich, and Bakunin much concern. These "cursed questions," subject of "heated arguments" in the circle, have not been studied so far as I know. For a few instances of their seriousness and difficulty, see Nechaeva, Belinsky, III, 59, 61, 307309. 43 On Goethe's influence see S. N. Durylin, "Russkie pisateli u Gete ν Veimare," Literaturnoe nasledstvo, 1932, nos. 4-6, pp. 81-504; Christoff, The Third Heart, pp. 51, 61, 93n, 103-104, 106, 108-110, 112-114, 116n. 42 Belinsky,

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Schiller is for me! How intimately I am bound to him! . . . When I approached [their] graves . . . I don't know with what palpitating pleasure, with what reverential awe I stood several steps from their bodies. Goethe, Schiller! A strange thing!"44 A second visit to the graves brought on more emotional inebriation. Schiller had been Konstantin's idol and poetic inspiration for half a dozen years during the thirties. Aksakov left about fifty-five poems dating from this period, the first of which, written on July 30, 1830, was composed when he was scarcely thirteen years old. Most of the subjects were such things as friendship, nature, introspection, love, and nostalgia, and a few of the poems, from the winter and spring of 1835, contain direct references to Schiller. The four-stanza "Put' " (The Way) tells us that Konstantin heard of Germany from Zhukovsky, and that Schiller, his "beloved poet," sang of Thekla and the "inscrutable Wallenstein." One poem is entitled "To Thekla" and another, "First Love," is about the "wonderful world" into which Schiller enticed the seventeen-year-old poet.45 Now that Konstantin was actually at his idol's grave, his emotion knew no bounds.46 Early in August Konstantin made a sentimental journey to Schiller's home at Rudolstadt. Again he was ecstatic. As he stood before Schiller's bust he longed to be alone, "to deliver myself from these good people who reverently honor Schiller's memory but of course cannot comprehend all the depth of his soul." The climax to the visit came the following day when his German friend Ranke told him that he owned three articles that had belonged to Schiller—a table, a painting, and a coffee cup—and offered him coffee in Schiller's cup. "And dearest parents," Konstantin joyously wrote, "I drank coffee from Schiller's cup."47 Konstantin's Schillerism was moving beyond mere emotional re­ sponse. Schiller "united" him with many other "souls." There is a hint, too, of a sort of spiritual hedonism, "a sacred and profound pleasure," which brought him closer to God, the Gospel, and Chris­ tianity. This is a type of Christianity arrived at not intuitively, and not through religious contemplation, but aesthetically, by way of the poet rather than the disciple, the saint, or the theologian. A sort of 44K.

S. Aksakov, Kosmopoiis, X, 278-279; Mashinsky, Poety, p. 62. Poety, pp. 312-315. 46 In a two-page addition (from Weimar in July 1838) to an earlier letter to his family, Konstantin says: "Schiller. . . . My God, what an important and great significance this name has for me! . . . How many times, reading his poems, have I experienced a sacred, profound pleasure! . . . I have known him since I was fifteen . . . Schiller! What a pure flaming soul! How full of love is his heart, the love about which the Gospel spoke to us, sacred, Christian love!" K. S. Aksakov, Kosmopoiis, XI, 73. 47 Ibid., pp. 84-85. 45 Mashinsky,

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secularism and anthropocentrism exude from this Christianity, and they were to be present later in Aksakov's Slavophilism, which put the Russian people, the narod, at the focal point of his intellectualideological thought and of his emotional attachments. In all of Germany and Switzerland Konstantin did not find any­ thing as fascinating and full of meaning as the graves of Goethe and Schiller. Goethe, too, was full of profound meaning. "Not long ago," Konstantin wrote, "I quite threw off my prejudice against him and he appeared to me majestic and profound."48 Konstantin had already tried his hand at translating Goethe, along with Schiller and some Heine and F. G. Wetzel, and had had translations published in Molva (Rumor), Teleskop, Moskovskii nabliudatel (Moscow Observer), and Otechestvennyia zapiski (Notes of the Fatherland).49 The following winter a short translation of his from Faust that appeared in the Moscow Observer received high praise from Belinsky and others. A "beautiful" translation, Belinsky described it in a letter to Kraevsky on August 19, 1839, but to Stankevich he dismissed those from Schiller as "trash."50 In this same letter to Stankevich, written early in 1839, Belinsky poked fun at Konstantin's passion: "In Germany he sought traces of Schiller and was enraptured when he drank coffee from the same cup from which the creator of Thekla once drank."51 Aksakov's enthusiasm for Schiller, although characteristically ex­ treme, was not unusual for that time in Russia. The cult of Schiller, which had begun early in the century, lasted well beyond the thirties and forties and into the twentieth century.52 Schiller's attacks on the 48 Ibid.,

p. 74. a detailed list of Aksakov's publications in 1838 and 1839 see Belinsky1 Pis'ma, I, 330-332. 50 Ibid., p. 240. Mashinsky characterizes Aksakov's translations as "very close to the original, although stylistically somewhat ponderous and archaic." He also says that "some of them called forth Belinsky's positive references, while later Chernyshevsky valued Aksakov very highly as 'one of our best poet-translators.' " Mashinsky, Poety, p. 62. Stankevich wrote to Efremov that he and Granovsky found Aksakov's trans­ lations from Goethe and Schiller in the Moscow Observer, which Belinsky had sent them, "excellent, they could not be better." Belinsky, Pis'ma, I, 332. 51 Belinsky, Pis'ma, I, 252. 52 The following is Chizhevsky's summary on this point: "Schiller was read, trans­ lated, and imitated by Zhukovsky, Lermontov, Gogol', V. Pecherin, Marlinsky, Stan­ kevich, M. and P. Bakunin, Herzen, Ogarev, Pogodin, Khomiakov, Tiutchev, Polonsky, Pleshcheev, Fet, Ap. Grigor'ev, Iv. Turgenev, Strakhov, Dostoevsky, even Nekrasov, Chernyshevsky, Gleb Uspensky and Mikhailovsky, the Russian symbolists, particu­ larly Belyi and Blok." To these names he later added Konstantin Aksakov's. And it all started "with the incomparable translations, despite a certain distortion of Schiller's moods and motives, of ballads and Maid of Orleans made by Zhukovsky, thanks to whom Schiller, unlike any other non-Russian poet, entered into the Russian school and Russian life." The Robbers was translated into Russian eight times, the 49 For

EXPANDING FRIENDSHIPS

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hypocrisy of society, his "moralism and the ideal of freedom," his tendency to identify the beautiful and the sacred, his "denial of pure rationalism" and defense of liberal humanitarianism, of the "com­ munion with the beautiful," and his renowned "pure heart"—die schone Seele—all these and more left indelible marks in Russia. But at least for a few members of the Stankevich circle the cult of Schiller and the other German import, philosophical idealism, "that delicate tension of rationalism and mysticism," proved ephemeral. In the early 1840's Belinsky and Bakunin as well as Aksakov, each in his own way and for his own reasons, abandoned German poetry, lit­ erature, and philosophy. In place of these there was a rapid growth of social and public consciousness in Russia, with emphasis on ideology rather than po­ etic exultation and philosophical speculation. For the rest of the century Russian ideology remained heavily socialistic. It must be borne in mind that almost three years before Belinsky dispatched Egor Fedorych (Hegel) to perdition (1841) and exclaimed "Socialism! Socialism! [sotsial'nost', sotsial'nost']— or death!" Ivan Kireevsky had "discovered" the mir and the communal principle for an incip­ ient Moscow Slavophilism. However different this ideology may have been from Westernism, particularly the atheistic secular variety of Herzen and the later Belinsky, in theory and spirit, as applied to the vast majority of Russians, it was pervasively socialistic, and it became increasingly so with the addition of Khomiakov's Christian Orthodox doctrine of sobornost' and Aksakov's choric principle. The differences in temperament and interests between Konstantin Aksakov and Stankevich are vividly illustrated by their Western trips, which overlapped for a while. Stankevich concentrated on Berlin, German idealism, and Hegel; Konstantin on Weimar, Schiller, and Goethe, on poetry and Schillerism. Occasionally, in passing, Konstantin gave a thought to other Germans than Schiller and Goethe: in Dresden early in July, he also remembered Hoffmann and Fichte, but not Hegel or Schelling. By the mid-forties, as we shall see, after passing through a second Hegelian phase with Samarin, he had almost ceased to think of Hegel at all. first in 1793; Don Carlos fourteen times; Ode to Joy twelve times, including Konstantin Aksakov's. See D. I. Chizhevsky, "Shiller ν Rossii," Novyi zhurnal, 1956, book XLV1 pp. 110-112,114-122,129,133-134; E. K. Kostka, Schiller in Russian Literature (Phil­ adelphia, 1965), pp. 13-48. For radical overtones and strong ideological content in Schiller, and the fusion of thought and literature in nineteenth-century Russia, see Kostka, Schiller in Russian Literature, pp. 81-134; Martin Malia, "Schiller and the Early Russian Left," in Russian Thought and Politics, ed. Hugh McLean et al. (Cam­ bridge, Mass., 1957), pp. 171-189.

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The absence of Schelling from Konstantin's scheme of things is particularly puzzling in view of the affinity between Schelling's views and those of Schiller, for whom Konstantin had such extrav­ agant regard. In Germany, Aksakov's sense of religion and Christi­ anity received a strong lift from Schiller, but no such sense drew him to Schelling. Konstantin conceived Christianity then in broad and tolerant terms; he had no bias against the Western confessions, which were subjected to constant criticism by the Slavophils during the 1840's and 1850's. Immersed in the overall rationalistic intel­ lectual atmosphere of the Stankevich circle, Konstantin, like its other members, seems to have imbibed the element of secular, humanistic mysticism which came to Moscow along with German idealism. This seemed to fit well with the homespun, somewhat ritualistic Russian Orthodoxy that he had grown up with. Konstantin's summer abroad marked the end of his active partic­ ipation in the Stankevich circle. After his return to Moscow in Oc­ tober, he saw less and less of the group, and in the early spring of 1839 he announced to his brothers Grigorii and Ivan that he had parted ways with the circle. For Konstantin Sergeevich, younger and probably less experienced than most of his fellow students, the circle had been of much value: before he reached his twentieth birthday, he had read or discussed Schiller, Goethe, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. He had also, outside the circle, acquired an early appre­ ciation for Gogol', and he had taken an interest in grammar and philology. He knew German and French and was ready for some creditable translations of German poetry. In addition he had studied Greek, Latin, and English and had effectively completed his univer­ sity work, graduating at eighteen. Without a doubt it was his com­ mon-sense realization of the benefit he derived from the Stankevich circle that kept him in it, often under conditions that were less than satisfying, less than flattering, and less than encouraging at home. Although one of the two youngest members of the circle, he proved steadfast and self-disciplined in the face of this continued discour­ agement and left only when he felt that he was no longer benefiting from its society. Clearly, a young person of no mature judgment at all could not have achieved so much in so short a time. From the considerable research that has been done on the 1830's, and from the evidence assembled up to this point, several conclu­ sions emerge. Of the approximately one dozen Moscow circles, the best known is the Stankevich. It lasted a little longer than the Herzen circle and it counted several "stars" among its members, whereas the Herzen circle was overshadowed by the brilliant personality of its leader. It is a standard judgment that the Herzen circle was the

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more practical and down-to-earth of the two. As Miliukov put it at the turn of the century, "[Herzen] lived while they dreamed, and he engaged in politics while they philosophized."53 This epigrammatic representation of the two circles has a certain usefulness, but it over­ simplifies. Herzen was not totally devoid of theoretical considerations in the 1830's. It is more accurate to say that whereas he and his circle were heavily engaged in matters of ideology, the Stankevich circle was perhaps as heavily involved in matters of philosophy and literature and, to a much lesser extent, religion. Herzen also experienced a religious involvement in the mid-thirties, then left it behind, al­ though he never seems to have completely abandoned the New Tes­ tament. He did not concentrate on philosophy until the early forties, when he engaged in his well-known polemics with Khomiakov. By then, however, such leading members of the Stankevich circle as Belinsky, Bakunin, and Konstantin Aksakov had turned to ideology. Still others, of whom Granovsky was the most prominent repre­ sentative, sought academic careers in disciplines other than philos­ ophy. The most dramatic and far-reaching changes in the Stankevich circle came at the turn of the decade. If, as we have been led to believe, the "idealists of the thirties" were so committed to idle speculation and philosophizing and so securely in the grip of German idealism, why was it that the most talented ones, seemingly without warning, turned away about 1840 from philosophy to ideology and, in the case of Bakunin, to action? Was the rapid—indeed precipi­ tous—descent from philosophy to ideology without a single harbin­ ger, and were the ideologies of the forties and fifties brought forth instantaneously? There is no way in which one can give even a tentative answer to these questions except by reference to the con­ dition of Russia at the time. In the late 1820's and early 1830's, as mentioned in the preceding chapter, some of the most sensitive and alert young Russians be­ moaned the deplorable state of Russian literature. "Let us be im­ partial," wrote young Ivan Kireevsky on the threshold of the thirties, "and acknowledge that we have not yet experienced the full reflec­ tion of the intellectual life of the people. We do not yet have a literature."54 Kireevsky was neither the first nor the last Russian 53 P. N. Miliukov, Iz istorii russkoi intelligentsia, 2nd ed. (St. Petersburg, 1903), p. 116. 54 1. V. Kireevsky, Poinoe sobranie sochinenii ν dvukh tomakh, 2 vols., ed. M. 0. Gershenzon (Moscow, 1911), II, 38.

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theoretician to deplore the paucity of Russian literature, and even more the state of Russian culture, conceived, of course, in relation to that of Western Europe. When Belinsky took up the refrain in 1834, it differed from others only in detail.55 Russia had no literature; the Russian people had not spoken their word, and "narodnost' " would be the "alpha and omega of the new period" of Russian lit­ erature—which he hinted would be identified with Gogol' as the third was identified with Pushkin.56 At the end of the "Reveries," after some rather effusive praise of the "wise government," "the sacred will of the monarch," and the guiding "hand of the tsarfather," Belinsky placed his hopes for the future of Russian literature in education. "We have no literature," he said, and this was "the pledge for our future success." Like Ivan Kireevsky, Herzen, and others, he regarded poverty as virtue and promise. One day, he pre­ dicted, "education will spread over Russia in a broad stream"; the "intellectual physiognomy of the people [narod] will become clear," and the works of Russian authors "will be stamped with the Russian spirit." Thus, rigidly bound by Hegelian aesthetic schematism, he concluded, "we do not need literature . . . but education!"57 55 Poliakov states that the affirmation, "Yes—we have no literature!" which Belinsky made the title, theme, and point of departure of his "Literary Reveries," published in 1834 in Nadezhdin's Molva, "appeared in 1824 in the articles of A. Bestuzhev (Marlinsky)." It was "sharply formulated by D. Venevitinov and in I. Kireevsky's review of Russian literature for 1829. . . . Finally this question was posed in Na­ dezhdin's articles. 'Literary Reveries' bears direct similarity to his 'Review of Russian Literature for 1833,' where he wrote that the field of Russian literature was charac­ terized by 'desolation' but in accord with other compatriots before and after him, it appeared to him that "this very desolation . . . is a guaranty of impending abun­ dance." Nadezhdin saw as "the principal and essential evil" Russia's "unfortunate imitativeness." In fact, Nadezhdin had expressed similar views as early as 1828. See M. Ia. Poliakov, ed., V. G. Belinsky. Sobranie sochinenii ν trekh tomakh (Moscow, 1948), I, 9-13, 742. (Hereafter cited as Belinsky, Sochineniia.) See also Brown, Stankevich and His Moscow Circle, pp. 92-93, 140. Similar views were voiced at the end of the twenties, independently it seems, by the poet Ν. M. Iazykov. 56 The second period was Karamzin's, the first Lomonosov's. Belinsky, Sochineniia, I, 76, 83. In 1830 Ivan Kireevsky listed seven Russian writers as the most eminent up to that time: Fonvizin, Zhukovsky, Karamzin, Derzhavin, Griboedov, Krylov, and Pushkin. Belinsky included only the last four. Kireevsky, Sochineniia, II, 37-38; Be­ linsky, Sochineniia, I, 83, 86. 57 Belinsky, Sochineniia, I, 87-88, 751. See also Christoff, The Third Heart, pp. 115116. The Hegelian notion of historical and ahistorical nations and of a corresponding sharp distinction between natsional'nost' and narodnost' left a deep mark on many young Russians in the twenties and thirties. Russia was considered to be in the state of narodnost'—as not having achieved a significant level of literature and art. Since according to this scheme it could not yet expect the level of natsional'nost', Belinsky was content to see his country concentrate on education as a prerequisite for literary and cultural creativity. This scheme, which Aksakov thoroughly discarded in his review of Gogol's Dead Souls, exacerbated the polemics between him and Belinsky.

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Not quite so explicitly, but no less resolutely, young Ivan Kireevsky at the end of the 1820's had also seen that the future of Russia depended on education. At first he conceived it in broad, nonacademic terms, but at the end of the 1830's he narrowed his focus to include Russian schooling from the elementary level through the university.58 Many other Russians, of course, saw the necessity for education—it was too obvious to be missed— but the generation of Kireevsky and Belinsky would not admit that logic alone is the an­ swer to human problems. There was nothing more logical in the 1830's than to recognize the crying need for education, even more for emancipation, without which true education of the people, the narod, was unthinkable. But the Russian genius waited neither for popular education nor for emancipation, and this historical fact can­ not be glossed over. Before the Emancipation Declaration had been read, all the truly great men of nineteenth-century Russian literature except Chekhov had appeared on the scene, and Pushkin and Gogol' had already closed their illustrious careers. Glinka and the "Mighty Five" were winning an enviable place for Russian music, and so was the Russian theater, as already mentioned; and in the paintings of such artists as Briullov and the gifted serf Grigorii Soroka, there was the first flowering of nonreligious art in Russia.59 While Uvarov was making efforts to contain Russian ideological, spiritual, and artistic life in the straitjacket of the triple formula and while Belinsky was finding hope for Russian literature in the concept of narodnost', which "consists of fidelity in representation of the scenes of Russian life,"60 Kachenovsky was casting doubts on im­ portant phases of Russian history, and Chaadaev was telling those in the Moscow salons that Russia had no history and that whatever passed for it was not worth bothering with. Peter Kireevsky, who had embarked on his lifelong folkloristic career and was familiar with Chaadaev's views, condemned in the summer of 1833 the "cursed Chaadaev orientation [prokliataia Chaadaevshchina]"61 For a recent, highly competent and readable summary of the hold of Hegelian aes­ thetics on Belinsky, see Terras, Belinskij, pp. 92-96. 58Christoff, Kireevskij, pp. 270-281. 59 It is refreshing to be reminded that there may not always be a correlation between the literary, artistic, and cultural reputation of a certain society and its achievements in these fields. Thus it is said that "Elizabethan England was not exactly in the forefront of European civilization—yet it produced Shakespeare. On the other hand during its unquestioned political, cultural, and literary hegemony in the eighteenth century, France produced no poets of truly universal stature." See Terras, Belinskij, pp. 97-98. 60 Belinsky, Sochineniia, I, 79. 61 See Kireevsky's letter to Iazykov of July 17,1833, in Μ. K. Azadovsky, ed., Pis'ma

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and, it seems, redoubled his efforts to preserve through Russian folk­ lore the very "national memory" that Chaadaev had "one-sidedly" and mockingly dismissed. Thanks in great measure to Chaadaev's challenge, by the end of the 1830's the early Moscow Slavophils had decided that the rudiments of their ideology would be the basic communal principle of the mir, as suggested by Ivan Kireevsky. The Stankevich circle was not far removed from these develop­ ments. We have seen that in its early years, up to 1835 and 1836, it concentrated on literature and history. The members of the circle knew Kachenovsky, and most of them subscribed to his theories on Russian history. They all heard Uvarov's proclamation of the triple formula, and some, notably Belinsky, gave considerable attention to the problem of narodnost', a notion of many sources and interpre­ tations. They all witnessed the Chaadaev affair, the ban on the Teleskop, and the fundamental ideological issues it raised. From the late thirties on, an emerging Slavophilism and a liberal and radical Westernism were in a true sense ideological answers to the official government formula for education contained in its epigrammatic triad. And finally, even during the most intense concentration of the circle on German idealism (1836-1839), an important and vital con­ cern bore on the philosophy of history, hence on Russia's future as well as its past, on its cultural orientation, and on its relationship to the West and the rest of the world. In other words, the period was considerably more complex than any single thesis or interpretation would indicate. Much of the correspondence of the members of the Stankevich circle, including Aksakov's, testifies that, however high in the clouds or in the "stratosphere" the "idealists of the thirties" may have been, they were never far in their thoughts from Mother Russia. No abstract philosophical idealism could for long be totally separated from their concern for Russia. In the minds of Belinsky and Bakunin this re­ sulted first in the complete and ultimate justification of the "rational reality" of Nicholas I, and then in its equally complete rejection. The untractable Hegelian formula (for such it turned out to be) left no middle ground.62 Coupled with this were the maximalist or (in the P. V. Kireevskogo k Ν. M. Iazykovu (Moscow-Leningrad, 1935), p. 43; see also Christoff, The Third Heart, pp. 29-30, and Kireevski;, pp. 47, 61-65. 62 The case for Hegel's famous dictum, "What is rational is real and what is real is rational," has been stated many times. In this context Kornilov, for instance, stressed in 1915 that Bakunin correctly understood that Hegel's dictum was not intended to justify any status quo situation, and one may reasonably assume that Bakunin passed this on to Belinsky. Terras, referring to Belinsky's "temporary" misunderstanding of the dictum, says that "Hegel meant by this statement that philosophy 'is the study of the rational, and therefore of the present and the real, and not a postulate of anything

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jargon of the time) heavily "one-sided" temperaments of Belinsky and Bakunin; and so the stage was set for the full swing of the pendulum. As long as the members of the circle in effect believed, as Benkendorff did, that Russia under Nicholas I was the best of possible worlds, they remained on the extreme right. This was, in a way, a guarantee that any change in belief would take them all the way to the other pole—though the specific reasons for each person's change might not necessarily be identical. transcendent. . . .' Obviously it is quite wrong to gather from this position that phi­ losophy or literature should support any existing condition of things." But this did not preclude use of the dictum, in Belinsky's time and ever since, to justify both Right and Left Hegelian ideology, and Belinsky did not hesitate at times to reduce "reality" to the "miseries of everyday living" or "naked empirical reality." Cf. G.W.F. Hegel, Samtiiche Werke. GrundJinien der PhiJosophie des Rechts (Stuttgart, 1928), VII, 3334; Kornilov, Bakunin, p. 392; Nechaeva, Belinsky, III, 126; Terras, BeJinskij, pp. 6162, 83.

CHAPTER 4

BELINSKY AND GOGOL'

AFTER THE BREAKUP of the Stankevich circle, the uneasy friendship

between Konstantin and Belinsky continued for a time, but they were increasingly impatient with each other. Toward the end of October 1839 Belinsky left for St. Petersburg. He and Konstantin would not meet again. By 1842 they would have broken with each other irrev­ ocably. Belinsky's move to the heart of the imperial government was sym­ bolic of his brief, passionate, and in the long run personally shat­ tering support for the regime of Nicholas I, guardian of Russia's "beautiful reality" and the status quo. His reasons for leaving Mos­ cow were eminently practical: to make a living in the field he knew to be best suited to his talents, that of journalism and publicistic work. Also, sooner than others, Belinsky had come down from the heights of German philosophy to a recognition of the realities of life in Russia. In St. Petersburg, he could at least confront the "reptile" journals on their home ground.1 This was a period of intense nationalistic fervor, called forth by the dedication on August 26, 1839, the twenty-seventh anniversary of the Battle of Borodino, of a monument at the battlefield. Elaborate preparations went on for some time. Books were published and spe­ cial medallions were struck. The tsar himself was in residence at Borodino from August 16 to September 9, when a sumptuous banquet was held in the Manege in Moscow. The high point of the celebration was the reenactment on August 29 of the great battle of 1812. Gov­ ernment propaganda stressed the "unity [edinenie] of tsar and army" and tsar and people. In his proclamation to the army, the tsar said, "You will always be the hope and bulwark of your sovereign and our common Mother Russia." A recent biographer surmises that the exciting events of the sum­ mer of 1839 left their mark on Belinsky, as on many of his contem­ poraries. There was a mood of celebration which even the poor har­ vests of 1838 and 1839, with the resulting hunger and widespread 1

Nechaeva, Beiinsky, III, 261.

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65

disorders, could not dampen. The tsar's announcement that a me­ morial church of the Savior would be erected on the banks of the Moscow River was hailed with enthusiasm; published reminiscences of veterans of the Battle of Borodino were widely read, and the veterans themselves took part in the festivities at the battlefield and in Moscow.2 Belinsky, born in 1811, saw the dramatic events of his infancy replayed before his eyes, and this quickened his interest in the present tsar and in the whole imperial order. His patriotism soared when he read Pushkin's martial poem, "Anniversary of Bo­ rodino." The patriotism spilled over into conservatism, which showed up in several reviews that Belinsky wrote at this time.3 He now had a new justification of Russian reality and a new interpretation of He­ gel's concept of reality. Belinsky and other members of the Stankevich circle had not always agreed with Hegel, nor with one another about Hegel—much to the distress of Stankevich, who had his own interpretation. In a letter to Granovsky from Florence on February 1,1840, Stankevich commented: "The news about the literary labors and notions of our acquaintance is not comforting. . . . Since they do not understand what reality is, I think they might respect the word spoken by Hegel. . . . Let them only read about reality in the Logic, that reality in the sense of immediacy, of external existence, is an accident; that reality in its true meaning is Reason, Spirit."4 Belinsky's definition of reality (deistvitel'nost') given in his review of Griboedov's Woe from Wit shows that he did not need Stankevich's 2 For

a summary of the events of the anniversary year see ibid., pp. 261-269. The subjects of these reviews were Zhukovsky's poem "Borodinskaia godovshchina" (Anniversary of Borodino), F. N. Glinka's eyewitness account of the battle, Ocherki Borodinskago srazheniia (Sketches of the Battle of Borodino), Wolfgang Menzel's Die deutsche Literatur in Russian translation (review entitled "Mentsel', Kritik Gete"), and Griboedov's Gore ot uma (Woe from Wit). All four reviews were written in 1839. For the texts see F. Pavlenkov, ed., Sochineniia V. G. Belinskago ν chetyrekh tomakh (St. Petersburg, 1900), I, 337-478, 753-760 (hereafter cited as Pavlenkov, Be­ linsky). For discussions see Nechaeva, Belinsky, III, 267-292; Η. E. Bowman, Vissarion Belinsky, 1811-1848 (Cambridge, Mass., 1954), pp. 103-120; Fasting, Belinskij, I, 306325, 353-355, 359-374. 4 Annenkov, Stankevich, p. 311. But what happens if one reads Hegel's Philosophy of Right? In the Logic "he distinguishes the real from the existing. The real is higher than the existing. The real is necessary in the sense that it derives not from the accidental impact of different causative factors, but from everything that has preceded it. In the Philosophy of flight Hegel acknowledges that in reality that which exists is rational." See L. Kulchitskii (Mazovetskii), Istoriia russkago revoliutsionnago dvizheniia (St. Petersburg, 1903), p. 172. Stankevich grasped the Platonic, Hegelian primacy of the idea. But the second view of the formula was accepted by the Left Hegelians and Herzen to justify opposition to the status quo, just as it was used by the Right Hegelians to maintain it. 3

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reminder. A few months earlier, when he was planning the article, he had the meaning of reality clearly in mind: "Under the word 'reality,' " he wrote, "is meant everything that exists, the visible world and the spiritual world, the world of facts and the world of ideas. . . . in a word, the self-revealing spirit is reality, whereas everything private, everything accidental, everything nonrational is illusion [prizrachnost'] as opposite to reality, as its negation, as some­ thing seeming but not real." Such bodily functions as drinking, eat­ ing, and clothing oneself are in the world of "unreality" because the "spirit does not at all participate in them."5 But at the crucial point Belinsky made a convenient transition: "Man feels, thinks, and is conscious of himself as being the organ, the vessel of the spirit, a particular manifestation [chastnost'] of the universal and infinite— this is the world of reality." Then came the big jump into the social, political world of his day: "Man serves tsar and fatherland as a consequence of his exalted notion of his duties to them . . . of his desire to be an instrument of truth and good . . . of the realization that he is a part of society, and of his blood and spiritual kinship with it—this is the world of reality."6 In contrast to this tortured rationalization of tsardom and the status quo stands Herzen's blunt, direct, and simple Left-Hegelian inter­ pretation of reality: if revolution exists, it, too, is rational. During Belinsky's conservative phase, particularly in December 1839 and early 1840, Herzen was primarily the man with whom Belinsky in effect argued, perhaps somewhat more obviously in his "Sketches of the Battle of Borodino" and "Menzel, Critic of Goethe," than in the other two reviews. In these pieces Belinsky reached the end of his groveling before tsar and autocracy.7 5 Pavlenkov Belinsky, I, 424. On this point Bowman says: "A systematic exposition 1 of what Belinski meant by 'reality' is out of the question. Yet in Belinski's defense it can be said that he grasped the meaning of the principle that nothing is real except idea, and that his vacillation between a reality of idei and a reality of appearance is inherent in Hegel's original doctrine." Bowman, Belinski, p. 101. 6 Pavlenkov, Belinsky, I, 424. In his explanation of Belinsky's "reconciliation with reality" Plekhanov concluded that the notion of rational reality was "forced" (vynuzhdennoe). And in the words of a commentator on Plekhanov's views, Belinsky's involvement with Hegel was not a "cause but a result." Belinsky's conservatism was presumably caused by his disenchantment with politics and his superficial knowledge of political matters. See G. V. Plekhanov, Sochineniia, 2nd ed., 24 vols. (Moscow, 1920-1927), X, 222-223; B. Bursov, "Plekhanov i Belinsky," Literaturnoe nasledstvo (Moscow, 1948), v. 55, pp. 90-91. 7 See Nechaeva, Belinsky, III, 271, 279-281, 382-383. Belinsky's panegyrics on the tsar and Russia's "beautiful" reality are illustrated in his review of Zhukovsky's poem, which, after several long passages quoting from the tsar's Borodino proclamation, concludes: "This solemn act of the past is indissolubly connected with the present

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Neither Aksakov, for all his love of Russia and Russia's past, nor any other Moscow Slavophil ever went through a phase of tsar wor­ ship. As a Slavophil, Aksakov was to revere the narod, not the tsar. In 1839 he was highly critical of Belinsky and, it seems, of his passing conservatism. In a letter of early November to his sister Vera, then in St. Petersburg, he showed his unhappiness that Masha (Mariia Kartashevskaia) liked Belinsky's articles. "However well Belinsky may write," Konstantin declared, "still there is much in his writing that is distorted . . . desultory and borrowed, although it has been assimilated." This he found was intermingled with "judgments that are somewhat strained, and all this cannot represent a whole, com­ plete, clear picture."8 Perhaps Konstantin was disturbed by the "Chinese element" and "Hindu immobility" (indiiski pokoi) in Belinsky at the end of the 1830's. On still another matter there was a difference of opinion between these two once-friendly members of the Stankevich circle. That was the question of government controls. While Belinsky was extolling the virtues of the government in general, Konstantin was complain­ ing about its repressive censorship. "The censorship is doing incred­ ible things here," he wrote in January 1839 to his brothers in St. Petersburg. "It deprives one of the possibilities of publishing not only a journal but any sort of book as well." He resented its "absurd" behavior, so favorable toward the mercenary press of St. Petersburg. "What the censorship is doing at present is simply unbearable," he said in another letter a month or two later. Sergei Aksakov, who knew the censorship from the inside, was also incensed. "He [Sergei] naively recommended to all 'noble people' in the field of literature only 'silence,' " proposing to counter the censorship with "Moscow's sacred silence." And there were other, minor annoyances for Konstantin, who complained that the Moscow Observer did not appear and the future." The flag atop the Kremlin was the "guarantee of the presence of him who is the life and the soul of his people." The progress of the Russian people "has always been an act of the tsar's authority . . . which always mysteriously merged with the will of Providence—with rational reality." All this fully justified "unconditional obedience to the authority of the tsar, this is clear of itself." Forward with tsar and Providence: "Immense Russia, great is her youthful strength, endless is her might. The spirit is subdued by palpitating exaltation in anticipation of her great destiny; she is the lawful heir to the three periods of humanity." Pavlenkov, Belinsky, I, 754, 756-759. 8 Belinsky, "Perepiska," p. 130. The excerpt as published ends on a tantalizing note: he regretted that Masha was not in touch with "that development of thought which is taking place here in Moscow, in our home, that she is removed from the treasures with which human knowledge is so rich." Was he referring to Khomiakov and in­ cipient Slavophilism?

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on schedule—though that was probably not Belinsky's fault—and that Belinsky's proofreading of his translations from German was "careless."9 It is clear that, whatever happened when Belinsky moved to St. Petersburg, relations between him and Konstantin deteriorated rap­ idly. Belinsky wrote to Konstantin on November 25,1839, and took the letter, together with one from Panaev, to Vera, still with the Kartashevskys, to deliver to Konstantin on her return to Moscow. This letter has apparently been lost, but Konstantin's reply, and a subsequent letter from Belinsky, suggest its contents to some extent. Konstantin was very upset: I received your letter a long time ago.... You attack the Russians, their nationality [narodnost'], while in your letter, by your own preference . . . (according to your definition of a Russian), you are a Russian with respect to stench. Of course it has a strong odor, and it is still nauseating to stay in a privy. Such is your letter. You still speak of reality, with which, it seems, you are becoming acquainted for the hundredth time. But reality (by the way, you do not understand this word), which you have tried to grasp so many times, you know only from hearsay.10 On January 10, 1840, Belinsky apologized to Konstantin: "Panaev has just read to me your letter to him. I beg you in a friendly manner to excuse me for my foul and inelegant [griaznoe] letter which so deeply offended you."11 But then Belinsky proceeded to take issue 9 Ibid., pp. 90, 122, 126, 145. Yet in the autumn of 1839 he was soliciting financial help for Belinsky; see ibid., pp. 128-129, and Nechaeva, Belinsky, III, 378. 10 This letter was first published in 1939 along with the one from Konstantin to Belinsky and Botkin sent from Switzerland in the summer of 1838. The letter to Belinsky alone is dated by the editor "Beginning of 1840." Its contents suggest that it was the reply to Belinsky's letter of late November. The last half-dozen lines of the letter refer to Belinsky's "development" in characteristic Hegelian jargon. Konstantin saw no growth in Vissarion, no forward movement, but mere "jumping from one foot to another." "These words," he concludes, "are a reply not only to your last letter but also to the manner of your thinking." It seems curious that Belinsky should have been attacking the Russians at the time when he was justifying their "beautiful reality." "Nationality," he wrote, "is the alpha and omega of the aesthetics of our time." He was then, as so often, in privation and inner turmoil, but Konstantin's charge that he did not know the meaning of reality, both as the "miseries of everyday living" and in the Hegelian sense, was not justified. Belinsky certainly knew privation as Aksakov never did, and as pointed out earlier he had a good grasp of Hegelian "reality." What did he write in the missing letter that so offended Konstantin? See N. L. Meshcheriakov, ed,, A. S. Pushkin, A. N. Ostrovksy. Zapadniki i siavianofily (Moscow, 1939), p. 205. " Belinsky, Sochineniia, II, 113. In the same letter he chides Konstantin for his atrocious handwriting and asks him for contributions for Notes of the Fatherland, but the "condition sine qua non" was that someone else would have to copy them before

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with Konstantin again, this time on a literary matter. "I am glad about your new classification: Homer, Shakespeare, and Gogol', but I am also puzzled by it," Belinsky wrote. "Where did you put Goethe? Oh youth! I love your impassioned soul, and its exalted sentimental [prekrasnodushnyi] ardor!" He agreed with Konstantin on Homer and Shakespeare but argued for Pushkin in place of Gogol'. Gogol' was a "great, a world poet," he said, but Pushkin was "the only Russian national poet, a complete representative of his people." The disagreement over Gogol' was a prelude to the coming sharper en­ counter over Aksakov's review of Dead Souls. Disagreement over the interpretation and rating of a writer was a serious matter. As difference of opinion about Schiller had contrib­ uted to the breakup of the friendship between Konstantin and Bakunin a few years earlier, so this disagreement over Gogol' was to break up Konstantin and Belinsky. For personal as well as literary and aesthetic reasons, Konstantin felt deeply about Gogol'. Belinsky's condescending remarks were only a symptom of the trouble. Their opinions clashed on nearly everything—literary matters, grammar and linguistics, and most of all, ideological convictions. The divergence of views on ideology was borne out in their choice of new friends. Soon after taking up residence in St. Petersburg, Belinsky began to move in the ideological company of Herzen, Botkin, and other budding Westerners. Aksakov, now out of the Stankevich circle, chose Iurii Fedorovich Samarin as his new and close friend, and he began to see Aleksei Khomiakov and Ivan Kireevsky, older than he and leaders of a rising Moscow Slavophilism. Given the circumstances of Belinsky's work and the nature of his temper­ ament, it was perhaps to be expected that once he began to change, probably sometime in the spring and summer of 1840, his ideological shift would be faster and more precipitous than Konstantin's. Their correspondence continued for several months longer. Com­ plete frankness and sincerity had long been guiding principles in Belinsky's relations with friends, and so he wondered whether there was "love" between him and Konstantin. In a letter of June 14,1840, he says, "You write to me about your new friends [this letter seems lost] about whom I am unable to say either good or bad, except for Dmitrii Shchepkin, as I do not know them." Konstantin, he deduced, was not very happy, since he "did not at all love them"; presumably he was guided by the maxim, "Do not become charmed and you will not become disappointed."12 It goes without saying that for Belinsky they were sent to the journal. Belinsky was anxious to get Konstantin's reaction to his review of the books by Glinka and Menzel, and also of Gribodoev's Woe from Wit. 12 Belinsky, Pis'ma, II, 86.

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a relationship devoid of passionate attachments could not be a true friendship. "The tone of your letter as well as the expression of the state of your spirit suggests to me an underlying anguish," Belinsky contin­ ued. "You write that you live well, are satisfied with yourself, un­ derstand Hegel, and see your place in the field of scholarship. . . . It is strange to accuse me of not wishing . . . to share with you your dreams and call them reality. I know that for you this is persecution." Then, getting to the heart of the matter, he told Konstantin that "the true reason for what you call my insult and persecution of you is the difference in our orientations . . . this is my answer to your letter." As if to illustrate these differences which were pushing them further and further apart, Belinsky ended the letter with another unfavorable judgment of Gogol', whom he now thought not "lower than Walter Scott and Cooper." Pushkin remained, as before, Russia's true national poet, who "exhausted all the depth of Russian life."13 Belinsky wrote again to Konstantin on August 23. This one-page letter speaks of the death of their friend Nikolai Stankevich, which had occurred in Rome in June. "Stankevich has died, and what is left of him?—a corpse with worms."14 In a fit of gloom, he went on: "We are people outside of society, because Russia is not a society. We have neither political, nor religious, nor scholarly, nor literary life. Boredom, apathy, frittering our time in fruitless impulses—that is our life. What sort of life can man lead outside of society?" All this was made more unbearable for him by the conviction that there were "rich elements for life" in Russia. He again praised Ivan Aksakov as a "glorious youth," thanked Konstantin for the attention that he had given to his own younger brother in Moscow, and, having heard of a proposed trip by Sergei Aksakov to St. Petersburg, expressed a desire to see him: "Are we going to see each other, and when?"15 On the surface, the friendship continued. On October 3, 1840, Sergei Aksakov wrote to Ol'ga Semenovna and Konstantin from St. Petersburg: "Yesterday I. Panaev and Belinsky spent the whole eve­ ning as my guests. . . . Often the conversation turned to you, my dearest Konstantin." On November 18, in a letter to his wife, Sergei conveyed among other things Panaev's and Belinsky's "warm re13 Ibid., pp. 87-88. At the very end he added, "I met your brother Ivan Sergeevich. A glorious youth!" and he urged Konstantin to visit him in St. Petersburg. 14 Ibid., p. 95. At about the same time Konstantin wrote Ivan: "Stankevich died. You can imagine how this struck me. . . . I can imagine what this death will mean . . . particularly to Vissarion, and to Kliushnikov and Granovsky." Belinsky, "Perepiska," p. 140. 15 Belinsky, Pis'ma, II, 95.

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gards" (emu ochen' klaniaiutsia) to Konstantin. But less than two weeks later Konstantin was beside himself because Belinsky had reviewed the three volumes of Lomonosov's collected works pub­ lished that year. To Sergei, still in the capital, he wrote that he had not yet read Belinsky's review: "I can imagine what tales have been told about Lomonosov, but to this I shall reply specifically in my dissertation. I understand people like Belinsky very well. It seems quite clear to me now what the meaning of this circle is, what con­ stitutes its temporary benefit and merit, and what is absurd and false in it."16 He resolved to waste no time. Further on in the letter he told his father: "I foresee that Belinsky and I will grapple about matters of literature as no one else has yet grappled with him. It is necessary to determine Belinsky's place and put him in it. Either Belinsky and I will part forever, or he will concede to me. I will not concede to him. But this will never interfere with my giving him the merit he deserves." Belinsky's ideological instability during this transitional stage was just as unsettling for him as it was exasperating for Kon­ stantin Aksakov. It was almost inevitable that Belinsky and Aksakov should have disagreed over Gogol'. Gogol's picture of Russia was no longer pleas­ ing to this new conservative who was so moved by Pushkin's pa­ triotic odes. Also, being in St. Petersburg, Belinsky had missed the evenings at the Aksakovs' when Gogol' read aloud to the assembled company from the first chapters of Dead Souls. That was what had thrilled Konstantin and stimulated his extravagant praise.17

By 1839 the Aksakovs had been supporters of Gogol' for more than half a dozen years. They first met him in 1832. Gogol' already had 16 The reference is apparently to Belinsky's new friends in St. Petersburg. In the published excerpt from Sergei's letter to his wife he reveals his and Konstantin's attitude toward the government and censorship, since on this issue they were of the same mind: "In this unhappy and shameful time for our literature there is nothing left for honorable persons except silence. . . . And there is nothing superior to the sacred silence of Moscow. On Saturday I. I. Panaev and Belinsky spent the evening with me. . . . I cannot find words with which to describe the state of our literature. . . . But the worst part is that I do not see the faintest hope for improvement." In a later letter (December 2, 1840), he remarked: "Imagine, my dear Kostia, that over the wing in which Belinsky lives the red flag is flying! The reasons I could not obtain." (Ibid., pp. 145-146.) Even that early, Sergei may have guessed something of Belinsky's future radicalism. See Belinsky, "Perepiska," pp. 144-146. 17 Gogol's reading of the first chapter of Dead Souls in the Aksakov home occurred in December 1839 or early January 1840. I. I. Panaev, who attended Konstantin Aksakov's "holiday," describes the event in some detail, but his dating of events is not as accurate as one might wish. See Panaev, Literaturnye vospominaniia, pp. 171-175, 392-393.

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a small literary reputation, but aspired to greater heights. In June 1832, on his way from St. Petersburg to his family home in Vasilyevka in the heart of the Ukraine, he stopped in Moscow. Pogodin brought him one evening to the Aksakovs'. Sergei, busy at a card game, greeted the visitor somewhat perfunctorily but did not forget him— particularly since he was already familiar with Gogol's first effort in fiction and knew that he was a talent worth watching.18 This we know from Durylin: If Moscow appreciated Gogol's first stories earlier than St. Pe­ tersburg, greeted them more cordially, staged with greater per­ fection The Inspector General and The Marriage, a major and respectable part for this belongs to the Aksakovs and their propagandistic influence on the theater, literary, and reading public. The "discovery" of Gogol' was the triumph of the artistic flair of Sergei Aksakov. Picking up accidentally Evenings on a Farm in a bookstore, Aksakov experienced as only few others did the sentiment about which thirty years later he remembered, "Can you imagine our joy at such a surprise!" In this manner early, easily, then and there was accomplished the recognition of Go­ gol' the writer by the Aksakovs.19 When Pogodin brought Gogol' to the Aksakov home, Konstantin, an impressionable boy of fifteen, immediately warmed up to the guest. His father remembered that he "ran up to Gogol', threw himself at him, and began to talk with him with great feeling and fervor." Neither father nor son could later recall their first conversations with Gogol', but Konstantin remembered that he did not like Gogol's man­ nerisms, that Gogol' said that he was sick, and that his behavior was, in his father's words, "ungracious, careless, and as if from on high." Sergei also noted that in their new acquaintance "there was some­ thing, in general, repulsive which barred me from the sincere en­ thusiasm and effusion of which I am capable to excess."20 Although Gogol' was a Ukrainian, his background, as Durylin no­ ticed, was in some ways similar to Sergei Aksakov's: both were landed gentry (though Gogol' on a somewhat lesser scale), traditional, Orthodox, and strong in their "age-long, old Russian family ethic."21 18 Henri Troyat, Divided Soul: The Life of Gogol (New York, 1973), pp. 87-88. "Durylin, "Gogol' i Aksakovy," p. 328. The first volume of Evenings on α Farm Near Dikarika was published in September 1831, the second in March 1832. 20 S. T. Aksakov, Sochineniia, III, 152-153. 21 Durylin, "Gogol' i Aksakovy," p. 329. Durylin's parallels between the "theoretical Domostroi" that Gogol' expounded in his Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends (1847) and what he calls the "unwritten" Domostroi of Ol'ga Semenovna Aksakova seem to me farfetched. Ol'ga Aksakova was a virtuous woman, but she does

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But Sergei had long been in Moscow, and he was by nature generous and mild-mannered. Gogol' was shy and awkward, egocentric and self-preoccupied, even to trivialities of the state of his health. He was the only son of a doting widow, had four sisters all younger than he, and was accustomed to doing as he pleased, even if it meant family sacrifices. He was determined to get ahead. When he failed to get the professorship of history at Kiev that he had applied for (and for which he hardly had the qualifications), Pogodin arranged for a post for him at the University of Moscow, but Gogol' turned it down because it was only an assistant professorship. He had to settle for an assistant professorship at St. Petersburg University, but he described it to friends as a "chair."22 This was the sort of lie that often got him into trouble and made relationships difficult. Sergei and Konstantin Aksakov were sensible enough, however, to realize that Gogol's genius and wit more than compensated for his peculiarities. In Gogol's jokes, Sergei joyfully observed "expressions, turns of mind, and that special humor that is the exclusive possession of the Little Russians." After reading Mirgorod and Arabesques in 1835, when, as Sergei Aksakov said, Gogol's "great talent showed its full force ... Konstantin and I, my family, and all people capable of a feeling for art, were in complete exaltation over Gogol'."23 It could well have been Konstantin who introduced Gogol's work to the Stankevich circle. Certainly he was one of Gogol's earliest and most enthusiastic admirers. Referring to his university days (18321835] in his Reminiscence, Konstantin says, "In those years Gogol's creations had just appeared, breathing a new, unprecedented sense of artistry. How this acted upon the youth and particularly on the Stankevich circle!" He also says that "Stankevich valued Gogol's artistry with a true and refined sense," and he recalled "the feeling of inner mirth and joy" when they read Gogol's works, stressing their not seem to have been self-righteous and certainly was not obsessed with notions of Christian piety as are found in the 1556 guide to family life which "reflects the ritualism, piety, severity, and patriarchal nature of Muscovite society." One of the harsh directives of the guide says: "Punish your son in his youth, and he will give you a quiet old age and restfulness to your soul. Weaken not, beating the boy, for he will not die from your striking him with the rod, but will be in better health: for while you strike his body, you save his soul from death. If you love your son, punish him frequently, that you may rejoice later." See Durylin, "Gogol' i Aksakovy," pp. 326327; Ν. V. Riasanovsky, A History of Russia, 3rd ed. (New York, 1977), p. 224. This passage does not, of course, contain the whole Domostroi, but with respect to parentoffspring relations it bears no resemblance to the Aksakov household. 22 Troyat, Gogol, pp. 103-105. 23 S. T. Aksakov, Sochineniia, III, 155. According to Durylin, only Grigorii of all the Aksakovs did not care for Gogol's work. "Gogol' i Aksakovy," p. 329.

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admiration for the "fullness and perfection" of Gogol's art.24 As Sergei noted, Gogol' was particularly admired by the young. They in general "appreciated Gogol' better and sooner" than their elders. Belinsky in 1834 praised Gogol' in his "Literary Reveries." Gogol', he said, "belongs to the ranks of extraordinary talents. Who does not know his Evenings on a Farm Near Dikan'ka? What wit, gaiety, poetry, and nationality it contains! God grant that he may fully justify the hopes he has aroused."25 The following year Gogol' published two more volumes of stories and short pieces, Arabesques and Mirgorod, and Belinsky again praised him. In his two-part review (in numbers 7 and 8 of Teleskop] he characterized Gogol's talent as of an exceptionally high order. Gogol' had taken Pushkin's place at the "head of literature and of poets" in Russia, he said. But still some basic questions remained to be answered—the question "What is Gogol' in our literature?" and also the question of Gogol's place in world literature. The place or level "that the artist occupies in the circle of his [poetical] brethren" was "the problem" of the critic. But was Belinsky not aware that he had already given his answer to this question on the preceding page? I have as yet said little about "Taras Bul'ba," and I would not [now] go into this matter at great length. . . . "Taras Bul'ba" is a fragment, an episode from the great epic in the life of a whole nation. If in our time a Homeric epic poem is possible, then here is before you its supreme model, ideal, and prototype! If it is true that the Iliad reflects all Greek life in its heroic period, then could it be that only the piety and rhetoric of the past century should forbid us from saying the same about "Taras Bul'ba" with respect to Little Russia of the sixteenth century?26 21K. S. Aksakov, Vospominanie, pp. 27-28. One incident recalled by Sergei Aksakov from the mid-thirties tells much about Gogol's mannerisms and his young admirers: "We were sitting in a box in the Bolshoi . . . when all of a sudden the door opened and Gogol' entered, and stretched his hand to me with the words 'How do you do! . . .' We were astonished and delighted. Konstantin, who probably more than anyone else understood Gogol's significance, forgot where he was and exclaimed so loudly that he attracted attention from the adjacent boxes. This was during the intermission. After Gogol' . . . Efremov came to our box, and Konstantin whispered in his ear, 'Do you know who is with us? This is Gogol'.' Efremov, goggle-eyed . . . ran out to the rows of armchairs and told the news to . . . Stankevich and to some others of our acquaintances. Instantly several pairs of opera glasses and binoculars were turned upon our box and the words 'Gogol', Gogol' ' spread along the row of seats." S. T. Aksakov, Sochineniia, III, 155-156. 25 Belinsky, Sochineniia, I, 83. 26 See ibid., pp. 144-146. The editor of Belinsky's works calls the attention of the reader to Gogol's "unclear chronology": "In Gogol's manuscript the time of action is the fifteenth century, in the printed text the sixteenth, but a number of details speak of the seventeenth century." Ibid., p. 758.

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Referring to the mid-thirties, the time of Belinsky's review of Arabesques and Mirgorod, Konstantin remembered in 1855 that "in those years Gogol's creations had just appeared, breathing a new unprecedented artistry," and that they were particularly influential among the youth of the Stankevich circle. Konstantin's father also reminisced about the mid-thirties and Gogol's reading of his comedy The Marriage in the Aksakov home in the late summer of 1835 before a group of invited guests, including Stankevich and Belinsky.27 Go­ gol' was something of an actor, and when he read his own works his natural shyness vanished as he assumed different roles. The audience would explode in laughter, and Gogol' would respond by giving his all. Sergei Aksakov, with his connections in the Moscow theater, was in a position to help Gogol' get his plays produced. This was the case with The Inspector General, first performed in St. Petersburg in April 1836. On May 25 it opened in Moscow with Shchepkin, a serf by birth, in the role of the mayor. Gogol', about to depart for a trip abroad, was not present. He had already started work on Dead Souls and was eager to be off on a new venture. Gogol' stayed in Europe three years. Sergei went out of his way to help him in the summer of 1838 by soliciting funds on his behalf.28 That was the summer that Konstantin was in Germany and Switz­ erland, but he and Gogol' did not see each other. Gogol' returned to Moscow at the end of September 1839, making his presence known to only a few close friends. The Aksakovs heard about his arrival from Shchepkin; Konstantin, on reading Shchepkin's note to the family, Sergei says, "cried out so joyfully that he startled us all."29 A short time later Gogol' came to the Aksakovs' house. Father and son greeted him effusively—too effusively, perhaps. Konstantin, ea­ ger to learn if Gogol' had made progress on Dead Souls, inquired, "What have you brought us, Nikolai Vasil'evich?" Gogol', his manner still as gruff as ever, replied "curtly, very drily, and with displeasure, 'Nothing.' " Konstantin brushed aside the rebuff, and soon they were back on 27 K.

S. Aksakov, Vospominanie, p. 27; S. T. Aksakov, Sochineniia, III, 157. E. Velikopol'sky contributed 1,000 rubles, Aksakov and Pogodin 500 rubles each, Baratynsky 250, and N. F. Pavlov promised the same amount. N. A. Mel'gunov and Khomiakov1 "who has an income of 200,000!" refused to contribute, Khomiakov on the puzzling pretext that "this might be an injustice." Sergei was indignant at Khomiakov's refusal and recalled that Pogodin had solicited a 50-ruble contribution from Khomiakov for the famous Bohemian scholar Safarik four times and had been refused. "This is insufferable," Sergei said as he warned Konstantin to keep the matter confidential. See L. Lanksy, ed., "Gogol' ν neizdannoi perepiske sovremennikov (18331855)," Literaturnoe nasledstvo, no. 58 (Moscow, 1952), pp. 558-559, 620. (Hereafter cited as Gogol', "Neizdannaia perepiska.") 29 S. T. Aksakov, Sochineniia, III, 158-162. 28I.

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their old footing. "Gogol' visited us every day and dined with us often," Sergei recalled.30 The friendship was on Gogol's terms, how­ ever. Sergei felt that he came "to rest from his creative labors, to talk nonsense, joke, play billiards, which, of course, he could not play at all." Konstantin liked drawing him into discussions of "serious" matters "about art in general." Sergei could not recall all that was said, but he remembered that Konstantin described some of it in letters to Vera, then in Kursk, and to his brother Mikhail in St. Petersburg. In one letter Konstantin says: "The more I look at him [Gogol·] the more I . . . feel all the importance of this man and all the smallness of people who do not understand him. What an artist! How stimulating it is to be with him! How he clarifies one's views on art!"31 In late October 1839, Gogol' journeyed with Sergei, Vera, and Mikhail by coach to St. Petersburg and kept them entertained for the four days by making up droll stories about his native Ukraine and the people they observed in the coach stations. In the capital Aksakov introduced Gogol' to his sister's family, the Kartashevskys. The fam­ ily was put off by Gogol's manner, but Sergei was gratified that Masha, if not her father, "understood and valued Gogol' as a writer."32 Masha, of course, had had the advantage of discussing Gogol' with his ardent admirer, Konstantin. For a number of years they had been corresponding, and Masha had come to share her cousin's enthusi­ asm. On May 9, 1836, shortly before The Inspector General had its Moscow premiere, he wrote to her: I have read [The Inspector General] four times, and that is why I say that those who say that this play is crude and flat have not understood it. Gogol' is a true poet—in the comical and the funny there is also poetry. I am sorry that you first got to know 30Ibid.,

pp. 163-164. Ibid., p. 184. 32 Tom between his fondness and respect for Kartashevsky and his love of Gogol's works, Sergei sorrowfully admitted that this "intelligent, highly moral, enlightened" man could at the same time tell him that the "Little Russian nation is inane, that Gogol' is . . . a Little Russian [abusively a khokhol] such as he pictures in his stories . . . that he wishes to be also a musician and a painter," and then begin "to upbraid him for having abandoned himself to Italy." Ironically, Konstantin later voiced the same sort of Great Russian chauvinism and the same intolerance of Gogol's residence in Italy and Western Europe. But Gogol' saw Russia from a different perspective. In 1837 he wrote to Pogodin from abroad: "Why should I come back, have I not seen the dear jumble of our educated ignoramuses? . . . Oh, when I think of our judges, Maecenas, learned men, sharp wits, aristocracy, my heart shudders from the very thought. There must be powerful reasons to compel me to decide on that which I do not wish." Ibid., pp. 169, 171; Gogol', "Neizdannaia perepiska," p. 564. 31

BELINSKY AND GOGOL'

77

Gogol' only from his "Nose." This joke has its own virtue, but it is somewhat bawdy. How I wish that you would read "Eve­ nings on a Farm Near Dikan'ka!" . . . If he laughs at life, at its absurdities ... he does so with a heavy heart... he loves people while he laughs at them and is distressed by their weaknesses.33 Even when he himself was affected, Konstantin did not seem to be bothered by Gogol's offensive idiosyncracies. "Gogol· is such a per­ son that you cannot help loving him once you know him personally," he wrote his brothers in the autumn of 1839, and again (October 2425) he said: "I love Gogol' simply as a person. His face, his words, his spontaneity, I like extremely well."34 Finally, at the turn of the year Gogol' rewarded the Aksakovs' patience by reading to them from Dead Souls. He had previously read at least once, for Konstantin on October 24-25, writing to his brothers, had said of him, "everything that he reads is a truly artistic work. And those who see only the funny in his works are dull-witted. Gogol' is a great artist, a genius having the full right to stand, like Pushkin, in the circle of the foremost poets—Goethe, Shakespeare, Schiller, etc."35 This reading from Dead Souls consisted of the first three chapters, and it was sufficient for Konstantin to exalt Gogol' to the loftiest literary company. On the day after the New Year he wrote to Ivan and Grigorii: "Gogol· visits us often. He has read twice since his arrival. I marvel at him.. .. It would be possible to write much about his character as an artist. . . which . . . places him in the same circle with the celebrated, immortal Greek and Englishman. Homer, Shake­ speare, and Gogol'—here is the wonderful, magnificent constella­ tion."36 Having put Gogol' on this pedestal, Konstantin made it his business 33 Gogol',

"Neizdannaia perepiska," p. 550. L. Lansky, the editor of a selection of Konstantin's letters to Masha, says that in another letter (January 19,1837) Konstantin stated more clearly his preference for Evenings on α Farm over The Inspector General, and that although he acknowledged the artistic merits of the comedy, he called it a "trifle" (bezdelitsa). Lansky states further that Konstantin's characterization of Gogol's "Nose" as "somewhat bawdy" coincided with "reactionary interpretations of Gogol'," and that it was "not accidental" that on this point Konstantin's views were in agree­ ment with those of Shevyrev and Pogodin (who had rejected the story for publication in the Moscow Observer). Since not even an excerpt of this letter is given, one cannot know the context in which Konstantin made these remarks nor their exact phrasing. Lansky does not imply that Konstantin was influenced in his judgment by Pogodin and Shevyrev, whose lead he was not inclined to follow. 34 Ibid., pp. 564, 568. 35 Ibid., p. 570. 36Ibid., p. 572.

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to defend him against any critic—Belinsky, the "reptile" press, any­ one who would not grant him the highest place in the literature of the world. Further readings from Dead Souls only increased his enthusiasm. On March 6, 1840, the Aksakovs heard chapter 4, and in April chapters 6 and 7. On November 1, 1841, Sergei wrote to Masha disclosing his "great secret": "only the two of us, Konstantin and I, have heard the first volume of Dead Souls, all eleven chap­ ters."37 Sergei's praise was almost as extravagant as Konstantin's. Together they made Gogol' almost a sacred cause—often to Gogol's conster­ nation. Less extravagantly but no less genuinely, the Khomiakovs and the Kireevskys were admirers and supporters of Gogol', recog­ nizing in him a creative genius that was purely Russian and yet not simply Russian, because he transcended national boundaries.38 Ivan Kireevsky, probably the most conservative of the "early" Slavophils, later spoke with bitterness and disillusionment about the tsar's at­ titude toward Russian literature and toward Gogol' in particular. In his "testament," only recently discovered and published, he ex­ presses the resentment that had been slowly building up in him ever since the ban on his journal, Evropeets, in 1832. This letter, written to the deputy minister of education, Prince P. A. Viazemsky, on December 6,1855, succinctly states the complaints of the men of the thirties and forties who were trying to put Russian literature on a world footing: The tsar gave some money to Gogol' as charity . . . and not for Gogol's sake but for the sake of those who begged for him. When Gogol's name and his tremendous significance for our literature became well known, even his memory was persecuted as some­ thing hostile to the government. Ask Ivan Turgenev and Ivan Aksakov about this. No, the late emperor never loved literature, and never patronized it. In his eyes, being a man of letters and a suspicious person were one and the same thing.39 37 Ibid.,

pp. 577, 579, 584, 606; S. T. Aksakov, Sochineniia, III, 184-185, 207. P. K. Christoff, An Introduction to Nineteenth-Century Russian Slavophilism: A Study in Ideas. Vol. I, A. S. Xomjakov (The Hague, 1961), pp. 58n, 101. Vol. II, I. V. Kireevskij, pp. 82, 88, 340. 39 M. Gillel'son, "Neizvestnye publitsisticheskie vystupleniia P. A. Viazemskogo i I. V. Kireevskogo," Russkaia literatura, 1966, no. 4, pp. 131-132. After the publication of Dead SouJs in 1842 Gogol' was given a royal grant. In a letter dated March 18,1843, Gogol' told Sergei Aksakov something about it. He did not specify the amount but said that it was enough for one year. Later in 1843 Aksakov told another correspondent that Nicholas I had decreed a 3,000-ruble annual stipend for Gogol' for three years on Uvarov's initiative. S. T. Aksakov, Sochineniia, III, 260-261, 273 38 See

CHAPTER 5

THE 1840's: TOWARD SLAVOPHILISM

WHEREAS the 1830's had been a time of discussion and sampling of

ideas, many of them new, the decade of the forties was a time when the debate sharpened as ideological positions became more firmly set. If the change appeared swift, this was partly owing to a sense of urgency among the leading thinkers, who believed that their father­ land was already so far outdistanced by Western Europe, culturally, socially, and economically, that it must move forward without delay. Even in the thirties, there had been at times and in certain men a feeling of the futility of too much talk and heady speculation. Stankevich, at the end of 1835, remarked that "philosophy does not have to be an exclusive preoccupation—merely the basic."1 And at the end of the thirties, too, the essential lines were being drawn: on the one side, such Westerners as Herzen and Chaadaev who, each in his own way, sought to bring Russia up to the Western model even if it only meant, as Herzen suggested, skipping grades as in school; and on the other side, the Slavophils, who wanted Russia to act freely on its own. Psychologically and substantively there was a vast difference. Konstantin Aksakov, as much as any of his contemporaries, was molded by the thirties and achieved a certain maturity in the forties. After the break with Belinsky, there was a period of intense enthu­ siasm for Gogol'. Partly because of Konstantin's youth, but for other reasons, too, the relationship with Gogol' could never become a friendship in the way that Konstantin thought of friendship. But his enthusiasm for Gogol' and the friendly relations between Gogol' and the Aksakov family perhaps had something to do with the growth of the friendship between Konstantin and Iurii Samarin. Samarin, two years younger than Konstantin, was also a graduate of the University of Moscow, but they apparently did not meet until late in 1838 or early the next year when they decided to study to­ gether for their master's degrees and also to read Hegel. They found 1 Quoted

by Nechaeva, Belinsky, III, 53.

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common ground, too, in the cult of Gogol', which Konstantin fostered in his friend. Konstantin introduced Samarin into the Gogol' circle, and Samarin was present at the Aksakovs' on that important evening at the turn of 1839 when Gogol' first read from Dead Souls.2 Konstantin had reached a turning point in his life and career, and Samarin was in much the same situation. Leaving the Stankevich circle (or what remained of it) was in a sense symbolic of leaving a point of view. It is not of small importance that one of the earliest known meetings between Konstantin Aksakov and the Kireevskys occurred soon after this, in March 1840, at A. P. Elagina's famous salon.3

No sharp or impassable line was drawn between one salon and another, but the change in Konstantin's outlook made it natural that he should feel more at home in the Elagina, Khomiakov, and Sverbeev salons than in the pro-Western salons. As his short-lived friend­ ship with Belinsky cooled, he and Iurii Samarin grew closer together, and he moved resolutely in the direction of incipient Moscow Sla­ vophilism. The friendship between Aksakov and Samarin was marked by occasional conflicts arising from temperamental and in­ tellectual differences and personal pride, just as personal differences also at times marred the relationship between the two older Slavo­ phils, Khomiakov and Ivan Kireevsky, and the much younger ones, Aksakov and Samarin. Although these four names are generally grouped together as the "early," "first," "classical," or "Moscow" Slavophils, in the first three or four years of the 1840's, when Slavophilism and Westernism were emerging as major intellectual-ideological currents, the Sla­ vophil camp was relatively better united and integrated than the camp of the Westerners. While Khomiakov and Kireevsky were en­ deavoring to work out the basic Slavophil principles, Aksakov and Samarin followed them. But before the two young men were finally won over, primarily through Khomiakov's exertions, they formed, for a period of something less than two years, a sort of "united front" against the senior Slavophils. Our best guides to the early relationship between Aksakov and Samarin are Samarin's correspondence and two short works by Ivan Aksakov—one (published in 1873) a reply to an open letter by E. A. Dmitriev-Mamonov about Moscow Slavophilism, and the other (1879) a shorter but more specific and more valuable piece written 2 We know this from Vera's Christmas Day letter to her brothers in St. Petersburg: "On Saturday when Gogol' read, Samarin was here as Konstantin's guest. He also listened and after the reading drew a portrait of Gogol' which is sufficiently lifelike." Gogol', "Neizdannaia perepiska," pp. 577, 580. 3 Ibid., p. 586.

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as an introduction to the publication of letters from Khomiakov to Samarin.4 In 1840, when Khomiakov met the young friends, he was thirty-seven; Aksakov, twenty-three; Samarin, twenty-one. Ivan Aksakov (who had access to the correspondence between Konstantin and Samarin) points to the year 1839 as the real beginning of the friendship. He says, "In 1839 Aksakov and Samarin (both candidates at the University of Moscow), up to that time almost not knowing each other, agreed to prepare together for their master's examina­ tions." In current academic terminology, they were both majoring in Rus­ sian literature, conceived, as was customary at that time, very broadly. They did much of their reading together. It consisted of several large and varied categories: Hegel ("primarily his Logic"), "ancient Russian literary monuments" and other works up to the middle of the eighteenth century, and Russian "chronicles, ancient records, and charters." In addition to this common ground, Ivan tells us, "both loved Russia fervently; for both, Orthodoxy was a family tradition and possession, and both were ardent admirers of German philosophical thought and literature." In February 1840 they took their master's examinations and passed them "brilliantly."5 To re­ ceive their degrees they needed to complete their dissertations and defend them in public. Konstantin's dissertation, entitled "Lomonosov in the History of Russian Literature and the Russian Lan­ guage," was a study of the renowned Russian scientist, artist, and writer of the mid-eighteenth century. Samarin's thesis dealt with two well-known Russian clerics of the reign of Peter the Great, Stephen Iavorsky and Theophan Prokopovich, both Ukrainians, well edu­ cated and Orthodox, although not untouched by the Western confes­ sions. At the same time, both Samarin and Konstantin were under the spell of Hegel, whose aesthetics concerned them directly as part of their postgraduate studies. This was the functional aspect of their Hegelianism, but, as Ivan Aksakov has told us, they also had a grand design and a dream: to erect "on the basis of Hegelian principles a whole system of a sort of 'phenomenology' of the Russian national spirit with its history, national phenomena, and even Orthodoxy." As late as 1846, when Konstantin finally finished his dissertation, several years after he securely embraced the Slavophil cause, its first part bore the unmistakable marks of "the scheme of Hegelian phi­ losophy" and the "well-known formula of the absolute, double ne4 Husskii 5 Ibid.,

arkhiv, 1873, no. 12, pp. 2508-2529; 1879, no. 11, pp. 301-304. 1879, no. 11, pp. 301-302.

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82

gation."6 Other leftovers from his Hegelianism, particularly the ter­ minology and jargon, persisted even longer. Hegel and Hegelianism were of course familiar to Konstantin be­ fore he began reading with Samarin in 1839, yet many years later Ivan Aksakov vividly recalled the enthusiasm of his older brother and his new friend. Having recently had a glimpse into the national life and spirit of their country, they found Hegel's intriguing but little-known world of reason full of promise. Reason and intuition in Konstantin's case became fused, and what the Hegelian dialectic did not sanction or explain, imagination and pride in the indigenous and national supplied in increasingly large measure. From concern for the historical and true character of Russian life and culture the two graduate students easily passed into the realm of the family of nations and proposed to seek out Russia's place in the larger world. This is how they came to aspire to "the phenomenology of the Rus­ sian spirit." In the end, this emerged as a concern for the philosophy of history, for the vital necessity of national self-knowledge and selfconsciousness—concerns which, as we know, agitated the minds of many of the generation of the Decembrists and the men of the thirties alike. This was the singular character of the Russian problem: that it was at once theoretical, speculative, and ideologically pressing, and therefore of the utmost urgency. Konstantin and Samarin were not entirely clear about all the points in this outline or all their implications at this early stage, but they seem to have had a strong notion of the importance of the overall problem. For Samarin, giving up Hegel, as indeed he was soon com­ pelled by circumstances to do, was no simple matter. For Konstantin, his brother says, the decision was easier. This was so because of Konstantin's family environment and his intellectual and emotional makeup. In his friendship with Samarin, in its early stages, "thought and propaganda, creative thinking and the passionate attitude toward it, the zeal of the sermon belonged actually to K. S. Aksakov. He was not only a philosopher, but still more a poet... and even his scholarly researches seem to be preceded by some sort of artistic revelation." His convictions, Ivan further says, did not remain just that but "pen­ etrated the very nooks and crannies of his moral being, passed over immediately into his life, his work, or, in the case of limitations on 'action,' into an unceasing, ubiquitous sermon."7 Konstantin's passionate enthusiasms and his "flaming speeches" (Ivan says that he spoke much better than he wrote, a view also held by Gogol') were well known in the Moscow literary salons of the 6 Ibid., 7 1.

p. 301; K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, II, part I, p. xi. S. Aksakov, Husskii arkhiv, 1879, no. 11, p. 302.

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1840's and won him the reputation of a "crank," a "fanatic," a man of "extremes," and an "idealist"—the last appellation in Ivan's opin­ ion being well justified.8 The idealism was leading Konstantin stead­ ily toward Slavophilism and the glorification of the narod. Before he reached that point, however, his passion for Gogol' brought him more unflattering attention, including a strong dose of Belinsky's sarcasm. We have seen that the winter of 1839-1840 and the following spring were a time of particularly close relations between Gogol' and the Aksakovs, and between Gogol' and Elagina's family. Gogol', usually secretive about his writing, read chapters of Dead Souls and other works at both the Aksakov and Elagina salons. One of these occasions was at Konstantin's birthday celebration on March 29. Sergei Aksakov described the event in a letter to Ivan and Grigorii a few days later: "For Kostia's birthday Gogol' read a portion of a new comedy, the name of which we do not know. This was a gift, the only one of its kind in the world." Gogol' even unbent to the extent of playing dominoes with Vera and Konstantin.9 Gogol's name day, May 9, was another occasion for celebration. The party was held at Pogodin's. Konstantin was one of the guests and saw to it that Samarin was brought to Gogol's attention. This was the sort of favor and honor for which the youthful Samarin felt in debt both to his friend and to the highly esteemed writer, for until then Gogol' had not taken much notice of him. The company was distinguished—A. I. Turgenev,10 Prince Viazemsky, Lermontov the poet, M. F. Orlov, M. A. Dmitriev, M. N. Zagoskin, and professors A. 0. Armfeld, P. G. Redkin, and others. In the evening, Elagina, E. A. Sverbeeva, Ε. M. Khomiakova, and other ladies came to tea.11 A week after this festive occasion Gogol', in the company of V. A. 8 A. Ia. Panaeva (Golovacheva) recalled in her Reminiscences a visit to the Aksakovs in Moscow in the summer of 1839, when she was a shy nineteen-year-old girl. "I liked [Konstantin] Aksakov from the beginning," she says. "His face was marked by such an open expression, such simplicity of manner that my shyness disappeared. Aksakov was a tall, broad-shouldered young man, his chestnut hair lightly curled. One would not say that he was handsome, but better than any external beauty his face reflected qualities of heart and soul." Without explanation she adds, "It would have been difficult to find greater similarity between Aksakov the son and his father than that which I found." A. Ia. Panaeva [Golovacheva], Vospominaniia (Moscow, 1972), pp. 72-73. 'Gogol', "Neizdannaia perepiska," pp. 586-587; S. T. Aksakov, Sochineniia, III, 185, 189, letter of April 2, 1840. 10 The personality and accomplishments of this "ambassador of Russian Culture" to the West have recently been brilliantly sketched by Gleb Struve, "Alexander Turgenev, Ambassador of Russian Culture in Partibus Iirfidelium," Slavic fleview, 1970, no. 3 pp. 444-459. 11 S. T. Aksakov, Sochineniia, III, 186.

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Panov, left for Rome. Serious consideration was apparently given to Konstantin's accompanying Gogol'; at any rate, Gogol' expected to see him soon in Italy. This trip never materialized, probably in some measure because of the deaths not long thereafter of Sergei's brotherin-law, G. I. Kartashevsky, and then of his son Mikhail, only sixteen years old and a promising singer attached to the page corps in St. Petersburg. At the end of June 1840, Sergei and Konstantin made a rare visit to the trans-Volga family lands. The Aksakovs were sorry to lose Gogol' and puzzled that he should feel such a compulsion to leave Russia. They were not alone in their failure to understand Gogol's need to escape Russia in order to write about it. In fact, however, Gogol' was not unusual among Russians of that period in the intensity of his Russianness abroad—though few others had the genius to translate their thoughts about their homeland into art. In the eighteenth century, when the Russian gen­ try traveled to the West, they brought back French dress, books, manners, and language, to which many of them had been accustomed from childhood. But the generation of the Decembrists and later generations arrived home with a heightened and sometimes distorted love of Russia and the Russian.12 Konstantin Aksakov was excep­ tional only in his extreme attachment to Russia. For all his sincerity, spontaneity, and volubility in praising Germany and the Germans while he was in the West in 1838, he returned to Moscow a more ardent nationalist than before, and this attitude strengthened as the years passed. On December 28,1840, Gogol' wrote to Sergei Aksakov from Rome, mixing bad news with good. He had been sick but had hopes of returning to Russia. "I am now at work on the first volume of Dead Souls, undertaking a complete polishing," he said; "I now see that in time it could be something colossal if only my puny strength will permit it." He also spoke of his strong love for Russia and confessed that much that had formerly seemed to him "unpleasant and un­ bearable" now impressed him by its "paltriness and insignificance." And in an allusion to Konstantin, he added, "But when I think of you and the youth, so full of strength and every blessing, who is so attached to me, then I feel in this something sweet."13 Sergei Aksakov considered 1840 a turning point in Gogol's career, in part because it marked the start of "Gogol's constant endeavor to improve the spiritual man in himself" as well as the "preponder12 For a few examples of young Russians who, while abroad during the late twenties and early thirties, became more consciously pro-Russian, see Christoff, The Third Heart, pp. 109-118. 13 S. T. Aksakov, Sochineniia, III, 197.

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85

ance" in him of his "religious orientation." He attributed some of this direction to Konstantin: Without a doubt [Gogol's] stay in Moscow . . . his friendship with us, and particularly Konstantin's influence, who was con­ stantly explaining to Gogol' with all the ardor of his deep and sacred convictions the whole significance and the whole mean­ ing of the Russian people [narod], was the only reason for this [Gogol's strong feeling for Russia], I myself noticed many times the impression that he produced on Gogol' although the latter was assiduously hiding his inner agitation. In this letter alone [December 28, 1840] Gogol' for the first and last time expressed himself sincerely. Both before and after this letter he for the most part poked fun at the Russian people.14

Sergei found proof of Gogol's attitude toward "this Russian move­ ment then in the process of formation in Moscow, precisely in 1840," in "many" passages in Dead Souls. Gogol' returned to Moscow from Rome in October 1841, in a less mellow temper than his friends would have liked. The Aksakovs, their esteem of him heightened by the anticipation of the completed first volume of Dead Souls, welcomed him joyfully. But he was reticent and cranky, as Vera noted in a letter to Ivan some weeks later: "Gogol' calls on us often, but he is very dissatisfied if we say anything about this to anyone. He invariably demands that we lie." In another letter, of December 25, she told Mariia Kartashevskaia that "the first volume of Dead Souls is finished, it seems," and added the warning that whatever she said about Gogol' must be kept strictly confidential.15 Publishing a book during the reign of Nicholas I was not a simple matter, and Gogol's troubles seemed endless. Elagina wrote to Zhukovsky on January 23, 1842: "Gogol' is here. He is again sick and melancholy. He wishes to publish his novel but the censorship did not pass Dead Souls because the soul is immortal."16 But Gogol' had many friends in Moscow, including the Koshelevs and the Khomiakovs besides the Aksakovs and the Elagins, and at last, in the third week of May, the first copies of his "poem" were in his hands.17 14 Ibid.,

pp. 198-199. "Neizdannaia perepiska," p. 610. 16 Ibid., p. 611. 17 The word poema appears in capital letters on the cover of the first edition as designed by Gogol' himself. He wished the work to be regarded as an epic. One of the first copies went almost immediately to Khomiakov, whose wife wrote on May 21 to her brother: "Yesterday was Aleksei Stepanovich's name day. Gogol' presented him 15 Gogol',

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For the Aksakovs, particularly Konstantin, the joy of seeing Dead Souls in print was dimmed only by Gogol's poor health and by his plans for leaving, once again, for Rome. Gogol's departure seemed timed so that he might escape the critics, favorable or unfavorable. Only a few days after the book was out he left Moscow for St. Pe­ tersburg, and on June 5 he departed for Rome.18 Konstantin was "very distressed," his father says, "and passionately tried to convince Go­ gol' not to go." This was done in the name of a misconceived patri­ otism and loyalty to Moscow. Sergei was reconciled with Gogol's decision, but only after "Gogol' promised, for the 'third' time, that in two years the second volume of Dead Souls would be ready."19 AN ACCIDENTAL EFFECT of the publication of Dead Souls had been to bring closer together the four men who, within the next few years, were to be allied, so to speak, as Moscow Slavophils—Khomiakov, Ivan Kireevsky, Konstantin Aksakov, and Samarin. Before Slavo­ philism, there would be strains and stresses—including Samarin's breaking away from Aksakov's direction—as literary interests be­ came subordinated to philosophical, religious, and ideological is­ sues. Even as late as the winter of 1844-1845, when Slavophils and Westerners finally parted ways in bitterness and recrimination, Sla­ vophilism was more a premonition than a doctrine. Khomiakov's teaching of sobornost', Kireevsky's "wholeness of the spirit" doc­ trine, and Konstantin Aksakov's "choric" principle, together with the communal principle and other elements of a more mature Slawith Dead Souls, the most pleasant of gifts." Konstantin Aksakov's name day fell on May 21, and Gogol' honored him, too, with a copy of Dead Souls, and he left another copy inscribed "To my friends, the whole Aksakov family." Ibid., pp. 620-621; S. T. Aksakov, Sochineniia, III, 218-219. 18 Relations between Gogol' and Pogodin had grown so bad during the winter and spring that they were now not even on speaking terms though in the same house. One of the reasons for this was Gogol's refusal to contribute to Pogodin's Moskvitianin as Pogodin had expected. A year later Pogodin wrote to Gogol', "When you closed the door leaving [my home] I made the sign of the cross and sighed with relief as if a mountain had been removed from my shoulders." Gogol' retorted: "The same weight that you felt from my presence I felt from yours. I wrenched myself from the house on Virgin's Field as from a long, dark imprisonment. You were frightful for me. It seemed to me that in you resided the spirit of darkness, negation, confusion, doubt, fear. Your very countenance, anxious and dark, brought despondency to my soul." This letter of Gogol's, found in the Aksakov family archives, was never delivered to Pogodin. V. I. Shenrok, ed., "Nikolai Vasil'evich Gogol' ν neizdannykn ego pis'makh, a takzhe ν pis'makh ego druz'ei 1841-1844," Russkaia starina, 1890, no. 2, pp. 411418 (hereafter cited as Gogol', Pis'ma). See also S. T. Aksakov, Sochineniia, III, 208213; Barsukov, Pogodin, VI, 295. " S. T. Aksakov, Sochineniia, III, 215-219.

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vophilism, were yet to be given clear form and content. However, on two major fronts, the literary and psychological, it had already scored well. By this I do not mean to imply that the Slavophils had any claim on the creative work of Gogol', or on Pushkin or Lermontov, whose literary imprint was well in evidence by 1842. But I do suggest that the Slavophils were justified in insisting on the ob­ vious—a fact that was often lost sight of during the ideological po­ lemics. Russians could create great literature as Russians, writing from within and giving expression to the life of a great nation, even though the nation lagged behind the West and did not live in freedom and harmony. On this master-question the Slavophils were asking no more for the Russian writer than what other nationalities assumed to be their birthright—that is, the prerogative of a French writer, for example, to write as a Frenchman, or an English writer to write as an Englishman. The earliest dates for a number of Slavophil family relationships are difficult to determine, and they are perhaps not of great impor­ tance, but a few guidelines might establish a simple chronology and a degree of clarity. Aside from Samarin, Khomiakov, and Ivan Kireevsky, who met in 1840, all knew one another in the 1830's. Sergei Aksakov knew of Ivan Kireevsky in 1832 and of Kireevsky's family probably earlier. He was acquainted with Khomiakov before 1838. We know that Khomiakov took up what he considered to be Chaadaev's public challenge after 1836, and that by 1839 he and Ivan Kireevsky had "discovered" the communal principle and were be­ ginning to make of it one of the pillars of Slavophilism. In the same year Konstantin Aksakov and Samarin drew closer together, shaking off what they regarded as efforts by Khomiakov and particularly Kireevsky to separate them. Samarin's published correspondence for the years 1840-1845 con­ tains sixty-one letters and notes to Konstantin, one to Khomiakov, and none to Kireevsky. His relationship with Khomiakov was closer and his contacts more frequent than this count indicates, but his sentiments toward Kireevsky were cool. In particular, Khomiakov challenged Samarin's notion of approaching Orthodoxy through He­ gelian philosophy—the problem of the so-called "developing" (razvivaiushchiesia) church. Konstantin seems to have had only a pass­ ing interest in this line of thought. In 1842 he dedicated a poem to Samarin ("To the Idea") under the epigraph, "Es existiert nichts als Idee," but his Hegelian phase was already on the wane.20 Referring to this period many years later, Ivan Aksakov contrasted 20 I. S. Aksakov, Russkii arkhiv, 1879, no. 11, p. 304; Mashinsky, Poety, pp. 378379.

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the reactions of Konstantin and Iurii Samarin to the ideas and per­ sonalities of the two older Slavophils. Recognizing Khomiakov's in­ fluence, almost to the complete exclusion of Kireevsky's, he stated that in Konstantin "liberation from the chains of Hegel occurred without a particular inner struggle, as if Hegel drowned in his [Konstantin's] love for the Russian people." Here once again one en­ counters in Konstantin a duality and an ambiguity. During the sum­ mer of 1838, the more his stay in Germany fed his admiration of German poetry and culture, the more impatient he became to return to Mother Russia, and so he cut short his excursion abroad to not even half a year. The more he and Samarin penetrated into Hegelianism at the turn of the 1830's, paradoxically, the more he seemed to be drawn into his dream world of the Russian people, the narod. Certain marginal aspects of his Hegelianism still lingered, particu­ larly the terminology, even in his unquestionably Slavophil writings, but it was essentially subordinate at an early date. In 1842 he thought nothing existed except "the Idea." Ten years later Ivan quotes him as saying: "At that time I was carried away by German philosophy, which, however, did not at all overshadow the cause of the people [zemskoe delo], in the service of which I wished to place philosophy and for which I eventually sacrificed it. This sacrifice was legitimate. It would be more accurate if I said that the living voice of the people liberated me from the abstractness of philosophy. My thanks to it."21 By 1842 Belinsky, too, had abandoned Hegel, German idealism, and philosophy in the name of service to the Russian people, but he was moving quickly in the direction of humanistic socialism. Konstantin's move toward Slavophilism and Orthodox communality took longer, but it was no less resolute than Belinsky's move in the other direction. As they abandoned the level of philosophy for that of ideology, it became apparent that a clash was inevitable, and it came in the summer of 1842. Gogol', though far removed from the scene, found himself distressingly embroiled. On the surface it was a literary dispute, but basically it was a conflict of personalities and convictions. It could not be otherwise when Belinsky met the "Be­ linsky of the Slavophils" on the field of ideology. The controversy this time was over the literary merit of Dead Souls and Gogol's greatness. In 1835, it will be recalled, Belinsky spoke of "Taras Bul'ba" as a modern Homeric epic, similar to the Iliad in its reflection of the life of a heroic period. The comparison was no doubt exaggerated. But few critics would have challenged the general opinion that the publication of Dead Souls in 1842, and The In21

Russkii arkhiv, 1879, no. 11, p. 304.

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spector General earlier, had enhanced Gogol's reputation. When Konstantin Aksakov made the same extravagant claims for Dead Souls that Belinsky had made for Gogol's early work, however, Belinsky took immediate exception, and a harsh polemic ensued. Al­ though Belinsky had undergone some deep-seated ideological changes between 1835 and 1842, his change of mind about Gogol' is difficult to account for except as a consequence of his rigid adherence to theory and his antagonism toward Aksakov. Konstantin apparently contemplated a review of Dead Souls for some months before the book went on sale. At the end of May, when the first copies were out, he wrote to Samarin, "A whole essay is taking form in my head. Perhaps I shall write it, and maybe even publish it."22 By the end of June the review was finished. Confidently, Konstantin submitted it to his former mentor, Pogodin, not doubting that it would appear in the Moskvitianin.23 But on July 5 Sergei wrote to Gogol', "Yesterday Konstantin received a letter from Pogodin, who refuses to publish his article about Dead Souls despite the fact that it has already been set in type.24 Konstantin, though disappointed by the Moskvitianin's refusal, was determined to publish the article, on his own if necessary. In this he had the support of Samarin and Khomiakov and, of course, his father, who was quite capable of uncritically accepting his son's views. Full of paternal pride, he had already written to Gogol' (July 3): "I solemnly acknowledge the superiority of my Konstantin's aes­ thetic sense. He understood you better than I, better than all others so far as I know, from your earlier works." Sergei was aware of the esteem in which Gogol' was held by the Stankevich circle, by Sergei's younger sons and daughter Vera, and by his niece, Mariia Kartashevskaia. He assured Gogol' that "the young generation of educated youth almost without exception . . . understands you more com­ pletely than people forty or fifty years old." He was so proud of 22 Gogol',

"Neizdannaia perepiska," p. 624. Moskvitianin, which began publication in 1841, was never a Slavophil jour­ nal, not even early in 1845, when for a few months Ivan Kireevsky became its editor; but it did occasionally publish contributions from the Slavophils, who were never successful in obtaining permission from the government of Nicholas I to publish a journal of their own. 24 This was apparently true. As Sergei explained in his reminiscences, "Konstantin's article . . . was accepted by Pogodin without any objection, but he was dissuaded by Shevyrev." What Sergei did not know, it seems, was that Gogol' had already asked Shevyrev, co-publisher of the Moskvitianin, to review Dead SouJs. Shevyrev (born 1806) was a professor of literature and scornful of philosophy. He was an important figure in literary circles and perhaps for this reason was not much liked by the men of the thirties. S. T. Aksakov, Sochineniia, III, 229, 231. 23 The

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Masha's literary taste that he sent Gogol' an excerpt from a letter of hers of June 6, 1842.25 Konstantin's article was published the following month as a sep­ arate pamphlet (in Vengerov's edition of 1912 it is thirteen pages long). Reading it, one can only sympathize with Gogol's desire that someone other than Konstantin should review his work. Nor is it completely surprising that Pogodin saw fit to reject it. As Ivan said, one should not expect a cool, scholarly approach from Konstantin. This review of Dead Souls hears no resemblance to a balanced critical appraisal but is simply a series of observations and opinions. It is full of hyperbole, the main point being Konstantin's favorite com­ parison of Gogol' with Homer and Shakespeare, though here he in­ sists on the rather slippery equating of the three on the basis of his well-known "act of creation" notion, a legacy from German aes­ thetics. He denies that he is "completely" elevating Gogol' to the position of Homer and Shakespeare and repeats that "with respect to the act of creation, with respect to the fullness of creation itself of Homer and Shakespeare, and with only Homer and Shakespeare, do we classify Gogol'."26 Belinsky, in his review of Gogol's "poem" in Notes of the Father­ land, was generally warm and enthusiastic, but essentially praised Dead Souls as a Russian work without value or appeal outside Russia. He was quick to take issue with Konstantin's elevation of Gogol' to the status of Homer (forgetting his own similar claims of a few years back). However Konstantin might qualify his Homerization, "with respect to creation and not content," he could not erase the general impression that he was relegating "Dante, Cervantes, Sir Walter Scott, Cooper, Byron, Schiller, Goethe" to a level below Gogol', and Belinsky wished to know why.27 25 "TodaywefinishedreadingDead Souls. My God, what perfection! I cannot convey to you how much I was struck by the reading of this poem! How was it possible to create all the characters of the novel with such perfection, and in the midst of such vulgarity and colorless insignificance delineate everyone with such sharp distinguish­ ing characteristics. What conversations! and what charming places everywhere when the author speaks for himself. . . . It seems to me that only after this work I am beginning fully to understand who Gogol' really is, and what a talent he possesses." Ibid., pp. 227, 233. 26 Vengerov, Konstantin Aksakov, p. 118; K. S. Aksakov, Neskoi'ko si ο ν ο poeme Gogolia "Pokhozhdeniiα Chichikova" ili "Mertvyia Dushi," pp. 226-227. 27 Belinsky, Sochineniia, II, 333-334. The controversy aroused by Aksakov's review of Dead Souls resulted in two printed replies by Belinsky and a ten-page rebuttal by Konstantin, this time published in the Moskvitianin. Belinsky's two replies, "Several Words about Gogol's Poem: The Adventures of Chichikov or Dead Souls" (Neskoi'ko slov ο poeme Gogolia: "Pokhozhdeniia Chichikova ili Mertvyia dushi"), and "Expla­ nation of the Explanation in Regard to Gogol's Poem Dead Souls" (Obiasnenie no

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Now Belinsky argued that Gogol' had more in common with Sir Walter Scott than with Homer and Shakespeare. As usual, the heat of the polemic overpowered reasoned judgment. Whereas Konstantin rated Gogol' ridiculously high, Belinsky placed him ridiculously low when he insisted the Dead Souls had meaning only for his fellow countrymen and that "Gogol' is a great Russian poet, no more."28 In his judgment of Gogol's place in literature in 1842 Belinsky was as unimaginative and cautious as Konstantin was bold and extravagant. Belinsky was perhaps unaware that in 1839 Mirgorod was being translated into German and that Sainte-Beuve and Merimee were taking due note of Gogol's achievements. Time and historical perspective have answered the question of Gogol's literary significance. His place seems assured, and as one recent interpreter of Belinsky's works has remarked, "Today it would seem that the naive Aksakov was more right than the 'sensible' Belinsky."29 Belinsky's lack of faith that Gogol's, Pushkin's, or any Russian's literary work in the early 1840's could be of more than purely national import, or more than provincial, was not a mere quirk. In the first reply to Aksakov's review, Belinsky declares that he is glad the time has passed when "every piece of foreign trash easily passed for a work of genius in holy Rus' while Russia's own, even though distinguished as highly talented, was despised only because it was Russian."30 Still, he could not rid himself of the pain of Russia's cultural backwardness. Having learned from Hegel's phi­ losophy of history the theory of "historical" and "ahistorical" na­ tions, he became convinced that the Russians, particularly before Peter I, were an "ahistorical" people. This Chaadaev-Iike skepticism was reinforced by another Hegelian notion, derived from his aes­ thetics, that the epos was possible only if "the epic condition of the world" existed as the essential precondition.31 Belinsky now, like obiasnenie po povodu poemy Gogolia "Mertvyia dushi"), were published in Oiechestvennye zapiski, 1842, no. 8, pp. 46-51, and no. 11, pp. 13-30 (see Belinsky, Sochineniia, II, 294-301, 320-342). Aksakov's reply to the first of these pieces was his "Explanation" (Obiasnenie), which appeared in the Moskvitianin, 1842, no. 9, pp. 202-229. On the "act of creation" problem and the degree of agreement between Aksakov and Belinsky, and on Apollon Grigor'ev's agreement with Aksakov on the comparison of Gogol' and Shakespeare, see V. Kozhinov's article, "K metodologii istorii russkoi literatury (o realizme 30-kh godov XIX veka)," Voprosy literatury, 1968, no. 5, pp. 74-77 (more on this in Chapter 15). 28 Belinsky, Sochineniia, II, 300. 29 Terras, Belinskij and Russian Literary Criticism, p. 63. 30 Belinsky, Sochineniia, II, 330. 31 See Terras, Belinskij, p. 62.

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other Westerners, was convinced that Russia was not ready for the epos.

What stood in the way of Belinsky's clear vision in 1842 was excessive devotion to theory and surrender to schematic construc­ tions and overpowering authority. Dostoevsky's first novel, Poor Folks, was published in 1846, and Ivan Turgenev, whom Belinsky met in early 1843, did not begin to achieve distinction in his true medium, prose, until 1847, the year before Belinsky died. One cannot conclude, therefore, that Belinsky had truly had an opportunity to determine their place and significance in the world's literature. But one can be fairly certain that had he applied the same Westerners' standards to their work as he did to Gogol's, he would have judged them, too, to be of only local, Russian significance. Ironically, in the Belinsky-Aksakov polemics about Gogol' and Dead Souls, which was an extension of the deeper ideological part­ ing, Belinsky had Shevyrev on his side. Shevyrev, who taught Rus­ sian literature at the University of Moscow, was a close friend of Pogodin and a collaborator on the Moskvitianin. Belinsky had no use for the Moskvitianin or its publishers and would not have so­ licited their support, but their ideas about Aksakov's review had a certain coincidence with his own, and to some extent with Gogol's.32 Gogol' thus found himself between Shevyrev and Konstantin, and the center of a heated controversy. Shevyrev gleefully reported to Pogodin "the general guffaws of those who read Konstantin Aksa­ kov's pamphlet," with the further comment that "even those who are on his side were-a retaliation for his pride. He completely shamed himself! Even Belinsky told him off in Notes of the Fatherland." Alexander Herzen, recently back in Moscow after his yearlong exile in Novgorod, recorded in his diary the extreme reactions to Dead Souls and his own moderate views. He thought it neither "an apoth­ eosis of Russia, as our Iliad," nor an "anathema for Russia," and concluded, "to see an apotheosis is ridiculous; to see an anathema is unfair."33 Besides Samarin, Konstantin had the support of Khomiakov. Vera 32 Gogol' was ambivalent about the adulation he got from the Aksakovs, and fur­ thermore he wanted to be well reviewed by what he considered to be the right people. Shortly after the publication of the book, on his way to Rome, he wrote to Shevyrev from Gastein, "It would be a sin if you do not write a critique of Dead Souls. There is scarcely anyone except you who could truthfully and properly appreciate it." After Shevyrev published not one but two reviews, Gogol' thanked him, saying that the reviews "in addition to their great virtues and significance for our public are very beneficial for me personally." Barsukov, Pogodin, VI, 296-297. 33Quoted in ibid., p. 298; Herzen, Sochineniia, II, 220.

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Aksakova noted, "Khomiakov agrees with Konstantin on every­ thing," and Ivan Aksakov quotes Khomiakov as having said to Konstantin (in a general way), "I am in greater agreement with you than you yourself."34 Sometime in the autumn of 1842, Konstantin wrote to Gogol': "When I began to talk about Dead Souls, I found that Khomiakov and Samarin agreed with me. . . . I said to Khomiakov that I wanted to write about Dead Souls, and he advised me to do so."35 Ivan Kireevsky, whose relationship with Samarin and Konstantin was still cool, was somewhat critical. Like the other Slavophils, he had early recognized and appreciated Gogol's genius, but he had reservations. He seems to have concurred with Elagina's opinion of Konstantin's review. On September 23,1842, Elagina wrote to Popov: "Aksakov's pamphlet about Gogol' is thundering. His poem has been raised to heaven and compared with Shakespeare and Homer. This would have been all right as an opinion, but it is not expressed elegantly." Three months later she added, "Dead Souls has driven him crazy and he will not even associate with people who do not glorify it."36 Elagina's criticism of Konstantin for his fanaticism and his conviction that he alone spoke the truth was similar to Gogol's own feelings about his young admirer. Some three years later, Kireevsky, with the memory of the final break between Slavophils and Westerners vivid in his mind, took a strong pro-Slavophil view of Gogol's work, but on its possible world significance he seemed closer to Belinsky's view than to Aksakov's. Gogol' was a "new, great" force in Russian letters which could have "incalculable results" and could produce a "veritable revolution in our literature" since he had working for him "the power of Russian nationality [narodnost']." Russian literature, he said, had "lost con­ tact with the life of the people," but Gogol' could reunite them. He was a national poet, not because most of his themes were taken from Russian life and not because the people could read him, but because in the "depth of his soul" there were "sounds," in his words there were "shades," and in his imagination "images" which were "ex­ clusively characteristic of the Russian people, of this fresh, profound people who have not yet lost their personality in imitation of the foreign." Kireevsky more or less concurred with Belinsky—but for different reasons—in thinking that Gogol's works could not be trans34 Gogol', "Neizdannaia perepiska," p. 612; I. S. Aksakov, Russkii arkhiv, 1879, no. 11, p. 304. 35 S. T. Aksakov, Sochineniia, III, 248. 36 P. I. Bartenev, ed., "Pis'ma k A. N. Popovu (1840-1860)," Russkii arkhiv, 1886, no. 3, pp. 336-337.

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lated into foreign languages; he thought that if translations were possible, "even the most highly educated foreigner would not be able to comprehend more than half of his beauty." He also thought that the originality of Gogol's creativeness even more than the genius of his works would leave a profound mark on Russian literature.37 Early in 1845, when Kireevsky made this assessment of Gogol's work, the Slavophils, in some disarray, were in the last throes of their bitter encounter with the Westerners. Kireevsky had just taken over Pogodin's Moskvitianin in what was to be a short-lived effort to make it a Slavophil journal, which if properly used could have been a valuable propaganda organ against the Westerners. Would the Slavophils have welcomed Gogol' in their camp? The answer ob­ viously is yes—then or at any time. And they did their best to bring him to their side. Konstantin Aksakov tried impassioned propa­ ganda; the Elagina and Khomiakov families tried more subtle per­ suasion. Spiritually as well as intellectually, Gogol' was perhaps closer to the Slavophils than to the Westerners. As he remarked on one occasion, "Of course the truth is more on the side of the Slavianists and Easterners because . . . they see the whole facade and consequently they talk about the main thing and not the parts."38 His social and personal contacts and friendships, too, inclined him to­ ward the Slavophils, but he resisted pressures from both sides. He was engrossed in literary problems that were often broader, and deeper, than the ideological conflict of the mid-forties, and at the same time more narrowly didactic whenever aesthetic concerns did not overshadow them. The Slavophils, absorbed in their own concerns, showed a certain obtuseness in not realizing that they were making Gogol's stay in Moscow unpleasant. Gogol' complained to Smirnova about them.39 371.

V. Kireevsky, Poinoe sobranie sochinenii, II, 122-123. Durylin, "Gogol' i Aksakovy," p. 327. 59 "On my arrival in Russia they met me with open arms. They were all busy with literary matters—one with a journal; another, having passionately embraced a favorite idea and seeing other people as his opponents, confidently expected me to share his ideas, support his defense against others, and considered this the primary condition and act of friendship without suspecting that such demands were even inhuman. But it was impossible for me to sacrifice my time and effort in support of their favorite ideas. In the first place, 1 did not fully share their thoughts; in the second, I needed somehow to eke out a living, and I could not sacrifice my articles by publishing them in their journals. I had to publish them separately while they were new and fresh in order to have some income." Barsukov, Pogodin, VI, 295. Pogodin, though generous in his hospitality to Gogol', seemed to take it as a matter of course that Gogol' would in turn give him contributions for the Moskvitianin, and he infuriated Gogol' by his suggestion that a chapter of Dead Souls should appear in the journal prior to the book's publication. Ibid., pp. 295-296; Troyat, Gogol, pp. 255-256. 38

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The Aksakovs were not completely insensitive to Gogol's financial needs, as we have seen. But it is highly ironic that Konstantin, who bitterly resented Gogol's long absences from Moscow and Russia, often, if unintentionally, helped make his Moscow visits difficult, even painful. Particularly after 1842 he had no excuse for not know­ ing Gogol's thoughts on this matter, since Gogol' wrote to him with stinging clarity and directness: I cannot forgive you for having cooled my love for Moscow. Yes, up to my present arrival in Moscow [1842] I loved it so, but you succeeded in making ridiculous the most sacred object. Talking incessantly about one and the same thing... you were not aware of how you cooled the most sacred feeling instead of revitalizing it. It was painful for me to see the extent of your excess, and how people laughed at it. . . . But you are proud. ... You are ready to repeat twenty times that you are impartial, that you are not carried away by anything, that everything you say is pure truth. You are firmly convinced that you stand on the highest level of reason. . . . Shake off the barrenness and emptiness of your life! There is a great career ahead of you, but you are nap­ ping at an old woman's spinning wheel.40 Gogol' had his full share of vanity, but the Aksakovs' excess of praise was making him uncomfortable. Particularly after the ap­ pearance of Konstantin's review, he counseled moderation. The re­ view caused Gogol' embarrassment and notoriety, yet he was not entirely blameless, for in reading the manuscript at the Aksakovs' he had given Konstantin indirect encouragement, knowing well that he could not control Konstantin's reactions. For instance, early in August 1842 he wrote to Sergei from Gastein, "I was convinced that Konst[antin] Ser[geevich] would more profoundly and earlier un­ derstand the poem, and that his critique would precisely define its meaning." Whether it was a premonition or advance news of the reaction to Konstantin's review, he added, "But on the other hand I feel in absentia that Pogodin was partly right in not publishing it despite the unfairness of this decision."41 Konstantin did not offer his review for sale, and as he told Gogol', "gave it only to those I knew." Gogol' received his copy in Rome in the autumn of 1842, and a letter explaining that it had been written in a hurry, "perhaps not clearly," and that "many—almost all—at­ tacked it, misrepresenting the thoughts expressed in it." Konstantin 40 Gogol', 1

Pis'ma, p. 409. S. T. Aksakov, Sochineniia, III, 239-240.

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singled out Belinsky by name as one who "intentionally or uninten­ tionally mutilated my words."42 Gogol's response was tolerant: "In your published pamphlet," he wrote Konstantin, "and do not be angry, there is much inexcusable youthfulness."43 Gogol' was dismayed as news of the reaction to the pamphlet filtered through. He felt that he must do one of two things: denounce Konstantin and sever relations with the Aksakovs, or continue to counsel moderation. Knowing that Sergei was more mature in judg­ ment than his son, he took the second course. A letter that Sergei Aksakov dates to January 1843 cautioned him to lower his voice: "Do not praise me to others, or at least as little as possible. I saw with fear in your letter that you consider me as something on the order of holiness and perfection. For God's sake do not think this; it is a sin. I feel in my soul a striving for this, but do you hear what a frightful space there is between endeavor and achievement."44 On March 18 he took the matter up again, urging moderation and restraint.45 Later, Sergei admitted that the appearance of the review was poorly timed, though he denounced as "complete untruth" the general claim that Konstantin had "called Gogol' Homer." Those who did not like Gogol' took it as a pretext to attack Dead Souls, he said; the "hidden malice against Gogol' poured first upon the author of the pamphlet and then on the creator of the poem. In this respect Gogol' was completely right: the pamphlet caused him much harm."46 Konstantin's review of Dead Souls did tend to solidify the new Slavophil orientation, and it had a similar effect on the Westerners' camp. Still smarting from Belinsky's criticism, Konstantin wrote to Samarin early in August 1842: "But you, it seems, do not know what 42 Ibid.,

p. 249. was put in a difficult position by the unfavorable reaction to his son's review. From Paris, on October 1, Pogodin wrote him sarcastically: "How sad I was to hear that Konstantin published his article about Gogol'! . . . Is it possible that you had so little literary confidence in me not to agree with me that the article was not fit for publication in its first form? Is it possible that I refused to publish it without a reason? Is it possible that I easily decided to send it back? Is it possible that I would not have been gladdened by every success of Konstantin's?" Barsukov, Pogodin, VI, 299-300. 44 S. T. Aksakov, Sochineniia, III, 250. 45 Ibid., p. 257. In May 1844, this time from Frankfurt, Gogol' found it necessary to repeat his caution to the Aksakovs: "I must reproach you about one thing, and that is of excess of passionate enthusiasm [uvlechenie] in everything." Ibid., p. 300. 46Ibid., pp. 232-233. 43 Sergei

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an infamous article Otechestvennye zapiski published about it. . . . I learned that Ketcher, therefore also Granovsky and others, is against me, and he is even in agreement with Belinsky. This was unpleasant for me, but it clarifies my relations with them and I am satisfied."47 Chaadaev, too, although in a class by himself in his strong pro-Catholic convictions, opposed the pro-Gogol' and pro-Dead Souls fac­ tion, as Konstantin had anticipated. This is established, but without details, in a letter Konstantin wrote to Samarin, in which he says that in regard to Dead Souls he could not agree with Chaadaev.48

At this date, of course, Slavophilism was still largely undefined, and those to whom the idea appealed welcomed suggestions and encouragement. Perhaps ironically, Gogol' himself, who only a few years later was to show his irritation at attempts to draw him to the Slavophil side, had encouraged Konstantin to follow the "Russian road" in 1841. Replying to a letter from Konstantin, Gogol' wrote: From it and... from the letters of Sergei Timofeevich to Pogodin, I heard ... that you have embarked on the straight Russian road. Thus our meeting became inevitable, even narrower and closer. . . . Oh, how much there is in us that needs to be deeply appre­ ciated. . . . You do not need to go now to Italy or . . . to Berlin. You now need [only to] labor, you simply need to make your hand glide over the paper. With rare warmth Gogol' added, "I wish very much that you could come to Germany so that we could return together in friendship to our fatherland hand in hand." This was perhaps a warning to Kon­ stantin not to surrender to German philosophy and Hegel. The only uncongenial note was Gogol's gentle hint that the Russians had an "implacable and dangerous enemy," laziness.49 This was neither the first nor the last time that Konstantin was warned by well-wishers against an enemy that he never completely conquered. But Gogol' did not take an extreme position on German philosophy and Hegel. In this same letter he told Konstantin that German thought could be harmful only if he yielded to it "one-sidedly"; otherwise it was all to the good, particularly if Konstantin were firmly on the "Russian road." This reassurance, from one whom he so greatly admired, stood Konstantin in good stead, although he hardly needed 47 Belinsky,

"Neizdannaia perepiska," p. 167. addition to the Westerners, Gogol's self-appointed defender and knight was doing battle against two other detractors, D. N. Sverbeev and the writer N. F. Pavlov. Neither was a Westerner. Gogol', "Neizdannaia perepiska," pp. 612, 624. 49 Gogol', Pis'ma, pp. 407-408. 48 In

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encouragement to believe in ideas that were dear to his heart; and Gogol's "Russian road" unquestionably falls into this category. Gogol's impatience with Konstantin in 1842 was no worse than Konstantin's with Gogol' five years later. But the Aksakovs and other friends and supporters of Gogol' continued to hope for the second and even third volumes of Dead Souls. And Konstantin, undaunted by the general reception of his review of the first volume, continued to see in Gogol' a personification of the Russian literary genius, and in his thematic choices indications of the "Russian road."

CHAPTER 6 SAMARIN AND THE RUSSIAN ROAD

FOR SOME YEARS before its publication and for some months follow­ ing, Gogol's Dead Souls was a topic of intense interest and discussion in Moscow salons, and served, as Gogol' had not planned, to divide Russian public opinion. It was by no means the first ideological cleavage of the period. As far back as the mid-thirties, Peter Kireevsky had opposed Chaadaev's pro-Western and pro-Catholic views. The publication of Chaadaev's first "Philosophical Letter" in 1836 brought Khomiakov firmly into opposition against Chaadaev, and by 1839 Ivan Kireevsky, too, had joined the pro-Russian side. At the same time, their views were given some positive content in the form of the communal principle, which the later, more mature theoretical Slavophilism heartily embraced, and which the tsar and his govern­ ment never ceased to mistrust. At the end of the 1830's Belinsky's departure from the old capital for the new soon became symbolic of his abandonment of an old conviction in favor of a new ideology. This move thrust Belinsky into his role as leader of the opposition to a rising Moscow Slavo­ philism. Thenceforth the Slavophils' staunchest adversary was nei­ ther the pro'Catholic Westernism of an isolated, solitary Chaadaev nor the moderate Westernism of an almost equally solitary Kavelin or Granovsky, whose following—despite Kavelin's ability and the strong impression of Granovsky's public lectures—was never large. Rather, it was the materialist, socialist Westernism of Herzen and Belinsky, whose impact on Russian society, particularly from the 1850's on, inspired vital and powerful ideological and political forces. During the summer and autumn of 1842, while the controversy about Dead Souls held center stage, within the newly forming Sla­ vophil camp a serious debate was going on. At its heart was the opposition of Khomiakov's Orthodox faith to Hegel and Hegelianism. The Aksakovs were firmly Orthodox. That is to say, for them, to be Russian was to be Orthodox. But for Sergei, Konstantin, and Ivan, Orthodoxy was perhaps more an acceptance of a traditional point of view than a matter of deep spiritual conviction and commitment

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or, as for Ol'ga Semenovna, firm belief in living Christian principles. Indeed, it was perhaps their unwavering acceptance of Orthodoxy that gave them the intellectual freedom to criticize and question it. Not that they were alike in their attitudes. Ivan, particularly in the 1850's and later, was increasingly anti-clerical, skeptical in partic­ ular of the state-dominated institution of the church and the rigidity of the hierarchy, and he often criticized the poor preparation of the priesthood. He even found some of the Protestant views of Vinet congenial. Sergei, too, was somewhat anti-clerical, as he was also at times anti-government. Far from being drawn to the anchorite or mystic way of life, like his friend Gogol' in his later years, Sergei delighted in the aspects of man's spirituality in the physical world— the theater, art and literature, and nature, of which he wrote so eloquently. Konstantin's early and all-absorbing interest in German poetry and philosophy was no less secular than his father's. When he, with Khomiakov's help, decided to abandon Hegelianism in the early forties, he chose in its stead neither another philosophy nor a mystical Orthodoxy but a simple, Sunday-school sort of Orthodoxy and the secular mystique of the ineffable narod. As Ivan observed in a passage already quoted, Konstantin, though "carried away" by German philosophy, never lost sight of the "cause of the people [zemskoe delo]," and it was to that cause that he eventually "sac­ rificed" philosophy.1 Though Samarin was firmly behind Konstantin in his unrestrained admiration for Gogol' and his great epic "poem," Dead Souls, agree­ ment on a literary matter did not preclude disagreement on other matters. The two friends met at salons, but they were already growing apart. Aksakov, neglecting Lomonosov, was preoccupied with Moscowphilism and eccentricities of Russian dress. Herzen, who with Chaadaev and other Westerners mingled with the pro-Slavophil gen­ try, commented acidly in his diary about Aksakov's growing Mus­ covite enthusiasm. In November 1842 he remarked that although he could not agree with either Ivan Kireevsky or Konstantin Aksakov, Kireevsky, who "believed in the Slav world," at least knew "the odiousness of the present," but as for Konstantin, there was nothing "so abominable as quietistic optimism." The following January he noticed among his ideological opponents not only Slavophils but also Russophiles—a reference to Konstantin, whom he further char­ acterized as "semi-Hegelian and semi-Orthodox." Besides Konstan1 1. S. Aksakov in Husskii arkhiv, 1879, no. 11, p. 304; see Chapter 5, pp. 82, 86, above.

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tin's "Hegelian formalism," Herzen also deplored his "doctrinaire view on marriage."2 In June 1844 Samarin successfully defended his master's thesis (Konstantin's was not even near completion). Samarin's plans to take a government position in St. Petersburg, on his father's urging, greatly displeased Konstantin, whose anti-government sentiments were bol­ stered by resentment of Samarin's growing self-assertiveness, and Konstantin seems to have deliberately missed Samarin's farewell party. For a Moscowphil like Konstantin, St. Petersburg was the very negation of all the presumed virtues of Moscow, but to others his attitude seemed childish. Ivan Aksakov, writing from Astrakhan on July 22, thought that Samarin would make an excellent diplomat if he should go into the foreign service. He was displeased that Kon­ stantin was not going to Moscow (from Abramtsevo) to bid Samarin goodbye. Sergei and Vera were equally loyal to Samarin; and their interest, along with Ivan's, helped to maintain the friendship, as did Samarin's almost total absence from Moscow during the next halfdozen years. Mere distance helped to bring the one-sided relation­ ship onto a more stable footing. Konstantin had for some time been appearing in public garbed in what he took to be Russian costume—a murmolka for the head, and for the body "something between an armiak and a zipun."3 His earlier single-minded campaign against the use of foreign tongues in Russia was supplemented by his objection, so pointedly made in the case of Gogol', against Russians traveling and staying abroad. These were not general Slavophil biases, and with the exception of Sergei, Kon­ stantin's idiosyncracies found little support. Samarin, for example, continued to write to his father in French. Khomiakov, though he occasionally wore a zipun and a murmolka, saw nothing wrong in taking his family on a trip to Western Europe in 1847, and Koshelev 2 Herzen sarcastically added that the "ultimate development of such a marriage would be when husband and wife who cannot endure each other fulfill their marriage obligations ex officio." In March 1844 he noted: "Aksakov will remain a noble person forever but he will never rise above his Moscowphilism." Three months later, re­ flecting on the Aksakov-Belinsky relationship, he made the observation that Belinsky could never agree with Aksakov, partly because "Aksakov has brought his Moscow madness ad absurdissimum." Again, in September 1844, Konstantin is "insane about Moscow," and in November, "boring from fanaticism about Moscowphilism." Herzen, Sochineniia, II, 60-62, 177, 245, 258, 354, 379, 390. 3 Vengerov considered Konstantin's headgear to be of Persian origin, whereas Dal' traced the murmolka or murmonka to Norway. Ushakov described the murmolka as a "fur or velvet hat with a flat crown." Originally the armiak was of Tatar material made of camel's wool. More commonly the word armiak stood for a heavy peasant caftan. The zipun was also a type of Russian peasant caftan.

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made three trips to the West within a period of four years (in 1848, 1849, and 1851), and others in later years. For the most part, the Slavophils, and the friends of the Aksakovs, looked on Konstantin's antics with amusement, mingled with some embarrassment. On being informed about his brother's display of proper "Russian" attire, Ivan commented (July 1, 1844): "And so Konstantin had a daguerreotype taken of himself in Russian costume; a true Moscovite with a Tatar name of Norman extraction in a cos­ tume of the seventeenth century made by a French tailor . .. I would very much like to see him. . . . Truthfully, I am seriously distressed by this." Three weeks later, more annoyed than amused, Ivan again asked his family: "What sort of impression did Konstantin's dress make on the peasants?"4 Ivan warned him of the harm that ridicule could bring to him and to the Slavophil cause. Such advice made Konstantin if anything even more determined to air his foibles. In a poem he advised his beloved not to appear in German finery but in a "stately native sarafan."5 Konstantin's immaturity on this matter and his indolence were particularly pronounced in the years 1843-1845, before he had come to terms with his later and more complete Slavophilism. His family showed concern. Ivan, though six years younger than Konstantin, often sounded like an elder brother, as in his birthday letter to Kon­ stantin and the family in March 1844: "Ah Konstantin, Konstantin! He is twenty-seven years old and his dissertation is not ready."6 The following July Ivan again tried to prod his brother. "Let him act in the sphere of scholarship, finish his dissertation, get a [university] chair, and study Russia, but not through Moscow alone," he wrote. Early in October 1845, Ivan complained that Konstantin was "un­ bearably lazy."7 Grigorii joined the family in prodding Konstantin into activity, but there seemed to be little that they could do. Only seldom and briefly did Sergei Timofeevich confide his worries to anyone, as for instance when in a letter to Gogol' (October 5,1845) he remarked laconically, "My Konstantin is crushing me; he is idle and severely in the dumps. 4I.

S. Aksakov, Pis'ma, I, 160, 173, 218. Aksakov, Stikhotvoreniia i poemy, ed. A. G. Dement'ev (Leningrad, 1960), p. 7. Gogol', having heard the news in Italy from Shevyrev, thought that Konstantin was making a fool of himself, while at home Smirnova, Belinsky, Herzen, I. S. Turgenev, Apollon Grigor'ev, Count Sollogub, and others joked and disparaged him. Vengerov, Konstantin Aksakov, pp. 38-39. 61. S. Aksakov, Pis'ma, I, 98; Vengerov, Konstantin Aksakov, p. 36. 71. S. Aksakov, Pis'ma, I, 169, 250. 5 Ivan

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This is between us."8 After the Aksakovs acquired the Abramtsevo property in 1843, they spent their summers at the estate and on occasion the winters as well. Abramtsevo, though beautifully in the country, was still close enough to Moscow for the family to remain informed about developments in the city. Life at Abramtsevo was pleasant and comfortable, as it was for all those in nineteenth-century Russia who had land, serfs, leisure, and social status. The tranquillity and rural charm of Abramtsevo are well described in the preface to Ivan Aksakov's letters from Astrakhan: [this] delightful nook is on the shores of the streamlet Vor . . . not very far from the Troitskii-Sergeivskii monastery. This estate combined everything necessary to satisfy Sergei Timofeevich's demands: delightful location, a comfortable old house in the midst of a beautiful park, a huge pond below the mill abundantly stocked with fish, good bathing in the river Vor, extensive forests abounding in mushrooms the gathering of which Sergei Timofeevich and his family performed in an artistic and ritualistic manner. . . . There Sergei Timofeevich, already half-blind, ded­ icated his old-age leisure to dictating to his daughters his rem­ iniscences of his youth. There were written: The Family Chron­ icle, The Reminiscence of Bagrov—the Grandson, Notes of the Rifle Hunter of Orenburg Guberniia, Notes on Angling.9 Sergei described the pleasant routine at Abramtsevo in a letter to Gogol' on November 22, 1845: We live in the village quietly, peacefully, and by ourselves. It is impossible to imagine how one could ever be bored here. . . . From the morning tea till breakfast and then till late dinner we are all busy with our work, with playing, painting, or reading. Konstantin is writing something while I dictate.... After dinner we continue all evening our common [family] reading. Every evening we read something of yours. . . . Yesterday we finished everything. In a few months we shall start over again.10 8 S.

T. Aksakov, Sochineniia, III, 322. S. Aksakov, Pis'ma, I, 40. Abramtsevo (illustration no. 7 ) still stands and is still beautiful, or was in the summer of 1969, when I visited it. After passing out of the Aksakov family in 1870, Abramtsevo became an artists' colony. The house has been preserved, it seems, as in the days of the Aksakovs, and the room in which Gogol' stayed on visits to Abramtsevo is marked. The sloping wooded grounds were still quiet and restful, and the pond on the river Vor, with its cool clear water, was as inviting for fishing and swimming in the summer of 1969 as in the 1840's and '50's. For S. I. Mamontov's purchase of Abramtsevo in 1870, see N. Pakhomov, Abramtsevo (Moscow, 1969), pp. 124-125. 10 S. T. Aksakov, Sochineniia, III, 324-326. 91.

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From time to time the undisturbed country routine was pleasantly varied by visits from friends—Gogol', Ivan Turgenev, Shchepkin, Khomiakov, Samarin, and others, upon whom the Aksakovs be­ stowed their hospitality as joyously as they did in Moscow. For Konstantin Abramtsevo was the epitome of the "nobleman's nest." It assured him the physical and emotional security that he needed and gave him a measure of stimulus for literary and intel­ lectual pursuits. He began to work seriously on his thesis, writing to Pogodin July 1,1844:"I am studying, and like Don Pedro will not shave off my beard until I finish my dissertation."11 By the end of the year Konstantin had commenced the final copy­ ing. Gogol' was skeptical of its probable merit. In a letter to Sergei (written in December 1845 from Frankfurt) he advised Konstantin to put aside his dissertation "for several years." Everyone, Gogol' wrote, "beginning with Pogodin . . . has said that he should give his attention to philological work, for which God has endowed him with great ability. . . . He alone in Russia could compile a dictionary of the Russian language such as not even an academy ... could compile. But he does not yet comprehend this." Scholarly work (as in the dissertation) was more suited to someone who was "either completely an old man or completely a German in whose veins flows potato blood, not the hot, lively blood that is in the Russians," Gogol' declared. Furthermore, Konstantin was too young and lacked the proper "inner condition" for abstract philo­ sophical reflection. But he was well suited to prepare "many excel­ lent philological articles," and he coiild submit them to Ivan Kireevsky, who was then taking over the Moskvitianin from Pogodin in his short-lived effort to make the journal a Slavophil organ. The trouble was that Konstantin was not a writer. He totally lacked "lit­ erary style [slog]." Everything that Konstantin "expresses clearly in words comes out murky when it is written on paper. If it were within his power to grasp the turn of speech that he uses in conversation he would be vital and powerful in his writing." The remedy would be to let Konstantin think that he is writing "for his little sister instead of for the public." Then everyone would like his writing— "old men, Hegelians, quill-pushers, ladies, professors, teachers, and everyone would think that it was written for him."12 One of the things that Konstantin was writing during 1844 or 1845, besides his thesis, was a trifling vaudeville show called Pochtovaia kareta (The Mail Coach). It was staged in Moscow in late April of 11

Barsukov, Pogodin, VII, 421-422. T. Aksakov, Sochineniia, III, 308-310, 311-312.

12 S.

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1845. Apparently it was an outlet of sorts for Konstantin's pique against Samarin and the whole St. Petersburg crowd.13 He also con­ tinued to write poetry, though not at the same pace as during the thirties. Up to 1840 he wrote about eighty-five poems, but during the next decade his output was about half that many. The themes were Moscowphilism and the Russian people, the narod, along with re­ lated subjects such as Peter the Great and Russian dress and beards. Consonant with his growing Slavophilism, these poems were dedi­ cated to such friends as Samarin, Popov, Khomiakov, Iazykov, his brother Ivan, Solov'ev, and Sverbeev (but not Ivan Kireevsky). The old friends of the Stankevich circle were completely forgotten.14 Most of these Slavophil associates were not close friends. Only with Khomiakov, the elder statesman of Slavophilism, and Samarin was he on intimate terms. We are better informed about Konstantin's relationship with Samarin, owing to their residence in separate cities, than we are about his relationship with Khomiakov. He saw Kho­ miakov often in Moscow and had only rare occasion to write him, but with Samarin, in St. Petersburg and elsewhere, he had a steady correspondence over a period of years. So far, a large part of Samarin's letters to Konstantin have been published. Fewer of Kon­ stantin's are in print, but Samarin's lucid and cogent letters, with their sometimes coldly dispassionate tone and revealing citations from Konstantin's letters, often give us both sides of a discussion. Arriving in St. Petersburg in the summer of 1844, Samarin took it upon himself to keep his Moscow friends informed about the government's attitude toward emerging Slavophilism, warning Konstantin to temper his Muscovite zeal. Regular mail between the Sla­ vophils was opened by the censors, and Samarin cautioned Konstantin to be circumspect. They could be completely frank only when letters were carried by friends. In contrast to Konstantin's Moscowphil exhortations, Samarin advised a moderate but coherent ideology based on a thorough study of Russia's past and on principles that would point the way to the solution of Russia's pressing problems. Konstantin, who was still irked by Samarin's decision to join the bureaucracy of Nicholas I, believed, like his father, that he should 13 Herzen alluded to it in his Stantsiia Edrovo (Station Edrovo): "In 1845-1846 the arguments about Moscow and Petersburg were repeated every day or better every night. Even in the theater they sang some sort of Petersburg-killing [peterburgoubiistvennye] verses of K. S. Aksakov's in his vaudeville." Herzen, Sochineniia, II, 177; Vengerov, Konstantin Aksakov, p. 54. 14 Only in the 1850's, toward the end of his life, did Konstantin think to dedicate a poem to a member of the circle, and that was Efremov. See Mashinsky, Poety, pp. 377-411, 427-428.

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engage in a sort of passive resistance, and did not heed Samarin's advice. Samarin1 like the Slavophils generally, believed that "the government does not create life but it can consciously or uncon­ sciously crush it," but he also believed that the government could "assist in its development." The question of the proper role of the government in Russian society and of the government-people (narod) relationship was a point at issue between Samarin and Konstantin in the mid-forties. They were never able to reconcile the divergence of Samarin's mod­ erate position and Konstantin's adamant defense of his Moscowphil antagonism toward St. Petersburg and the government. In a long letter to Konstantin of July 19, 1846, Samarin said frankly: I remain with the thought that the rule which you have accepted is one-sided. . . . In you as a person the ability for lyrical and unaccountable passion [uvlechenie] is more developed than con­ scious and calm activity. This is your characteristic—which God grant that you shall not lose—but you are mistaken when you elevate it to the extent . . . it is set up as the model for action, compulsory and absolute for everyone.15 Konstantin at long last finished his master's dissertation late in 1846. In December Ivan Kireevsky wrote to his mother, "At present Aksakov's dissertation is the cause of much noise in Moscow. It has finally been published as a huge book, more than 300 pages of com­ pact print, but two weeks later it was suddenly forbidden, its sale was stopped, and it must be again reprinted." Kireevsky blamed this "mockery" on the "foolishness" of the administration of the Uni­ versity of Moscow.16 The linguistic philological aspect of this work is beyond the competence and purview of this study, but the dis­ sertation, "written in German only with Russian words," contains elements of history, the philosophy of history, and cultural anthro­ pology such as the meaning of the reign of Peter I, the relationship between Church Slavonic and Russian, and others, which will re­ quire attention in Part Two below.17 Like virtually everything that Aksakov wrote, his dissertation has remained controversial to the present. His biographer, Vengerov, criticizes its often involved, cloudy, impenetrable "Hegelian jargon." 15 Iu. F. Samarin, Sochineniia vols. 1-10, 12 (Moscow, 1877-1911), XII, 183. Kon­ 1 stantin's reply to this letter has not been published. 16 1. V. Kireevsky, Sochineniia, I, 72. 17 See Edward Chmielewski, Tribune of the Slavophiles: Konstantirt Aksakov (Gainesville, Fla., 1961), p. 24; Barsukov, Pogodin, V, 476. The dissertation may be found complete in K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, II, part I, pp. 25-388.

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"As a scholarly investigation," he says, "the book has very little significance." More recently, Chizhevsky has asserted that the dis­ sertation, and Konstantin Aksakov's other philological works, are particularly noteworthy for their contribution to the "philosophy of language." Chizhevsky, writing in 1939, held that Aksakov's attempt "not to stop at facts and phenomena as such but to seek meaning in them renders his philosophy of language and the individual thoughts of his philological works essential even in our time." He also stressed the beneficial influence of Hegel on his Russian followers, including Konstantin. Thus, for instance, after "establishing simple facts" they "always proceed to general questions [and] thereby encompass the individual theme into primarily its philosophical-historical con­ text." But he also cautioned that Aksakov disagreed with Hegel on the concept of the state—a matter to which we shall turn in Part Two.18 In the autumn of 1846 Samarin had been transferred to a new post with the government at Riga. A letter from there, written probably in February 1847, deals in part with Konstantin's dissertation.19 Samarin's devastating criticism could easily have ended a friendship that was less solid than theirs. The "principal defect" of the disser­ tation, he said, was that it was "two or three years late." Moreover, the published work was much the same as it was first conceived— by which he clearly implied that Konstantin had not grown or ma­ tured in the intervening period. He criticized the philosophical foun­ dation of the work and the inadequacy of Konstantin's reading as well as his knowledge and interpretation of history. He also said that the dissertation made "too great a pretense at completeness and detail." And as for literary elegance, Konstantin had simply "sac­ rificed it." Samarin did allow that certain passages were "beautiful and truly poetical," and he saw in the work the "first effort to create a history of the people and not of the state."20 Although two years younger than Konstantin, Samarin had already learned that no ideological propaganda, Slavophil included, stood a chance of success if it did not have at least a measure of substance and historical veracity. Two years before, he had condemned by implication the "negative side" of Konstantin's "Moscowphilism [moskvitizm]" and urged him to begin the arduous work ahead: "We have as yet proved nothing or very little. Everything that we affirm 18 See Vengerov, Konstantin Aksakov, pp. 131-138; Chizhevsky, Gegei' ν Rossii, pp. 171-175; Chmielewski, Konstantin Aksakov, p. 29. "The second half of the letter concerns Gogol's Selected Passages from Corre­ spondence with Friends, of which more will be said in Chapter 7. 20 Samarin, Sochineniia, XII, 187-189.

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about our history, about our people, about the distinguishing char­ acteristics of our past development, all this has been guessed, not deduced. . . . Our common defect is the paucity of factual knowl­ edge." Speaking for himself, the sober Samarin said that he was studying Russian history because "I wish to subject to investigation all our propositions, about the absence of conquest, about the absence of aristocracy, about the meaning of individual authority, etc."21 Samarin's clear and irrefutable order of priorities stands in sharp contrast to Konstantin's impulsive notion that an ideological conflict could be fought with a mere abundance of energy and dedication. When Konstantin wrote to Samarin about his disagreements with Herzen and Granovsky, Samarin asked candidly, "Is there not mixed in with this, on both sides, much passion and much personality?"22 He, at least, was trying to acquire knowledge and information on which to base interpretation. Complaining about the lack of time to do everything that he wished, he commented to Konstantin, "in the face of the scarcity of time I treasure every minute and dedicate it to the study of [our] chronicles. I study in order not to lag behind, in order to prepare a whole arsenal in favor of our convictions." Samarin fully appreciated the value of a journal in the ideological struggle and did not agree with Konstantin that publication of an occasional Slavophil pamphlet or annual symposium (sbornik) could do the job.23 Then and later, Konstantin had the notion (possibly reinforced by Khomiakov's) that journals were Western and un-Russian. BY THE SUMMER of 1842 not only Konstantin's "Moscowphilism"

but also his "Great Russianism" were familiar to those who knew him well. His Great Russianism was no better defined, and no more clearly conceived, than his Moscowphilism. What made them ines­ capable for those around him was not the lucidity of his exposition but the intensity of the passion with which he proclaimed and de­ fended them. What, precisely, was "Great Russianism"? We know it more from the negations it generated than from its positive content. Great Russianism in Konstantin's scheme of things was also a form of anti-Ukrainianism. "You are entirely right," Khomiakov advised him, "that L[ittle] Russia got the possibility for complete expression only by submitting itself to the Gfreat] Russian principle, but you have said nothing flattering about L[ittle] Russia when it deserves special praise." Khomiakov's family was Great Russian, like the Ak21

Ibid., pp. 155-156, letter of February 1845. p. 159. 23 Ibid., pp. 162-163, 167. 22 Ibid.,

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sakovs, but he had sincere respect and fondness for Kiev, the mother of Russian cities, "the cradle of Russian glory," as he said in his poem "Kiev," and for the Ukrainian people.24 In the rest of this friendly scolding, Khomiakov admitted that Little Russia "has what we do not have and will not have: greater grace­ fulness, great inclination for objectivity, greater artistic sense," and he mildly chided Konstantin for his comparison of Great Russia and the Ukraine to different parts of the human anatomy: "Comparing G[reat] Russia with the head is fair, but it is humiliating for other parts [of the body]. Perhaps one should rather compare it with the higher organs of the head." Of course Khomiakov's reasoning did not shake Konstantin's prejudices. They remained as strong as before. When, a year later, Pogodin suggested to Konstantin that he should consider applying for the chair of Russian history at the University of Kiev, Konstantin was not interested. "He does not want it," Pogodin wrote in his diary. "He wishes to say the first young word in Moscow, and talks nonsense about it."25 At the end of a letter from Khomiakov to Aksakov of July 22,1842, Khomiakov raised a question that bears not only on Aksakov's mode of writing but also on some Slavophil ideological considerations. He suggested to Konstantin that he could write several pamphlets having Dead Souls as their central theme. Resting on Gogol's poem, "as Lessing on Laocoon, you could encompass many questions about aesthetics and other disciplines (philosophy, Russian and European history, etc., etc.). The dissertation form is not Russian. In separate pamphlets you can adopt a form according to its suitability: apho­ rism, anecdote . . . lyrics, and others."26 With the exception of Samarin, in this respect the most Germanminded of the early Slavophils, one would look in vain in the works of Khomiakov, Kireevsky, and Aksakov for a scholarly or "disser­ tation-like" treatment of any subject. To them, the easy flow of ar­ gument and opinion was far more important than labored documen­ tation, was more alive and more "Russian" than a dry, factual treatise. They might have said that aesthetics, art, and creativity 24V. A. Frantsev, ed., A. S. Khomiakov. Stikhotvoreniia (Prague, 1934), pp. 82-84, 150-151. 25 Barsukov, Pogodin, VII, 109. 26 Khomiakov's published correspondence with Konstantin contains seven letters; only this one is from the 1840's. In it he acknowledges the gift of Konstantin's review of Gogol's Dead Souls. "As you know," the letter says, "I completely share your opinion about Dead Souls and its author," but Konstantin would have done better to have mentioned Goethe, Schiller, and Byron. This would have absolved him of charges of partiality. See A. S. Khomiakov, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii (Moscow, 1906), VIII, 329.

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should come before cold objective scholarship. Inspiration must have priority over labored research. In this manner one could "the more strongly act upon the public."27 Thus the art of the ideologist and propagandist was placed above the training of the scholar. Implied in Khomiakov's words is the argument against a Slavophil journal (even if the government should permit one) and in favor of what he considered to be a freer and more adaptable form of expression, the pamphlet. Khomiakov was not unconditionally opposed to journals; at least he seemed to think them a proper outlet for literary subjects, and asserted that he could not understand Pogodin's "cowardice" in rejecting Konstantin's review of Dead Souls, saying that "Pogodin does not himself know his advantages."28 Toward the end of 1844, as the result of an arrangement between Pogodin and the Moscow Slavophils, Ivan Kireevsky undertook the editorship of the Moskvitianin, only to give up the enterprise a few months later.29 Khomiakov and Shevyrev then recommended Konstantin Aksakov as a possible replacement, a notion which was re­ vived two years later, but Pogodin thought this an "absurd proposal." He noted in his diary on May 23, 1845, that he would not even consider "the young generation . . . which is not even literate!" But he continued to talk with the Aksakovs about the plight of the journal. On May 30 he wrote in his diary: "Friends are worse than enemies. I do not wish to give up the journal because I see no guaranty. They will degrade it so that it would be a disgrace."30 Pogodin's relations with the Aksakovs were always somewhat brit­ tle, partly because of his inability to conceal his impatience with what he regarded as intellectual excesses and absurdities. A number of brief entries in his diary for the winter and spring of 1845 touch on various facets of Konstantin's character. For example: January 9, "Dined at the Aksakovs'. Konstantin rages." January 29, "Dined at the Aksakovs' and reproached fatuous Konstantin." February 17, "Konstantin read from his dissertation a view of Russian history, very good." (Possibly Pogodin felt that in this part of the dissertation Konstantin had followed his advice.) April 5, "Dined at the Aksakovs'— In his presence they do not speak French." At the Aksakovs' 21 Ibid.,

p. 330. p. 329. Pogodin's action also displeased the Aksakovs, naturally, and it was perhaps in hopes of making amends that he suggested that Konstantin apply for the professorship at Kiev. 25 For details of this short-lived effort during which Kireevsky could not increase Moskvitianin's 800 subscribers (as compared with the 3,000 of Belinsky's Otechestvennye zapiski), see Christoff, Kireevskij, pp. 109-116. 30 Barsukov, Pogodin, VIII, 31. 28 Ibid.,

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on April 21, 1845, after the break between the Slavophils and the Westerners, there was talk of Granovsky and Pavlov. The entry reads, "Konstantin's reply was insolent but I am not angry with him."31 In December 1846 Konstantin took his completed dissertation to Pogodin. On December 26 Pogodin wrote in his diary: "Aksakov brought his dissertation. There are beautiful observations but he is totally lacking in writing ability." While Pogodin was finding fault with Konstantin's prose, Count Stroganov, the curator of the Moscow School District and official censor, was threatening to hold up Kon­ stantin's degree because of his treatment of Peter the Great.32 On March 6, 1847, Konstantin successfully defended his thesis. The public session at the university attracted "all of Moscow's brains of both sexes." S. P. Shevyrev, dean of the department, led the ques­ tioning. He was followed by Professor I. M. Bodiansky, and there were also questions from Μ. N. Katkov, whom Konstantin had known in the Stankevich circle, F. I. Buslaev, and S. M. Solov'ev, then on friendly terms with Konstantin. Shevyrev felt that Konstantin "suc­ ceeded well" in the defense of his dissertation. Pogodin, for reasons not explained, did not attend the public defense and was reproached by Konstantin's mother for his absence.33 The year 1847 was the seven-hundredth anniversary of the found­ ing of the city of Moscow. Naturally, the Slavophils agreed on the importance of the event. The question was, how should it be cele­ brated? Pogodin opened the subject with an article in the Moskvitianin in 1846: "Next year, or on March 28, 1847, Moscow will complete seven hundred years since . . . the first announcement about it in the chronicles." And he outlined a series of subjects, from Moscow's history to its geology, to be investigated in honor of the occasion.34 Konstantin's contribution in anticipation of the anniversary year was an article in Moskovskie vedomosti (Moscow News) entitled "Semisotletie Moskvy" (The Seven-Hundredth Anniversary of Mos31

Ibid., pp. 61, 84-85. advised Uvarov in a letter of January 3, 1847, that pages 44-60 of Konstantin Aksakov's dissertation dealing with Peter the Great should be excised, that reviews of the dissertation should be banned, and that in general it should be stifled through counterpublicity. While Konstantin was getting ready to defend his dissertation he found himself the object of unsolicited attention from another quarter. A. O. Smirnova was scheming to transform him inside and out: writing to Ivan Aksakov on January 14,1847, she said, "We shall change him, we shall make him more tolerant, and strip away his Russian dress." Ibid., pp. 343-344. 33 Ibid., pp. 344-345. 34Ibid., pp. 509-511. 32Stroganov

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cow).15 From its opening sentence to its closing, this article (sevenand-a-half printed pages) is an apotheosis of the city and the symbol. But it is more than that: it is a harbinger of Konstantin's special brand of populism intimately associated with and in a sense deriving from his hitherto repetitive and seemingly sterile Moscowphilism. In put­ ting Moscow and the narod, the people, at the center of the Russian historical stage, he comes close to populist anarchism—so close that the censor found in the article "rules that are incompatible with the monarchical system of government."36 In its populist emphasis, it differed markedly from Pogodin's innocuous essay. Indeed, then as later, Konstantin was not prepared to compromise on matters of convictions, beliefs, and ideology. In the year of Moscow's anniver­ sary Pogodin's Moskvitianin was still in serious difficulties. This time Konstantin tried to negotiate for the journal in his own name, and informally in the name of the Moscow Slavophils. This was also the year in which Kireevsky urged his fellow Slavophils to intensify their ideological work and clarify their principles to reach at least a minimum of consensus, and also to attempt some informal organ­ ization. Whether these factors motivated Konstantin Aksakov at the time is difficult to tell. However, two letters (now in the manuscript sec­ tion of the Lenin Library) which he wrote to Pogodin in 1847 show that he discussed with him possible financial arrangements, sub­ scription matters, control of the journal, and editorial policy. In these negotiations he spoke in the plural as if authorized to negotiate for the Slavophils. It seems clear from Konstantin's second letter that the stumbling block was control of the journal. Referring to an "in­ vitation" of Pogodin's, presumably to take over the editorship, he says: . . . thank you for myself and for the others. . . . The notion of the journal was especially attractive for me because I hoped that we would have the journal at our complete disposal. I look upon a journal as upon something whole, organic, which, like Lake Pereiaslavl, does not accept anything foreign. In my opinion, a journal is a unified work, not merely a repository of articles that may be in agreement with one another but are not fused into one common form. Although the "opinions of the Moskvitianin" were "close to us," he says, it also published "much" that the Slavophils could not approve. 35 36

K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, I, 598-605. Barsukov, Pogodin, VIII, 511-512.

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Worse still, it contained materials (unspecified) that contradicted their "basic convictions." The letter ends with Konstantin's hope that they could discuss the matter in person.37 If a discussion took place it did not alter the situation; the Slavophils did not gain control of the Moskvitianin then or later. Neither Pogodin's absence from Konstantin's defense of his dis­ sertation nor the unsuccessful negotiations for the Moskvitianin changed Pogodin's attitude toward Konstantin and the Aksakov fam­ ily. It is likely, as Barsukov suggests, that after receiving his degree Konstantin's authority in the family increased. Barsukov cites several of Pogodin's diary entries for the first half of 1847, this diary being, despite its somewhat prejudiced tone, the single most continuous source outside the Aksakov family on Konstantin's character and behavior. On January 3, after dining at the Aksakovs', Pogodin com­ mented, "Such vanity in Konstantin," and on April 25 he found it difficult to sit by and hear "how the whole family is making Kon­ stantin lose his mind" and how "all these unfortunate people listen, waiting to hear what Konstantin has to say." On May 21 he remarked testily: "Dined at the Aksakovs'. Konstantin's self-love is cruel. He thinks that he draws well. It is becoming unpleasant at the Aksakovs'."38 With the public defense of the dissertation behind him, Konstantin turned to a new project, the writing of a play, on his favorite subject, Moscow. The play was a historical drama entitled Osvobozhdenie Moskvy (The Liberation of Moscow in 1612), inspired by the anni­ versary. It was published in 1848 and two years later was produced on the Moscow stage.39 To some degree, like all Konstantin's literary efforts, it was a family triumph, but it caused many of his friends acute embarrassment and it soon passed into obscurity. It is hardly a "play" at all but rather a vehicle for Konstantin's Moscowphilism and populism, lacking in literary merit as well as in dramatic intensity. After reading it, Pogodin wrote in his diary, 37 Fond 47, Pogodin, ed. 10, Lenin Library, Moscow. The manuscript section of the Lenin Library houses forty-three letters from Konstantin Aksakov to Pogodin, written between 1837 and 1860. Some of them are only brief notes, but taken together they are an invaluable source on the relationship of the two men. They are in excellent condition, though time has not improved Aksakov's handwriting, about which his friends constantly complained. 38 Barsukov, Pogodin, IX, 64-65. 39 Vladimir Kniazhnin, editor of a volume of materials about the literary critic Grigor'ev, gives the following item in his biographical chronology of Grigor'ev's career: "December 15 [1850] Grigor'ev was led out of the Malyi theater for his unrestrained rapture during the performance of K. Aksakov's play The Liberation of Moscow." See ApolIon Aleksandrovich Grigor'ev. Materialy dlia biografii (Petrograd, 1917), p. 346.

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"It is such rubbish that it is wretched." He hardly knew what to say about it in the Moskvitianin and in desperation asked Konstantin, "advise me what to do."40 Pogodin's review was not complimentary. May 1, 1848, he recorded in his diary, "The Aksakovs do not look at me and the twenty-year-old friendship seems never to have ex­ isted." Sergei Aksakov sent a copy of the play to Gogol', complaining that "Pogodin barked at it like a mad dog." Gogol's response was noncommittal. Elagina reacted with more concern for the family than for Konstantin. "I feel sorry for the Aksakovs," she wrote to Pogodin. "This touchy self-love is inexcusable. . .. People do not wish to hear the truth from friends, but God save us from praise."41 Samarin in Riga was quickly supplied with two copies, but he chose to comment on the appearance of the volumes, expressing relief that the censor allowed the play to be published in its "completeness, without omissions."42 Khomiakov, too, seemed unimpressed, but he reacted more phil­ osophically to Konstantin's effort, saying that the "drama was his own reward." Konstantin was "an artist," and one should not expect a conventional historical approach from him: In him the theoretical consciousness encounters difficulty. In him analysis is too dependent on inner synthesis. This is obvious to everyone and in everyone it arouses mistrust. For example, his Orthodoxy, although sincere, bears too local a character and is subject to nationality [narodnost'], therefore it is not wholly worthy. Again Aksakov is impossible with respect to practical application. For him the future must without fail pass into the present this instant and he won't even listen to any temporary concessions to the present.43 Khomiakov knew Konstantin better than most, and more dispas­ sionately than members of the Aksakov family and Pogodin, and he pinned down early and precisely the subordinate position that Or­ thodoxy seemed to take in Konstantin's populism. Since populism was a cardinal point of Slavophil doctrine, Khomiakov in effect re­ veals the source of a major facet of Moscow Slavophilism that he arrived at neither suddenly nor rashly at the end of the forties. He also had detected very early the kind of poetic idealism which would make Konstantin's populism distinctly his own—as he noted to Samarin in a letter of September 15, 1843: "Perhaps you recall my 4,1

Barsukov, Pogodin, IX, 457-459. Ibid., pp. 461-462. 42 Samarin, Sochineniia, XII, 199. 43 Russkii arkhiv, 1879, no. 11, p. 330. See also Barsukov, Pogodin, IX, 457-458. 41

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conversation with you and Aksakov when I promised both of you inner struggle, and even prophesied that it would begin in you earlier than in him. In his nature there is more dreaminess (and this is said not in order to anger him), femininity, or a sense of art [khudozhestvennost'] which readily evade the demands of logic."44 WE HAVE SEEN that the information about Konstantin Aksakov and

judgments of him fall into several categories. From his father we get admiring and almost invariably approving words; from Ivan, broth­ erly interest and loyalty but increasing impatience with Konstantin's weaknesses as time went on. Belinsky's attitude was friendly at first, though not uncritical, and then hostile as his opinions and Kon­ stantin's clashed. With Samarin, the friendship was at first domi­ nated by Konstantin, and then became more equal as Samarin gained self-assertiveness and judgment. Such family friends of the Aksakovs as Gogol' and Pogodin traversed the whole range in their attitude toward Konstantin, from sympathy, and perhaps at times indulgence and a desire to help, to disappointment and reproach. Of all the people in Konstantin's Slavophil career, and perhaps in his mature life, none had greater influence on him that Aleksei Khomiakov. With a blend of patience, knowledge, and understanding of Kon­ stantin's character and idiosyncracies, Khomiakov tried to channel his energies for the greater glory of Moscow Slavophilism without browbeating or ruthless domination. This approach was well advised in the circumstances, for the loosely connected Slavophil group needed a degree of cohesiveness, mutual consent, and personal com­ mitment. 44 Husskii

arkhiv, 1879, no. 11, p. 305. See also Barsukov, Pogodin, VII, 99-100.

CHAPTER 7

IDEOLOGICAL CONFLICTS AND THE VICTORY OF THE NAROD

OF ALL THOSE who have given us insights into Konstantin Aksakov's character and ideology, Alexander Herzen was perhaps his most consistent foe. Herzen, though a brilliant opponent of Moscow Sla­ vophilism and an articulate critic of religious ideologies, including Orthodox Slavophilism, at the same time did not remain untouched by Aksakov's populism and Moscow Slavophilism. Soon after reach­ ing France in 1847, Herzen turned his eyes on Russia and placed his hopes for its future in his own variety of "Russian" socialism. Be­ longing to the gentry, he moved freely in Slavophil company from his arrival in Moscow in mid-July 1842 to the crucial winter of 18441845, when he parted from them in bitterness and recrimination. His testimony about Konstantin Aksakov, whom he first met in 1840,1 and about the other Slavophils, is enhanced by a well-kept diary which, despite its anti-Slavophil bias, is of utmost value for our subject. Herzen had scarcely returned from his Novgorod exile when the controversy over Gogol's Dead Souls erupted. As we saw earlier, he took the middle ground. He was less offended than amused by Konstantin's excessive Moscowphilism, and then he became bored. By the end of 1842 Herzen was paying little attention to Aksakov's incessant talk, but he was more and more intrigued by Chaadaev's pro-religious views and by the Moscow Slavophils in general. With­ out their contribution to the ferment of ideas and the Westerners' response, "Moscow would be a grave," he said.2 Furthermore, he thought he saw a possibility of bringing Iurii Samarin over to Westernism. OnJanuary 8, 1843, after an evening with Chaadaev, Prince I. S. Gagarin (then on the verge of becoming a JesuitJ, and the Sla­ vophils, he came to the conclusion that "there is one common bond: all are convinced of the weight of the present," but they differed on 1

Malia, Herzen and Russian Socialism, p. 202. Sochineniia, II, 259.

2 Herzen,

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the solution and on ultimate goals. Though he had no use for any religion, he found the future of Catholicism in Russia even more absurd than that of Orthodoxy. "I spoke long with [Konstantin] Aksakov," he went on, "wishing to see how he reconciles his Orthodoxy with his Hegelianism. But he does not reconcile them. He recognizes religion and philosophy as different spheres and allows them to live . . . together, a concubinage sui generis."3 Herzen was much too keen and honest, particularly when disen­ gaged from polemics, not to recognize important elements in Sla­ vophilism besides Orthodoxy. He began his diary entry for January 14, 1843, with the words: "The government is . . . preparing snares for the Slavophils. It has itself raised the banner of nationality [narodnost'], but.. . it does not permit anyone to go further than itself." He accurately sensed that there was a serious difference between the government's and the Slavophils' concepts of nationality.4 Further­ more, he knew that there was no more ardent and extreme advocate of Slavophil nationality than Konstantin Aksakov. But if Herzen saw that which was clearly discernible in the Sla­ vophils, he also knew that one cannot reason with an article of faith. Contrasting the Kireevsky brothers, whose premise he considered to be subjective faith, with Konstantin Aksakov and Iurii Samarin, he found the two brothers "more consistent" than the younger Slavo­ phils, "who wish to erect a Slavic-Byzantine structure upon the foundations of modern science," meaning philosophy. The long diary entry from which this passage comes was made at the end of October 1843, and it shows that Herzen had lingering doubts as to whether Aksakov's Hegelianism was completely gone. Aksakov and Samarin, he said, wish "to arrive at Orthodoxy by way of Hegel and to the rejection of Western history by way of Western speculative philosophy [nauka]," and this puzzled him. "They ac­ cept progress, look through our eyes on the future of mankind, and for this reason have lost the necessary consistency."5 Although op3Ibid.,

pp. 257-258. p. 260; Barsukov, Pogodin, VII, 104-107. 5 Herzen, Sochineniia, II, 311. Mutual recriminations between the Slavophils and the Westerners were at their worst in the spring of 1844 and caused a rift within the Westerners' camp. On May 17 Herzen recorded in his diary his reaction to an "enor­ mous" letter from Belinsky (now apparently lost), "in the nature of a dissertation," in which Belinsky took him to task for his personal contacts with the Slavophils. Belinsky, he wrote, "does not understand the Slav world; he looks upon it with despair, and he is wrong. He does not know how to expect the life of the next age" (p. 354). 4 Ibid.,

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posing the Slavophils on religious and philosophical grounds, Herzen was not untouched by their views. He may not have learned from them the value of the Slav world, but there can hardly be any doubt that they helped him to appreciate it, despite their subordi­ nation of true Slavophilism—concern for all Slavs—to their true passion, which was a form of nationalism or Russophilism.

On the other hand, the Slavophils could have benefited from some of Herzen's views. Early in 1844, before he reacted to Aksakov's and Belinsky's quarrel, he had begun to read the stenographic transcript of Adam Mickiewicz's lectures, "Cours de la litterature slave," given at the College de France in 1840-1842. He had finished them by March 17, 1844. Mickiewicz, he said was a "Slavophil of the type of Khomiakov and Co." Convinced by Mickiewicz's pro-Slav argu­ ment, he confidently affirmed: "There is no doubt that there is a true and beautiful side to Slavianism. This beautiful side is its belief in the future." It had to be in the future, since in 1844 "the Slavs were everywhere slaves, everywhere serfs." He did not accept all that Mickiewicz said—the Bedouins, too, had a form of democracy to­ gether with a patriarchal order and a "special kind of family-communal principle"—but he accepted his conclusion that "the model of the most highly developed Slav commune is among the Monte­ negrins. . . . They have the most complete democracy, patriarchally wild but energetic and strong. Europe is paying more and more at­ tention to this mute world that calls itself Slavs."6 He was particularly struck by the fact that in the mid-1840's all Slavs, except the Russians and the Serbs, lived under foreign rule and were brutally exploited. This discussion of Slavs in Herzen's diary was particularly a re­ sponse to the Slovak scholar L'udovit Stiir's Untergang der Naturstaaten, which Herzen had also been reading. Stur took Herzen far afield and deep into Europe's past, and Herzen emerged with this thought, doubtless derived and synthesized from many sources and from previous reflections: The German from his first appearance has a character incom­ parably freer [than others] from everything immediate, from the soil, from generations, even from the family. Individuality—that is the idea that he contributes to the world—and in exhausting all the limitless content of his thought, as if completing his calling, he bequeaths as a testament for the future, a Declaration des droits de 1'homme. 6 Ibid.,

pp. 333-335.

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Then with the aid of Mickiewicz and the Slavophils but without their respective Polish and Orthodox messianisms, Herzen, possibly looking forward to his "Russian" socialism, raised a rhetorical ques­ tion: But do we have the right to say that the coming epoch, which will place on its banner not the individual but the commune,7 not freedom but brotherhood, not abstract equality but organic division of labor, does not belong to [Western] Europe? . . . Will the Slavs fructify Europe, carry out its ideal, and embrace in its life decrepit [Western] Europe, or will she embrace us in its rejuvenated life? The Slavophils answer this sort of question quickly as if the matter has long since been settled.8 From the Slavs in general he passed to the Polish question; express­ ing an early version of his enduring pro-Polish sentiments, he qual­ ified his stand by saying that "Poland will be saved despite messianism and papism." But for all the sincerity of his pro-Polish convictions he did not forget his Great Russianism, and Russia re­ mained for him the "mighty and most complete representative of the Slav world."9 In the first half of 1844, in a half-dozen or so long diary entries, Herzen made some incisive observations suggested by his increas­ ingly sharp encounters with the Moscow Slavophils. Both the Sla­ vophils and Mickiewicz were confirming his conclusion that Belinsky did not understand the Slavs and would not join him in his despair about their future. Herzen, thinking of a socialist order in terms of the communal principle of the Slavs, of whom the Great 7 Herzen

had been made aware of the communal principle from his reading in Utopian socialism in the early thirties. In the early forties, however, the Moscow Slavophils talked about it on Russian soil as a living principle embodied in the contemporary Russian peasant commune. Thus on May 13, 1843, Herzen, noting in his diary a conversation with Baron von Haxthausen, says that the German scholar "found an important element [in Russia] preserved from deep antiquity—communality, which needs to be developed in accordance with the demands of the time." In June while reading Louis Blanc's Histoire de X ans, he wrote: "Our Slavophils talk about the communal principle, about our not having a proletariat, about division of the fields. All these are good embryos, and in part they are based on underdevelop­ ment." In his arguments with the Slavophils in the mid-1840's Herzen took the view that the Russian commune was a leftover from early, more primitive times rather than a sign of an advanced social, economic stage, although he did not deny the possiblity of its being "developed in accordance with the demands of the time." Ibid., pp. 281, 288. 8Ibid., 9Ibid.,

p. 336. pp. 337ff„ 399, 342-343.

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Russians were the largest ethnic element, thus stood between the two extremes of "furious Vissarion" and the no less furious Konstantin. Reacting to Belinsky's increasing impatience with Aksakov, Herzen noted in his diary on August 14, 1844: "Of course [Belinsky] in the end can have no sympathy for Aksakov's opinions. For Ak­ sakov has brought his Moscow madness ad absurdissimum, but it was not necessary to tear apart so ruthlessly the bonds of many years."10 After some months, the growing intensity of the ideological con­ flict began to irk Herzen. By September 4, 1844, he had had enough of the "vain" Khomiakov, and he was even finding Ivan Kireevsky "strange despite his nobility." Aksakov, he commented, is "insane about Moscow and expects if not today, tomorrow the resurrection of old Russia, transfer of its capital, and the devil knows what." In exasperation he admitted, "Belinsky is right. There is no peace and council with people who are so different."11 Then on November 20, after a heated polemical session at the Sverbeevs', he wrote sarcas­ tically of Khomiakov, "the poet laureate on the shores of the Neglinnaia. . . . And Aksakov who has become boring from Moscow fanaticism. My conversation of a week ago angered and astounded many. . . . From the manner of the Slavophils it is obvious that if they possessed the material power we would be roasted somewhere on the place of execution."12 The climax came in December, when Ν. M. Iazykov's slanderous poems against Herzen, Granovsky, and Chaadaev were circulated in Moscow.13 Iazykov's denunciation was wholesale, making no dis­ tinction between the radical positivism of Herzen, the moderate lib­ eral Westernism of Granovsky, or the pro-Catholic Westernism of Chaadaev. Not all the Slavophils concurred in Iazykov's denuncia­ tion, but in face of the passions he had aroused, nothing short of an explicit renunciation of Iazykov would have dispelled suspicions of a general Slavophil complicity. Such renunciation never came. In10 Reflecting on the crucial problem of ideological toleration, Herzen says, "Friend­ ship must be lenient and partial; it must love the person, not the idea. An idea is a common element of rapprochement; it may provide one with a friend, one of the same conviction, but friendship demands recognition of the person, not his general thought." Ibid., p. 373. 11 Ibid., p. 379, entry of September 4, 1844. 12Ibid., p. 390. '3The poems were first published in 1871. For the texts and comments see Κ. K. Bukhmeier, ed., N. M. Iazykov. PoJnoe sobranie stikhotvorenii (Moscow-Leningrad, 1964), pp. 49, 394-395, 397-398, 665-667; Herzen, Sochineniia, II, 396. See also Christoff, Xomjakov, pp. 79, 81, 85; Kireevskij, pp. 113, 115, 117, 196.

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stead, Konstantin Aksakov wrote a poem "To the Allies," calling for struggle against their opponents.14 Herzen again had second thoughts about "fraternization" with the Slavophils.15 Many years later, after personal encounters had ceased and pas­ sions subsided, Herzen, no more a Moscow Slavophil than before, although now more receptive to some of their concepts, could write in mellow reflection about nos ennemis Jes amis.16 But between Aksakov and Belinsky there was no touching reunion. After Belinsky left Moscow for St. Petersburg at the end of 1839 they never met again, and distance did nothing to heal the wounds. Indeed, their clash over Dead Souls in the summer of 1842 was more bitter than any previous one, and there were more exchanges during the ex­ tended ideological crisis of the mid-forties and on, until Belinsky's death in May 1848. Both took pains to avoid chance meetings. Konstantin told his brother Ivan in May 1846: "Belinsky and others left Moscow. I did not meet them and in order to avoid meeting them I went neither to Korsch's nor to Chaadaev's. Belinsky was at the Efremovs'. He gave vent to baseness and swore at me; the latter pleases me very much."17 Efremov, a veteran of the Stankevich circle, was a friend of both, but obviously by 1846 nothing but a harmless memory of the circle lingered. Belinsky's death from tuberculosis two years later ended an unpleasant relationship for Konstantin but not the ideological opposition to Moscow Slavophilism, which Be­ linsky even more than Herzen came to express and symbolize for his generation and later generations. BY THE MID-FORTIES Konstantin had become accustomed to oppo­ sition and disagreement from Herzen and Belinsky. He was not, however, prepared for iconoclastic views emanating from close to home—and whether Gogol' deserved it or not, the Aksakovs, led by Konstantin and his father, had made him a family and personal idol. 14 See

Mashinsky, Poety, pp. 384-385. wrote in his diary December 18: "Our personal relations do much harm to one's character and directness of opinion. We, respecting the beautiful qualities of a person, sacrifice the sharpness of thought for them." Herzen, Sochineniia, II, 397. 16 About Konstantin Aksakov, Herzen in his My Past and Thoughts recounts an incident, dating it to the winter of 1844, which shows the sentimental side in both. The mere change in environment, away from the polemical salons, brought out a different aspect of their relationship. They met on a snow-covered street in Moscow. Konstantin stopped his sled and walked over to Herzen, then embraced and kissed him. "There were tears in my eyes," Herzen writes. "How I loved him in this moment of quarrel." Ibid., IX, 163. 17 Belinsky, "Perepiska," p. 179. 15Herzen

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Gogol' the man, the writer, and the symbol seem to have become fused in Konstantin's mind to produce an image that satisfied several basic cravings. Placed in the company of Homer and Shakespeare, Gogol' in effect elevated Russian literature to the status of the world's greatest national literatures. His writing seemed permeated by the life and genius of the common people—the narod—and for that rea­ son was especially dear to Konstantin's Slavophil heart. Not least of all, Gogol', often in spite of himself, was a close family friend. There is no need to ascertain whether Konstantin Aksakov's opin­ ions of Gogol's works were sound. Certainly there was more passion than keen critical judgment in his forced and perhaps hasty review of Dead Souls. Nor would it serve a useful purpose to combat Kon­ stantin's presumption that Gogol' was one of "ours" and therefore if need be could be bitterly reproved without danger of destroying the "family" tie. This seems to be the most plausible explanation of the brutally frank criticism that marked a number of relationships in the 1840's, including the friendship of Aksakov and Gogol'. Yet despite the occasional intramural philippics, the bond between Go­ gol' and the Aksakovs never snapped. Toward the end of the 1840's the friendship between Gogol' and the two Aksakovs, father and son, was subjected to its most severe stress. The reason was Gogol's ill-fated Selected Passages from Cor­ respondence with Friends, which was published early in January 1847.18 Reaction to the book in Moscow was immediate and hostile, and what disturbed Gogol' in particular was that some of the most scathing criticism came from quarters from which he had expected warm acceptance. Liberal Westerners and anti-tsarist Slavophils alike were appalled by its moralistic preaching and its obsequious pro-government tone. It has been said that "the government alone greeted Selected Passages with a crooning voice of approval." The "reptile" press of St. Petersburg commended Gogol', but, with the exception of Apollon Grigor'ev, no one of consequence in the literary world had a kind word for Gogol's "testament."19 The reaction of the Aksakov family has some bearing on our study 18 For an English translation see Jesse Zeldin, Selected Passages from Correspond­ ence with Friends (Nashville, 1969). 19 A summary of contemporary criticism of Gogol's Dead Souls and Selected Pas­ sages is given by Paul Debreczeny in Nikolai Gogol and His Contemporary Critics (Philadelphia, 1966), pp. 29-63. See also V. Zelinsky, Russkaia kriticheskaia Iiteratura ο proizvedeniiakh Ν. V. Gogolia, part one, 2nd ed. (Moscow, 1900), pp. 111-229. Belinsky's reaction, says Janko Lavrin, was set forth in "the most indignant and passionate letter in Russian literature." See Nikolai Gogol' (1809-1852J: A Centenary Survey (London, 1951), pp. 136-137.

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of Konstantin's ideological position. In this connection Sergei Aksakov's correspondence is of special importance, for it reveals sim­ ilarities between his and Konstantin's attitudes toward Gogol'. On January 14, 1847, soon after the book was published, Sergei wrote to Ivan that in Selected Passages he saw in Gogol' only "satanic pride, not Christian humility"; he felt "revulsion" for Gogol's "pub­ lished testament," which breathed "incredible pride" and "spite" for Pogodin. The family, meaning primarily Konstantin, Sergei said, "are getting ready to write to Gogol' more or less in the same vein," adding two days later, "We must censure him in public." Ironically, Sergei noted, Gogol's supporters and detractors had reversed their roles: "All mystics, all hypocrites who have reconciled themselves with their ignoble lives with proclamations of Christian humility, all of Glinka's cattleshed, and particularly the female retinue of K. Novosil'tseva are wallowing in tears and admiration."20 On January 27 Sergei took the matter directly to Gogol'. "You have become completely confused and perplexed," he wrote. "You con­ tradict yourself ceaselessly and think that you are serving heaven and mankind. In fact you are offending both God and man." He saw in Gogol's book flashes of his "former mighty talent" but added, "that is why your book is harmful. It spreads the lie of your philosophizing and delusions." He put much of the blame on Gogol's long stay abroad. "Oh, evil was the day and hour when you took it into your head to go abroad to that Rome, destroyer of Russian minds and talents." In a postscript he condemned him especially for "malicious escapades" against Pogodin. Another letter to Ivan from the same time reaffirmed his views of Selected Passages.21 Two of the three published letters from Konstantin Aksakov to Gogol' from this same period, both dated 1848, deal directly with Selected Passages.22 These, together with a third letter written in 1851, reveal not only Konstantin's relationship with Gogol' but also the evolution of his concept of the narod and populism and his choric principle, about which I shall have more to say in Part Two. All three concepts stem from his deepening and uncritical faith in the narod. In ordinary relationships it would be nothing short of astounding that any correspondence could continue after a letter as blunt and 20 S.

T. Aksakov, Sochineniia, III, 342. pp. 341-346, 350. 22The letter alluded to in Sergei's letter to Ivan on January 14, 1847, has not been published and was perhaps never written. 21Ibid.,

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abusive as Konstantin's first. It was probably written in May of 1848, since Gogol's reply was dated June 3, shortly after his return to the Ukraine from abroad by way of Jerusalem and Constantinople. It was as if Konstantin had been saving his fury for a welcoming-home diatribe. The letter begins with the words "Finally you are on Russian soil.. .. Six years!" Then follows the usual declaration that between friends "complete sincerity" is essential; Konstantin had to let Gogol' know "what was in his heart."23 He protested that he did not believe in unequal friendships—as Gogol' seemed so condescendingly to consider their relationship. After this Konstantin moved on the offensive. He found Gogol's pretensions to "profundity" to be "often external, often false," and his efforts at philanthropy marked by "insincere secrecy." The sec­ ond edition of Dead Souls (1846) contained a "revolting introduc­ tion."24 "I attacked you at home and in society," he says, "almost as ardently as I formerly stood up for you." The influence of A. 0. Smirnova, Gogol's "pupil," was unwholesome. This latest book and its teachings were "false, untrue, completely contrary to sincerity and simplicity. To speak of your book is the same as to speak of all that I think is bad in you." Still referring to Selected Passages, Konstantin declared that Go­ gol's principal sin was the "lie"—"lie not in the sense of fraud, and not in the sense of error; no, but in the sense of insincerity above all else. . . . This sort of lie is an inner lie and is decked . . . in the garb of truth, sincerity, simplicity, and straightforwardness. Such is your book." All this was laid at the doorstep of the French: "You have used such puffed-up and such cold phrases, which strangely enough you have not noticed; but you are not a Frenchman and these phrases . . . are not funny and naive but revolting. . . . Such again is your book." If Gogol' could use a mirror to see his inner self, Konstantin suggested, it would expose a shocking "inner coquetry," and what could one expect of a person whose very "thoughts are false"? This 23 For the text of the letter see P. I. Bartenev, ed., "Pis'ma K. S. Aksakova k Gogoliu," flusskii arkhiv, 1890, no. 1, pp. 152-156; and for Gogol's reply see Ν. V. Gogol', Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 14 vols. (Moscow, 1940-1952), XIV, 68. 24 In this brief foreword Gogol' solicited the readers' personal reactions and criticism, but this has a strange ring of forced and unnatural humility. Among those who knew him it produced bewilderment and suspicion. See Nikolai Gogol', Sochinenii α Ν. V. Gogolia, ed. Tikhonravov and V. I. Shenrok, 17th ed. (St. Petersburg, 1901), pp. 12171220. (Hereafter cited as Gogol', Sochineniia.)

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was illustrated in his letter to Zhukovsky, which Konstantin said "so strongly contradicts . . . the Orthodox faith."25 But these faults were minor compared with Gogol's "great of­ fense—contempt for the common Russian people [narod], for the peasant." Konstantin saw this "contempt" in the introduction to the second edition of Dead Souls and in Selected Passages. Going against the nobility, government bureaucracy, and his own gentry class, he reproached Gogol' for being ignorant of the common people and for "placing the landlord above the people . . . in regard to moral qual­ ities. A strange moral aristocracy, a strange basis of spiritual merit! ... the person who possesses more souls stands higher morally. Here is the great fault: bowing to the public, and contempt for the people." The contrast between "public" (publika) and narod had become Konstantin's favorite way of expressing his populism. While on the subject of "public and people" he could not resist airing his standard complaint: "Do you know the renowned exclamation of the police master: the public forward, the people backward? This could become an epigraph to the history of Peter [the Great]. This one also hears in your book." The further Konstantin progressed the louder the crescendo of accusation and denunciation. The two qualities that Gogol' claimed most, "simplicity and humility," could be found "only in the Russian peasant. This is the reason why he stands so high—higher than all of us, higher than writers. . . . How did it happen that you, Nik[olai] Vas[il'evich], a Russian, do not understand and do not sense the Russian people, that you, so sincere in your works, have become so profoundly insincere?" The reason for all this was obvious: "Was it not you, in your false philosophizing, who brushed aside your [na­ tive] land, fled from Russia, and for six years . . . [lived] in the West breathing its baneful emanations?" Those six years appeared partic­ ularly destructive to Konstantin and his father. Even Gogol's brief trip to the Holy Land was not forgiven him. "Was it not Gogol'," Konstantin insisted, who went "to Jerusalem, spent six years in St. Peter's, in Catholic Rome, or in other lands?" Live far from Moscow and "Orthodox Rus' " and the harm becomes obvious: "I consider your book full of . . . the total evil that engulfed you in the West." Konstantin saved the unkindest cut for the end. For what was Gogol' if not an artist? And so Konstantin told him that he had 25 Russkii arkhiv, 1890, no. 1, pp. 153-154; see also Gogol', Sochineniia, pp. 14291432.

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committed a grave error through his own "merit, talent, artistry." He had lost touch with life and had made his personal experiences the object of his art. As a result, "what was sincere in art became false in life. Art is not life. Art is deceit. . . . Your failure is the failure of an artist." Konstantin's advice was—mend your ways and your life, and stay home. He was convinced that "Holy Rus' would be bene­ ficial" for Gogol'. All this was written by a man in his early thirties who six years earlier had placed Gogol' in the company of Homer and Shakespeare and had been severely reprimanded for his trouble. The letter ends with a paragraph in which Konstantin turned the light upon himself: "I am the same but stand up for the Russian land even more, and I am more firmly against the West." (Throughout the fifties he frequently used the term zemIia and the adjective zemskii, "land" and "of the land," to denote the people of the land or the common Russian people.) He had become more adamant against the "beautiful lie, the beautiful effects of the West, which . . . exclude the possibility of truth." Further on he says: "The latest events in Western Europe [the June days?] have disclosed all its rottenness. Perhaps now our society will understand the harm of Western in­ fluence" and will turn to "Russia's national life." He had "abandoned German philosophy. The life and history of Russia are even closer to me than before, and the most important and basic thing for me now is what you are thinking and talking about—faith, the Orthodox faith."26 Not only did Gogol' answer this letter, but when he came to Mos­ cow in September he stayed with the Aksakovs! In his reply, Gogol' complained about Konstantin's use of the word lie, and Konstantin, in his second letter, expressed regret that his first letter had caused Gogol' any "unpleasant feeling."27 But in this letter he advanced a 26Russkii

arkhiv, 1890, no. 1, pp. 153-156. p. 157. In his reply, dated June 3, 1848, from the Ukraine, Gogol' showed greater concern for Konstantin's feelings than Konstantin had shown for his. Gogol' said that Selected Passages had already been "consigned to oblivion" and that since they last met Konstantin seemed to have learned much about the Russian people following the "historical and philosophical road." The "lie" that Konstantin found in the book made Gogol' wonder whether the only one capable of distinguishing between the truth and a lie was not the "Holy Ghost." "Do you not think that the lie may have crept into your judgment about my book?" Gogol' asked, and he advised Konstantin that "it is better to speak with less affirmation and more proof." He ex­ pressed the hope that in Konstantin's play (The Liberation of Moscow), which he had not yet read, all that he said in the letter "somewhat indefinitely and vaguely" might be stated lucidly. Gogol' was certain that much could be clarified in a face-to-face talk. Gogol', Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, XIV, 68-70. 27Ibid.,

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new theme. "You write," he says, "that you are impatiently awaiting my play [The Liberation of Moscow in 1612] and that you hope to see in it my view of Russian man." Konstantin confessed that he was not an artist or a writer and that his concerns were ideological. He hoped that Gogol' could catch the "secret thought and spirit of his drama." The greatness of the Russian people, he said, was hidden in the simple and unassuming character of the Russian spirit. At first he was unconcerned about the absence of showiness and effect in Russian history, but now he was struck by its grandeur: "In Russian history there is not a single [empty] phrase; everything is pure, un­ alloyed deed, of course, up to Peter [the Great). But beginning with him I do not call our history Russian."28 Between this second letter to Gogol' and the letter of 1851 referred to above, Konstantin's play received its sole performance on the Moscow stage. (Bartenev, who knew the Aksakovs and edited the three letters to Gogol', says that the censors banned the play because of a line that referred to St. Petersburg as the "town with the alien name.") The play was not a success. Konstantin's account of the performance attributes its failure primarily to the audience reception. Those occupying the expensive seats, including the gentry, did not like it, but those in the cheaper seats applauded it. He complained about the "exasperated aristocratic feelings" of the gentry, who were "vexed, considering themselves descendants of the boyars, and were not flattered that the peasants are their brothers." He singled out Count Stroganov29 as being particularly obnoxious and repeated his contention that the great virtues, "simplicity and humility, exist only in the Russian peasant." In spite of the failure, Konstantin had in mind another drama which, he said, would be "in the same spirit as the first. . . . I am convinced that a Russian drama can be [written] only in this spirit." Like his first play, this would also be without a hero, for in writing his first play he had learned "much about Russian art. Thus I see that it has a chorus, an element of Greek drama to which alone could Russian drama bear any similarity. The choir is the principle of Russian life." The new play would be set in the appanage period of Russian history, before the "all-Russian choir" had formed, when 28Husskii

arkhiv, 1890, no. 1, p. 157. Count S. G. Stroganov, who as chief censor had objected to parts of Konstantin's master's dissertation. Stroganov (1794-1882), a former cavalry officer with a distinguished record at Borodino and elsewhere, was head of the Moscow school district from 1835 to 1847. He is given much credit for the improvement of the faculty of the University of Moscow. He disliked and distrusted the Slavophils. 29 Probably

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Novgorod, Kiev, Chernigov, and Suzdal were separately governed. The very thought of the emergence of the pan-Russian "choir" gave him a sense of deep elation, and he wistfully said, "Ah, how fine all this could be!" Perhaps, he hinted, Gogol' would "advance this thought" and write the play himself.30 ALTHOUGH the choric principle had been forming in Konstantin's mind over a period of years, his ideas seem to have come into focus the winter before he wrote these letters to Gogol', after news reached Russia of the revolutionary stirrings in Western Europe. In a poem entitled "February 9," dated Moscow, 1848, he uses the choric prin­ ciple to symbolize his belief in populism and the social, communal concept, closely allied with Khomiakov's sobornost' and Christian togetherness:

Here there is abundant space, the people's choice, And puny is the single voice By the side of the solemn choir As the weak stream by the side of the sea.31 Articulate Russia was keenly aware of the events of 1848 abroad and of the fears of the tsar's government, which responded by in­ tensifying censorship and persecution, ushering in the "dark seven years" and the "censorship terror." The Slavophils soon felt the effects. Diplomacy and foreign policy had been peripheral to their major interest, that of Russian values and culture and their relation­ ship to the West. But under the stimulus of the revolutions of 18481849 and the Crimean War of 1853-1856, which entailed new na­ tional involvements and emergencies, they were drawn into the larger European issues. They could no longer ignore foreign relations and diplomacy, with their implications for the non-Russian Slavs, since all of these except the Serbs were under foreign domination. Although there exists a considerable amount of unpublished cor­ respondence from the end of the 1840's, particularly among members of the Aksakov family,32 the published materials leave no doubt that 30Russkii

arkhiv, 1890, no. 1, pp. 158-159. Mashinsky, Poety, p. 409. 32 As we have seen, some of the Aksakov family correspondence, specifically letters referring to Gogol' and Belinsky, has recently been published, but according to Soviet scholars familiar with the Aksakov archives, much still remains unpublished. See A. A. Mikhailov, "Revoliutsiia 1848 goda i slavianofil'stvo" in Uchenye zapiski Jeningradskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, seriia istoricheskikh nauk, no. 8 (Lenin­ grad, 1941), p. 52; A. S. Nifontov, Rossiia ν 1848 godu (Moscow, 1949), pp. 148-153; Gogol', "Neizdannaia perepiska," pp. 540-541. 31

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for Konstantin Aksakov and the other Slavophils the revolution-filled years of 1848-1849 were not the most edifying period in the history of Moscow Slavophilism. This is so not because they championed the cause of Slav freedom from Hapsburg rule—an attitude under­ standable to the Slav world—but because on political, social, and economic issues their own material interests threw them behind the anti-revolutionary policies of Nicholas I. Although this is a study in ideas and not of consistency and inconsistency in human behavior, it is worth bearing in mind at all times that the Moscow Slavophils were of the Russian gentry. They could support themselves in what were the usual two ways: from their lands, tilled by family-owned serfs after the custom of many generations, or by working in the civil service, usually at a low salary (a few like Khomiakov and Koshelev branched out into agriculture-related trade). Konstantin Aksakov, Khomiakov, and Ivan Kireevsky relied on the first and refused to consider the second. It was a matter of principle which they could afford. Belinsky and others of the classless intelligentsia (raznochintsy) who lacked private income and had anti-government prin­ ciples of their own were obliged to rely on ill-paying journalistic work. (During the reign of Nicholas I, of course, the Slavophils were not even allowed a journal.) At the end of the 1840's as later, on the question of emancipating the serfs, the Moscow Slavophils—with the notable exception of Ivan Aksakov—were not ready to subject them­ selves to economic self-destruction, although in theory Konstantin Aksakov was able to entertain ideas whose logical end could only point to a form of anarchism.33 News of events in Western Europe took time to reach Russia. The Aksakovs first heard of the revolt in Paris on February 27. The fol­ lowing day they received a letter from Paris with a firsthand account sOn

February 21, 1849, Ivan Aksakov, later a banker, wrote to his family about Grigorii, who had become a landlord: "I give my word of honor that I will never own serfs or peasants. . . . My opinion is that the landowners should suffer a certain loss at the emancipation of the serfs because for centuries they have enjoyed scandalous rights. . . . My conscience tells me that a peasant who toils on the land . . . has more right to this land than I do. . . . One brother is becoming a landowner, the other will strive with all his might to deprive him of many of his benefits!" Quoted by Stephen Lukashevich in Ivan Aksakov, 1823-1886: A Study of Russian Thought and Politics (Cambridge, Mass., 1965), p. 27. Koshelev, too, had serious doubts at the end of the forties as to whether the communal order in Russia could be preserved in the future without the landlords themselves becoming members of it instead of remaining out­ side and above it. This of course meant that their estates would have had to be incorporated into the communal lands. See Christoff, Xomjakov, p. 223; N. A. Isagolov, Ocherki russkoi ekonomicheskoi mysli perioda padeniia krepostnogo prava (Moscow, 1956), p. 258.

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and many details.34 (By the Western calendar the date was March 9.) The tsar got the news by telegraph from Warsaw.35 The February revolution caused much consternation in the court and government and among the gentry, including the Aksakovs. A few days after the first news from France, Konstantin wrote Grigorii: "The ministerial crisis in France was decided by a governmental crisis. Louis Philippe fled. Guizot fled. The Tuileries and the Palais-Royal are aflame. Six thousand municipal guards have been beaten. In France a republic has been proclaimed."36 Blinded by his anti-French convictions to the deeper social, economic, and political causes of the unrest, he— and Sergei as well—indiscriminately placed everything at the door­ step of the "fatuous and flightly French people," and the "infamous Parisian rabble."37 The Aksakovs' fear that the revolutionary wave of 1848 would spread to Russia was not an idle fear. Within less than two years of the February days not only much of continental Europe but Russia as well would be involved in revolutionary turmoil or its aftermath. Inside Russia, there was apprehension. The upheaval in France had been preceded by social and economic distress—by poor harvests, unemployment, and hunger, and by a wave of peasant unrest. Some of the same elements were also present in Russia, along with some characteristically Russian features, and revolution seemed a distinct possibility. The harvest of 1848 was very poor—it is ranked as the worst in the second quarter of the nineteenth century—and there was cholera. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the epidemic that began early in 1848 had, before the end of the year, "raged throughout the 34 Mikhailov,

"Revoliutsiia," p. 53. K. Shil'der, "Imperator Nikolai I ν 1648 i 1849 godakh," Istoricheskii vestnik, 1899, no. 10, p. 173. Nifontov gives a detailed account of the various ways in which the news of the revolutions of 1848-1849 got to Russia. See his Hossiia ν 1848 godu, pp. 45-48, 53-58, 60-101. 36 On March 20 Sergei Aksakov sent Grigorii further details: "Paris presents a hor­ rible spectacle, particularly at night. A city of a million and six hundred thousand inhabitants is almost without illumination; the bridges are smashed . . . there are no police whatever, and bands of thieves ply their trade unhampered." See Mikhailov, "Revoliutsiia," p. 53. 37 As Konstantin became surer of himself and more assertive, his father fell prey to the same convictions and prejudices, and so we find him speaking with the tongue of the son. Fearing the spread of the revolutionary movement, he wrote soon after the outbreak of the revolution: "Now the question is not whether the Frenchmen . . . insane and abominable in their rage, proclaim France a republic, but whether the fire will spread over all of Europe." He wished that the "French would kill one another, which would weaken the temptation of their example for all of Europe." Ibid., p. 54. 35 Ν.

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whole area of European Russia in general with extraordinary and unprecedented force," and it was even carried east of the Ural Moun­ tains. The two capitals were particularly hard hit, June and early July being the worst months. In some parts of the vast empire whole villages and towns were wiped out, partly by disease and partly by the fires that were an all too common occurrence in the Russian summers.38 Food shortages, inflation, and generally poor economic conditions were the inevitable results. Sergei Aksakov wrote to Ivan: "In a word, these times in respect to money matters are for everyone, and particularly for us, such that I do not recall any worse."39 That summer, the price of bread rose more than 100 percent. As the revolution spread in Europe, Russian foreign trade declined, and then the tsar became involved in the costly military intervention in Hungary. Grumbling among the peasants grew into seething unrest. Nifontov concludes that "1848 was the year of the highest rise in the peasant movement in Russia in the whole thirty-year reign of Nicholas I." The number of confrontations between rebellious peas­ ants and the government increased, and officials were more and more forced to call upon the army and the police.40 The government's immediate reaction to the news of the February revolution was to issue a brief manifesto as a warning to all potential revolutionary groups at home and abroad, and to tighten the already existing censorship. The manifesto of March 13, drafted by Nicholas himself, declared that the "legal authorities" and the "social struc­ ture" in the West were threatened, that the revolutionary unrest had spread to the "Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia, allied with us," and that it threatened "our Russia entrusted to us by God." Therefore, the tsar said, we are ready "to meet our enemies wherever they may appear . . . to defend the honor of the Russian name and the inviolability of our boundaries."41 This was a fighting manifesto, and it was understood as such in the West. The uneasiness it caused was not allayed by Count Κ. V. Nessel'rod's assurance in the Journal de St. Petersbourg, organ of the Russian Foreign Ministry, that those who saw in the tsar's manifesto 38 For figures of casualties in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and details about the fires, see Nifontov1 flossiia ν 1848 godu, pp. 19-26. 39 Ibid., p. 27. 40 For further details on Russia's internal crisis in 1848-1849 see Nifontov's wellknown monograph, ibid., esp. pp. 28, 32-43, on which I have relied heavily for this period. 41 Shil'der, "Nikolai I ν 1848," p. 183.

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a "threat" to European peace were "very mistaken."42 Even in the ruling bureaucracy in Russia there was a feeling that the tsar had overreacted. In spite of Nessel'rod's assurances, within six days of the manifesto the tsar ordered his troops to take positions along Russia's western frontier. Not by accident, the signing of this order on March 19 fell on the anniversary of the entry of the Russian army into Paris in 1814. From the point of view of the intelligentsia, no less pernicious than the manifesto was the establishment of a second censorship of all publications, directly under the tsar's control. The new secret censorship committee {neglasnyi komitet) was set up in March and a month later was reorganized into a permanent committee, even­ tually under D. P. Buturlin as president.43 This "double" or "twofold" censorship meant that in addition to the "preliminary" examination of manuscripts there was a careful scrutiny after publication by the "reprimanding" or "punitive" committee. The so-called Buturlin committee ushered in the "era of the censorship terror," which con­ tinued to the end of the reign of Nicholas I. The Slavophils were fully subjected to the rigors of the double censorship. On March 5, 1849, Iurii Samarin was arrested for his "Letters from Riga," circu­ lated in manuscript form, in which he took the side of the peasants against the German nobility on whose estates they worked. Thirteen days later Ivan Aksakov was arrested on suspicion of subversion for views expressed in private letters which had been opened by the censor. Neither charge was sustained and both men were soon re­ leased, but it was a warning to the Slavophils that they were under constant watch.44 There were new restrictions on dress as well. Both Sergei and Konstantin Aksakov had been wearing beards as part of their cam­ paign to restore the old Russian look. But in April 1849 the govern­ ment, frightened into unreason, banned the "Russian beard." On April 25 Sergei relayed the sad news to Ivan: "Yesterday we received a copy of the circular with respect to our beards." When Sergei 42Ibid.,

pp. 182-184, 186. Baron Korfs role in organizing the first secret committee, its composition, and for the intrigues that led to the exclusion of Count Uvarov from the permanent committee see ibid., pp. 187-189. See also Barsukov, Pogodin, IX, 280-281; Mikhailov, "Revoliutsiia," pp. 49-50; N. B. Nikitenko, Zapiski i dnevnik (St. Petersburg, 1904), I, 376-377. 44 Lukashevich, Ivan Aksakov, p. 28. While under arrest Ivan was given a ques­ tionnaire to answer. The "rather sharp" answers did not please Nicholas I, who laconically ordered in the margin, "Summon. Read. Teach. Set free!" I. S. Aksakov, Stikhotvoreniia i poemy, pp. 21, 31-32. 43 For

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referred the matter to a high police officer for explanation, he was told that the minister of the interior had issued the circular on order from Nicholas I, part of the reason being that in the West "the beard is a sign of a certain manner [revolutionary] of thought." Sergei, dejected, regarded the tsar's order as "the end of the hope of turning toward the Russian orientation."45 The following day, April 26, Konstantin made his report of the matter to Ivan: "And so the Russian nobleman cannot wear Russian dress! . . . The nobleman having the right to wear a military uniform [mundir] cannot wear a beard. [But] the beard is essential to the Russian costume—or better said, the beard is part of the Russian costume, and the banning of beards means banning Russian dress." This set him off on a tirade in which, of all things, he fell back on a French expression: "External appearance constitutes, so to say, the tone of life, c'est Ie ton, qui fait la musique, tone, the order of life— that is the main thing. That is why Peter, in introducing the alien, abandoned Russian dress. That is why fashion has become the con­ ductor of all Western nonsense, of all assorted Western sins, servility and liberalism." Sergei added a postscript: "it goes without saying that I fully share everything that your brother has written."46 As the revolution spread from France to Germany, Konstantin, watching with increasing uneasiness, found that his old ardor for the land of Schiller and Goethe and Hegel had vanished. He could not sanction the creation of a united republican Germany. The Ger­ mans were "disgracing the great principle of nationality [narodnost'], which they consider revolutionary," whereas in fact, Konstantin af­ firmed, the "principle of nationality is in its essence anti-revolu­ tionary and conservative." Everywhere—in France, Germany, and Italy—the revolutionary unrest was of the same sort, no more than "soap bubbles." Germany was not simply a part of the "West that is being destroyed," Konstantin said. It was "clear into what a chasm the West was falling by following its chosen road." The poor Western nations were no longer human, and Konstantin branded them as "something in the nature of a horse breed."47 Konstantin arrived at some of his Slavophil conclusions and con­ victions by following the same Russian road that many had traveled since the reign of Peter the Great. It was a method of comparison and contrast, the favorite of both Slavophils and Westerners. Western culture established the level of reference. Russia was either below 45 Vengerov,

Konstantin Aksakov, pp. 42-43. pp. 43-45. 47 Mikhailov, "Revoliutsiia," pp. 58-60; I. S. Aksakov, Pis'ma, II, 375.

46 Ibid.,

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it, as the Westerners believed, or above it, as the Slavophils often claimed. Explicitly and boastfully, the familiar Slavophil theme ap­ pears in its variations, and there was no Slavophil who took a more extreme and often more fanciful position than Konstantin Aksakov. Having quite got over his early infatuation with German poetry and philosophy, now he was ready to include the Germans in the general Western European "horse breed." With characteristic fervor un­ matched by the other Slavophils, he gave himself to an apotheosis of the Russian people, the narod. If the Western European was not entirely human, the Russian peas­ ant was superhuman. Konstantin proclaimed this even to Nikolai Romanov in a letter dated March 28, 1848, two weeks after the tsar's manifesto. Regrettably, the complete letter has not been published, but excerpts that have appeared, together with Mikhailov's com­ mentary, tell a good deal: The Russian road is "inner, peaceful, moral, the truly Orthodox road of our Christian faith," which is the reason why Russia is called Holy Rus'. This nation, not believing in the perfection of governmental forms, "calmly supports the existing order. It thinks of existence, of life, and of basic faith. Its path is the path of peace, its virtue—patience and humility." So the Russian people in contrast to the Western nations, which see their ideal in the perfection of government and have chosen revolution for its realization, are not revolutionary and consider "revolution alien to the Russian nation" and "contrary and profoundly alien to the Russian national spirit."48 The first and most pressing problem for Russia while the revolution was spreading from France to Germany and the Hapsburg Empire was how to keep the "French malady," as Ivan Kireevsky called it, out of Russia. This could be achieved, in Konstantin's view, only through his brand of cultural and physical isolationism. He summed up his convictions in a letter to Samarin written at about the same time: I hope that our society will understand that if it is frightened by the Western medicine it must give up the Western disease. If it does not wish the consequences it must remove the causes; if it does not want the horrors of the West it must give up the sweetness of the Western sin, and this is a powerful sin in our society. We must be Russians. It is necessary to return to Russian 48 Mikhailov,

"Revoliutsiia," pp. 62-63.

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principles in order to avoid Western horrors and abominations, [but this cannot be done] if we do not sincerely separate our­ selves from the West not only externally but also spiritually— if, I repeat, we do not return to our principles, so much offended by Peter.49 With characteristic singleness of idea during the revolutionary years 1848-1849 Konstantin reiterated in notes, essays, plays, and letters his obsessive themes: "ruinous imitation of the West"; the necessity for Russia to avoid the "Western sin"; to be Russian is to be conservative, "for there is no spirit of revolution in the Russian nation"; whatever is contradictory in the life of the Slavs is removed "not by the force of compulsion but by the force of life itself"; and finally his favorite notion about Russian dress, "Fashion has become the conductor of all Western raving, of all contagious sins, and of servility and liberalism."50 For the most part these are contained in letters to Samarin, Popov, and Ivan and Grigorii Aksakov, and they are also summed up in the letter to Nicholas I. The manifesto, Konstantin said in his letter to the tsar, had found "response in the hearts of all Russian people . . . who listened to the voice of the monarch with reverence." He attributed "alien disturb­ ances," "violent upheavals," and "convulsive revolutions" to the weakness of inner life in the West. Whereas the revolutionary prin­ ciple was indigenous in the West, the "anti-revolutionary principle was connected with the Russian orientation." The tragedy of Russia lay in its educated class, which "imitates the West, forcefully grafts upon itself its malady and therefore the consequences of its malady." It was not surprising that disloyalty to the government had come from its educated class or the segment of it that "broke away from the Russian land and became subservient to the Western spirit." In this manner he accounted for the "pitiful and senseless attempt of December 14, an attempt offending the self-respect of the people perhaps more than the self-respect of the monarch."51 But with the curious capacity for self-contained contradiction that had been so obvious to others but not to him, he moved against tsardom in the person of Peter the Great at the very time that he appeared to be groveling before the throne of Nicholas I. Western influence had come by two routes to Russia, he declared—one that had been deliberately opened by Peter and a second, much less 49

Ibid., p. 65. pp. 66-67. 51 Ibid., pp. 68-69.

50 Ibid.,

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obvious, that was a sort of osmosis. The first type of influence would have to be countered by the monarch, Nicholas I, by his own example of devotion to everything Russian. That done, public opinion would take care of the second variety. Thus at one stroke he imposed an obligation on the absolute monarchy to heed the voice of the narod and allow free play for public opinion. It is small wonder that Nicholas I, already familiar with Aksakov's still incomplete Slavo­ philism, was looking at him and the other Moscow Slavophils with growing suspicion. In his manifesto of March 13 the tsar condemned revolt against the "lawful authorities" and in the next paragraph denounced those who were against the "Austrian Empire and Prussian Kingdom allied with us."52 Historians accustomed to seeing the bugaboo of pan-Slavism in any and every move of Russian foreign policy in the nineteenth century would probably be in a quandary to account for the tsar's attitude in 1848-1849. What sort of pan-Slavism was at work when the Hapsburg Empire, which held in subjugation more Slavs than the Ottoman Turks or the Hohenzollerns, was saved by the Russian tsar? Why did Nicholas I in effect act against the Austrian Slavs? Why did he boycott the Slav Congress in Prague in June 1848? With­ out going into the complexities of pan-Slavism, it is clear that in 1848-1849 the tsar's attitude was consistent with the policy that had been formulated soon after the discovery of the existence of the Society of Saints Cyril and Methodius in the Ukraine in the winter of 1846. The tsar could hardly be expected to condone the leftist, federalist, all-Slav program of this society named after the two ninth-century "apostles of the southern Slavs." On his instructions, on May 27, 1847, Uvarov issued a circular letter in which all good Russians were enjoined to eschew Slavophilism and pan-Slavism. They were to uphold the "national principle," and not "the Slav Russian but the pure Russian principle, unshakable in its foundations." Obviously, the government wanted to inculcate nationalism in the Russian peo­ ple, not Slavophilism or pan-Slavism. That same year it arrested F. V. Chizhov on his return to Russia on the "instigation of the Aus­ trian government." Chizhov, a friend of Khomiakov and a Slavophil sympathizer, had visited some of the Western and South Slavs.53 Two years later Samarin and Ivan Aksakov were arrested. Why was "Nikolai ν 1848," p. 183. See Christoff, Xomjakov, pp. 90-93.

52 Shil'der, 53

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Nicholas I opposed to pro-Slav policies which might have added to his power and prestige? Two reasons can be mentioned. One was that he might have been aware, as the Prague Congress proved, that nationalism was a much more powerful force among the various Slavs than pan-Slavism. Also, he was deeply disturbed by the rev­ olutionary forces in 1848-1849. Although he was no different from practically all rulers of all times in not being averse to an increase in his power and prestige, at the end of the forties he preferred preservation of the status quo to a possible but by no means certain aggrandizement through disruption of the Hapsburg Empire. There was much more of the conservative, reactionary autocrat in Nicholas I, already the ruler of a vast empire, than there was of the pan-Slav. Intent as they were on the manifold problems of Russia, the early Moscow Slavophils took little time for the larger troubles of the Slav world, even when they were compounded by the tsar's military help to the Hapsburgs.54 Unless Konstantin Aksakov's unpublished cor­ respondence of the period contains proof to the contrary, it can fairly be said that the fate of the Austrian Slavs, or of any of the nonRussian Slavs, interested him little at that time. His reaction to the revolutions at the end of the forties was motivated by considerations for Russia face to face with the West rather than by a desire for the political independence of the Austrian Slavs, which was the first and indispensable step toward their national cultural fulfillment, As usual, Holy Russia was foremost in his mind and heart. THE DECADE of the forties was the focal point in the evolution of

Moscow Slavophilism and of Konstantin Aksakov's career. The Stankevich circle, German idealism, and literary romanticism be­ came dim memories for Konstantin. His friendship with Belinsky came to an end, and he moved increasingly in Slavophil company in which his new friend Samarin was also at home. Konstantin's unequal friendship with Gogol' satisfied some basic psychological and ideological needs, for in the literary genius of Gogol' Konstantin shrewdly saw the possibility of personal, family, and national en­ richment. Gogol' was to be treasured at all costs, although at times their exasperating personalities made friendship almost impossible. While marching resolutely on the road to Slavophilism, Konstantin found himself firmly in the grip of his own brand of populism. This colored his views on the West, on the tsarist government, on social, 54 Kireevsky's feeble and fleeting concern in 1849 that the tsar might "crush our Slavs together with the Germans" is scarcely an expression of Russian pan-Slavism. See Christoff, Kireevski;, p. 122.

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economic, and political matters, and on literature. As self-appointed spokesman for the narod, at the end of the forties he wrote The Liberation of Moscow, a play without heroes and heroines. The new hero, his invention, was the narod. Tsar and nobility were pushed off the stage while the common people spoke as a chorus, the only voice in Russia that mattered. This voice, as Konstantin heard it, would become his clarion call during the next decade, to the end of his life.

CHAPTER 8 THE 1850's: SLAVOPHILISM VICTORIOUS

WHEREAS some men's lives fall into periods, the life of Konstantin

Aksakov was little marked by events or even by changing interests. In the 1850's it went on after much the same pattern as in the 1840's. And though Aksakov produced more in the last ten years of his life, between the ages of thirty-three and forty-three, than in the decade before, he was still preoccupied with the one grand theme of Russia, as exemplified mainly in Russian grammar and the narod. The dec­ ade opened with a bit of travel, but it did not widen his horizons or deepen his perspectives. No matter where Konstantin traveled, his Moscow chauvinism remained unshaken; indeed, it was now but­ tressed by his equally ardent Slavophilism. At the end of 1849 Ivan Aksakov, hoping to show his elder brother something of rural life in Russia, invited Konstantin to Rostov, in the Iaroslav guberniia, one hundred miles northeast of Moscow, to see the fair. Konstantin's parents thought the trip would be good for him, though they were reluctant to part with him; and thus in March he went to Iaroslavl'. Ivan wrote his parents that he was so glad to see Konstantin that he was "even spoiling him . . . entertaining him in the company of the best people of the whole Iaroslav guberniia." But he felt that he was making things too easy for his brother: "I have warned everyone about Konstantin. They are all familiar with our manner of thought. . . [but] I wish that he could be confronted with the actual conditions of life. I am losing hope that he will ever be able to see reality."1 11.

S. Aksakov, Pis'ma, II, 303. Ivan Aksakov failed in briefing one of his Iaroslav friends, Borozdin. In his reminiscences Borozdin says that Konstantin came to Iaroslav "for a week or two," that "in reality he was an untonsured monk" and "completely lacked originality and independence." Borozdin found none of Sergei's talent in Konstantin, who readily expounded on the virtues of the mir, commune, and peasant self-government. See K. A. Borozdin, "I. S. Aksakov ν Iaroslavle (Otryvok iz vospominanii)," Istoricheskii vestnik, 1886, no. 3, pp. 630-632. At the same time (1850), but independently of Borozdin, A. 0. Smirnova characterized Konstantin as a "monk without the heroism of the monk's life." See I. S. Aksakov, Pis'ma, II, 335.

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Sergei was equally aware of the Potemkin-village dream world in which Konstantin lived, but at the same time he recognized his inability to confront him with the alternative—that is, to have him leave the family abode and face life on his own. On March 21 Sergei addressed his two sons: My dear friends, Konstantin and Ivan! For the first time in my life . . . I am writing a common letter to you. . . . Every day and not only once a day we imagine how you two visit the fair­ grounds and talk with merchants, landlords, and the people . . . how little by little the argument begins; how impatiently my Ivan's brow becomes wrinkled, and how heatedly Konstantin elaborates on . . . his immutable and sacred truths in reality not applicable in any society, [not] even in the Russian Orthodox commune! Three days later Sergei wrote to Ivan alone: You are entirely right in presuming that Konstantin will never know reality. If you read his letter to us, you . . . would laugh and be vexed at the same time. Khomiakov was delighted reading his unexpected deductions. It seems that there is nothing [to do] but to wish that he will remain with his pleasant delusions all his life, for perceptiveness [prozrenie] is impossible without grievous and bitter experiences.2 Ivan took a somewhat brighter view of the matter, saying in reply on March 25, "I consider his [Konstantin's] sojourn here very good for him.... It seems that he acquired some recognition of the importance of practical questions."3 But, back from Rostov, Konstantin fell into his customary routine of reading, writing, corresponding with friends, and making his social rounds, although these were now less frequent than during the forties. Despite vacillation, equivocation, and even outright contradiction on the subject of Russian autocracy, Konstantin still denigrated the government of the tsars and looked askance at anyone in its service. Iurii Samarin's nephew writes that Konstantin considered Samarin "an apostate from the basic principles of Slavophilism, a turncoat on the side of the government."4 Konstantin's principle of nationality was embodied in the narod, not in the government, and he was especially disapproving because Samarin, of a well-to-do landlord family, did not need a government salary. Khomiakov, in pointing 2 1.

S. Aksakov, Pis 'ma, II, 304-305. Ibid., p. 305. 4 Barsukov, Pogodin, X, 39.

3

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to another aspect of Konstantin's concept of nationality, singled out a serious flaw, cautioning Konstantin not to let his Orthodox Sla­ vophilism degenerate into secular nationalism.5 But Konstantin's nationalism was limited, as it always had been, to Moscow and Great Russia. One of the specific points of disagree­ ment between Konstantin and Ivan was the Ukraine and its people, the Little Russians, whom Ivan liked but whom Konstantin did not consider quite the equals of the Great Russians. This issue came into focus in the second half of 1850 when Konstantin went with his sisters Vera and Nadia to Kiev. The trip was a health measure for the two women, and it surprised some who were familiar with Kon­ stantin's prejudices.6 The Aksakovs stayed at the Hotel London, near the Monastery of the Caves. From there, on August 31, Konstantin wrote to a Ukrainian friend, M. A. Maksimovich, that "Kiev delighted us," but he complained about the cold weather. On the return jour­ ney, after a stay of two months, they stopped at Khomiakov's estate, Bogucharovo, near Tula. Khomiakov wrote about it to A. N. Popov on November 6: "I was not at home when Aksakov visited us. My wife says that he abused Little Russia. I expected this."7 Notwith­ standing Sergei's comment to Gogol' (December 3,1850) that "Little Russia had a poetical effect on my daughters and even softened inflexible Konstantin," Konstantin's Great Russian chauvinism seemed more deeply rooted than ever.8 This was not the only point of disagreement between the two brothers. More and more, they differed on other fundamental issues. Ivan was irritated by Konstantin's abstractness, impracticality, im­ patience, and intolerance, and by his uncompromising devotion to principles and ideas. Their family bond remained as strong as ever, but intellectually they were not always in fraternal agreement. With the candor that marked relationships in the Aksakov family, Ivan unburdened himself to his father in a letter of March 13,1850, while Konstantin was with him in Iaroslavl': I cannot, like Konstantin, console myself with phrases such as: "the main thing is the principle, the rest is an accident" or "the Russian people are in search of the Kingdom of God!" etc., etc. 5

Ibid., IX, 475. Smirnova wrote Gogol' gleefully on September 11, "I shall tell you of a miracle—K. S. Aksakov has gone to Kiev!" Ibid., XI, 122. 7 Ibid., p. 123. 8 S. T. Aksakov, Sochineniia, III, 378. Sergei and Ivan had the warmest regard for the Ukraine, with its "marvelous, southern, dark blue sky" and "its splendid nature," admiration which seems to have angered Konstantin. See Barsukov, Pogodin, X, 213; I. S. Aksakov, Pis'ma, II, 115. 6 Alexandra

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Indifference toward the common good, indolence, apathy, and preference for one's own advantages are being acknowledged as a search for the kingdom of God! With respect to the principle . . . this expression of Konstantin's makes me smile. This is the same as saying to the hungry: My friend, you will be fed in the other world but now you can go hungry—this is an accident. Spread some principle on your bread.... There is no [such thing as] need; that hundreds of thousands will die, and other hun­ dreds of thousands will be gone, this is an accident. Easy con­ solation. This might be principle, Ivan complained, but what "revolts me are the facts."9 For the more level-headed Ivan, Konstantin's extolling of princi­ ples and the mystique of the narod were so much nonsense.10 Though there was little of the religious mystic in Konstantin, there was none at all in Ivan, as there was none in Sergei, whose love of nature, the theater, literature, and art—in short, whose sincere enjoyment of the works of man and of man in nature—put him squarely in the tradition of the eighteenth-century neoclassicists. The role of Orthodoxy in the Aksakov family therefore needs fur­ ther clarification. The Orthodox faith had always been an accepted part of the family beliefs and way of life, as was typical among the Russian gentry. The Aksakovs observed religious holidays and ritual and accepted Christian principles without letting them crowd out the large area of life that belonged to aesthetic achievement and enjoyment. But Ivan, while still in his twenties and soon after be­ coming an official in the auditing commission in Astrakhan, began showing a distaste for the official Russian church—ossified, govern­ ment-subordinated, clergy-ridden—and a preference for a brand of Christianity conceived as a simple living force in the daily concerns of the individual and society. He was equally impatient with mo­ nastic life and the life of the Christian hermit. Thus he wrote to his father on November 7, 1850, "The Christian teaching, which com­ mands one to love thy neighbor and to hate life and the world . . . destroys life." In reply, his father scolded him, saying, "Where does the Christian teaching order one to hate life?"11 In another letter (January 22,1850), Ivan turned to the clergy: "Our 91.

S. Aksakov, Pis'ma, II, 300. Lukashevich, in his biography of Ivan Aksakov, dates to the period of Konstantin's visit Ivan's increasing dislike of "his brother's way of thinking," in­ cluding Konstantin's views on primary education, which will be discussed in Part Two. See Lukashevich, Ivan Aksakov, pp. 32-33. 111. S. Aksakov, Pis'ma, II, 358. 10 Stephen

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church and . . . the clergy have come to terms with contemporary life. They have screened off the truth . . . have so wrapped up the Gospel truth in their ritualistic, administrative-police aspect that not everyone is in a position to distinguish it. The Orthodox clergy cor­ rupt the people while the schismatic teachers . . . are also outside its truth."12 Not long after, on February 5, Ivan deplored pagan left­ overs in church ritual and at the end of 1853 found Koshelev's re­ ligious views more congenial than Konstantin's or Kireevsky's.13 Such views led Miliukov to consider Ivan Aksakov the least re­ ligious of the Slavophils. It is also perhaps accurate to say, as Barsukov does, that Ivan's anti-church views were not shared by his family. Yet there are indications that it may have been Ivan who led Sergei to take an increasingly critical attitude toward the Russian church, both as a historical and a contemporary institution. Ivan certainly was better acquainted than the other Aksakovs with life in the country, where the church had a stronger influence than in the cities. His work in Bessarabia, in the Iaroslav guberniia, and in As­ trakhan gave him an opportunity to observe the official church and pass his impressions along to his family. Sergei listened and replied, as in this letter of August 10, 1849: Everything that you write about the merchants and the priestly [popovskaia] caste is completely fair, and in part known to me. I am very glad that . . . your service has acquainted you more closely with them. Our clergy is fit for nothing; it is decidedly harmful to the religious convictions of the people and has aroused them against itself. But how to help them out of this evil is the difficult problem. How to settle things so that the peasant would not see in the priest [pop] a government civil servant who holds the landlords by the hand.14 Two months earlier Sergei had confessed to Ivan that he had not been to mass in two years. He attributed this to the cholera and the intense cold of the Moscow winters. His daughter Anna, however, had taken communion.15 While Sergei Aksakov was confessing to a certain lagging in church attendance, his friend Gogol' seemed more involved than before in 12 Ibid.,

p. 273; Barsukov, Pogodin, I, 520-523. S. Aksakov, Pis'ma, II, 284; Barsukov, Pogodin, XI, 125-128. Christoff, Kireevskij, pp. 116-117, 122, 126-128, 146, 152-155, 159-165, 169-170, 195-196. 14 A. A. Dunin, ed., "Materialy po istorii russkoi literatury i kul'tury. I. S. Aksakov ν Iaroslavle. Po neizdannym pis'mam k nemu S. T. Aksakova i ego sem'i," Russkaia mysl', 1915, no. 8, p. 114. (Hereafter cited as Russkaia mysl', 1915, no. 8.) 15 Ibid., pp. 114-115. 13 1.

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religion. Some Westerners blamed Gogol's increasing religiosity, and specifically the self-righteous and moralistic Selected Passages of 1847, on the Slavophils. For the Slavophils as a whole the charge seems unfounded; for the Aksakovs, who were closer to Gogol' than the rest, it is quite farfetched. As early as the summer of 1842, after Gogol' had left Russia the second time, Sergei sensed with misgiving a "mystical religious orientation" in the writer whose work he so admired.16 During Gogol's six-year stay in Europe this mystical lean­ ing became pronounced, and the change in him was evident to every­ one when he returned to Russia. Certainly Sergei did not encourage it, though he supplied Gogol', as requested, with Russian chronicles and religious books and the "works of the Holy Fathers."17 Ivan Kireevsky, who manifested a strong interest in the Eastern church fathers in the late 1840's, was not on Gogol's extensive list of cor­ respondents. Gogol' returned to Russia with the manuscript of the second part of Dead SouJs, and he read the first chapter at Abramtsevo shortly after reaching Moscow in the summer of 1849. Sergei was ecstatic. The following January Gogol' read chapter 2 to a select few, including Sergei and Konstantin, and this time it was the father who Homerized Gogol'. This chapter was even more noble and profound than the first, he told Ivan; nowhere else but in Homer could one find the "noble side of man," even in a vulgar human being, so well brought out.18 That spring, Gogol' read chapters 3 and 4 to the Aksakovs, but the writing went slowly and he talked of going to Mount Athos. Ivan called the idea an "absurdity." Sergei was pleased to hear that he had given up the notion. "Be healthy," he urged him, and "finish your great work successfully."19 Gogol', increasingly unwell, was with the Aksakovs at Abramtsevo in June 1851, in the middle of September, and again—perhaps for the last time—on September 30 after a visit to the cloister Optina Pustyn'.20 On February 21, 1852, Gogol' died, tormented in soul and body. Of the second part of Dead Souls, for which the Aksakovs had had such high hopes, only fragments remain. Some nine days before he died, Gogol' burned the manuscript of the second part of his great work, a few chapters of the third part, and some minor pieces (he 16 S. T. Aksakov, Sochineniia, III, 245. " Ibid., p. 301. Gogol' requested these from Frankfurt in March 1844. '* Barsukov, Pogodin, XI, 133-134. For Sergei Aksakov's more detailed description of the circumstances and his reaction and criticism of the reading of this chapter and the rereading of chapter 1 see his Sochineniia, III, 371-374. 19 S. T. Aksakov, Sochineniia, III, 377. 20 Ibid., p. 382.

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had already burned two earlier versions of part two).21 Though his friendship with the Aksakovs had been marred by the publication of Selected Passages, it was never broken off, and Sergei remained ready to advance the completion of Dead Souls in whatever way possible. Sergei Aksakov writing to his sons two days after Gogol's death says that he heard Gogol' read the first chapters of volume two of Dead Souls "with a certain fear" because "one cannot confess two religions without punishment."22 Gogol's religions, as Sergei saw them, were Christianity and art. There is no question that Sergei and Konstantin were among the few who were ever to know what was contained in volume two of Dead Souls. But the Aksakovs seem to have left no record of this. Konstantin doubtless had the satisfaction of having been a party to one of Gogol's best-kept secrets. For himself, Konstantin Aksakov seemed to want no more than his life at Abramtsevo and in Moscow. In 1849 the family considered an academic career for him, provided that he, as Sergei put it, would "adhere strictly to grammar and philology." Sergei thought that Konstantin's lively manner and striking oral delivery would make him an effective teacher. "How captivatingly he would speak about his intimate thoughts and convictions from the scholarly rostrum!" he exclaimed in a letter to Ivan.23 In December 1849 Konstantin finished the first part of a Russian grammar, thus marking progress on a long­ standing project. Sergei was encouraged and wrote to Ivan on De­ cember 1,1849: "I am very satisfied with Konstantin. He has worked hard. . . . The first part of the grammar is completely finished . . . I do not know whether he has overcome the difficult problem of ex­ pressing in comprehensible language the inevitable metaphysics in a grammar such as his. I am decidedly of the opinion that this is possible." A week later Konstantin finished the revision and the foreword and introduction. His father was encouraged but wondered whether much could not be "said more clearly the first time without repetition and living through one and the same thought."24 21

Troyat, Gogol, p. 426. T. Aksakov, Sochineniia, III, 338. 23Russkaia mysl', 1915, book VIII, p. 121. 24 Ibid., p. 123. Five years later when Ivan Kireevsky made his comments about an article on Russian verbs that Konstantin had requested of him, he began by saying, "In it as in almost everything you write there is something stirring. Reading your grammar, one does not feel that one is in a school or in a stuffy study." I. Kireevsky, Sochineniia, I, 76. In 1850 Ivan Aksakov wanted Konstantin to work on grammar and "not on articles about literature which the censorship will not pass." Barsukov, Pogodin, XI, 119. 22 S.

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The mutual devotion between father and son has often been stressed, and there are those who attribute Konstantin's rapid phys­ ical decline after 1859 to Sergei's death. Within twenty months of the funeral of the father, the son, too was dead. Without denying their uncommon attachment, one should not oversimplify the rela­ tionship. Although certain goals of father and son were much the same, their personalities and temperaments, and therefore their ap­ proaches, were often strikingly different. This was true about liter­ ature, Russianism, and the theater, which continued to fascinate Konstantin as they did his father. Essentially, Sergei Aksakov believed that the theater should open up men's eyes to life.25 Probably there were elements of indoctri­ nation and propaganda in his concept of the proper role of the theater in Russia, but he also conceived it as a high form of art. Thus he, more than anyone else, must have been acutely aware of his son's lack of playwriting talent. Speaking of this matter in a letter to Ivan toward the end of 1849, Sergei described how several days earlier Konstantin had read his play The Liberation of Moscow in 1612 to the cast who were to stage it: "Konstantin read it in one gulp and with such animation that . . . many were touched to the point of tears." But the actors disliked Konstantin's concentration on the "choir" and mass scenes and the absence of strong individual roles. Some said the play caused a "big stir and foretold its great effect on the stage"; but Sergei was skeptical—although he knew that "all national movements produce an effect on the stage." It would be a theatrical success only if Konstantin could do all the acting: He alone can be imbued . . . with the sacred feelings that per­ meate the play! He alone has the great physical strength to . . . burn for four hours with undiminished flame. In short—for this play there is not . . . another such performer as Konstantin. Imagine him coming home after the reading and for an hour and a half telling us about it with undiminished ardor and in such a powerful voice!26 Konstantin nevertheless made one more attempt, this time a com25 "Earlier than the periodical press, the theater in Russia became the medium that expressed 'everything honest and exalted'; 'the dramatic author in Aksakov's words (1828) had to be the preceptor of the [public] . . . the one who advances literary education ... the one who guides [the wave].' For 'who had the possibility of directing it if not the dramatic writer, who in a single moment can shake up thousands of hearts and minds?' " P. N. Miliukov, "Sergei Timofeevich Aksakov," Russkaia mysl', 1891, book IX, pp. 91-92. 26Ausskaia mysi', 1915, book VIII, pp. 120-121.

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edy. Prince Lupovitsky or Arrival in the Village, a play in two acts with a prologue, was completed in 1851 and had its sole performance in Moscow that same year.27 It is about a Russian prince who tries to bring the fruits of Western civilization home from Paris to his crude, uneducated serfs—a theme obviously derived from Peter the Great and pertinent to the Westerner-Slavophil controversy. The prince is of course deluding himself in thinking that he can improve the "religious, moral, and artistic" lives of these representatives of the "people," since they in fact stand much higher than the West­ erners and those Russians who, like the prince himself, think West­ erners superior to the Russian people.

Inevitably, though Sergei's and Konstantin's enthusiasms fre­ quently coincided, Konstantin, obsessed with Moscowphilism and Slavophilism, became impatient when he could not bring the full force of his obsessions to bear on the object of his interest. He could not match his father's critical detachment and broader artistic sen­ sitivity, and almost invariably his enthusiasms led to quarrels and insults outside the family. It happened with Gogol' and with other, lesser, personalities, and it nearly happened with Ivan Turgenev. According to the editor of the recently published complete works of Ivan Turgenev, Konstantin Aksakov and Turgenev met "in Mos­ cow at the beginning of the forties."28 From then on, for nearly two decades, they were on friendly terms in spite of their sharp disa­ greements on ideological questions. In the early and middle forties Turgenev was not in the front ranks of the Westerners. Though he was friendly with Belinsky1 he was a liberal or moderate Westerner. As such he could not resist satirizing the Slavophils. Thus in the poem "Pomeshchik" (The Landlord], published in 1846, he made fun of Konstantin Aksakov's "Russian dress" and exaggerated Moscowphilism.29 Behind the satire, of course, lay the substance of dis27 It was published in 1856 as a supplement to Husskaia beseda, and also in Leipzig the following year. 28 Academy of Science, U.S.S.R., I. S. Turgenev, Poinoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem ν dvadtsati vos'mi tomakh, 28 vols. (Moscow-Leningrad, 1960-1968). (Hereafter cited as Turgenev, Sochineniia or Pis'ma.) The first letter from Turgenev to Konstantin Aksakov, a brief note, is tentatively dated to the spring of 1843. Another, also ten­ tatively dated, belongs to the following year. There are nine more letteis from Turgenev for the period 1843-1853, including three addressed jointly to Sergei, Konstantin, and Ivan. Of Konstantin's letters to Turgenev, eight are listed. Ibid., Pis'ma, I, 232, 236, 646-647. 29 Stanza 28, which contains the allusions, is omitted from the poem as it appears in the Academy of Science edition, but it is given in the notes. Ibid., Sochineniia, I, 181, 541-544. In reply to Turgenev, Konstantin gave a "sharply negative" view of the poem in the Moscow Symposium of 1847. Then it was Turgenev's turn; in "Khor' i Kalinych," published in the first issue of Sovremennik (Contemporary), 1847, and in

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agreement between Turgenev's liberal, nonrevolutionary, literary Westernism and Konstantin's maturing Slavophilism, becoming ever more fanatical and intractable. Yet, as with Konstantin's relations with Gogol' and Pogodin, personal disagreements did not spell an end to friendship. Sergei Aksakov did not meet Turgenev until late 1849. Although Turgenev, born in 1818, was young enough to be his son, they felt a genuine fondness for each other.30 In January 1851, Konstantin was pleased that, after the appearance of Turgenev's Sportsman's Sketches in serialized form (early 1847 to early 1851), Turgenev accepted Konstantin's suggestion that he read some of Sergei Aksakov's hunt­ ing tales (zapiski) to him. Soon some of the tales were read again to an appreciative Turgenev and Khomiakov, both of whom shared Sergei's enthusiasm for the hunt.31 From then on Turgenev visited the Aksakovs frequently, in Mos­ cow and at Abramtsevo. Whereas Sergei found in Turgenev an in­ teresting and stimulating literary talent, Konstantin thought of him primarily as an ideological opponent—to be converted if possible, and if not, opposed. Turgenev, for his part, remained friendly but would not give ground. This is clear from an exchange of letters toward the end of 1852. Konstantin, convinced of the superiority of the narod over the gentry, referred sarcastically, to the Westerners as the "aping people" (Iiudi-obez'ianye). In response to his remark that "for one hundred fifty years we have played the role—and we must truthfully say not at all badly—of aping the West," Turgenev com"Odnodvorets Ovsianikov," in the fifth issue of the same journal, he made humorous veiled allusions to Konstantin Aksakov. Later, in the 1850's, after Turgenev got to know and respect Sergei Aksakov, he edited "Khor' i Kalinych," removing the ref­ erences to Konstantin. But in "Odnodvorets Ovsianikov" the young landlord, Vasilii Nikolaich Lubozvonov, wearing a caftan and a beard, was generally taken to be Kon­ stantin Aksakov. Ibid., Sochineniia, IV, 7-20, 61-79, 534, 548-549. 30 Russkaia mysl', 1915, no. 8, p. 124. Gut'iar was convinced of Turgenev's strong influence on Sergei. Aksakov's memoirs, A Family Chronicle, he says, "would hardly have been finished without Turgenev's ardent encouragements and solicitations." See N. Gut'iar, "I. S. Turgenev i A. A. Fet," Vestnik Evropy, 1899, no. 11, p. 322. On December 29, 1849, Sergei Aksakov wrote to his son Ivan: "The other day I met Turgenev and I like him very much. Perhaps his convictions are false or at least contrary to mine, but his personality is good, simple, and superstitiously accessible to impressions of the dark and mysterious world of the human soul." He and Turgenev had too much in common to allow ideological convictions to stand in the way of friendship. Both conceived life and art "broadly," and both were characterized by "mildness of soul, refinement of artistic taste, and a special poetical attitude toward nature and a passion for hunting." Mashinsky, S. T. Aksakov, pp. 221-222. 31 Turgenev, Pis'ma, II, 73; Sochineniia, IV, 498-501.

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mented tersely: "On our views of Russian life, and Russian art, we part company."32 Turgenev did not contribute to the Moscow Symposium of 1852, but urged by the Aksakovs he offered his story "Mumu" for the second issue.33 This, like the first, was under Ivan Aksakov's editor­ ship, but never appeared. The censorship banned it. In a letter to the Aksakovs dated June 6, 1852, Turgenev refers in some detail to the first volume and mentions Konstantin's play, Prince Lupovitsky, but explains that he has not yet read Konstantin's contribution to the Symposium. This was the essay "On the Ancient Social Order among the Slavs in General and the Russian Slavs in Particular," historical in content but with strong polemical overtones.34 As in a number of essays by both Slavophils and Westerners during the forties and fifties, the starting point was the recent work of two Western-leaning historians, S. M. Solov'ev and K. D. Kavelin.35 Konstantin's essay upholds the standard Slavophil view that the ancient Russian social order was communal, and therefore socially conscious, as contrasted with the inferior clan order, based on blood ties, that emphasized individual rather than social consciousness. Turgenev gave his comments on the essay in a letter of January 16, 1853, prefacing them with the diffident remark, "to the extent to which I can pass judgment on such things, I agree with you in respect to the 'clan order.' " He claimed to have only a general knowl­ edge of Russian history and had not, he said, "studied the sources," but he found the facts in Konstantin's essay "interesting and new," his view "true and clear." However, he said, "I sincerely confess that I cannot agree with your conclusions." He was disturbed by Konstantin's refusal or inability to see the dark side in the life of the people. "It seems that I have already said to you that in my opinion the tragic side of the life of the people—not of our people alone but of every [people]—escapes you, and, at that, when our songs them­ selves speak so loudly of this!"36 Turgenev was an acute observer of 32

Turgenev, Pis'ma, II, 71-72, 447-448. p. 441. 34 K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, I, 59-124. The subtitle is "Apropos of Opinions on the Clan Order." In a footnote he explained that he had touched on the same subject in an essay written in 1850. 35 For a summary of Kavelin's views on this subject see V. A. Miakotin, "K. 0. Kavelin i ego vzgliady na russkuiu istoriiu," Russkoe bogatstvo, 1898, no. 2, pp. 96115. His view that "statism," not the communal principle, prevailed in ancient Russia is of course incompatible with Konstantin Aksakov's. 38 Turgenev says further: "It has always seemed to me that this clan social order as represented by Solov'ev and Kavelin is something artificial, systematic. . . . Every system in both the good and bad sense of this word is not a Russian thing [ne Russkaia 33 Ibid.,

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peasant life, a respecter of the observed fact, and he was skeptical in general, as was Ivan Aksakov, of complete reliance on logic, phi­ losophy, and philosophical systems. Though he had a high regard for Stankevich and Granovsky, he satirized their overemphasis on speculative philosophy and philosophical idealism in his fiction, feeling, like Sergei and Ivan Aksakov, that it was somehow un-Russian.37 Konstantin, with the persistence and passion of the crusader, con­ tinued his attempts to convert Turgenev to his point of view. In a letter of March 12, 1853, he told him that "the Russian—or, better, the Russian peasant—is . . . such a great preceptor and preacher of truth and the good of the Christian teaching that it will convince everyone who does not stubbornly plug his ears."38 But the stub­ bornness was Konstantin's own. He refused to see the narod as fleshand-blood human beings. It was as if the centuries of serfdom had created a nobler human breed, and had not had any debilitating effects. In reply to this Turgenev remarked wearily, "I can only repeat that it is difficult for me to agree with everything that K[onstantin] S[ergeevich] said." Soon Turgenev began to look upon his encounters with Konstantin as a never ending game, writing to Sergei Aksakov on July 9,1856, "I wish so much to see you all and do a little arguing with Konstantin Sergeevich." But Konstantin in a letter of the pre­ ceding June 18 taunted him about wicked St. Petersburg. "Is it pos­ sible," Konstantin inquired, "that you are thinking of spending the coming winter in foul Petersburg? . . . So long as it seems to you possible to live in Petersburg, you and I will follow different roads; and . . . you will be weak and faltering."39 Sergei seldom complained about Konstantin's manner of life, though he knew it was not fully productive. Furthermore it was artificially secure and shut off from the demands and buffeting of normal life. In a letter to Ivan in November 1856 he was annoyed that "Konstantin is doing something but mostly fusses around me."40 Konstantin's routine remained much the same as a decade or two Veshch']; everything sharp, defined, delineated does not become us [nam ne idet]. . . . It is worth taking a good look at the contemporary village scene to understand the impossibility of Solov'ev's clan order." Turgenev, Pis'ma, II, 107-108. 37 In a letter to Koshelev of July 29, 1853, Ivan speaks of the "systematism of the Germans and the absence of systematism in Russia," and considers "noble inconsis­ tency" (biagorodnaia neposledovatel'nost'), a basic Christian virtue. See N. P. Koliupanov, Biograflia Alexandra Ivanovicha Kosheleva, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1889-1892), II, appendix, 59-61; Christoff, Kireevskij, p. 283n. 38 Turgenev, Pis'ma, II, 489. 39Ibid., II, 140, 374, 631; III, 68. 40Ibid., Ill, 460.

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before. Nonetheless, he was busy in his own way, and his work fell into a number of categories—literary, dramatic, and historical crit­ icism, and also historical, ideological, poetical, and philological works. Perhaps one could add, as another category, correspondence with friends. This was informal, but what is published is highly informative, and from the scholar's point of view invaluable. In ad­ dition, there was his publicistic work, which often cut across several fields. Three fragments written in 1849 and 1850 on the subject of Russian history are the first of Konstantin's so-called historical works. These are interpretive pieces, the first and second appearing under the title "The Basic Principles of Russian History," the third intended as the beginning of a children's text entitled "Russian History." Such basic concepts as the differences between the common people (zemlia) and the "state," and the significance of changes in the Russian state under Peter the Great, are evident, though the form of these concepts would later be altered. Another essay of this period (1850) deals with popular education, a subject on which Konstantin, like Koshelev, Khomiakov, and Ivan Kireevsky, had well-formed views. To the early 1850's also belong several brief studies of a historicalsociological character. Konstantin and his fellow Slavophils were deeply interested in the nature of Russia's ancient civic and social order, and deadly serious in their arguments with such Westerners as Kavelin, Solov'ev, and in the 1850's B. N. Chicherin about whether that distant order was clan-based or communal-civic. The Slavophils believed that the question had a definite bearing on Russia's ideo­ logical development and also on such basic issues as individual freedom and personality, individual dignity, and social conscious­ ness. In a word, they were interested in the whole range of problems related to the individual's social and civic obligations in a Christian society, and in the optimum conditions for the promotion of unself­ ish Christian behavior. The titles of two of Konstantin's most im­ portant essays speak for themselves: "Was the 'Izgoi' a Clan or a Social Phenomenon?" (1850), published in the Moscow Gazette, and the already mentioned "On the Ancient Social Order among the Slavs in General and the Russian Slavs in Particular (Apropos of Opinions on the Clan Order)."41 These two essays show Konstantin Aksakov's heavy reliance on such source materials as customs, traditions, tales, beliefs, and folk 41 See I. S. Aksakov, ed., Moskovskii sbornik (Moscow, 1852), pp. 49-139 (69-159). A third essay also published in the Moscow Gazette in 1852 was "About the Difference between Russian Tales and Songs (Apropos of an Article)." See K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, I, 25-58, 59-124, 399-408.

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songs—the sort of departure from standard historical sources that is often considered an important Slavophil contribution to the study of Russian history, though the Slavophils had no monopoly on such sources. This is also a measure of how far Konstantin had come since his university days, and the Kachenovsky school, which viewed these sources with extreme distrust. If he had persisted along the lines indicated by these essays he might have made a notable con­ tribution to the study of Russian history and historiography, but this would perhaps be too much to expect from a member of the gentry and the Slavophil camp. As with Khomiakov on Orthodoxy and sobornost' and Ivan Kireevsky on "Russian" philosophy and the "wholeness of the spirit," Aksakov's most noteworthy ideas are scat­ tered about, and one would look in vain for even a single essay on his choric principle. Aksakov's short pieces and fragments published in volume one of his collected works bear witness to his study of Russian history and some historical documents, but the effort was not systematic and was intended not so much to investigate as to buttress preconceived ideas and theories. Apart from his dissertation on Lomonosov, which was concerned with philology and linguistics, Aksakov's most sustained intellectual effort was in historical criticism, as represented by his reviews of four volumes (one, six, seven, and eight) of S. M. Solov'ev's History of Russia and by a brief commentary on Solov'ev's views of A. L. von Schlozer. The review of the first volume of the History, begun but not finished, was followed five years later by the three full-length reviews of volumes six through eight. These appeared in separate issues of the Slavophil journal Russkaia beseda, which began pub­ lication in 1856. The commentary about Solov'ev and Schlozer, only three pages long, appeared in Aksakov's own journal, Molva, in 1857. Altogether, these essays cover about one hundred fifty-five pages in the first volume of his collected works. (The story of Russkaia beseda and MoJva will be told in the next chapter, and the essays themselves will be examined in some detail in Chapter 14.) The first (unfinished) essay set the tone and determined much of the content of the next four. It contains such familiar Aksakov themes as Peter the Great's role in Russian history, the communal Christian social organization of the early Slavs and Russians, the respective roles of Moscow, "the People," and St. Petersburg in Russian history, contrasts between Western and Russian cultures, and a number of related topics. Sergei Mikhailovich Solov'ev, three years younger than Konstantin Aksakov, had experienced a period of pro-Slavophil or perhaps proRussian sentiments beginning in his student days at the University of Moscow in the late thirties and early forties. After graduating in

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1842 he went abroad for two years, to France, Belgium, Germany, and Bohemia, as a tutor of the children of Count A. P. Stroganov.42 Back in Moscow, he met A. N. Popov, D. A. Valuev, and Khomiakov, "with the gypsy physiognomy."43 Solov'ev was a man of great ability and industry but also of considerable vanity and intellectual conceit. In his memoirs, although there are efforts at objectivity, his char­ acterizations of the Slavophils appear negative and distorted.44 In Solov'ev's opinion Konstantin was "worthy of the surname Bagrov [in A Family Chronicle], a man capable of playing a big role in national movements and in the parlors of Russian greenhorn [zelenyi] society, with a leonine physiognomy, athlete, brawler, open, good-hearted, not without gifts, but dull-witted." His good qualities, "openness, good nature, and naivete," were obvious, but what made him impossible were his "extreme self-love and persistence in his opinions."45 Solov'ev was even more uncomplimentary about Konstantin's knowledge of Russia's past. Having dabbled in Russian his42 In Western Europe Solov'ev studied the past of the West, but not at the expense of Slavic history, in Paris he attended Mickiewicz's lectures on Poland and Slavdom; he says in his memoirs that Mickiewicz was an "instrument battered and broken," but still impressing "with its sounds." In Prague he met Hanka, Palacky, Safarik, and other leaders of the Czech and Slav cultural renaissance. S. M. Solov'ev, Zapiski. Moi zapiski dlia detei moikh a esli mozhno, i dlia drugikh (Petrograd, n.d.), pp. 74, 7880. These unfinished memoirs were first serialized in Vestnik Evropy, 1907: no. 3, pp. 68-98; no. 4, pp. 437-467; no. 5, pp. 5-48; no. 6, pp. 441-483. 43 In his memoirs he says: "at the end of 18461 became friendly with the Slavophils. I have . . . mentioned that as a university student and in the first year of my stay abroad I was an ardent Slavophil but after my ever growing study of history, partic­ ularly Russian, I saw the possibility of acquiring a correct view of the relationship of ancient to modern Russia. Thanks to scholarship and my temperate character, I was not carried away. I recognized the necessity of the period of Peter I [and] . . . its lawfulness. . . . I preserved . . . from my former Slavophilism all the warm sympathy toward ancient Rus' and its best people." Solov'ev, Zapiski, p. 103. For more on this see L. B. Cherepnin's biographical essay in the Soviet Academy of Science edition of Solov'ev's works, Istoriia Rossii s drevneishikh vremen. V piatnadtsati knigakh (Moscow, 1959-1965), book I, pp. 8, 12-13, 18, 48-49. 44 The vignette of Konstantin's parents illustrates this point. "The old man Sergei Timofeevich was in his young years a theatergoer, gambler, club member [klubist], very light litterateur, translator, rhymer. In his old age, when I met him, he was a sick man . . . wise, practical, sly, with ultra-Western convictions .. . but at the same time he very easily fit into the Slavophil circle where they had cleared for him a respectable place. He was ready . . . to tease his sons about their Slavophilism and at the same time consider Slavophilism his . . . family affair. . . . His wife, Ol'ga Semenovna, was an old woman who was good so long as the matter did not concern her sons. . . . But if anyone took it into his head to disturb them, Ol'ga Semenovna, was transformed into a fury and only the shouts of her husband ... forced her to temper her misplaced fits." Solov'ev, Zapiski, p. 105. 45 Ibid.

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tory Konstantin considered himself an expert on the subject, Solov'ev said, but actually he had read very little into Russia's past, and was ignorant of modern Western history.46 Konstantin and Solov'ev met in 1846. Aksakov, Solov'ev recalled, was at work on The Liberation of Moscow in 1612 and "wished very much to have the opinion of a specialist and dragged me to him." Despite the play's failure on the stage, Solov'ev found it "very ef­ fective when read." This encounter led to a joking sort of corre­ spondence and a somewhat ambiguous friendship. As Solov'ev says, a few days after Konstantin heard his opinion of the play, he (So­ lov'ev) wrote him a note in seventeenth-century Russian. "Aksakov simply went out of his mind from delight... and became passionately attached to me." Konstantin then introduced his new friend to his family and began to attend his lectures in Russian history at the University of Moscow. Most of the correspondence between Aksakov and Solov'ev has survived—Solov'ev's letters, it seems, in the hand of P. V. Solov'eva; Konstantin's in his own usually illegible scrawl. 47 The "language of the chronicles" is apparent throughout the correspondence. A letter of Konstantin's dated February 12, 1848, is in verse, and he even extended in rhyme an invitation to Solov'ev for an evening at the Sverbeevs'. Only in his last letter in the series, dated May 13, 1857, does he refer to their ideological disagreements, which became a matter of public record in the 1850's. IT IS DOUBTFUL whether the Moscow Slavophils could have had a popular following during the 1840's even under the most favorable conditions. They were, however, at a serious disadvantage as com­ pared with the Westerners, particularly the radical Westerners, since paradoxically, perhaps, both Herzen and Belinsky managed to pub­ lish in Russia, Herzen before his departure for Western Europe as well as from abroad, and Belinsky until his death in 1848. Such moderate or "liberal" Westerners as Granovsky, Kavelin, and Turgenev also could publish their works (although Granovsky was de­ nied his own journal in 1844), 48 whereas the Slavophils, not allowed 48 Ibid.,

p. 106. Konstantin's part of this (unpublished) correspondence, his "playful, mocking letters" (shutochnye pis'ma), have been preserved in the Manuscript Section of the Lenin Library in Moscow. There are fifteen letters, of which only two are dated. Letter number eight was written on February 12, 1848, whereas the only letter of the fol­ lowing year is dated January 17, 1849. It is likely that at least some of the first seven letters were written in 1846. Lenin Library, Fond Solov'ev, I, 9. 48 Christoff, Kireevskij, p. 106. 47

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their own organ, had to rely on Pogodin's Moskvitianin, a journal which, as already stated, they did not consider their own, did not regard highly, and used but seldom except during Ivan Kireevsky's brief tenure as editor during the first part of 1845. The two sympo­ siums which they published under V. A. Panov's editorship in 1846 and 1847 offered at best only a partial outlet, but the only one avail­ able at the time. During the "dark seven years" that settled on Russia in the wake of the revolutions of 1848, the Slavophils, like other men of letters with the exception of those on the extreme right fringe, had to suffer in silence. Reference has been made to the ban on beards and to the brief arrest of Samarin and Ivan Aksakov, but there were no major incidents and none of the Slavophils lost their privileged status. Gradually, the restrictions seemed to be easing, and late in 1851 they received permission for a symposium. The plan was to publish four volumes edited by Ivan Aksakov and funded mainly by Koshelev.49 We needed, Koshelev said, "to express our opinions on various questions although only in part."50 Contrib­ utors to the first Symposium were the foremost Slavophils: Peter and Ivan Kireevsky, Khomiakov, Koshelev, Ivan and Konstantin Aksakov, I. D. Beliaev, and as one of the "extraneous contributors," Solov'ev, the "latest of all Westerners to separate from the Slavophils." Khomiakov's piece was a brief introduction to a projected series of Peter Kireevsky's folk songs. Ivan Kireevsky contributed his well-known essay "About the Character of European Culture and Its Relationship to Russian Culture."51 Konstantin Aksakov contributed his essay "On the Ancient Social Order," in which, as a pro-Slavophil author said, he "so victoriously destroyed the theory of the clan social order announced by Solov'ev and Kavelin."52 However innocent the collection may have seemed to the Slavo­ phils, it produced "almost alarm in Petersburg," and in the govern49 For Koshelev's key role in publishing the symposium, see Koliupanov, Koshelev, II, 232-234. 50A. I. Koshelev, Zapiski (1812-1883 gody) (Berlin, 1884], pp. 80-81. 51 It was this essay {pp. 1-68), as mentioned in the second volume of this study, that provoked the wrath of the St. Petersburg authorities. Solov'ev's article was "Pskov and Livoniia," pp. 267-335. Beliaev's "Service People in the Moscow State: Servants or Courtiers, but Consequently Children of Boyars," pp. 376-402. Koshelev contributed an illustrated article describing the modern agricultural machinery that he saw in the Crystal Palace in London the previous year (pp. 165-263). The Symposium begins with a brief laudatory piece in memory of Gogol', written by Ivan Aksakov. For more on the Symposium see Christoff, Xomjakov, pp. 102, 104; Kireevskij, pp. 131-132, 136, 315-316. 52 Koliupanov, Koshelev, II, 233.

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ment-sponsored periodical press. The government reacted swiftly. It ordered the materials for future volumes submitted to St. Peters­ burg directly, and after receiving the manuscripts for the second issue, suppressed it. The explanation was the standard one: the fault lay not so much in what it contained as in what it omitted. The minister of education condemned the "reprehensible orientation of the 'Moscow Symposium,' " declaring that "although nationality [narodnost'] comprises one of the principal foundations of our state order, its development must not be interpreted as one-sided and unconditional. Otherwise, the unaccountable drive toward nation­ ality might become extreme and bring actual harm."53 Given the tsar's personality and convictions, it is easy to account for the government's reaction to Moscow Slavophilism. Nearly a quarter of a century later, in the article just quoted, entitled "An Episode from the History of Slavophilism, 1852-1853," published in Russkaia starina, the author—unidentified but clearly stating the government's position—took sharp issue with the views of the Sla­ vophils, particularly Khomiakov and Konstantin Aksakov. It is ev­ ident that the author had access to documentary materials, for he cites in detail Khomiakov's reply to Ivan Kireevsky that was intended for the second issue of the Symposium. Khomiakov took a strong anti-state, anti-political position, for he saw the modern state as standing in contrast to the freedom and equality that characterized Christianity—whose "spirit is alien to the institutions of empire." Khomiakov held that dead formalism and legalism in the West had deliberately silenced the "voice of God in the Scriptures." The dei­ fication of political society was carried to such an extent that "West­ ern man was unable to understand the [Christian] church except in its state form. Its unity had to be compulsory and thus was born the Inquisition."54 Khomiakov supported the Slavophil contention that the ancient Russian social and civic order "up to Ivan the Terrible" was com­ munal, not clan-based. By implication, he much preferred the old communal order to the existing imperial order. So did Konstantin Aksakov in his article, "Bogatyrs of the Time of Prince Vladimir According to Russian Songs," which, in present terminology, belongs in the sphere of cultural anthropology rather than history. Quite contrary to Kachenovsky and his "skeptical" school, Konstantin turned to the study of Russian folklore and derived from it what he considered to be historically valid conclusions. He denied the ex53 "Epizod iz istorii slavianofil'stva, 1852-1853," flusskaia starina, 1875, no. 10, p. 367. 54 Ibid., p. 369.

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istence of an aristocratic principle in Kievan Russia comparable with the feudal system of the West, and like Khomiakov insisted on the pervasiveness of the communal principle. Obviously, the censorship authorities had little choice—since they would hardly have upheld tsarist autocracy by sanctioning the pub­ lication of theories pointing in the direction of a stateless society. The anonymous author of the 1875 article quotes from the decision of the government censorship committee, which found in "Konstantin and Ivan Aksakov's and in Khomiakov's articles some sort of dissatisfaction with present culture, with the manner of life, and even with government institutions, and expressed the endeavor to show our ancient public order in an exaggerated favorable form." The articles were "harmful" because the principles revealed in them were contrary to the nature of the government, and therefore they "must be subjected to a ban." The author of the article concludes: "In agreement with the above, on March 3, 1853, publication of the second volume of the Moscow Symposium was forbidden."55 55 Ibid., pp. 378-379. See also M. Lemke, Ocherki po istorii russkoi tsenzury i zhurnalistiki XlX stoletiia (St. Petersburg, 1904), pp. 284-286.

CHAPTER 9

LAST YEARS

FOR FOUR YEARS following the suppression of the 1852 Moscow Sym­ posium, the muzzling of the Slavophils was total. As a consequence of having no printed outlet of any sort, their writing was mostly limited to letters which could be carried by friends, and they tended to turn from ideology and politics to religion. This emphasis was reflected in some lively exchanges. Much of the epistolary literature has been published in Khomiakov's, Ivan Kireevsky's, Samarin's, and Ivan Aksakov's works, in Koliupanov's biography of Koshelev, and in other sources, but some, at least, has yet to appear in print. Two topics stand out among the variety of those discussed: patristic Orthodoxy, and the ideas of the Protestant Swiss theologian A. R. Vinet (1797-1847).

Khomiakov was concerned with Orthodoxy from an early age. Kireevsky first became aware of patristic Orthodoxy in the second half of the thirties.1 Then, at the end of the forties, Koshelev began to show an awareness of religion and Orthodoxy, and this coincided with Ivan Kireevsky's absorption in the study, translation, and pub­ lication of some of the Eastern Orthodox church fathers in cooper­ ation with Father Makarii of the Optina Pustyn'. One result of these concerns was a vigorous exchange of views, particularly in 18521853, among five of the leading Slavophils—Khomiakov, Ivan Kireevsky, the Aksakov brothers, and Koshelev.2 Under Kireevsky's inspiration and bibliographical guidance, Koshelev, his friend and fellow member of the Philosophical Society of the 1820's, read the texts of Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, Ephraem, and Isaac of Syria, and the Gospels, and also delved into some contemporary works, mostly by German theologians and his­ torians of Christianity.3 Koshelev was mainly responsible for bringing up the second major topic of that period—Vinet, and the problem of the relationship of 1 See

Christoff, Kireevskij, pp. 74-75, 78, 151n, 152. This correspondence, consisting of twenty-ioui letters, is included in Koliupanov, Koshelev, II, appendix 8, pp. 41-110. 3 Ibid., pp. 81, 150, and appendix 8, pp. 41-42, 61, 102. 2

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church and state. On July 4, 1853, he wrote to Prince Cherkassky, "I am particularly delighted with Vinet, whom I very much rec­ ommend to you." He listed Vinet's Nouveaux discours, Etudes evangeliques, and Nouvelles etudes. He told Khomiakov (on July 3) that he had read Vinet's Meditations evangeliques and found in them "very much that is good," but he thought that "Vinet has not reached maturity: he refutes more than he instructs." That autumn, Koshelev and Ivan Kireevsky carried on a spirited epistolary debate specifi­ cally about Vinet's M&noire en faveur de la liberie des cultes (1826), and Vinet's advocacy of the complete separation of church and state. Ivan Aksakov was also drawn into the debate, more or less agreeing with Koshelev's pro-Vinet position.4 Konstantin Aksakov's role in this intra-Slavophil correspondence will be discussed in Part Two. Here we are concerned with the correspondence as a whole and what it tells us about influences on Slavophilism. Taken all together, the letters bring out the inspiration and some of the content of Moscow Slavophilism in its mature, final stage. In the correspondence German idealism is virtually ignored, and the names of Hegel and Schelling are scarcely mentioned. The important matters were patristic Orthodoxy and church-state rela­ tions. The latter topic reveals once again the element of practicality in the Slavophils, which induced them to concentrate on ecclesiology rather than more broadly on theology, and to look for improve­ ment in the Russian church as the guide in the daily lives of the Russian people. Kireevsky in particular, during the ten last and most productive years of his life, was deeply absorbed in the subject of patristic Orthodoxy; so too, in his own way, was Khomiakov, who during this period wrote some of his most important religious and philosophical works. The Aksakov brothers, along with Koshelev and one or two of the lesser Slavophils, were also active participants in the epistolary discussions.5 In the letter to Prince Cherkassky quoted above, in addition to the three works of Vinet, Koshelev recommended Etudes sur Pascal and Essaies de philosophie morale, "which should be particularly ben­ eficial to you." In his letter to Khomiakov of the preceding day, Koshelev also mentioned Pascal: "Etudes sur B. Pascal are super4For more on this see ibid., pp. 141-142, and appendix 8, p. 73; also Christoff, Kireevskij, p. 133. Elagina, Kireevsky's mother, who was engaged in translating Vinet into Russian, was no doubt a participant in the discussions. 5 In this discussion Konstantin Aksakov and Koshelev exchanged three letters (two from Aksakov, one from Koshelev]; Ivan Aksakov and Koshelev exchanged six (three from each side). However, since Konstantin read all of this correspondence, he in effect participated in it. There is also one letter from him to Khomiakov.

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lative from beginning to end and aroused in me the desire to read Provinciales and Pensees in the new edition."6 It is significant that Koshelev, like Kireevsky and Khomiakov, should have found Pas­ cal's ideas congenial. The reason is that, like Pascal, the Slavophils were laymen who had turned from the study of Western rationalism, and German idealism, to a sustained interest in matters of faith and revelation—in search, as Pascal was, of a simpler, inner, and more direct form of Christianity which, if not completely ignoring the highly structured and self-contained organized church, tended to play down its importance. Since Pascal was a mathematical and scientific genius, his emphasis on faith and revelation in the life of the Christian carried special weight for the Slavophils, who found no conflict between science and Christianity. And finally his antiJesuit stand could not have failed to please them. These generalizations seem valid even when we bear in mind that the Slavophils were not unanimous in their views toward their own official church. They were all critical of it, but in different ways and to different degrees, as the less insistent criticism of Khomiakov, for example, is contrasted with Ivan Aksakov's harsh judgments. The Slavophils were looking for a simpler, more direct, applied Chris­ tianity, which the established church, dominated by tsar, govern­ ment, and clergy, did not provide. In turning to the Optina cloister, Kireevsky (like Gogol' and later Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and others) hoped to learn, among other things, the Christian wisdom of daily living, which was clearly not evident in the Holy Synod in St. Pe­ tersburg. They saw the hope there, not in the German university lecture hall or in the academic "study thinking" (kabinetnoe myshlenie) of Kant, Hegel, or Schelling. All these religious-ethical, social, political, and economic matters were thrown into sharp focus when war broke out in the Crimea in October 1853, and the viability of the centuries-old Russian structure was challenged from the outside for the first time since Napoleon's invasion. Sergei Aksakov, supposedly aloof from politics, showed a keen awareness of the war's coming in the summer of 1853, and the whole family, as recorded in its correspondence and in Vera's highly informative diary for part of 1854 and 1855, followed faith­ fully the daily war developments.7 There was some talk of whether Ivan and Grigorii should volunteer for army service, but it was agreed 6 Koliupanov,

Koshelev, II, 142, and appendix 8, p, 73. For the war-caused anxiety in the Aksakov family see Shenrok, "S. T. Aksakov i ego sem'ia," pp. 243-244; also Barsukov, Pogodin, XII, 529. 7

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that Konstantin, as the eldest, was exempt from doing so.8 Konstantin's life continued much as usual throughout the two years of war. He spent most of his time at Abramtsevo working on his Russian grammar and visited Moscow only occasionally. A poem of the war years (1854), "Free Speech," is one of his best known: You are the wonder of God's wonders, You are the light and flame of the mind, You are a ray sent from heaven to earth, You are for us the banner of mankind! You chase away ignorance and falsehood, You are eternal life ever new, You are the path to light and truth, Free speech! Three more stanzas of this hymn end with the lines, "You are the only danger to untruth, Free speech! / The weapon of free men, Free speech! / Of the spirit the only sword, Free speech!"9 In January 1855 Konstantin and Samarin had a private party in honor of the centennial of the founding of the University of Moscow. Vera gives the following account in her diary for January 12: "Kon­ stantin arranged a celebration of the university's anniversary in Samarin's home. . . . They agreed to invite several former students . . . to have each one write something about his student days and read it during the evening. Konstantin wrote quite extensively and very interestingly."10 Four days later Vera again mentioned the an­ niversary observance, noting that Konstantin and Samarin did not attend the official ceremony, "partly because they thought that they would not be admitted without military uniforms [mundirov] and partly because they did not wish to participate in a celebration in which the government interfered." But their anti-government sen­ timents were not very firm: "Konstantin and Samarin regretted that they had been carried away by some sort of spirit of opposition, 8 Khomiakov, who served voluntarily in the Russian army in the Balkans in 1828, urged both Konstantin and Samarin to join the army. Shenrok, "S, T. Aksakov i ego sem'ia," pp. 261-263; I. S. Aksakov, Pis'ma, III, 110,116-117. Ivan volunteered in the late summer of 1855, only weeks before the war ended. 9 Mashinsky, Poety, pp. 418-419. P. I. Baretenev, who was presented with a copy of the poem by Aksakov, surmised that it was inspired by St. Paul, "But the word of God is not fettered" (second letter to Timothy, 2:9). Husskii arkhiv, 1897, no. 8, p. 625. 10 V. S. Aksakova, Dnevnik Very Sergeevny Aksakovoi, 1854-1855, ed. Ν. V. Golitsyn and P. E. Shchegolev (St. Petersburg, 1913), p. 34. (Hereafter cited as Aksakova, Dnevnik.) She refers to her brother's well-known Vospominanie studentstva, quoted earlier in this study.

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particularly since they could have attended the official exercises and returned to Samarin's home in time for their own observance. Their home celebration was also very successful. Khomiakov was invited as a guest."11 The anniversary celebration lasted several days and included a "philological evening" at the Khomiakovs',12 but before it was over the "spirit of opposition" had left the two younger Sla­ vophils. They attended the official banquet for five hundred and enjoyed it, meeting friends and acquaintances. On February 18, 1855, Tsar Nicholas I died. Two days later Vera recorded the event in a three-page entry in her diary. The Aksakovs were not overcome with grief. They merely felt a sense of "pity" and gave a "silent prayer" for the tsar "as a man." The death of the tsar was obviously portentous, coming while the war was still on. "We were crushed by the magnitude of. . . this unexpected event," Vera noted in her diary. "Its consequences will be endless. . . . It could never have had such great significance as at the present moment. What can one expect. . . how will this moment of trouble pass? Will not everything go on as before or in an even worse fashion, or will the whole orientation and policy change at once?"13 Konstantin, she said, was already looking to the future. Indeed, the entire family sensed that "this might be the only moment to act, that much could be said to the new sovereign. A memorandum could be addressed to him with a statement of the general desire for a new policy or something of the kind."14 In these circumstances Konstaptin conceived his well-known "Memorandum to Alexander II." He applied himself to the task, and in consultation with his family produced his best, if not most com­ plete possible, summary of his Slavophil position. This memoran­ dum was submitted to Alexander II through Count Bludov, and in Kornilov's opinion was "probably" read by the tsar.15 11

Ibid., p. 37. Ibid., pp. 39-40. 13 Ibid., p. 60. 14 Ibid., p. 61. Ivan, too, looked hopefully to the future, to "the birth of a new era of state existence, the beginning of a new era also in the moral and public life of every Russian." I. S. Aksakov, Pis'ma, III, 105. 15 A. A. Kornilov, Obshchestvennoe dvizhenie pri Aleksandre II ( 1 8 5 5 - 1 8 8 1 ) (Paris, 1905), p. 22. The memorandum was first published by Ivan Aksakov in Rus', 1881, nos, 26-28, and by N. L. Brodsky, ed., flannie slavianofily (Moscow, 1910), pp. 69102. Its full title as given by Brodsky is Zapiska K. S. Aksakova "o vnutrennem sostoianii Rossii," predstavlennaia Gosudariiu Imperatoru Aleksandru II ν 1855 g. For an English translation of the memorandum see Valentine Snow, "On the Internal State of Russia," in Marc Raeff, ed., Russian Intellectual History. An Anthology (New York, 1966), p. 230-251. 12

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For a time, life at Abramtsevo went on as before. There was the same reliance on Moskovskiia vedomosti (Moscow Gazette) and the Journal de Francfort for news of the war, the usual stream of guests and callers, and the same pessimism, aggravated as the war situation deteriorated, culminating in the fall of Sebastapol in September. Konstantin, at work on his memorandum, was swept up in the wave of exhilaration that pervaded much of articulate Russia at this time, even after news came of the serious military reverses. The situation could not be worse; it had to improve. As Vera remarked, "[We all felt] how frightful was the oppression that we had endured . . . how helpless our situation appeared, how joyful we became when we felt relieved even though temporarily."16 In this atmosphere of renewed hope the Slavophils thought again about a journal of their own. One suggestion in the summer of 1855 was to take over Pogodin's Moskvitianin and change its name. But since the 1852 ban on the Slavophils was still in force, the first step was to get the government to lift the prohibition. To this end Kon­ stantin undertook a campaign of his own. On August 10 he wrote to Prince P. A. Viazemsky, who had recently been made deputy minister of education. Konstantin complained that he could not un­ derstand the 1852 ban on the Slavophils, that a three-page work on Russian verbs "was censored for one and a half years," and that the Slavophils were not "so afraid of the strictness of the censorship as of its murderous slowness." Viazemsky, in his youth often a critic of tsarist autocracy but now its faithful servant, referred Konstantin to A. S. Norov, the minister of education. Konstantin saw Norov early in September, but without success.17 Norov received him with suspicion and hostility, and Konstantin "sensed that suffocating at­ mosphere that extinguishes every pure flame." While complaining to Viazemsky about Norov's reception, Konstantin also referred to his father, for the censorship was "driving him to despair."18 Konstantin's encounter with the highest official in Russian education led him, as Vera has told us, to label Norov minister of pomrachenie— of darkness, obscurantism, lunacy—not of education, prosveshchenie.19 Toward the middle of October, perhaps as a result of the in­ tercession of the Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna, the prospects for 16

Aksakova, Dnevnik, p. 67. I. Saitov, ed., Ostafevskii arkhiv kniazei viazemskikh, 5 vols, in 9 (St. Pe­ tersburg, 1899-1913), V, no. 2, pp. 154-157. According to Vera Aksakova (Dnevnik, p. 130), Norov told her brother that his essay on the ancient Russian social order was "most harmful" and that he needed to prove his "good intentions." 18 Saitov, Ostaf'evskii arkhiv, V, no. 2, pp. 156-157. 19 Aksakova, Dnevnik, p. 131. 17V.

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an early removal of the ban on the Slavophils suddenly brightened, and a few months later they at last received permission to publish their own journal.20 Before that occurred, however, Konstantin gave public notice of his state of mind and of the issue that engaged his attention. The occasion was the observance in Moscow on November 26, 1855, of Mikhail Shchepkin's fiftieth anniversary on the Russian stage. The dinner for the noted actor was attended by about two hundred, in­ cluding representatives of the government. Among the many toasts was one for Shchepkin's old and respected friend, Sergei Aksakov. Sergei was not well and did not attend the dinner, and therefore Konstantin rose to acknowledge the toast in his father's behalf. After some suitable remarks he blandly added, "I could not reply to your toast, so precious to me, in a better way than to propose a toast in honor of 'public opinion' [obshchestvennoe mnenie]."21 The rest has been well described by Sergei Aksakov, who no doubt heard more than one report of what happened: "Silence prevailed for two sec­ onds, then a roar and a thunder of applause broke out. They all rose from their chairs, clinked glasses, and embraced one another, and those who did not know Konstantin came to meet him. . . . Neither the music nor the toast in honor of art and the theater could stop the applause and the clamor." The celebration continued outside the banquet hall, with Konstantin's speech attracting much attention; but as Sergei noted with disappointment, the "finale," the "printing of Konstantin's toast, was forbidden on the insistence of Count Zakrevsky [the governor general of Moscow]."22 In February 1856 the Slavophils were given official permission to publish a quarterly, Russkaia beseda (Russian Conversation); Konstantin became one of its regular contributors. The story of this jour­ nal has been given authoritative treatment in a monograph-disser­ tation by E. A. Dudzinskaia.23 Together with its "supplement," 20 Christoff, Xomjakov, pp. IOln 102n, 107-108, 109. See also Aksakova, Dnevnik, 1 pp. 144, 156-157. 21 N. Bitsyn (the writer Ν. M. Pavlov), a younger friend of the Aksakovs, described Konstantin as the father of the Russian expression, "public opinion." Referring to Shchepkin's jubilee, he says: "Dinner speeches were a novelty at that time but in the reign of Nicholas I they were not even known. In this speech Konstantin Sergeevich used for the first time orally and in print (he himself called my attention to this) the expression pubJic opinion." Bitsyn, "Vospominanie," p. 396. 22 1. S. Aksakov, Pis'ma, III, 214-215. 23 See E. A. Dudzinskaia,"Russkaia beseda." Istoriia zhurnala kak otrazhenie "krizisa verkhov" ν usioviakh nazrevaniia revoiiutsionnoi situatsii 1859-1861 (Moscow, 1952). The fifteen-page printed abstract, the only one I was able to consult, contains much information about the ideological orientation of the journal, names of important contributors, Slavophil hopes of utilizing the Russian commune for industrial pur­ poses to avoid "proletarization" in Russia, and other related topics.

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Sel'skoe blagoustroistvo (Peasant Welfare), 1858-1859, published and edited by A. I. Koshelev, and Ivan Aksakov's short-lived Parus (Sail), January 1859, these constituted three of the four Slavophil journals that appeared in the second half of the 1850's.24 The fourth was Konstantin Aksakov's Molva (Rumor, Report), 1857. But the government still kept a watchful eye on the Slavophils. Parus was banned after its second number, reminding one of the similar fate that befell Kireevsky's Evropeets in 1832. Molva was not allowed a full year. And, as before, the Slavophils themselves con­ tributed to the uncertainty of their publishing ventures by their dis­ agreements. Some of these have already been mentioned; others will be discussed later, and also in Part Two. These journals were not only an outlet for unpublished writings of previous years but also a stimulus to new work. In various issues of Russkaia beseda in the years 1856-1857 and 1860 Konstantin published, besides occasional short pieces and poems, his reviews of volumes six through eight of Solov'ev's History of Russia, the reply to Solov'ev's "Schlozer and the Antihistorical Orientation," an essay on ancient Russian heroes (bogatyri), a review of contemporary Russian literature, and a critical essay on N. A. Elagin's Belevskaia Vivliotheka. His comedy, Prince Lupovitsky, written in 1851, was issued as a supplement to Russkaia beseda in 1856.25 In the weekly journal Molva, between April and December 1857, Konstantin pub­ lished twenty-two short editorials (all unsigned) on a variety of sub­ jects: free will, education, Russia and nationality (narodnost'), Mos­ cow, art, public opinion, the Slavs, war, railroads, England. The one 24 For Koshelev's efforts to consolidate and finance these three publications and place them under Ivan Aksakov's editorship, see Koliupanov, Koshelev, II, 247-248. On the government ban of Parus see Brodsky, Hannie slavianofily, pp. 123-129. 25 All these are contained in volume I of Ivan Aksakov's edition (1861) of Konstantin's works. For the year 1856 Konstantin's published pieces in Russkaia beseda were the following: "0 russkom vozzrenii" (About the Russian Point of View), no. 1, "Smes'," pp. 84-86 (the above-mentioned Kniaz Lupovitsky appeared as a supple­ ment to this issue); "Literatory-Naturalisty" (poem), no. 2, pp. 58-60; "Eshcho neskol'ko slov ο russkom vozzrenii" (A Few More Words about the Russian Point of View), no. 2, "Smes'," pp. 139-147; "Bogatyri vremen velikago kniaza Vladimira. Po russkim pesniam," no. 4, "Nauka," pp. 1-63; and "Istoriia Rossii s drevnikh vremen. Soch. Sergeia Solov'eva. Τ. VI" (History of Russia from Ancient Times. Works of SeTgei Solov'ev, vol. 6), no. 4, "Kritika," pp. 1-53. In 1857, despite concentration on Μοίνα, he published the following in Russkaia beseda: "Obozrenie sovremennoi literatury" (Review of Contemporary Literature), no. 5, pp. 1-39; "Zamechaniia no stat'iu g. Solov'eva, 'Shleter i anti-istoricheskoe napravlenie' " (Remarks about Mr. Solov'ev's Essay, "Schlozer and the Anti-historical Orientation), no. 7, "Kritika." In addition to Vengerov's bibliography of Aksakov's works, an earlier one may be found in A. A. Pypin, "Konstantin Aksakov 1817-1860," Vestnik Evropy, 1884, no. 3, pp. 151-152.

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that particularly nettled the government and resulted in the official ban was entitled "An Attempt at Synonyms: Public-People [Narod]."26 The second number of Russkaia beseda, April 1857, announced the forthcoming journal, Molva, which would be published in Mos­ cow under the editorship of S. M. Shpilevsky and would follow the "so-called Slavophil orientation which has its roots in independent Russian thought and life." Each issue of MoJva would contain an editorial dealing with such important problems as the "significance of communal union, nationality [narodnost'], the necessity of moving forward on the road of knowledge and life and the impossibility of returning to the state of affairs of ancient Russia, etc." This expla­ nation was followed by a brief description of the various sections of the proposed journal and was signed by Sergei Shpilevsky, editor and publisher. Konstantin Aksakov's name did not appear in this announcement. Yet during the journal's brief life from its first issue, April 13, to its last, December 28, 1857, it reflected the thought, temperament, and personality of Konstantin Aksakov. Molva apparently came into being partly as a result of friction between Aksakov and Koshelev, the publisher and main financial backer of Russkaia beseda. In part, it was a clash of personalities. Koshelev, moderate and somewhat calculating, found Konstantin's impulsiveness and extremism annoying. Though Konstantin was a regular contributor to Russkaia beseda, he and Koshelev differed on some basic issues, including the land question as well as religious matters. In addition, Konstantin was eager to publish a journalistic propaganda weekly, hoping to reach a wider reading public than the more stolid and quasi-scholarly Beseda. 27 28 See

P. I. Bartenev, ed., Russkii arkhiv, 1900, no. 3, pp. 371-409; Brodsky, Hannie slavianofily, pp. 103-122. Bartenev published twenty-one editorials, Brodsky eleven, including the fateful "Attempt at Synonyms: Public-People." Issues of the original Molva are now rare. 27 Konstantin seems to have been influenced in this by Ivan, who on October 9, 1856, wrote home from Nikolaev (in a letter that is frequently quoted): "Here in the country they have not heard even a word about Slavophilism. . . . Moreover it could not arouse sympathy among the forward-marching youth.... The demands for eman­ cipation, railroads, etc., etc.,.. . originally came not from us but from the Westerners, and 1 remember when . . . the Slavophils, though not all, were against railroads and emancipation . . . because it was formulated under the influence of Western ideas. . . . Here in the Ekaterinoslav guberniia there is not a single copy of Russkaia beseda but they receive Russkii vestnik and other journals." I. S. Aksakov, Pis'ma, III, 291. Russkii vestnik (Russian Herald) appeared in 1856 with Mikhail Katkov, Konstantin's fellow member in the Stankevich circle, as its publisher and editor. At that time it favored liberal, Westerner ideas, giving Russkaia beseda strong competition. See Christoff, Xomjakov, p. 111.

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But whereas Konstantin's views were to Koshelev extreme and "eccentric," to Ivan Aksakov they seemed—like Slavophil views in general—impractical and academic, too far removed from the reality of Russian life to be of interest to the common people. In September 1856 Ivan cautioned Konstantin that his extremism was harmful to himself and to the Slavophil cause: "The main point is that you think that the Russian view is the only true one . . . and not only because this is the way that every nation sees its own national point of view but because the Russian view is actually such, and is free of the onesidedness that unavoidably accompanies every national point of view except the Russian." This is not expressly stated, Ivan re­ marked, but it is there and cannot be missed. "You cannot imagine," he went on, "how much this easy expedient regales people who are ready to accept foreign dishes."28 Much of this readiness to accept the West was due to the schools, he said: "There is not a single gymnaziia teacher, not a single grade school teacher . . . who does not know by heart Belinsky's letter to Gogol'. Under their [the Westerners'] guidance new generations are being educated." Nonetheless, he repeated, Konstantin should not overdo his propaganda: For God's sake be careful with the words "narodnost" and "Orthodoxy." They are beginning to produce in me the same painful impression as "Russian nobleman, Russian peasant," etc. Be moderate and impartial . . . and do not impose forced and unnatural sympathy for that which does not deserve it, for pre-Petrine Russia, for ritualistic Orthodoxy, for monks like the late Iv. Vas. [Kireevsky]. . . . One can only have sympathy for the principles manifested by the people, which, however, re­ mained undeveloped ... I would not exchange a single wretched present-day hour for the past! He ended his scolding on a brotherly note: "Farewell my friend and brother. . . . Do not take my words in a one-sided way. Remember that though there was a time when you objected to the introduction of railroads, now that they are here you yourself are urging their acceptance."29 281.

S. Aksakov, Pis'ma, III, 280. same letter contains the following comment about the official church, illus­ trating Ivan's critical attitude: "In general I am of the conviction that neither the Russian nor the Slav world will be reborn . . . so long as the church remains in such a state of deadliness, which is not the result of accident but the logical product of some sort of organic defect. . . . For the tree is known by its fruit." Ibid., pp. 281-282. In the original the entire passage is underlined. 29 This

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Konstantin's first Molva editorial, which appeared in the inaugural issue of April 13,1857 (two weeks after his fortieth birthday), shows that he entered the new arena with gusto. It seemed to set the tone of the new publication: In our social consciousness have sprung up views and ori­ entations; therefore there are banners . . . struggle. It would be wrong . . . to wish for . . . rapprochement between the opposing sides. When they agree in thought . . . they will draw together. No agreement—no rapprochement. But there must be no retreat from one's convictions for the sake of rapprochement. . . . No, let each side exhaust all its strength. . . . Then complete and final victory shall come. . . . Blessed be the struggle! Let it be hard, merciless, honest, and scrupulous.30 From the outset the government found Konstantin's editorials of­ fensive. In the issue of May 31, his editorial "Moskva" began thus: "Moscow is our ancient capital, and it is still the true capital of all Russia." In September, somewhat belatedly, he heard from Prince Viazemsky: "Popular rumor [moJva] attributes MoIva to you, or at least its front-line battery, the article . . . 'Moskva,' which burns and scorches with all its guns." He lectured Konstantin on his advocacy of "free labor" in place of serf labor, and of "Russian dress," and advised him not to meddle in government affairs and not to "hunt" on state "preserves."31 Thus alerted, the government was quick to take issue with Kon­ stantin's sharpest attack in the previously mentioned editorial, "An Attempt at Synonyms: Public-People [Narod]." This drew a contrast between upper-class society ("the public") and the narod (that is, the people or the peasantry). Konstantin wound up his attack with a rhetorical flourish: Society orders from abroad its thoughts and feelings, its mazur­ kas and polkas; the people draw life from native sources. Society speaks French; the people, Russian. Society wears German clothes; the people, Russian. . . . Society . . . eats meat while the people fast. Society slumbers while the people have long since been up and at work. Society works (for the most part, with their feet on parquet floors) while the people sleep. . . . Society is temporary, the people eternal. Society has its gold and dirt and 30 Russkii 31

arkhiv, 1900, book 3, p. 373. Russkii arldiiv, 1879, no. 11, pp. 0404-0406; 1900, 3, pp. 381-382.

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the people have their gold and dirt; but in society the dirt is covered with gold, in the people the gold is covered with dirt.32 Sergei Aksakov had had misgivings about the Molva venture from the start. In March, while Konstantin was preparing the first issue, Sergei wrote to Ivan: "Konstantin is resolved to publish beginning in April. I shall not force him to do anything although I see very clearly the sad end of this journal."33 On December 23 Norov wrote to one of his subordinates: "Molva has published an extremely in­ appropriate article . . . 'An Attempt at Synonyms. . . . ' Such defi­ nitions can only serve to arouse hostile relations between the various classes. . . . To show the lower members of society as models of all possible virtues and the higher as examples of all possible defects . . . is harmful and baneful in its consequence." The next day Norov sent a report to the tsar in which he said that the editorial violated censorship rules and the "well-intentioned principles" of Russian literary works. The tsar returned the report with a marginal note: "I know this article. I find that it has been written in a very bad sense. Let the editorial office of Molva know that if similar articles are noticed in the future, the journal will be banned and its editor and censor will be subject to strict punishment."34 The "sad end" predicted by Sergei Aksakov had come. The last issue appeared on December 28. Within months of the demise of Molva, when Koshelev was trying to consolidate the Slavophil publications Russkaia beseda and Sel'skoe blagoustroistvo, he sought to persuade Ivan Aksakov to be­ come their editor. Writing to him, he eliminated several of the Sla­ vophils from consideration, including Konstantin, who "would give Beseda such an eccentric orientation that we would withdraw from it much more than under your editorship." Koshelev's frankness did not deter Ivan Aksakov from accepting the editorship of Beseda for the time being. Yet as Koshelev's biog­ rapher emphasizes, Aksakov did not have independence of judgment and action: "It is apparent from the correspondence between Koshelev and Aksakov that Aksakov sent almost all articles to Koshelev 32 Brodsky Rannie slavianoflIy, pp. 121-122. Vengerov points out that these con­ 1 trasts are contained in Konstantin's letter to Gogol' in 1848, quoted earlier. See Russkii arkhiv, 1890, no. 1, pp. 154,157. In fact in the editorial the contrasts are sharper and more numerous than in the letter. 331. S. Aksakov, Pis'ma, II, 314. 34 Kornilov, Obshchestvennoe dvizhenie, p. 59; Brodsky, Rannie slavianofily, p. 105.

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for preliminary examination."35 Small wonder that this uneasy col­ laboration lasted only about a year. Beseda soon came to an end. Even before that, Ivan Aksakov had decided on an independent publicistic career, which he pursued with energy and distinction during the 1860's, 1870's, and early 1880's.36 The Molva incident was unpleasant and discouraging for Konstantin, but it did not alter his life or convictions. And since he could still contribute to Russkaia beseda, he was not completely silenced. The real, insurmountable crisis for him was yet to come. During 1858 Sergei Aksakov's health declined rapidly. On April 30,1859, he died. The family was plunged into inconsolable grief. Konstantin was es­ pecially affected. He managed to finish a long review of Buslaev's grammar which he had undertaken, but he was profoundly shaken. Ivan wrote of the matter to Grigorii, trying to analyze the reasons: Only now is the whole significance of father's relationship to him becoming clear. This was a passion deeper than any passion of a man for a woman. . . . He must be experiencing a terrible sense of inner loneliness; that is the way he is. I cannot stop wondering why my father did not get him married. Konstantin himself is sometimes sorry about this. . . . If he had married he would have been saved.37 The void left by Sergei's death, although felt by all members of his admiring family, did not touch every member in the same way. Ivan, who had spent several months in France and Italy in 1857, was 35

Koliupanov, Koshelev, II, 247-248. Xomjakov, pp. 110-112. In the autumn of 1860 Ivan Aksakov explained in a letter from Switzerland to his friend Sokhanskaia the untenable position in which Beseda and the Slavophils found themselves. Koshelev had spent more than 35,000 rubles and was unwilling to subsidize it further. Nor was he willing to bear official and unofficial responsibility for it. Ivan Aksakov wanted to make the journal a monthly instead of a bimonthly, but Konstantin, and presumably Khomiakov, were opposed to the change; and the 1,000 subscribers were not enough to carry the journal finan­ cially. All this compelled Ivan Aksakov to announce its impending end. See "Perepiska Aksakovykh s. N. S. Sokhanskoi (Kokhanovskoi) . . ." in Husskoe obozrenie, 1897, March, pp. 173-174. 37 Shenrok, "S. T. Aksakov i ego sem'ia," 1904, December, p. 280. For details about Konstantin's health and state of mind, see Bitsyn, "Vospominanie," pp. 398-411. Bartenev, who knew Konstantin personally, wrote many years later that after his father's death Konstantin, "who always enjoyed good health, very soon became un­ recognizable. He went constantly to the Simonov monastery where, drenched in tears, he would fling himself on bis father's grave." Shenrok similarly said that the "heavy spiritual condition," the depressed mental state resulting from his father's death "pushed him [Konstantin] into the grave." Cf. Russkii arkhiv, 1910, no. 1, p. 134; Shenrok, "S. T. AksaKov i ego sem'ia," p. 280. 36 Christoff,

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ready for another trip to the West. Early in January 1860 he left Russia for Germany, Central Europe, and the Balkans, where he wanted to see the lands of the Serbs, Croats, Dalmatians, and Mon­ tenegrins. This trip was an expression of the growing concern of the Moscow Slavophils, in the aftermath of the Crimean War, for the non-Russian Slavs, particularly for the Orthodox Slavs of the Bal­ kans. The end of the 1850's also marks the end of the period of "early," "classical," or "Moscow" Slavophilism. Before the eman­ cipation edict of 1861, death took four of the leading Moscow Sla­ vophils—Ivan and Peter Kireevsky, Khomiakov, and Konstantin Aksakov—and it was partly in consequence of their deaths that the course of Slavophilism was altered. Chronologically it was followed by the pan-Slavism of the 1860's and 1870's, although expressions of neo-Slavophilism recurred for the rest of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. Ivan Aksakov was in Belgrade in the summer of 1860, attempting among other things to circulate Khomiakov's Message to the Serbi­ ans, but the time was not auspicious for pro-Slav or pro-Russian propaganda. The pro-Austrian ObrenoviC dynasty had just succeeded the pro-Russian KaradjordjeviC dynasty to the Serbian throne.38 On July 20 Ivan wrote to his family: "I am having real difficulties with Khomiakov's manuscript which you know."39 Meanwhile, Konstantin's health was growing steadily worse. The doctors diagnosed consumption and recommended treatment abroad, but the family finances were in a deplorable state. In May 1860 Ol'ga Semenovna confessed to a friend that she had not "even a kopek." Alexander M. Kniazhevich, an old friend of Sergei's, advanced the Aksakovs three thousand rubles, and in August Konstantin left for Germany. In St. Petersburg he was met by Samarin, Prince Cherkassky, and other friends whom he saw for the last time. Ivan, then in Germany, hastened to Stettin to meet the boat. He described his reactions in a letter to his family in Moscow. Konstantin's appearance alarmed him: "[He] has changed terribly since I last saw him. His condition has so drastically deteriorated ... I found him much better mentally . . . than I expected, and I am very, very happy about it. He is interested in foreign countries and in political and social questions. Gone is the idee jixe that dominated his mind in Moscow."40 Three months before his death Konstantin Aksakov may well have impressed his brother with a certain mellowness born of the resig­ nation of a man in the throes of an unequal struggle with consump38 For

Khomiakov's essay see Christoff, Xomjakov, appendix, pp. 247-268. S. Aksakov, Pis'ma, III, 466. 40 Ibid., Ill, 478. 391.

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THE NOBLEMAN'S NEST

tion. But is is doubtful that he had lost his idee fixe. Certainly one does not get that impression from the five published letters of this final period, least of all from his last long letter, written to his family in installments as he traveled through the Hapsburg Empire, begin­ ning in Prague on September 12. His first letter, from Berlin on August 24, ends with the pointed remark, "Remember that I came abroad for your sake."41 Three days later, writing from Leipzig, he mentioned that he had met a Mr. Walter, German correspondent of Russkaia beseda. He and Ivan, perhaps at Ivan's suggestion, made, a trip to the land of the Lusatian Sorbs and then went to Heidelberg, where Konstantin consulted a specialist. But, he wrote to his family, "My purpose in going abroad was not at all to consult with doctors"— otherwise, he said, he would have gone to the best-known specialists in Berlin, Dresden, and Vienna. Early in September they moved to Vienna, the center of the Hapsburg Empire. Konstantin was not pleased with the city, though he was impressed by its "material aspect" and cleanliness. But it was expensive and full of traffic, and the Austrian "spirit of swindling" made it distasteful. All in all, he considered the rumored alliance between Russia and the Hapsburg Empire "a sad event for Russia and the whole Slav world."42 They made calls—on the well-known Reverend M. F. Raevsky, attached to the Russian Orthodox church, and also on Friedrich Bodenstedt, who was preparing translations of Slavophil works, including some of Konstantin's. (These were later published in a general two-volume work under the title Russische Fragmente.) After Vienna came Prague. On September 12 Konstantin began a long letter to his family in which he set forth his opinions of the Austrians and the Hapsburg Empire. "Before we came to Austria," he said, "Ivan and I talked much about the Slavs." They both de­ plored the domination of Austria over the Slavs, though Ivan thought that the Austrian Slavs, with the exception of the Ruthenians, could stand on their own. To Konstantin, the mixture of Slav and German was oppressive and intolerable. "Either the Slavs have to be Ger­ manized," he declared, "or the domination of Austria over the Slavs has to end."43 The letter suggests that Konstantin's idee fixe was perhaps evolving in the direction of Great Russian messianism and 41 P. I. Bartenev, ed., "Pis'ma K. S. Aksakova iz chuzhikh kraev ν Moskvu," flussJcii arkhiv, 1910, no. 1, p. 138. Konstantin's itinerary (and main stops), as reconstructed from his letters, was Berlin, Leipzig, Heidelberg, Vienna, Prague, G'ran (Hungary), Prague. 42 Ibid., pp. 139, 141, 143. 43 Ibid., pp. 145-147.

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pan-Slavism, with the accent on the first. The Slavs in Austria had to liberate themselves "in spirit," but they could only do it with the help of "our Moscow," where the liberation of the spirit was being accomplished. Russia was the only Slav nation that had not "re­ nounced its Slav principles," and it was the nation of the future.44 Gone now altogether, it seems, was his youthful admiration of Goethe, Schiller, Hegel, and other aspects of German culture. The Russian nation now appeared to Konstantin even greater than be­ fore—"if this is possible." In Vienna, to which they returned briefly, he met some Ruthenians whom he had found particularly congenial, and he regretted that he had not brought along more copies of Molva, as well as plays and other Slavophil works. "What thirst they have for Russian books!" he exclaimed.45 In Prague Konstantin was introduced to the well-known Bohemian and Slovak literary and cultural leaders—Hanka {old and sick), Rieger, Palacky, Hattala. But these representatives of Western Slav lead­ ership were disappointing. Though Konstantin seemed to believe in Slav unity, these Czechs were not easy for him to understand, or to like. "What pride, what haughtiness, comes from their Czechism, and how scornful and uncomplimentary their attitude is toward the Russian people! Palacky expressed this much more strongly [than the others]. . . . I told them that I came to Prague precisely because they attribute so little significance to Slav independence." He clearly felt that the Western Slavs did not comprehend what it meant to be a Slav. Rieger had "only half" understood him and had claimed that even the "Dnieper Cossacks imitated Prague!"46 He had also ridiculed the Croats and had not even wished to discuss the "religious ques­ tion," which he himself had raised. And Palacky had made the mis­ take of describing philology, a subject dear to Konstantin from youth, as a "Slav sin." Konstantin noted dryly, "Of course I do not agree with him; this is not a Slav thought." The only redeeming feature in this disheartening experience was recorded at the end of this last letter: "Rieger is full of respect for father."47 Konstantin's health was deteriorating steadily. Soon after he wrote the letter just quoted, Ol'ga Semenovna, with daughters Vera and Liubov, arrived in Prague. It was now autumn, and the family de­ cided that it would be best to take Konstantin to the island of Zante in the hope that the mild Ionian climate would be of benefit. 44

Ibid., pp. 148-149. Ibid., p. 150. 46 Ibid., pp. 155, 159. This last letter is discussed in more detail in Chapter 12, below. 47 Ibid., p. 160. 45

174

THE NOBLEMAN'S NEST

Konstantin himself wished to return to Russia. But he was never to see his beloved country again. On December 7 he died, on an Ionian island a thousand miles from home, yet closer to Moscow than ever before.

1. (top) Sergei Timofeevich Aksakov 2. (bottom) Ol'ga Semenovna Aksakova

3. (top) The Aksakov family home in Znamenskoe, Orenburg gubernua 4. (bottom) Hegel, from a sketch by M A. Bakunin

5. (top) Konstantin Aksakov 6. (bottom) A literary evening at the Aksakovs'

7. (top) Abramtsevo, summer 1969 8. (bottom) Konstantin Sergeevich Aksakov, from a family album

PART TWO THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND"

CHAPTER 10 FROM HEGELIANISM TO ORTHODOXY

AMONG the Moscow Slavophils Konstantin Aksakov was the least

philosophically inclined, despite his early infatuation with Hegelianism, and the least theologically conscious, despite his lifelong devotion to Orthodoxy. He did not have Khomiakov's knowledge and intuitive understanding of Eastern Christianity, nor did he have Kireevsky's penchant for patristic Orthodoxy and "Russian" philos­ ophy. And he never struggled to conquer Hegelian rationalism in favor of Orthodoxy and sobornost' as Samarin did. During his Sla­ vophil period he seemed satisfied to leave the exploration of religion and philosophy to the two elder Slavophils, and the problems of practical reform to Samarin. But he did not depart from the routine of a sincere Orthodox Christian. Of the four early Slavophils he was the purest ideologist. His considerable energy and total devotion to Moscow Slavophilism, after he abandoned his Hegelianism, found realization in constant advocacy of his point of view and in unceasing polemics in behalf of cherished dreams and convictions. These were combined, perhaps synthesized, in his personal and often quite sub­ jective version of the common Slavophil doctrine. His intellectualideological and temperamental idiosyncrasies were well known to his father and brother Ivan and to the other early Slavophils, as well as to such friends and Slavophil adherents as A. I. Koshelev. To them all he was an implacable ideologist and polemicist, and to some, at least, he was a poet as well. It is in trying to evaluate Konstantin Aksakov's contributions as a polemicist that one is confronted with the largest number of ques­ tions. Where and how, one wonders, should one draw the line be­ tween convictions, thoughts, and views on the one hand, and the passion born of encounter and confrontation on the other? How much was said and written as ammunition to be spent in the struggle, and how much can be taken as real doctrine and ideology? At what point does the ego, engrossed in the desire to defeat and conquer, give way to the thinker who steps in to define, clarify, and perhaps in the process to convince? Lacking a scientific key or quantifying formula, one must sense and gauge, as best one can, what part is sheer polemic

182

THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND'

and what part rightfully belongs to conviction and doctrine. Both Slavophils and Westerners were much given to polemics, but with the possible exception of Belinsky, no one was as temperamentally and ideologically compulsive about it as Konstantin Aksakov. He seemed to want to push every argument as far as it could go. Konstantin's "maximalism" and "one-sidedness" could elevate him to the noble realms of the choric principle as well as lead him into such patent absurdities as the wholesale apotheosis of the narod. But as if to complicate and confound his roles in the struggle, in his own mind he never quite equated his polemicist side with the think­ ing part of his nature. In the end, the polemicist in him ultimately encountered the thinking and feeling Orthodox Slavophil. One thing, however, he could not do, and that was to dwell for long on the ordinary and the pedestrian, the level on which most people find themselves most of the time. Much to the discomfort and exasper­ ation of his brother Ivan and often of his father, he consistently preferred to move about among the chimeras of his imagination rather than inhabit the real world of Russia. Thus he often found himself standing alone not only in ideological encounters but also in an everyday sense within his family and the circle of his friends. Less than a year before he died, Konstantin, along with Ivan, be­ came engaged in an exchange of letters with N. S. Sokhanskaia (Kokhanovskaia), a minor author whose talent the brothers overesti­ mated. Konstantin was then in the throes of the despondency caused by the death of his father some ten months earlier, and he expressed bewilderment to Sokhanskaia that he was still alive, "a possibility which I never supposed could come to pass." But Konstantin's selfrespect, his claim to autonomous thought within the Slavophil circle, and his sense of his place in it remained unshaken. The Kireevsky brothers having died, the task of Slavophil proselytizing seemed to have fallen upon the Aksakovs. Khomiakov's role in the Slavophil circle was one of the topics of the epistolary exchanges, and in this same letter, written in February 1860, Konstantin proceeded to set matters right: It is perhaps possible [for some] to think that among us [Sla­ vophils] Khomiakov is considered an infallible authority, a pope. I do not know who has given you such false notions about Slavophilism. We do not have any authorities. It is difficult to be closer to Khomiakov than I have been. It is seldom possible to be more in agreement [with anyone] than he and I have been. . . . We are not, however, always in agreement about secondary questions although sometimes these are not unimportant.

FROM HEGELIANISM TO ORTHODOXY

183

The major part of the four-and-a-half-page letter is Konstantin's profession of faith, a clear and ringing affirmation of the central principle of Christian freedom upon which he believed Moscow Slavophilism rested. The letter is also a frank statement of Konstan­ tin's views on his relationship with Khomiakov, for it was this re­ lationship that prompted the commentary on his Slavophil creed, in which there was no place for authority in the person of Khomiakov or anyone else. Konstantin says: "And indeed in our Slavophil circle no one has such an attitude toward him or toward anyone else, for it would violate freedom, and freedom is the highest good, it is the whole good [vsebJago]."1 Toward the end of the letter Konstantin returns to this subject and gives it its explicit Christian foundation, its "substratum," echoing however faintly the Christian anarchism that had already found expression in his views on the relationship between the people [zemlia] and the state, and on the presumed apolitical nature of the Russian people: There should be no authority . . . because it violates freedom. For in such a case faith would be placed in the [presumed] perfection of the imperfect—faith in a person not simply as in a person but as in truth, so that truth is subordinated to a person. I do not know which is worse and more repugnant, to be under authority or to be an authority. . . . to be the slave of a master or the master of a slave. The second it seems to me. In the matter of faith there is no authority, and it does not exist for the freedom of the spirit. Jesus himself is not an authority for me because . . . He is truth.2 Konstantin then proceeds to explain his position: "Note that Christ said to his disciples: If I do not go away from you the Spirit of Truth will not come to you. This is how I understand this: You would believe in Me, in a word, as in a Chief, as in an Authority and not as in Truth."3 This confusion of authority with truth was not un­ common, he notes, citing a well-known case from Russian church history; but he did not wish to fall into the same error. This decla­ ration of personal faith, placed in the context of Khomiakov's doc­ trine of sobornost', with its indispensable elements of love, fellow­ ship, and freedom, constitutes Konstantin's guiding Slavophil light. * "Perepiska Akasakovykh s N. S. Sokhanskoi (Kokhanovskoi) i pis'mo Sokhanskoi k S. A. Rachinskomu," flusskoe obozrenie, 1897, no. 3, p. 147. (Hereafter cited as "Aksakovs to Sokhanskaia.") 2Ibid., p. 149. 3 Ibid., p. 150.

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE " L A N D '

It is a characteristically brief statement, for Konstantin and the other Slavophils—Khomiakov with his concept of sobornost' and Ivan Kireevsky with his concept of "wholeness of the spirit"—never elab­ orated their ideas in a full-length book or even in an essay. For example, in the same letter to Sokhanskaia, Konstantin stresses Khomiakov's central position in what he calls the "newest Slavo­ philism," but he does so only briefly and in general terms. "As you know from father's words," he explains, "there was also Slavophi­ lism earlier, but that was expressed narrowly, incorrectly, and even mistakenly"—meaning, one supposes, the patriotic notions of A. S. Shishkov and others primarily during the first two decades of the nineteenth century.4 Konstantin is making a point here of disasso­ ciating himself and his fellow Moscow Slavophils from the "men of official nationalism," something he had rather inadequately at­ tempted earlier,5 and he notes that during the reign of Nicholas I the Slavophils had no journal of their own, for "the Moskvitianin of Pogodin, like Pogodin himself and Shevyrev, cannot be called Sla­ vophil in our sense of the word." In Konstantin's mind, the "newest Slavophilism" was clearly dif­ ferent from earlier forms, and from the contemporary theory of of­ ficial nationalism; and the moving spirit behind the newest form was Khomiakov. As he looks back to 1840, he realizes how far they have come: "When I recall the first stated words,. . . Samarin's and mine, our first friendship with Khomiakov, who in a solitary way had long since solved the basic questions . . . when I recall the first loud, fearless sermon" and how the first Slavophil words were met with abuse and derision, "when I look around me now and see if not sympathy, almost universal respect, see the influence of our thoughts, see the repetition more or less conscious of our words," all this makes the long strife rewarding and worthwhile. But still, he con­ cludes, "We did nothing for our success. It came about by itself," or to put it another way, "the success of our cause was not our work but God's."6 Even this late, Konstantin still showed some of his youthful fa4 See

Christoff, The Third Heart, pp. 27-28. In a seven-page article "About the Contemporary Literary Controversy" that Konstantin wrote in 1847 in a reply to an anti-Slavophil article published in Sovremennik (Contemporary) the same year, Konstantin thanked the unnamed author for not mixing together the Moscow Slavophils with the "St. Petersburg," meaning the representa­ tives of the reactionary St. Petersburg press or the "men of official nationalism." He was grateful that the Slavophils were not confused with the journal Maiak (Light­ house). Konstantin's article was published thirty-six years later by Ivan Aksakov, for the censorship did not allow its publication in 1847. See Rus', 1883, no. 7, p. 25. β "Aksakovs to Sokhanskaia," pp. 147-149. 5

FROM HEGELIANISM TO ORTHODOXY

185

naticism, to which all, friend and foe alike, had long since grown accustomed. He prided himself on his single-mindedness of purpose, and Slavophilism on its refusal to bend with the winds: the Slavophil cause had advanced and prospered, he declared, but "Slavophilism made not a single concession along its whole road." He perceived great merit in the "rigor of the principle [strogost' printsipa], thor­ ough consistency with it—that is the spirit of Slavophil action; this should be so now and always." As an afterthought he added, "I fear an impure alliance more than anything else."7 Konstantin does not seem to have been aware of the limitations of his rigidity. He was seemingly incapable of that "noble inconsistency" (blagorodnaia neposledovateJ'nost') of which Ivan Aksakov once so warmly spoke, and which is the indispensable quality of human compassion and Christian forgiveness—both elements that would seem to belong to a true "nobility" of spirit. The view of Moscow Slavophilism that Konstantin gave to his correspondent was an individual one, and he assumed too much when he made himself a spokesman for the whole group. Peter and Ivan Kireevsky had died four years earlier, but in February 1860, when Konstantin wrote this letter, Khomiakov and Samarin were still active in Slavophil matters and could have spoken for them­ selves. Konstantin's boastful satisfaction with the rigidity of prin­ ciple, his complete ideological consistency, and his careful avoid­ ance of ideological alliances were matters of temperament as much as of conviction. Even if it could be contended that the other "early Slavophils" possessed equally strong convictions, they could not match Konstantin's temperamental and emotional makeup. Further­ more, we should be reminded that whereas Konstantin and Iurii Samarin were of the same age, they were almost a generation younger than Khomiakov and Ivan Kireevsky. Konstantin's fanaticism and extremism should not therefore be automatically attributed to the rest of the Slavophils. We shall return shortly to the subject of Konstantin's undoubted admiration for Khomiakov and his debt to Khomiakov's leadership and inspiration; the strand that held young Konstantin to the Sla­ vophil leader in the early 1840's remained unbroken to the end of his life. On his relationship with Ivan Kireevsky—which from an ideological point of view might well have been Konstantin's second most important, next to his relationship with Khomiakov—there is a puzzling lack of evidence. Unless the unpublished Aksakov family correspondence in the Pushkinskii Dom in Leningrad can some day 7 Ibid.,

p. 148.

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE " L A N D '

shed light on this relationship, it seems that the puzzle is destined to persist. In the second volume of this series, devoted to L V. Kireevsky's Slavophilism, the relationship was covered in a few lines.8 Not much more can be added here. Though the two men (separated by twelve years in age) belonged to the same gentry milieu in Mos­ cow, they were not on intimate terms, for, as mentioned in Part One, the Aksakov and Elagin families, both prominent in Moscow salon life and both in the forefront of Moscow Slavophilism, were not close, though they met one another occasionally.9 In the published exchange of letters in 1853, to which reference has been made, Kireevsky uses the formal pronoun vy—not in itself perhaps of great significance, but taken together with the tone of the letters indicative of a cool, distant attitude. Possibly, as Ivan Aksakov seems to suggest in the introduction to his edition of Khomiakov's letters to Samarin, the coolness between Konstantin and Kireevsky sprang from a long­ standing coolness between Kireevsky and Khomiakov. "However highly Khomiakov valued his [Kireevsky's] philosophical works," Ivan says, "there was not between them and the others the same strong bond of concord that was established ... between Khomiakov, Samarin, and K. S. Aksakov."10 On at least one important matter, Konstantin did not consult Kireevsky. This is shown in a letter of Konstantin's to his brother Grigorii in which he discusses his "Memorandum to Alexander II." (The letter is not dated but is probably of the late spring of 1855.) Konstantin says: "Since in my actions I am not only an individual but am also a Slavophil—that is, [represent] a whole orientation—I felt obliged to read this memorandum first to Khomiakov, Samarin, and Pogodin. They were all extremely satisfied."11 The omission of Kireevsky, who may have been ill, does not seem accidental. Vera Aksakova's diary entry for February 20, 1855, marking progress on Konstantin's memorandum, suggests that there was a certain cool­ ness and distance between Konstantin and Kireevsky. Furthermore, although her diary for the year November 1854 to November 1855 frequently mentions Khomiakov, Samarin, and Pogodin, Kireevsky's name appears only twice, once in connection with Konstantin's at8 Christoff,

Kireevskij, p. 133. Aksakova in her diary entry for November 15, 1855, notes cryptically, "We ourselves went to the Elagins; we saw Iv. [Ivan Kireevsky], Pavlov, Bartenev." Aksakova, Dnevnik, p. 162. 10 Russkii arkhiv, 1879, no. 11, pp. 303-304. 11 This letter was first published by Shenrok in 1904. See his "S. T. Aksakov i ego sem'ia," p. 275. See also N. G. Sladkevich, Ocherki istorii obshchevstvennoi mysli Rossii ν kontse 50-kh, ηachate 60-kh godov XIX veka . . . (Leningrad, 1962), p. 138. 9 Vera

FROM HEGELIANISM TO ORTHODOXY

187

tempt to secure from the Ministry of Education a removal of the government ban on Slavophil publication.12 Oddly enough, on one of the few occasions on which Konstantin wrote to Kireevsky he sought advice on matters of philology and grammar, though this was not in the area of Kireevsky's interest or competence. Nor does Konstantin mention Kireevsky's major inter­ ests, philosophy and Orthodox patristic thought, or his doctrine of the wholeness of the spirit, although, as we shall see, he was not unaware of Kireevsky's contribution to Slavophil doctrine. Since Konstantin was not a great reader—Samarin, it will be re­ called, pointed out this weakness while criticizing Konstantin's dis­ sertation on Lomonosov—he may not have read as carefully as had Samarin the writings of the two older Slavophils. Obviously, too, he had numerous opportunities to discuss their ideas, with Khomiakov particularly and with others.13 Nonetheless, though it is puzzling that Konstantin does not explicitly refer to Khomiakov's concept of sobornost', he recognized it and Khomiakov's leadership in Slavophil matters. Konstantin's relationships with Khomiakov and Kireevsky are matters to which we shall return. Here, an effort must be made to look into possible philosophical or religious principles which Konstantin considered as forming the base of his ideology. For as has been stressed in the preceding volumes and in Part One of this study, many of the men of the thirties and forties found it mandatory to establish a firm religious or philosophical base, or a combination of the two, for whatever ideological superstructure they proposed to erect. As NOTED in Part One, biographers of Konstantin Aksakov and his­ torians of Moscow Slavophilism have been quite emphatic about Konstantin's infatuation with Hegelianism. Mindful of the complex­ ities of this question, I think we must try to determine as precisely as possible how important Hegelianism was in Konstantin's thought, particularly in his later, Slavophil period. If conflict and pangs of rejection are a trustworthy sign of a hitherto deep and cherished conviction, then manifestly Konstantin wore his Hegelianism lightly. As pointed out earlier, and as has been remarked by most who have written about him, he shed his Hegelianism quickly and effectively, 12

Aksakova, Dnevnik, pp. 61, 119. Aksakovs received a copy of Khomiakov's second theological essay, published in Leipzig in French in 1855, perhaps in advance of publication. Vera read it and was very pleased, but whether Konstantin read it her entry of January 25, 1855, does not say. Ibid., pp. 43, 45. 13 The

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND"

without mental or emotional stress. Even so, his Hegelian period left permanent marks and traces. It was most significant in its impact on his linguistics, his written language, his aesthetics, and his philos­ ophy of history up to the mid-1840's. As Konstantin, still a young man, turned toward Moscow Slavo­ philism, he had already digested some indeterminable but probably small amount of German idealism, particularly Hegelianism, and Western romanticism in its English and especially its German forms. In addition he was still in possession of his native Russian Ortho­ doxy, and his family's heritage and environment were strongly tinged with Russian patriotism. These were the most prominent intellectual and emotional currents to which Konstantin was exposed in Moscow and abroad during the 1830's, though his total cultural-ideological environment was considerably more complex than this schematic enumeration reveals. There being very little autobiographical information relating to the questions of influence we are attempting to answer, we must rely on Konstantin Aksakov's writings, which are considered here in Part Two, and on the testimony of others. First we must turn to the person who knew him best from childhood—his brother Ivan—and then to a lesser extent to the firsthand comments of contemporaries such as Herzen, B. N. Chicherin, and Bitsyn (Ν. M. Pavlov). Konstantin him­ self, perhaps in the Slavophil tradition, said little about the sources of his ideas, paying tribute to Khomiakov specifically but in general terms. Indeed, as we saw earlier, in his Reminiscence, written on the one-hundredth anniversary of the University of Moscow in 1855, he had much to say about the Stankevich circle but did not even mention Hegel, whose thought dominated the circle's discussions toward the end of its existence. Ivan Aksakov, Herzen, and Chicherin saw dif­ ferent aspects of Konstantin's Hegelianism. Sergei Aksakov shared Ivan's view that Konstantin's future was not in German idealism but wondered whether Konstantin could write about the philosophy of language in a style that would be comprehensible to the Russian reader. Fortunately for our purposes, Ivan, though loyal and admiring of his brother, was not blind to Konstantin's serious weaknesses and could write of him with some objectivity. In a polemical essay on Moscow Slavophilism and the Slavophils (actually a reply to E. A. Mamonov) which Ivan wrote in 1873, nearly thirteen years after Konstantin's death, he made this comment on Konstantin's Ortho­ doxy, patriotism, sense of nationality (narodnost'), Hegelianism, and philosophy: "K. S. Aksakov carried within him from childhood the living principles of nation and Orthodoxy, and no matter how strong

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was the influence of Hegel upon him in his youth he never severed ties with them. On the contrary, even then Hegel served only as an instrument for the defense and greater glorification of Russian na­ tionality." Ivan goes on to acknowledge Konstantin's "youthful in­ fatuation" with Hegel and how Konstantin, under his spell, tried to interpret Russian history in his dissertation on Lomonosov in "pon­ derous, stiff Hegelian formulas." But he soon, Ivan says, rejected that approach: "With his first friendship [sblizhenie] with Khomiakov, his Orthodox instincts became clarified and justified. Here there was no struggle and no conversion. The Christian-Orthodox Weltan­ schauung became for him his guiding beacon in his researches, and was, perhaps to the point of partiality, identified by him with the people's point of view."14 Although Konstantin's devotion to Orthodoxy was not quite so continuous as Ivan suggests nor his susceptibility to Khomiakov's influence quite so spontaneous, there is no doubting the essential truth of Ivan's interpretation. Konstantin's dissertation, finished in 1846, five years after he first met Khomiakov, is full of HegelianRussian jargon. Nor did the German philosophical technique ever give way to another: "But the philosophical manner of thought never abandoned him. He loved it even to his last work which unfortu­ nately he could not complete ["An Attempt at Russian Grammar"], and which one could justly call 'philosophy of the Russian lan­ guage.' " One finds in Konstantin the same dichotomy that one finds in Khomiakov and Ivan Kireevsky—that is, an emphasis on faith, intuition, and Slavophil Orthodoxy, often accompanied by a con­ tempt for "one-sided" Western rationalism and German academic theorizing (kabinetnoe myshlenie), and at the same time an admi­ ration, sometimes openly acknowledged, for the order, logic, and grandeur of German philosophical system-building. As Ivan notes at the end of this same passage, Khomiakov, too, like Konstantin, was preparing a "purely philosophical work"—his unfinished essayletter to Samarin—at the time he died.15 Ivan Aksakov's attempt to pinpoint Hegel's lasting influence on Konstantin is a major contribution to the understanding not only of his brother's attitude toward Hegel but also of the Slavophils' view of the role of philosophy in general, and of German idealism in particular. For all their sincere devotion to Orthodoxy and faith and their deep distrust of Western rationalism, they had no intention of disregarding the achievements of philosophy, particularly German " Russkii arkhiv, 1873, no. 12, p. 2523. 15 Ibid., p. 2526. For Khomiakov on Hegel, see Christoff, Kireevskij, pp. 187-189.

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idealism in its Hegelian version, which was to them the supreme achievement of the intellect of Western man. But Ivan did not com­ pletely explain the twists and turns of Konstantin's Hegelianism. This was most probably because of its complexity, and because Konstantin left little factual material concerning the changes he was undergoing, particularly in the middle forties. Most of the scholars who have written about Konstantin Aksakov refer to his Hegelianism as if it were a simple, clearly established fact, as if Hegelianism means one and the same thing to everyone, and as if it did not split into Right and Left within a decade of Hegel's death in 1831. Thus the simplicity of Herzen's diagnosis of Kon­ stantin's Hegelianism, valuable though it is for being based on per­ sonal discussions, is misleading at least to those who are convinced— or pretend to be—that human beings function in accordance with the pure rules of reason and logic, and that when these criteria are applied to a specific person or situation everything is explained. On January 8, 1843—when the argument between the Slavophils and the Westerners was beginning to rise to its crescendo—Herzen en­ tered in his diary a summary of a salon conversation with Konstantin. This is the entry in which he makes his well-publicized character­ ization of Aksakov as "half-Hegelian and half-Orthodox." The com­ bination seemed to him unlikely but intriguing: "I talked with Aksakov for a long time," he wrote, "wishing to learn how he reconciles his Orthodoxy with his Hegelianism, but he simply does not rec­ oncile them." At that time Herzen considered Ivan Kireevsky more anti-Western than Konstantin Aksakov. Fully aware of their differences in tem­ perament, intellect, and age, Herzen said that Kireevsky "renounces everything Western, not wishing even to know, afraid of knowing— that is, afraid of looking deep in himself because he might find there kernels of skepticism."16 But the same conflicts of logic and con­ sistency that might have disturbed Kireevsky did not seem to Herzen applicable to Aksakov. Konstantin, he thought, did not "fear" the West in the way that Kireevsky did (in 1843 Slavophilism as a clear, rounded doctrine was still some years away), nor had he at that point made any concerted effort to achieve a fusion of Hegelianism and Orthodoxy. For the time being, at least, he was satisfied with their "concubinage." Whereas Samarin was going through a period of intellectual turmoil in a vain effort to reconcile Hegelianism and Orthodoxy, Konstantin would have little trouble reaffirming his Or16

Herzen, Sochineniia, II, 258.

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thodoxy as against Hegelianism. Not having embraced Hegelianism as firmly as Samarin had, he could more easily give it up. Herzen does not specify the particular elements of Hegel's thought that made Konstantin "half-Hegelian," although he could have been referring to Konstantin's application of the dialectic to Russian his­ tory, linguistics, and Peter the Great's reign. Nor does Herzen offer more than his own condemnation of religion in general and Ortho­ doxy in particular in confirming the second part of his formula, the "half-Orthodox" in Konstantin's ideology. B. N. Chicherin gives somewhat more explicit information on this matter. Chicherin, eleven years younger than Konstantin, was on better terms with Samarin than he was with Konstantin, though ideologically he did not agree with either of them and was already on the way to becoming a staunch advocate of moderate, liberal Westernism. His memoirs, limited to the 1840's in their title, Reminiscences, Moscow in the Forties, actually range much wider than that decade, and though written in a rather loose, generalized style, have long been regarded as a major eyewitness account of many of the leading personalities and events of the time. Chicherin is far less careful than Herzen about exact times of events, meetings, and salon encounters, but he is somewhat more analytical about ideas and trends. He admired Hegel and thought himself something of an authority on his works (and scornfully dis­ missed Khomiakov's knowledge of Hegelianism). He was well ac­ quainted with Khomiakov and the Aksakov brothers (he esteemed Ivan much more highly than he did Konstantin], and knew enough about their ideas to be sure that he opposed them. Without giving a date but seemingly referring to a period in the early forties, he writes in his memoirs that Konstantin—as he "himself said to me"— was convinced that the Russian people are primarily and above all others called upon to understand Hegel. A wild thought fully characteristic of his views. Later on he completely attached him­ self to Khomiakov's teaching although a shade of Hegelianism always remained in him. He constructed Russian history in ac­ cordance with all the rules of Hegelian logic: ancient Russia represented the thesis, the new, its antithesis, and the future announced by the Slavophils, should be the restoration in a higher form of the original thesis.17 It is conceivable that the Hegelian dialectic should have added " S . B . Bakhrushin, ed., B. N. Chicherin, Vospominaniia, Moskva sorokovykh godov (Moscow, 1929), p. 236. (Hereafter cited as Chicherin, Vospominaniia.)

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weight to some of Konstantin's Slavophil convictions and that this should have persisted after he turned to Orthodoxy. It is even more likely that Konstantin revised his views on the dialectic as applied to Russian history (see Chapter 14), but it is difficult to make sense of Chicherin's loose chronology. During Konstantin's indisputably Slavophil period, from the mid-forties on, he considered the Russian people destined to understand Orthodoxy, not Hegel—Orthodoxy, and the communal and choric principles. If there was ever a time when he thought that the Russian people were "primarily" called upon to understand Hegel, it must have been in his most Hegelian period, before 1845, when Chicherin was still in his early or middle teens (he was born in 1828). Was Chicherin stretching his memory here, or his imagination? It is not impossible that Konstantin used Hegel's tremendous authority, at its peak in Russia in the thirties and early forties, to buttress his argument that the pro-Western, postPetrine period of Russian history would be followed by a pro-Russian phase in which Moscow, not St. Petersburg, would be the center. But though such an interpretation of Hegel could have added authority and prestige to Konstantin's position, it was not the source of the notion itself. The record shows that Konstantin's "Moscowphilism," his primordial Slavophilism, at least in its embryonic ideological and emotional implications, predates his first exposure to Hegel. Whatever the exact effects of the Hegelian formula, after the middle forties his "Moscowphilism" assumed more intense, more extreme, and often more absurd overtones. The question of Hegel's influence on Konstantin Aksakov has con­ tinued to receive a good deal of attention, though much of the spec­ ulation has merely restated what others have said. A. N. Pypin, one of the earliest scholarly commentators on the life and thought of Konstantin Aksakov, looking at him from a Westerner point of view, based his brief remarks about Konstantin's Hegelianism on Herzen and Ivan Aksakov. His comment, in an 1884 article, on the duration of Konstantin's Hegelian period is representative of a view that was subsequently to become standard: "K. Aksakov in the first half of the forties was still a Hegelian who shared common ground with the Westerners in his manner of reasoning and in general propositions. At that he steadily abandons this ground and with the end of the forties is in that same rut in which nothing separates him from the general propositions of the other members of the [Slavophil] circle." Pypin correctly sees Konstantin's dissertation as his most character­ istic and most important Hegelian work, although more for its ter­ minology than for its clear Hegelian philosophical foundation.18 18 Pypin,

"Konstantin Aksakov," pp. 157, 161.

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Somewhat more enlightening than Pypin's are the comments of Professor Vengerov, first in his long biographical essay on K. S. Aksakov of 1889 and later, to a lesser extent, in the revised and ex­ panded biography that appeared in 1912 as volume three of his collected works.19 Vengerov, like Pypin, takes a Westerner point of view, but he is not totally unsympathetic to Aksakov. Like other critics, Vengerov takes note of Konstantin's capacity to embrace both Hegel and (early, embryonic) Slavophilism at the same time, but he does not attempt to explain it beyond observing that Hegelianism was "so permanently lodged" in Aksakov that it was impossible for him to "rid himself of the creator of dialectical philosophy." He criticizes Aksakov for his incomprehensible, impossibly confusing "Hegelian jargon" and "bird language" in his dissertation and for his "Hegelian philosophizing" and says that in 1846, when Konstantin finished his dissertation, he was already "one of the foremost zealots of Slavophilism," yet in its basic concept the dissertation "was no more than an illustration of Hegel's teaching about the change of historical epochs and their stratification."20 In the fulllength biography Vengerov interprets Konstantin's Hegelianism a little differently. Although it had deep roots in Konstantin's mind, "he fought it with the same fervor with which he once went along with it but still could not rid himself of the scheme of the creator of dialectical philosophy."21 Vengerov does not say how much of Hegelianism Konstantin fought, or how he fought it, but he may have had in mind for one thing Konstantin's Slavophil view of state and government, which differed markedly from Hegel's. V. I. Shenrok also touches on the influence of Hegelianism in his study of the philosophical base of Konstantin Aksakov's ideology. In this he relies heavily on the well-established positions of Ivan Aksakov, Herzen, and Pogodin. But in saying that Konstantin, by the time of his return to Russia from his trip to Germany in the autumn of 1838, was a "completely formed Slavophil,"22 Shenrok makes not only the usual error of failing to differentiate between the two distinct Hegelian periods in Konstantin's career (mid-1830's and early 1840's), neither of them, it is true, clearly defined but both of them nonetheless distinct, but also the error of making Konstantin a Sla­ vophil in 1838, when no Slavophilism yet existed. In the section on 19S. A. Vengerov, "Konstantin Sergeevich [Aksakov]," in Kritiko-biograflcheskii slovar' russkikh pisatelei i uchenykh (St. Petersburg, 1889), I, 204-205, 244-245, and Konstantin Aksakov, pp. 22-29, 131-132, 137 (see Chapter 1, n. 1). The first is cited

"Konstantin Sergeevich," the second Konstantin Aksakov. 20 Vengerov, "Konstantin Sergeevich," pp. 204-205, 244-245. 21 Vengerov, Konstantin Aksakov, pp. 26, 131, 132. 11 Shenrok, "S. T. Aksakov i ego sem'ia," pp. 14, 15, 25.

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Konstantin Aksakov in The Spirit of Russia, Masaryk stresses not positive Hegelian influences on Konstantin but his anti-statist and anarchistic views,23 and this matter will be given more detailed con­ sideration when we come to Konstantin's ideological view of the state in general and the Russian state in particular. Father Zenkovsky characterizes Konstantin as a "very meditative and original thinker" who "became a Hegelian" as a student "when he became acquainted with Hegel's philosophy." Relying on Chicherin's memoirs, Zenkovsky sums up Konstantin's Hegelianism as the conviction that " 'the Russian nation is destined before all others to understand Hegel'—that is, to provide wide room within itself for the self-con­ sciousness of Absolute Spirit," and further that "Hegel's spirit was in fact laid to rest in Aksakov's historical schemes and philological reflections."24 Two contemporaries, Father Florovsky and Professor Chizhevsky, provide us, each in his own way, with some of the most perceptive observations on Konstantin Aksakov's reaction to Hegel and Hegelianism. As on the question of the state, Konstantin's views on the nature of culture were anti- rather than pro-Hegelian, and on this cardinal issue he shared the general Slavophil point of view. Florovsky, in his admirable study of Russian religious and intellectual life, confirms an observation made by Professor Vinogradov eighty years ago that the Westerners " 'took as their starting point the con­ cept of culture as conscious human creativity' " (what might in to­ day's vernacular be called a form of "human engineering"). Florovsky adds that such a formulation is found in "Hegel's philosophy of right and society." But the Slavophils, as Vinogradov is quoted by Florovsky, " 'had in mind popular culture, which almost uncon­ sciously springs from the people.' " Then Florovsky asks, "Do we not recognize here the basic thesis of the 'historical school' in its opposition to Hegelianism?"25 Since among the Moscow Slavophils there was no more ardent defender of the Russian people (narod), the organic principle, and historicism than Konstantin Aksakov, par­ ticularly after he abandoned Hegel's dialectic, his anti-Hegelianism in this respect is quite apparent. Chizhevsky's summary of Konstantin's Hegelianism, in his indis23

Th. G. Masaryk, The Spirit of Russia (London, 1955), I, 270-272. See V. V. Zenkovsky, Istoriia russkoi filosofii (Paris, 1948), I, 242-243; American ed., A History of Russian Philosophy (New York, 1953), I, 235. 25 G. V. Florovsky, Puti russkago bogosloviia (Paris, 1937), pp. 249; see also pp. 253, 281-283. Vinogradov's penetrating observations on this and related matters are from a public lecture delivered in February 1893. See P. G. Vinogradov, "Τ. N. Granovsky," Russkaia mysl', 1893, book 4, p. 64. M

FROM HEGELIANISM TO ORTHODOXY

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pensable study of Hegel's influence in Russia, is concise but more complete than any of the sources hitherto cited.26 Chizhevsky is cer­ tain that Konstantin "was never a Westerner." He seems to base this conclusion on Konstantin's dissatisfaction with the criticism of Rus­ sia that was expressed in the Stankevich circle, and he emphasizes Konstantin's "Goetheism" and "Schillerism" and his "romantic-en­ thusiastic mood," which he displayed as late as 1840, when for other members of the circle this mood "had already passed or was pass­ ing." Although Hegel remained Konstantin's "idol,"27 Hegel was not at all his sole interest in the busy period of the late 1830's. He was also reading Sir Walter Scott while studying English with his sister Vera,28 and as Chizhevsky points out, he was not unmindful of SchelIing.29 Looking at Konstantin's published review of Belinsky's grammar (1839), Chizhevsky singles out a number of favorite Aksakov phrases—"the spirit of the nation living in its language," the "eternal spirit of the word," the "liveliness" (zhivost') of the Russian lan­ guage, and others—and attributes them more to "nebulous Schellingism than to acquaintance with the philosophy of Hegel." Further, he points out one long passage from Konstantin's review as being not only a reflection of Schelling but actually a paraphrase from Davydov's Logic, published in 1821.30 This suggests the possibility that Konstantin's failure to mention Hegel in his reminiscences of the Stankevich circle and his student days was less accidental than deliberate. Others beside Chizhevsky have been skeptical of Kon26 Some of his analysis has to do with the problem of the "developing church," which occupied Konstantin and, even more, Iurii Samarin in the early forties, and which was an important phase of their Hegelianism. This can better be dealt with in the study of Samarin.

I. Chizhevsky, Gegei' ν Rossii, p. 166. A letter from an unnamed correspondent to Vera Aksakova dated November 21, 1837, says: "It is apparent that you and Kostia are achieving great success, that you are already reading Walter Scott, and it is evident that you are in particular studying with him. But then it is worth studying this language for Shakespeare and Byron alone." Quoted by Shenrok, "S. T. Aksakov i ego sem'ia," p. 400. 29 In addition to Hegel and Schelling a third major German influence in Russia was G.W.F. Herder. Masaryk discusses Herder's influence on Khomiakov and Konstantin Aksakov in regard to their views on the state, but he gives no specific information or proof as to what Konstantin knew about Herder. It is clear that among the Slavophils Ivan Kireevsky read at least some of Herder's works. See Masaryk, The Spirit of Russia, I, 271. See also Christoff, Kireevskij, pp. 26, 33, 226n, 227, 227n, 233, and Xomjakov, pp. 44, 195. Mashinsky has recently called attention to Konstantin Aksakov's Schellingism with respect to Konstantin's views on aesthetics while he was a member of the Stankevich circle. See S. I. Mashinsky, "Stankevich i ego kruzhok," pp. 139-140. 27 D.

28

30 Professor 1.1. Davydov of the University of Moscow was a somewhat controversial figure who showed a preference for Schelling during a certain stage in his career.

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stantin's thorough immersion in Hegel, among them Pogodin, who though himself not well versed in Hegel was unimpressed at the time with Konstantin's understanding of Hegelianism, and later in the century Filippov, who was a competent student of philosophical developments in Russia during the 1820's and 1830's.31 The final and most recently stated views in this sketchy summary are those of Galaktionov and Nikandrov, specialists in philosophy. In their article on Aksakov, which appeared in 1964, they liken him to all other Russian Hegelians who consider "spiritual forces" as paramount in history and overlook " 'the frightful play of material forces' which astonishes in history from first glance." For such He­ gelians, "all this is only a 'mirage,' an appearance"—they are idealists who claim that thanks to the perspicacity of speculative philosophy the true power that is "present everywhere" and "moves everything" has been discovered. This power, of course, is "thought": It slowly completes its course, and changing its image in its own likeness recreates the whole social order, formulates human psy­ chology, the form of convictions and beliefs. Differences in the manifestations of the universal idea in the consciousness of men give rise to struggle, disputes, collisions which constitute the "inalienable possession of mankind," and embrace not only the spiritual, but as its reflections also the material sphere of life. Something of the eclecticism of Konstantin Aksakov's philosoph­ ical views is brought out when the authors speak of his awareness of "historical lawfulness" (zakonomernost') and of his "historical and logical categories," to which Konstantin adds the "accidental and the necessary." The dialectic is also present in his thought as when he "recognizes struggle" in the "solution of contradictions," and finally his formulation of the relationship of "the spiritual and the material" is thoroughly idealistic. The Hegelian dialectic, the authors say, "to a certain degree" brought Konstantin close to the positions of Belinsky and Granovsky, "who also rested on Hegel's dialectic. But if they reworked the ideas of the German thinker in the direction of scientific [nauchnyi] understanding of history 31 Filippov wrote a two-part study of Russian philosophy. In the first article, in which he discusses German idealism and the beginning of Slavophilism, he gives some attention to Khomiakov, and more to Ivan Kireevsky, and includes a few bio­ graphical facts at the end about Konstantin Aksakov. In the installment on Hegel and the Stankevich circle he discusses the views of Stankevich, Bakunin, and Belinsky but does not even mention Konstantin Aksakov. See M. F. Filippov, "Sud'by russkoi filosofii," Russkoe bogatstvo, 1894: no. 1, pp. 86-115; no. 11, pp. 41-56.

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K. Aksakov went backward, attempting to invest Hegelianism with a religious contemplation of the world."32 Since most scholars who have dealt with Aksakov are extremely brief, they leave the impres­ sion, perhaps unintentionally, that his Hegelianism was equally strong throughout his career, an impression which could seriously distort the essence of his Slavophil views, and thereby to a degree Moscow Slavophilism. Konstantin may not have learned a great deal about Hegelianism from his membership in the Stankevich circle. He was, after all, only nineteen years old when the circle began to break up after Stankevich left Moscow in the summer of 1837, and Hegel was only one of several subjects that claimed his attention in the preceding year or so, superimposed upon the basic Orthodox Russianism and Moscowphilism of his family. He was exposed to Hegelianism but not schooled in it. Even in the second phase of his Hegelianism, which began with his friendship with Samarin about the middle of 1839, his enthusiasm for Hegel was not all-consuming. After that, from about the mid-forties on, though individual Hegelian passions lin­ gered, it was not Hegelianism, or any form of German idealism, that propelled him mentally and emotionally, but his own characteristic brand of Moscow Orthodox Slavophilism and populism. In the absence of anything comparable to Bakunin's conspectuses and outlines of his reading of Hegel, and lacking also the complete publication of the Aksakov family correspondence, one cannot be sure how much of Hegel Konstantin and Samarin covered in their first year of reading together. Chizhevsky states on the basis of the Aksakov-Samarin correspondence that they studied Hegel's Logic, Phenomenology, and Encyclopaedia, that they had the help for a time of a German teacher by the name of Klepfer, and that they also gave some attention to Kant in an effort to acquire a better under­ standing of German idealism.33 It is possible that Konstantin, as the least widely read of the early Slavophils, read less of Hegel than Samarin did, and possibly got some of his Hegelianism secondhand as in the Stankevich circle. Whatever the case, his study of Hegeli­ anism fortified his high opinion of Hegel's genius, and in this respect he concurred with Kireevsky and Khomiakov. The same year (1842) in which he accorded Gogol' the supreme distinction by placing him in the literary company of Homer, he also extolled the greatness of Hegel, and this high praise was to recur. 32 A. A. Galaktionov and P. F. Nikandrov, "Istoriko-sotsiologicheskie vzgliady K. S. Aksakova,"VestnikLeningradskogo Universiteta, 1965, no. 17, pp. 71-72. See also their Russkaia fiiosofiia Xl-XIX vekov (Leningrad, 1970), pp. 211-256. 33 Chizhevsky, Gegel' ν flossii, pp. 170-171.

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Certainly there is no doubt that Konstantin Aksakov believed in the power of Hegel's mind and that he made use of Hegelian formulas and interpretations for his own purposes. Proceeding from Hegel's assumption of the universal validity of the dialectic, Konstantin sought to apply Hegel's principles to Russian history (as will be seen in Chapter 14) in the same way that Hegel applied them to non-Russian history. Ivan Aksakov recalls this in his 1879 memoirs. Konstantin and Iurii Samarin were barely acquainted, he says, when in 1839 they began to prepare together for their advanced degrees at the University of Moscow: "Together they read Hegel (primarily the Logic), . . . [and] all the monuments of Russian literature, ancient and later up to the middle of the eighteenth century. They studied the chronicles, old records, and acts. They both loved Russia. For both, Orthodoxy was a family tradition and possession, and they both were ardent admirers of German philosophical thought and literature." The youthful friends had clearly embarked on a twofold adventure: the discovery of Hegelianism, and of Russia's past and its indigenous culture. To Ivan, at least, these were not incompatible: "For when before the young searching mind . . . was revealed the whole new singular world of Russia's national spirit and life . . . they greeted it with enthusiasm and exultant joy as if it were the promised land. They, it seemed (and indeed they actually), found the ground for the hitherto rootless, wandering Russian thought." The new haven and anchor was Hegelianism, specifically the renowned dialectic: They found or thought that they had found the complete justi­ fication for their "spontaneous" sympathies. For the followers of Hegel's dialectic process only the philosophical justification could be complete, but later Hegel served for the purpose of explaining [and] sanctioning their newly found truth [and] prov­ ing its universal-historical significance. Quickly at the outset an attempt was made to build on Hegelian principles a whole Wel­ tanschauung , a whole system, a sort of "phenomenology" of the Russian spirit with its history, indigenous phenomena, and even Orthodoxy.34 Although this summary was written many years after the period it describes and although it is tantalizingly brief and general, it is one of the best statements on this matter. At the conclusion, Ivan says that Konstantin's Hegelianism, "specifically with respect to hu341. S. Aksakov, ed., "Predislovie. Pis'ma A. S. Khomiakova k Iu. F. Samarinu," Russkii arkhiv, 1879, no. 11, p. 301.

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man history, found partial expression in K. S. Aksakov's dissertation on Lomonosov." Like the other Slavophils—Khomiakov, who left only several essays on his religious and Orthodox theological views and a good many scattered references, and Ivan Kireevsky, who gave his readers even less of a written exposition of his Orthodox-phil­ osophical creed—Konstantin Aksakov never gave full expression to his Hegelianism. For all his ardent involvement, he did not honor Hegel with a single treatise or essay, or even with a well-thoughtout summary. Furthermore, what he said on the subject was often wrapped in his special brand of impenetrable Russian-Hegelian jar­ gon, the exact meaning of which was known only to himself. Traces of Konstantin's Hegelianism can be found in several of his poems dating from the early 1840's. Even in "The Young Crusader" (1838), dedicated to Bakunin, Konstantin speaks of the "pilgrimages of the Russian Hegelians" to Berlin, alluding to the Mecca of He­ gelianism for which Bakunin was then bound. Konstantin draws a parallel with Russia when he sees the "young crusader" standing in awe: "0 East, O chosen land, / The land of mysterious wonders."35 A shorter poem—entitled in Konstantin's own hand "Logik (To Iu. F. Samarin]" but subsequently printed as "To the Crowd of Empi­ ricists" and dated November 24, 1841—is a praise of thought and ideas and an attack on empirical knowledge.36 A third poem, "To the Idea" (1842), also dedicated to Samarin under the epigraph "Es existiert nichts, als Idee," speaks of how the "new world" of the idea had become for him "dearer" than "former dreams, than former beautiful love": To you all.my life, hours, days, and years, Have I given, and you are always with me; In you I have found the rite of liberty, Invisible to earthly chance. The autographed copy of the poem bears Konstantin's comment quoted in Chapter 5: "At that time I was carried away by German philosophy which, however, did not at all overshadow the cause of the people [zemskoe delo], in the service of which I wished to place philosophy and for which I eventually sacrificed it. This sacrifice was legitimate. It would be more accurate if I said that the living 35 Chizhevsky, Gegel' ν Rossii, p. 168. For the complete text of the poem and a second version see Mashinsky, pp. 334-337, 585-586. 36 This according to Mashinsky. For the complete text and discrepancies in dating the poem see his Poety, pp. 377-378, 591. See also Chizhevsky, Gegel' ν flossii, p. 167.

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voice of the people liberated me from the abstractness of philosophy. My thanks to it."37 This note in the form of a recollection was ob­ viously added later, but neither Konstantin nor Mashinsky gives any indication when. During the period that Konstantin Aksakov's two disparate and ultimately irreconcilable notions—Hegelianism on the one hand, Orthodoxy and the cult of the Russian people, the narod, zemlia, on the other—were in conflict he wrote his most pro-Hegelian poem (1842). Though it is entitled "To A. N. Popov," a farewell to a friend and a sympathizer with the early Slavophils who was on his way to Berlin, more than half of the poem of some fifty-odd lines is a hymn of praise to Hegel, "Germany's last hero." There in Berlin he "trod more gloriously and more victoriously" than all others his "won­ derful road." Dressed in the German spirit as in armor, he is still strong and invincible, "humbling all with his marvelous power," while all around him "a mass of pygmies" noisily "make war" on him, but in vain. Nothing can take away "the armor of the hero." Here, too, however, Aksakov's inevitable comparison arises: he re­ minds Popov that in going to Berlin he will be leaving their "native Rus' " with its space, its "youthful virgin beauty" and "vivid garb," the land of "hope, faith, and Moscow."38 WITHOUT going into the details or the merit of Konstantin Aksakov's philological works, which as already explained are outside the bounds of this study, we should take a look at them in relation to Aksakov's interest in Hegel. The Russian language was Aksakov's lifelong favorite subject. In a sense he began and ended his publishing with it, and as has already been observed it formed an important and special link with Khomiakov, different from those with Ivan Kireevsky and Samarin, neither of whom had a special interest in linguis­ tics. For Konstantin the Russian language and the Russian people (narod) were inseparable, and thus his philological work was a major source of his nationalism and his Moscow Slavophilism, and it made his contribution to the common Slavophil doctrine distinctive. Of the several philological publications of Aksakov the one that has attracted the most attention is his long dissertation on Lomonosov—the longest of all his works and a good example of undis­ ciplined Slavophil prose. It was included in volume two of Aksakov's works published in 1875 by Ivan Aksakov. As Professor Vengerov pointed out, this dissertation, Lomonosov in the History of Russian "Mashinsky, Poety, pp. 378-379, 591; Russkii arkhiv, 1879, no. 11, p. 304. 38 Mashinsky, Poety, pp. 379, 591; Chizhevsky, Gegel' ν Rossii, pp. 168-169. See also Russkii arkhiv, 1879, no. 2, pp. 215-216.

FROM HEGELIANISM TO ORTHODOXY

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Literature and Russian Language, running to 517 pages, contains only 110 pages on Lomonosov. A philosophical introduction of 64 pages is followed by a historical introduction of some 250 pages, and there are more than 70 pages of appendices.39 The dissertation, as indeed all of Konstantin's works on philology, aroused mostly negative reactions.40 Among Konstantin's contem­ poraries, Bezsonov was a notable exception. He was a leading phi­ lologist who published some of Peter Kireevsky's folk songs as well as Serbian and Bulgarian folk songs, and though eleven years younger than Konstantin, he knew him personally and had a good many discussions with him on philological subjects. They corresponded on matters concerning Russian and Slav verbs, but apparently this correspondence has been lost. This information and a good deal more is contained in Bezsonov's introductory essay to volume two, part two (Philological Works), of Konstantin Aksakov's unfinished Com­ plete Collected Works (1880). Only a few points from this essay will be singled out here, those 39 Vengerov,

Konstantin Aksakov, pp. 132-133. before it was published the dissertation drew criticism. On November 20, 1845, Gogol' wrote to Shevyrev, "With respect to his [Konstantin's] dissertation, even not having read it I would advise him not to submit it, even to destroy it entirely, publishing only excerpts from it as separate articles." 0. F. Miller, a pro-Slavophil professor of Russian literature who published Gogol's letter in the 1870's, refers to the dissertation as "a remarkable book." Chicherin, not unbiased as we know, was contemptuous: "His [Konstantin's] ponderous dissertation about Lomonosov lacks any significance, and his small articles contain nothing except journalistic spouting." Pypin, a pro-Westerner of Chicherin's stripe, also dismissed the dissertation with a few lines: it was overburdened with Hegelian terminology, was conceived in a "He­ gelian manner," and "had lost its immediate importance," but survived as a curious Slavophil document. Vengerov, also a Westerner, says that "it does not sparkle with erudition," that Konstantin relied on only seven sources, and that it shows little more than "superficial study of the epoch." Vengerov sums up the reactions of several authorities. The leading Czech philologist, Professor Martin Hattala, Konstantin's contemporary, found that Konstantin "seldom supports his views with examples" from the Russian language but "generally limits himself to those he himself invents." Another contemporary, I. I. Sreznevsky, a leading authority on Russian and Slav philology, found that "Mr. Aksakov's discourse is philosophical not philological." Sreznevsky also saw "originality," "independence," a "sense" for the language which the writer "often substitutes for observation," and wished that Aksakov would have given more attention to sound philological scholarship and less to freewheeling phi­ losophizing. F. I. Buslaev, another professor of Russian and Slav philology and lit­ erature, criticized Aksakov's philology and was opposed to his candidacy for a pro­ fessorship at the University of Moscow in 1857. See Russkaia starina, 1875, no. 10, p. 325; Chicherin, Vospominaniia, p. 238; Pypin, "Konstantin Aksakov," p. 161; Vengerov, Konstantin Aksakov, pp. 131-134, 141, 145-147, 149-150. As will be seen below, Aksakov's philological work has recently received more favorable evaluation than in his own day. 40 Even

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with wider implications than language. Contrary to Vengerov's con­ tention that not only was Konstantin Aksakov's reading meager but also his erudition in general was unimpressive, Bezsonov maintains that Konstantin had an impressive store of knowledge, particularly as concerned philology and Lomonosov. All this went into Konstantin's "heart [dusha] for the erection of a nonmaterial, spiritual­ ized image such as the Russian language appeared to him to be. The material was transformed into living matter, work into creativity . . . creating language through the power of the people, and [thus] language,... grasped through individual perception, and the artistic mind became one." Konstantin was so thoroughly engrossed in the Russian language that it became for him "the question of his personal life," and "he spontaneously began to speak this language"; this was "the language of the Chronicles."41 Bezsonov also traces Konstantin's mental process in the study of philology. "He did not examine, he directly and spontaneously 'contemplated' [sozertsal]; he did not study: he simply knew [vedal]. For him there was no 'subject,' there was life itself, and the living substance." Then, following what seems to him an obvious process of asso­ ciation in Konstantin's mind, Bezsonov establishes two more central points in Aksakov's Weltanschauung: the people, or narod, and Or­ thodoxy. To Aksakov, he says, language and the people were one and the same; they were "language-people," for "language is the inseparable synonym of narod,"42 and "everyone knows what Ak­ sakov's attitude toward the Russian people was." From language to the Russian people, and from them to Orthodoxy—this was Konstantin Aksakov's trinity: Education by means of universal and [Western] European schol­ arship, a mind practiced in the gymnastics of philosophical stud­ ies, study of external positive history and of the external his­ torical appearance of language-people, preoccupation with folk creativity according to collected and published materials, all this was transformed into one and the same thing, it all served one purpose: earlier, much earlier, from childhood and to the grave, youthful faith linked Aksakov's heart with the Russian people's Church, with its faith and word . . . with folk works, songs, tales, proverbs, with living oral speech all around in a folk environment.43 41 P. A. Bezsonov, Introduction to K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, vol. Ill, part 2, pp. xvi-xvii. 42 Ibid., p. xxxi. 43 Ibid., p. xvii.

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What Konstantin was in effect trying to say about the Russian lan­ guage, which had only recently emerged as a rich, beautiful, modern tongue and was still being replaced by French in Russian gentry correspondence, was that it should be sensed, loved, and lived, and not merely subjected to the cold, analytical dissection of academic scholarship. Small wonder that Chicherin, having pronounced Konstantin's dissertation a failure, pointedly summed up his verdict: "Philology is a Western discipline [nauka] which you cannot replace with homegrown concoctions."44 The question that this suggests is complex: Is the language of a people governed by pure laws of logic and reason, and must the study of any living, changing language be confined to rational-logical ("scientific") investigation? It is a question better left to the linguist. But there is a recent, favorable view of Konstantin Aksakov's un­ conventional approach to philology, different from the views of the majority of his contemporaries, and it hinges on Konstantin's Hegelianism. Professor Chizhevsky, for one, does not agree with Vengerov that Konstantin's dissertation was too heavily weighted on the side of history and philosophy. In the age-old controversy between the generalist and the specialist (in this case at any rate), Chizhevsky's preference, like Konstantin's, is clearly for the generalist: It is characteristic of Aksakov's philosophical approach that he passes from the immediate theme of his work to more general questions. Precisely in this consists the fructifying meaning of Hegel's philosophy in the history of Russian scholarship [nauka]. The Hegelians always pass over from the simple establishment of facts to general questions, [thus] including the individual theme in its broad meaning primarily in the context of the phi­ losophy of history. In this sense Aksakov's dissertation was not an exception. Chizhevsky points out that the "fruitful generalization" is found in "all successful works of Russian Hegelians, in particular in the dis­ sertations of Iu. Samarin and B. N. Chicherin."45 Those familiar with the academic world well know that on the whole neither Hegelianism nor any other ism has put an end to the narrow specialization of the doctoral dissertation. With the academic community in mind, Chizhevsky says that the "representatives of limited 'specialization' " tended to attribute "all attempts at broad generalization, at a search for the 'meaning' of 44 45

Chicherin, Vospominaniia, p. 239. Chizhevsky, Gegei' ν Rossii, p. 171.

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concrete phenomena" to Hegel's influence, and he cautions that not "all works with a broad horizon," such as Solov'ev's History of Rus­ sia, are inspired by Hegelianism. In Konstantin's case, the Russian language was a matter of great concern throughout his Hegelian phase as well as after, and one must therefore seek to square his interest in rational Hegelian principles with his subjective, intuitive, poetic views of the Russian language. The two approaches seem far apart. The truth here would seem to be that Konstantin accepted only the breadth of the Hegelian view, while in his use of it he adhered to his personal preferences and idiosyncracies. FROM THE FOREGOING it is perhaps clear that the record of Konstantin

Aksakov's Hegelian phase, ending in the mid-forties, is fragmentary and incomplete. Furthermore, much of the evidence and the com­ mentaries that have molded his image as a Hegelian during the past century-and-a-third have come from Westerners and are therefore neither impartial nor favorable to him. But perhaps the most serious weakness in the usual treatment of his Hegelianism is the frequent failure to stress that it was a relatively brief and passing phase, and that despite certain leftovers it was followed by his intensely proOrthodox, pro-narod convictions, which shaped his Moscow Sla­ vophilism. Aksakov's changeover from Hegel to Orthodoxy and narod is nowhere more convincingly demonstrated than in his phi­ losophy of history, which included most strikingly the reign of Peter the Great. Formed after Aksakov abandoned Hegel for his own Sla­ vophil version of Russia's special indigenous course, the historical ideas are a matter to which we shall soon have to turn in greater detail.

CHAPTER 11 SLAV AWAKENING AND THE QUESTION OF LANGUAGE

ALL OF Konstantin Aksakov's early prose works are marked by a certain incongruity between subject matter and Hegelian terminol­ ogy, as illustrated by the various views already summarized. The incongruity is particularly noticeable in the review of Belinsky's grammar (1838), the review of Gogol's Dead Souls (1842), and the dissertation on Lomonosov (1846), the research and writing of which took approximately five years. At the beginning of the Belinsky re­ view Konstantin Aksakov affirms the inseparability of language and national consciousness and identity, one of the essential components of Moscow Slavophilism and a unity of which he was more keenly conscious than the other early Slavophils. "The people speak one language," he begins, "thus expressing in this unity an inner sym­ pathy, a kinship of the heart.... In language we find the first degree of nationality."1 The bulk of the seventeen-page review is concerned with philo­ logical matters and technical linguistic questions, but Aksakov makes a point of justifying his technical analysis of the Russian language by relating it to larger, "deeper" considerations: "The more we look into a language the more profoundly will the spirit of the nation be revealed to us, [the spirit] which lives in it and uncon­ sciously acquires rational form." In the same paragraph he sees the national language as "expressing in itself the national family." He compares language and poetry with the physical sciences, and con­ cludes that the essence of poetry does not allow it to "express thought with the tangible mathematical clarity that exists in the empirical sphere of knowledge. . . . a poetic work expresses thought in all its infinity despite those who believe that the infinite cannot be ex­ pressed through the finite." Poetry is a matter of inspiration, not a "sufferer's effort." It is concerned with "presenting truth in images." In this trait of poetry Konstantin finds the point of contact with language, for just as in poetry, "in language the people [narod) ex1 K.

S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, II, part I, 3.

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press themselves creatively." Through language as art one ap­ proaches the "infinite spirit of the people." Language, he says, is not a mechanical grouping of words and sounds but a "living, moving whole." As in all other languages so in Russian one could find the "great inner life of the people."2 Konstantin makes an attempt at objective technical analysis in comparing the Russian language with Greek, Latin, English, French, and German, but all too readily this gives way to bias. As if foretelling a major Slavophil tenet, at the age of twenty-one he predicts the decline of the West: The nations of Western Europe . . . are not destined to preserve the youthfulness and flexibility of the word, but we possess such a language. On the one hand we have in front of us the whole education of [Western] Europe... on the other hand, our flexible, fresh, energetic language ready to accept all new thoughts, to incorporate them in its living forms, give color to every shade of notion—in short, to communicate more fully, more strongly, more perceptibly the wise knowledge of Europe.3 Most of this is at best intuitive or possibly borrowed, for at the time of writing Aksakov had not made a thorough study of languages, including his own, nor had he yet, so far as we know, become ac­ quainted with any of the Russian linguistic- authorities. But he jus­ tifies poetic intuition as a useful linguistic tool, in the same way that mathematical and scientific analyses are tools. Carried along by his youthful brashness, Konstantin further says: "We do not know what lies ahead, but for now it is not reckless partiality that compels us to say that not a single contemporary Eu­ ropean language is so vital, so capable of communicating the thought of people as our own." This is true, he declares, because Russian is closer to "the source"—that is, to ancient Greek—than are the other European languages. All this, he adds as a disarming afterthought, is "supposition," but still "very probable"—though it "needs proof which we cannot yet present, all the more since the Greek language is little known to us" (meaning to himself). Konstantin seems to have had a rudimentary knowledge of Greek, but he was probably better acquainted with Latin. Of the modern Western languages, he was most at home in German. He disliked French as part of his Gallo­ phobia. He studied English in the later thirties but probably did not master it. Nonetheless, it was his good fortune that a presumptuous 2 3

Ibid., pp. 4-5. Ibid., p. 13.

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prophecy and the nationalistic bragging of a youth with limited knowledge later found a degree of expert confirmation.4 The same spirit of universality that pervaded much of Konstantin's early understanding of Schelling and Hegel was at work in his notion that clear, discoverable, and presumably immutable laws govern the sphere of linguistics and etymology. "There is nothing accidental" in these, he confidently declares in the Belinsky review, for "every­ thing is done according to laws, which are necessary and irrevoca­ ble." One of these laws governs the "musical aspect of language." But he seems to move purely within the sphere of the linguist when he asserts that the thought carried by a word is expressed "through its music." Citing a series of words as examples, he concludes that their sound conveys the "notion of their meaning," and that the "musical element" of the language is governed by its own laws. The process occurs naturally and is not fundamentally altered by the efforts of any individual or self-appointed group in authority, but proceeds from the nation as a whole: "Every people has its own musical development with respect to language," and although the individual is not completely lost, a language is shaped by all the people, the narod. They "march forward and together with them is formed their language, carrying upon it, of course, the stamp of na­ tionality."5 At this stage Konstantin's intellectual leanings and emotional tem­ perament combined with a number of incompatible and vague, though not necessarily weak, elements which he somehow fitted together in a loose harmony. Along with suggestions of German idealism and Western romanticism and a strong attachment to the 4 The strange twist in this youthful fancy is that it seems to have had some substance. In an interview published on October 15, 1971, Roman Jakobson made the following observation by way of comparing French and English with Russian: "Russian has a completely different property—its hybrid character. It has two entirely different con­ stituents—the Church Slavonic and the vernacular. This hybridity creates the pos­ sibility of enormous variations in presentation of ideas. . . . An English author loses much less being translated into Russian than vice versa." This passage contains an assertion and a claim for the Russian language, as compared with the Western, similar to Konstantin's made more than 130 years earlier. See ibid., pp. 12-13, and Israel Shenker, "Great-Grandfather of Modern Linguistics," International Herald Tribune, October 15, 1971. See also Roman Jakobson, Slavic Languages: A Condensed Survey (New York, 1955), pp. 8-9. Vinogradov puts it a little differently: "Thanks to its union with the Old Slavonic language, the young Russian literary language proved capable of embracing, receiving, and independently reworking in all its breadth, in all its diversity, the treasures of Greek linguistic culture. In this respect it has no parallel in the history of Western European languages." V. V. Vinogradov, Velikii russkii iazyk (Moscow, 1945), pp. 117-118, 127-128. 5 K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, II, part I, 18-19.

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principle of nationality and Russian patriotism, thoughts of a reli­ gious character were also present. In the Belinsky review all these are characteristically scattered about, and Konstantin has to remind himself that his subject is a text on Russian grammar. Although language, specifically the modern European vernaculars, was essen­ tially the product of the modern nation (the narod), Konstantin finds in etymology, in the "music of the language," and more explicitly in "prosody" the "Divine spark from which developed understand­ ing." He professes to see "everywhere those great laws of Divine Reason" which govern the universe, and he tells the reader, "It is up to you to find them, to contemplate them and to enjoy the con­ templation."6 There is no need to attribute undue importance to the outpourings of a twenty-one-year-old youth, for patently the Aksakov of 1838 was not the young Slavophil of a decade later or the mature ideologue of 1858. Whatever the proportion of the several elements in his thought in 1838, the stream that was to swell into a torrent, and in a sense engulf him, was the thought of nationality (narodnost') in­ timately associated with language, an idea that was already promi­ nent by the end of the thirties. Religion (in the form of his family's traditional Orthodox beliefs and practices) and later reflection were perhaps of equal importance as components in his later intellectual makeup. Romantic overtones, particularly in the concept of nation­ ality, were also strong later, and it would seem that German idealism whether in its Schellingian or Hegelian versions would come next, although Konstantin's style and jargon might mislead one into as­ signing too much weight to them during his Slavophil career. Such a gradation is manifestly approximate and somewhat arbitrary, clearly more useful than precise but perhaps the best that can be achieved. THE SECOND PROSE WORK of Konstantin Aksakov's early "Hegelian"

period is also short, the thirteen-page review of Gogol's Dead Souls, written in 1842 for the Moskvitianin but published separately as a pamphlet.7 Here, owing to the nature of the subject under review, Aksakov's undisciplined Slavophil prose style is somewhat less ob­ vious than it is in the Belinsky review. But in fact more than a third 6

Ibid., pp. 18, 20. For many years this short but important and highly controversial work has been a bibliographical rarity. It was published by Vengerov in the appendix to his 1912 edition of Konstantin's biography and forms the basis of the discussion here. Its complete title is "Neskol'ko slov ο poeme Gogolia: 'Pokhozhdeniia Chichikova' ili 'Mertvyia Dushi.' " See Vengerov, Konstantin Aksakov, pp. 217-229. 1

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of the essay is digression, including three or four pages on classical epic poetry and two final pages which are a startling apotheosis of Great Russianism. Reference has already been made to Konstantin's exaltation of Gogol' to the level of Homer and Shakespeare, which brought him ridicule from many, including Belinsky and even Gogol' himself. Though there are echoes of German idealism and Hegel in the essay, the pervasive theme is Great Russianism. Even in details of literary style the review reflects Aksakov's grow­ ing Great Russianism. The vocabulary here is more truly Russian, and the sentence structure clearer and more direct, than in some of his other prose—in consequence of which the review is more read­ able and comprehensible than parts of his dissertation. There are, to be sure, some notable excesses in language, but they are the result more of youthful enthusiasm than of an affected, high-flown style. For example, Konstantin says that when "at the end of the first part Gogol' touches on the common substantial [substantsial'noe] Russian feeling then the whole substance [substantsiia] of the Russian people affected by him was colossally elevated by preserving its bond with the form that stimulated it." And, in another example, there is some­ thing akin to ecstasy over Gogol's masterpiece: "And such lines, what they exude and . . . how mightily was stated that which lies in the [very] depth, that powerful, substantial [substantsial'noe], eternal that does not at all exclude the preceding [predydushchii]."8 But in the last two pages of the review, where Aksakov dwells on Great Russianism, his propagandistic message is for the most part stated in clear and comprehensible language. The detour into Great Russianism was touched off by Gogol's Ukrainian or Little Russian origin. Konstantin admits the "deepseated artistic character" of the Ukrainian people, "expressed in [folk] songs with their numerous soft sounds, living and tender, and rounded out in their proportions"—and, he acknowledges ruefully, "such is not the character of the Great Russian [folk] songs." Then, having recognized the superiority of the Little Russian folk songs, he proceeds to show how superior Great Russian is in every other respect: "But Little Russia—the living part of Russia—has been cre­ ated by the mighty spirit of Great Russia." To him it was self-evident that in the unity of Russia the "honor of creation" belonged to the "Great Russian element," and it was therefore right that "it preserved its lawful domination as the head of a living human body." Con­ cluding the metaphor, he says that the "whole body is called man 8

Ibid., p. 223.

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and not the head, just as Russia is called Russia and not Great Russia." Naturally, the superiority of Great Russia extended to language: "It goes without saying that only an author writing in Russian (that is, in Great Russian) could appear as a poet from Little Russia. Being, like all Russians, a citizen of Russia, he contributes . . . his own element, infusing new life into all society."9 In that way, he says, Gogol's literary achievement was to chronicle the "Little Russian element, already Russian, [and] a vital element of everyday Russian life, together with the lawful preference [preimushchestvo] of the Great Russian. Thus an element of the Little Russian language was beautifully introduced by Gogol' into our Russian." Why was it that the Little Russian language, though it reflected the "artistic character of Little Russia" in the "beautiful" Ukrainian folk songs, in its "beautiful artistic principle," was unsuitable as an in­ spiration and a vehicle for Gogol's great poem? Why was it that the "Russian genius" Gogol' when he "finally sprang up" did not write in his mother tongue? In answer to these questions Konstantin relies on a purely historical and political explanation: it was Great Russia that "created the whole state and united everything into a living whole." But Gogol's great achievement has earned him full citizen­ ship among the elite: "Gogol' is Russian, completely Russian"—and of course he must continue to write in Great Russian. To this neat bit of sophistry Konstantin adds another. In a display of one of the Slavophils' most pervasive hates, that of "one-sidedness" (odnostoronnost') or extremism, which they persistently at­ tributed to the West in all sorts of connections but conveniently overlooked in their own orientation, Konstantin claims that the Great Russians lost whatever "one-sidedness" they had "when they cre­ ated the whole state and allowed all parts in it to develop freely. In this manner the name 'Russian' merged with that nation the spirit of which lives in and moves the state." Obviously, he implies, all the nations incorporated into the Russian state also lost their onesidedness, and in this way the "Russian song remained primarily and by right the Great Russian song... which Gogol' often remembers in his poem," and which embodies the "spirit and image of a great and mighty expanse."10 Konstantin may perhaps be forgiven his un­ critical assumption that not only all Great Russians but other na­ tionalities within the vast Russian empire saw matters the way he did, that that was the way—indeed, the only way—to see them. But 9 Ibid., 10

p. 228. Ibid., p. 229.

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it was not all youthful arrogance. Years later, at the time of the Crimean War, he still entertained much the same views, this time about the relationship between Russia and the South Slavs. That is when his Great Russianism became tinged with messianic thoughts and dreams, for which he and his fellow Russians, in fairness to them, were given powerful although often ambiguous encouragement by some of the foremost leaders of the South Slavs. The leading Moscow Slavophils were of Great Russian stock,11 and although they had good friends among the Little Russians—Gogol' and M. A. Maksimovich, for instance—they did not attract any Ukrainian recruits, nor were any to be found even among the secondechelon Slavophils. Gogol', as we saw earlier, successfully resisted efforts to be enlisted in the Slavophil cause despite his close friend­ ship with the Khomiakovs, the Kireevskys (Elagins), and the Aksakovs. It is true that the vast majority of the Ukrainians were Orthodox, like the Great Russians, and that Kiev was not only the capital of the Ukraine but also the first Russian capital and the center of Orthodoxy. Furthermore, there were Ukrainian leaders who were no less Slavminded than the Moscow Slavophils. Nevertheless, in the cases both of the Society of United Slavs of the 1820's and of the Saints Cyril and Methodius Society somewhat later,12 the Ukrainians, although in sympathy with certain Slavophil views, were strongly federalist, and hence opposed to the Great Russian political centralism which Konstantin and the other Slavophils took for granted. Although not all the early Slavophils were as outspokenly Great Russian as Konstantin Aksakov, none of them entertained federalist doctrines. The closest any of them came was in Khomiakov's and Konstantin Aksakov's advocacy of the commune, and in their Christian anarchism, for the peasant mir and artel' were characteristically Great Russian institutions, locally constituted and not centralist. 11

The family kinship among the leading Moscow Slavophils, though distant on the whole, was established at the beginning of the Khomiakov study. See Christoff, Xomjakov, p. 23. " The central problem of Great Russian-Ukrainian relations, and more narrowly of Ukiainian federalism, is a complicated study in itself. Insofar as Konstantin Aksakov touched on it, a few references in English on the phase that falls within his lifetime and career are cited here: A. G. Mazour, The First Russian Revolution, 1825: The Decembrist Movement, Its Origins, Development, and Significance (Berkeley, 1937), pp. 142-153; Frank Fadner, Seventy Years of Pan-Slavism in Russia: Karazin to Danilevskii 1800-1870 (Georgetown, 1962), pp. 105-146. In addition to excellent sum­ maries—Mazour's on the United Slavs, Fadner's on the United Slavs and the Saints Cyril and Methodius brotherhood—these studies contain extensive bibliographical materials. Μ. B. Petrovich, The Emergence of Russian Panslavism, 1856-1870 (New York, 1956), pp. 15-17, and Hans Kohn, Pan-Slavism: Its History and Ideology (Notre Dame, Ind., 1953), pp. 5, 19, 61-62, are also extremely useful.

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND'

WHEN KONSTANTIN finished the review of Gogol's Dead Souls in June 1842 he was approaching the midpoint in his chronology of Lomonosov. Although Vengerov has made a topical breakdown of the dissertation, it is basically and clearly a chronological study, especially after part one. The introduction and part one, about 50 pages, are a typical Aksakov-Slavophil potpourri consisting of phil­ osophical observations, a sprinkling of historical references and ex­ cursions into Russia's past, a dash or two of philology and ideological effusion, and some pronunciamentos—all with a heavy German-Rus­ sian flavoring. Part two, 245 pages, begins with a lengthy introduction tracing the relationship between Church Slavonic and spoken Rus­ sian, and runs into a century-by-century discussion of this relation­ ship. This is followed by a fuller account of the eighteenth century, in which Konstantin at last gets down to his main subject, Lomo­ nosov. Of the 80 pages on the eighteenth century, only 53 or so are specifically concerned with Lomonosov. In addition, the 30-page conclusion also deals in some measure with Lomonosov's linguistic work. More than Lomonosov, the theme that runs through most of the dissertation is the interrelationship between Church Slavonic and Russian. Aksakov says in chapter 1, which is primarily concerned with the role of Peter the Great in Russia's cultural and national life, that Church Slavonic is a foreign language: "The church books and the divine service . . . the whole Christian literature—was brought to us in Church Slavonic, brought to the people who did not speak it, was dedicated to eternal [divine] service, permeated with eternal content. . . and it remained unchanged and eternal in its primordial form." Because it was never a spoken language its purity and sanctity were preserved: "In truth this language represents a marvelous spec­ tacle . . . comprehensible to the people but never descending into the world of its [mundane] needs and concerns." Church Slavonic, he says, makes us feel "transported into another world where every­ thing is eternal, where everything is as in a temple. . . . Such was among us the meaning of Church Slavonic from the time of our acceptance of it."13 When Konstantin restates these convictions later in the dissertation, he does so less simply, and the original clear separation between Church Slavonic and the language of the people becomes blurred.14 13

K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, II, part 1, 54-55. a section on the syntax of the Russian language Vinogradov says, "K. S. Aksakov in his dissertation . . . very vividly describes the peculiarities of the learned-written [knizhno-pis'mennoi] Church Slavonic phrase, in his terminology the 'organic 14 In

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213

In the long, vaguely chronological second chapter, which forms the bulk of the dissertation, the narrative finally arrives at Lomonosov. As the account develops, the emphasis is increasingly on the importance of the spoken Russian language. This emphasis can be seen as a reflection of Aksakov's growing nationalism and Slavo­ philism, although not at all by a direct process, for his course toward Slavophilism was full of twists and turns and occasional sharp de­ tours as his mind matured and his reading took him in new direc­ tions. Aksakov was now in his middle twenties, and more mature than when he wrote his review of Belinsky's grammar; further, he had left the Stankevich circle and was in the process of abandoning Hegelianism for Orthodoxy, Slavophilism, and his special brand of nationality (narodnost'); and so his difficulty in determining pre­ cisely the relationship between Church Slavonic and Russian is un­ derstandable, particularly since his "poetic" touch in matters of scholarship diluted the more reliable approach upon which a rea­ sonably precise determination can rest. Aksakov still believed in his original separation of the two lin­ guistic spheres—Church Slavonic being confined exclusively to the supreme, the Christian, and the divine, and the Russian language being used for the expression of everyday matters. But he gave way to uncertainty when he attempted to establish the relationship be­ tween the two, since for centuries they had been used by the same Russian nation and could not be sealed each in its own compartment. He undertook to "demonstrate" the difference between Church Sla­ vonic and the vernacular Russian and "thereby confirm the opinion that these two are two distinct and unique languages." That they are different "is evident from the first glance and from even a superficial attention." This was true even in ancient times, for Aksakov ob­ viously did not subscribe to the theory that at one time the two languages were identical. In support of his contention he gives some examples of "lexicographical" and grammatical differences and con­ cludes that Church Slavonic "in no way contradicted the spirit of the Russian language," but that it "formerly, as at present, was dif­ ferent from Church Slavonic and was always a separate, unique [samobytnyi] tongue."15 phrase.' " V. V. Vinogradov, Ocherki po istorii russkogo Jiteraturnogo iazyka XVIIXIX vv (Leiden, 1950), p. 113. Aksakov often used "learned-written" or "bookishwritten" and "organic phrase" as synonymous with Church Slavonic. 15 K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, II, part I, 84-86, 88. This matter has been a subject

of perennial debate, and I offer no attempt at an answer. Before Aksakov, A. Kh. Vostokov in 1820 stated, "Whatever dialect the language of the Church Slavonic books originally might have belonged to, it has now become like the property of the Rus­ sians." In 1849, at about the time that Aksakov formulated his views on this matter,

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND'

The burden of argument in the early part of the dissertation was to show that Church Slavonic and Russian were equal, independent, self-sufficient languages at one time, and that Russian did not have its origin in Church Slavonic. Russian "was close to itself, if you please, as Slavonic was to itself. It was also close to Church Slavonic as Church Slavonic was close to Russian." But whereas ancient Rus­ sian underwent changes along with the changing destiny of the Rus­ sian people, Church Slavonic did not change, and thus it became a "dead" language like Greek and Latin. There was, he granted, a certain similarity in the "immobility" and "limitation of the forms of the words in Russian and Church Slavonic," but he thought that this was "original" with each language and not the result of interplay between them. He gave a similar explanation to a certain "under­ development" (nerazvitost'), more pronounced in ancient Russian than in Church Slavonic. The conclusion, as he emphasizes repeat­ edly, was that the similarity between Russian and Church Slavonic was "entirely unique and therefore was not the result of influence."16 Aksakov's references to the "ancient" Russian language are exasperatingly vague. Presumably he had in mind the Kievan Russian of about the tenth century, when Kiev was converted to Orthodox Christianity. Following conversion, he says, the "living Russian speech made a transition to a written [form] determined by Church Slavonic, but this determination was only external." In Nestor's time, at the end of the eleventh and the beginning of the twelfth centuries, the matter was further complicated because "Greek influenced the I. I. Sreznevsky stated, in Barkhudarov's words, that old Russia had "two literary languages [dva iazyka pis'mennosti] literary and ordinary everyday [delovoi]." The literary language was derived from Church Slavonic, whereas for the ordinary, in rather evasive terms, he "did not deny a purely Russian foundation." Later, A. A. Shakhmatov took a similar position, asserting that the Russians borrowed their "book­ ish" or "written" language (in Barkhudarov's terminology, knizhnyi iazyk), together with Christianity, from Bulgaria and "began to look upon this language as their prop­ erty . . . subjecting it to the demands of their own language" to produce the melange that is modern Russian. Obnorsky, a student and follower of Shakhmatov until 1934, after that came to the conclusion that the "Russian literary language of the old era was in the true sense Russian in all its framework." Barkhudarov says, in line with Obnorsky, that this was so because the "Russian literary language was formed in the old cultural center, Novgorod, far from the influence from the South," where German, Scandinavian, and Western Slav influences were stronger than Bulgarian and Ma­ cedonian. Thus Obnorsky concluded: "The Bulgarization of the Russian literary lan­ guage ought to be represented as a long process proceeding through the centuries with crescendo." See S. G. Barkhudarov, ed., S. P. Obnorsky. Izbrannye raboty po russkomu iazyku (Moscow, 1960), pp. 13-17; S. P. Obnorsky, Ocherki po istorii russkogo Iiteraturnogo iazyka starshego perioda (Moscow-Leningrad, 1946), pp. 4-8. 16K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, II, part I, 89, 95-96, 99-100, 106-107, 111.

T HE Q UESTION OF L ANGUAGE

215

syntax of Church Slavonic, Nestor's own language." But he argues here much as he does in defending Russian from Church Slavonic influences. Church Slavonic, though influenced in some ways by Greek, was an independent language, for it was quite possible that two languages, one older and more developed than the other, could exhibit similarities without interplay between them. There were, he points out, certain grammatical differences between twelfth-century Church Slavonic and Russian. But he notes that the "national mon­ uments" of that period were written in Church Slavonic—for ex­ ample the well-known pouchenie or "testament" of Vladimir Monomakh (1053-1125), which from the point of view of language was clothed in "such heavy wrappings that under it one cannot even detect the Russian speech." So too The Lay of the Host of Igor's Campaign, the late-twelfth-century classic, "cannot be referred to the national linguistic monuments, for Church Slavonic forms are in evidence from the very beginning and continue throughout the song."17 Relying on this example and others, Aksakov concludes that up to the thirteenth century there were no "monuments of Russian speech," only of Church Slavonic. But things were changing, and two Novgorod treaties of the middle of the thirteenth century "as­ tonish us with the originality of the new language." He heard in them "our living language which we speak now." This national Rus­ sian speech continued to develop in the fourteenth century, reflect­ ing the way that the "people spoke." Aksakov saw the new Russian vernacular as a product of national unification and the emergence of the modern Russian nation, or more accurately of the Muscovite state. Furthermore, this process reversed the relationship between Russian and Church Slavonic. "In the fourteenth century we have epistles from the clergy to the people," and in them we see "how powerfully the Russian language element entered the realm of the activity of the clergy." Russian speech became dominant, and Church Slavonic was only rarely used. This influence was strong despite Aksakov's belief, as he said earlier, that the sphere of Church Sla­ vonic was the "universal, eternal, religious," while Russian was the daily language of the people. In the fifteenth century, particularly under Ivan III, as the Russian Muscovite state gained territory, power, and authority and as the Russian nation grew in unity and selfconsciousness, Russian and Church Slavonic were "kindred" Ianguages.18 Russian was still the "same Slavic language" as Church 17 Ibid., l8 Ibid.,

pp. 127, 130-131, 134, 142. pp. 149-150, 158-163, 165, 167, 179.

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND'

Slavonic, but in matters of syntax, which in Russian was very free, it "could independently belong also to Church Slavonic." Here he seems to be implying an accidental similarity, if not Russian influ­ ence, on Church Slavonic. This tendency became more apparent in the sixteenth century. Church Slavonic remained the language of the "abstract expression ... but the Russicisms that we encounter are more numerous." There were also "errors and distortions." He found examples of all these in some of the writings of Ivan III to the monk Kozma of the KiriloBeloozersky monastery, of Joseph Volotsky, and Prince Kurbsky to Ivan IV, among others. The seventeenth century, beginning with the Time of Troubles and ending with the early years of Peter the Great, brought further changes in the Russian language. Still in his drawnout repetitious style, Aksakov stresses that the Russian vernacular was the national mundane language, while Church Slavonic re­ mained apart from the people as the language of the church and the "universal" (obshchii); but now foreign, Western words begin to appear, such as soldaty, roty, and reitary. Official documents in the reign of Michael Romanov, as later, were written in a mixture of "official ancient Russian speech still preserving in itself the earlier forms imposed from the outside by the Church Slavonic language." The language of Kotoshikhin's well-known treatise about Russia, dating from the reign of Tsar Aleksei, was the same sort of mixture. Also at this time, "attempts were made at poetry as distinct from folk songs—not a living phenomenon in itself, and proof only of the destruction of the national."19 The appearance of non-folk poetry, the entrance of foreign words, a growing national consciousness, and the increasing importance of the vernacular all presaged more changes, but the "Church Slavonic language, as always, did not lose its lofty and abstract-important great significance." Such purity as it retained was manifested in the works of Saint Dimitri of Rostov. His language was contemporary Church Slavonic on Russian soil containing "many forms of the Russian language," whereas the tsar (Aleksei) in his "letters and epistles" used "simple Russian speech sometimes mixed with Church Slavonic forms." Then came Peter the Great, and a "whole foreign deluge poured in on us from the West. The Russian language was inundated with foreign words and turns of speech." Even the new capital had a foreign name, and "everything acquired an alien, foreign appearance." Church Slavonic remained the language of the Russian church and even of literature in general, but "what a Church 19 Ibid.,

pp. 212-214, 216-217, 222, 230-231.

THE QUESTION OF LANGUAGE

217

Slavonic it was!" Not only were its fine rules often violated but now "many Russian expressions and words . . . and also Ukrainian and Polish words" crept in. Aksakov devotes considerable attention to the two leading clerics and intellectuals of Peter's reign, Theofan Prokopovich and Stefan Iavorsky. He prefers Prokopovich's writings and describes the language as "natural," showing at times Church Slavonic forms "sufficiently correct" but also "remarkably pure Rus­ sian words." Iavorsky's language, on the other hand, is "pompous" and "unbearably allegorical."20 In the work of both he finds Ukrainian and Polish words. The Russian language was still no more than the spoken language of the common people. In the first half of the eighteenth century Kantemir and Trediakovsky made separate efforts to adapt Russian to the "high sphere," but failed, Trediakovsky worse than Kantemir. The Russian language, suitable only for everyday speech and "unaccustomed to writing, found itself a stranger on paper . . . the words were Russian, the language was Russian, but the paper was altogether alien to it, and so was the syntax." The "high sphere," the realm of the written word, was not suitable, for Russian was "a spoken language, and ... exclusively national." The national character of the vernacular, which Aksakov stresses repeatedly, appeared to him both a virtue and a disadvantage: a virtue because the language spoken by the Russian people was their own, and therefore different from Church Slavonic and from the other Slavic languages, thus expressing the Russian genius; and a disadvantage because it could not pass into the "high sphere," the realm of the universal and the all-human (obshche-chelovecheskoe). In their religious life the Russian people relied on Church Slavonic, "a language comprehensible to them but from the outside, and inaccessible to them as a tool in their [daily] life."21 Here one encounters Aksakov the Slavophil in the process of for­ mation. Although he was a strong nationalist, insisting on the na­ tional characteristics of the Russian vernacular, his recent philosoph­ ical experience had convinced him that there were realities, values, and creations which transcend the national and parochial and aspire to the universal. As long as Russian remained only a spoken language it could not break out of the bounds of the narrow and the national. It could transcend these only when it was "liberated" and became a written language as well, thereby reaching beyond the confines of Russia. But how could this be achieved? The answer appears as an 20 Ibid., pp. 232, 234, 236, 240, 247, 253, 256. " Ibid., pp. 258-266.

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apotheosis of the individual, of Lomonosov in this case, but in a broader sense of the creative individual or personality (the individuum), who, by his genius, can elevate the local and national to the level of the universal and the classical. The parallel but separate courses of Russian and Church Slavonic could not continue indef­ initely. The boundary between them had to break down. Thus "arose the need for the individual" who "could make accessible to them [the people] the all-human, the universal stored up to that time . . . in the treasury of religion. . . . The language had to escape from its nationalism and become the expression of the universal."22 In the essential transition from the national to the universal, the individual held the key: "Only through the individual can the uni­ versal in a language be born." Later on, in the conclusion of the dissertation, Konstantin gives a simple, cogent explanation: "Only the power of the individual endowed . . . with all the energy of the individual, only the nature of personality concretely expressed through the individual, could produce all this." But suspecting that this might lead to hero worship, he cautions that although the in­ dividual is essential, he must be considered "in his significance" to this process "and not in the sense of some renowned person." Fur­ thermore, although Aksakov expects a metamorphosis of the Russian language through the work of the individual, he is careful to define its true character. The Russian language would "develop and become filled with universal content but would completely preserve . . . its personality and originality. . . . And thus the nationality of the lan­ guage would not be lost but would be elevated."23 In rudimentary form and in reference to the Russian language, Aksakov in the middle forties thus came upon the basic formula by which the Slavophils hoped to solve the problem of Russia's cultural relationship with the West and the world at large. Advocating neither a slavish imitation in the name of cosmopolitan universalism nor a nationalistic iso­ lation and hostility to the outside world, the formula espoused a search for the universal through the national. Whether everything that Aksakov attributes to Lomonosov in re­ gard to modern Russia is linguistically sound can best be left to the linguists.24 What concerns us here is the relationship of Aksakov's 22

Ibid., pp. 266, 291-293, 308-310, 317-318. pp. 267-268, 320. 24 The literature on Lomonosov's role in the formation of the modern Russian lan­ guage and on the role of Church Slavonic is extensive. See, for instance, Vinogradov, Ocherki, pp. 91-124. Jagii stresses Lomonosov's objective, factual approach to the problem of the Russian language and describes him as the "first to determine pre­ cisely" the relationship between Russian and Church Slavonic. Vatroslav Jagic, Istoriia slavianskoi fllologii (St. Petersburg, 1910), pp. 87-88. Sobolevsky noticed Lomono23 Ibid.,

THE QUESTION OF LANGUAGE

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analysis to his Slavophilism, for clearly the implications of the lin­ guistic problem, as has just been illustrated, reach beyond the realm of language into that of culture in general. Aksakov proclaimed Lomonosov a "genius who performed the great deed in the awakening of the universal . . . and . . . freed the language from the categories of nationality." Thanks to him, the "Russian language . . . finally passed into the high sphere, acquiring the complete rights of the written language [pis'mennost'] . .. Lomonosov formed the language .. . which we write and use, and which we will write in the future." How did Lomonosov perform this task? In answering this question Konstantin returns to his central theme, the relationship between Russian and Church Slavonic. Lomonosov, he says, "freed the Rus­ sian language . . . from admixtures of Church Slavonic . . . and gave it citizenship with respect to the written language [pis'mennost']." In the conjugation of verbs, declension of nouns, and language forms in general, Church Slavonic was abandoned, but Lomonosov rec­ ognized the "essential relationship" of Russian to Church Slavonic on the "supreme" and "universal" level of the written language and literature.25 Distinguishing as always between the language of the people and the language of Russian Orthodoxy, or the "high sphere," Konstantin sums up: "Lomonosov raised the Russian language to the sphere of the universal, freed it from Church Slavonic, and at the same time opened to it the treasury of Church Slavonic . . . between Russian and Church Slavonic was established an inner, free relationship." Thus, Church Slavonic became a "constant source of strength and wealth" for the written Russian language, establishing a "true, es­ sential, eternal relationship." Feeling perhaps the need for a salve to national Russian pride, of which Konstantin possessed a full share, he rationalized the Church Slavonic elements in Russian as "lawful," sov's judicious selection of Church Slavonic words, concluding: "Indeed who would have difficulty understanding the Church Slavonic words, grad, glad, khlad, and the Russian gorod, goiod, kholod? For whom would the words pregrazhdat', sovrashchat', noshch' sound strange?" Μ. V. Sobolevsky, Lomonosov ν istorii russkago iazyka (St. Petersburg, 1911), pp. 7-8. Vompersky1 in his recent monograph on Lomonosov and the so-called "three styles," stresses that this widely employed terminology was not used by Lomonosov. Vompersky also says that the "ancient Slav Language or as Lomonosov called it the 'ancient Moravian language' in which the church books were translated from the Greek represents the most ancient written language of the Slavs, which was different from the ancient Russian." Lomonosov had the sound judgment to know what to take from the Russian and from the Slavonic (sJavenskii) languages and what to exclude. See V. P. Vompersky, Stilisticheskoe uchenie Μ. V. Lomonosova i teoriia trekh stilei (Moscow, 1970), pp. 6-7, 138, 143. For a recent authoritative bibliographical summary of this subject see V. V. Vinogradov, ProbIemy iiteraturnykh iazykov i zakonomernostei ikh obrazovaniia i razvitiia (Moscow, 1967), pp. 117-125. 25 K. S. Aksakov, Sochmeniia, II, part I, 273-274.

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for this was free "borrowing," "not disorderly and accidental." He thus justified the "many Church Slavonic words" in Lomonosov's Russian. His concern for the universal in language achieved through the creative individual—Lomonosov—was again underscored.26 Lomonosov's stamp on the Russian language was particularly pro­ nounced in regard to its syntax, which he based primarily upon Latin, and in part on German. But neither these nor a certain French influence overshadowed the importance of Church Slavonic on Lo­ monosov's speech, which he "consciously acknowledged."27 What­ ever the merits of French and German, Aksakov says, they had dif­ ferent forms of constraint, whereas in Russian there was "freedom." He concludes: "And so freedom is the great advantage of our manysided language! . . . Such is the advantage, the characteristic of the Russian language, so profoundly coinciding with the profound es­ sence of the Russian people." Although Aksakov praised Lomonosov as the "first individual" in the history of the Russian language, concluding that its future course was "nothing but . . . the development of his [Lomonosov's] great feat," he also saw a negative side. That was the "one-sidedness" resulting from the very "perfection and completeness" of his work. Lomonosov did his job too well. Writers who followed his path marked the language with "heavy construction" and "Slavianisms," and the result was a "one-sided, heavy style devoid of simple phrase forms," which "completely contradicted the essence of the Russian language which freely admits all forms." This "heavy," "abstract," 26 Ibid.,

pp. 275-276, 288, 291-293, 297-302, 305. In touching upon the influence of Latin, German, and French on the formation of modern Russian, one of the latest arrivals among the major European languages, Aksakov referred to a matter that had raised considerable controversy at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth when, particularly with respect to French influence and "Gallicisms," it became the bone of contention be­ tween N. M. Karamzin and A. S. Shishkov. Stressing the importance of Karamzin's Letters of a Russian Traveler (Pis'ma russkago puteshestvennika), 1797-1801, Jagic classified Karamzin as the "first Russian Westerner." Shiskhov's reply, Discourse about the Old and the New Style in the Russian Language (Razsuzhdenie ο starom i novom sloge rossiiskago iazyka), 1803, brought into the open a controversy between the respective camps which continued for over two decades. The Karamzinists strove to achieve French SlSgance in written Russian even by borrowing from the French, whereas Shishkov and his group clung to Church Slavonic. Both camps showed excesses. Pushkin, who had shown preference for the Karamzinists, began from about 1820 on to see the value of the Shishkov school, without condoning their excesses and absurdities. See Jagic, Istoriia slavianskoi filologii, pp. 156-175. For some ex­ amples of the interplay of Church Slavonic, vernacular, and French, the resulting complexities, and the reactions of Katenin, Kiuchel'beker, Belinsky, Somov, Zhukovsky, and particularly Pushkin's "synthesis," see Vinogradov, Ocherki, pp. 195, 199ff., 203, 210, 227, 229, 232, 234-235, 239-240, 247, 256-257, 259, 267, 356-357. 27

THE QUESTION OF LANGUAGE

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"one-sided" aspect of modern Russian developed by Sumarokov, Derzhavin, Kheraskov1 and others was the result of Latin, German, and Church Slavonic inroads. A notable exception to this rule was Karamzin, who raised a voice in favor of "conversational" Russian with its characteristic simple folk flavor, though even Karamzin could not resist Gallicisms.28 Having formulated the positions of two different linguistic camps in Russia in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries—the fol­ lowers of Lomonosov and Karamzin—Aksakov took a surprisingly moderate stand. He declared against extremes and for the reasonable middle. He commended Karamzin for having given conversational Russian "its lawful place in the literary language" but warned that carrying this too far could displace the "organic phrase." Literary Russian must not be reduced to spoken Russian. The "organic" lan­ guage was the written Russian, and Karamzin had gone to extremes in renouncing "Church-Slavianisms." This was an anti-Lomonosov step that Aksakov, being pro-Lomonosov, could not condone. The dissertation proper (up to the conclusion) ends on a restate­ ment of the relationship between the Russian vernacular and Church Slavonic. Aksakov reproaches those who would "revolt against Church Slavianisms" in the Russian, reminding them that they would "have to cross out more than half of Pushkin's verses, etc., Gogol's prose," and that between Russian and Church Slavonic "exists an intimate bond" of many centuries. Church Slavonic has a "perma­ nent significance" for Russian. It contains "eternal sustenance for our language in our common life," and "like the sky it soars above our language." Somewhat carried away by his own rhetoric, he even credits Lomonosov with "initiating" (poiozhivshago) some of the interplay between Church Slavonic and Russian,29 although in fact Lomonosov came into a late if perhaps crucial stage in these devel­ opments, as Aksakov himself must have realized, since throughout the dissertation he emphasizes the ancient and continuous nature of this basic relationship between the two languages. IN THE DISSERTATION on Lomonosov, as in other writings of the forties in which Aksakov deals with the Russian language, one is struck by the absence of concern for the other Slav languages, except Church Slavonic and in a very limited way Ukrainian, as already indicated. Yet the thirties and forties were the high point of a cultural renais­ sance among the non-Russian Slavs, notably in present-day Czech28

K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, II, part I, 309-312. pp. 314-318.

29 Ibid.,

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oslovakia and Yugoslavia. The question of an all-Slav literary lan­ guage, perhaps Russian, was being much discussed, but Konstantin Aksakov evidently had little or no interest in the non-Eastern Slavs or in an all-Slav language. It was the "hybrid" nature of the modern Russian language that aroused his curiosity and enthusiasm, not the potential of Russian as a future all-Slav tongue. The principal support for Russian as a language that could unite the Slavs culturally was coming mainly from the Western and South Slavs. Although a few Russians were lending support, Aksakov was not among them. One can suggest a number of possible explanations for his attitude, but they all boil down to his obsession with Slavophilism, Moscowphilism, Great Russianism, and Russian nationalism. For this reason he was interested in the quality, role, and prerogatives of the Russian language as such. Thus, while the question of an all-Slav language was being debated by Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes in Vienna, Prague, and Budapest, and also by Czechs, Slovaks, and some Poles, Konstantin Aksakov remained a passive bystander, though no doubt aware of the discussion. But the close bond between the modern vernacular and the modern national consciousness is not peculiarly Slav, Slavophil, or Russian. It is a European if not a worldwide phenomenon, and in the 1830's and 1840's it was a powerful force in the cultural and national awakening of the Slav nations. At the start of the nineteenth century only the Eastern Slavs were free from alien political rule. The South Slavs were under Hapsburg or Ottoman domination, many of the Western Slavs were under Aus­ trian rule, and Poland, formerly an independent nation, had recently been divided among Russia, Prussia, and Austria. Although for this and other reasons the Poles were unique among the rest of the West­ ern and South Slavs, foreign domination in Poland during the nine­ teenth century was no less onerous than elsewhere among the Slavs. These are the overriding facts, and they tell much about the strong nationalistic, even messianic direction that Slav linguistic and cul­ tural life took in the course of a century that was notably nationalistic throughout Europe and in the New World. The Slav cultural renais­ sance of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was a complex phenomenon, or more precisely a series of phenomena, each one determined by the national past, prevailing conditions, and national aspirations of the individual Slav nations. The term "ren­ aissance" is therefore somewhat misleading in that it brings under one common denominator all Slavs, Eastern, Western, and South, three main branches with differing historical and cultural paths. When to these differences are added those within each branch, the complexity increases; indeed, their numerous differences would

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seem to preclude the use of such an inclusive and equalizing label. Yet within the complex and baffling diversity of the Slav world lies a degree of common consciousness based on a common linguistic heritage suggesting to all Slav nations, down to the present, their common ethnic origin. It is not an exaggeration to describe the Slav world after the Napo­ leonic wars as the"underdeveloped" part of Europe. Although in population and natural resources it exceeded the Latin and Germanic regions, economically and culturally it lagged far behind, and within the Slav world there were considerable cultural differences. The Poles during centuries of political independence and the Czechs and Slovaks even under Austrian rule had recorded significant cultural achievements, but the South Slavs, although there were some varia­ tions, had been held down by centuries of Ottoman rule, and even the Russians, prior to the reign of Nicholas I—paradoxical as this might seem—had contributed little to the sum total of European cultural achievement. If the South and Eastern Slavs had an inferi­ ority complex, it was with good reason. In Russia, endless compar­ isons with the West were an intellectual preoccupation. Whether the West knew or not, it had intruded into the consciousness of eastern and southeastern Europe, particularly since the early nineteenth cen­ tury, in a profound manner—so much so that Europe has remained divided to the present day. It was a swing of the pendulum almost equaling the opposite swing during the Dark Ages, when the bar­ barians of western and northern Europe were preoccupied with the civilized South and East, with Rome, Byzantium, and the Arabic Near East. It was clear to the Slavs, to most of them at any rate, that they must move toward improvement and achievement. But did it follow from this—as the Slavophils and some among the South and Western Slavs thought—that the West was decaying? Slav views of the West complicated relations within the Slav world. During the early and middle nineteenth century it became amply clear that in addition to the complexities of Russian-Polish political and territorial problems, for example, there was also a long­ standing cultural division, perhaps most fundamental of all. Terri­ torially, historically, religiously, and culturally, the Western Slavs were closer to the West than to the Eastern and South Slavs. The Russians, however, being Orthodox, were close to the Orthodox Serbs, Macedonians, and Bulgarians, and with them they had had long historical, religious, literary, and cultural ties including the borrowing of the Cyrillic alphabet. But during the first half of the nineteenth century the Russians, together with the Serbs, were the only Slavs free from alien political domination. This alone was

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enough to place the Russians in a special category as the possible saviors of the oppressed Slavs. Despite the serious differences that existed within the Slav world and despite the powerful pull of various Slav nationalisms, which were clearly demonstrated in the Slav congresses in Prague in 1848 and Moscow in 1867, there was a well-articulated Slav consciousness in the first half of the nineteenth century based not upon a common national-political past, since a united Slav state has never existed, and not on a common religious heritage—since the Slavs have been divided for more than a thousand years between Orthodoxy and Catholicism (and a few became Protestants after the Reformation)— but on a common ethnic, linguistic heritage. Added to this was the community of fate stemming from the unenviable oppression shared by them all except the Russians and the Serbs. This was the bond that united a handful of dedicated individuals, most of them from the academic and clerical ranks, particularly among the South and Western Slavs, in the second half of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth centuries. Together, they set out to awaken their compatriots, the vast majority of whom were peasants toiling under foreign masters. This national awakening or rebirth, most clearly manifested in the study of folk customs and mores, folk poetry and songs, Slav law and history, and Slav languages and philology, inev­ itably led to investigations of Church Slavonic and the early South Slavs, with emphasis on Macedonian and Bulgarian literary life. In several important ways this was the same sort of soil upon which romanticism was springing up in the West. Just as the Slavs were discovering their folk culture and medieval institutions, so in the West attention was being focused on the native, indigenous, national aspect of life in the Middle Ages, and this attention in turn stimulated national consciousness and nationalism throughout Eu­ rope. Whether the "Slav renaissance" was born and developed as a result of Western romanticism, the French Revolution, and the Napo­ leonic wars or had its own genesis but was aided by these and other Western developments is a question of considerable complexity and scope, too large to be dealt with here. One or two issues, however, which must of necessity be isolated from the rest, have some bearing on the emergence of Slav vernacular and literary languages, partic­ ularly Russian. The emergence of vernacular Russian coincided roughly with the "Slav renaissance," though within this period there were among some of the Slavic tongues brief but significant differ­ ences in chronological development which made possible, for in­ stance, considerable word borrowing.30 30 Vinogradov,

relying partly on Serbian authorities but more heavily on Safaflk's

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During the age of Pushkin and Gogol', that is, up to Gogol's death in 1852, the Slav renaissance reached a peak of considerable activity and intensity. From the late 1820's through the 1850's the Aksakov family was in the center not only of Moscow's intellectual and ide­ ological life but also of some events and developments that are more specifically associated with the Slav renaissance. In 1829, when Konstantin was preparing for his university entrance examinations, one of his private tutors was, as already mentioned, the twenty-sevenyear-old Iurii Venelin, who, though a medical doctor by training, was also an amateur historian and folklorist specializing in Bulgaria. A friend and protege of Pogodin, he published in the same year, at Pogodin's expense, the first volume of his Drevnie i nyneshie bolgare (Ancient and Contemporary Bulgarians), dedicated to A. S. Shishkov. During the next decade, up to his death in 1839, Venelin worked on the second volume, which appeared posthumously in 1842, and also published a number of works on Bulgarian folk songs and literature, studies in Bulgarian history, and impressions of his travels in Bul­ garia.31 The real value of his work was not so much its contribution to scholarship as its impact on the Bulgarian national consciousness, Geschichte der Sudslavischen Literaturen of 1865 (III, 362-476), says that of the 700800 Serbian works published before 1830, not even 100 were in the "national Serbian language," the language of Vuk Karadzic and Dositej Obradovic, which was based on a combination of spoken vernacular and a folk poetry language. Karadzic's guiding principle was, "Write as you speak and read as it is written" (PisSi kao govoriS a Citaj kao Sto nap'isana). The great majority of the books were written in a "Slav-RussianSerbian language." More startling than this was the influence of Russian on modern Bulgarian, a language formed later than Russian and Serbo-Croatian. This influence was felt especially after the Congress of Berlin of 1878, although Russian linguistic and broadly cultural influences had been accelerating since the 1830's. For example, Professor Tsonev is reported by Vinogradov as stating in his Istoriia na bulgarskii ezik that about 2,000 Russian words had come into regular present (i.e. 1934) Bulgarian. There was also important interplay between Russian and Polish, and Russian, Czech, and Slovak. See Vinogradov, VeIikii ruskii iazyk, pp. 51-56, 58-64. The relationship between Russian and Bulgarian seems more complicated than Vinogradov suggests, however. As Tsonev and others have pointed out, many (Tsonev says 800-900) Western European words entered Bulgarian by way of Russian. Stressing the great benefit that Bulgarian derived from the Russian language and literature, Tsonev says, "We could count approximately up to two thousand Russian words in the Bulgarian language, together with the Western European, together with the Old Bulgarian which were ours and later were borrowed from Russian, and also together with the purely Russian national words." Tsonev considers this a large number, although many of them are technical terms, much larger for instance than the Croatian Professor T. MaretiCs estimate of 137 Russian words in Croatian. See Beno Tsonev's three-volume Istoriia na bulgarskii ezik (Sofia, 1934-1940), 2nd ed., esp. II, 338-353; also Peter Herrity, "The Role of the Matica and Similar Societies in the Development of the Slavonic Literary Languages," Slavonic and East European Review, 1973, July, p. 370. 31 N. P. Barsukov Pogodin, II, 374-376, and III, 107-108; Russkii arkhiv, 1882, no. 1 5, pp. 105, 106.

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and Venelin is rightly considered one of the earliest and most effec­ tive "national awakeners" (narodni buditeli) of the Bulgarian people. In 1830, as a result of Pogodin's intercession with A. S. Shishkov, Venelin went to Bulgaria on a grant from the Russian Academy, of which Shishkov was then president, having left his position as min­ ister of education in April 1828. Shishkov, who had long been a friend of Sergei Aksakov, was one of the staunchest defenders of Church Slavonic and an enemy of Gallicisms in the Russian language. He may well have had some influence in this respect on Konstantin Aksakov.32 During the 1820's and later, hoping to promote Slavic studies at home, Shishkov tried, without success, to bring to Russia the outstanding Czech Slavicists Safarik, Hanka, and Celakovsky.33 The 1830's were a time of intense scholarly work in the field of Slavic studies: the Polish scholar W. A. Maciejowski was engaged in the publication of a multivolume history of Slavic law; Safarik published his celebrated Slavic Antiquities; Palacky published the first volume of his pioneering history of Bohemia; and Hanka, Celakovsky, Jungmann, and others were making important contributions not only to Czech language, folklore, and history but also to the larger area of Slavic studies. Among the South Slavs the Bulgarians and Mace­ donians, although still under the Ottoman heel, were beginning to stir, while the Serbs and Croats, like the Western Slavs, were well on the way to national awakening and self-consciousness. In the area of linguistics and Serbian folklore there was Vuk S. Karadzic, known as the father of modern Serbo-Croatian, and in the Croat Illyrian movement was Ljudevit Gaj.34 Moscow, though not in the mainstream, was not out of touch with 32 Sergei Aksakov recalled how on one of Shishkov's visits to Moscow "I presented to him my eldest son, who was brought up with a sense of respect for Shishkov. Alexander Semenovich liked him very much and even made much of him, though usually he was not given to such things." See Flusskii arkhiv, 1882, book 3, p. 97. 33 Unable to import specialists from abroad, the Russian government decided to launch its own program. "This decision gave birth to the first generation of native Russian specialists in Slavic studies: P. I. Preis (1810-1846), I. I. Sreznevskii (18121880), V. I. Grigorovich (1815-1876), and 0. M. Bodianskii (1803-1876)." "It is strange to say, but only from that time hence, that is, only from the forties, did Russian learning receive the first exact information about the whole group of related peoples to the south and west." Cited in Petrovich, Russian Panslavism, pp. 21-22. See also Christoff, Xomjakov, p. 54n. 34 The period under consideration was marked by the flourishing of the South Slav matica or matice societies. The first of these literary foundations came into existence in Serbia in 1826. A Croatian society was formed in 1842, the Czech matica in late 1830, the Moravian in 1836, the Slovak in 1863, and the Slovenian in 1864. For a recent concise treatment of the subject see S. B. Kimball, "The Austro-Slav Revival: A Study of Nineteenth-Century Literary Foundations," Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, n.s., vol. 63, part 4 (Philadelphia, 1973), pp. 12-71. See also

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these developments. N. I. Nadezhdin ran a series of articles on the Slav world in his Teleskop in the first half of the 1830's, and there were other notices.35 Contrary to a widespread assumption, however, the four major Slavophils did not show a great interest in the nonRussian Slavs until the outbreak of the Crimean War, and even then they were still mainly concerned with Russia's cultural and internal problems. It remained for the pan-Slavs of the 1860's and the 1870's to take a strong interest in the political ramifications of Russia's relationship to the other Slav peoples. As we shall see in the next and final volume of this series, it was after the Crimean War that the broadly Orthodox-cultural interests of the Slavophils in the nonRussian Slavs gave way to the political-diplomatic concerns of the pan-Slavs. During the first half of the nineteenth century, Mikhail P. Pogodin, not his Moscow Slavophil friends, was the center of pro-Slav activ­ ities. In the early thirties, as stated, he helped and encouraged Venelin in his Bulgarian studies, and he began to solicit financial help for the work of Vuk Karadzic and Safarik before he met them.36 Particularly significant in this respect is the first of Pogodin's halfdozen trips to Western Europe and the Slav lands. Pogodin left Russia at the end of July 1835, giving up his teaching position at the University of Moscow. In Prague he met Hanka and Safarik, who introduced him to Palacky, Celakovsky1 and Jungmann. Later he met Kollar and others of the celebrated Slav circle in Prague. From Prague he went to Vienna and there met Vuk Karadzic and Jernej Kopitar, the Slovene philologist and student of early Slav writing.37 At about the same time, Nadezhdin, on a first trip to West­ ern Europe, also visited Croatia, Slovenia, and Serbia, and was esI. V. Churkina, "Matitsa slovenskaia i russkie slavianofily," in Iu. V. Bromlei, ed., Slaviane i Rossiia (Moscow, 1972), pp. 113-121, which deals with Ivan Aksakov's activities and the 1860's. 35Between 1832 and the closing down of the Teleskop after the Chaadaev affair, Nadezhdin published eleven articles on Slav subjects, including a review of a book on travel in Serbia, an evaluation of Venelin's work in Slavic paleography, an article on Serb literature, letters about Czech literature, an article by Venelin about the folk songs of the trans-Danubian Slavs, and a note on Safarik's studies of the literature of the Illyrian Slavs. See F. Ia. Priima, "Ν. I. Nadezhdin i Slaviane," in M. P. Alekseev, ed., Slavianskie literaturnye sviazi (Leningrad, 1968], p. 11. 36 Barsukov, Pogodin, IV, 309. A recent monograph is devoted to Pogodin's Slav connections and pro-Slav activities: Ulrich Picht, M. P. Pogodin und die slavische Frage. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Pansiavismus (Stuttgart, 1969). On Pogodin and Venelin see pp. 36-38, 119, 146, 153; on Vuk Karadzii, pp. 141-145; on Ljudevit Gaj, pp. 149-152; and on Safaiik, to whom Pogodin gave special attention, pp. 126134. See also Petrovich, Russian Panslavism, for a clear and authoritative summary of the wider scope of the Slav renaissance. 37Barsukov, Pogodin, IV, 312, 316, 326.

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corted by Vuk Karadzic and Ljudevit Gaj down the Adriatic coast. Nadezhdin also went to Budapest, where he met Kollar, and to Prague to meet Safarik and Hanka. He returned to Russia more pro-Slav than before.38 But Petrovich is quite justified in saying that "through his travels Pogodin came to know more influential Slavic cultural leaders than any Russian of his time."39 Nor is Pogodin's preeminence in this respect tarnished by his not having governmental authority for his trip.40 How thoroughly Pogodin was immersed in the Slav cause is well illustrated by F. I. Buslaev, who was graduated from the University of Moscow in 1838 and later returned to his alma mater as professor of Russian language and literature. Reminiscing about his student days he writes: I remember . . . a bright autumn day in the auditorium . . . M. P. Pogodin appeared on the podium and in place of a lecture on history he began to tell us about Safarlk, Palacky, Hanka, Vuk Karadzic, and other famous Slav scholars with whom he became acquainted [in 1835]. . . . The thirties were the most exciting time in the rebirth of Slav nationality in scholarship, literature, and politics. . . . We students heard for the first time in our lives the names of the renowned Slavic pioneers from Pogodin. . . .41 The highly subjective, romanticized picture of the Slavic cultural rebirth that Pogodin gave to his students was doubtless the same version that he gave more informally to his friends in and out of the Moscow salons, and of these at the end of the thirties he frequented none more than Aksakov's and Elagina's. On January 8, 1839, Po38Alekseev,

Slavianskie literaturnye sviazi, pp. 21, 23, 24. (Russian Panslavism, p. 27), says that among Pogodin's Slavic "ac­ quaintances and friends [were] Safarik, Hanka, Jungmann, Palacky, Celakovsky, Kollar, Karadzic, Kopitar, Venelin, BouCek, Linde, Maciejowski, MikloSic, Stur, and many others." 40 Professor N. A. Popov (1833-1891), a specialist in Slavic studies at the University of Moscow, divided Pogodin's pro-Slav career into four periods: (1) 1825-1835, "book knowledge of the Slav world"; (2) 1835-1848, first personal contacts with Slav leaders made during his trips abroad; (3) 1848-1857, publicistic work in regard to the "Eastern Question"; (4) 1858-1875, activity in the Slav Benevolent Committee and after. Po­ godin was unable to induce Safafik to accept a professorship at Moscow in 1836, but Safafik did accept financial help and books, not only from Pogodin but from others in Russia and from the Russian government. More about this will be said below. See Barsukov, Pogodin, IV, 331-334. 41 Quoted in ibid., pp. 330-331. 39Petrovich

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godin left on his second trip abroad. In the next eight or nine months he visited Vienna, where he had already established important Slav connections, Italy, France, England, Belgium, Holland, Germany, and Poland. In Warsaw he paid his respects to S. G. Linde (1771-1847), the "patriarch of Slav philologists," who laid the foundation for comparative Slavic lexicography, and to W. A. Maciejowski (17931883). Maciejowski received Pogodin "with open arms" and showed him Warsaw. He was hopeful, Pogodin believed, of a "firm" alliance between Poland and Russia but at the same time was deeply devoted to his native Poland.42 A long visit with S. P. Shipov, minister of education in Warsaw, and a tour of some of the schools convinced Pogodin that Polish students showed "astounding" success in the study of the Russian language. With the memory of the revolt of 1830-1831 still vivid in the minds of the Poles, Pogodin was not moved to thoughts of Russian chauvinism. The Russians should study Polish just as the Poles stud­ ied Russian, so that "we shall more and more clearly become con­ scious of our kinship and brotherhood." Polish history should be taught separately rather than simply as part of general history. Slavic history should also be taught, for it had didactic value: "From it the Poles will see how quarrels and disagreements from time imme­ morial have ruined all Slav states, and in the end subjected them to a foreign yoke." But Pogodin's sympathy for the Poles and their language was at least in part the result of his conviction that the Russian language, in the last stage of formation during the Pushkin era, would "sooner or later become the written Slavic language. .. . All [Slavic] dialects will make their contributions to it with their words, expressions, and forms, and therefore I would say as a Russian philologist, it is not necessary to dry up the Oka and the Kama, for they will inevitably flow into the Volga."43 Pogodin's linguistic pan-Slavism evidently grew out of his broader ideological pan-Slavism. In a letter to the young heir to the throne, the Grand Duke Alexander Nikolaevich, which Pogodin wrote late in 1838 shortly before his second trip to the West, he outlined his ideas on the subject.44 This letter never got beyond Count Stroganov, 4 2 F O T more on Maciejowski see Christoff, Kireevskij, pp. 203, 211. Jagic admits certain merits to Maciejowski's work on Slavic law but takes him to task for an overabundance of "romanticism," Slav patriotism, and an often uncritical attitude toward important questions, as for instance in his theory that "all Slavs accepted Christianity from the East." See Jagic, Istoriia slavianskoi /iloigii, pp. 232-237. 43 Barsukov, Pogodin, X, 214-217. 44 This "letter on Russian History," which the twenty-year-old future tsar was re­ portedly ready to receive, is extensively quoted by Barsukov. A three-page summary, consisting mostly of selected parts translated into English, was made by Hans Kohn,

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but even if it had reached the palace the tsar would no doubt have censored it, for Nicholas I, and therefore all official Russia, looked with disfavor on pan-Slavism. Notwithstanding his encouragement of Slavic scholars in the Hapsburg Empire and his willingness to have bright young Russians study there and in Germany, he was far too conservative to entertain any pan-Slav notions himself, or even to approve pan-Slav propaganda close to home. Flattering and tempt­ ing as the prospect of a vast all-Slav empire under the aegis of the Romanoffs might have been, Nicholas I was aware of the ancient cultural, religious, and political forces within the Slav world working against such a union. Furthermore, even if a Slav union were pos­ sible, the necessary first step would have required the detachment, inevitably by force of arms, of millions of Slavs from Hapsburg, Hohenzollern, and Ottoman rule. This of course would have thrown Europe into turmoil. And disturbing the status quo was the last thing that Nicholas I was inclined to do. Pogodin in his letter to the future tsar Alexander II estimated Rus­ sia's population at sixty million and that of the other Slavs at thirty million—kindred to the Russians in "blood" and in "origin and language." Russia was singularly blessed. He catalogued the variety of climates, ore deposits, rich flora and fauna, and extensive agri­ cultural lands; the possibilities for trade and industry were enor­ mous. In ability, character, and quality he considered the Russian superior to the Western European; in addition, the Russian made the best soldier in the world, as Charles XII, Frederick II, and Napoleon had learned. Though the Russians were not the first in America, they had "discovered a third of Asia," and the Russian tsar could dream of "universal monarchy," like Charles V and Napoleon. Indeed, he declared, the "future fate of the world depends on Russia," exclaim­ ing, "What brilliant glory!" lay ahead for her. The prospects for Russia's future grew even brighter as he enumerated the alleged weaknesses of the West, concluding with the United States, which "clearly proved its illegitimate birth. This is not a nation but a trading company like the East India."45 A great people, large numbers, a huge expanse of territory, and who describes it as "the earliest concise formulation of Russian Pan-Slavism" with its stress on "universal monarchy." Pogodin published it first in 1867. As Barsukov tells the story, Count Stroganov, head of the Moscow educational district, decided not to transmit it to the grand duke, with the parsimonious explanation that the letter had "many words, one new thought, and that is . . . false." The "new thought" Kohn considers to be pan-Slavism. Pogodin, generally regarded as one of the "men of official nationalism," is, however, uncritically classified by Kohn as a "Slavophile." Cf. ibid., V, 165-176; Kohn, Pan-Slavism, pp. 114-119. 45 Barsukov, Pogodin, V. 173.

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"such a language!" "The future belongs to the Slavs," he was cer­ tain—and this he knew from the simple reading of history, from selected and adapted views of Herder, Schelling, and Hegel, and from personal bias. "There is in history," he says, "a turn for the various nations, which follow one another . . . and serve mankind. Up to now only the Slav world has not had this glorious turn. There­ fore the Slavs ought to step forward . . . and begin the supreme task in behalf of humanity, manifesting its noblest powers." And who was to lead the Slavs in this glorious exploit? "The heart trembles with joy. . . . Oh Russia, oh my fatherland," you are the chosen, Pogodin rejoiced. "You are destined to complete, to crown mankind's development, to show all phases of its life in glorious unity." 46 After Pogodin returned to Moscow from abroad in Gogol's com­ pany at the end of September 1839, Gogol' stayed with Pogodin for about a month, until Gogol' and Sergei Aksakov went together to St. Petersburg. During that month they were often with the Aksakovs, and thus the Aksakovs, though agog with excitement about Gogol's work in progress (Dead Souls), undoubtedly heard a great deal from Pogodin about affairs in central and western Europe, a report of which he was preparing for the minister of education. Pogodin fin­ ished the report at the end of the year and in January took it to St. Petersburg. After his second trip to the Slav nations, where he had renewed old acquaintances and made new ones, Pogodin was brim­ ming with enthusiasm for the future of the Slavs.47 This he conveyed in public, as Buslaev witnessed, doubtless in the Slavophil salons in Moscow, and in private conversations. In the center of all the talk and speculation about the future of the Slavs was the question of their linguistic kinship and the possibility that in the future one of the modern Slav languages would become the Slav lingua franca.

Western and South Slav Russophilism expressed in linguistic, cul­ tural, political, and sometimes religious terms, and often in the nine­ teenth century couched in romantic language, was not new. It was not born of romanticism, however strong the play of romantic notions might have been, but of a bitter Slav reality stamped with alien political domination, general exploitation, and cultural oppression. Juraj Krizanic (1618-1683), "this father of Russian pan-Slavism, was not a Russian" but a Roman Catholic priest from Croatia, then under 46 Ibid.,

p. 174. pp. 330-341. In his report, Pogodin discussed the general state of the nonRussian Slavs, devoting separate sections to the Bulgarians, who were in "first place" with respect to need of help, Serbs, Ruthenians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Sorbs, and "Illyrians." Barsukov's long summary, with quotations, adds little to what Pogodin expressed in his letter to the grand duke before his second visit to the Slav countries. 41 Ibid.,

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foreign rule, who advocated an all-Slav state under the Russian tsar and a union of the Russian and Roman churches.48 Similar Russophil sentiments were expressed by the eighteenth-century South Slav poets Ignac Gradic, S.J., and Stefan Ruzic, who "sang Peter's praises to get help against the Turk," nurturing a hope existing among the Balkan Slavs since the fifteenth century that the Russians would help rid them of the Turk. A similar situation confronted the Czechs under Hapsburg rule.49 When in the eighteenth century the Bulgarians, feel­ ing the double burden of Ottoman and Phanariot rule, heard the clarion call for Bulgaria's national and cultural rebirth, it was sounded by Father Paisii in a monastic cell on Mount Athos (1762). In this case at least it was not an echo of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, nor of Western romanticism, though all these are generally assumed to have been the foreign fathers of Balkan national and cultural awakening. From then on Bulgarian hopes for national independence were increasingly fixed on "brotherly Russia" (bratska Russiia), from where it indeed eventually came. Among the Austrian and South Slavs and even among some of the Poles, Russia's victory over Napoleonic France, and, with the ex­ ception of Serbia after 1804, its existence as the only free, self-gov­ erning Slavic nation, made a profound impression. Russia had un­ questionably established political and military leadership among the Slavs, and although its great literary age was just beginning, its lit­ erary language was then receiving its finishing touches with the help of Pushkin's genius. A number of influential cultural leaders among the South and Western Slavs were willing to concede primacy to the Russian language among the Slavic tongues, and by the forties the movement for some sort of Slav linguistic unity had produced a number of proposals. Among the South Slavs the foremost Russophile was the Croatian 48 Pypin in 1879 described Kriianic not only as the "first pan-slavist" but on the basis of Krizanic's work, Grammatical Guide to the Russian Language (Gramatichnoe ukazanie ob Russkom ieziku], written in Siberia in 1666, said that Krizanic "ought to be considered the first author consciously to raise the question about a Slav literary language." His was "an attempt to create one common language from numerous kindred dialects." See A. N. Pypin, "Literaturnyi panslavizm," Vestnik Evropy, 1879, vol. Ill, pp. 600, 602, 605. See also P. A. Kulikovsky, Ocherk istorii popytok resheniiα voprosa ob edinom literatumom iazyke u slavian (Warsaw, 1885), pp. 7-17; Petrovich, Russian Panslavism, pp. 6-8; Kohn, Pan-Slavism, p. 51; Fadner, Seventy Years of Pan-Slavism, p. 32. 49 For a recent summary essay with rich bibliographical content, see A. S. Mylnikov, "Ideino-politicheskie predposylki zarozhdeniia natsionarno-prosvetitel'skoi ideologii ν cheshskikh zemliakh," in S. A. Nikitin, ed., Slavianskoi vozrozhdenie. Sbornik statei i materialov (Moscow, 1966), pp. 3-47.

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Ljudevit Gaj. He advocated a Croat-led, Catholic-inspired South Slav union, a modern Illyrian state to consist of Bosnia, Turkish Croatia, Herzegovina, Albania, and Serbia. This would be created with Rus­ sian military help and a grant of three million Austrian guldens from the Russian tsar. Gaj himself professed fondness for the Eastern Or­ thodox church and said in a secret memorandum to Nicholas I in 1838 that the young Croat Catholic clergy were inclined toward Or­ thodoxy. In Mosely's words, he "aroused great enthusiasm for the Cyrillic alphabet," stressing the "natural yearning of the Slavs for union with Russia," but at the same time he "never tired of pro­ claiming his own fidelity and that of the Illyrians to Austria."50 The Great Russian language, Gaj said, "was to be a common Slav sea in which must flow all Slav dialects."51 If Gaj had a clear set of objectives and an order of priorities, his first goal must have been Croatian independence from Austria and the delivery of his country from the threat of Magyarization. This seems the inevitable conclusion from his secret memorandum to the tsar. When the tsar declined to accept his grandiose scheme, Gaj equivocated, but this was hardly surprising in view of the precariousness of his position, and it does not reduce his Russophilism to mere expediency or hypocrisy. It means that his Croat loyalties were stronger than his South Slav and pro-Russian sentiments. To achieve his primary goal of a Croatia independent from Austrians and Magyars Gaj would rely on the Illyrian movement, and Russian help. Free of foreign rule, the Croats could have lived hap­ pily, even without an all-Slav language and union; but the thought of any sort of Slav cooperation and reciprocity was illusory without independence from foreign domination. Vuk Karadzid (1787-1864), the Serbian folklorist and linguist, was no less nationally conscious 50 Gaj's memorandum, kept locked in the tsar's archives, was first published in 1935. See P. E. Mosely, ed., "A Pan-Slavist Memorandum of Ljudevit Gaj in 1838," American Historical Review, 1935, July, pp. 704-705, 706-707, 712-713. Gaj's somewhat con­ tradictory position and pro-Russian zeal, considered excessive by some of the South Slavs, lost him some support at home. Orthodox Serbs criticized Gaj's plans as proCatholic and pro-Croat, while even among the Catholic Slovenes men like Jeraej Kopitar were unreceptive to Gaj's dreams of a South Slav state or a broader South Slav union. Kopitar, in Jagii's words, considered Gaj's Illyrianism a "foolish escapade" and regarded the pro-Slav and pro-Russian sentiments in Prague, particularly Kollar's, as "Lutheran intrigues." See Jagic, Istoriia slavianskoi filologii, p. 418. The Russian government's attitude was not consistent. The tsar would have none of Gaj's Illyrian schemes, but when Gaj visited St. Petersburg in 1840 the Russian Imperial Academy granted him a 5,000-ruble subsidy and did not interfere with a private subscription which raised an additional 17,000 to 20,000 rubles for the Illyrian cause. See Christoff, Xomjakov1 p. 54. 51 Quoted in Vinogradov, Velikii russkii iazyk, p. 55.

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than Gaj. He, too, sought and obtained both government and private financial help in Russia, but his pro-Russian sentiments have been suspect because his major concern and achievements were in the advancement of modern Serbo-Croatian rather than in the elevation of Russian to the status of an all-Slav language.52 Among the Western Slavs there were a number of men of the highest scholarly stature who, though they had different approaches and often disagreed among themselves, were considered together as leaders of "literary pan-Slavism" in the first half of the nineteenth century. Only a few will be singled out here in order to illustrate some different approaches to the matter of an all-Slav language, and Slav "reciprocity" or "mutuality" (vzaimnost'). The Czech Joseph Jungmann (1773-1847), a learned philologist and linguist, professor and publicist, was one of the earliest to ad­ vocate an all-Slav language. He was a translator of Dryden, Gold­ smith, Gray, Pope, and Milton, as well as of French authors. In his foreword to Paradise Lost, written before 1804 but published in 1811, he broke with tradition by using Polish and Russian words as well as Czech and declared himself in favor of "a common literary lan­ guage for Slavic speech." Two years before he died he argued in favor of an all-Slav language. He censored the Pole who said, "If I write in Russian I cease being a Pole," and declared to his compa­ triots, "I am a sincere Czech who loves his nationality but I am ready to sacrifice the Czech language for an all-Slav literary language, knowing that whatever dialect we write in, it would still be Slav." Jungmann counseled the Slavs to learn a lesson from the Germans, although he had no great love for them. They had achieved "unity in literature and in literary language" without losing their political autonomy. "There, there is a Prussian [government], here a Bavarian, a Wiirttembergian and so on. Why then could not the Slavs, using one literary language, preserve different political divisions: Russian,

52 Professor Kulakovsky was not alone in criticizing Karadzic, ninety years ago, for helping give literary Serho-Croation what he considered to be a narrow base, summed up in the maxim "write as you speak." This incomplete quotation from Karadzic, in Kulakovsky's words, "had a temporary and accidental meaning," in consequence of which Vuk, notwithstanding his great service to his people, "deprived the Serbian language of its historical foundation and condemned Serbian literature to a very limited circle of action." This, and the problem of the alphabet and orthography, were the reasons for the rise of the "Slavic-Serbian school of writers, waging an unyielding struggle against the Vukovists [vukovtsy]." See Kulakovsky, Ocherki, pp, 6, 31-32. Earlier than Kulakovsky, and from a Russian point of view, A. F. Gilferding and V. I. Lamansky had criticized Karadzic. Gilferding, for instance, saw in Vuk's work the alienation of Serbian from Church Slavonic and Russian. See Petrovich, Russian Panslavism, pp. 169-171.

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Serbian, Austrian, Prussian, Ottoman Slavic? That scarecrow of panSlavism which our enemies fear or pretend to fear is an invention of self-love and of hatred.... These same enemies admire their panGermanism and want to allow us nothing."53 Here Jungmann was attempting to allay two basic fears: the Slavs' apprehension that an all-Slav language might lead to the loss of national language, national identity, and eventually independent political existence, and Ger­ man and Magyar fears that Slav linguistic unity was a disguised first step to all-Slav political unity and Slav hegemony in central and eastern Europe. The Slovak Protestant minister and poet Jan Kollar (1793-1852), a younger contemporary of Jungmann, was one of the most influential advocates of Slav rapprochement, although his solution for the prob­ lem was stamped with his idiosyncrasies, his passionately poetic personality, and his failure to realize the inapplicability of his scheme.54 With respect to an all-Slav language and the relationship of the non-Russian to the Russian Slavs, he differed markedly from Jungmann. Two of his best-known works are a long sonnet sequence called SJdvy dcera (The Daughter of Slava) and the treatise JJber die literarische Wechselseitigkeit zwischen den verschiedenen Stammen und Mundarten der slavischen Nation (On the Literary Rec­ iprocity between the Various Peoples and Dialects of the Slav Na­ tion), published in German in 1837. Slavy dcera, consisting of 622 sonnets permeated by Herder's romantic notions about the Slavs and their future greatness, appeared in 1824, the year that Byron died at Missolonghi, and it found a wide audience among Slavs who were following the Greek War for Independence and yearning for political freedom and untrammeled cultural expression for their own people.55 53 Pypin gives the following summary of early nineteenth-century views on a com­ mon Slav language: "One of the oldest writers of the Czech renaissance [A. J.] Puchmajer (1804) had the same idea [as Jungmann); among the Poles the learned bishop Jan Kosakowski (in a speech in 1803) hinted at it and also the celebrated Linde; among the Slovenes ... Kopitar ... expressed the expectation (1808) that the [Slavic] dialects, as once the [classical] Greek dialects, might sometime coalesce in one common lan­ guage." See Pypin, "Literatumyi panslavizm," vol. Ill, pp. 608-611. Kulakovsky, how­ ever, is more circumspect about jungmann's position and says that Jungmann "was hesitant about proclaiming loudly the thought of the role of the Russian language as the all-Slav, This thought was expressed in print in 1837 by the Slovak pastor, Karel Kuzmani." Kulakovsky, Ocherki, p. 43. 54 For Kollar's reception by and influence among the Slav nations see Jiri Horak, ed., Slovanska vzdjemnost 1836-1936 (Prague, 1938). 55 Kollar, like Jungmann, the Slovene writer and philologist Matija-Ziliski Majar 1 and other non-Russian Slavs, made an effort not to arouse undue suspicion among the Austrians and the Magyars, and claimed that on the German example, the Slavs could achieve linguistic unity without political unity. See Kulakovsky, Ocherkil p. 54. Jungmann was nonetheless under police observation for several years.

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Although Kulakovsky says that Kollar envisioned Slav unity as "spiritual not external," Kollar's analysis of the Slav problem and his recommendations were in fact a curious mixture of impractical idealism and hardheaded common sense. Instead of urging the use of Russian or any other Slav tongue as a common Slav language, he proposed that every educated Slav should learn Czech, "Illyrian," Polish, and Russian, which he considered the principal Slav lan­ guages. To facilitate this he urged a number of practical measures, such as book exchanges.56 He dismissed the possibility of a single all-Slav language on the practical grounds that "owing to human weakness, vanity, and self-love, one can in no way expect that any nationality would sacrifice its independence."57 Every Slav nation felt that any threat to its native tongue would jeopardize its national consciousness and its national survival at the very time when, for most Slav nationalities, survival was the precondition for political independence. In the long struggle against foreign political and cul­ tural domination, the non-Russian Slavs had no more basic and in­ alienable weapon than the native language, and no more intimate personal and national means of identification than the mother tongue. Rightly or wrongly, many Slavs saw the creation of an allSlav language as a threat to the existing national languages. The strongly pro-Russian Czech scholar and national leader Vaclav Hanka (1791-1861), sometimes called, along with Safarik and Celakovsk^,58 one of the "Big Three of western Slavonic studies," 56 Kollfir suggested opening Slavic bookstores in all leading Slavic centers, an ex­ change of books and journals, an all-Slav journal to publish articles in all Slav lan­ guages, special public and private libraries, comparative Slavic grammars and dic­ tionaries, dissemination of Slavic folk songs and sayings, and purification of Slav languages from foreign words. Only then might there be a movement toward an allSlav language and standard orthographies in the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets. See Milos Weingart, ed., Ober Jiterarische Wechselseitigkeit der Slawen (Prague, 1837), pp. 152-159. (This is the abbreviated title which appears on the front cover of the first edition as given by Weingart.) As a Protestant pastor in Budapest, the heart of Catholic Hungary, Kollar was constantly watched by hostile Magyars, for whom he was a Slav patriot as well as a Protestant, whereas in Vienna he was a "Russophile." On both counts he had to be cautious. This may in part explain his guarded views on the Slav question. 57 Ibid., p. 43. In his monograph on pan-Slavism, Pypin characterized Kollar's Daughter of Slava as pan-Slavism's "first declaration," but only a year later he de­ scribed Krizanic as the "first pan-Slav." Cf. A. N. Pypin, "Panslavizm ν proshlom i nastoiashchem," Vestnik Evropy, 1878, November, p. 314; idem, "Literaturnyi pan­ slavizm," vol. Ill, p. 600. 58 The Czech poet and folklorist F. I. Celakovsky (1799-1855) attracted attention among the Slavs with the publication in 1822 of the first volume of his Slavic Folk Songs (Slavanske Niirodni Pisne), in which he made use of eight different Slavic languages. This example suggested to some Slavs that these "branches of the Slavic

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favored Russian as the future all-Slav language, and in his premature zeal wrote in January 1838 to S. S. Uvarov, the Russian minister of education, that "the political might of Russia, the force and rapidity with which enlightenment is being spread there, the amazing activity of the government, all of this lends colour to the conviction that the Russian language is becoming common to all Slavs."59 Had not Hanka's strong pro-Russian sentiments been established before the end of the thirties, one might suspect him of ulterior motives. As it happened, the following year Hanka received three thousand rubles from Uvarov's ministry to help him with the publication of his re­ search work in old Slavic legal documents. Safafik was given the same amount. Hanka easily established personal contacts with other pro-Slavs, among them Tiutchev, who dedicated a poem to him in 1841, and Khomiakov, who six years later, while in Prague, entered one of his favorite verses into Hanka's memory book.60 To Pypin, P. J. Safarik (1795-1861] was the "greatest of learned pan-Slavs." It is a characterization that few would dispute. Like Kollar, Safarik was a Slovak Lutheran pastor, and he shares with him the distinction of starting the Slav reciprocity movement. Yet they were quite different in temperament, commitment, and expec­ tations. In the year 1826, which saw the publication of Safafik's Geschichte der slawisehert Sprache und Literatur naeh alien Mundarten (History of Slavic Language and Literature According to All Dialects), the "Patriarch of Slavic studies" voiced serious doubt that there could ever be a peaceful agreement upon a single all-Slav lan­ guage. He felt the necessity for Slav unity, but wrote somberly to a friend, "What Slavic dialect, and what Slavic alphabet will become the all-Slav, will be decided not by the pen but only by the sword."61 language [were] common at one time to so many nations." Strongly pro-Russian, Celekovsky eventually lost favor in Russia as a result of an error and a political intrigue. See Fadner, Seventy Years of Pan-Slavism, pp. 15-18. 59 Quoted in ibid., p. 22, For Fadner's detailed account to Hanka's pro-Slav and proRussian convictions see pp. 18-24. 60 For English translations of the verses and bibliographical information about the original Russian versions see Jesse Zeldin, tr. and ed., Poems and Political Letters of F. I. Tiutchev (Knoxville, 1975), pp. 9, 128. See also Christoff, Xomjakov, p. 90. 61 Pypin, "Literaturnyi panslavizm," vol. Ill, pp. 611-612, 614. Later on in the cen­ tury Budilovich used similar reasoning when he declared that "not Aristotle but Alexander of Macedon carried the Greek language to Asia and Africa" but then mod­ ified his stand, saying, "one cannot deny that literature, apart from the state, represents . . . a spiritual force which does not halt before political boundaries and makes its own way not only among kindred nationalities but also among alien." This was in support of his argument that Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol', Turgenev, and Tolstoy had won international recognition for Russian literature. See A. S. Budilovich, "O literaturnom edinstve narodov slavianskago plemeni," in Slavianskii sbornik (St. Peters­ burg, 1877), pp. 13-14.

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Five years later, during the Polish rebellion of 1830-1831, Safarik, outraged by the severity with which Nicholas I put down the Poles, declared that the Russian government was not Slav but "GermanScandinavian-Mongolian." Lacking domestic political freedom, Rus­ sia would "never build a Slavonic Athens," he predicted angrily. Nonetheless, he continued to work, with Russian help, on his re­ nowned SIovanske starozitnosti (Slavic Antiquities), published in 1836.62 It has been said that this volume and his other publications and research "fertilized Czech and South Slav scholarship." Dire need no doubt had much to do with Safarik's acceptance of both official and private Russian help. Whatever his true sentiments to­ ward Russia, then in the early stages of its remarkable cultural out­ burst, he did not choose to work in Russia. He remained, however broadly, pro-Slav, and on the question of an all-Slav language nos­ talgic rather than hopeful. The Slavs had missed their golden opportunity which, Safarik thought, Church Slavonic had offered them. The dialect that Saints Cyril and Methodius "accepted for the translation of the Scriptures was ready to serve, as later Tuscan in Italy." This would have helped "establish spiritual unity among the divided parts of a nation so widely spread out." But the quarrel between the Eastern and Western churches put an end to such hopes, and he ruefully concluded that "according to human probability it is not easy to hope for a new union." Even more skeptical, less pro-Slav, and certainly less proRussian were such other Western and South Slavs as the Czech historian Frantisek Palacky and the publicist Karel Havlicek, and the Slovene linguist Jernej Kopitar.63 Palacky was particularly forceful: "We [Czechs] will never forsake our language, we will never sacrifice our literature. The chimera of one common language for all Slavs will always remain a chimera. . . . The Czechs will be their own masters. The Czechs will never be Russian subjects."64 62 The tortuous road of Safarik's Russian relationships and the abortive negotiations to bring him, Hanka, and Celakovsky to work in Russia, which were sporadicaly carried on during most of the twenties and thirties, are discussed in Jagic, lstoriia slavianskoi filologii, pp. 280-294. See also Fadner, Seventy Years of Pan-Slavism, pp. 20-30. 63 For long excerpts from Palacky's well-known letter to the German National As­ sembly at Frankfurt and for his opening address to the Slav Congress in Prague, both from 1848, which state his creed of Austro-Slavism, see Kohn, Pan-Slavism, pp. 6572, and for HavliCek's basic views, pp. 26-28. No less an authority than Jagi6, who was aware of Kopitar's coolness toward the Russians and the other Slavs, said, "Had he not been an inveterate particularist and a lover of miniature literatures he could have rendered in those times [early nineteenth century] important services to the cause of south-Slav solidarity." lstoriia slavianskoi filologii, pp. 192, 200. 64 Quoted by Pypin in "Panslavizm ν proshlom i nastoiashchem," p. 777.

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As we span the spectrum of opinion, one more case remains to be considered—the Slovak teacher, ideologue, and organizer L'udovit Stiir (1815-1856). The Slovaks Kollar, Safarik, and Kuzmany, as Pypin remarked a century ago, raised the questions of Slav rec­ iprocity but eschewed the Russophilism of the Czechs Jungmann, Puchmajer, and Hanka. Stair, however, unlike his fellow Slovaks, went further in his Russophilism than any of the Western Slavs, including the Czechs. Stiir, the son of a teacher, brought up in the Protestant, evangelical faith, fell under the influence of Hegelianism while at the University of Halle. As in the case of other Slav leaders, and of young Konstantin Aksakov, Hegel might have furnished a for­ mula for future Slav greatness, but not a prophecy. Herder provided that before Hegel's time. Sttir's most comprehensive statement of his pro-Slav and pro-Rus­ sian views was made at the end of his life in a monograph written in German, Das SJawenthum und die WeJt der Zukunft (The Slavs and the Future World).65 The reasons and justification that he ad­ vanced in support of the Russian language testify that, although he was working for a Slovak language separate from the Czech, he was not a narrow Slovak nationalist trying solely to enlist Russian help in freeing his native land from Austrian and Magyar domination. Beyond a common language he sought Slav unity in literature, cul­ ture, and politics, and even in religion. He had deep faith in Slavdom in general and was no less certain than the Moscow Slavophils of Russia's great cultural future.66 The Slavs, he believed, had to make See also Kohn, Pan-Slavism, pp. 65-72, and Joseph Fischer, Myslenka a delo Frantiska Palackeho (Prague, 1926-1927), I, 277-285; II, 308-315. In a recent study Zacek gives a brief discussion and bibliographical references with respect to the "growth of Palacky's 'Slavophilism and Russophilism.' " See J. F. Zacek, Palacky: The Historian as Scholar and Nationalist (The Hague-Paris, 1970), pp. 28, 109. 65 This work, written between 1850 and 1855, was brought to light in 1867 in V. I. Lamansky's Russian translation published for the Moscow Slav Congress the same year. A later German edition was edited and published by Josef Jirasek, Das Slawenthum und die Welt der Zukun/t. Slovanstvo a svet budoucnosti (Bratislava, 1931). This may also be found as Slavianstvo i mir budushchago. Poslanie slavianam s beregov Dunaia, 2nd ed. (St. Petersburg, 1909), edited by K. Ia. Grot and T. D. Florinsky, translated by V. I. Lamansky, and first published in 1867. 66 In 1877 Budilovich was convinced that "entirely independently of each other the Russian Slavophils and the Slovak pan-Slavs arrived at one and the same philosoph­ ical and political results." "Reading Stiir's philosophical and political tracts one could easily think that he is reading Khomiakov's works." Less certain but ready to believe the same were Grot and Florinsky, more than thirty years later, when they found Stur's views "close to Khomiakov's, Kireevsky's, and K. S. Aksakov's, and it was all the more remarkable since these views, to the extent to which one can judge from available biographical information, became established in him [Stiir] independently of any influence from Russian Slavophilism." More recently, however, Petrovich has

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certain adjustments, since many of the Slav nations were too small and their literatures too insignificant to respond to the challenges of the future. As long as the Slavs were "split up," Slav literature would not measure up to German, English, and French. The Slav "literary reciprocity" advocated by many of the Slav leaders was a good thing, but woefully inadequate. The Slavs had only one choice: they must agree upon a single Slavic language and literature, and the choice had already been determined by political and historical develop­ ments. In the matter of an all-Slav language, he asserted, the choice had to be between old (that is, Church) Slavonic and Russian: But old Slavonic has left the sphere of common living tongues. It is almost dead and lacks the suppleness and allure of a living tongue. . . . And so we are left with Russian . . . for it is the language of the greatest, the solely original, and most extensive area in the world under the sway of a Slav nation.... In addition it is the richest of all Slav languages, the most powerful, the most resonant, and it bears the stamp of might.67 Serbian, which was sometimes mentioned as a possible all-Slav language, could, in Sttir words, take only a "secondary place" to Russian. An additional advantage that Russian had over the Western Slav and some of the South Slav languages was the Cyrillic alphabet, which, he said, "completely and without any difficulties conveys in writing Slavic sounds." Conscious of strong national sensibilities, Stiir forewarned that neither an all-Slav language nor an all-Slav literature should attempt to replace the various national languages and literatures, but should rather co-exist with them. He could not, however, as easily bypass the religious question. Had he or anyone else pressed his advocacy of Eastern Orthodoxy as the future all-Slav religion, Stiir would have stirred up deep convictions, intense pas­ sions, and far-reaching consequences.68 brought evidence to show that Stiir was in fact ideologically in debt to Moscow Slavophilism as well as to Pogodin and Shevyrev. Petrovich says that "J· M. Hurban, Stiir's compatriot, recorded that Stur read articles by Russian Slavophiles, especially Khomiakov, with great interest. Copies of Pogodin's Moskvitianin were 'lying about' Stiir's premises in 1845." (Kireevsky edited three numbers that year.) Cf. A. S. Budilovich, "Neskol'ko zamechanii ob izuchenii slavianskago mira," Slavianskii sbornik, II, 15; Stiir, Slavianstvo i mir budushchago, p. xxxv; Μ. B. Petrovich, "L'udovit Stiir and Russian Panslavism." Journal of Central European Affairs, 1952, April, pp. 15-16. 67 Stiir, Das Slawenthum, pp. 234-235. 68 Toward the end of his strong and not always judiciously pro-Russian monograph, Stiir, who had never been to Russia and did not know how the regime of Nicholas I functioned, expressed strong pro-Orthodox sentiments. Perhaps as a Protestant he found it easier than others to favor Orthodoxy over Catholicism. For him the Orthodox

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It would have been virtually impossible for anyone to have raised the question of an all-Slav language and literature without getting bogged down in millennial passions aroused by the division between the Catholic Slavs, who used the Latin alphabet, and the Orthodox Slavs, who used the Cyrillic. In fact the alphabet issue became the subject of considerable discussion and controversy.69 Here, it is enough to stress that the two alphabets, like the two confessions, Orthodox and Catholic, were daily reminders to the Slavs of the different cultural traditions which had separated them down through the centuries while their ethnic and linguistic similarities persisted, and are noticeable to the present day. Even in the most favorable circumstances the problem of an allSlav language would have been difficult to solve. It became hopeless when the alphabet and religious issues intruded, as they were bound to do, because they were integral parts of an indivisible historical complex. In the struggle for national independence, an oppressed Slav nation had no more intimate and cohesive bond than the native tongue and everything connected with it. To ask a Western or a South Slav struggling against double Hapsburg and Magyar rule to forsake his native tongue or to relegate it to a secondary position in the name of an all-Slav language was tantamount to asking him to abandon his personal and national identity and pride at a time when they alone kept his sense of community from extinction. The movement for an all-Slav language in the first half of the nineteenth century foundered over issues which in a sense combined as well as symbolized the great historical complexities—personal, ideological, and national— of the Slav world. The basic dilemma—the relationship between the individual Slav's national consciousness and his loyalty to Slavdom—was felt with particular sharpness by the South and Western Slavs, all of church was the "holy church of our fathers." He defended it from the accusation of "stagnation" on the ground that a church which instilled the "fear of the Lord [Gottesfurcht]" in a great nation and which was responsible for other presumed Russian virtues could not be stagnant. The Orthodox church "alone is the answer to its [Slav­ dom's] calling." Catholicism never met the needs of the Slavs, and referring to the days of Saints Cyril and Methodius, he concluded that "the Eastern church was once common to all our nations [Stammen] and is their true possession; we are [merely] telling them what belongs to them." Ibid., pp. 232-234. 69 Pypin and Kulakovsky were only two of the many who went into this question during the last century. Cf. Pypin, "Liteiatumyi panslavizm," vol. V, pp. 307-319; Kulakovsky, Ocherki, pp. 22-31; Budilovich, "Neskol'ko zamechanii ob izuchenii slavianskago mira," II, 11. For complications among the Slav nations using the Latin alphabet, and for other problems raised by the alphabet issue see Petrovich, Russian Panslavism, pp. 166-171. On Stiir's views and career see Fadner, Seventy Years of Pan-Slavism, pp. 301-314, and Kohn, Pan-Slavism, pp. 20-22.

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whom at the beginning of the nineteenth century were denied po­ litical and cultural independence. For the South and Western Slavs, the hopes for an all-Slav literary language and a common literature were bound up with the struggle for national self-preservation and political freedom, however separate the literary and political move­ ments were historically and structurally. Of the many proposals concerning how Slav linguistic unity could be achieved, three need be mentioned. The first two were easily dismissed: a language could have been put together drawing on all or most Slavic tongues, or the principal Slav languages could perhaps have been brought closer together. Neither possibility was practical. The third choice was to settle upon one of the existing tongues for use by all Slavs.70 Here the Russian language stood out but was by no means universally accepted. In the first half of the nineteenth century, support for the Russian language came primarily, as we saw, from among the South and Western Slavs. In the second half, how­ ever, prominent Russians, including men ideologically as different as Ivan Aksakov and A. N. Pypin, began to advocate it as the most suitable to become the all-Slav language. But the post-Slavophil pe­ riod, from 1860 on, is beyond the present subject. For many Poles the tsar's brutal suppression of the revolution of 1830-1831 was a traumatic experience. Confronted with the choice of death, Siberian exile, or flight to Western Europe, those who could, fled in bitterness and hatred of Nicholas I and Russia. For the Poles, Russian as the all-Slav literary language, the Slavonic alphabet, and Orthodoxy as the common Slav confession—Stiir's prescription— were unthinkable. In place of thoughts of an all-Slav culture, the Poles gave free rein to Polish nationalism and messianism. The Czechs and Slovaks had no such reason to feel the bitterness of the Poles, and from among them, as already pointed out, came some of the most pro-Russian schemes for Slavic linguistic, cultural, and even political union. But here also the strong Austro-Slavism of Palack^ and Rieger, who were suspicious of Russia, presented a serious obstacle to possible Russian leadership of the Slavs. Even in the Balkans, there prevailed in the first half of the nineteenth century a less than total devotion to Russian leadership. Gaj's Illyrianism was fundamentally an expression of Croat nationalism rather than of the all-Slav ideal. In fact the obstacles that stood in the path of the all-Slav movement were formidable. In addition to German, Magyar, and Ottoman opposition there were Polish messianism, Czech Austro-Slavism, Croat Illyrianism (although this was a passing 70 See

Kulakovsky, Ocherki, p. 32.

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phenomenon), and the strong Slavic nationalisms complicated by such historical rivalries and suspicions as those between Poles and Russians, between Czechs and Slovaks, and among the South Slavs. All these rivalries can be looked upon as fundamental expressions of nineteenth-century nationalism, a force no less powerful among the Slavs than among other peoples in post-Napoleonic Europe. And there could be little doubt that there was a much stronger desire among the Slav nations for national independence than for any allSlav movement, be it linguistic, literary, broadly cultural, or political. This nationalistic fervor was underscored in a number of ways in the various Slav nations: by the official policy of the Russian gov­ ernment, despite some equivocation in the 1830's and 1840's, and by the Slav Congress in Prague in 1848. Nor would the removal of Austrian, Magyar, and Ottoman opposition, even if it were possible, have guaranteed all-Slav cooperation and unity. Russia, because of its size, population, and resources, was in a unique and commanding position among the Slav nations, and it was of course the nation that alone could have helped the other Slavs. But Russia was not a ho­ mogeneous unit. Within it there were several nuclei of more or less crystallized opinion on the Slav question, and even within these there was no unanimity and sometimes not even general agreement. Besides the government of Nicholas I and his minister of education, Count Uvarov, there was the academic community, small, amor­ phous and marginal, in which Pogodin was the most prominent. Then there was the Saints Cyril and Methodius Society, which took upon itself to speak for the Ukrainians until its suppression in 1846. In addition, there were the Moscow Slavophils, whose sporadic and lukewarm interest in the all-Slav movement up to the time of the Crimean War was of no great consequence. Whatever may have been the real motives of the Russian govern­ ment in encouraging Slavic studies, Nicholas I recognized that Rus­ sia, as the largest Slav nation, could not profess total unconcern for the rest of the Slavs. But he stopped short of anything that might have led to aggressive pan-Slavism. He vetoed Gaj's two petitions (1838) and two memoranda (1840), which offered, among other things (however unrealistically), Croat if not all-Slav union with Russia. Gaj, of course, had little if any tangible strength, but Mosely is justified in concluding that "Nicholas denied the slightest desire on his part to encourage the Croat nationalist party."71 By 1842 Gaj 71 Mosely says that in two memoranda of 1840 Gaj stated that in Croatia the "greater part of the patriots and the younger clergy has begun to regard the Orthodox church as the genuinely national, Slav church. Gaj has aroused great enthusiasm for the

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and his adherents, rebuffed by the Russian government, had cooled toward Russia; but Gaj's not inconsiderable successes in Moscow and St. Petersburg in 1840 suggest that the Russian government, though not ready for any international schemes and adventures such as a "Russian secret agency in Croatia," had some interest in en­ couraging the non-Russian Slavs. Had Russia threatened to encroach upon the territorial integrity of the Ottoman empire—and Gaj's plans for his Illyrian state would have made such action unavoidable—it would have encountered strong opposition from Great Britain. The British had long been press­ ing for a revision of the Treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi of July 8, 1833, which conceded to Russia a special position in Constantinople and the Ottoman Empire, and they were at last successful in getting the Russians to agree to new terms in the Treaty of London, signed on July 15,1840, and the Straits Convention of July 13,1841. Under the new terms, the former bilateral treaty was replaced by a multinational agreement, signed by Russia, Great Britain, Austria, France, and Prus­ sia, which provided for the closing of the straits to all foreign war­ ships in time of peace and guaranteed Turkey's territorial integrity. Nicholas I, during his trip to England in the summer of 1844, reaf­ firmed the policy of cooperation with Britain in preserving the ter­ ritorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire and agreed to consult London in the event of Turkey's unavoidable dissolution. Thus Gaj's Illyrian dream was running head-on into the tsar's unflagging support of the status quo. Soon, Nicholas I made it clear that he was not merely a supporter of the status quo but its self-appointed champion. The discovery by the Third Section late in 1846 of the Ukrainian secret society, Saints Cyril and Methodius, dedicated to Ukrainian autonomy within an all-Slav federation, led to Uvarov's stern memorandum of May 27, 1847, which exhorted the Russians to declare their loyalty "to the national principle" and not "to the Slav-Russian, but to the pure Russian principle."72 Thus the national was explicitly placed above the Slav and the all-Slav, as Uvarov had done implicitly fourteen years earlier in his well-known triple formula, "Orthodoxy, AutocCyrillic alphabet, even in the Catholic seminaries," whereas in the earlier memoran­ dum of 1838, "Gaj describes the natural yearning of the Slavs for union with Russia." The tsar obviously did not succumb to these blandishments. See Mosely's previously cited article in the American Historical Review, 1935, July, pp. 705-707. 72 See Christoff, Xomjakov, pp. 90-92. The arrest of members of the Ukrainian society brought satisfaction not only to Uvarov and the government, but also to Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung. For details see Fadner, Seventy Years of Pan-Slavism, pp. 124146.

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racy, and Nationalism." Uvarov was proud that Russia, relying on its own resources, had freed itself from foreign rule, and he berated the rest of the Slavs for their inability to do the same. He did not wish to see Russia take chances for the other Slavs.73 In these circumstances Uvarov was speaking for his imperial mas­ ter, although there is no reason to doubt that he shared the tsar's thoughts and sentiments. It was not surprising, therefore, that when the first Slav Congress, convoked on Czech initiative, met in Prague the following year, Nicholas I refused to participate or to allow in­ dividual Russians to attend. Nor do the revolutionary developments sweeping the Hapsburg Empire at the time completely account for the tsar's cool attitude toward pan-Slavism. The tsar was well aware that patriotism and nationalism among the various Slav groups were much stronger than was pan-Slavism, whether linguistic, literary and cultural, or political, and he therefore decided to serve Russian interests as he saw them rather than be drawn into a risky all-Slav agitation. If there were any who questioned that Russia's all-absorb­ ing commitment was to the status quo, their doubts were answered in the summer of 1849 when Russian troops invaded Hungary to put down the Magyar revolt for independence and restore the fleeing Hapsburgs to the Vienna throne. By this action, the tsar turned against Poles fighting the Hapsburgs and restored the double rule of Austrians and Magyars over many of the South and Western Slavs. During the second half of the nineteenth century this rule was to prove more unbearable than ever. The largest and most powerful Slav nation was thus compelled by its conservative absolute ruler to lead not a pan-Slav but an anti-Slav crusade. Though Nicholas I, as leader of the largest Slav nation, had been willing to give some backing to the Slav cultural cause, partly as a way of reminding Vienna and Constantinople that they were 73 It

is not certain how widespread Uvarov's views were and what support outside the government they may have had. There were some, like Prince P. A. Viazemsky, who shared them. At the beginning of his career as a poet and publicist, during the second decade of the nineteenth century, this son of an ancient Russian family was distinguished by his progressive, leftist views. A friend of Pushkin's, he was none­ theless severely critical of the Russian government's role in the Polish revolt in 18301831. Later, however, in the thirties and forties, his views changed, and in the middle fifties he was deputy minister of education censoring the Slavophils, particularly Konstantin Aksakov. In his old age he opposed pan-Slavism. In 1877, during the RussoTurkish war for Bulgaria's liberation, he bitterly blamed Ivan Aksakov for the war and denounced the use of Russia by other Slavs as a "milk cow" (doinaia korova). Thirty years earlier Uvarov expressed similar views, only in less picturesque terms. See Μ. I. Gillel'son, P. A. Viazemsky. Zhizn' ί tvorchestvo (Leningrad, 1969), p. 347; V. D. Spasovich, "Kniaz' Petr Andreevich Viazemsky i ego pol'skiia otnusheniia i znakomstva," Russkaia mysl', 1890, book I, p. 75.

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vulnerable on the Slav question, he had no desire to make any real changes in the European status quo. None of this brought a sustained reaction from the four major Moscow Slavophils, who for the most part ignored the pro-Slav ag­ itation. The only major Slavophil to show interest in the Slav ques­ tion in the thirties was Khomiakov, who at eleven wished to fight for the Slavs and at seventeen was ready to join the Greek revolt (1821). He had become acquainted with some of the Austrian Slav lands in 1826 and two years later fought as a volunteer in Bulgaria against the Turks. The Polish revolt of 1830-1831 touched off in him, as in Pushkin, Tiutchev, Zhukovsky, and others, strong patriotic as well as pro-Slav sentiments. He gave free rein to these in his Oda (1830) and Orel (Eagle, 1832), but he would not march against the Poles. The Slav solidarity and brotherhood about which Khomiakov rhapsodized found a warm and ready response among the non-Rus­ sian Slavs where the thought of a Slavic linguistic and cultural rap­ prochement had already taken root. Although Khomiakov does not seem to have had any personal contacts with non-Russian Slavs during the thirties, he responded warmly to Gaj when he visited Moscow in 1840 and contributed to the private fund for Gaj's Illyrian cause. Seven years later Khomiakov, on his way to England and Western Europe, passed through Prague and established contact with Hanka, leaving a verse in Hanka's memory book, to which reference was made earlier.74 74 During the 1840's several Russian travelers, but none of the "Early Slavophils," visited the South Slavs and published their experiences and impressions on their return to Moscow. Two of them, A. N. Popov and F. V. Chizhov, belonged to the socalled dei minores of the Moscow Slavophils. In 1842, Popov traveled through Mon­ tenegro. One of the first Russians to penetrate the mountain fastness of the free-spirited Montenegrins, he published his impressions in 1847 in Pogodin's Moskvitianin. Chi­ zhov made two trips to the Balkans, in 1844 and again in 1845. This mathematician, with a strong interest in literature, history, and Italian art, who later became a wealthy entrepreneur, was arrested in the spring of 1847 on his return to Russia. He had visited "Istria, Dalmatia, Serbia, and the Austrian Slavs" and is said to have "helped Mon­ tenegrins unload weapons on the Dalmatian coast." He was arrested for nine days, but apparently his "confession" was deemed satisfactory by the Third Section, which had acted on information from the Austrian government. Professor V. I. Grigorovich of Kazan University spent two and a half years (1844-1845) traveling through the Balkans, particularly Bulgaria and Macedonia, but his impressions published in 1848 in university proceedings had probably even more limited circulation than Pogodin's Moskvitianin. See "V. I. Frantsev, Pervye russkie trudy po izucheniiu slavianstva preimushchestvenno iuzhnago," in ProsJava na osvoboditeinata voina 1877-1878 g. (Sofia, 1929), pp. 49-53; Barsukov, Pogodin, III, 430-434; III, 19, 467-474; and IX, 232234; Α. V. Nikitenko, Zapiski i dnevnik (1804-1877 gg.) (St. Petersburg, 1904), I, 372373; Christoff, Xomjakov, p. 69, and Kireevskij, p. 117. For several Russian travelers among the South and Western Slavs in the reign of Alexander I see A. N. Pypin, "Russkoe slavianovedenie ν XIX-m stoletii," Vestnik Evropy, 1889, July, pp. 241-274.

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The Moscow Slavophils were brought out of their absorption in Russian matters partly by the revolutions of 1848-1849 and more completely by the Crimean War. Ivan Kireevsky, who had little of Khomiakov's warmth and sentiment for the non-Russian Slavs and who had remained impervious to the Slav question during the 1830's and most of the 1840's, was roused by the events of the spring of 1848. In a letter to Pogodin of April 20,1848, he said, "By daybreak tomorrow Austria will be undone," and he was convinced that a number of Slav states were ready to emerge from the ruins of the Hapsburg Empire. The big question was, "What orientation will these states take, German, Polish, or truly Slavic?" Though he made no attempt at an answer, there is no doubt that he wished the Austrian Slavs to go with Russia. But he still showed no interest in the lin­ guistic, cultural, and political-diplomatic problems of the Slav world, nor does he seem to have been particularly disturbed the following year when Nicholas I restored, by Russian arms, the dying Austrian Empire and the Hapsburgs. Konstantin Aksakov, as the Moscow Slavophil most intimately and consistently concerned with linguistics, might well have been drawn into some of the discussions about linguistic, literary panSlavism. He was untouched by the Slav cause in his youth, and while he was abroad in 1838 it was Goethe and Schiller who fascinated him, not the leaders of "Slav reciprocity," nor the advocates of an all-Slav language. As far as one can judge from the published ma­ terials, he remained detached from the whole matter, concentrating on Moscow Slavophilism and the Russian language. There is, as we have seen, more than a suggestion that he had some knowledge of the stirrings in the Slav world, from Pogodin, the Moscow salons, the university community, and the press. Furthermore, he met Gaj. When Gaj visited Moscow in 1840, his Illyrian movement was not yet discredited among the Slavophils, and while Khomiakov and Samarin were contributing to Gaj's cause Konstantin became his guide through Moscow and entertained him at the theater.75 In the same year (1840) Pogodin and Samarin published in Otechestvennye ζαpiski a Russian translation, although a faulty one, of Kollar's On the Literary Reciprocity between the Various People and Dialects of the Slav Nation.76 The following year Pogodin and Shevyrev began pub­ lication of their Moskvitianin, which contained much material about the non-Russian Slavs.77 Yet during the forties Konstantin's attitude 75

Barsukov, Pogodin, V, 447-448. Κ. I. Rovda1 "Russkie slavianofily i cheshskaia literature (50-60-e gody XIX veka)," in Slavianskie literaturnye sviazi (Leningrad, 1968), p. 38. 77 For a summmary of Moskvitianin and the Slavs see Petrovich, Russian Pans lavism, pp. 105-107. 76 See

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showed no change. Not until the Crimean War and the last years of his life did he show an interest in the non-Russian Slavs, and then under circumstances which in a sense forced the issue on him, for the initiative for an all-Slav language was passing from the South and Western Slavs to the Russians themselves.78 And what has been said of Khomiakov, Kireevsky, and Aksakov on this issue could also be said of Samarin.79 How is one to explain the lack of sustained interest among the major Slavophils during the 1840's in the larger problems of the Slav world? Several possible explanations could be advanced. Perhaps they believed that a Slav linguistic and literary rapprochement was not feasible without a greater degree of cultural integration than that which existed at the time. Centuries of different and often conflicting cultural and religious conditioning could not be overcome almost overnight as some expected, particularly when the political inde­ pendence of the non-Russian Slavs could be achieved and revitalized only on national foundations. Also, perhaps the other Slavophils felt, as Khomiakov did, that the Western Slavs were hopeless, beyond redemption—or as he put it in a letter to A. N. Popov in 1848, the "German-Roman damage (Bohemia, Poland) has got into their bones and brains." He excluded the South Slavs, drafting toward the end of his life his well-known "Message to the Serbians."80 Finally, the vastness of Russia's own internal problems, of which the Slavophils were as keenly aware as the rest of articulate and concerned Russia, turned their eyes inward and away from the complexities of the Slav question. 78 In 1867 Ivan Aksakov said that the Slavs "Will find their unification in Russia. The Russian language is mandatory, it is necessary to study it and know it. . . . Let there be worked out unity of alphabet, unity of faith." Quoted from an unpublished notebook of Ivan Aksakov by Κ. I. Rovda, "Russkie slavianofily i cheshskaia literature," p. 35. But a Russian publicist did not have to be a pan-Slav to feel as strongly as Aksakov that the Russian language was the only one suitable for an all-Slav language. Pypin, writing in 1878 and 1879 while the Russo-Turkish war for the liberation of Bulgaria was on, justified acceptance of Russian as the all-Slav language primarily on literary and cultural grounds. See his monographs "Panslavizm" and "Literaturnyi panslavizm" cited earlier. 79 During the early and middle 1840's the so-called dei minores among the Moscow Slavophils, A. N. Popov and V. A. Panov, and the older F, V. Chizhov, were sufficiently interested and motivated to visit some of the South Slav lands and to publish their impressions, and their thoughts and sentiments. More information on these contacts will be given in the final study of this series, on Iu. F. Samarin. 80 See "Iz pisem A. S. Khomiakova k A. N. Popovu," Russkii arkhiv, 1884, no. 4, pp. 290-291.

CHAPTER 12 ORTHODOXY AND THE SLAV WORLD

WHEN IVAN AKSAKOV as a young man despaired that his older brother

did not know reality and would never learn to distinguish between the actual and the imaginary, he was thinking of the Russia in which they lived, but his observation was no less applicable to his brother's perception of the past. Konstantin's Russian history was in some ways his own creation, much as the world in which he moved was shaped by his aspirations, dreams, and ideals. And since from the time of Saint Vladimir Orthodox Christianity had become a daily presence in Russia and the most important single ingredient of its cultural and religious life, in Konstantin's view Russian Orthodoxy was refracted through the same prism—which gave to all his his­ torical labors their highly idiosyncratic cast. Departure from histor­ ical fact, a quasi-poetical "intuitive" rendition of various aspects of the past, the weight of favorite convictions and impressions and of equally deep-seated antagonisms, particularly with respect to aspects of Western culture, are all evident. Yet these idiosyncrasies are often the features that give Konstantin's commentaries a certain freshness of approach, an occasional new insight, a novel idea and ideal, which in the end help to round out his Slavophil views as well as the broader doctrine of Moscow Slavophilism. Konstantin's view of Orthodox Christianity was a layman's view— rudimentary, traditional, sometimes naive, but also didactic and ser­ monizing, particularly when Orthodoxy and the Western confessions were placed side by side. It bears few traces of theological depth and subtlety or of extensive reading. The Eastern Orthodox church fathers and Eastern and Western theology, which were matters for discussion among the Slavophils in the early 1850's, were not followed up by Konstantin in his reading. His knowledge, except for the Bible, seems to have been secondhand, limited, and not the result of deep con­ templation and reflection such as is often stimulated by direct read­ ing.1 He comes closest to Khomiakov's and Kireevsky's Orthodoxy 1 N. P. Koliupanov, Biografiia Aleksandra Ivanovicha Kosheleva (Moscow, 18891892), II, 61.

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in his psychological, sociological, and historical approach to prac­ tical Orthodoxy, and, as one might expect, in his high esteem of it as contrasted with Catholicism and Protestantism. This lacuna in Konstantin's interests and preoccupations may in part explain the almost complete neglect, in past treatments of his career, of his Orthodox beliefs and of their importance to his Sla­ vophil ideology. Yet the evidence is there. Starting with the truism, stressed by Ivan Aksakov, that Konstantin was never anything but a patriotic Russian and a loyal member of a longstanding Orthodox family, one can see that not even during his strongest infatuation with Hegel were the principles of nationality and Orthodoxy com­ pletely overshadowed. Of these, Orthodoxy was the more funda­ mental (though not necessarily always the more prominent) in Kon­ stantin's thought and will therefore be considered first. The pivotal place that these two principles assumed in Konstan­ tin's thinking after he ended his second and last fling with Hegelianism is forcefully brought out in his propaganda play The Liberation of Moscow in the Year 1612. This play appeared in book form in 1848 and two years later (December 15, 1850) was given a single performance at the Malyi Theater in Moscow.2 On both occasions it aroused little enthusiasm and a great deal of criticism. Pogodin called it rubbish (see Chapter 6), and it has perhaps deservedly fallen into obscurity. It is of interest here because it shows what convictions were uppermost in Konstantin's mind during the middle to late forties. The play was approved by the censors on January 11, 1848. Since it was usual for even noncontroversial works, such as grammars, to be delayed by the censors for a year or longer, Konstantin probably wrote the play in 1847, or even in 1846. The theme, "For the Or­ thodox Faith and the Russian Land," is stated in the first act and is sustained throughout. It is, in fact, reiterated by no fewer than twenty-one of the dramatis personae, counting the "narod," speaking as one in Moscow's Red Square. Along with the narod, the theme is sounded by boyars, princes and princesses, and soldiers, and they 2 According to Bartenev the play was performed as a benefit and was "removed from the stage" after one performance because it contained the uncompiimentary reference to St. Petersburg as the "city with the alien name." Konstantin was quite pleased with the performance, writing to Gogol' that the "actors understood and appreciated the drama, which they liked," that the full theater "listened extraordi­ narily carefully, and nobody left until the very end of the play," but that "there were many for the drama" and "many against it." As for the staging, he said, "it could not be worse." See K. S. Aksakov, "Pis'ma k Gogoliu," ed. P. I. Bartenev, Russkii arkhiv, 1890, book I, p. 158.

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all agree that the struggle during the Time of Troubles was against foreign invaders, "for the Orthodox Faith and the Russian Land."3 Notwithstanding Konstantin's claim in the brief foreword to the play that it is "historically true with respect to the facts," he had his own ideas as to what the liberation of Moscow was about, and he intended the play to make its impact by sheer repetition of the theme. The first part of the stated theme, "For the Orthodox Faith," is clear enough, but zemlia (land) in the second half refers to both land and the people of the land, or the common Russian people. This was consistent with Slavophil usage. All during the period that Konstantin worked on the play he was much concerned with the search for a basic belief and guiding prin­ ciple that would take the place of German idealism as his ideological anchor. It was not enough for him to know what Khomiakov or Kireevsky believed, even if he wholeheartedly subscribed to their Slavophil views. He had to find his own place in the Slavophil circle. In accordance with this principle, as he told his correspondent Sokhanskaia much later, he did not join the Slavophil circle at the expense of his identity, self-respect, and personal initiative. The principle he chose and the goals he arrived at on cardinal points were the same as those of the other Slavophils, but he had thought them through for himself, thereby making his individual contribu­ tion to the common doctrine. He would have made a strange Sla­ vophil if he had not subscribed to Orthodoxy and nationality (narodnost'), which Moscow Slavophilism had accepted by the end of the forties as indispensable. The germs of a number of basic ideas to which Konstantin re­ peatedly returned are to be found in several of the fragments of uncompleted essays dating from the late 1840's and early 1850's. In one of these, a five-page fragment entitled "On the Basic Principles of Russian History," dated by Ivan Aksakov to "about" 1849, Konstantin speaks of the moral deed: "The moral deed must be accom­ plished by moral means, without . . . force. This is the only way .. . worthy of man, the way of free conviction . . . of peace, the way revealed to us by the Divine Savior and followed by his Apostles. This is the way of inner truth."4 A second, somewhat longer fragment dated by Ivan to 1850 affirms Konstantin's fundamental belief in Christianity, this time in a quasi-historical setting attributing to Rus­ sia his highly personal notion of Russian Orthodoxy: "Russia, having 3 Konstantin Aksakov, Osvobozhdenie Moskvy ν 1612 godu (Moscow, 1848]. See for instance pp. 7, 9, 12, 35, 56, 69, 88, 105, 108, 117, 141, 151, 166, 183, 203ff. 4 K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, I, 2.

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understood with the acceptance of the Christian Faith that freedom is only in the spirit, constantly stood up for its soul and for its Faith."5 The theme is elaborated in Konstantin's unfinished foreword to a contemplated history of Russia for children. Here he says that the "Christian teaching was deeply lodged" in the fundamental prin­ ciples of Russian life; "Christian humility" was a basic feature of the Russian national character, and the people (narod) believed that the Tartar and Polish invasions were God's punishment for Russian sins. The Russians took the Orthodox faith as their guiding principle in life. "Holy Rus'," he explains, means to the Russian people the "Orthodox Faith." "Russia's assignment was, it seems, to reveal on earth a Christian nation in belief, in endeavor, and in the spirit of its life, and as far as possible in its actions."6 The fragment builds to an effusion of praise for his native land and its people: "We would say that this is the only history in the whole world of a Christian people [narod] not [only] in word but also in deed; not [only] in confession but also in life—at least in its endeavors." But as a result of Peter's reforms Russia had lost its way and desperately needed to return to the "Russian spirit, Russian mind, and Christian virtues."7 Here Konstantin is carried away by the enthusiasm of the poet rather than by the objectivity of the historian. Is such an approach altogether unsound? Ivan pointed out in his introduction to Konstantin's philological works (1875) that "poetic feeling is also one of the cognitive instruments of the human spirit equal to logical reason." He recognized the "artistic element [stiIchiia] characteristic in Konstantin Sergeevich's whole activity," but he also maintained that in his brother's "heart [dusha] there never was even a shadow of neglect for the strict method of the German scholars."8 On this weighty epistemological matter Konstantin him5

Ibid., p. 10. pp. 18-20. 7 Ibid., p. 23. 8Ibid., II, part I, viii. The question of German scholarship, philosophical systembuilding, and the academician's craft raised some serious doubts among the Slavo­ phils. This highly rational manifestation of German culture was given epistolary treatment by Koshelev and Ivan Aksakov in the early 1850's under the somewhat cumbersome rubric "systematism" (sistematichnost'). Koliupanov, who published the correspondence, did not find Ivan's letter which raised the question, but Koshelev's reply suggests its principal points. "I agree," Koshelev says, "that systematism is a scourge [bich] for human freedom, that it is of itself an evil, that it could kill everything living, everything lofty in our hearts, but in such a case it would be systematism pushed to an extreme." He argued against all extremes; the extreme of "superfluous goodness" is not virtue and neither is the "absence of all systematism." Defining systematism "as an endeavor to lend meaning [osmysiit'] to life," he attributed to Ivan 6 Ibid.,

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self said little explicitly. But in the conclusion of his dissertation on Lomonosov he defines poetry as "the immediate intuitive [neposredstvennoe] presentation of truth." Lomonosov, he says, was not a "dry scientist, an artisan," but a man for whom "science in every­ thing had a poetic side"—a comment that betrays not a little bias in favor of the poet over the scholar as an interpreter of history.9 Beyond the hackneyed acceptance that man's knowledge comes from reason and poetic intuition Konstantin showed no concern for philosophical and epistemological problems. He sometimes speaks of "wholeness of the soul" (dusha)—recalling Kireevsky's funda­ mental "wholeness of the spirit doctrine"—but only in passing. Nor does he go very far beyond the ordinary believer's tacit recognition that Christian truth is eternal truth—meaning revealed, "inner" truth, as contrasted with man's "external," imperfect, reasoned truth. In this sphere his beliefs were simple, based on his uncomplicated, layman's Orthodox faith unencumbered by Western thought, and implicitly associated with his strong sense of nationality. The nearest thing to a profession of faith that Konstantin left, aside from epistolary remarks, was an essay entitled "About Contemporary Man." Ivan Aksakov first published it in 1876 in a symposium Broth­ erly Help, dedicated to the victims of Turkish persecution in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and seven years later he republished it in three installments in his fortnightly Rus'.10 Ivan states in his introductory not unconditional condemnation of systematism but of the "excess" of it, for the "absence of systematism is itself . . . a system." But for the Christian believer there was no problem because the "system, the whole system is contained in the Divine Writing, and this system is not dead." A system did not have to be coldly rational and logical, but a certain amount of systematization was absolutely essential. "We are not Germans but Russians; we err not from too much systematism but from its absence." With respect to Russia he said there was greater danger from "French vanity" than from German systematism. Ivan was unconvinced, replying on June 29, 1853 (within a week), that the opposite of system is not feeling or sentiment but "freedom, it is understood the rational freedom of Christ"; that the way of systematism is "false, artificial, cold, and that there is in it self-gratification, but there is no living relationship to God, there is no freedom." He was convinced that it was easier for the "nonsystematic than for the systematic person to love Christ's truth with all his heart, and to enlighten his heart's understanding with Christ's word." This is also when he stated that a Christian should not be afraid of "noble inconsistency." See Koliupanov, Koshelev, II, appendix, pp. 54-55, 59-60. See also Christoff, Kireevskij, pp. 282-283. 9 See K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, II, part I, 328, 371. 10 K. S. Aksakov, "0 sovremennom cheloveke," in Bratskaia pomoshch' (St. Pe­ tersburg, 1876), pp. 241-288. See also Rus', 1881, no. 8, pp. 31-41; no. 12, pp. 27-37; no. 13, pp. 18-32. (Hereafter cited as "Contemporary Man.") As I have emphasized before, Ivan's obvious devotion to his older brother does not mean complete agreement with him. They differed in fact on such basic matters as the character of the people (narod) and its Christianity.

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comments that Konstantin worked on the essay spasmodically but mostly, it seems, during the last ten years of his life almost up to his death, revising, editing, and recopying. He never finished it. Ivan republished it in order to reach a wider circle of readers. The title of the essay refers to the author's intent rather than his achievement. By contemporary man Konstantin understands Russian and Western, with the ever present comparisons and contrasts. And for him, Russian man, or specifically Slavophil man, invariably comes out on top. Even so, and despite his usual polemical and emotional manner, his observations of the Western scene are not total fabrications. His views on Orthodoxy and religion are of par­ ticular interest in the present discussion. Although they are scattered about in the familiar Slavophil style, they are better formulated and perhaps more convincingly stated than any that were stated during the late 1840's. Taken together, they are an outline of Aksakov's basic convictions during his mature, Slavophil period. Since Konstantin's individuality has often been stressed, one might expect of him an idiosyncratic image of God. On the other hand, judged by customary Western standards he might be expected to be concerned either with his personal salvation or with a highly organized and stratified, legalistic church as the intermediary be­ tween man and God. But he was too much of a Slavophil for these; he started instead with the cardinal Christian notion of the broth­ erhood of man under the fatherhood of God, a notion which the Slavophils made their own. He accepted the Slavophil egalitarian and socially conscious version of Christianity. The thought face­ tiously attributed to Khomiakov, that God might deny entry into heaven to a Russian peasant but could not possibly deny it to a village, also expresses Konstantin's Slavophil Christian conscious­ ness. But even with all his illusions and extravagant claims, Konstantin seemed to grasp certain truths: "If only the person who realizes the Christian in himself were called such there would not be a single Christian on earth, since man cannot realize Christian perfection." Who then can call himself a Christian? The person, he says, "who believes in Christ and strives to be a Christian." Starting with the familiar Orthodox belief, "Only God is One and He alone is love for He encompasses all," his emphasis comes through: "One alone out­ side God is Satan [Odin vne Boga—est' satana]." His Slavophil social consciousness and terminology become unmistakable: "Finite [konechnaia] personality reaches God and the good only through selfabnegation. . . . Only by means of love through self-abnegation, through the commune, and through the church does finite person-

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ality approach God."11 And if individuality is for God alone, or Satan, social consciousness is, quite naturally, the attribute of true Chris­ tians: "The inalienable lofty endeavor of man, which is bound with his human being, is obshchestvennost' "—a word approximately and poorly rendered in English as social consciousness.12 Orthodoxy, of course, had no monopoly on the doctrine of Christian brotherhood, nor on stressing the profound ethical message of Christianity and of Christ's life. Yet these Orthodox ideas pervaded Moscow Slavophi­ lism, and they were even more concentrated in Konstantin Aksakov's thought than in Khomiakov's and Kireevsky's, possibly because Aksakov did not range as widely or as deeply into Christianity as they did. Furthermore, in that broad and remarkably fecund current of nineteenth-century Russian thought which was neither materialist nor positivist, Konstantin Aksakov, together with the other Moscow Slavophils, stood in the vanguard. In 1913 Steppun, reflecting on the Russian intellectual-ideological and literary life of the nineteenth century, observed that "the ecclesiasticism [tserkovnost'] of Dostoevsky, the moralism of Tolstoy, the superfluous men of Turgenev and Chekhov, and equally as much the coming man of Chernyshevsky and Gorky—if all this was not Russian philosophy it was in place of philosophy. All this imperiously or­ ganized our heads and our ruminations."13 It could further be said that for the non-materialist and non-positivist like Konstantin Ak­ sakov, this brand of Christian social consciousness took the place of theology and philosophy. For Konstantin, as later in the century it seems for Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and others in the general category of 11 K.

S. Aksakov, "Contemporary Man," pp. 256, 260. p. 255. 13 Steppun, like others before and since, stressed the strong social orientation of Russian literature: "The Weltanschauung of Russia in the nineteenth century was found and lived above all under the combined influence of two closely interwoven principles, the principle of art and . . . of social consciousness [obshchestvennost']." See F. A. Steppun, "Proshloe i budushchee slavianofil'stva," Severnyia zapiski, 1913, November, p. 122. Earlier, for example, one could point to the following summary: "It seems that fate willed that from the very beginning of Russian journalism, from the Truten of Novikov itself, from the Journey of Radishchev, everything . . . was dedicated to public [obshchestvennoe] service. Everything lives and breathes this service. . . . and it protests against personal isolation, personal salvation, personal self-perfection." And further: "This could and must be discovered not only in Sla­ vophilism but also in Westernism . . . in belles-lettres . . . in publicistic work, in criticism, not only in Gogol', Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy, but also in Herzen, Belinsky, Mikhailovsky, but particularly in Uspensky, Garshin, and many, many spokesmen for the Russian intelligentsia." See Volzhsky's review, "Novaia kniga ο russkoi intelligentsii (Ivanov-Razumnik). 'Istoriia russkoi obshchestvennoi mysli,' vols. I and II (St. Petersburg, 1907)"; Russkaia mysl', 1907, book VI, pp. 60, 66. 12Ibid.,

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believers, this was a search for a living, applied Christianity and daily Christian wisdom. From this comes the profound social aware­ ness and anti-"study thinking" cast of mind that is so often to be found in Russian writers and publicists. The Russians did not have an exclusive claim to social consciousness in their literature, but Russian social conditions and the Orthodox bend of mind, with its dedication and intensity in pursuit of ethical-social goals, gave their interest in social issues an extraordinary vigor. Although Konstantin Aksakov was never in the first ranks as a man of letters, his Orthodox moral fervor and convictions placed him high among Slavophil ideologists and gave him the right to share the position of influence that the leading Slavophils exerted on some of Russia's greatest minds. He, together with Khomiakov, the Kireevsky brothers, and Samarin, established Moscow Slavophilism as one of the two main currents of thought in mid-nineteenth-century Russia, and Slavophilism's strong and concentrated beam continued to touch outstanding Russians in the same way that Westernism was touching other Russians.14 The role of Konstantin's personality in shaping his social consciousness has been illuminated by the person who perhaps next to his father knew him best, his brother Ivan. Looking back in 1883 on the personalities of Konstantin and his friend Samarin, Ivan had this to say: K. S. by his very nature, and not only because he never served [in the government], never worked as a landlord, and never knew . . . any practical activity, did not compromise with his convic­ tions. . . . This was his shortcoming but also his strength, which Samarin could value and love. He acknowledged Konstantin's creative thought and passionate undertakings. He did not have his artistic talent, his flair for artistic originality even in the 14

Recently two Soviet specialists in philosophy summed up the broad range of Slavophil influence as follows: "Slavophilism constitutes a complex combination of ideas and theories reflecting the agonizing quests for answers to the most acute ques­ tions of Russian life. In it to a considerable degree are the beginnings of the most diverse orientations: extrachurch religious idealism in philosophy and sociology (VI. Solov'ev, F. M. Dostoevsky, L. N. Tolstoy); the representatives of official ideology with its government-sponsored patriotism and panslavism, drew arguments from the Slavophils. The Slavophils were the first to pose the question, in all its sharpness, of the mutual relationship between Russia and the West, of Russia's special road, and raised the idea of Slav solidarity. Herzen and Chernyshevsky leaned on several prop­ ositions of Slavophil sociology, placing the Slavophil-discovered village commune at the base of the theory of 'Russian socialism.' Even the anarchistic stream in Russian revolutionary thought (Bakunin, Kropotkin) with respect to their roots departs from the Slavophil teaching about 'land' [zemlia] and state." See Galaktionov and Nikandrov, "K. S. Aksakov," p. 70.

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realm of scholarly research, his inner synthesis to which analysis easily took second place.15 In the essay "Contemporary Man," Konstantin Aksakov, the "nonsistematik" who was Ivan's true Russian, relying on his "creative thought" and "artistic revelation," arrives at some characteristic con­ clusions. He moves from a definition of Christianity to a definition of society and the Christian church and in the process all but deprives society of its sociological aspects. "Society in its true sense, and in its all-encompassing scale," he says, "is the church." But whereas the church is "perfect," its members, being sinful, are often engaged in struggles. The society that came closest to the church, hence to human perfection, was that of the "Christians of the first centuries." Having as always Russia and Russian society uppermost in his mind, Konstantin says that it was possible for a non-Christian society, with the proper moral makeup and social order, to prepare the way for Christianity, making its acceptance imperceptible and natural. In such a society there is a "premonition of Christian truth." Further­ more, there is "such a nation which even in pre-Christian times had society as a principle, a principle which it later sanctified with the acceptance of Christianity." "Providentially, this nation is the Rus­ sian, which assimilated from time immemorial the lofty idea of the commune. That is why it so profoundly accepted Christianity in its soul and is wholly permeated by it."16 Such a concept of Christianity relegates the individual and the institutionalized historical church to second place, sacrificed, it seems, to Konstantin's enthusiasm for the communal egalitarian as­ pect of Christianity. Further on in the essay he makes this notion of Christianity more explicit and presents it within his personal frame­ work of history. "The nation that understood the lofty meaning of the commune and took it as a principle is the Slav nation and pri­ marily the Russian-Slav nation, which created for itself the mir before Christianity." Earlier, in the protracted polemics with the Western­ ers, Konstantin had usually gone no further than this, but this essay, although often argumentative, gave voice to his fundamental beliefs and principles. The commune, which in other works he viewed from a social, political, and broadly educational and psychological point of view, is here conceived as a supreme Christian phenomenon: [The] communal principle manifesting itself on earth as separate communes within a nation . . . fuses the whole nation into one 15 K. S. Aksakov, "Dva pis'ma i zamechaniia po povodu osvobozhdeniia krest'ian i ikh administrativnago ustroistva," ed. I. S. Aksakov, Rus', 1883, no. 3, pp. 31-32. 16 K. S. Aksakov, "Contemporary Man," p. 256.

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commune, though still not perfectly. The highest [most] truthful image of the commune is the church—the commune that en­ compasses all of humanity, passes finite boundaries and places its focus in God. God in Christ is the head of the church, the eternal universal commune. . . . Here is the manifestation of the social principle in man . . . the principle of love and good. . . . accepted by the Slav world.17 From this, Konstantin goes on to state his views on the choric principle, probably his most important single contribution to Sla­ vophil ideology. His belief in the commune had repeatedly put him on the defensive in polemics with the Westerners, who claimed that the commune suppresses the individual. Here he uses as a spring­ board for his theory of the choric principle the truism that "society cannot exist without individuals [lichnosti]": "Society is a harmony of personalities. Here personality gives up its egotism and discovers that it is not a separate personality but [part of] a loving combination [sovokupnost'] of personalities. No longer the center, the individual personality becomes one of the rays issuing forth in concert fr.om a common loving union, the unseen center of which is God."18 And he adds: "In society personality is not suppressed, and does not disappear . . . on the contrary . . . it receives its highest meaning, for only when personality denies itself. .. as the center does it" become "a new phenomenon where every personality appears in loving union with [other] personalities. Thus the act of society is [also] an act of joint self-abnegation." For this highly idealized metamorphosis of the individual and society alike, Konstantin had not only a Chris­ tian, often puritanical and martyr-like passion but also an aesthetic longing, for this was the beautiful, the true human being, and the true society. Conversely, any display of naked individualism and selfishness, to which he thought the West particularly susceptible, aroused his unqualified scorn (all this quite in contrast to his stout defense of the individuum in his dissertation on Lomonosov). The descending scale from God to church to commune—from the universal commune in the Orthodox church to the village commune, thence to the self-denying socially conscious individual—of course bears no resemblance to historical reality in Russia or anywhere else. Russia accepted Christianity "from above," through the princely court, in the tenth century; the traditional Great Russian communal organization, which in Konstantin's day still existed as a basic social " Ibid., p. 259. 18 Ibid., p. 259. See also K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, I, 629.

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and economic force, was not directly connected with the church. The idea of a bond between God and the commune, of the commune preparing the way for Christianity, is peculiar to the Moscow Sla­ vophils, mainly Konstantin Aksakov. But it does not matter much whether Aksakov's views are historically or theologically impecca­ ble. (Where is the ideology based on fact, logic, and historical truth alone?) The point is that they were the very heart of his Slavophil ideology, and, as in all modern nationalisms, what is believed has often been more ominous for men and nations than has established historical fact. And manifestly Western, rational, scientific man has all too often been moved to action as much by myth and fiction as by fact. As one considers Konstantin's profession of faith, what emerges is not a simple, profoundly trusting, inspired Christian believer seeing the hand of God in the wondrous workings of the commune but the striving ideologist justifying the commune (Russian and Slav) in Christian terms. This should not impugn Konstantin's sincerity, for he was a poet and an artist, not a holy man. Nor does it imply doubt in the strength of his Orthodox roots. On the contrary, he could at times be absorbed in his search for Christian truth and behavior. Thus Samarin, who thought Konstantin too "abstract," likened a visit with him to a visit to a church: "Beyond the church fence is practical life, vanity, temporary need, the fury of the historical world, but here in the church [is] the whole unchangeable timeless ideal, the same lofty search for truth despite all the visible contradiction with the surrounding life, apparent incongruity and inapplicability. Ah, but how good, how necessary, that the call that awakens our conscience; directs our activity, purifies our feeling shall not be stilled."19 At the root of Konstantin's Orthodoxy and Moscow Sla­ vophilism was Christian faith—good or bad, true or false, consistent or inconsistent—but it would be an error to see his ideology as de­ rived from second-rate Western thinkers, even though what he learned from the West was never completely lost.20 19 Quoted

in V. N. Korablev, Konstantin Aksakov (St. Petersburg, 1911), p. 6. Christian, Orthodox content of Konstantin's thought is touched upon in G. A. Maksimovich, Uchenie pervykh slavianofilov (Kiev, 1907), p. 72. Ger'e sees a parallel in the roles of Moscow Slavophilism and German romanticism in their re­ spective countries, but he says that the influence of Slavophilism "was comparatively wider and more fruitful" than that of its secular counterpart in Germany. Though he does not explain why, this is still a step further than the uncritical, flat identification of Slavophilism with Western, primarily German romanticism. See V. I. Ger'e, Ideia narodovlastiia: frantsuzskaia revoliutsiia 1789 goda. (Moscow, 1904), p. 151. 20 The

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THE EMPHASIS placed in this chapter on the religious aspect of Kon-

stantin Aksakov's thought, the reminder that he grew up in a family in which Russian Orthodoxy was taken for granted, along with Rus­ sian patriotism and bias, is in no way intended to suggest that Or­ thodoxy as a principle and a way of life (however imperfectly Chris­ tian) is to be identified with the established practices of the Russian Orthodox church. Khomiakov was censored by the official church and was unable to publish his theological works in Russia. Kireevsky was the closest of the early Slavophils to the existing church, but he associated with the "elders" (startsy) movement, a special and some­ what autonomous development within the established church. Nei­ ther he nor Khomiakov thought much of Bishop Makarii's theology.21 The Aksakovs, Sergei and particularly Ivan, were more outspoken in their criticism of the Russian church than were Khomiakov and Kireevsky. Samarin was "indignant at the fact of church statism [tserkovnaia kazenshchina]," and Konstantin, though perhaps less vocal on this matter than the other Slavophils, had little reason to depart from the group's well-established position. They all were convinced that the church needed no government, no "earthly pro­ tection."22 21 Kireevsky found Makarii wanting on two counts, "infallibility of the hierarchy: and revelation of the Holy Spirit to the hierarchy separately from the totality of all Christendom." He considered both as "not in accord with our church." Makarii's History of the Russian Church in three volumes was published in 1857. It was re­ viewed by N. P. Giliarov-Platonov in Russkaia beseda, 1859, book III, Kritika, pp. 136. In 1854 Giliarov was compelled to give up his professorship in the Moscow Theological Academy because of his "freethinking," which in the words of his biog­ rapher was shown in part in "his attacks on the contemporary clergy which in Giliarov's opinion was lifeless, indolent, without independence, and ignorant." To this was added Giliarov's outspoken criticism of Makarii's history as purely "mechanical"; it provides factual material, but Giliarov concluded, "we do not yet have a history of our church." Small wonder that in November 1859 Ivan Aksakov wrote to Sokhanskaia, "Giliarov's article arouses against us [Russkaia beseda] the indignation of the Holy Synod. This is a happy circumstance. It is necessary strictly to distinguish the Orthodox cause from its official meaning." Giliarov knew Konstantin well. He corresponded with Konstantin in the middle fifties, but this correspondence seems to have been lost. Although Giliarov insisted on his right to his views, he was sympathetic to Moscow Slavophilism. Early in September 1857, as Konstantin's troubled and short-lived MoIva was nearing its end, Giliarov was in the awkward position of being its official censor. See Christoff, Kireevskij, p. 129; Ν. V. Shakhovskoi, "Gody sluzhby N. P. Giliarova-Platonova ν Moskovskom tsenzurnom komitete. 1857-i god," Russkoe obozrenie, 1897, August, pp. 740, 743, 757-761, 762; idem, "N. P. Giliarov-Platonov ob' Istoriia russkoi tserkvi' preosv. Makariia," Russkoe obozrenie, 1897, April, p. 598; also idem, "N. P. Giliarov-Platonov i K. S. Aksakov," Russkoe obozrenie, 1895, De­ cember, p. 509. 22M. M. Borodkin, Proiskhozhdenie slavianofii'stva (St. Petersburg, 1891), pp. 1617.

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I have spoken earlier of the matter-of-fact Orthodoxy of the Aksakov household. Sergei Aksakov had too much of the artist, the writer, the nature and theater lover, and even the gambler in him to have been a single-minded, pious, devoted churchgoer. A number of letters written by Ol'ga and Sergei Aksakov to their son Ivan between March 1849 and 1851 testify to a family with far-ranging literary, artistic, social, and public interests. But the family was con­ scious of its Christian Orthodox roots and beliefs, often invoking God's intercession in its affairs, though without being rigidly bound to church ritual and unfailing church attendance. "It is now two years since I was last in church for liturgy [obednia]," Sergei Aksakov wrote to Ivan in the early summer of 1849; and on August 10, in a letter from which I quoted at some length earlier, he remarked, "On August 6 I took the Holy Communion and am very satisfied. For various reasons I had not taken Holy Communion for three years." The clergy, he went on to say, alluding to remarks on the church in a letter from Ivan, was "good for nothing" and "decidedly harmful to the religious convictions of the people."23 Ol'ga Aksakova, though aware of her husband's disillusionment with the official church, did not give up various Orthodox observ­ ances, and Sergei did not usually abstain from them. In March 1849 she accompanied Ivan, then on his way to the Iaroslav guberniia, to the famous Trinity monastery, half a dozen miles from Abramtsevo, and later wrote to Ivan, "I stayed there for the liturgy, prayed, and had a prayer said for your health."24 Ol'ga felt that Ivan needed her prayers more than her husband needed them, and indeed the cool 23

Dunin, "Materialy po istorii russkoi literatury i kul'tury," pp. 113-114. See also Chapter 8. On the question of the Russian church and priesthood, the views of Sergei Aksakov and the Slavophils differed considerably from Gogol's as he stated them in Selected Passages (1847). Those who said that the Russian church was "lifeless" were "telling a lie because our church is life . . . we are the corpses, not our church." This was the same church, Gogol' continues, which "from the time of the Apostles in its immaculate purity . . . was as if directly descended from heaven to the Russian people." Gogol' also objected to those who criticized the priesthood and its aloofness from the people, and in its defense said that the priest should not meet the faithful except for "confession and sermon." This aloofness was essential and those objecting to it were talking "nonsense." The Russian priest must not become worldly, like the Roman Catholic. He must prepare "for the world not in it, but far from it" as Christ prepared in the desert. Gogol', Sochineniia, pp. 1395-1398. 24 Gogol', Sochineniia, p. 109. Vera Aksakova's diary contains frequent mentions of visits to the Trinity monastery as well as to the Khot'kov monastery, which was even closer to the Aksakov estate. In bad weather as on March 29, 1855, when the girls visited Khot'kov, or in warm but windy weather as on September 10 of the same year when they walked to the Trinity, worship was a family affair. Aksakova, Dnevnik1 pp. 91, 135.

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and critical attitude toward the official church that prevailed in the Aksakov home at the end of the forties became more intense a decade later, especially during the four-year period when Russkaia beseda, under Ivan's editorship, came under the scrutiny of the Holy Synod. During the "dark seven years" (1848-1855) the views of the Mos­ cow Slavophils on the Russian church could not be openly publi­ cized. Nor were they entirely free from censorship in the early years of Alexander II's reign, as Konstantin found out in 1857 in connection with Molva. Only in letters were they free to unburden themselves, as Ivan did in the previously cited letter to Sokhanskaia, dated No­ vember 21, 1859: This absence of freedom of speech more than anything else is harmful to the Russian Christian world. The word Orthodoxy in the famous state formula, "Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Na­ tionalism," has to such an extent become fused in the notions of the public with officialdom, with the idea of a whole string of "submissive bishops and cavaliers," with pompous Te Deums sanctifying every abomination and baseness of the servile com­ pliance of the Church, of autocratic power etc., etc., that the word "Orthodoxy" should be used with greatest care and res­ ervation. The Slavophils should remain unattached, and, he cautioned, "It is essential that we should not be mixed up with the so-called clerical party. . . . But the state of the censorship is such that there is no possibility of clearing this misunderstanding in the press." This com­ pelled the Slavophils "to speak in defense of true Orthodoxy," and, "Do you know that the Holy Synod has forbidden the translation into Russian of Khomiakov's pamphlet!!!" As the official editor of the Slavophil journal, he complained, "Beseda has suffered much harm because it included Orthodoxy' in its program. It did not have the opportunity of explaining precisely what it understands by Or­ thodoxy; that is why it is suspected of solidarity with the official spiritual world, which is completely wrong." Then he concluded, referring to circumstances in which Beseda provoked official church circles: "Arousing the indignation of the Holy Synod against us is fortunate. It is necessary to distinguish the Orthodox cause from its official meaning."25 Ivan Aksakov, who had firsthand knowledge of the effects of the church on village life in remote areas of Russia, was even as a young man critical of the general ossification of the Russian church in its 25

Aksakovs to Sokhanskaia, Russkoe obozrenie, 1897, February, pp. 599-600.

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subservience to the state. (Examples of this were given in Chapter 8.) His views, his father's views, and Konstantin's, though less ex­ plicit, became more intense as they interacted to produce a certain mood of opposition and muted rebelliousness. This opposition found expression in the matter of Russian dress and beards, and in the much more substantial issues of church and state censorship. Kon­ stantin's doubts about the very idea of the state were next to an­ archical. Yet as already emphasized, at no time did the Aksakov family rebelliousness find expression in anything more than verbal protest, in the cases of Sergei and Ivan among family and friends, and in Konstantin's somewhat more openly. For Konstantin the complex of Christian religious, social, political, and personal problems was reduced to the single issue of freedom, his often repeated and almost as often misunderstood or misinter­ preted "inner" freedom. He stated his convictions clearly in his letter to Gogol' of May 1848, in which he scathingly criticized Selected Passages.26 Like the rest of the Moscow Slavophils, Konstantin comes back again and again to "inner truth," which for him was Christian, biblical, revealed truth, not external truth as embodied in man's philosophy, ethics, laws, mores, ideals, and ways of life. He was unequivocal in the middle of the century when he said, in the frag­ ment quoted earlier in this chapter, that the "way of free conviction, the way of peace, the way that was revealed to us by the Divine Savior and was followed by His Apostles . . . is the way of inner truth" and of "inner" or Christian freedom. In this attitude to truth and freedom Konstantin more than Khomiakov and Kireevsky displayed a kind of nonphilosophical and nontheological practicality, a quality which Russian literature, and the pro-religious Russian intelligentsia, often put "in place of phi­ losophy," as Steppun observed. Konstantin showed little concern for epistemological problems during his Slavophil period. Rather he was concerned, often passionately, with "inner truth," which he conceived as the guide to applied Orthodoxy—in other words, not as theology or philosophy but as an intuitive form of Christian wis­ dom leading the way to Christian conduct. This is what he meant when he wrote to Gogol' in 1848, and also when he told Sokhanskaia in 1860, shortly before his death, that "freedom is the supreme good." "Concord," he said then, can be achieved only in freedom; in the "matter of faith there is no authority," for "Christ is not an authority, because He is . . . truth."27 This concept of freedom became the 26 Russkii arkhiv, 1890, no. 1, p. 156. See also p. 253 above. " Aksakovs to Sokhanskaia, Russkoe obozrenie, 1897, March, pp. 147, 149-150.

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guiding light of Konstantin's Slavophilism, determining his exalted opinion of the Russian commune, his interpretation of early Russian history, and his idealization of the character of the unspoiled com­ mon Russian man, the muzhik. Konstantin firmly believed that the muzhik in his commune, not the gentry or the government, lived the life of "inner freedom." (Later on, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy would put their faith in the Russian peasant to show the world the Christian way of life.) This concept also goes a long way in explaining Kon­ stantin's low opinion of Western history, much of Western urban civilization, and such basic institutions as the state. That Konstantin was not always logical, consistent, and unbiased goes without saying, and that his conduct was not always the natural extension and em­ bodiment of his convictions and beliefs does not need further proof. But this is a study of ideas, not of human frailties, inconsistencies, and contradictions. Since in the preceding pages considerable stress was placed on the awareness in the Aksakov family of weaknesses in the established Russian church, and since Konstantin became increasingly critical of other aspects of Russian life, a question arises: Why did not Sergei and Ivan Aksakov move beyond complaints, and why did Konstantin, usually less cautious than his father and brother, never go further than an occasional outburst in the press, mostly in the columns of Molval Economic self-interest, more a consideration with Sergei Aksakov and Ivan than with the bachelor Konstantin, explains much. The same could be said of their gentry class-consciousness. But it is also a fact that few Russians of any stripe inveighed more con­ stantly and unmercifully against the Russian gentry that did Kon­ stantin. And as the Decembrist rebellion showed, it was possible for a Russian landlord to take up arms against an order that supported his economic and social privileges, his status, and class. The answer to this question, if a simple one is possible, lies in the very "organic" gradualist, peaceful, nondialectical, and in this sense non-Hegelian essence of Moscow Slavophilism.28 28 Giliarov's comments are illuminating. Seven years younger than Konstantin, he chose Orthodox theology but also studied German philosophy. Writing in 1875 about the Slavophils he says, "If anyone complied with Hegelianism [Gegei'shchina] it was indeed K. Aksakov, and yes, strictly speaking in his early days," adding, "For Aksakov himself HegeI served only in part as a happy accident," providing Konstantin with "ready nomenclature, not more, and often even not to the advantage of the thinker. What was there in common, for instance, between Hegel and the teaching about the Russian commune?" For the true source of Slavophilism including Konstantin, Giliarov gives a rather novel slant, at least in phrasing: "in general, in searching for Slavophilism's native land it is necessary to head not for Hegel in Germany but to remain in the Russia . . . of Catherine II and Alexander I. Russia was at the pinnacle

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This characteristic of Slavophilism was perceived by some early in its existence, but it was perhaps stated most succinctly in 1894 in an essay by Vinogradov, in which both Slavophilism and Westernism emerge distinctly from the longstanding polemical shadows: In essence and in the depth of these disputes lay the profoundly rooted difference in the understanding of the basic principle of culture. The Slavophils had in mind the culture of the people [narodnaia] which almost unconsciously grows in a nation un­ der the influence of ethnic tradition, a common historical and geographical situation, form of labor, climate, and finally [its] initial school [of thought] or sermon. These forms were actually already determined in ancient Russia and the Slavophils con­ sidered it downright harmful to subject them to further change. The Westerners' point of departure with respect to the notion of culture Was conscious human creativity. The deed of the great thinkers was for them not simply an addition to the common life of the people but its supreme expression.29 Although Vinogradov was on the right track with respect to the basic cultural process, the implication that the Slavophils shunned con­ scious change on principle is incorrect; nor is his attribution of hu­ manistic motives to the Westerners alone justified. His simple eye­ catching formulation of the basic difference between Slavophils and Westerners as being a "philosophy of the unconscious" opposed to a "philosophy of consciousness" (soznatel'nost') ignores almost as much as it takes into account. The Slavophils would have welcomed many conscious changes in the conduct of the Russian Orthodox church and the state, and in the relations between the two. They advocated emancipation of the serfs, and those among them who of its might while its national glory was being celebrated. We praised and admired ourselves. How much is the year twelve [1812] alone worth! From our [national] bragging [samovoskhvalenie] we created a whole literature." Steppun, writing in 1913 with a longer perspective, has this to say about Slavo­ philism, Hegelianism, Schellingism (somewhat overstated), and Western philosophy in general: "Slavophilism . . . was doubtless conceived in profound psychological necessity and developed in general integrally and with many branches. In this sense not a single philosophical orientation in Russia could vie with it. All that Hegelianism produced were several scholars and strings of books. Kantianism produced nothing and only neo-Kantianism [now] is attempting to become the conscience of Russian thought. The pessimism of Schopenhauer and [Eduard von] Hartmann was only a passing fad. . . . The only serious opponents of Slavophilism, the philosophical foundation of which of course was Schellingism . . . were Russian materialism and Russian positivism." See Russkoe obozrenie, 1895, December, pp. 511-512; Severnyia zapiski, 1913, November, p. 128. 29 P. G. Vinogradov, "Τ. N. Granovsky," Russkaia mysΓ, 1893, April, p. 64.

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lived long enough, particularly Samarin, Koshelev, and Ivan Aksakov, worked to make it a reality. The Slavophils urged reforms in law, local self-government, and education, and also the building of railroads, agricultural machinery, and other scientific and techno­ logical improvements. They contributed much to the exploration of Russia's past, a thoroughly conscious activity, and as Kireevsky's recently published "testament," his letter to P. A. Viazemsky of 1855, testifies, they were passionately devoted to the new Russian literature evolving from Pushkin and Gogol'. Whatever their motives and rea­ sons, and these were often complex, it cannot be said that they rigidly held to "unconscious philosophy" or simply to slow, gradual, spon­ taneous, directionless change, however much they valued the or­ ganic principle. Yet there is no doubt that Vinogradov formulated a fundamental question, more crucial perhaps today than in the nineteenth cen­ tury—that is, the question of how "conscious" and "unconscious" creativity and change are related. In contemporary terms, this will be recognized as the problem of the "engineering" of man's physical and social environment. How much engineering can mankind take, and at what rate of change? Can human society and its environment survive (and can the individual survive in sanity) a wholesale en­ gineering, both scientific and social? If not, how much of either can be tolerated, and in what proportion, before both man and environ­ ment are destroyed? The Slavophils of course did not see this prob­ lem in the light in which we see it today, nor were they the first or the only ones in Europe to perceive something of its importance. But they did recognize its significance for their time and tried to provide some balance in an age already heady with the marvelous but often ominous achievements of reason, science, and technology. It was in reality a civilization heedlessly moving in the direction which today has made total extinction possible. At the same time, in the middle of the nineteenth century, they saw at least as far as most, and were understandably disturbed about industrialism and the millions of human beings ruthlessly yanked out of familiar although often un­ desirable and untenable conditions only to be thrown into the new city slums and subjected to new, intense trials and tribulations. They could not resist the question: Is all change good? Does all engineering (physical and social) benefit human society or does it have to be judicious and discriminating, and above all imbued with a moral sense if society is to survive and in the process save the best fruits of civilization? The Slavophils and others in Russia in the second half of the nineteenth century believed that they had found both a basic ethics

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and a balance between change and tradition in a living Christianity in conjunction with the mir and the commune. These seemed to offer a counterpoise to an exuberant, thriving Western individualism and secularism which appeared to be so little concerned about their ultimate goals and their possible effects on the quality of life and, ultimately, human survival. The Slavophils saw as clearly as most the need for change and improvement and for the righting of ancient wrongs, but they also understood the need for the secure, the solid, the seemingly permanent. Their faith in Orthodoxy was comparable to the Western faith in virtually sacred constitutions, written or un­ written, or in the purportedly infallible dictates and wisdom of sec­ ular prophets. All these points of view seem essential to modern and contemporary society, the more so because the man-made panacea that is accepted often produces a new problem for every old one that it purports to solve. The question in its simplest and starkest form was, as it is still: Can man live and survive in an environment of ever accelerating change which often outstrips his moral, political, and legal safeguards and balance wheels? As between "unconscious" and "conscious" change, the Slavo­ phils leaned toward the unconscious (although by no means exclu­ sively). Their economic interests, class consciousness, and habits had much to do with their stand against revolutionary change, but there were other elements involved as well. One was what one might call common-sense psychological grounds. Two other motivations were their quasi-religious attitude toward the Russian peasant com­ mune and their respect for the role of the nation and the national. The Slavophils saw the commune not only as a historical mainstay of Russianism and Orthodoxy but also as the foundation for a nonliberal, nonbourgeois socialistic order. An endless stream of prop­ aganda, tendentious pamphleteering, and plain uninformed writing has sadly distorted this issue. But within its factual and historical setting of the 1840's and 1850's the commune was a living as well as a historical reality, perhaps not at the peak of its vitality and by no means perfect, but nonetheless a possible basis for a future so­ cialistic order. All this was not lost even on such anti-Slavophils as Herzen and Chernyshevsky.30 Obviously the Slavophils did not want 30 The viability and future of the Russian village commune aroused prolonged and heated debates for the rest of the nineteenth century, and well into the twentieth. The commune ultimately became one of the objects of the well-known Stolypin reforms. For Mikhailovsky's populist reaction and Plekhanov's views as a populist and later as a Marxist see J. A. Billington, Mikhailovsky and Russian Populism (Oxford, 1958), pp. 163, 170-171, 195; S. H. Baron, Plekhanov: The Father o/Russian Marxism (Stan­ ford, 1963), pp. 51, 53-55, 66-67, 73.

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the commune and the communal principle to be swept away in the name of a Western economic, individualistic liberalism of dubious applicability in Russia at that time. In the principle of the nation, too, they saw something of benefit to Russian culture and of intrinsic human value, and they were not willing to give it up for any sort of loose, undefinable internation­ alism or cosmopolitanism in the name of progress. This is not the place to recount the direct or indirect impetus that Slavophilism gave to the study of Russia's past and history, and to creativity in literature, music, art, and the theater by stressing the wealth of the national, indigenous tradition, and by fostering pride in it. Nor is it necessary to dwell on the lasting and universal need of a sense of national heritage that transcends the passing and the romantic. Even today, in this presumably unromantic, pragmatic, scientific age, where is the civilized nation, East or West, that does not value its national culture as it has been bequeathed to it from the past: its national consciousness, language, folk songs and poetry, folk dances, costumes, art—in a word folklore, for the most part "unconsciously" created? European culture would be drastically different today with­ out the distinctive national streams that have contributed to its wealth and variety. Not the least of these has been the Russian stream of the past century, which the Slavophils helped to foster and to which Russian talent and genius of all sorts contributed. Unques­ tionably this national creative consciousness has been a boon to Russian and European culture. The perniciousness of the national is to be found not in this but in its all too frequent perversion into chauvinism, militarism, jingoism, and messianism. These maladies, from which mankind has long suffered, did not leave Konstantin Aksakov untouched. Within Moscow Slavophilism was always the latent and potential strength of Russian nationalism, just as nationalism was ever present in the Western nations, several of which were scheming in the nineteenth century over the fate and territorial possessions of the "sick man of Europe." The wave of patriotism that swept Russia in the mid-fifties when the French and English invaded the Crimea caused much soul searching in the Aksakov family. Being against the government (and the tsar) did not mean being against the army and the navy and the war that they were fighting, or against Russian national pride and interests.31 Even before war broke out, Konstantin had expressed his views on the 31 At a dinner on February 23, 1856, honoring the Sebastopol sailors Konstantin proposed a toast to the "brave Black Sea fleet" and to the Black Sea, which "was not in vain called in the old days a Russian sea." The toast has been preserved in the Manuscript Section of the Lenin Library, fond Pogodin, III, 25, 14.

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problem of the control of the Black Sea and the Dardanelles. In an unpublished memorandum (zapiska) of 1854 entitled "About the Eastern Question," he declared that Constantinople should go to Russia.32 This was the standard Slavophil opinion on the matter— though whether this constitutes "testimony to the conception of panSlavism inside classical Slavophilism" is debatable.33 By the middle forties the Slavophils were aware of the close relationship between Russia and the non-Russian Slavs, particularly the Orthodox South Slavs. Russia's Christianity had come from Constantinople, by way of Bulgaria and Macedonia, together with the Cyrillic alphabet and written Church Slavonic, and they acknowledged also that the zadruga in the Balkans, particularly among the Montenegrins, was a communal form, no less pure and probably no less ancient that the Russian mir Therefore when Konstantin and the other Slavophils theorized about Christianity, Orthodoxy, and the mir, they stood on an inclined plane that leveled off in the Balkans among the Orthodox South Slavs. This awareness was responsible for their religious, cul­ tural pro-Slav sentiments—and for the political-diplomatic zeal of the later Russian pan-Slavs. Konstantin was quite in the trend of the times in being aroused to expansionist aspirations for Russia as the Ottoman Empire began to crumble. But though he was no doubt sincere in his desire for the freedom of the Slavs, he did not grasp the complexities of the situ­ ation. "Turkish authority in Europe which has thus far been vol­ untarily endured by the mighty Christian nations is a shame for all Christianity," he declared in "The Eastern Question": "The Slavic nations must be liberated and must form their own separate prin­ cipalities in accordance with the various nationalities, and these must be under Russian protection as Serbia is at present."34 His gross simplification of the problem bears out Ivan's opinion, shared by others as well, that Konstantin was on the whole "quite indifferent to the Slavs" until the last years of his life.35 As we saw in the last chapter, Konstantin's interest in the Russian language never broadened into an interest in the movement for an all-Slav language, although this movement coincided in time with 32 His poem "Orel Rossii" (The Russian Eagle) published in the Moscow Gazette in the same year expresses the same idea. 33 Cf. I. N. Kovaleva, "Slavianofily i zapadniki ν period krymskoi voiny (18551856gg)," Istoricheskie zapiski, 1967, no. 80, p. 184; Ε. V. Tarle, Krymskaia voina (Moscow-Leningrad, 1950), I, 450, 531-532. 34 Quoted in S. A. Nikitin, SIavianskie komitety ν Rossii ν 1858-1876 godahk (Mos­ cow, 1960), p. 29. 35 Ibid., p. 32.

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his publicistic work. He could not easily have escaped exposure to the Slav agitation through Pogodin, Khomiakov, Gaj, and the Uni­ versity of Moscow's Slav specialists from the 1840's on. In 1850 he even wrote a fourteen-stanza poem to the Slavs, "K slavianam," in which he attributed to the Slavs in general some of the qualities and characteristics which he normally considered as distinguishing the Russians from the Western Europeans. The Slavs were the "nation of peace," who had brought "triumph" with the "price of moral blessing": Will the Slavonic nations as a whole Be forever nailed to Western vain talk? For there is no burden heavier than the spiritual yoke, There is no sickness worse than a wounded soul. True, it is Russia that would be the salvation. In Russia he saw a nation "unconquered," which had "humbled many enemies" yet remained "always humble before God" and always true to the "faith of its forefathers." The poem ends with the confident assertion that the Slavs will "resurrect" the spirit of "brotherhood" and "peace" and will proclaim to the world the true "work of glory yet unheard."36 Thus even under the pressures of the Crimean War, Konstantin's desire to see the Balkan Slavs liberated from the Turks was out­ weighed by his nationalistic aspiration to see Constantinople in Rus­ sian hands. Uppermost in his mind (and in this he differed not at all from most intelligent and concerned Russians at that time] was the desperateness of Russia's internal situation, with the double bur­ den of autocracy and serfdom. Throughout the war and in the year following the Peace of Paris, Konstantin hammered away at these problems. Again and again, in his well-known "Memorandum [zapiska] to the Tsar" (1855) and in his editorials in Molva (1857), his themes were for the most part those of the choric principle; the state versus the people (zemlia) and the relations between the upper class and the people; Russia and Western culture; the nature and role of science and scholarship; and to a lesser extent emancipation of the serfs. Only occasionally did his strong sense of nationalism flare up into political issues as such. And when at the end of his life circum­ stances focused before him the Slav question, he saw more danger for the non-Russian Slavs in Austria and the Hapsburgs than in the moribund Ottoman Empire. It is true that on the wave of patriotism and nationalism caused by the Crimean War came the unmistakable signs that within Sla­ vophilism were contained, among other things, the seeds of pan36

Russkii arkhiv, 1879, no. 2, pp. 224-225.

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Slavism. Konstantin no less than the other Slavophils showed this tendency. Yet it would be a serious error to disregard his major concerns and contributions to Slavophilism (without which he would merit little attention in Russian literature or here) and to highlight instead his pan-Slavism, a sporadic latecomer in his con­ siderations and something peripheral to his thought. Perhaps no other sign of Konstantin's change from his early Hegelianism to his firm and abiding Slavophilism is as characteristic as the fate of his hymn to the individuum. This, of course, appeared in his dissertation on Lomonosov in the early forties. By the end of the decade he had already served notice that the choric principle was his and Slavo­ philism's counterproposal to the Western philosophic and then cur­ rent liberal apotheosis of the individual. For this reason alone Aksakov should never be labeled a liberal, as is often done in the literature, and decidedly not in the mid-nineteenth-century meaning of the term. The choric principle, properly understood, was aimed not at the stifling of the individual but at the containment of egoism, at the socialization and Christianization of the human being. It was in a way a synthesis of Aristotle's conception of the zoon poJitikon and the Christian doctrine of the brotherhood of man under the fatherhood of God.

CHAPTER 13

NAROD, COMMUNE, AND CLAN

IN THE MIDDLE of the nineteenth century the Slavophils stood for Orthodoxy free from government "protection" and for an organized church that would be more in accord with Khomiakov's doctrine of sobornost'. They also stood for the historical and actual, living peas­ ant commune, in which they placed great hopes for the future, and they firmly believed in the greatness and ability of the Russian people (narod) to show Russia the way to its moral regeneration. Well-mean­ ing though the Slavophils were, as landlords in comfortable circum­ stances they had little comprehension of the plight of the peasant serfs, who comprised the vast majority of the people. Among the Slavophils none was more sanguine, more ardently hopeful of Rus­ sia's cultural and moral leadership in the world than Konstantin Aksakov, and yet none was further removed than he from the his­ torical and existing reality of the narod that he so extolled. While Sergei and Ivan Aksakov despaired that Konstantin would ever learn even the most elementary truths about every day existence or would ever be financially self-supporting, he let his imagination and fantasy determine his views of the Russian serf and peasant. In his "comedy" Prince Lupovitsky, as Vengerov ironically remarks, "all his peasants are very well-off, and in a fit of magnanimity give eight hundred rubles of which the elder contributes one hundred" in order to ransom two recruits from military service.1 In 1851, when Konstantin Aksakov wrote Lupovitsky, and for the next several years, he seems not to have had a clear view of the horrors of serfdom. Vengerov was right in saying that a foreign observer guided by Konstantin's play would have concluded that the muzhik was really a fortunate type. In other words, Konstantin was himself the deluded one who drew from his own imagined world of the Russian peasant and narod far-reaching conclusions which in turn infused his Sla­ vophil ideology. 1 Vengerov, Konstantin Aksakov, p. 241; see also K. S. Aksakov, Kniaz' Lupovitsky ili priezd ν derevniu (Moscow, 1856), pp. 81-82.

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In the course of the century many of Russia's greatest and noblest minds agonized over the fate and character of the Russian peasant and people. The Slavophils were among the most unrestrained in their hopes and expectations. Among them Konstantin Aksakov's version of the narod was the most extreme and the most idealized. Furthermore, he more than any of the other Slavophils slanted it in a peculiar way, eventually arriving at a striking Slavophil distortion. Vengerov's contrast between the Westerners and the Slavophils is noteworthy for illuminating this point. He says that the "desire to explain that the bonded slave is also a human being and that therefore his suffering must be alleviated, that is the base upon which stands the love of people [narodoliubie] of the Belinsky school of writers." Among the members of this school he names Turgenev, Grigorovich, and Nekrasov, for whom the "muzhik was close because they saw in him the human being, and the human being at that in need of sympathy and help." But for the Slavophils and particularly for Aksakov the "source of their love of the people came from a dia­ metrically opposite direction": for Konstantin the "peasant was dear principally as the keeper of the 'truly Russian' traditions."2 The mu­ zhik was to be looked up to, not pitied, and in the process his plight was perhaps forgotten. To these must be added a third view of the narod, perhaps less well publicized but older, more prevalent, and more apparent than these, an attitude of which Konstantin was painfully, almost mor­ bidly aware. This is the view he tried to expose and ridicule in Prince Lupovitsky, in which the Frenchified Russian aristocrat conceives the muzhik as a sort of subhuman species and condescendingly at­ tempts to bring the fruits of French culture to him.3 A similar attitude was expressed in the 1850's by the liberal bourgeois Westerner V. P. Botkin, who in an argument with Nekrasov about literature 2Vengerov,

Konstantin Aksakov, pp. 241-242. Konstantin's Liberation of Moscow this comedy has little literary or dramatic, artistic merit, but it does have some value as an ideological and propaganda document. Its full title suggests its theme, Prince Lupovitsky or Arrival in the Village. The arrival from Paris of a Russian prince, the carrier of French culture, into a Russian village was long overdue. Lupovitsky is convinced that he could "graft [privit'] European enlightenment" on the Russian narod however "savage" and "uneducated" it might be since it was badly in need of Western "sivilizatsiia." He knows this in the Paris cafe, where the play opens, and even more when he arrives in the village: "Our people must be like us, Europeans." This is the refrain heard throughout. Konstantin's view was that the people were the ones who could teach the gentry, not vice versa. See K. S. Aksakov, Lupovitsky, pp. 13, 14, 15, 18, 29. 3 Like

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ridiculed Nekrasov's wish to write for the illiterate Russian peasants. Nekrasov wanted to become a "Russian Beranger," he said, but "my dear, you have not taken into account that in France the people are civilized whereas our Russian [people] are Eskimos, Hottentots!" He was glad to say "yes, I am a European, and not a Russian savage." 4 Since the eighteenth century, this sort of arrogance and cynicism had been daily demonstrated to the Russian peasant in countless spoken and unspoken ways, for with the French influence had come new barriers between master and serf. To the economic, social, ad­ ministrative, and personal barriers were added the landlords' West­ ern dress, language, manners, education, and all too often their su­ perficial culture and polish, so that a household serf on the Iusupov or Sheremetev Moscow estates lived and worked not in the heart of Russia but in a small-scale, make-believe, artificial Versailles. One could scarcely argue with Konstantin Aksakov and his fellow Sla­ vophils that there was neither dignity nor self-respect nor true crea­ tivity in the Botkin brand of liberal Westernism. Nor was there much that was edifying and worth preserving in the serf-sustained luxury and extravagance of the Iusupovs, Sheremetevs, and their like. In this last category of Russians with a definite attitude of supe­ riority toward the peasant and the narod Konstantin placed Gogol'. He did this on the basis of Gogol's Selected Passages from Corre­ spondence with Friends, the book that angered many of Gogol's friends and enemies alike. Konstantin's letter of May 1848 was almost an itemization of his criticism, and I have already referred to it in Chapters 7 and 9. It was Gogol's "Letter to a Russian Landlord" (Russkii pomeschik), along with some remarks in the introduction to the second edition of Dead Souls, that drew Konstantin's attacks. Specifically, he objected to the way in which the "landlord was placed above" the narod morally, so that the peasant, the "village wild man" and "unwashed mug" in Gogol's oblique language, was to be guided and instructed by the "upper" class, the "flower" of the Russian nation.5 This touched off the Scythian in Konstantin, to 4 See A. Ia. Golovacheva (Panaeva), "Vospominaniia," Istoricheskii vestnik, 1889, August, pp. 488-489; V. Z. Zavitnevich, Russkie Slavianofily i ikh znachenie ν dele ucheniia idei narodnosti i samobytnosti (Kiev, 1915), pp. 26-27. A good illustration of a widespread view in ruling circles is Chernyshevsky's ironic reference of 1862 in the name of "our circle": "We think that the people [narod] are ignorant, full of crude prejudices and blind hatred for everything that is not in accord with their savage customs. They do not distinguish among people who wear German dress. They will treat them all alike. They will have no mercy for our science, our poetry, our art. They will destroy our whole civilization." N. G. Chernyshevsky, Poinoe sofaranie sochinenii (Moscow, 1951), X, 92. 5Gogol', Sochineniia, pp. 1219-1220.

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use an expression of the time: Gogol' deserved "great blame" for his "worship [poklonenie] of the public and contempt for the narod."6 No Russian could commit a worse sin than this. For Konstantin, the "public" stood for everything that was artificial, shallow, amoral if not immoral, and non-Russian; the narod stood for the Russian peas­ antry, the supreme and the sublime—a contrast that he repeatedly used.

Although during the nineteenth century virtually every articulate Russian took up the cause of the narod and the principle of nation­ ality (narodnost'), Aksakov's position was unique in its extremism. At the other end perhaps was Botkin's. Between were ranged the lesser as well as the great novelists (Gogol', Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy), poets, playwrights, satirists, publicists, journalists, and others from the intelligentsia; also the government and bureaucracy, church and clergy. The narod alone remained mute as before. Nor did the fascination with the narod vanish with the end of the century. That the theme of the narod was capable of producing polarization in the twentieth century as well as in the nineteenth is illustrated by N. A. Berdiaev's case, to which a brief reference can be made. Two years before he published his sympathetic biography of Khomiakov (1912) Berdiaev wrote a sustained diatribe against Slavo­ philism, the narod, Russian populism, and the East-West dichotomy, surpassing even the most severe nineteenth-century critics of Ak­ sakov's reverence for the narod. His outburst was touched off by Andrei Belyi's Serebrianyi golub' (Silver Dove), published in 1910. In his ten-page review, "Russkaia soblazn' " (Russian Temptation), Berdiaev saw a "mystical populism" in Belyi's novel, branding the narod in it a mystical element, "mighty but dark, almost demoniac." In no other nation, he says, is there "such a cult of the people as among us, such thirst to receive the truth from the people, such thirst for union [slianie] with the people."7 There were five "forms" or types of Russian populism, beginning with the Slavophil. Then came "populism" proper, followed by Tolstoyism, then populism "even in Russian Marxism," and finally the most ominous, "mystical" populism. All these sought truth in the people but in effect "put them above truth." Berdiaev says that 6

Russkii arkhiv, 1890, book I, p. 154. A. Berdiaev, Russkaia mysJ', 1910, book XI, p. 106. Thoughts and sentiments about the people (narod) similar to those in the following pages, but toned down, were expressed by Berdiaev and some of the other contributors to the symposium Vekhi (Signposts) in 1909. See N. A. Berdiaev et al., Vekhi. Sbornik statei ο russkoi inteiiigentsii, 2nd ed. (Moscow, 1909), pp. 2-3, 6-11, 16-17, 30, 59, 62-63, 86, 89,143144. 7 N.

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"populism is a chronic Russian disease," and the "craving to dis­ solve, to give oneself wholly to something, is a purely Russian crav­ ing." He attacked idolatry in general, as well as this "idolatry of the people," which "is a lie and a sin." Belyi was guilty of "much mys­ tical Slavophilism—troubled, disturbed, catastrophic Slavophilism, connected with Gogol' and Dostoevsky."8 This was Berdiaev's restrained, moderate view of Slavophilism, the narod, and populism, but the momentous events between 1910 and 1918 added force and vehemence to his denunciations: The religion of the narod is . . . the religion of nonexistence [nebytie] . . . of a dark, all-swallowing, all-devouring chasm. . . . Populist ideology is a pure product of the intelligentsia . . . an expression of its alienation from the narod and the antithesis to narod. For the narod itself populism is impossible. The best people from the narod . . . strove for light, knowledge, culture, for a way out of the people's darkness. They never idealized the narod and did not worship it.9 Reacting with furious indignation to the Bolshevik revolution he asked in 1918, "What has this narod shown itself to have—this narod so believed in by the . . . Slavophils . . . by Kireevsky, Herzen, Dostoevsky, and the men of the seventies, 'going'to the people?" His answer was: This narod displayed primitive savagery, darkness, hooliganism, thirst, the instincts of slaughterers [pogromshchikov], the psy­ chology of revolting slaves; . . . the snout of a wild beast. . . . The vast and dark kingdom of the muzhik swallows and devours all blessings and values. In it is drowned every image of man. . . . The immense dark kingdom of the muzhik must travel the long road of the civilizing process of education and enlighten­ ment, [for] the Dionysian orgies of the dark kingdom of the mu­ zhik threaten to transform Russia with all its values and blessings into nonexistence.10 8Berdiaev,

"Russkaia soblazn'," pp. 107-108, 109-111. N. A. Berdiaev, "Idei i zhizn'. Vlast' i psikhologiia intelligentsii," Russkaia my si', 1918, books I-II, p. 103. 10Ibid., pp. 104-105. Berdiaev gave the highest ranking to those thinkers who had the lowest opinion of the Russian peasant: "Among the Russian thinkers the most correct was Chaadaev. Solov'ev was also right in much for he was free of populist illusions. Gogol' saw in Russia the snout of the wild beast but then repented. . . . Slavophilism has already been killed in all its varieties and forms. Its faith in Holy 9

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As in the polemics of the 1840's and 1850's, so in the case of Berdiaev's polemics: one extreme ("one-sidedness") begets another, both equally removed from reality and doubtless from the truth. For between the saint-like muzhik of Konstantin Aksakov, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy, and the demon-like muzhik of Berdiaev there were millions of living and breathing Russian peasants. Exploited and brutalized for centuries, they lacked the means to rise above the harsh and oppressive conditions of their environment. And yet there were individuals who managed to struggle out of the bog. The po­ tential for great cultural, artistic, and scientific creativity was there, within the Russian nation. And by the end of the Slavophil period, despite the miserable conditions, this potential was being strikingly realized in a number of ways, particularly in literature. Like all na­ tions, Russia had the potential for great moral achievements, and what it most needed was not to be extolled as angelic or condemned as satanic but the opportunity to realize the best within it. The eternal human dilemma remains: How should a people bring out the good and inhibit the evil within themselves? The polemic about the narod was barren and wasteful, for it bypassed the vast majority of the Russian people, and therefore it could not have advanced the cause of the Russian peasantry. It did, however, serve to show the wide range of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century views and opinions of the Russian peasant and the narod. Reflecting upon the extreme and highly speculative views of Konstantin Aksakov on the Russian people, one begins to see that the key to his attitude lies in the relationship between the Russian peas­ ant and the peasant commune. But it is often difficult to see a clear priority. Was the Russian peasant noble because he had from early times been blessed with the supposed proto-Christian peasant com­ mune, or was the commune fortunate to have as its members the virtuous and, at times it seemed to Aksakov, saint-like Russian peasRus' today sounds as an insufferable falsehood and lies. . . . All of Dostoevsky's positive ideas about the Russian people have proved to be an illusion. . . . L. Tolstoy has to be recognized as the greatest Russian nihilist, the destroyer of all values and sacredness, the annihilator of culture. Tolstoy has triumphed and so has his anar­ chism, his idea of nonresistance, his denial of state and culture, his moralistic demand of equality in poverty, in nonexistence, and his submission to the kingdom of the muzhik and physical labor. . . . [But finally] Tolstoyism's godless nihilism has been unmasked along with its frightful poison that is destroying the Russian soul." Cele­ brating the demise of the Russian intelligentsia, perhaps a bit indiscriminately and prematurely, Berdiaev announced, "as the line deriving from Kireevsky so also the line deriving from Herzen" has come to an end. "Slavophilism, populism, Tolstoyism, Russian religious conceit, and Russian revolutionary conceit, all are finished, they have been tragically outlived." Ibid., pp. 105, 106.

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ant? The first alternative is given the greater weight in Konstantin's thought, and his Slavophil Orthodoxy at times emerges as the some­ what questionable bedrock of this ideology. To him the commune was not merely a human embodiment of the essence of Christian living; it was also Russia's basic and indispensable social and po­ litical institution. In other words, Russia at its noblest and truest was not an empire and not a state but a "great commune" consisting of a multitude of village communes. Konstantin Aksakov was not well acquainted with contemporary Western political theory; he was probably not familiar with the con­ cepts of the original "state of nature" and of natural law, although Kireevsky and Samarin among the Slavophils, were. At any rate these concepts did not have a place in Aksakov's political, ethical, and economic considerations. He seems to have been unaware of them even though, since the latter third of the eighteenth century, they had passed beyond theory and ideology and had become embodied in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, the Declaration of Independence, and the American Constitution, and had also found expression in various ideological and programmatic principles in the nineteenth century. Nor does he seem to have been aware of the concept of the social contract, with which Samarin was familiar.11 It is a safe assumption that neither the concepts of the state of nature and natural law nor the social-contract theory, products of Western rationalism and secularism, would have been acceptable to Konstantin. It is certain that Western rationalism, secularism, and le­ galism were not acceptable to Khomiakov and Kireevsky, and Sla­ vophil political thought did not suffer from this in their eyes. In the West, the hypothetical and nebulous notion of the original "state of nature," extolled by Rousseau and others, was presumed to have had as its most characteristic features freedom, a primitive social consciousness, and common ownership of property. An even11

The Slavophils Kave often and uncritically been reproached by Westerners and Western students of Russian affairs for being "impractical," "Utopian," and "reac­ tionary" because they advocated a return to principles such as communality and sobornost'. But were they more impractical, Utopian, and reactionary than those who believed in the concepts of the state of nature and natural law? First one has to decide what state of nature—Hobbes's brutal savage or Rousseau's "virtuous and noble sav­ age." And if the Slavophils were reactionary for reverting to the historical past for inspirational principles, how much more reactionary were the state-of-nature believ­ ers, harking back to a hypothetical order which might have existed somewhere in prehistorical times? In fact Slavophil theorizing, like much of their contemporary Western theorizing, was bent on an improvement of existing conditions. With all the limitations of self-interest and class, the Slavophils realized, as have ideologists and philosophers since the days of Plato, that a degree of utopianism, that is, the existence of an ideal, however unattainable, is essential to the functioning of any polity if it is not to degenerate into a human jungle.

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tual return to this state, though perhaps with a higher social con­ sciousness, was subscribed to in various ways and for various pur­ poses by a variety of nineteenth-century Utopian socialists and by Marx, Bakunin, and the anarchists, among others. Whether Konstantin Aksakov knew it or not, he was in effect answering this Western, secular, anthropotheistic utopia with his communal, Chris­ tian-Orthodox dream. Who was more Utopian and more conservative: Aksakov and the Slavophils harking back to the historical past of two thousand years ago, or the "state of nature" believers reaching back many more thousands of years into man's dimmer, prehistorical past and the condition of statelessness? And what about natural law—did it sanction communal ownership of property as many so­ cialists believed, or the right to private property as Leo XIII asserted in the Rerum novarum? Thus we see Western, scientific, rational man (and many of the Russian Westerners) resting on the concepts of the state of nature and natural law, which are among the West's most fundamental and pervasive assumptions, not on science—not on mathematics and the laboratory, not even on historical fact—but, like the Slavophils, on faith, except that in the case of the commune the Slavophils were dealing with a historical and living institution. For Konstantin Aksakov, especially, the Russian and to a lesser extent the Slav com­ munal consciousness and organization had a far-reaching political, social, and economic potential. In addition he saw a religious, psy­ chological, and educational (vospitatel'naia) function in the present and future of the commune, IN MAY 1843 a Prussian specialist on agrarian affairs, Baron August

von Haxthausen, arrived in Moscow for a study tour of rural Russia, and he returned to Moscow on October 29 for a longer stay. Before his first stop in Moscow Haxthausen had heard of the Slavophils, and now he "wished very much to meet Khomiakov and Peter Kireevsky." He was well received in the Moscow salons and by Pogodin, who at first was suspicious.12 Several years later Haxthausen recalled his "most hospitable and benevolent reception" in Moscow. There, he said, he met "Messrs. Melgunov, Koshelev, Sverbeev, Chaadaev, Kireev, Kireevsky, the poet Khomiakov, and others. I came into closest contact, however, with Mr. Aksakov, one of the most brilliant men whose acquaintance I made in Russia."13 Exactly when and 12 Barsukov,

Pogodin, VII, 281-284. E.L.M. Schmidt, tr., S. F. Starr, ed., Studies on the Interior of Russia: August von Haxthausen (Chicago, 1972), p. 226. (Hereafter cited as Haxthausen, Studies.) See also S. F. Starr, "August von Haxthausen and Russia," Siavonic and East European Review, 1968, July, pp. 462-478. 13

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where he met Konstantin is not clear. But if Herzen's memory can be trusted we are certain of at least one subject that they discussed. In a page-long diary entry for May 13,1843, after a conversation with Haxthausen, Herzen says that he was struck by the visitor's "clear view about the order [byt] of our peasants, about landlord authority, local police, and administration in general. He found an important element, preserved from deep antiquity, our communality [obshchinnost']. It is necessary to develop it according to the demands of the time, etc."14 In chapter 30 of My Past and Thoughts (1855) Herzen elaborates his account of the meeting between Haxthausen and Konstantin Aksakov. Konstantin, he recalls, "at the beginning of the forties preached the peasant commune, mir, and artel'. He taught Haxthau­ sen to understand them."15 This passage has generally been taken as establishing the beginning of Konstantin's interest in the peasant commune. The interpretation is plausible, but it is not certain whether he actually studied this question himself or relied on the work of the other Slavophils.16 Though the mir and the commune as historical phenomena, existing institutions, and embryos for a future Russian socialist order were being discussed by the Slavophils from the late 1830's on, the polemics with the Westerners on this subject in the public press did not start until after the final break between the two camps in the mid-forties. Haxthausen's interest in the Rus­ sian peasant communal order following his six-month tour of Russia added considerable prestige and weight to the Slavophil thesis, and the publication of his three-volume Studien from 1847 to 1852 in Germany helped to publicize some of the Slavophil views abroad. In the journalistic exchanges between the Slavophils and the West­ erners the issues resolved into one main argument: the merits of the clan theory of ancient Russian society versus those of the communal theory. Kavelin's "View of the Juridical Order [byt] in Ancient Rus14 Herzen, Sochineniia, II, 281-282. One idea that may well have been discussed was the Saint-Simonian doctrine of abandoning private ownership in favor of the "right of use of land for one's lifetime." Haxthausen takes this up in chapter 3 of his Studies and concludes that "in Russia this system actually exists." But Haxthausen, like the Slavophils, failed to stress that in Russia at the time communal landownership existed for the peasants in the commune and the mir, not for the landlords. See Haxthausen, Studies, p. 92. 15 Herzen, Sochineniia, IX, 163. See also Vengerov, Konstantin Aksakov, p. 78, and also his "Konstantin Sergeevich," pp. 214-215; A. K. Borozdin, Literatumyia Kharakteristiki: Deviatnadtsatyi vek (St. Petersburg, 1905), II, issue I, 186. 16 Without going into Russia's distant past I have given this matter some attention, including a rudimentary assessment of Haxthausen's role in the "discovery" of the commune. See Xomjakov, p. 179n, 207, 208n, 210, 231; The Third Heart, pp. 79-86; Kireevskij, pp. 82, 203, 211.

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sia," published in 1847, upheld the clan theory. Samarin immedi­ ately responded with an article supporting the communal theory. Reduced to bare essentials, the commune-clan question asked whether or not the ancient Russian Slav was an ethically advanced, noble, socially conscious being with a deep predisposition for Chris­ tian living and morality. In the literature of the period this was presented as the argument of whether Russia's ancient social order was based on the clan (rod), blood principle or on the communal principle. Samarin's exchange with Kavelin represented only one stage of a polemic which engaged at one time or another all the early Slavophils, particularly Samarin, Khomiakov, and Konstantin Aksakov, and such moderate, academic, liberal Westerners as Kavelin, Sergei Solov'ev, and later, in the fifties, Boris Chicherin as well as at different times several others. After Herzen's departure for France at the end of 1847 and Belinsky's death less than a year later, and after the emergence of a younger generation of radical Westerners in the fifties, principally Chernyshevsky and Dobroliubov, the main opposition to the Slavophils came from the camp of the liberal West­ erners. Konstantin Aksakov, who up to the late forties had been concen­ trating on linguistics and philology in his dissertation on Lomonosov, was ready enough to enter the fray but for the time being re­ mained silent. The end of the forties marked the beginning of the period of heavy censorship, particularly onerous for the Slavophils during the last seven years of Nicholas I's reign. Whether or not this is sufficient to explain Konstantin's early public silence on the ques­ tion of the commune, it must have been a contributing factor; it will be remembered that both Sergei and Konstantin were under govern­ ment ban with respect to their "Russian" dress and beards, and both Ivan Aksakov and Iurii Samarin were briefly detained by the Third Section. In any case neither of Konstantin's two plays of that period, though they both concentrate on the Russian peasant and narod, deals in any special way with the communal order. Given Konstan­ tin's well-attested penchant for pro-commune propaganda, this omission does not seem accidental. When he ventured into print, in the Slavophil symposium of 1852, his strong opinions on the commune-clan question not only contributed to the banning of all further issues of the symposium but unwittingly provided the Moscow cen­ sorship committee with the opportunity to reproach him for his study of the alleged "nonexistent communal order in Russia."17 "Quoted in Vengerov, "Konstantin Sergeevich," p. 212; also his Konstantin Ak­ sakov, pp. 57-58. At the same time (1852) the minister of education, Prince P. A. Shirinsky-Shikhmatov, recommended Konstantin's essay to the "attention of the cen-

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Konstantin Aksakov's firm belief, shared by the other Slavophils, was that the dominant social organization among the early Russians was the commune. Coupled with this belief was the sanguine ex­ pectation that it would continue to be such in the future. At that time, when industrialism with its worldwide ramifications was rap­ idly transforming the social, economic, and political life of the West and when the problem of the age-old institution of serfdom was the all-important issue in Russia, the immediate course of Russian social, political, and economic life was clearly an urgent practical problem. If Konstantin could show that Russia's ancient order was different from and superior to the Western, that Russia had followed its own typical historical path, the task of advocating a different indigenous course in the future would be easier. With this in mind it is not difficult to see—through his passionate attachments and his highly subjective interpretations of early Russian culture, and through his fanciful, unhistorical rationalization—a hard-headed propagandistic zeal which he put to use in his recommendations to Alexander II and in his short publicistic works in Molva. His boundless faith in the Russian peasant of the past and present was being conscibusly and incessantly projected into Russia's future order. For reasons of his own, among his various challenges Konstantin singled out Solov'ev and the University of Dorpat professor J.P.G. Ewers. He also referred to Professor Ν. V. Kalachov and to one or two others. It is not the purpose here to deal with the debate that Ewers touched off with his clan theory of early Russian society. 18 It is rather to single out a few developments that bear directly on Konstantin's Slavophil position, and to focus on what, though perhaps appearing as an esoteric academic controversy, was in truth a fun­ damental ideological disagreement. 19 For in the Slavophil scheme of sorship" for the "novelty of its point of view" as well as for "spreading democratic orientation of public opinion in foreign countries against which we must shield ourselves by all possible means." Barsukov, Pogodin l XII, 118. 18 In 1826 Ewers published what is generally considered his major work, Das alteste Recht der Russen in seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung (Dorpat, 1826). For a recent summary discussion see Illeritsky and Kudriavtsev, Istoriografiia istorii SSSR, pp. 158-164. See also L. V. Cherepnin, "S. M. Solov'ev kak istorik," in L. V. Cherepnin et al., eds., S. M. Solov'ev. Istoriia Rossii s drevneishikh vremen (Moscow, 1959), vols. 1-2, book I, pp. 9, 11; A. G. Mazour, Modern Russian Historiography, 2nd ed. (New York, 1959), p. 99. 19 For two succinct and clear expositions on the clan theory see P. N. Miliukov, "Iuridcheskaia shkola ν russkoi istoriografii. (Solov'ev, Kavelin, Chicherin, Sergeevich)," Russkaia mysl', 1886, no. 6, pp. 80-92; A. E. Presniakov, "S. M. Solov'ev ν ego vliianii na razvitie russkoi istoriografii," in S. N. Valk et al., eds., Voprosy istoriografii i istochnikovedeniia istorii SSSR (Moscow-Leningrad, 1963), pp. 76-86. Presniakov's article was delivered as a public lecture in 1920. With respect to the Slavophil

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things the principle of communality was, next to that of Orthodox sobornost' and the age-old and still living peasant commune, the noblest secular creation of the Russian Slavic spirit, whereas for the so-called "juridical" or "historical-juridical" school, the opponents of Slavophilism, the clan theory was the keystone of Russian social organization as well as of their own schemes of historical interpre­ tation. With such fundamental issues at stake, what might under ordinary circumstances have been a scholarly debate among academic his­ torians and specialists in social studies turned into a prolonged and often bitter ideological polemic. In this Konstantin Aksakov played his role to the full and was by no means the unqualified loser. How­ ever, both sides created problems and complications, inherent in all polemics, which render difficult the separation of the factual and believable from the tactical and strategic, thus constantly sidetrack­ ing the student of the period into the poorly illuminated recesses of human motivation. When at the end of the forties Konstantin gave his attention to Russian history and its characteristic spirit and institutions he had already done a good deal of thinking and reflecting on these matters. The results put on paper were the three fragments already mentioned, for a total of twenty-four printed pages: the first fragment "On the Basic Principles of Russian History," the second "On the Same," and the last "About Russian History."20 Altogether they contain in sum­ mary, sometimes in epigrammatic form, many of Konstantin's most characteristic and best-known Slavophil concepts. We shall yet re­ turn to many of the concepts embodied in these fragments, but for the present the focus is on the communal principle and the kindred choric principle. At the beginning of the first fragment Konstantin, in reference to early Slav social or public life, equated two of his most characteristic concepts, and in the process clarified some of his terminology. The "commune," he states, as organized among the early Slavs, "bears the simple name of land [zemlia]." Here he is using the term zemlia as a synonym not only for the common Russian people, the peasantry, but also for the commune, which historically as well as in his day was a village, peasant institution. A page or two later he speaks of the "commune of the land" (obshchina zemskaia), thus designating attitude it is better focused than Miliukov's study and includes, on the question of the "historical-juridical" school, in addition to those in Miliukov, T. N. Granovsky, F. I. Leontovich, I. E. Zabelin, and Solov'ev's most illustrious student, V. 0. Kliuchevsky. There are also pertinent observations in regard to K. S. Aksakov's position. 20 K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia 1, 1-24. 1

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the common people of Russia who, in reference to the coming of Rurik to Kiev, "did not elect, but summoned the prince to them." He begins the third fragment with the assertion that "Russia is a land [zemlia] entirely original [samobytnaia], not at all similar to the European states and countries." He elaborates that his emphasis on the term "land" is not on its physical features and geography but on the people of the land, the narod, or the peasantry. He makes this explicit by stating that the two words "which express people [narod], and authority, or Land [Zemlia] and State," are distinct. He gives his strong preference to the first. There is a profound dichotomy in Konstantin Aksakov's thought on the key subject of "Land or people" (Zemlia ili narod) on the one hand, and state or government (gosudarstvo), and the head of the state, the gosudar', on the other. To this problem, and the relationship between "Land" and state, we shall have to return. Here, a further clarification of Konstantin's meaning when he refers to the common Russian people and to their relationship to communal Christian prin­ ciples is essential in formulating the basis of his ideology. "Land, as this word states," Konstantin says in the third fragment, refers to the "indeterminate and peaceful state of the people."21 Furthermore, for him the common Russian people, the peaceful peasantry, were inseparable not only from the land but also from the commune, which in turn was the embodiment of the essence of Christianity. The confluence of several kindred concepts into the principal, ir­ reducible starting point or perhaps more accurately the branching out of kindred concepts from their ultimate source, Christianity, is summed up in Konstantin's "About Contemporary Man," familiar from earlier references. In this he declared the "communal principle, the divine principle," and took great satisfaction in the belief that the "people who understood the lofty meaning of the commune and took it as a principle were the Slavic people, primarily the Russian people who created the mir for themselves even before the coming of Christianity."22 It is perhaps understandable why Konstantin was determined to oppose all those who disregarded the communal principle in early Russian society and insisted on the prevalence of the clan principle. In 1850 he published an article in the Moscow Gazette entitled "Was the 'Izgoi' a Clan or a Social Phenomenon?" The article was a reply to one in which another author maintained that the izgoi—meaning the declasse or the "displaced social elements in Kievan society"— 21

Ibid., pp. 3, 5, 7, 10, 13. S. Aksakov, "Contemporary Man," p. 259.

22 K.

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were an outgrowth of clan society. Konstantin accepted the izgoi or izgon as a traditional part of society in Russia, but disagreed with the assumption that Kievan society was based on the clan. By the time the term izgoi appeared, he concludes, the Kievan Slavs already had a well-established "communal, civic order," and therefore izgoi had a "social, civic," not a clan meaning. An izgoi was a "person who was expelled or expelled himself from the commune or estate."23 Although Konstantin seldom went out of his way to document his position, here he made an exception. The result was his ninety-page essay on the ancient Russian social order.24 By his standards and definition of scholarship, he came as close to historical research in this long, rambling essay as he was ever to come. He begins by attempting to define historical scholarship, using the term nauka. Since nauka, in addition to scholarship, also means science, as in the mathematical, laboratory approach to physics and chemistry, he unwittingly caused some confusion. "Scholarship [nauka]," he says, "is nothing other than consciousness of the subject, knowledge of its laws [deriving] from the subject itself." To this narrow definition he added, "Meanwhile scholarship [nauka] is often understood as a collection of rules decreed beforehand and applicable to the sub­ ject." Thus "Russian phenomena" were often subjected to the "tyr­ anny of science in this latter meaning," and this category of phe­ nomena included Russian "history, poetry, and language." These sentiments were directed against four eminent German scholars, G. S. Bayer, G. F. Muller, A. L. Schlozer, and J.P.G. Ewers, who pioneered in Russian historical studies during the late eight­ eenth and early nineteenth centuries. None of them, Konstantin says, "belonged to the narod [or] had living bonds with it," and yet they "undertook to explain its life." Worse still, some Russians who "ac­ cepted the foreign point of view also looked in an un-Russian way [ne po-russki] on their own history and on everything that was their own." He placed in this category Karamzin and others, and even to a certain extent Lomonosov. Konstantin's bias and motives are suf­ ficiently apparent not to need further elaboration. Much more valid, and advanced for its time, was another of his observations—that the simple political approach to history, or as he said a mere concern 23 K.

S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, I, 38. full title is "On the Ancient Orderamong the Slavs in General and the Russian Slavs in Particular. Apropos of Opinions on the Clan Order." This long essay, first published in the Slavophil symposium Moskovskii sbornik in 1852, was printed in the same year as a separate pamphlet. It was also included in K. S. Aksakov's Polnoe sobranie sochinenii (Moscow, 1861), I, 59-124. All references here are to the pamphlet edition, cited hereafter as K. S. Aksakov, On the Ancient Order. 24 The

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with "princes, war, diplomatic negotiations, and laws," does not exhaust the life of a nation or its history. This was the approach of Schlozer and Karamzin, and it was too narrow. The time had come for historians to turn also to national characteristics, to "social, civic, and internal reasons of its life."25 Following this brief introduction we come once again to the fa­ miliar defense of family, communal, social, and civic life in ancient Russia and the argument that these, not the blood-tie, the clan-ordered patriarchal system, formed the basis of Kievan life. These ar­ guments are interspersed with the other familiar theme, that of Or­ thodox Christianity, which, standing above the commune, sanctified and ennobled it in complete, as it were, preordained harmony and mutual compatibility. Konstantin does not deny that the clan order existed in any form among the early Russian Slavs, but he holds that it left no marks in the face of the overpowering commune. It is also true, he says, that the clan order existed among the ancient Romans, the Germans, and particularly the Scots, "where it even now has not completely disappeared." He also finds it among the nomadic Kirghiz tribes and the Bukeevska horde. He accepts, too, Kavelin's contention that the "principle of blood kinship existed in Roman and Chinese societies."26 But he totally disagrees with Karamzin's assertion that Russian society in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was based on the same principle. In answering his own question, "Did the clan order exist among the Slavs?" Konstantin relies heavily on the well-known sixth-cen­ tury Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesarea, not directly but through Safarik's classic Slavic Antiquities, which Solov'ev had also used.27 The evidence that Konstantin found indirectly in Procopius is circumstantial, fragmentary, and inconclusive, but he staked much on it, as others before and after him have done. Procopius looms large and extremely important because factual, authenticated infor­ mation about the life of the early Slavs is extremely scarce, and because of Procopius' considerable but not untarnished reputation. Procopius, in Konstantin's words, tells us that the "Slavs do not submit to a single man," that they live under the "people's admin­ istration" (narodnoe pravienie), and that "this witness speaks clearly against a clan order, for such a democratic arrangement contradicts such an order." Furthermore, Konstantin says, Procopius tells us that the "Slavs had the custom of consulting together about all mat25

K. S. Aksakov1 On the Ancient Order, pp. 3-4. pp. 18, 30. 27 P. J. Safarik, SIowanske starozitnosti (Prague, 1837), pp. 965, 966, 968-970. 26 Ibid.,

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ters." This clearly points to a people's or communal organization. The Slavophils, Konstantin Aksakov in particular, made much of this consultative principle, expressed as a skhodka, a meeting or assembly. Somewhat offhandedly, as if no further evidence were necessary, Konstantin cites the late sixth-century emperor Mauricius (also by way of Safarik) and one or two Western medieval sources in support of his thesis in favor of the communal principle. Summing up his case, as opposed to the clan theory of Ewers et al., he says, "In front of us emerges in the most remote times communal organization, the familiar assembly [skhodka], and the familiar unanimity [edinoglasie]."28 The next step was to demonstrate the existence of the communal principle and organization among some of the Western and South Slavs. For the early Czech Slavs Aksakov chose one of the oldest Czech and Slav written documents, the song known as Sud Liubosha (The Trial of Liubosha). (Here again he relied heavily on the schol­ arship and authority of Safarik's Slavic Antiquities.) In the Trial of Liuboshα he finds confirmation that the principle of primogeniture was "abhorent to the Slavs," that there is testimony in support of the "family and social-civic [obshchestvennyi] Slav order," and that if the clan order appeared it was government imposed, not an organic development. In matters of landownership, the family "itself became a commune," since the "whole commune had the right to land," and the popular consultative veche was also conceived as "a com­ mune."29 This led Konstantin to a strong affirmation of one of Slavophilism's most cherished principles, that of the family. It is evident that he considered the communal and family principles inseparable. "The sense of family, and family order, were strong in the Slav nations, are strong now, and will be strong in the future as long as they do not lose their nationality." He sees the "family commune" as a "sa­ cred and moral" concept without "any calculation," and concludes that what stood out among the Slavs was not clan but "family and commune." After a brief digression on the early communal order among the Montenegrins and Serbs he returns to Kievan Russia and the Chronicle of Nestor, cautioning that the word clan (rod) had several meanings besides the basic one. His conclusion is that rod should be interpreted as "family," not clan as in Ewers and his followers. In the well-known old code of laws, "Russian Justice" 28

K. S. Aksakov, On the Ancient Order, pp. 31-35. pp. 42, 45, 48.

29 Ibid.,

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(Russkaia pravda), Konstantin cites further confirmation of the fam­ ily and refutation of the "clan order."30 Konstantin finds additional support for his communal thesis in eleventh- and twelfth-century treaties with Byzantium concluded by Oleg, Igor, and Iziaslav. He gives examples of functioning veches in Kiev and other parts of Russia, but perhaps the best known of them all, the veche of Novgorod, is merely mentioned since, he explains, it is self-evident: "no one doubted . . . the communal organization of Novgorod." The essay concludes with a reaffirmation: "in ancient Russia there existed a social-civic order that was a communal struc­ ture, a communal order The Russian land was from the beginning the least patriarchal, the most familial, and the most social-civic, that is, the most communal land."31 IN THE COURSE of the clan-commune controversy, which lasted

throughout the 1850's, Konstantin Aksakov's early friendly relations with S. M. Solov'ev deteriorated as the two of them became the unyielding proponents of the opposing points of view.32 Solov'ev, an incipient Slavophil in his student days, was an avowed Westerner in the late 1840's, but he still mingled in Slavophil circles and was assumed by some, including the government, to be one of them.33 The Slavophils would have welcomed him in their camp, but as the clan-commune controversy grew hotter, such a possibility was ruled out. The antagonism between Konstantin and Solov'ev reached a bitter stage when Konstantin reviewed several volumes of Solov'ev's multivolume history of Russia. Some of this invective was described in Chapter 8, and in Chapter 14 I shall deal with particulars. To those accustomed to the longstanding Westerner view of the Moscow Slavophils, the following evaluations of the controversy 30Ibid.,

pp. 5Off., 56-57, 60, 66, 71. Ibid., pp. 76, 82, 91. 32 Solov'ev, in contrast to Konstantin Aksakov, was extraordinarily industrious and efficient. In Kliuchevsky's words, in three years (1845-1848) he prepared for "two examinations and two dissertations with four disputes not counting the first course in Russian history which he read at the University of Moscow during the academic year 1845-1846." Kliuchevsky stresses that during these early years Solov'ev formed the views that he held for the rest of his career. This was also the period during which he was in close contact with the Slavophils and formed his views on the clan theory of early Russian society. V. 0. Kliuchevsky, Sochineniia ν vos'mi tomakh (Moscow, 1959), VII, 128. 33 The government thought of denying Solov'ev his teaching position because it suspected him of Slavophil convictions. See K. N. Bestuzhev-Riumin, "Sergei Mikhailovich Solov'ev," in Biografli i kharakteristiki (St. Petersburg, 1882), p. 261; Christoff, Xomjakov, p. 104n. 31

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between Konstantin Aksakov and Solov'ev, made by some of the most reputable Russian historians, will probably come as a surprise— all the more so since none of the historians was pro-Slavophil. V. 0. Kliuchevsky was a loyal and devoted student of Solov'ev's at the University of Moscow. In his obituary of Solov'ev (1880) he calls attention to one of his teacher's most enduring and guiding convic­ tions, that is, that during the Kievan period the long-existing Russian "clan relations began to crumble," and the emergence of rival princes eventually helped the strongest of them to subdue the rest. "In this manner appeared the prince of Moscow.... Thus was accomplished the transition from clan relations between the princes to state rela­ tions: The Russian land in the north was brought under one authority and became the Moscow state." But this scheme, which, as Presniakov says, Solov'ev considered applicable "to the history of every nation," could not satisfy even the loyal Kliuchevsky.34 Solov'ev's thesis was bold and far-reaching, but what was its his­ torical foundation? If Kliuchevsky was too devoted a student to pur­ sue the question, Presniakov had no such inhibitions and went di­ rectly to the root of the problem. "Solov'ev," he says, "did not have at his disposal data for the establishment of the 'clan order' as the basic form of the social-civic order of the masses of people in ancient Russia." The clan theory was in fact Solov'ev's "sociological prem­ ise," which he conceived as a " 'natural and necessary' form of the 'initial order' of the Eastern Slavic tribes." And guided by Kliuchevsky, Presniakov echoed in effect Konstantin Aksakov's trenchant criticism of Solov'ev's history, which Aksakov asserted should be known as a history of the Russian state even more justly than Karamzin's. For Solov'ev, the clan order, Presniakov says, is the "starting point of the development of ancient Russian political forms," which he studies "more in the phenomena of the political order than in the phenomena of the civic life of the people." Presniakov cites both Kavelin and Chicherin as followers of the Solov'ev tradition. Kavelin held that the "state [or] political element alone concentrated in itself all the interest and all life in ancient Russia"; Chicherin maintained that the "essential significance of our history consists in the development of the state." These and other similar views led Presniakov to the conclusion that "a sad and grim judgment about Russian antiquity became the characteristic feature of the 'Westernism' of the so-called historical-juridical school, and 34 Cf. Presniakov, "S. M. Solov'ev ν ego vliianii," p. 79; Kliuchevsky, Sochineniia, VII, 138-143.

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under its influence entered as a material element in the tradition of our social-civic thought." With respect to the Slavophils, Solov'ev's "constructions and deductions played a purely negative role"—a role it might be added not unlike Chaadaev's a few decades earlier.35 And none of the Slavophils reacted more vigorously to Solov'ev than did Konstantin Aksakov: Advancing the significance of the "communal" principle of the early Russian order against Solov'ev's "theory of the clan order," Aksakov defended the great maturity and content of ancient Russian public life [obshestvennost'] and culture. Phenomena, as for example the izgoi, which to Solov'ev appeared as features of a clan order, Aksakov characterized as social-civic, that is, as a more elaborate, better defined, and more complex social-civic order than the primitive clan order based on blood relation­ ships.36 Presniakov attributes to this sort of approach the "rich development" of the study of various aspects of Russian "nationality" that occurred during the 1840's and 1850's as well as the better balance between investigations of political, state, and governmental questions and the cultural life of the people. More specifically, the Slavophils gave strong encouragement to the study of the ancient Russian social-civic order. The Slavophil point of view on the clan-commune argument, Aksakov's specifically, found a measure of support even from the West­ erner P. N. Miliukov. This emerged in an article published in 1886, which was in effect a continuation of his well-known work, Main Currents of Russian Historical Thought. Miliukov turns quickly from brief appraisals of the roles of Solov'ev, Kavelin, Chicherin, and Sergeevich to a sharp criticism of the "juridical" school of historians of which they are the outstanding representatives. Chief among its faults, he says, was the "preponderance of scheme over content": the "juridical formula appeared in scholarship [nauka] with the pre­ tension of being a supreme synthesis, a complete philosophy of his­ tory." Even in the hands of its ablest defenders, "this formula could 35 Presniakov saw a certain estrangement if not outright elitism in the attitude of the Westerners, notably Granovsky and Herzen, toward the people, the narod. For Granovsky the "masses . . . stagnate under the weight of historical and natural cat­ egories from which only the thought of individual personality is liberated; in this disintegration of thought in the masses is comprised the historical process." And Herzen as early as 1836 believed that "in civic society the progressive principle is the government, not the people [narod]." Presniakov, "S. M. Solov'ev ν ego vliianii," pp. 79, 81-82. 36 Ibid., pp. 82-83.

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neither convince nor satisfy the opponents of the juridical school." Konstantin Aksakov was "right in his own way [po svoemu] against Solov'ev and N. Krylov, and with Iu. Samarin against Chicherin, when they [the Slavophils] said that the new orientation studies only the forms, and that these historians do not see the 'spirit' behind the forms." Without defining Pogodin's relationship to the Slavophils, Miliukov refers scornfully to his work, and lest the reader jump to the conclusion that Miliukov was altering his ideological position, he concludes with the words, the "juridical school lay between us and its opponents, forever delivering us from Pogodin's scholarship [nauka], and from the philosophy of Slavophilism."37 After Kliuchevsky, Presniakov, and Miliukov it might seem su­ perfluous to add Vengerov's opinion on the clan-commune question. Yet it is worth our attention because Vengerov was a declared West­ erner who, as a biographer of Konstantin Aksakov, probably knew his life and career more intimately than the others did. Chapter 8 of the 1912 edition of Vengerov's biography of Aksakov has as its head­ ing: "Historical works. Destruction of the theory of the clan order. The theory of the communal-veche way of life." In the course of the chapter Vengerov discusses Konstantin's essay on the ancient Rus­ sian and Slav order in some detail, without softening his critical opinions; but on the crucial issue, commune versus clan, he comes out forcefully on Aksakov's side: "Konstantin Sergeevich definitely buried the theory of the clan order in the version in which it was created by Ewers and Solov'ev, and after his article not a single serious investigator would [again] raise this theory." Surveying the views of "historians and jurists" in the fifty years prior to his bi­ ography of Konstantin, he gives the following summary: Beliaev, Leshkov, Kostomarov, Shpilevsky, Gradovsky com­ pletely associate themselves with the views of Konstantin Sergeevich about the ancient Russian way of life. Others like Sergeevich [and] Vladimirsky-Budanov accept them with some qualifications. Finally a third category came forth with their own theories as Leontovich and Bestuzhev-Riumin with the zadruga theory or Sokolovsky with the regional [volostnaia] theory which in essence uses the same approach as the orientation created by Konstantin Sergeevich.38 This victory of Konstantin Aksakov, which Vengerov so generously acknowledged, was the result not so much of Konstantin's unquesN. Miliukov, "Iuiidicheskaia shkola ν russkoi istoriografii," p. 92. Vengerov, Konstantin Aksakov, pp. 151, 164.

37 P. 38

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tionable proof as of the weaknesses of the clan theory. Any consid­ eration of the age, origin, functions, character, historical course, and geographical distribution of the Russian commune, mir, and artel'— to say nothing of the non-Russian Slav commune—raises some ex­ tremely difficult and complex questions. Many of these questions Konstantin Aksakov did not even raise, much less answer. Some of them, indeed, can perhaps never be answered, simply because we do not have the necessary information.39 What remains irrefutable, however, is the longtime existence of the Russian peasant commune down through the centuries, to the revolution of 1917 and even into the early Soviet period. Abandoning Western rationalism and philosophy in the middle 1840's, Aksakov found refuge in his own version of Slavophil Or­ thodoxy. This was conceived in close association with Russia's his­ torical and also highly idealized communal-family order, and the institutions of the veche and skhodka [assembly]. The peasant, the muzhik—the indispensable unit in the Russian communal social structure, in Konstantin's Slavophilism, and in later nineteenth-cen­ tury populism—became the object of heated controversies lasting into the twentieth century. In the process, while a variety of con­ victions about the muzhik were hotly debated by self-appointed spokesmen (convictions covering the whole spectrum of opinion, from Aksakov to Berdiaev), the muzhik and the narod, ostensibly the center of attention, remained voiceless and unconsulted. And while the village commune continued to function as it had for cen­ turies, an academic controversy arose as to whether the ancient Rus­ sian social order was communal or clan. Here Konstantin scored a victory of sorts over the Westerners and the pro-clan school. Fur­ thermore, what the Westerners, and their sympathizers ever since, have not explained is why Slavophil ideology, heavily dependent on the commune and the communal principle, was Utopian and conservative, whereas all sorts of Western isms, harking back to a hypothetical state of nature in prehistoric times, were by contrast factual, practical, and progressive. Nor would Western anthropotheism of itself render them such. 391 hope to return to the subject of the commune for some additional remarks in the final volume of this series.

CHAPTER 14 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY, EGALITARIANISM, AND HISTORY

AMONG the several problems that the Stankevich circle grappled

with was how to arrive at historical truth. Members of the circle, arguing the pros and cons of what later was termed the "power of pure reason and the transparency of phenomena," were mindful of the Aristotelian akribeia (precision), but they also considered the way which denies analytical intellect in favor of poetic insight. Belinsky, for example, held at one time that the poet is a better guide to the past than the scholar.1 The poetic method was the one that appealed to Konstantin Aksakov, the reputed historian of the Sla­ vophils. Aksakov did not spend much time on the debate itself. There is no indication that he gave much thought to the controversy over what Dilthey later called Geisteswissenschaft and Natuiwissenschaft, which from the days of Galileo, and particularly Vico and the early eighteenth century, had interested scholars, and which still remains, for some at least, unresolved. Indeed, although in his mature Slavophil period, the last dozen years or so of his life, he resolutely upheld a brand of historicism more in conformity with the later Meinecke and Croce variety than with others, he was apparently not acquainted with the contribution that such eighteenth-century schol­ ars as Vico and Herder made to historicism in general. He seemed equally oblivious of one of the oldest and most persistent philo­ sophical riddles, the problem of knowledge, which is at the heart of the questions raised above. The quasi-poetical, intuitive view of history was in direct contrast to the contemporary Western approach to historical scholarship, particularly to German academic research as exemplified by Leopold von Ranke, which, although distinguished by careful scrutiny and evaluation of documentary materials, was mostly limited to concern for institutions and for political, diplomatic, and military matters. 1 In 1835 Belinsky found the "complete truth of life" (sovershennaia istina zhizni) in Gogol's work and poetry. Belinsky, Sochineniia, I, 125, 133.

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This narrow approach to the study of the past did not appeal to Aksakov. He preferred to look at history, specifically Russian history, in a much broader focus. In this respect, apparently by chance, he was more in accord with eighteenth-century Enlightenment concepts than with contemporary German historical scholarship. With respect to Russia's past, he more than the other Slavophils berated Karamzin and S. M. Solov'ev for writing multivolume histories of the Russian state rather than of the Russian nation. Not until the last ten years of his life did Konstantin Aksakov produce a work that could even conditionally be considered histor­ ical research. That was his essay "Was the 'Izgoi' a Clan or a Social Phenomenon?" (Rodovoe ili obshchestvennoe iavlenie byl izgoi?), published in the Moscow Gazette in 1850 (no. 97), to which reference has already been made. Up to that time he had been, with varying degrees of dedication and success, poet, translator, philologist, lit­ erary critic, dramatist, and invariably a fiery propagandist. His dis­ sertation on Lomonosov's role in the formation of the modern Rus­ sian language, published in 1846, is chronological, and thus superficially resembles most historical writing.2 The other quasi-his­ torical piece written prior to 1850 is his eight-and-a-half-page prop­ aganda article, "The Seven Hundredth Anniversary of Moscow," which was published in the Moscow Gazette (no. 39), also in 1846. Konstantin Aksakov's writings classified as historical fill the entire first volume (1861), or 632 pages, of his complete works as edited by Ivan Aksakov. The contents range from a 9-page fragment of a Russian history for children to the more than 140 pages of his review of four volumes of Solov'ev's History of Russia, essentially historical criticism. A cursory glance at the table of contents does not reveal any one field of concentration or specialization, beyond that of pre2 Professor 0. M. Bodiansky read the dissertation as a member of the academic council and approved it. He confirmed this in a letter to S. P. Shevyrev of December 31,1846. Bartenev, who later published this and other letters from Shevyrev's archive, singled out the statement that most disturbed the university authorities and the cen­ sorship: "Our capital became a city with a foreign name, on foreign shores, and connected to Russia by no historic memories." This passage was contained in Konstantin's preface referred to below. P. I. Bartenev, ed., "Iz bumag Stepana Petrovich Shevyreva," Russkii arkhiv, 1878, no. 5, p. 63. But if, as has been reasonably asserted, Aksakov "was no longer a Hegelian" by the time his dissertation was published, why did he not excise the pages in which the Hegelian dialectic is so vividly displayed? Instead he wrote an ambiguous two-page preface that seems to deny some of the views in the dissertation. "The post-Petrine era," he says, "represents a new one-sidedness, a horrible extreme." Was not the post-Petrine age the time of the great synthesis? See K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, II, 26; also Andrzej Walicki, The Slavophile Controversy: History of a Conservative Utopia in Nineteenth-Century Russian Thought, tr. Hilda Andrews-Rusiecka (Oxford, 1975), pp. 291-292.

PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

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Petrine Russian history. But the titles, and even more the contents, indicate a special approach to history that differed markedly from that of Karamzin, Kachenovsky, and S. M. Solov'ev. In the days before such academic disciplines as sociology, cultural anthropol­ ogy, social psychology, and political science, Konstantin's manner of studying Russia's past and institutions included something of each of these in addition to the more conventional areas of politics, in­ ternational relations, and military matters. Some of the titles illustrate his broad cultural view of history— the just-mentioned "Was the 'Izgoi' a Clan or a Social Phenomenon?"; also "On the Ancient Order among the Slavs in General and the Russian Slavs in Particular Apropos of Opinions on the Clan Order"; the unfinished essay, probably dating to 1851, "On the Ancient Order among the Slavs in General and the Russian Slavs in Particular Based upon Customs, Legends, and Songs"; and "On the Hero Warriors [bogatyri] of the Time of Vladimir According to Russian Songs," written in 1852, published in 1856. Another was the sixty-sevenpage monograph "On the Condition of the Peasants in Ancient Rus­ sia," belonging to the period 1852-1856, in which Konstantin denied the existence of serfdom and aristocracy in ancient Russia and af­ firmed the importance of the peasant mir.3 For this and other works on the peasant and on serf problems he used some documentary materials, but his denial of serfdom and aristocracy, for instance, is based on argumentation rather than documentation. The same can be said about his brief comments on Ivan III, Basil III, and Ivan IV.4 Was Aksakov a historian at all? His concept of history as broadly cultural rather than limited to narrow political definitions was a most significant departure from the standard of the time. But his reading was limited, and furthermore he lacked the basic objectivity and unflagging respect for facts that distinguish scholarly research from mere speculative writing. Samarin stated the case for scholar­ ship in a letter to Konstantin in 1845, referred to earlier. The Sla­ vophils, he said, "have as yet proved nothing or very little. Every­ thing that we affirm about our history, about our people, about the distinguishing characteristics [osobennosti] of our past development, all this has been surmised [ugadano], not deduced."5 Tactfully but firmly, Samarin in effect pointed his finger at one of Konstantin's most glaring weaknesses as a historian before Konstantin had pro­ gressed beyond his dissertation in his study of Russia's past. 5

K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, I, 420. Ibid., pp. 445-584. 5 Iu. F. Samarin, Sochineniia, 11 vols. (Moscow, 1877-1911; vols. I-X, XII; vol. XI was never published), XII, 156. 4

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It was not a question of full documentation and complete objec­ tivity—qualities which are unobtainable by any historian. It was rather a matter of presenting basic facts and evidence, without which neither a degree of objectivity nor a degree of truthful interpretation is possible. In the highly charged, polemical atmosphere of the forties and fifties, advocating often assumed more importance than dem­ onstrating; and particularly in Aksakov the poet, the polemicist, and the propagandist too often had the upper hand over the historian. He noted approvingly of Lomonosov, and implicitly of himself, that "he was not a dry, learned craftsman," since for him "scholarship [nauka] had at all [times] a poetical side."6 In a sense Konstantin can be said to have put himself for a while in an ambiguous position by espousing two mutually exclusive prin­ ciples: one, the dialectic, assumed by its devotees to be immutable and universal, and therefore applicable to Russian history as to every other; and the other, the Slavophil insistence that Russia had traveled a different historical road from the West. Because Konstantin for a time moved back and forth on this matter, one is challenged tp de­ termine at what point the change became complete. Beginning in the mid-1840's, one has to rely on the letters of Samarin, since virtually no Aksakov correspondence for these years has been published. It will be recalled that in the summer of 1844 Samarin left Moscow for St. Petersburg to work in the government. From there, he cautioned his Moscow friends to be careful: "The authorities here are convinced that in Moscow a political party is being formed that is resolutely hostile to the government, that its well-known cry is 'Long live Moscow and let Petersburg perish!' This means, Long live anarchy and let authority perish."7 The whole problem with the Slavophils, he thought, was their "paucity of fac­ tual knowledge," and whereas Konstantin believed that he was mak­ ing a point with his public display of his beard and costume, he was in fact merely arousing official antagonism which could result in further restrictive measures. This letter was of course written before the elaboration of most of the important elements in Aksakov's Slavophilism—the Christian, Orthodox foundation, the choric principle, the virtual veneration of the narod, the defense of the communal against the clan principle in Russian history, the dichotomy of people (zemlia) and state, and Great Russianism. His Slavophilism was still only superficial, and for all his public stance he was still, in his dissertation on Lomo6K. 7

S . A k s a k o v , Sochineniia, II, part I, 371. Samarin, Sochineniia, XII, 151.

PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

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nosov, then in its final stages, sticking to the dialectic—upholding Peter the Great and the key role of the individual in history. When it came time to defend his dissertation in public, in March 1847, Konstantin gave no indication that he had any doubts about the validity of the dialectic as applied to Russian history. According to one eyewitness (though the account has come down to us indirectly), "Konstantin Sergeevich answered in a lively manner and did not at all retreat from his own theses."8 Most of the stress on the dialectic occurs in the fifty-page introduction to the dissertation. It is also present in summary statements toward the end, when Aksakov's roughly chronological account reaches the eighteenth century. It is not difficult to agree with Azadovsky that Konstantin's dissertation "is considerably broader than its title." Furthermore, Azadovsky says, "in it Aksakov considers and solves from the standpoint of Hegelian philosophy the fundamental problems of Russian history and literature." Among these problems were "periodization and the essence and meaning of the Russian historical process" and of the "Russian literary process."9 Hegel's "negation of the negation," recast by others into the famous triple formula, became the basis for the periodization of Russian history. Thus the hinge upon which the purported Hegelian formula turns for Aksakov is Peter the Great. Older critics generally agreed that the dialectic broke down the major phases of Russian history into pre-Petrine Russia (thesis); Petrine Russia (antithesis); and fu­ ture Russia, which to some at the time meant a Slavophil Russia (synthesis). More recently Walicki has suggested an alternative inter­ pretation, that of the "universal" first phase (thesis), pre-Petrine Rus­ sia (antithesis), and post-Petrine Russia (synthesis).10 In post-Petrine Russia, Aksakov says in the dissertation, a lost universality was re­ covered through the liberated individual symbolized by Peter the Great. Peter's most notable achievement was in helping Russia over­ come its phase of national exclusiveness and isolation. His prede­ cessors had already shaken the "unassailability of the national sphere," while "New elements" were coming, and "Russia had al­ ready seen the need for a new life." In this way, Konstantin says, "obstinate, exclusive nationality was deprived of inner, contempo­ rary strength." But the old does not always yield easily or gracefully, 8 Ν. M. Pavlov (N. Bitsyn), a generation younger than Konstantin, heard the story later from one (whom he does not name) who was present at the public proceedings. See Bitsyn, "Vospominanie," p. 375. 9 Μ. K. Azadovsky, Istoriia russkoi fol'kloristiki (Moscow, 1958), p. 380. 10 Walicki, The Slavophile Controversy, pp. 292-293.

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as was shown in the tenacity of the streltsy, the old quasi-military force, which Peter destroyed at the end of the seventeenth century. The second half of the seventeenth century was also the time of the schism in the Russian church, an expression of "nationalism's fear . . . that its time was passing." The accompanying widespread religious disturbances were manifestations of the "same abstract and extreme . . . nationalism," although on the surface the schism con­ cerned trivial matters. The Russian state and the distorted and cor­ rupted notion of "exclusive nationality" were severely shaken up.11 From all this a "new need" was born. Russia in its forward march abandoned the "stage of particularity [osobennost']—nationality, [and] appeared in the stage of singleness [edinichnost']—the indi­ vidual." Up to the seventeenth century the individual in Russia had been "completely swallowed by the nation." But the new phase of his­ torical development required of the Russian nation the "awakening of the individual" and his liberation, and when this liberation came it assumed the "colossal form" of a single individual, Peter. But Peter was not accepted by everyone, and a "frightful struggle began." On the one side were "exclusive nationality" and its supporters, streltsy and Old Believers, who "obstinately opposed the new light and sup­ ported its own false necessity." On the other side Peter, knowing the true needs of the Russian people, took up arms against national exclusiveness.12 Sparing no effort to achieve a dramatic effect, and with striking hyperbole—a sin of rhetoric that he never completely expunged from his prose style—Aksakov attributes to Peter all sorts of miraculous changes in Russia. He is so eager to build up Peter's success that he seems to forget that he was one of the men of the thirties and forties who bemoaned Russia's cultural lag. For if Peter had done all that Konstantin ascribes to him, Russia would have been wondrously thrust into the forefront of civilization early in the eighteenth cen­ tury: "Revealing before them [the people] the new sphere of life [Peter] sharply turned to the opposite side. He . . . abundantly filled the boundaries of Russia with the foreign,... he accepted everything from the West, at which the West had just arrived, . . . and he flung open the gates of Russia to the West. . . . In the frightful, bloody struggle Russia's exclusive nationality fell forever. A new epoch set in."13 Temperamentally, intellectually, and perhaps from such associa11 K.

S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, II, part I, 64. p. 65. 13 Ibid., pp. 65-66. 12 Ibid.,

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tions in the Stankevich circle as those with Belinsky and Bakunin, Konstantin Aksakov was well conditioned for the acceptance of the dialectic and its inevitable maximalism. In the "historical devel­ opment" of mankind, he confidently declared in characteristic jar­ gon, "there is no direct transition to present time [tochka]. Leading every phase [moment] to an extreme, it [the historical process] pro­ duces a new extreme," and this is as it should be, for "extremism [odnostoronnost'] is the lever of history."14 Conceiving the historical process with an absolute rigidity and with an equally absolute and questionable simplicity, Konstantin concluded that the "negation of exclusive nationality is also one­ sided, extreme," and he justified Peter's negation as "pure," "nec­ essary," and "not dead but fruitful."15 Not even the people, narod, soon to become the holy of holies of Konstantin's Slavophilism, are saved from the dialectical scheme. To fulfill the dialectic, Konstantin brushed aside the truth of the matter—that Peter did not improve the miserable lives of the vast majority of the Russian people living in abject serfdom. Peter's "entirely complete negation" of pre-Petrine Russia stopped at serfdom, for nothing needed negation as much as it did. When it came to surrendering his old idol, Moscow, to the di­ alectic, Konstantin showed some misgivings (though he made the surrender), and in the process he ruthlessly stripped the narod of its flesh and blood. The same narod whom he would soon extol above everything else on earth now was merely the "abstract Russian sub­ stance" (otvlechennaia russkaia substantsiia). He repeated this and exonerated Peter the Great from wrongdoing against the narod, say­ ing, "It was natural that Peter in diverting the Russian people, the Russian substance, had to divert that which comprised its true center. This was necessary for the success of his task." But since the people's center was Moscow, the "true capital of Russia, the capital of its spirit," it was inevitable that Peter should shake its foundations. The transformation of Russia that Peter had in mind required a new capital "corresponding to the negative spirit of his task," a capital "on foreign shores." Such a center would have no historical tie with Russian life. It would not come into existence "organically" but would be created "according to plan." St. Petersburgbecame the city of the "one-sidedness of negation . . . [it] destroyed Moscow as the 14

Ibid., p. 66. Azadovsky, by no means a detractor of Aksakov's dissertation, refers to Konstantin's concept of the Hegelian dialectic as "completely formal." See Istoriiα russkoi fol'kloristiki, p. 380. 15 Ibid.

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capital, established a new false center, and forcefully drew there . . . the entire circulation of the blood of Russia."16 Thus even the most cherished idols were sacrificed before the all-consuming power of the Hegelian scheme. At this point the dialectical historical process undergoes a certain Russification. Russia, he says, had willingly gone along with the "pure negation of its nationality." This was a "daring deed but not from the outside," not as if from conquest. "Here the need for ne­ gation came from within. The Russian spirit was not frightened by it . . . because it was confident of its strength." The self-confidence of the spirit would be rewarded, Konstantin says, by its "reappear­ ance . . . in its general, human, universal meaning."17 This led to an affirmation of Aksakov's dialectical Russian messianism quite dif­ ferent from his later Slavophil version. "Not a single nation," he states, "ventured upon such a decisive, complete, and strict negation of its nationality, and that is why not a single nation can have such a general, universally human meaning as Russia."18 This was the significance of the St. Petersburg phase of Russian history, otherwise "a cold and lifeless period." While St. Petersburg served as a catalyst in the recovery of Russia's lost universality, this "supreme sphere" was being revealed to the Russian nation through Peter the Great, the liberated individuum. Moscow, which had never abandoned the Russian people, "took into itself the spirit of his [Peter's] task and developed the inner, essential, immortal aspect of his exploit." In sum, Peter's grandest achievement was the destruction of "exclusive nationality" and the revealing to the Russian people of the universal.19 The time of writing of these early pages of Aksakov's dissertation is of some importance to the dating and chronology of his views on Russian history, but the published source materials are not precise. Azadovsky, who considers the dissertation a landmark in the "his­ tory of the ideological struggles of the forties," states that it was written in 1842 and 1843.20 Since we know that Aksakov and Samarin 16 K.

S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, II, part I, 67-68. p. 68. 18Ibid., pp. 68-69. 19Ibid., pp. 69-70. 20Istoriia russkoi /ol'kloristiki, p . 381. S. A. Vengerov also gives this date. See his "Konstantin Sergeevich," pp. 253-260, and Konstantin Aksakov, pp. 131-138. Aksakov had made some progress by summer's end of 1843, probably a good deal, but does not seem to have finished it. A. P. Elagina says in a letter to A. N. Popov, dated September 30, 1843, "Aksakov has not yet finished his [dissertation]. All summer long he had fever." P. I. Bartenev, ed., "Iz bumag Aleksandra Nikolaevicha Popova," Russkii arkhiv, 1886, no. 3, p. 342. 17 Ibid.,

PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

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were reading Hegel together even before the decade of the forties began, 1842 is not too early a date for the initial pages of the disser­ tation. By the winter of 1844-1845, when the final break between the Westerners and the Slavophils occurred, Aksakov was in the Sla­ vophil camp. In 1846 he zealously defended in print Moscow, the narod, and pre-Petrine Russia in his brief essay entitled "The Seven Hundredth Anniversary of Moscow." But in March 1847, if we are to trust the account from Bitsyn, he was still able to defend the dialectic and his views on Peter the Great. If he was sincere about his Hegelianism and his apotheosis of Peter the Great, how, one wonders, did he reconcile this with the Slavophilism of Khomiakov and Ivan Kireevsky? Or was he still in the process of trying to rec­ oncile Hegelianism with Orthodoxy and Slavophilism? We are no more successful when we approach the problem from the direction of Ivan's report that Konstantin abandoned Hegel for the narod. Quoting Konstantin's words to this effect, Ivan dates them to 1852. It is well established that by 1852 Konstantin had become a full-fledged Moscow Slavophil, but his testimony still does not answer our questions. Furthermore, although Konstantin was doubt­ less truthful in his confession, at first glance his change does not appear as thorough as it actually was. Even at the height of his interest in German philosophy, he says, the "cause of the people" (zemskoe delo) was "in no way overshadowed," and when he eventually "sac­ rificed" philosophy to the service of the people, he was convinced that the "sacrifice was legitimate." He was grateful, he says, that the "living voice of the people freed me from the abstractness of phi­ losophy."21 In other words, Konstantin was abandoning not only Hegelianism but all philosophy. It is fairly certain, however, that with respect to Konstantin's phi­ losophy of history, specifically Russian history, after about the mid­ dle of 1847 the dialectic, with its presumed universal validity, was gone. In its place Konstantin accepted the Slavophil view of Russia's historical course, allegedly different from, and superior to, that of the West. For the next thirteen years of his life, the period of his unquestionably Slavophil career, Konstantin ardently upheld the notion of Russian cultural and historical particularity. The universal claims of the dialectic, applied to the historical process, gave way to a messianic and Christian-communal, Slavic Russian particular­ ism. But whether Konstantin abandoned philosophy or rose "above it," 211. S. Aksakov, "Pis'ma A. S. Khomiakova k Iu. F. Samarinu. Predislovie," Russkii arkhiv, 1879, no. 11, p. 304.

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND'

as has sometimes been suggested, the question remains—What did he put in place of philosophy?22 Was he satisfied with a naturalistic quasi worship of the narod, a strong compulsion and temptation in his Moscow Slavophilism, or did he make an effort to sublimate this otherwise flagrantly pagan notion? His answer to the problem could perhaps be found in the Slavophil contention, which he shared, that the Russian people were the bearers of Orthodoxy, which to them was genuine Christianity. It is true that Konstantin's writings during the second half of the forties are more concerned with nationality than they are with Orthodoxy. He talks about Moscow, Russian dress, and the narod, and attacks travel abroad and the use of foreign lan­ guages. In the essay "The Seven Hundredth Anniversary of Mos­ cow," in the three brief book reviews published in the second Sla­ vophil symposium in 1847, in the play The Liberation of Moscow in 1612 (1848), and in his dozen or so poems of the period, the principle of nationality (narodnost') is embodied historically in the common Russian people, the narod or the zemlia.23 Khomiakov, who had already given much thought to the Christian church, the Creed, church unity, and a number of related topics, tactfully tried to steer Konstantin in a similar direction, telling him that his subject matter was "not entirely worthy" in that his Orthodoxy was "subordinated or subjected to an overpowering sense of Russian nationality."24 Ivan 22 Edward Chmielewski, for instance, following Chizhevsky, says that "Aksakov did not renounce philosophy, but he now regarded himself as standing above it, in any case above that of Hegel. 'In his verse, we occasionally meet the same sentiments as those of the left Hegelians: above philosophy stands life; above theory, the deed, which is a vital conjunction of theory and practice. This practice, however, in contrast to "practice" as understood by Belinsky or Bakunin, was based not on political and social but on religious and ethical motives.' " But when Chizhevsky turned to Kon­ stantin's poems, particularly those of the 1850's, he concluded that Konstantin re­ nounced "not only Hegelian, but all philosophy. Aksakov finished in the same manner as we have seen a number of 'men of the forties,' [by the] renunciation of philosophy in general." Cf. Chmielewski, Tribune of the Slavophiles, p. 29; Chizhevsky, Gegel' ν Rossii1 pp. 181-182. 23 In one of the pieces in the symposium Konstantin says: "Without a seed one cannot grow a tree. . . . Peter the Great brought in alien principles, but the national principles have been preserved to the present in the simple Russian people." See Moskovskii literaturny i uchenyi sbornik na 1847 god (Moscow, 1847), p. 22. See also N. I. Kostomarov, O znachenii kriticheskikh trudov Konstantina Aksakova po russkoi istorii (St. Petersburg, 1861), p. 8. (Hereafter cited as Kostomarov, Aksakov.) Kosto­ marov, a professor of Russian history at the St. Petersburg University, was the first to attempt a scholarly examination of Aksakov's historical writings. His brief (31page) critique of Aksakov's critical works (1861) discusses primarily Aksakov's "About the Ancient Order among the Slavs and among the Russian Slavs in Particular" and his reviews of volumes 6 and 7 of Solov'ev's History. 24 Russkii arkhiv, 1879, no. 11, p. 330.

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Kireevsky and Samarin, too, were at work on Moscow Slavophilism, and Samarin, in 1846, cautioned Konstantin that the "people as a people can be justified only from the religious point of view."25 BY THE AGE of thirty-three, Konstantin had embarked on a revision of those basic principles which became both the source and foun­ dation of his Slavophil ideology. As he consciously abandoned Ger­ man philosophy, he embraced more ardently than before his ven­ eration of the narod, even though this could not be reconciled with Orthodox Christianity, which was fundamental to Slavophilism. There is no evidence, however, that Konstantin would have been satisfied with a pure nationalistic naturalism, that is, a simple ven­ eration of the narod. In published fragments that Ivan dated to 1849 and 1850, Konstantin was concerned with such notions as freedom, peace, and inner and external truth. The last two, though character­ istically romantic in their secular meaning, designated basic Chris­ tian notions centuries before romanticism appeared. Konstantin summed up his views, saying, "The only completely worthy road for man is the way of free conviction . . . of peace, the road revealed to us by the Divine Savior . . . followed by His Apostles. This is the way of innner truth that could be vaguely felt even by pagan na­ tions."26 The opening sentence of the second fragment shows how far Konstantin had come from the rigid universalism of the Hegelian di­ alectic as he moved toward Slavophil Orthodoxy: "Russia is a land entirely original [samobytnaia]," he says, and "it is in no way similar to the European states and nations." Russian history, which became "different from its very first minute," was given a unique turn "when the most important question for mankind was added ... the question of Faith."27 Russia and the West embarked on different roads, and "the blessing came to Russia. It accepted the Orthodox faith. The West went along the road of Catholicism." As if attempting to revive the old controversy with Chaadaev, Konstantin declares Orthodoxy the road of faith, the "true" road, and Catholicism the "false" road. And ever mindful of the narod, he adds, "It became clear to the Russian people that there is true freedom only where the Spirit of God resides."28 But even at his most fanciful, Aksakov could descend briefly to earth. For example, he attributes to early Russian history the most 25

Samarin, Sochineniia, XII, 176. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, I, 2. 27 Ibid., p. 7. 28 Ibid., p. 9. 26 K.

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Christian of aspirations and achievements and then puts the ques­ tion: "They will say to us: was not this complete bliss?" His answer, repeated in other circumstances, is that on earth there is no perfect reality, only "perfect principles. True Christianity does not exist even in a single society, but true Christianity . . . is the only true road." Then he sweeps on to another pronunciamento, "In the foun­ dation of Russian life lay true principles with which I think one cannot disagree," and adds the equally questionable contention that "the sacred mutual trust between authority and the people that lay in its formation was long preserved unchanged."29 What made the 1850's the most creative phase of Moscow Sla­ vophilism was its change from a mostly polemical negation of Westernism to a body of philosophical, theological, and social thought. Yet not all the Slavophils were secure in their convictions. They remained strongly individualistic, zealously guarding the preroga­ tive of independent thought, and often openly disagreeing; but whereas Khomiakov and to an extent Kireevsky seem to have achieved inner calm by 1850, Koshelev, Ivan Aksakov, and to a lesser degree Konstantin were still experiencing doubts and soul searching. Konstantin, particularly, was quick to take exception to ideas put forth by his fellow Slavophils, as is shown in the intra-Slavophil correspondence of 1853-1854. In two of Konstantin's three letters published by Koliupanov in 1892, the two to Koshelev, he is mostly concerned with the nature of society. In the first letter he defines society and discusses its relations to the individual, considers the attitude of society and the individual toward heretics, pagans, and sinners, and looks to Saint Paul for support of his views. In the second letter, relying on Saint Basil, he discusses personal and social contacts with pagans, defines society again, and gives notice of his dislike of "high society" as contrasted with the common people, the narod. The subject of the third letter, addressed to Khomiakov, is God. Konstantin, unlike his brother Ivan, whose "deistic" views he sharply criticized, believed in an ever present, ever creative God. "God's will is present everywhere and always. Man's will is free." Furthermore, "God's will is done constantly with the same force, but to man it is apparent only at times."30 Similarly, "God loves all, constantly and without measure, but to man this is apparent only on occasion." His convictions about prayer are equally forceful: "All life should be a prayer, but this is just as much an impossibility as 29 Ibid.,

p. 15.

30 Koliupanov,

Biografiia Aleksandra Ivanovicha Kosheieva, II, p. 70

PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

305

. . . perfection on earth."31 He is cautious about miracles (he seems to differ with Ivan here). Miracles must not be confused with magic. They are "in the spirit of God's mood, . . . of God's teaching, love, and church—this is where profoundly and in full glory God appears." And he confesses, "I err more on the side of the Hellenes than on the side of the Jews." Konstantin ends the letter with a summary of his views on prayer and freedom. Khomiakov's notion of prayer, he says, is "immersion [pogruzhenie] in God," whereas his own is a "childlike [detskoe] attitude toward God." He explains the difference: "I do not see why I should beseech God only for the salvation of my soul, and not for deliverance from bodily pain, fire, etc." His reasoning is that "if the Savior himself was afflicted and prayed, then this indicates to us that we may beseech God for something," only on condition that it must not be evil. "My will is free," he says, and "I act freely every minute, for my every action flows from the freedom of my being."32 More and more, Aksakov's ideology embraced Orthodox Christi­ anity conceived and accented in accordance with his growing and deepening Slavophilism, to the point of becoming completely inter­ woven with his views of the narod. In his "Memorandum to Alex­ ander II" in 1855, for example, he stresses his conviction—undoc­ umented, of course—of the preordained fate of the Russian people. "Even before Christianity," he declares, "our people [narod] pre­ paring for its acceptance, having a premonition of its great truths, created for themselves the life of the commune, sanctified later by the acceptance of Christianity." This belief in the Russian peasant commune as being a divinely inspired, Christian institution rather than merely a product of social evolution became a cardinal principle in Konstantin's creed by the middle 1850's. To the tsar he points out that the Russian people, though sinful, were guided by Christian principles. He quotes Christ's words—"Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's," "My kingdom is not of this world," and "The kingdom of God is within you"—and assures the tsar that the Russian people, with these principles in mind, sought "moral," not political freedom; therefore the tsar need not fear revolution.33 The noble goal of the Russian is a Christian society—a "moral ap31

Ibid., p. 71. pp. 72-73. 33 See Vengerov, Konstantin Aksakov, p. 73. These New Testament quotations are from Mark 12:17, John 18:36, and Luke 17:21, respectively. They are given here in English according to the King James Version. 32Ibid.,

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND'

proximation to God, to man's Savior." But owing to sin and human weakness, man can never achieve a "Kingdom of God on earth"; therefore state, government, and "external law" are necessary.34 This being so, he urges the tsar to restore the near perfect "union" (soiuz) of land (zem]ia) or people and government (gosudarstvo), or of peo­ ple and tsar, which had been violated by Peter the Great. In other words, the Christian, spiritual, "inner" life for which the Russian people had been destined was possible only if the temporal, "exter­ nal" power in Russian society was exercised in their behalf by an absolute monarch, sparing the Russian people from politics and other "external" activities. Something similar to what many in the West denigrate as "dirty" politics Aksakov ardently believed to be the essence of political life, and he was passionately repelled by it. W E HAVE SEEN that Aksakov's abandonment of Hegel for Orthodoxy

and Slavophilism meant a reorientation with respect to both Western and Russian history. No longer was the historical process in Western Europe and Russia governed by the same universal and immutable laws, and no longer could one look upon them as following the same course. Once Aksakov and his fellow Slavophils made a distinction between the Western and Russian historical paths, it was inevitable that they would declare the Russian road superior to the Western. Psychologically, if not historically, it was no more difficult for Aksakov to proclaim the Russian national Orthodox way superior to the Western than it had been in the 1830's for Chaadaev to declare the Western Catholic way of a higher order than the Russian Ortho­ dox, or for Peter the Great to pronounce Western manners and mores superior to Russian. The dichotomy between Russia and the West could no more come to a draw then than now. It has always sought a winner. The burden of much of what Aksakov wrote as a full-fledged Sla­ vophil and "historian" was to underscore, often to the point of tediousness, his conviction that the quality of the principles, institu­ tions, and life in pre-Petrine Russia surpassed anything in the West, and that this was a consequence of the ancient communal social order, providentially compatible with the Christian Orthodox life. This conviction lay behind his unremitting efforts, against Solov'ev and others, to prove that the ancient Russian social order was com34 See N. L. Brodsky, ed., Rannie slavianofily. Z a p i s k a K . S . Aksakova "o vnutrennem sostoianii Rossii," predstavlennaia Gosudariu Imperatoru Aleksandru II ν 1855 g. (Moscow, 1910), p. 76.

PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

307

munal as well as behind the debate between Iurii Samarin and K. D. Kavelin in the mid-forties.35 In the unfinished nineteen-page review of the first volume of Sergei Solov'ev's History of Russia, dating to 1851, Konstantin set for him­ self the task of the periodization of Russian history. His revised opinion of Peter the Great called for a confession: "They were wrong (I myself wrote this at one time) in saying that Peter rebelled against exclusive Russian nationality. There was no exclusiveness at all in Russia. Everything beneficial was accepted even before Peter."36 Peter was not the initiator of changes in Russia, but "merely concentrated on what had already begun." However, he accepted from "foreigners not only the beneficial and universal [obshchechelovecheskoe] but also the particular and the national,"37 including such abominations, in Konstantin's view, as the forceful substitution of foreign dress for Russian and the introduction of alien models into the Russian lan­ guage. It was therefore wrong to say that Peter had only overthrown Russia's alleged national exclusiveness. In support of his contention that Russia had accepted some es­ sentials prior to Peter, Konstantin mentions the importing of firearms by Dimitrii Donskoi, printing in the time of Ivan IV, and "even in­ ternal military organization" in the reign of Fedor Alekseevich. Ar­ guing in favor of selective, "beneficial" borrowing, he reduces Peter's imports from the West to virtually nothing, overlooking even the Academy of Sciences. He dismisses the large and complex historical problem of the periodization of Russian history with similar ease. "It is best to divide Russian history as Russia has divided itself, that is, by its capitals."38 Here again, Russia is seen to be unique, to have its own periodization different from that of other nations. Although he seems to be offering this as a simple explanation, it becomes clear that he really has in mind multiple causation. He mentions economic forces, including trade and commerce, political forces, including dynastic factors, as well as the religious, Orthodox and the social, communal—which he particularly stresses. The first period of Russian history, the Kievan, was characterized by political particularism and "unity of the Orthodox faith," a com­ mon social order (byt), and a common language. This unity was often strained by dynastic and princely rivalries. During the second period, 35 Partially on Solov'ev's and Ravelin's side were also Professors Afanas'ev and Kalachov. See Kostomarov, Aksakov, p. 9. 36 K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, I 42. 1 37 Ibid., p. 41. 38 Ibid., pp. 43-44.

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND'

the Vladimir, the bond of kinship weakened. The contest now was for a "mighty princedom, for material power."39 As the numerous "communes" (obshchiny) began to coalesce into "separate material masses," the regionalism between Northern and Southern Rus' be­ came more pronounced. Novgorod was a notable exception, "pre­ serving its ancient separateness" and its "particular commune." It "carried on trade and war, all on the ancient Slav communal prin­ ciple." The Tartar conquest bolstered the awareness of "all Russian communes" and the advantages to be derived from a general "peo­ ple's [zemskii] union." The seat of the Metropolitan was transferred to Vladimir. As one might expect, the third or Moscow period of Russian history gets the rosiest coloration, revealing some of the deep-seated fictions that Konstantin fondly nursed about past and contemporary Russia. Moscow was the first to conceive of a united Russian state and the "destruction of the separate principalities." The struggle among the principalities, however, did not violate the communes, and they "were satisfied when the state barriers between them fell." He could not find a "single example" of a commune that took the side of the prince. For a long time the pull of cultural and social forces among the many Russian "communes" was a far more powerful force than loyalty to any Russian prince, until "finally Moscow proclaimed in the name of all Rus' the united Russian state and the united Russian Commune, the Russian Land. This is the meaning of Moscow."40 The spheres of activity belonging to state and Land (Zemlia), re­ spectively, and presumably going back to the dawn of the Kievan state, continued into the Moscow period. So it happened that "Ivan IV took the title of tsar. The Land looked with confidence on the new magnificence of ... the State and preserved with confidence its union with it, based upon a voluntary arrangement." Konstantin was to look less kindly on Ivan IV later, but here Ivan's reign touched off an outpouring of cherished Slavophil notions. For example: "Rus', comprising from now on one commune, convoked in Moscow a National Assembly [zemsky sobor] which replaced the Veche. The Moscow period represents one government . . . and one Commune for all Rus'. . . . In this manner Moscow united Russia . . . in the oneness of the State, [and] . . . the whole Russian Land with the common feeling of a Great Commune."41 Clearly in such an internal 39 Ibid.,

p. 45. p. 46. For a succinct factual rebuttal, by a contemporary, of Aksakov's highly romanticized version of the unification of Russia see Kostomarov, Aksakov, pp. 1820. 41 K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, I, 47. 4,1 Ibid.,

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order there was no place for social, political, or economic discord, nor for ethnic, cultural, or regional frictions. Russia's National Assembly [zemsky sobor), which looms large in Konstantin's glowing picture of pre-Petrine Russia and in his dreams for Russia's future, occupies a central place in his consideration of Ivan IVs reign. It is a pity that even on this weighty matter Konstantin left only random references and a six-page fragment of an intended treatise on the historical significance of the zemsky sobor. Consid­ ering the reign of Ivan IV, he says: "The State walks hand in hand with the Land. Rus' comprises one commune and Ivan IV convokes it to a zemsky sobor. Probably in his reign the thought of the whole Russian Land became clear [as] . . . expressed in the convocation of the zemsky sobor."42 Although in Konstantin's view state and Land had existed in Rus' from the days of Rurik, it was not until the reign of Ivan IV that the interaction of government and Land, the people, gave birth to the zemsky sobor. This was a consultative body, and Konstantin thought it should always remain such. When he comes to the fourth and final period in his survey of Russian history, the Petersburg period, Konstantin brings out the full force of his highly unfavorable opinion of Peter the Great. Under Peter, he says, the state "put through a revolution, broke up the union with the Land, and . . . began a new order of things." Its new capital "had nothing in common with Russia." This was the beginning of "persecution of everything Russian." The upper class sided with the government, but the "common people stuck to their former princi­ ples" and to Moscow. During the Napoleonic invasion "Moscow and the Land saved themselves and the state." But this did not prevent the struggle between the combined forces of the government and the upper class, which was "in complete moral captivity of the West," and the Land. "Moscow began and continues the cause of moral liberation.,. of Russian cultural independence [samobytnost'], [and] of Russian thought."43 The more Aksakov contemplated the power of the state under Peter the Great, the more he resented the neglect of the common people and the people's capital. The obsessive devotion to a principle, a symbol, and an abstraction led Konstantin into a resolute denunci­ ation not only of Peter's state but of the state as a principle and an institution. In a scribbled marginal note he says: "The state as a principle is evil. But the existence of this principle is a fact. . . . The state must be Christian . . . [i.e.] the people, the body of the state 42 43

Ibid., p. 48. Ibid., p. 49.

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. . . the external law of truth must be derived from the inner moral law. On earth, the commune wishes to realize the moral law."44 Recoiling somewhat from the extreme, "one-sided" position lead­ ing to an equally "one-sided" anarchism, Konstantin settled for the thought that the state could be Christianized if it could not be abol­ ished. And true to basic Slavophil tenets, that is, to the doctrine of sobornost', the wholeness of the spirit, and to his own choric prin­ ciple, which by 1851 had taken root in his mind, the Christianization of the state could be achieved not by way of government or hierarchy but by way of the commune (obshchina), which in its most inclusive form embraced the whole land (zemlia). To Konstantin, the father­ hood of God was inconceivable without the brotherhood of man. The commune was often conceived as the visible, and also invisible, church. This would seem to account in part for his and Slavophi­ lism's strong attachment to tradition. With Peter disposed of, Konstantin goes on to a sketchy and highly biased discourse on the history of Russia as compared with that of Western Europe, the unavoidable theme of the Russian intelligentsia. Russian life prior to Peter the Great was, from a moral, Christian point of view, of a much higher order than life in the West, which was "a victim of external law," inevitably dependent on "external truth." This "faith in the state, in external truth, is strong everywhere in the West. That is why [there]... inner man, free man, man himself has been impoverished."45 Like Khomiakov, although perhaps to a lesser degree, Aksakov showed partiality for England, which he con­ sidered less affected than other states by the Western malady. Eng­ land, he believed, relied not so much on its laws as "on the power of its custom, not on the state but on nationality [narodnost']." The genius of the West was expressed in the establishment of states, but the "state is man's own creation, the kingdom of this world, . . . not the kingdom of God." For Aksakov the only worthy "goal for mankind was realization of the moral law on earth. . . . Moral law or conscience." And for this, one had to turn to the Slav world. This was one of the few and one of the earliest instances in which he took notice of the Slavs in general. He was led to this by the Slav commune, which had existed in various forms for many centuries among the Western, Eastern, and South Slavs. It was a living institution in his day among his fellow Great Russians as well 44

Ibid., p. 56. pp. 52-53.

45 Ibid.,

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311

as among Montenegrins, Serbs, and Croats.46 He defined the "Slav commune" as "a union of people founded upon moral principles, governed by inner law and therefore by social custom." Following the Normanist theory of the origin of the Kievan state, he concluded that the Slavs in general did not care "to convert themselves from communes to states.... They did not wish to part with the commune, with the mir [mirom] and the mir [mirom]"—meaning, that is, with the communal peace and with the world.47 Thus in ancient times first the communes and later the communalChristian order among the Slavs, specifically among the Kievan Slavs, precluded the establishment of a state. For this reason the state was eventually "summoned." "Our history began with freedom and consciousness," Konstantin says, but "the history of other na­ tions—with force and coercion, unconsciousness." The Slav state became a necessity, but the Slavs did "not confuse it with the com­ mune, with the moral, inner principle, with the principle of life." From this dubious premise he draws equally dubious conclusions— that the state never "seduced" the Russian people, and that "our state never feared the people." On the contrary, it often convoked them for counsel, whereas "the West is the exact opposite."48 The Western nations are hopelessly mired in political concerns. Aksakov says that there "state, institutions, centralization, and ex46 The Slav communal order is a matter of great antiquity and complexity reaching far beyond the limits of this study. A few references are here given to illustrate these characteristics. I touched on it in my study on Xomjakov, with respect to Mickiewicz, pp. 207n, 208n, and more generally under "commune," "mir," and "artel"; also under these headings in Kireevskij. For August von Haxthausen's views see his The Russian Empire, Its People, Institutions, and Resources, tr. Robert Farie (London, 1856; re­ printed New York, 1970, 2 vols, in 1), I, 16, 97, 109, 117,119,123-129, 229, 348, 393399, 420; II, 233, 335, 445. See also Haxthausen, Studies, pp. 5-6, 9-11, 30, 43, 72, 7576, 79-84,106, 177, 274-300; for Starr's informative introduction see pp. vii-xlii, and his article, "Haxthausen and Russia," cited earlier. Karl Marx's opinion that the Russian peasant commune could, under certain circumstances, become the nucleus of a future Russian socialist order was given in response to a letter from Vera Zasulich of February 16, 1881. See K. Marks, F. Engel's i revoliutsionnaia Rossiia (Moscow, 1967), pp. 434-435; Perepiska K. Marksa i F. Engel'sa s rus skimi politicheskimi deiateliami (2nd ed., Leningrad, 1951), pp. 299-301; Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Werke (Berlin, 1962), Band 19, pp. 384-406. For an excellent discussion of this question see Andrzej Walicki, The Controversy over Capitalism: Studies in the Social Philosophy of the Russian Populists (Oxford, 1969), pp. 179-194, and for a recent symposium on the South Slav commune with emphasis on the zadruga, R. F. Byrnes, ed., Communal Families in the Balkans: The Zadruga (South Bend, Ind., 1976). 47 K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, I, 52-55. Konstantin emphasizes the triple meaning of the word mir. 48 Ibid., p. 55.

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ternal authority have become the ideal," at the expense of the "inner, free, moral, social principle." There prevailed the "desire for state power. From this come revolutions, disturbances, revolts; . . . the coercive external road." In a word, Western man "has been captured by the ideal of the state." 49 In the United States, with its republican form of government, the seduction of the people by state and politics has gone further than anywhere else: We see . . . the most catastrophic politicizing [ogosudarstvlenie] of the people ... in the United States. There ... one finds neither the natural bond of a single nationality [edinonarodnost'], nor local memories, nor traditions, nor unity of faith. In place of a living nation one finds . . . a state machine. . . . There peace and calm are based not on love but on mutual advantage. . . . There freedom is . . . mutually limited arbitrariness. No, there is no freedom there, for freedom is where the Holy Spirit is. How different this was from Russia, where the "people consider the state necessary because it extracts the state sap from the people, and thus purifies them." But sadly for Russia, Peter I changed all this: "We must say that the principles of the Russian people, the meaning of Land and State, their voluntary union,... [were] violated by Peter." And it was he who put the state "above Christianity: Land, people [narod], commune, moral law." 50 Five years separate Aksakov's unfinished review of the first volume of Solov'ev's History of Russia and his long review of volume six, which was published in Russkaia beseda in 1856.51 Solov'ev, we remember, was a man of unusual industry, and in his memoirs he spoke slightingly of Aksakov's lack of industry. Perhaps it was the subject of volume six, Ivan IV, that aroused Aksakov's interest and induced him to take up his pen, but he may well have been inspired by the new journal, which for the first time since the suppression of the Moscow symposium in 1852 gave the Slavophils a chance to publish. At any rate, he produced a complete essay of forty-eight pages, in which he sticks fairly closely to the main subject. This and the reviews of volumes seven and eight of Solov'ev's History, dealing with Fedor Ivanovich and the Time of Troubles, contain some of Aksakov's most characteristic pronouncements on Russian history.52 Taken together, they constitute what one might call "Notes for a "Ibid., p. 57. 50 Ibid., pp. 57-58. 51 Russkaia beseda, 1856, IV, Kritika, pp. 1-53. 52 K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, I, 129.

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Slavophil History," the nearest that any of the Slavophils came to writing a history of Russia. The review of volume six begins with a discussion of the state of historical studies in Russia and of Solov'ev's role, and ends with what Kostomarov considers a "masterly sketch" of Ivan IV's char­ acter and personality. Perhaps in order not to appear too personal, Aksakov generalized his remarks about the kind of historical writing that should have been done in Russia in the mid-1850's. After all, he and Solov'ev had once been on friendly terms. Furthermore, by 1856 Solov'ev was a well-established academician and a historian of note who commanded general respect, including Konstantin's. Aksakov's argument is that a comprehensive, interpretative, multivolume history of Russia required a body of preparatory, mono­ graphic literature, and since this did not exist it was too early to attempt a comprehensive Russian history. What Russia most needed was "studies, studies, studies [izsledovaniia, izsledovaniia, izsledovaniia]."53 The time for history writing would follow. Aksakov does not direct this criticism so much at Solov'ev as at the general state of affairs in Russia, where, he says, owing to Peter the Great, there still was not a national consciousness. True, Karamzin's History of the Russian State "is a great, monumental work." But he also points out its deficiencies—it is representative of "that false, imi­ tative epoch" when Russians engaged in "parroting" (popugaistva), when the nation had neither self-respect nor self-knowledge. "Karamzin could indeed write history," but "his type of history cannot satisfy us."54 Solov'ev was simply attempting a history of Russia prematurely. The volume under review was "rather a monograph or better a historical study about Ivan the Terrible and his epoch, not a history."55 It hardly needs pointing out that this is a curious stance for one who himself had neither the preparation nor the patience for a painstaking and systematic delving into documentary materials, and whose few historical essays were meant not so much to establish historical facts and veracity as to support an ideological point of view. Apropos of Ivan IV, Konstantin sketches with broad strokes some of the background of Byzantine and Tartar relations with Kievan Russia. His comments are generally negative, following the usual Slavophil position on the political and public order of Byzantium 53 Ibid., p. 133. Kostomarov questioned whether Aksakov's insistence that a myriad of monographic studies was not an excessive and unrealistic condition sine qua non. See Kostomarov, Aksakov, pp. 24-25. 54 K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, I, 132. 55 Ibid., p. 129.

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and the Golden Horde. He warns against Byzantine "rhetoric" and "that Byzantinism which unwittingly perverts even the simple things." The Tartar conquest, he says, brought to the Russian people the "total, frightful authority of the Tartar Khan . . . [and] held it under the yoke."56 At long last, "Byzantium fell, the Horde was un­ done, but the enticing theory of the Byzantine Emperor and . . . practice of the Tartar Khan acted powerfully on the Grand Duke of Moscow and left their traces [sledy] upon him." Aksakov seems to want to minimize the lasting impact of Byzan­ tium and the Tartars on Russian history, and he chooses his words carefully. While Byzantium was in irrevocable decline and Tartar power was ebbing away, never to return, "From the two destroyed, though different, kingdoms [tsarstv], a new, complete unified king­ dom, the Russian Tsardom, appeared." Although he believed that the Russian genius was vastly different from and superior to both the Byzantine and the Tartar, he did not shy away from representing Russian tsardom as a worthy and powerful successor to Byzantine and Tartar might. He suddenly deserts the purported ancient Chris­ tian-communal peaceful Russia when he boastfully asserts that "de­ spite extraneous influences, the new Russian Kingdom and the new Russian Tsar were sui generis [svoeobraznyi], original [samobytnyi], and represented unprecedented phenomena in the world." Behind this, as usual, is Konstantin's powerful and pervasive Slavophil pop­ ulism. "Influences, shades could be extraneous, but Russian tsardom, in its essence, was created by the independent people's spirit of Russia."57 The rest of the story of the emergence of the modern Russian state sounds almost like a fairy tale. "Times changed. . . . Finally the appanage disappeared, and now appeared one tsar, and the Grand Duke of Moscow and all Rus'; one tsar and a united, whole Russian Land." The Russian people did not feel the "slightest regret" at the fall of the appanage princes, and the old princely bodyguard and council (druzhina) vanished as a matter of course. "Finally a tsar appeared, Ivan IV . . . religiously imbued with respect for his tsarist rank."58 The Duma, the old boyar institution, was transformed into a "government service," and the tsar consulted with it whenever he wished and without any obligation. Aksakov then raises the question of the relationship of the new state to the people and asserts that Solov'ev completely overlooks it. His own answer is a six-page disquisition on the consultative 56 Ibid.,

pp. 146, 160. p. 147. 58 Ibid., pp. 147-148.

57 Ibid.,

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principle, embodied in the veche and zemsky sobor. The matter of consultation is not new, he says, since even "before the Moscow period, in the presence of many separate principalities, we constantly see veches [veche from veshchat'] [and] . . . a strong consultative element."59 No other Russian rulers elicited the consideration from Konstantin that Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great did. Both had considerable achievements to their credit, both had an exceptional, dynamic, dra­ matic personality, and both were thwarted from accomplishing as much as would liave been commensurate with the drive and ambition that they possessed. And with respect to territorial acquisitions, both have deserved well of the Russian nation. Aksakov was aware of all this, but above all else the two tsars had for him symbolic meaning, and thus what he read into their policies and actions often loomed larger to him than what they achieved. Ivan IVs convocation of the zemsky sobor, for example, was not a pure and simple embodiment of the ancient Russian consultative principle, nor was Peter's West­ ernization of Russia as pernicious, drastic, and destructive as Konstantin imagined it to be. He condemned the personal behavior and excesses of both tsars, but his evaluation of most measures of Ivan IV is positive, whereas that of Peter the Great, from the late forties on, is negative. For several reasons the reign of Ivan IV has a special place in Russian history. He led the Russians in their conquest of Kazan, Astrakhan, and the middle and lower Volga region, till then in Tartar hands. These conquests in turn opened western Siberia toward the end of his life to Russian penetration, and eventually opened the way to the conquest of Siberia. In his lifetime vast new lands became available for manorial (pomestie) distribution. He convoked the zem­ sky sobor, meriting on this count alone Konstantin Aksakov's un­ dying gratitude. He helped solidify the leadership of Muscovy among the former feudal principalities, gave autocratic government a new impetus, and made an effort to deal with the problems of the church. But he also wasted large treasures in materiel and men in the illfated Livonian wars, in an unsuccessful bid for the Baltic littoral. He created the dreaded oprichnina, and a reign of terror which struck fear in the hearts of his countrymen. He can even be said to have contributed to the Time of Troubles by causing the premature death of his son and heir. The boy died after the tsar, in a fit of rage, struck 59 Ibid., p. 149. The old verb veshchat' means to "prophesy, pontificate, speak with a triumphant, authoritative voice, lay down the law."

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him on the head, and with Ivan IVs death three years later, in 1584, the dynasty came to an end. The picture of Ivan IV that emerges from Aksakov's scattered ref­ erences and his review of volume six of Solov'ev's History of Russia differs in a good many respects from the summary paragraph above. However, it contains a memorable analytical portrait of the tsar. But first, a glance at Aksakov's views on Ivan IV's grandfather, Ivan III. Aksakov had a high opinion of Ivan III for his role in the unification of Russia under Moscow's leadership. Without troubling himself with evidence or proof, Konstantin maintained that the Land in the early Kievan period was culturally homogeneous, but that princely and boyar rivalries kept the country in political disarray. Therefore, he said, the Land welcomed political unification. Covering the reigns of Ivan III, Basil III, and Ivan IV with a characteristically facile gen­ eralization, he says that the "numerous separate principalities dis­ appeared and were replaced by a united state." He gives credit for this achievement to Ivan III, called by his grateful people the prince who "gathered together the Russian Land."60 Although critical of the Byzantine elements that entered Russia during Ivan Ill's rule after his marriage in 1472 to Sophia Paleologue, niece of the last Byzantine emperor, Aksakov does not seem to be putting the blame on Ivan III. (The Moscow court got the Byzantine seal and ritual under Ivan III, and the title, tsar, under Ivan IV.) Rather, the church was responsible, because it allowed "Byzantine rhetoric" to separate the clergy from the people. Though the clergy had rendered many services to the Russian people in the Kievan period, they now favored a "type of scholasticism," a "Byzantine point of view," which made it difficult to recognize the thought and speech of the people in the work of the clergy.61 Earlier, less clearly, Aksakov had criticized the principle of cen­ tralized political rule, which, presumably borrowed from Byzantium, was a process that the Russian clergy had allegedly inspired. Even during the appanage period, he says, the Russian princes "knew that there was another sovereign power," that of the tsar. "This classic concept [came from] Byzantium. It sheltered Vladimir Monomakh, but. . . it was premature, more like a prophecy."62 Between Kievan Russia and the new, unified Rus' under Moscow's leadership came the "frightful" Tartar rule. Although absolute monarchical power would allow no free play either for the "consultative" principle or for the noble role of the Land in public life, both of which Aksakov 60 Ibid.,

p. 258. Ibid., p. 234. 62 Ibid., p. 144. 61

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considered providentially characteristic of Russia's Slavic past, he does not see any inconsistency in his favorable view of absolute monarchy. What comes through most clearly is his strong belief in Slavophil populism. In Aksakov's view the narod, unlike the princes and Orthodox clergy, is unmarred by flaws or weaknesses. As if to guard against accusations by the Westerners that the Sla­ vophils stood for national isolation and exclusiveness, Aksakov puts his views on populism in a historical context. In his review of volume eight of Solov'ev's History, published in 1860, only months before his death, he blames the Tartars and Russia's neighbors for isolating Russia from the West. Thus he says: Until the Tartar yoke, Russia . . . was not culturally behind its neighbors. The . . . Tartars cut Russia off from the other nations. Byzantium . . . fell. Taking advantage of Russia's onerous situ­ ation, Lithuania took its southern half and united with Poland, and Poland, no less hostile than the Tartars, severed Russia even more from the rest of the world. The Russian people never wished to fence themselves off from the other nations. This is neither a Slav nor a Christian idea. On the contrary, social intercouse [obshchenie] is the living element of the Russian peo­ ple. And how could . . . social intercourse be absent where the basic principle is the commune?63 The problem of the oprichnina provided Aksakov with an oppor­ tunity to disagree once more with Solov'ev, who attributed the cre­ ation of the dread institution to the tsar's fears of the boyars, his concern for his personal safety, and boyar rivalries for position in an expanding state apparatus. 64 To Aksakov, however, the oprichnina was an effort of the tsar to destroy the ancient fraternal relations between state and Land and to make himself a despot. Ivan IV de­ cided to "tear apart" the "union" of state and Land by isolating the state and keeping it under his full control. He wanted no bonds with the Land or with "tradition." His only aim was to "surround himself with unquestioning servants. In this manner . . . he broke up the union of state and Land. . . . The oprichnina appeared, and [also] a state completely separate from the Land, having . . . no conviction 63Ibid.,

p. 265. For a commentary on Kliuchevsky's view that the oprichnina was "an all-powerful security police," and on Platonov's that its most important function was "responsi­ bility for finally breaking down the political influence of the landed aristocracy," see M. T. Florinsky, Russia: A History and an Interpretation (New York, 1953), I, 199202, 215. 64

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except the will of the monarch, and limited by no moral principles . . . therefore unbridled. This was the ideal state for Ivan."65 But realization of such a state proved illusory because it was im­ possible to "separate completely" state and Land. The oprichnina was only "an attempt," a briefly "realized fantasy" of the tsar's ideal state, "pervaded exclusively by the reverent religious conception of earthly absolutism." Given to "frightful cruelty" and wishing to al­ low free reign to his "despotic will," Ivan IV could not remain in Moscow and went to Alexandrovo. In 1565 he established the opri­ chnina, and the following year he convoked the Land (Zemsky Soborj for "consultation," indulging at will his taste for this "abstraction." Without condemning Ivan IVs "artistic nature," Aksakov concludes: "it is seldom that one can see a monarch who was filled with ideals to such degree, and who endeavored to realize them. This is the way we understand the oprichnina."66 Aksakov's two-page characterization of Ivan IV, which occurs to­ ward the end of his review of Solov'ev's volume six, presents certain difficulties not only to our unraveling of the tangled skeins in the personality of Ivan IV but also (to an extent) to unraveling Aksa­ kov's.67 Here it is necessary to look only into Aksakov's problems in his consideration of the enigmatic tsar, since his analysis bears on his cardinal concepts of zemlia and zemsky sobor. Ivan IV's con­ vocation of the Russian National Assembly or zemsky sobor, an act which Aksakov repeatedly credits to him, probably had a great deal to do with Aksakov's ability to overlook the tsar's efforts to separate 65

K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, I, 156-157. p. 158. 67 Aksakov found the key to Ivan IV's personality in the tsar's artistic makeup. "Images . . . enticed [uvlekali] him with their external beauty. He artistically under­ stood good, its beauty. He understood the beauty of repentance, the beauty of valor, and . . . horrors themselves captivated him with their frightful picturesqueness [kartinnost']. . . . This man was immoral, but he understood the artistic aspect of good and could be aesthetically moved by it. The good deed itself was of no use to him and was not within his nature. He could only feel how beautifully good it was and be satisfied with that. Such a state of affairs is almost hopeless. . . . Here we have before us not artistic feeling in general but an abstract artistic feeling, without moral foundation, which exists in life more often than is usually thought. . . . Ivan had an artistic nature that . . . enticed him from image to image, from picture to picture. ... How difficult it is for the person who loves the picture of repentance actually to repent himself!" Ibid., pp. 167-168. Kostomarov, quoting the two pages in Aksakov's review from which the above excerpts are taken, says, "With this masterly sketch of Ivan's character, composed with such a deep psychological view of man's nature .. . Ivan was understood in an unsurpassed manner, and the first honor for this belongs to Aksakov." One may agree or disagree with this evaluation, but it is the word of one who was often critical of Aksakov. See Kostomarov, Aksakov, pp. 21-22. 66 Ibid.,

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the state from the Land by means of the oprichnina and thus to render the people completely subject to his rule. Ideological consid­ erations swayed Aksakov toward a partial exoneration of Ivan IV just as they determined his bitter condemnation of Peter the Great, once Konstantin had thoroughly embraced Moscow Slavophilism. His antipathy toward the state as a non-Christian institution was tem­ pered, as far as Ivan IV was concerned, by the tsar's presumed "ideal understanding of tsarist authority." Though he condemns Ivan IV's "frightful cruelty" and his other baffling excesses, he explains them away as the workings of an "artistic nature not founded on a moral sense."68 A further look at Aksakov's historical writings shows the growing ideological development that took place between his dissertation on Lomonosov, particularly in its first sixty-odd pages, and his review of Solov'ev's volume six (1856), followed by his reply to Solov'ev's criticism of Moscow Slavophilism, "Comments on Mr. Solov'ev's Article, 'Schlozer and the Antihistorical Orientation' " (1857] and his reviews of Solov'ev's volumes seven (1858) and eight (1860). In the review of volume eight, one of the last things that Aksakov wrote, he touches on Boris Godunov, Dimitry the Pretender, Shuisky, Minin, Pozharsky, and Hermogenes; and here the change in attitude from the dissertation, especially about Godunov, stands out clearly. Godunov, one of the central actors in the drama of the Time of Troubles, was no less enigmatic than most. In the dissertation on Lomonosov, Aksakov describes Godunov as having been a courtier in the reign of Ivan IV but unconnected by blood with the royal family. The tsar was touched by the personality of young Boris but had no inkling that "in this youth . . . was hidden catastrophic calamity for his dynasty and for Russia's whole national life." Tsar Fedor's reign, Aksakov says, was characterized by the "inactivity of the former dynasty," but then a new "element" was introduced into the Russian state in Godunov, "an outsider." Tsarevich Dimitry, Fedor's brother and heir, lived in Uglich, and there "Boris destroyed him." Konstantin does not say that Boris murdered Dimitry—this classic murder mystery remains unsolved to this day—only that Boris "was the cause of his death" and that in the popular mind he was the "finisher" (prekratite]') of the dynasty. The basis for Konstantin's largely negative view of Godunov seems to lie in his belief that Boris, "descendant of a Tartar," was "a person unattached by any memories to the history of Russia." "Here was a new and unusual phenomenon in our history—an elected tsar" who " 'was not born to a kingdom.' " 68 K.

S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, I, 148, 158, 168.

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But he nonetheless commends Boris for realizing the "need for the new," for his "desire for enlightenment, the desire to bring Russia closer to the West."69 In 1860 Aksakov saw Godunov in a different light. Firmly believing in the principle of hereditary monarchy, he says that when the dy­ nasty came to an end with Dimitry's death, the Land again, as in 862, "invited" a monarch. He is now obviously partial to Godunov, and criticizes Solov'ev, saying "he persecutes him as if he were a personal enemy."70 Godunov, Aksakov explains, was elected to the throne by the Land, which, having never paid any attention to the clan, blood principle, did not care whether the successor was of Rurik's blood or not. It was Godunov's experience in governing that counted. "Elected by the will of the people, Boris mounted the throne . . . as the hereditary tsars." Aksakov in the 1860 review even exonerates Godunov of all charges in the murder of Dimitry, suggesting that Dimitry died from self-inflicted wounds. He presents Boris, the "elected" tsar, as benevolent, progressive, and ahead of his time, one who fully understood the "necessity of learning and education," and of science. He also suggests that Boris wished to establish a Russian university and that his foreign policy was enlightened: "On the one hand he strongly supported relations with [Western] Europe, partic­ ularly England, on the other he conducted relations with the Far East." In view of this, Aksakov concluded, "We may surmise that all the people were in favor of Boris, disturbed though they were by suspicion of crime. Only the upper, boyar stratum was hostile toward Godunov."71 About Shuisky, Aksakov can find little to praise, and is particularly critical of Shuisky's attitude toward the people: "No assembly [sobor], not only of the land [zemskii] but not even a Moscow assembly, was convoked. . . . Vasilii Shuisky did not come to the throne ac­ cording to the will of the people. . . .[His] election was the work of a party." As in Khomiakov's play of 1830, Dimitry the Pretender, when Shuisky becomes ruler "without election, without a zemsky sobor," so also in Aksakov's words the Russian people could be M

Ibid., II, part I, 59-60. I, 260. 71 Ibid., pp. 245, 267-269. Aksakov agrees with Solov'ev that Dimitry the Pretender,

70 Ibid.,

notwithstanding the sincerity of his belief in his legitimacy, could not have been the true Dimitry. Solov'ev's "deep, true thought" on this matter, he says, in fact "belongs to Schiller, the great poet and thinker of genius," who had advanced it in an unfinished play about Dimitry. Ibid., pp. 270-271.

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heard saying "not by the whole Land [Zemlia] was Prince Shuisky elected." This election was in fact "illegal" (nezakonnyi). 72 Poles, Swedes, and Jesuits are given scant and scornful treatment in Konstantin's review of the Time of Troubles, which lasted from Ivan's death in 1584 to the beginning of the Romanoff dynasty in 1613. The Bolotnikov revolt, an economic, social, and political move­ ment of great significance in revealing the plight of the Russian serfs, is virtually ignored, but he finds other heroes in addition to Boris Godunov—Prince Pozharsky and Kozma Minin. His supreme hero, however, much as in his play The Liberation of Mocow in 1612, is the Land, the Zemlia, that is, the common people, and it is their heroism and selflessness that he finds symbolized in the career of the lowborn Minin, a butcher by trade. The hero—Land, the heart of Russian life and culture, and of every­ thing that Konstantin admired in it—was never more worthy of its role and greatness than during the interregnum. After the Russian state was demolished, the year 1612 showed "how strong the com­ munal element was, reaching . . . the extent of an all-Russian com­ mune." To the rhetorical question, "What do we see in 1612 if not the action of the commune?" he gives the simple answer: the "com­ munal element saved Russia," an echo of a decade earlier. Moscow itself appeared in its full glory in the hour of supreme trial. Then its "sublime meaning" became manifest to all and it was "solemnly recognized as the capital of the whole Land."73 From this, one of Russia's greatest tribulations, there were lessons to be learned. Most importantly, the interregnum revealed the "whole weakness of the state order and all the strength of the Land." With evident delight Konstantin reminds Solov'ev that the "butcher Kuzma Minin, chosen by the whole Land, sat side by side with Prince Pozharsky and together with him signed edicts." Privileged individ­ uals in Russian society deserved recognition as "equal to all—but not as boyars," simply as members of the Land, "where for the in­ dividual there is only one definition, man." The common, ordinary person, he concluded, bears the name peasant, "krestianin," which derives from the word Christian.74 Toward the end of his life Konstantin was in the process of re­ defining in more precise language the anti-aristocratic, egalitarian 72

Ibid., pp. 153, 273-274. Ibid., pp. 202-203, 216, 279. On Moscow and St. Petersburg as "fighting ideological symbols" dividing the Russians in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, see Β. I. Syromiatnikov, Reguliarnoe gosudarstvo Petra Pervogo i ego ideologiia (MoscowLeningrad, 1943), p. 158. 74 K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, I, pp. 281-282. 73

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principles that formed an integral part of his Slavophil populism. Between the end of August and the middle of November 1859, at about the time he was working on his review of Solov'ev's volume eight, he wrote three letters to Prince V. A. Cherkassky bearing on this subject. Prince Cherkassky, like Iurii Samarin, was a member of the government advisory committee on serf emancipation. In these letters (of which more will be said in the last chapter) Konstantin tells the prince that he has read report number five of the committee, signed by Cherkassky and others, and is "horrified." The first and longest letter, four-and-a-half pages, is a sustained panegyric to the peasant mir, the same mir that the prince had allegedly treated with mindless disrespect. Conscious of his own gentry lineage, Konstantin attempts to ra­ tionalize his attitude toward the aristocracy. He admits that he is pleased to "bear an ancient name belonging to a seven-hundred-yearold family." But he says that his reasons for loving the name are diametrically different from those of most aristocrats. "I love tradi­ tion, I love history," he explains. "I love ancient times . . . that is why it pleases me to carry antiquity in my name." He then launches into a diatribe against aristocracy in general, and in only slightly less severe terms, against Prince Cherkassky himself. He finds "nothing aristocratic" in tradition, the power of which belongs to all classes and all persons in a society—though on second thought he says that it excludes the aristocracy. And its attempt to claim tradition as its own is only one plunder (grabezh) among many—like its "claim to virtue, and its blasphemous term, noblesse oblige." Moreover, the "aristocrat is the enemy of the people and of Christianity. It is ap­ propriate to be reminded here of Robespierre's words, L'atheisme est aristocratique." Cherkassky comes in for more chastising for being on a government committee: "You are a Russian," Konstantin scolds, "you should be neither an aristocrat nor a bureaucrat," and he reminds him that a forebear of his, Prince D. M. Cherkassky, had been a collaborator of the noble Minin and Pozharsky. The trouble, Konstantin tells him, is that "you are not a complete Russian ... you have been breathing French and, in general, foreign air from childhood." He had hoped that Slavophilism might rescue Cherkassky, but he ruefully con­ cludes, "now you are once again on the foreign path. . . . I love you, but I love the people [narod] more."75 75 0. Trubetskaia, ed., Kn. V. A. Cherkassky i ego uchastie ν razreshenii krest'ianskago voprosa. Materialy dJia biografii, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1904), I, book 2, 116, 123. Cherkassky's reply has not survived, but Konstantin acknowledged it in a three-page letter of November 16, 1859. After some touching sentiments about his father's death and

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Apart from the linguistic allusion to the Russian peasant as a Chris­ tian, Aksakov in his review of Solov'ev's volume eight has almost nothing to say about the Russian Orthodox church, or the character and behavior of the Metropolitan Filaret of Rostov, whose son was soon to become the first Romanoff tsar, or even of the aged and controversial Patriarch Hermogenes, who, whether or not he was the author of the letters calling for a revolt against the foreign occupiers of Moscow, was a major actor in the drama. Referring to the long struggle for Russian political unity in 1856, Aksakov says that an "exalted alliance of faith" united people and clergy, and in the trying struggle "a great calling fell to the lot of the clergy." Its key role was to serve as the "guardian of the unity of the Russian land in a time of dissension and other disturbances." He names a number of clerics who over a long period taught, enlightened, or exposed, concluding that "in the person of Hermogenes [the church] took on the wreath of martyrdom." Stressing still the secular, nationalistic role of the church, he viewed with satisfaction "its sacred exploits in behalf of the Russian land."76 It is true, however, that Aksakov's Slavophilism is often neglectful of the historical and contemporary Russian church and hierarchy. In his dissertation on Lomonosov he criticizes ancient church writ­ ings for their "Byzantine rhetoric," which vitiated the language of the people. He has much the same attitude—later—in recalling that the Apostles were not hierarchs but "fishermen, men from the simple people."77 Repeatedly he stresses that in his scheme of things the Russian peasant and, even more, the peasant commune were the embodiment of true Christian living—leaving one to guess about his attitude toward the religious function of the church. He seems to have achieved, to his satisfaction at any rate, a fusion of the secular commune and the principle of Christian brotherhood, bypassing the organized Russian Orthodox church. This does not seem unlikely for one who could say that "Russian history has the meaning of a Universal Confession. It could be read like the lives of the Saints."78 According to Florovsky, the Slavophils did not make a clear dis­ tinction between social consciousness (obshchestvennost') and church the void that it had left, Konstantin lashed out at Cherkassky: "I did not think that I would have to defend the people [narod] against you. . . . For me there is nothing more contrary to God [bogoprotivnoe] than aristocracy." Ibid., p. 122. 76 K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, I, 160. 77 For other instances of Aksakov's distrust of Byzantine culture and "rhetoric" and for his equivocal position on the Russian clergy see ibid., pp. 146, 168, 216, 234, 262, 263. 78 Ibid., p. 625.

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consciousness or ecclesiology (tserkovnosf), and their failure to do so marred their conception of the church and even more their phi­ losophy of history, or more precisely their "philosophy of society"; they substituted the "commune" for the church, and "all religious activity is contained within the limits of the 'commune.' " Florovsky's penetrating comments would seem to apply even more to Konstantin Aksakov than to the other Slavophils.79 In Aksakov's case, if not the others, his attitude is ultimately traceable to his simple and yet baffling conception of the Russian peasant as an exceptional creature capable of an extraordinary Christian life. This ennobling of the Russian peasant was not, of course, unique to Aksakov, who together with the Russian peasant, as pointed out earlier, was so intemperately castigated by Berdiaev. But it is unlikely that Aksakov would have nursed his delusions about the narod so long and so piously if he had had more accurate knowledge of people, specifi­ cally the narod. His brother Ivan's lament that Konstantin did not know life referred not only to Konstantin's personal affairs but to life in general, including the life of the peasantry. The four reviews that Konstantin Aksakov wrote about Sergei Solov'ev's History of Russia took him chronologically only to the end of the Time of Troubles, that is, to 1613. Konstantin did not need the incentive of a review to turn his thoughts to the reign of Peter the Great, for he had given thought to this most controversial of all Russian rulers from time to time throughout his career. The argument about Peter did not start with the Westerner-Slavophil disagreement in the 1830's and 1840's, though Peter had a very important place in it. The controversy goes back to Peter's time. Some of his contem­ poraries considered him an "earthly god," whereas to others he was 79 "The commune in this philosophy," Florovsky says, "is not so much a historical as it is actually a supra-historical or, one may say. extra-historical quantity—and a national element of an ideal other-existence [ino-bytiia], an unexpected oasis of the 'other world,' 'not of this world,' in which it is both necessary and possible to seek refuge from political vanity. . . . With this is connected the unexpected contradiction of Slavophilism in the very formulation of the problem of the philosophy of history. . . . Slavophilism was conceived as a philosophy of history, as a philosophy of universal Christian fate. But Slavophilism's passionate commitment is actually in this, to escape and even retreat from history . . . to free themselves from the historical or the 'political' burden and to leave it to others. Berdiaev in his time noticed this unexpected discrepancy in the historical philosophy of Khomiakov: 'He does not give a prophetic interpretation of history, and not infrequently one encounters in him moralizing about history. In his philosophy of history ethics is predominant over mysticism.' In it there is a religious-ethical evaluation, but there is no religiousmystical penetration [prozrenie]." See Florovsky, Puti russkago bogosloviia, pp. 251252.

PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

325

"antichrist" and the instrument of the "will of the devil."80 Beyond the personality and pivotal reign of Peter the Great were the large, fundamental issues of Russian history and culture. Indeed, the in­ tense controversies that raged around Peter the Great during the reign of Nicholas I were not mere outbursts caused by a newly discovered explosive personality or issue. Rather, they were manifestations of the post-Decembrist concern of the "men of the thirties and forties" for a solution to a pressing theoretical and practical problem: What are we and where are we going? Peter the Great did not create the problem, but he did more than anyone else to make his countrymen conscious of it and of the solution that he chose. In a manner reminiscent of Karamzin, Aksakov over a period of years turned from an admirer of Peter the Great to a bitter, though not absolute, detractor.81 The change came about, as already shown, when he abandoned the Hegelian dialectic for the narod and arrived at the rudiments of his idiosyncratic interpretation of Orthodoxy. In 1846-1847 he noticed in Peter the Great and Ivan IV a similarity of personality traits and the "particular respect" that Peter had for his predecessor. But though there were similarities, he preferred Ivan IV. He found that the "feeling for unlimited power in all its purity was ... experienced by both Ivan the Muscovite and Peter the 'Shkiper,' but in Peter's case it manifested itself more powerfully than in Ivan's as in everything in which they were alike."82 In the 1856 review, as in 1851, Konstantin took issue with Solov'ev's notion of Peter the Great as a "continuator," meaning that 80 For a review of various attitudes at different times oil Peter the Great, written from an anti-Slavophil point of view but containing much factual information, see Syromiatnikov, Reguliarnoe gosudarstvo Petra Pervogo i ego ideologiia, pp. 5-15. Kavelin, the moderate Westerner looking back in 1866 on the polemics with the Slavophils, had this to say: " 'It seems as if Peter were still alive among us. We continue to . . . treat him as a contemporary. We love him or we do not. . . we extol him above the heavens or we reduce his merits. . . . Much, much time will yet pass before Peter gets calm, unbiased, impartial justice, which will at the same time con­ stitute a solution to the problem as to what we are, and where we are going.' " Referring to the same period, Kliuchevsky made a similar comment', the " 'scholarly question of the significance of Peter's reforms was turned into a noisy journal and salon ar­ gument about ancient and modern Russia, their mutual relationship, [and] historical perspective was replaced by theories in the philosophy of history of the two anti­ thetical cultural worlds, Russia and Europe.' " Quoted on pp. 16-18. 81 For a summary of Karamzin's early pro-Western views and his later, proto-Slavophil thoughts characteristic of his Zapiska ο drevnei i novoi Rossii (1811), see ibid., pp. 12-14. See also Richard Pipes, Karamzin's Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia: A Translation and Analysis (Cambridge, Mass., 1959), pp. 56-59; Walicki, The Sla­ vophile Controversy, pp. 33-38. 82 K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniiα, I, 171, 612-613.

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he continued to borrow the good and useful from other nations. Not only did Peter borrow thoughtlessly and indiscriminately, Konstantin charged, but he did it badly. He took "not only the useful and the universal, but the particular and the national, the very foreign life with all its accidental details," seeking a "sharp, violent, quick, and imitative transformation" of Russia in what was a true "revo­ lution" (perevorot). This sort of change was "unprecedented" in Russian history and did "not belong to those peaceful changes which were accomplished easily and imperceptibly." Peter was the first revolutionary in Russian history, without "predecessors in ancient Russia."83 Although Peter's revolution most immediately affected the Russian upper class, its long-term results touched all levels of society, further alienating the vast majority of the people, the narod, from the landed aristocracy. Thus while the upper class accepted foreign dress, man­ ners, mores, and language, the Land remained true to its Russian way of life. With characteristic blindness to economic, social, and political class differences, as in the case of the Bolotnikov revolt, Konstantin fixes on a single cause, Peter's reforms, for the basic divisions that existed in Russian society from the early eighteenth century on. And to the extent that he considers serfdom an alienating element, he tries to blame that too on Peter. The interpretation of Peter's reign is basically different from that of the dialectics of the dissertation. The reasons for Konstantin's intense dislike for Peter the Great in 1856 are thus part and parcel of his exaltation of the narod, and he is wrathful toward his own gentry class for so meekly accepting Peter's changes. From the height of their "enlightenment" they looked upon old Russia with suspicion as a "mauvais genre." "No," Konstantin scolds, "this is not enlightenment!" He denounces the gentry's "strange" and "pitiful" attempts to cast a shadow on the "majestic image" of ancient Russia, to "find everything up to Peter's time unworthy and insignificant, and to see only since Peter, and through Peter, everything good in Russia. How strange and incom­ prehensible (for us at least) it is to attribute all the majesty of the age-long exploits and labors of the people to a single person, genius though he may be."84 83Ibid.,

pp. 41-43, 58, 166. p. 166. On the same page Konstantin publicly reproaches two detractors of pre-Petrine Russia, Count E. F. Kankrin, minister of finance (1823-1844), and Ν. V. Kukol'nik, an apologist for Nicholas I. He respected Kankrin's consistency and there­ fore his suggestion that Russia should be renamed Petroviia and the Russians Petrovtsy, but took issue with Kukol'nik's assertion that Peter changed Russia's whole 84 Ibid.,

PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

327

In his correspondence Konstantin was even more outspoken. In a letter to Sofia Matveevna Velikopol'skaia dated by the editor to the end of 1848 or early 1849, he described Peter's reign as one of the great calamities in Russian history, saying the "ordeal that was visited on our Rus' [was] of the same sort as the Tartar invasion [and] the ravage of Moscow in 1612, etc., with this difference—that it was more onerous than those." And he went on: "The influence of the West on our land I consider a great evil. Imitation is always sterile and harmful [particularly] when it is directed at such a bad model as the West."85 With respect to his dissertation on Lomonosov, a copy of which he was belatedly sending to Velikopol'skaia, Konstantin was on the defensive. "My dissertation was written long ago," he says, and "that is why Peter's revolution is considered there very leniently. I could now write a very strong criticism of my disserta­ tion."88 Without a doubt the revolutions of 1848 in the West had a good deal of influence on Konstantin's change of mind and heart about Peter the Great and helped to polarize his convictions. Konstantin could still be optimistic about Russia's future, how­ ever, despite his disillusionment in Peter the Great and the Russian gentry, who had so readily accepted Peter's unfortunate innovations. Not everything was lost. The narod was untouched and unspoiled, and there were the Moscow Slavophils already at work to repair the damage. A passage from the unfinished review of Solov'ev's volume one (1851) shows the reasons for his optimism: In our time among the upper classes . . . is awakening the con­ sciousness of the falseness of our alien orientation and the shame of apishness. Russian thought is beginning to free itself from captivity. Its whole activity is in Moscow. . . . The end of the long ordeal, and . . . the triumph and rise of true Rus' and Moscow . . . are approaching. The Russians who had forgotten their Rus' are beginning to recall it. . . . The principal, the es­ sential task is moral freedom. It is coming into existence.87 Aksakov oversimplifies, of course. Not everything was happening in Moscow or because of the Moscow Slavophils. The Russian literary revival was the work, among others, of such Westerners from the rotten internal order, and that he "pulled the Russians up by their ears and set them on their feet." 85 K. S. Aksakov, "Pis'mo k S. M. Velikopol'skoi," ed. B. L. Modzalevsky, Russkii arkhiv, 1904, no. 7, p. 450. Modzalevsky calls the letter Aksakov's "profession de foi." 86 Ibid., p. 451. 87 K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, I, 49-50.

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gentry as Herzen and Ivan Turgenev and such classless men as Belinsky, and soon of Chernyshevsky, Dobroliubov, and the "men of the soil" (pochvenniki); also of Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol' before them, and others. Using Peter the Great as a symbol more than as a historical figure, Konstantin switched from his early apology for the individual, whose importance Peter exemplified and symbolized, to a bitter opponent of virtually everything that Peter did and stood for. Since Peter also symbolized the West in its inclusive cultural-historical as well as contemporary meaning, Konstantin turned upon the West and Peter at the same time. Out of the basic dichotomy of Russia and the West came Konstantin's notion of the two worlds, and the presumed su­ periority of the Russian over the Western. From it also came such specific beliefs as the uniqueness of the Russian historical road; the unmatched quality of the narod, with its preordained communalChristian order, its great qualitative edge over the state as an insti­ tution, expressed in the state-Land contrast; and Konstantin's pop­ ulist egalitarianism, sharply pointed at his own gentry class and the government bureaucracy. But although Russia had been on a false and fateful road since Peter, he saw hope for the future in Slavo­ philism and its true Russian Slav principles and institutions. And while the historian of the Slavophils noted this with satisfaction and recorded several bright achievements in his historical writings, he also showed that, in fiction, delusion, or dream, he was firmly in the grip of the imperious idea.

CHAPTER 15 LITERARY CRITICISM AND EDUCATION

AT HIS BEST as a historian Konstantin Aksakov showed a refreshing and fruitful newness of concept and a boldness in the face of the stereotyped, but his unyielding ideological commitment limited his horizons and dominated his judgment. His historical writings, lack­ ing objectivity, often arouse understandable suspicion. Similar idio­ syncrasies mark his literary activities. In his playwriting he was little more than a quixotic experimenter. His several plays were artistic failures on stage and off, soon forgotten and never revived. Some of his poems—numbering about one hundred twenty in all—have real merit and the added interest of being part of the poetic output of the Stankevich circle.1 He showed a flair for literary criticism, but here also he was incapable of detached and balanced judgment. He had no interest, it seems, in belles-lettres, and his one essay on education, a proper enough subject for a thoughtful writer, is sketchy, slanted, and perhaps excessively didactic. It went unnoticed at the time. The review of Dead Souls is Aksakov's earliest literary review (as 1 These have been republished in Mashinsky, Poety, pp. 281-484. Included is Ak­ sakov's early verse play, Oleg pod Konstantinopolem, dating from his student days but first published in 1858. It runs to fifty-five pages. Professor Kuleshov, an authority on Russian literature, has praised some of Konstantin's early poems. As a university student, Kuleshov says, Konstantin gave us "several beautiful 'student' poems." He considers him the University of Moscow's "bard," whose poems were known to "all the university youth." Kuleshov describes a poem of 1834 about Konstantin's infant's crib as "poetically mature and extraordinarily original," and he characterizes the poem celebrating his sister Masha's birthday (1836), set to music by Tchaikovsky in 1881, as "delightful." Kuleshov is less charitable about such later poems as "Free Speech," constructed "according to the laws of rhetorical cadences, as the thesis of a flaming speech," the end of which is "drowned in waves of rhetoric." In Slavophil poetry, in general, Kuleshov criticizes their "beloved preaching intonation" and their frequent polemical evangelical negative, as in "do not steal, do not kill." But the Slavophils wrote much "nonprogrammed lyrical poetry particularly in the early pe­ riod. . , . And here one can fairly note a number of extremely felicitous poems." V. I. Kuleshov, Slavianofily i russkaia literatura (Moscow, 1976), pp. 187-197.

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND'

distinguished from the one on Belinsky's Grammar) and also the one that has remained the most controversial. In this sense it is his most important review. Not only did it cause a stir in Russian literary circles at the time, but even a century and a quarter later it, along with Belinsky's response, could still arouse interest and controversy. At the end of the 1960's they were the subject of a vigorous exchange in the pages of Voprosy literatury, touched off by Kozhinov's reas­ sessment of the significance of the 1830's in Russian culture.2 Ko­ zhinov's essay focuses on the work of two key men, Chaadaev and Gogol'. Chaadaev, not having been directly involved in controversy with Aksakov, must be bypassed here, but a few comments on Ko­ zhinov's views in regard to Aksakov's review of Dead Souls and Belinsky's response are in order. Kozhinov is fully conscious of the tense atmosphere, in 1842, in which the written debate was conducted: he speaks of the "demands of literary politics," of "tactical goals," and of a "sharp polemic" among the former friends and fellow members of the Stankevich circle. But beneath these surface manifestations, which often exag­ gerate and obscure the true positions in a debate, he finds Belinsky and Aksakov agreeing on the "most important point" (ν samom glavnom), that is, on Aksakov's controversial "act of creation" notion, which Kozhinov, using current terminology, calls "artistic method" [khudozhestvennyi metod). Kozhinov further states that in 1847 Belinsky compared Gogol' with Cervantes with respect to "artistic method," that Belinsky and Aksakov sought to interpret Dead Souls as unique in European literature at that time, and that they in effect announced the " 'Renaissance' nature of Gogol's art." Kozhinov also says that Apollon Grigor'ev, ten years later than Aksakov, found, like him, that Shakespeare alone is kindred (odnoroden) to Gogol'. Ko­ zhinov assumes that Shakespeare and Cervantes are "profoundly akin" with respect to artistic method, and concludes that "Aksakov and Belinsky are at one [ediny] on the main thing; that is, the affir­ mation of the proximity of Gogol's artistic method, the 'act of crea­ tion,' to Renaissance art." Kozhinov also speaks of Gogol's artistic method as being "akin to Renaissance realism."3 We need not go into the details of the spirited debate that Kozhi­ nov's essay touched off with respect to the essence and achievement of the 1830's and their meaning for nineteenth-century Russian cul2 See 3

Kozhinov's article, "K metodologii istorii russkoi literatury."

Ibid., pp. 74-77.

LITERARY CRITICISM AND EDUCATION

331

ture.4 The juxtaposition of Belinsky's views on Gogol's Dead Souls with Aksakov's does, however, need some comment. It is true that Aksakov, in his review of Dead Souls, mentions Shakespeare and Homer in the same breath, but his "Homerization" of Gogol', and the evidence, scanty though it is, point more in the direction of classical Greece than of the Renaissance West. As a precocious child Konstantin learned to read from a history of Troy, and he acquired a lasting admiration for the Homeric age. Then as a mature Slavophil he borrowed, on his own admission, the image of the chorus from the classical Greek drama, to embody his choric principle. How much Aksakov knew about the Renaissance West, beyond Shakespeare, is very uncertain. But if Belinsky and Aksakov found any common ground in the early 1840's by way of Gogol' and Shake­ speare, that is not borne out by the evidence at my disposal. In 1842 Belinsky responded not so much to the substance of Slavophilism as to its general direction, and not so much to its content as to Slavophil personalities, Konstantin's in particular. Though the com­ munal principle (to which Belinsky did not object) had been "dis­ covered" by Khomiakov and Kireevsky three or four years earlier, the doctrines of sobornost' and "wholeness of the spirit" and the choric principle, as well as a number of other substantive compo­ nents of Moscow Slavophilism (including the result of the commune4 Seven

months after Kozhinov's essay two rebuttals appeared also in Voprosy literatury, by A. Dement'ev and D. Nikolaev. Dement'ev's reply is "Obsuzhdaem stat'iu 'K metodologii istorii russkoi literatury.' Somnitel'naia metodologiia," Voprosy literatury, 1968, no. 12, pp. 69-90. It is a refutation of Kozhinov's reinterpretation of the 1830's and of Chaadaev and Gogol', including Kozhinov's attempt to "reconcile" Belinsky and Aksakov. Nikolaev's reply (pp. 91-110) is under the title "Satiricheskoe otritsanie i otritsanie satiry," a reference to Nikolaev's contention that Aksakov and Kozhinov do not consider Dead Souls a satire (pp. 102-103,110). To him Belinsky's and Aksakov's views on Dead Souls are "not only not concurrent but are directly opposite." Kozhinov and Dement'ev had a chance for a few more licks the following year when a twelve-article debate on the topic, "Literaturnaia kritika rannikh slavianofilov," was published in nos. 5, 7, 10, and 12 (1969) of Voprosy literatury. See A. Ianov, "Zagadka slavianofil'skoi kritiki," no. 5, pp. 90-116; S. Pokrovsky, "Mnimaia zagadka," no. 5, pp. 117-128; B. Egorov, "Problema kotoruiu neobkhodimo reshit'," no. 5, pp. 128-135; A. Dement'ev, " 'Kontseptsiia,' 'konstruktsiia,' i 'model,' " no. 7, pp. 116-129; A. Ivanov, "Otritsatel'noe dostoinstvo," no. 7, pp. 129-138; L. Frizman, "Za nauchnuiu obektivnost'," no. 7, pp. 138-152; E. Maimin, "Nuzhny konkretnye issledovaniia," no. 10, pp. 103-112; V. Kozhinov, "0 glavnom ν nasledie slavianofilov," no. 10, pp. 113-131; V. I. Kuleshov, "Slavianofil'stvo, kak ono est'," no. 10, pp. 131144; S. Dmitriev, "Podkhod dolzhen byt' konkretno-istoricheskii," no. 12, pp. 73-84; A. Ianov, "Otvet opponentam," no. 12, pp. 85-101; S. Mashinsky, "Slavianofil'stvo i ego istolkovateli (nekotorye itogi diskussii)," no. 12, pp. 102-139.

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clan debate with the liberal Westerners) were yet to be incorporated in its creed and program. Thus Belinsky was opposing only the rudiments of Slavophilism in 1842, and Slavophil personalities. The polemics kept Belinsky and Aksakov apart, and since they main­ tained no contact with each other after Belinsky went to St. Peters­ burg in 1839, neither could easily follow the other's mental and ideological peregrinations. For although Belinsky published regu­ larly in St. Petersburg, the Slavophils had no such opportunity in Moscow; therefore it was easier for Konstantin to read Belinsky than vice versa. Otherwise Belinsky might have known that Konstantin had not yet broken with Hegel and was only beginning to work out his Slavophil position. Konstantin's inordinate praise of Gogol's work seems to have been a matter of keen appreciation of Gogol's unique genius, of nationalistic elation, and of personal satisfaction that he was a friend of the Aksakovs. The bulk of Konstantin Aksakov's literary criticism was published in the Slavophil symposia of 1846 and 1847. To the first of these Aksakov contributed under his own name an essay entitled "Several Words about Our Spelling," and to the second, under the pen name "Mr. Imrek," "Three Critical Articles." (An editorial note in the 1847 volume explains that these articles were actually written for the 1846 Symposium—that is, the same year in which Aksakov's dissertation on Lomonosov was published.) Since these four works are unmis­ takably pro-Slavophil, the problem as to exactly when Aksakov began to abandon Hegel and Peter the Great becomes even more obscure than before. The first essay, "Several Words about Our Spelling," is in the main a technical examination of a number of Russian words which Aksakov appears to have chosen for their interesting orthography. But as usual, he does not always stick closely to his subject, and much of the interest lies in his comments on the use of language, including the improper use of the native tongue by the "alienated" (obinostranennyi) Russian. The "invasion of foreign influence" in Russia has affected even Russian speech, he says, and the language must "be freed from this confining alien yoke." The essay ends with an impassioned plea that the "freedom" of the Russian language, its most characteristic feature, be rescued from alien encroachments. Russian "originality [samobytnost'] and nationality" must be re­ stored, for even though Russia is by nature not isolationist the Rus­ sian people must learn to arrive at universal truth themselves, not by way of "verite or Wahrheit or truth."5 5 Moskovskii

iiteraturnyi i uchenyi sbornik (Moscow, 1846), pp. 316, 322, 324.

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The theme of Russian originality carries over into the three short literary reviews in the 1847 Symposium—the first and third on two recent symposia, the second on a history of Russian literature by A. Nikitenko.6 Even this early Aksakov showed a partiality for con­ certed, cooperative, socially initiated and oriented activity, prefer­ ring the symposium (sbornik) to books and periodicals as the ap­ propriate form for the expression of Slavophil views. In the symposium, he begins in the first review, many persons speak together. In it "one finds the more or less common orientation, common voice. This is a choir." It is true, he goes on, that sometimes a single voice contains more than the voice of a group, but the "choir" gives, "at least, the quantitative aspect of society."7 This is the first presentiment, in its most rudimentary form, of Aksakov's choric principle. By 1851 the notion had become firmly associated in his mind not only with the chorus in Greek drama but also with Russian peasant singing and dancing, and the "principle of Russian life."8 Most of the first review is devoted to Prince Odoevsky's story "Sirotinka" (The Orphan). It is easy to see what aroused Konstantin's disgust, mainly at the author but also at the orphan herself, poor Nastia. The theme somewhat resembles that of Konstantin's play of 1851, Prince Lupovitsky or Arrival in the Village. Nastia, a peasant girl, is taken by her mistress from her native village to "Piter" (St. Petersburg) and after several years returns to the village, her St. Petersburg education having "made a miracle" of her. Konstantin charges Odoevsky with having "created Nastia subjectively"; he sent her to St. Petersburg to learn how to make the sign of the cross and seemed to think that formal schooling was necessary for her edu­ cation, as if the narod were not the supreme teacher. The funda­ mental problem was that Odoevsky had made Nastia an "abstract and superficial person" for whom the narod was "an impenetrable secret, a closed sanctuary. "9 But the fault really went beyond Odoevsky to Peter the Great, who started it all by importing indiscrimi­ nately from the West, including Odoevsky's brand of "transplanted literature." The whole eighteenth century was a period of "lie, mas6 The titles are: Vchera i segodnia. Literaturnyi sbornik (Yesterday and Today. A Literary Symposium), ed. V. A. Sollogub (St. Petersburg, 1845); Opyt istorii russkoi literatury (An Attempt at a History of Russian Literature), by A. Nikitenko (St. Pe­ tersburg, 1845); and Petersburgskii sbornik (Petersburg Symposium), ed. N. A. Nekrasov (St. Petersburg, 1846). See Moskovskii literaturnyi i uchenyi sbornik ηa 1847 god, otdei kritiki, pp. 3-44. (Hereafter cited as Moskovskii sbornik.) 7 Moskovskii sbornik, pp. 3-4. 8 Letter to Gogol' in Russkii arkhiv, 1890, book I, p. 151. 'Moskovskii sbornik, pp. 5-6.

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querade, and decoration."10 Picking up a favorite theme, Konstantin points to Karamzin, who in the later volumes of his Russian history showed an appreciation for the narod and its originality (samobytnost'). In the debate between Karamzin and Shishkov over the Rus­ sian language, Konstantin was on the admiral's side but regretted his lack of training in linguistics. This was responsible for Shishkov's error in considering Church Slavonic as "ancient Russian." Konstantin was apparently quite baffled by Professor Nikitenko's History of Russian Literature, the subject of the second review. He complains about Nikitenko's "smooth" phrases and "resounding words," which leave the reader with a sense of "emptiness." He criticizes his weak logic, contrasting it with the "gigantic power of Hegel's logic," and also his "unqualified panegyric to Peter I," his dislike of "beards in particular," and his reference to the peasant's dwelling as a "hut" or "den" (izba, logovishche).11 The last point brought out in Konstantin a rare awareness of the wretched housing conditions in the Russian village; more often than not, in his raptures over the beauty of the peasant's character and soul he seemed un­ aware of the grim aspects of serf life. In the Petersburg Symposium, the subject of the third review, Konstantin had far better material to deal with. This volume contains Dostoevsky's first two novels, Bednye liudi (Poor Folk) and Dvoinik (The Double), first published in Notes of the Fatherland), essays by Herzen and Belinsky, a long narrative poem by Ivan Turgenev, and contributions by the poets A. P. Maikov and N. A. Nekrasov, the editor of the volume. More than half of the twenty pages of the review are devoted to the two novels by Dostoevsky—one which Konstantin liked, and one which he detested. Poor Folk, he says, was written by a man whose talent "one could not doubt." Talent was essential for such "living images, . . . inspired narrative, . . . [and] absorbing descriptions." The novel was so outstanding that Konstantin had to give it "special attention." Nonetheless, he declares that it is not wholly original: it "was positively written under Gogol's influence," and the "astonishing similarity" often went as far as "imitation,"12 Thus Poor Folk lacks creative distinction, and its author does not display any artistic talent in the novel "as a whole." Alongside Gogol' and Dickens, he says, "Dostoevsky is not an artist and will not be one."13 This pronouncement was based, it seems, not on Poor Folk alone 10

Ibid., pp. 7-8. Ibid., pp. 19-21, 22-23. 12 Ibid., p. 27. 13 Ibid., pp. 29, 33. 11

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but also on The Double, about which Konstantin has nothing com­ plimentary to say. In fact he would not have bothered with the second novel if he had not been so struck by the first. The Double, he says, shows more "naked imitation of the external aspect [vneshnost'] of Gogol's great works" and has "neither sense, nor content, nor thought—nothing," and it falls far short of the promise of Poor Folk.14 The main theme of the novel, man's eternal struggle between good and evil, evidently eluded him. Herzen's essay, "Kaprizy i razdum'e" (Whims and Hesitation), seems to Konstantin "wise and remarkable," and taking the oppor­ tunity for a little moralizing about Russian high society, he quotes a long passage in which Herzen summarizes Napoleon's commentary on the many ways in which lying was practiced in contemporary society. Konstantin deplores the fussing about "social" or "guest room" life while "family life" is often neglected.15 He carries on the theme when he comes to Ivan Turgenev's poem, "Pomeshchik" (The Landlord). It is "so bad, such rubbish," Aksakov says. Quoting one stanza describing a "Russian ball," he ridicules balls as worthless pastimes for the gentry and the bureaucracy. (The same image of a dancing high society occurs in his attacks on the upper class and the government in the 1850's). Resignedly, he con­ cludes: What else could one expect of the "St. Petersburg litterateurs"? They could not hide their sense of superiority, that same "aristocratic feeling" that placed the "service people above the simple peasants." But he points out in a footnote that this same Ivan Turgenev expe­ rienced a complete metamorphosis as soon as he was touched by the Russian peasant. Referring to Turgenev's story of Russian peasant life, "Khor' i Kalinych," which had recently been published in The Contemporary, Aksakov says, "This is what it means to be in contact with the land and the ηarod. At once one acquires strength." He advises Turgenev to cast aside his "boring love affairs," his "ego­ tism," and his poetry too.16 He only needed to keep in touch with the riarod, and to stay with prose. Some of these themes are repeated in the discussion of Maikov's poem "Two Fates" (Dve sud'by}. Aksakov censured the "sad ego­ tism" that he saw in much of the contemporary literature, and in Maikov's poem. Russia was like a plant that had "bared its roots from the soil." This, of course, was true of the upper class, but the 14 Ibid., pp. 34, 35. ' 5 Ibid., p. 36. 16 Ibid., pp. 37-39, 42.

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nation was not yet lost, for it could still rely on the narod.17 He speaks of Russia's sense of universality and of belonging to the family of nations and denies any isolationism, particularly in art and literature. "Art has always had, in the Orient as in Greece, its general, human content," while being specifically Oriental or Hellenic. The review of the Petersburg Symposium ends with a few remarks about Belinsky's essay on Russian literature ("Mysli i zametki ο russkoi literature"). The five years since Belinsky's departure from Moscow had not mitigated the antagonism between the former friends. In particular, Aksakov quibbles with Belinsky's assertion that Peter's reforms did nothing to remove the old class barriers in Russian society. "Peter not only did not shake the walls between the classes," Aksakov declares, "he in fact erected them," since in prePetrine Russia "they did not even exist."18 It was the same sort of myopia toward basic social, economic, and political conflicts that prompted him, nine years later, to assure Alexander II that he should have no fear of a popular revolution. One wonders whether he would have had the same advice for Nicholas II. Only at the end does Aksakov show Belinsky any generosity, when he admits that Belinsky was right in saying that a poet must have a sense of "nationality" (natsional'nost'), and right also this time "about Gogol's success in Europe (which was refuted in 0. Z., for they said earlier that Gogol' does not command European interest)."19 Aksakov readily concurred in Belinsky's prophecy that in the "future we will place on the scales of European life, in addition to the victorious Russian sword, also Russian thought."20 This much granted, Aksakov returns to the attack and declares the rest of Belinsky's essay a repetition of "nonsense about Russian literature" printed earlier in Notes of the Fatherland. It was a decade before Aksakov next tackled literary criticism. Writing when one felt like it, and on whatever subject appealed, was characteristic of the leisurely, often haphazard Slavophil manner, particularly Aksakov's. Before he published his next, and last com­ pleted, literary review in 1857 he wrote two plays, the two essays on the communal social order among the Russians and the other Slavs, a short essay on education, an essay about Russian verbs, and one on the Russian point of view, two reviews (one incomplete) of two volumes of Solov'ev's History, and a number of poems on various 17

Ibid., pp. 40-41. p. 43. 19 Ο. Z. stands for Otechestvennye zapiski (Notes of the Fatherland), which Belinsky dominated in the first half of the 1840's. Belinsky had said in 1842 that Gogol's work was of significance only in Russia. 20Moskovskii sbornik, p. 44. 18Ibid.,

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subjects. Some fragments of varying lengths also date from this pe­ riod. Such diverse activity, though perhaps worthwhile, prevented him from achieving the degree of competence that is usually the reward for specialization. All his works, however, whatever their merit and subject, are imbued with his Slavophil point of view, and thus they deserve attention in the reconstruction of his ideology. Particularly in the early years of the decade (1846-1857), Aksakov was engaged in an earnest and painful reconsideration of a number of basic convictions, including the meaning and character of art. The evidence, although fragmentary, is poignant at times and constitutes a profession of faith. Reference is here made to the same letter to S. M. Velikopol'skaia, dating to the end of 1847 or early 1848, that was cited in Chapter 14 as illustrating Konstantin's new critical at­ titude toward Peter the Great. This was his first "thesis" (teza). His second was art. Once again Konstantin took his stand without an effort to explain why and how he arrived at his tezisy. Velikopol'skaia was a woman of some taste and talent; she played the harp, painted, and studied Spanish and Italian. She had received from Konstantin a copy of his play The Liberation of Moscow in 1612 and had acknowledged it. Konstantin thanked her for the "good word" about the play; he realized that it was "very difficult to un­ derstand," for he was trying to write a play "without an individual [iichnost'], without a hero"—and also, it might be added, without blood, thunder, and gore. He had wanted the play to be marked by "humility, not pride." In the play, as in life, he says, the "Russian people turn to God, not to themselves." Admittedly, it was "not an artistic work," but an attempt to present to the public the "noble order of life" in Russia before Peter. Declaring that he was not a poet and did not wish to be one, although he "formerly so lived in poetry," he told Velikopol'skaia that contemporary art "is paganism and is incompatible with the Christian life." With characteristic Slavophil bias and personal extremism, he says: "In Catholicism [art] could exist, for Catholicism is (in much, at any rate) Christian paganism, but in our Russian life, based on the Orthodox faith, it cannot exist as autonomous art. It could have only subsidiary [sluzhebnyi] use, such as in iconography." The letter closes with a plea to Veliko­ pol'skaia to take these remarks only as "themes," which he will explain later.21 At the end of the 1840's a number of circumstances combined to

21 Russkii arkhiv, 1904, no. 7, p. 451. To my knowledge no reply from Velikopol'skaia to this letter or any subsequent elaboration from Aksakov has appeared in print.

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alienate Konstantin from the West as never before. We have noted his deepening disillusionment with Peter the Great and Hegel, and the impact of the revolutions in Western Europe. At home, there was an intensified government censorship at the beginning of the "dark seven years," which had the effect of further isolating the Slavophils not only from Russian public life but also from the rest of Europe. Konstantin was not quite ready to withdraw into the monastery, however, for all his words to Velikopol'skaia. Art for him was pri­ marily literature, poetry and prose, and these were too deeply in­ grained in the cultural life and daily routine of the Aksakov family to be easily and impulsively discarded in the name of pure Christian art and living. Sergei Aksakov, who in the 1820's and 1830's had been a quiet but effective critic and patron of the theater, turned to writing in the forties and fifties, producing his well-known classics on nature and the old Russian patriarchal order.22 Konstantin could not have followed through on his extreme conviction about art with­ out grievously hurting his father, and this of course was unthinkable. Furthermore, though he professed that in turning to Slavophilism and the narod he had abandoned Hegel, he made no similar decla­ ration with respect to Schiller. In 1857, when he wrote his last com­ plete review of literature, he was still in debt to his early German mentor on the subject of art. Between 1847 and 1857 Konstantin, far from abandoning art and Slavophilism in the name of purer Christian living, fought a losing battle with the government over Russian dress and beards, pleaded for freedom of speech and expression, wished for the incorporation of Constantinople in the Russian Empire during the Crimean War, and offered his well-known "Memorandum to Alexander II." He welcomed the first Slavophil journal, Russkaia beseda, and collab­ orated in its publication. Among his contributions were the reviews of Solov'ev's History of Russia, in which he gave his case for the commune versus the clan order. When he published his "Review of Contemporary Literature" (Obozrenie sovremennoi literatury) in Russkaia beseda in 1857, he had probably already decided to launch his short-lived weekly, Molva. This publicistic venture is notable for its terse and outspoken editorials which clearly reveal Konstantin's Slavophil ideology toward the end of his life and also constitute a testimonial to his abiding Slavophilism and his unwillingness to forsake it or art for the cloister. 22 These were his Notes on AngJing (1847), Notes of the Rifle Hunter of the Orenburg Guberniia (1852), Stories and fieminiscences of a Hunter about Various Hunts (1855), the famous Family Chronicle (1856), and The Reminiscence of Bagrov—the Grandson (1858).

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In the opening sentence of his 1857 "Review of Contemporary Literature" Konstantin, who, to paraphrase Herzen, slept always armed like some medieval knight, went on the offensive. Once again the object of his attack is the imitation of foreign models, this time specifically models in poetry, "the language of the gods." In this review he discerns rays of light on an otherwise dark and foreboding horizon. Though in the eighteenth century Russia's "obedient lit­ erature" was no more than "a collection of alien forms [and] various echos," at long last the "thought of Russian independence has awak­ ened, and everything in Russia that thinks is meditating [zadumaIos']. One veil after another is falling from our eyes." He does not think that Russia can shut itself off from the West, nor has he found a magic formula by means of which Russia can overtake the West and become its measure, but he has at last arrived at a position of moderation and thinks that Russia needs to accept from its "neigh­ bors sensible [del'noe] knowledge and science." But "this borrowing can be beneficial only along with our own independent intellectual life."23 This is a clear reiteration of the Slavophil position (often blurred in the polemics with the Westerners] that in the area of material culture Russia could and should borrow but that in the area of nonmaterial culture—language, literature, religion, folk art, mores, in­ stitutions, and so on—it should be independent and self-sufficient. Specifically, Aksakov wanted the preservation of all "manifestations of original Russian life," its "ancient history," its "national customs . . . the structure of the national social life . . . its language . . . and everything through which Rus' expressed itself."24 Today, the Sla­ vophil position on these two components would probably find wide acceptance among the nations of the world. However, the question that Aksakov did not answer was whether any society can accept modern science and technology, with all the changes in the daily lives of its people that these invariably cause, and still preserve in pure form all indigenous institutions, cultural values, and ways. Aksakov gives a quick survey of the Petrine period, from the time of Kantemir (1708-1744) and particularly Lomonosov (1711-1765), which gave Russia "many beautiful, poetic, although abstract [otvlechennye] not folk [narodnye] works" but was also a period of "imitativeness" (podrazhateJ'nost'). He glosses over the rest of the eight­ eenth century and the early part of the nineteenth, mentioning only Lermontov (1814-1841), whom he calls the "last Russian poet of the 23 "Obozrenie 24Ibid.,

p. 4.

sovremennoi literatury," Russkaia beseda, 1857,1, book 5,1-2.

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abstract, imitative epoch." He criticizes his "dry self-satisfaction," his "refined egotism" (later on, he refers to Lermontov's Pecherin as "this hero of shamelessness and rotten egotism"), and his Weltan­ schauung. On the barren soil of "worldly life," he says, "nothing can be born," for in such a place "poetry as a living contemporary sphere [of life], as a lawful, commensurate [sorazmernoe] phenomenon of thought and life, is impossible." Poetry specifically and literature in general, as he had made amply clear for a decade, had to be socially inspired and socially purposeful. There was no room in his view of art and Russian life for "cold" or "refined" egotism, although he admitted that "a certain degree of self-satisfaction and inner harmony is essential for poetic creativity."25 Coming to the current scene, Konstantin dismisses in but a few words or a paragraph each of more than a dozen contemporary poets, including his brother Ivan and Khomiakov. For obvious reasons, he says, he cannot comment on the poetry of his brother or his fellow Slavophil, but he cannot omit F. I. Tiutchev (1803-1873), in whose poetry he finds much that is sadly lacking in most of the rest. The rereading of Tiutchev's poems, including a recent second edition, had brought him "new pleasure." He notes especially Tiutchev's feeling for nature and for man's "inner world," his sympathy for the historical course of mankind and for the Russian people. Above all else, he says, Tiutchev knows that "Russia must be Russia . . . that it is a Slav land" whose "supreme inalienable spiritual principle . . . is the Orthodox faith." And he knows too that Russia, as the "only" (edinaia) independent Orthodox Slav state (he does not count autonomous Serbia), is the "prop" (opora) for all Slav nations.26 In this way the poet in Tiutehev was submerged under the weight of Konstantin's ideological considerations, which were as kind to Tiutchev as they were harsh to Lermontov. Midway in the review Konstantin stops to take stock of the situ­ ation in 1857. Here he uses the term literature in its broad sense, as it was used then in Russia and is often used today, to include, among other things, what in the West is considered historical scholarship; he uses the indefinite term nauka to mean the physical sciences as well as (in contemporary terms) sociology and cultural anthropology. The present period, he says, is one of "searching," "studies," and concern for the solution of broad general questions. "Science" (nauka) in Russia was marching forward and "must produce rich and living fruits." It should break out of "abstractness and imitation" 25

Ibid., pp. 5, 14, 36. p. 7. In 1866, Ivan Aksakov married Tiutchev's daughter, Anna F. Tiutcheva, whose mother was German. 26 Ibid.,

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and become completely self-sufficient. Matters of Russian history and life (byt) should be the concern of every Russian, and none should be indifferent to the "thinking and living originality [samobytnost'] of Russia." He concludes with a paraphrase of Khomiakov's quotation about England and the English: "The common cause of Russia should be the private cause of every Russian."27 Next he turns to Russian prose, beginning with the so-called "nat­ ural school" (natural'naia shkola] of the 1840's. Although he does not mention Belinsky by name, it is clear that he has not forgotten the bitterness of the polemics with the Westerners. Referring to the notion that Gogol' was the creator of the natural school, he says that this school was the result "of the false understanding of his artistic genius." Those who claimed that they belonged to it had neither Gogol's genius nor his ideas but had merely adopted "his outward manner." The attitude of the natural school toward life was one of "artificiality and unnaturalness"; it was only an "abstract pretense" of life. The natural school looked upon life mechanically, was con­ cerned with its trivialities, and lacked "inner substance" [sostoiatel'nost']. The result was a "calumny" of Russian life. Konstantin could never quite shake off his conviction, stronger and more un­ yielding than in any of the other Slavophils, that the lowly Russian peasant was the personification of the noblest in Russian life and culture. But instead of looking for ways of helping to extricate the peasants from their age-long misery, he spent many years extolling their inner life, as if they were not flesh and blood. Despite his belief in art with a social purpose, he was not prepared to see any virtue in the natural school. He probably would not have had much use for it even if Belinsky had not been its foremost exponent. Aksakov goes on to ridicule the natural school for inspiring "a whole factory for stories and novels." But men of talent would never be satisfied with this "dry, cheap factory activity."28 One such man, who would not tolerate the "small viewpoint," the "empty showing off," and the "useless details" of the natural school, was Ivan Turgenev. Aksakov gives more attention to this staunch liberal West­ erner, a family friend, than to any other author. Aksakov completely agrees with Khomiakov's idea that in Russian literature, even when it is "borrowed and artificial," the main con­ cern should be the "social question" (vopros obshchestvennyi). This is nowhere truer than in the Russian comedy of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, in which the subject is "not the isolated 27 Ibid., 28

p. 15. Ibid., p. 16.

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individual but society, social evil, the social lie." Such are Nedorosl' (The Adolescent), Brigadir, Iabeda (Slander), Gore ot υma (Woe from Wit), Revizor (The Inspector General), and Igroki (The Gamblers). The social question "is a purely Aristophanes-like characteristic of comedy," and Aksakov is happy to see that contemporary Russian literature has the same social meaning as these plays. But where formerly literature could only deal with the contemptible and unRussian high society, now not only the merchants (kuptsy) but also, most pleasing of all, Russian peasants had become subjects of "sto­ ries, novels, and even plays."29 The writer most responsible for this change was Ivan Turgenev, whose "indubitable talent" had signifi­ cantly altered since his ill-conceived attempts at poetry, when he was under Lermontov's influence.

Though Turgenev's early prose works still showed the baneful effects of Lermontov's models, in 1852, with the appearance of his Zapiski okhotnika (Sportsman's Sketches), he had embarked upon a new and happier road. Konstantin recalled how, ten years earlier (1847), he had warmly welcomed the first story in that collection, "Kor' i Kalinych," published separately. The first tale in Sportsman's Sketches was as "refreshing" for Konstantin in 1857 as at first read­ ing, for it brought him closer to the Russian people.30 Aksakov's comments on this collection show an unusual appre­ ciation of realism. What strikes him most about Sportsman's Sketches, he says, is not the "bragging of egotism" but "human wretchedness," and "that impotence, that small lie, which in our society often ac­ companies and penetrates both mind and feeling, and constitutes the sickness of our age." This new feature was in fact a great and "redeeming difference" as compared with Turgenev's earlier novels and stories: "Down with the mask and the heroic dress!" He even notes that Turgenev in the story "Hamlet of the Shchigry District" touches on the "despotic, frightful meaning of the circle."31 Was this 29 Ibid.,

p. 17. pp. 19-20. 31 In the story the leading character, the Hamlet of the title, speaks his mind on student circles. In Professor Freeborn's excellent translation the passage (here some­ what abbreviated) runs as follows: "A circle's the destruction of any original devel­ opment, [it's] . . . a ghastly substitute for social intercourse, for women, for living. . .. [It's] a lazy and flabby kind of communal, side-by-side existence, . . . [it] . . . replaces conversation with discourses, inclines its members to fruitless chatter. . . . A circle—it's mediocrity and boredom parading under the name of brotherhood and friendship . . . in [it] . . . thanks to the right of each friend to let his dirty fingers touch on the inner feelings of a comrade . . . no one has a clean, untouched region left in his soul; in a circle, respect is paid to empty gasbags, conceited brains, young men who've acquired old men's habits; and rhymesters with no gifts . . . are nursed like 30Ibid.,

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only a bit of self-flagellation, or was Konstantin alluding here to circles in general and not just to the Stankevich circle? "Despotic" (possibly meaning Bakunin's role) and "frightful" (strashnoe) seem rather strong adjectives to apply to the activities of the intellectualideological circles of the 1830's and 1840's. Or was this Konstaiitin in a moment of typical "one-sidedness"? Konstantin seems particularly disturbed by what he considers ex­ cessive detail, not only in the naturalist school but also in the work of Turgenev, Tolstoy, and others. This question relates to one of the classic problems of art in general (as in Lessing's Laocoon), that is, How much should the artist tell or show explicitly, and how much should he leave to the perception and imagination of the reader or viewer? Konstantin says that the reader must "actively participate" in a work of art, and that in great works "much is said about which the author does not even speak." Thus he finds Turgenev guilty of "excessive detail," one of the breed of "author-statisticians," partic­ ularly "in stories which did not concern peasant life."32 Excessive detail in a literary work, he argues, gives "in place of fullness" lim­ itation, "in place of richness . . . poverty, in place of strength weak­ ness." Furthermore, in Turgenev's work the fidelity to reality "often amounts to cynicism." The sin of excessive detail seems to vanish in Turgenev, however, when he turns to the Russian peasantry, as in "Mumu" and "Postoialyi dvor" (The Inn). In these two excellent stories Turgenev touched the people (narod) again and took a big step forward, and it could not be otherwise, for here he looks at the people with much greater sympathy and understanding than before.33 Aksakov gives only a few sentences each to Turgenev's novels Rudin and Faust, possibly because neither of them deals with the narod, yet he praises them highly. The circumstances surrounding Rudin ought to have interested him. When he wrote the review, Bakunin was languishing in jail. (He was sent into Siberian exile in April 1857.) The fact that Turgenev patterned his hero on Bakunin, with whom Turgenev had shared an apartment in his Berlin student days, was well known and could not have escaped the Aksakov family. But if Konstantin was aware in 1857 of Rudin's prototype, he makes no allusion. He does, however, describe Rudin as Turge­ nev's "most finished and profoundly conceived work," and Rudin babies.... A circle is a place where underhand eloquence flourishes.... Oh, students' circles! . . . they're enchanted rings in which more than one decent fellow has per­ ished!" Ivan Turgenev, Sketches from a Hunter's Album, tr. Richard Freeborn (Bungay, Suffolk, 1975), p. 196; idem, Zapiski okhotnika (Moscow, 1966), pp. 328-329. 32 Ausskaia beseda, 1857, I, book 5, 20. 33 Ibid., p. 21.

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himself as a "remarkable man with a powerful mind, exalted interest, but abstract and confused," and determined to reduce everything to theory. As for Faust, Turgenev's success lies in countering "human wretchedness." Turgenev achieved this with the "wholeness of the spiritual principle" (perhaps a rare allusion to the Kireevsky doc­ trine) and also by reliance on eternal moral truth. Faust was another step forward for Turgenev, and Konstantin says, "God grant that Mr. Turgenev may continue on this path."34 Konstantin also mentions D. V. Grigorovich (1822-1899), Aleksei Pisemsky (1820-1881), Aleksei A. Potekhin (1829-1908), and Mikhail A. Stakhovich (1819-1858) as having written about the common peo­ ple. He considers Grigorovich's Anton goremyka (Anton the Poor Wretch) (1847) and Rybaki (The Fisherman) (1853) particularly fine works and credits Grigorovich with having established a new genre of Russian literature in which peasant life is the central theme. He is elated that gradually the "power of truth" has reached the Russian writers and that they are inspired to portray the Russian peasant in "all his great human dignity."35 From prose fiction Aksakov moves to drama and the plays of Alex­ ander Ostrovsky (1823-1886). Here was a new dramatist who had made his mark adhering to the Russian comic tradition concerned with "social questions." True, these plays refer to the Russian "mer­ chant class" (kupechestvo) rather than the peasantry, and therefore they lack broad application; the merchants at times "come close" to the traditions of Russian national life, but they do not represent it.36 They are a closed society, separated from the "simple people." Whereas the merchants are "immobile and petrified," the people represent life, and merchants and narod are as different from one another as a "frozen and a flowing river." The merchant class lived inside high walls and thus escaped "innovation—in ossification." The simple narod alone was able to uphold the ancient Russian order in its life and principles. It may be that "simplicity, brother­ hood, Christian love, family sentiment" still exist in the merchant class, but these traditional virtues are threatened by the "alien temp­ tation," by "tavern and theater gaiety . . . fashionable cravats and hats, and most important, by . . . notions about culture [obrazovannost']." Even the common people were not completely immune to decadent foreign temptations, though fortunately the invasion of al­ ien principles among them was not as strong as among the others. In his fortieth year, when he wrote these lines, Konstantin, long since p. 22. p. 23. 36 Ibid., p. 31.

34 Ibid., 35 Ibid.,

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confirmed in his Slavophilism and bachelorhood, was growing more puritanical and moralistic. The merchant class had no part in the struggle between Russian life (byt) and foreign, Western life (byt), since its own life was not truly Russian. The one and only guardian of this life was the narod. The confrontation between the native and the foreign was an important social phenomenon to which Ostrovsky had called Russia's attention with force and truth.37 Ostrovsky had also drawn attention to another important subcul­ ture, that of the civil servant (byt chinovnichii). Some of his most illustrious Russian predecessors had focused on the lowly chinovnik (civil servant), and Ostrovsky did not disappoint. Aksakov consid­ ered his comedy Bednaia nevesta (The Poor Bride) (1851) a "re­ markable work" with a "moral sense," and regretted that even six years after its appearance it was not being fully appreciated.38 Of the four greatest prose writers in mid-nineteenth-century Rus­ sia—Gogol', Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and Count Tolstoy—Konstantin knew personally Gogol', Turgenev, and Tolstoy, and he witnessed the inception of the literary careers of Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy. He considers the work of all four in his thirty-nine-page review of 1857, though he says less about Gogol' than about the others, probably because his high opinion of Gogol' was well known from previous essays. In his mind Gogol's writing set the standard by which the work of other writers was to be measured. Gogol' was the "greatest Russian artist" whose writings were "works of genius" (geniaJ'nye).39 Without ever seeing Dostoevsky's greatest works, Konstantin recognized his extraordinary gifts, though he failed to grasp the significance of The Double. And as we have seen, despite the ideological incompatibility between Turgenev's views and Slavo­ philism, quite apparent in the early 1850's, Konstantin heartily wel­ comed Turgenev's "new path," that is, when he touched the "living," or the "folk stream," in Russian life. Tolstoy, who had first attracted public notice as a writer less than two years before Konstantin's review, could probably have expected even less understanding than Dostoevsky. War and Peace would not appear for another dozen years, and Tolstoy's other major works came even later. Konstantin referred in general terms to Nabeg (Raid), Rubka Iesa (A Wood-Felling), Sevastopol', and Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth. Tolstoy was concerned with the external world, the realm of his personal life, and his "soul" (dusha). As in some of Turgenev's work, so also in Tolstoy's, Konstantin found an excess of detail in 37 Ibid.,

p. 32. p. 33. 39 Ibid., p. 27. 38 Ibid.,

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descriptions of nature, the social environment, and the characters' psychological makeup. Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth abounded in "beautiful pictures of the surrounding world," but as a portrayal of life the stories sometimes reached the point of "excessive triviality and detail." To Aksakov, Tolstoy's self-analysis has the "character of a confession," and though his "self-accusation is sprightly and decisive," he is after one thing only—"truth." Aksakov seems disturbed by what he considered excessive psy­ chological analysis in Turgenev and Tolstoy, but he is harsher on Turgenev, whose "inner analysis contains something sickly and weak, . . . whereas Count Tolstoy's . . . is bracing and definite." Tolstoy is acute in observing the "recesses of the human soul," and his firm desire for self-accusation in the name of truth "leaves a favorable impression."40 But "microscopic" psychological analysis contained possibilities for serious distortion, and should be avoided. Tolstoy's talent was obvious, but the young novelist needed a bit of advice: "It is necessary to be less concerned with yourself, to turn to God's clear, bright world, to think of your brothers and love them." Tolstoy may or may not have read Aksakov's words, but many years later he moved in a direction which in some ways Aksakov would probably have found quite congenial. Aksakov also calls attention to Shchedrin's Gubernskie ocherki (Provincial Sketches) (1856), in which he finds considerable merit. Though it is not a work of art but an "orator's speech," he welcomes its success and the interest it has aroused, and attributes both to its "social element." He regrets, however, its "quality of caricature" (Jcarikaturnost') and its "unnecessary cynicism."41 Toward the end of the review Aksakov touches on the question of the pursuit of truth through art, specifically literature, and gives his opinions of English literature. He now sees in art an intellectual, epistemological value in addition to its more obvious aesthetic merit. "Art is truth," he says, "not in syllogism, not in logical deduction, but in the image."42 Art can take even "revolting" events and persons and lift them out of their "coarse truth . . . to purify them and rid them of their accidentalness." So it is in Gogol's Inspector General and in Shakespeare's Richard III. How else, he asks, can one feel the presence of the human being and the "dignity of his destiny" in the "world of trifles, wretchedness, and baseness"? Alluding to his ear­ lier strictures against excessive detail, he says, "Life needs no copy . . . [for] the copy is always more pale than the original. . . . [It] has •Ibid., p. 34. 41 Ibid., pp. 35-36. Shchedrin was the pseudonym of Μ. E. Saltykov (1826-1889). 42 Ibid., p. 27.

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nothing in common with art." Schiller's criticism of French literature as being too strained and forced, too faithful to reality, is justified, and Konstantin closes with the words: "If fidelity were an artistic virtue the greatest artist would be the daguerreotypist or the stenog­ rapher. [The worth] . . . of art is in its insight and one would not find it in the copy."43 To the nationalistic Slavophil argument against imitation of the West he now adds the aesthetic. Shakespeare had long been a favorite of Konstantin's, but in this essay he seems to be speaking more of contemporary English liter­ ature when he praises English writers as "truly beautiful." He does not, however, mention specific works, or whether he read them in English, although he is critical of some translations. In everything he read he saw that the "cornerstone" was a "sense of Faith, family, and . . . the moral sense," and in each work was "preserved human dignity" along with the "necessary sobriety of the soul [dusha]." For once Konstantin could happily welcome foreign works in Russia: "Glory be to God! Our literature is now full of translations from English . .. so different from the drunken works of French literature, particularly those of George Sand." Straitlaced bachelor Konstantin may not have been an apt critic of Madame Sand, but he was no less outspoken: her works contained "neither inner nor external truth" but a "depraved mixture of moral notions in which good itself is evildoing . . . some sort of temptation in which some sort of sensual soul breathes and acts." Somewhat smugly, he notes that "in every nation . . . there is a universal human area, and there is also a reflection of the particular nationality."44 All nationalities converge in their universal significance, and it was inevitable that the "imitative epoch" in Russian literature seen in Kantemir's works in the eighteenth century should soon end, since one nation's dependence on another is always "self-defeating." With Gogol', a new era for Russian literature had begun, but much work still lay ahead for the array of "remarkable talent" that was Russia's good fortune. The immediate goal was "original thinking" (samobytnoe myshlenie), self-consciousness, and an "awareness of the Russian principle of life . . . its sense of nationality, social con­ sciousness . . . history, language, etc." But all this would be theirs if Russian writers would study their past and particularly the present in the narod, as they must do in order to awaken the "Russian man who has been asleep so long."45 In 1859, Konstantin began what was intended as a full-length essay 43 Ibid.,

pp. 28-29. p. 37. 45 Ibid., pp. 38-39. 44 Ibid.,

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entitled "Our Literature" (Nasha literatura). It was not completed, but the few pages that we have, the introductory part, suggest that it was intended to be discursive, not a survey or review of specific authors.46 It begins with the division of nations into historical and ahistorical, after a notion popular in the 1830's and 1840's. (Belinsky, we recall, contended that Russia, being an ahistorical nation, was condemned to go through a period of translation and literary imi­ tation.) Again Konstantin shows his admiration for England, though he uses German jargon. England is "the land of tradition" (strana predaniia), where a new step is taken only after "all the life of a given historical minute has been exhausted." In England there is the "highest scrupulousness of progress." The English maintain an "un­ interrupted bond with the past," and the strides are firm, leading them "forward unconditionally." Russia, in contrast, had "ruptured" its ties with the past, severed its roots, and lost contact with its own soil. In Russia, everything disappears and nothing remains, or what "constantly remains is emp­ tiness, void." Small wonder that in Russian literature everything is "fleeting and ephemeral" (begIoe i vetrenoe). And who was to blame?—those who had cut themselves off from the Russian soil, the "society that has lost contact [otorvalas] with the narod," that is, the so-called educated society. But not everyone had embarked upon the wrong path. There is a Russian orientation that is "independent ... moved by original thought and looks at the West in an inde­ pendent manner." This is the "Slavophil (a name given to it by its opponents mockingly)," and to it "belongs the future." Though the Slavophils were few, Konstantin consoled himself that strength is not necessarily found in numbers. This led to a reiteration of the well-known Slavophil thesis that if Russia sought only to catch up with the West, and only on Western terms, it would never have more than a rootless, imitative literature. Furthermore, imitation was a denial of the Russian concepts of "truth" and "education" (prosveshchenie). "To live with an alien mind means to renounce one's own," and this violates the principle that "every nation must follow its own radius to the center."47 The universal can be reached only by way of the national, as the general is reached through the specific. It is true, Konstantin goes on, that there are a few individual "high developments" in Russian literature, works that stand out in the otherwise dreary picture. Moreover, the enthusiasm for Balzac and 46 The fragment was published by Ivan Aksakov in the journal Den' in 1861, no. 1, pp. 7-8. 47 Ibid., p. 7.

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George Sand has passed, he notes with satisfaction, and there are new signs of nationality (narodnost') in Russian literature. Here again, as in the 1857 essay, he alludes to the superiority of the peasant over the merchant class. The fragment ends with a reference to the emancipation problem, then rapidly reaching its climactic stage. Claiming perhaps somewhat more credit for the Slavophils than was justified, he concludes: "But here history itself intervened in . .. the question of emancipation, for the emergence of which the Slavophil brigade was so instrumental."48 After Ivan Aksakov published the fragment in 1861 in his short­ lived journal Den' (Day), Dostoevsky replied in a sharply critical essay entitled "The Latest Literary Controversies." Dostoevsky had returned to St. Petersburg in 1859 after a decade in prison and exile. He soon established friendly relations with a group that included the playwright A. N. Ostrovsky, A. A. Grigor'ev, Ν. N. Strakhov, and other "men of the soil" (pochvenniki)—hardly radical or revolu­ tionary company, in fact kindred to the Slavophils in some ways, and quite to the right of the Utopian socialists who had been his company in the late forties. Dostoevsky's principal objection to the Slavophils was that in their "cruelty of frenzied idealism" they assumed that they were the sole guardians of the Russian national spirit. The Slavophils are honest enough, he says, and so he cannot understand how they can assert that all our literature "is 'indifferent to our national afflictions' "— as Konstantin Aksakov does in the fragment in Den'. The Westerners did not lack a feeling for the Russian national spirit, as the Slavophils charged. Indeed, he says, the Westerners show a good deal more good judgment and respect for facts in their analysis of Russia's past and its present problems than do the Slavophils. With Konstantin in mind he adds, "we should like to point out [this lack of good judgment] to . . . the Slavophil party, which sometimes leads it to a total incomprehension of its own people and a total discord with reality." In contrast, "the Westerners were much more realistic . . . went further and kept moving, while the Slavophils never budged from their place and ... regarded this as something to be proud of."49 Not immune himself to the malady of polemics, Dostoevsky con­ demned the rigid Slavophil refusal to abandon their imaginary world as a mistake that had cost them dearly. "The majority of our society," Dostoevsky says, "always sympathized with the Westerners," and 48Ibid.,

p. 8. F. Dostoevsky, The Latest Literary Controversies, tr. David Magarshak (New York, 1963), pp. 214-216. 49

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this was so because the Westerners did not shy away from "merciless analysis." For this reason "they were followed by everything that could go forward in our society."50 Of course, Dostoevsky is speaking here of that very small minority of Russians, the literate and artic­ ulate, to which Slavophilism, Westernism, and any other ism was accessible. The vast majority of Russians, the poor and illiterate peasantry, was excluded from direct involvement in Russian intel­ lectual-ideological life. This led Dostoevsky to a specific criticism of Konstantin's fragment in Den'. He shows impatience with Aksakov for looking upon Rus­ sian literature with "hostility and skepticism . . . [and] with a soph­ istry that is both disdainful and insulting." Dostoevsky, probably familiar with more of Aksakov's work than the fragment, deplores Konstantin's insistence on the imitativeness of Russian literature and on the alleged absence of a "social consciousness." Through a succes­ sion of rhetorical questions Dostoevsky, in a pro-Western stance, tries to deal with the perennial problem of Western influences in Russia and to define his own ideological position: But of course the European ideal, . . . views and . . . influence have been, and still are . . . of great importance to our literature. . . . But have we imitated them slavishly? Have we not experi­ enced them as part of our own lives? Have we not worked on our own Russian view from those foreign facts? . . . Have . . . we not been made to realize by life itself that one's conception of universal human values is perhaps the most important and the most sacred attribute of our national character? Have we not at last realized the importance of the soil and a return to it? Konstantin Aksakov maintains that all our attempts to return to our national values have proved unsuccessful in literature.51 In an apparent allusion to the 1857 essay, Dostoevsky, concerned about adverse opinions, attacks Aksakov's criticism of Ostrovsky. Aksakov, he says, was looking for some sort of idealized Russian merchant in Ostrovsky's plays "that would fill the spectator with uncritical admiration." The Slavophils demanded this and more of others, but where was their own work? "Why, you are writers your­ selves, my dear Slavophils!" Dostoevsky says sarcastically, and pointing his finger at Konstantin Aksakov adds, "you are so proud of your knowledge of the common people, so why don't you provide us with a representation of your ideals? . . . But. . . you have never 50

Ibid., p. 217. pp. 218-219.

51 Ibid.,

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risen above Prince Lupovitsky." Dostoevsky resented what he con­ sidered to be "jeering at us" and challenged the Slavophils to "prove . . . what you have achieved."52 Dostoevsky probably knew that his exhortation would be un­ heeded. Besides Konstantin Aksakov, three other leading Slavophils, Ivan and Peter Kireevsky and Khomiakov, were dead when he wrote these lines in 1861, and Ivan Aksakov, his direct target, and Iurii Samarin were not likely to take much notice. But the real reason that he did not expect a response from the Slavophils was his conviction that they lacked "life," and had "no feeling for reality," for, he said, "Idealism stupefies, fascinates, and—kills." He conceded to the Sla­ vophils "a gift for discovering certain basic elements of Russian life but not all." They were Russians and "honest people," and they "loved" Russia, but, he charges in conclusion, "your idealism is your undoing and sometimes you commit frightful howlers even in the understanding of the very basic elements of Russian life."53 Within a decade or so, however, the defender of the Westerners, Dostoevsky, would be in general agreement with the Slavophils on such major issues as "bourgeois egotism," the effects of the classical heritage in the West, Catholicism, socialism, secularism, return to the "soil," Russia's universal mission, the nobility of the Russian peasant, and others. In the 1870's circumstances and conditions were of course much different from those of the Slavophil 1840's and 1850's, and yet Dostoevsky, the genius in a class by himself, ideo­ logically came quite close to being a Slavophil in the last decade of his life. EDUCATION and indoctrination have often been separated by a ten­ uous line. In the writings of the Moscow Slavophils in the middle of the nineteenth century the two concepts were barely distinguish­ able from each other. In part, this was the result of a semantic char­ acteristic of the Russian language, and was therefore not a fuzziness of the Slavophils' own making. I am referring to the two words vospitanie, or upbringing, which implies the inculcation of family values and standards in children, among others, and obrazovanie, the usual word for the type of training one receives in a school. In Russia, the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably, as when a child, particularly in the early grades, is experiencing the effects of both vospitanie and obrazovanie. In this century, the triumph of totalitarian ideologies and the effective use of techniques of indoc52Ibid., p. 220. 53Ibid., p. 221.

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trination has made the word "indoctrination" suspect in the West. Yet traditionally in the Western world, no less than in Russia, a certain amount of indoctrination has been an essential part of home education or upbringing (vospitanie), and often of training in school as well. This is particularly true of the inculcation in the young of such values as honesty, respect for others, work, thrift, and so on. The double connotation of "indoctrination" has less application in the sphere of the physical sciences, which are supposedly value-free, though even there the inculcation of "scientific" values has been tried. However, it pertains particularly to the realm of the social sciences, where perhaps a limited but important degree of objectivity is possible, though not if vospitanie and obrazovanie are confused. However, in the loosely philosophical, ideological, and theoretical thinking and writing of the Moscow Slavophils, who were concerned with the propagation of a particular point of view, the two words are frequently used as synonyms. This double usage is characteristic of Aksakov's essay on education written in the early 1850's.54 The Slavophils were well aware of the potential for indoctrination that exists in education, particularly of children, and showed a lively concern for the content and spirit of Russian education.55 In Aksa­ kov's essay "O vospitanii" (On Upbringing) the familiar drift of his ideological thought is apparent from the opening paragraph. The essay is mainly a criticism of certain educational principles, prac­ tices, and trends, mostly foreign borrowings. Only in the last few pages does he offer his own sketchy ideas on curriculum, specifically for pre-university students. After one hundred fifty years of copying the West, Aksakov begins, a new era has dawned in Russian education. It now seems incredible that not so long ago foreign tutors from France, Germany, and Eng­ land, with "their own sense of nationality," came to Russia to educate Russians. It was all part of the "barren, empty, and lifeless imitation" that Peter the Great fostered in Russia. Even today, Aksakov says, one still hears "children two, three, four, and five years old chattering 541 am indebted to the Lenin Library in Moscow for a microfilm copy of the essay. It has been preserved in the calligrapher's handwriting, signed by Konstantin Aksakov. It is twenty-two pages long. The citations below are according to the pagination of the manuscript. The essay seems to have been published by Ivan Aksakov in Den', 1863, no. 1, but this issue has remained inaccessible to me. 55 Khomiakov, Ivan Kireevsky, and Samarin wrote essays on education. For the views of the first two, I refer the reader to the first two volumes in my series on the Moscow Slavophils. For Samarin's, see his essay "0 narodnom obrazovanii," Russkaia beseda, 1856, no. 2, Smes', pp. 85-106. Samarin is the subject of my fourth and final volume in this series.

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in a foreign language," though their parents might understand the harm of such upbringing.56 Teaching foreign languages to Russian children was not a trivial matter. It was not simply a question of upbringing; it was also one of nourishment (vospitanie ν smysle pitaniia). Language "engulfs" a child's whole life; therefore, when he learns in a foreign tongue, he lives in a "foreign element." As a result, "he breaks forever the inner, vital, intangible bonds with the narod." He becomes alienated from his Russian environment and incapable of creative work. As a pale copy of a Western prototype, with Western manners and man­ nerisms, he is bound to grow up following a superficial routine that is sterile as well as injurious to personal and national self-respect. Cutting off the child from his Russian tongue by teaching him French, German, and English makes him helpless and hopeless, for "language is the national mind, the living and true mind . . . [and] without it .. . he is not fit for the human [chelovecheskoe] task."57 A child with two languages, Aksakov notes a bit later, is a child with "two minds— or . . . without even a single mind." He may be capable of quick understanding, but this is "comprehension" (poniatlivost'), not in­ tellect.58 Throughout the essay Aksakov, little concerned with the vast ma­ jority of Russian children, those of the peasants, speaks mostly about the education of the relatively small numbers of gentry children, the only ones with an opportunity for education at that time. The plight of Russia's educated class was a result of the upbringing of its chil­ dren. From "balls for adolescents" they passed to an adulthood of dances, card playing, and swallowtails. "After the emptiness [pustota] of the child" comes the "emptiness of the youth," and then— of old age. No wonder, he says, that science and education have made little impression on Russian society. "Tell me of even a single [thought] that we have uttered. This is the meaning of renouncing nationality [narodnost'] and its inner power." But the remedy was just as obvious as the malady: remove "foreign influence . . . sounds . . . language." From the earliest age the Russian child should "be full of the people's spirit" and nothing else. He should go to sleep to the melodies of Russian lullabies in which one can sense the "great national infinite spirit."59

By the early 1850's the choric principle, of which Aksakov had a premonition in 1847, had become well formulated in his mind. In 56 K.

S. Aksakov, "O vospitanii" (MS Lenin Library, Moscow), pp. 3-4. p. 5. 58 Ibid., p. 11. 59Ibid., pp. 7, 9, 12. 57 Ibid.,

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this essay on education he devotes several paragraphs to it. As stated here it is similar to the version in his letter to Gogol' written in 1851, but whereas in the letter he speaks of the choir or chorus as in the Greek drama, in the essay on education the metaphor is specifically Russian.60 The people formed a choir as in the past, and their lives were likened to the joyous singing and dancing of the traditional khorovod, the folk ring or circle dance. The "choir is the principle of the Russian people," Aksakov re­ peats. It permeates Russian existence. It is a joy for him to hear on a village street the "thundering chorus" and to see "peasants sitting in front of their huts get up . . . and join the choir, blending their voices ... and merging their separate identities into the narod." True Russian history, he says—not the external feats of princes and kings but the "whole inner history of Russia, . . . of the Russian land, the people—is a khorovod."61 Aksakov knew only the sweeter side of peasant life, of course— glimpses from his childhood in the country and the mellow version on the Abramtsevo estate. But for him, as for the other Slavophils and gentry, the village with the country estate and dacha represented a comfortable place of retreat from the distasteful and ugly aspects of urbanization and industrialization. At the end of the forties Khomiakov and particularly Koshelev, through extensive travel in the West, became keenly aware of the social, economic, and psycholog­ ical changes coming in the wake of industrialism and urbanization. And Aksakov, as we have seen, was dismayed by the coldness and impersonality of life in the Western cities. The ideal place to bring up children, Aksakov thought, was the Russian village—that is, the village of his Slavophil fantasies. In that village, "Russian nature . . . [and] the peasant. . . would all the more profoundly educate the child's soul." In the village the child would learn about church holidays, the "Great Fast," and the "Bright Resurrection." The har­ vest, the cutting of the hay, peasants returning from work singing— all village life and lore would constantly remind the child of the Russian way of life. And there was nature, too—winter with its snow­ falls, then the first harbingers of spring, the flight of the birds, the first flowers. In such an atmosphere the "good seeds" would be sown, and they would flourish in the good soil of "Faith, Russian nature, and Russian life [byt]."62 In comparison with the ideas of Khomiakov and Kireevsky on school curriculum and pedagogy, Aksakov's as summarized in the 60 Cf.

Russkii arkhiv, 1890, book I, p. 159; K. S. Aksakov, "0 vospitanii," p. 14. K. S. Aksakov, "O vospitanii," p. 14. 62 Ibid., pp. 14-15. 61

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last two and a half pages of his essay are superficial and sketchy. One gets the impression that he is grudgingly conceding the necessity for formal education. The age of ten was the earliest at which the child's home education (vospitanie) should be supplemented by in­ stitutional schooling (obrazovanie). Up to that age, the only proper environment was the home and local village. In this respect Aksakov's ideas are similar to Khomiakov's. Both believed that family, commune, and society should all take major responsibility for teach­ ing the children and implanting in them a sense of social conscious­ ness and Christian ethical conduct. Neither believed that the gov­ ernment should play any part in the process of upbringing (vospitanie). Khomiakov seems to advocate a somewhat earlier age than ten for the commencement of school: "parents, home, society already com­ prise in themselves the large part of upbringing [vospitanie], and school learning is only a small part of this upbringing."63 Kireevsky held similar convictions, though he thought that even in the earliest years the state should provide a certain degree of direction and dy­ namism to the educational process.64 In Aksakov's plan, the first subject that the ten-year-old needed to take, for which he presumably was prepared by his "spiritual life" and his "faith," was Church Slavonic. This would also be the first language that he would learn, but he would not speak it. Church Slavonic would be close to his own tongue but not "susceptible to accidental life"—that is, to mundane existence; rather, it would be "eternally rising above it in eternal beauty." This view is strikingly similar to Ivan Kireevsky's opinion of Church Slavonic expressed in his memorandum of 1839 on elementary education, written at a time when Church Slavonic was receiving attention in Russian academic circles and among the non-Russian Slavs. Kireevsky is even more enthusiastic than Aksakov about Church Slavonic, which he says is "superior to Russian, Latin, Greek," and "all possible languages." Its superiority for Kireevsky, however, lies in its moral instructiveness rather than in the linguistic and aesthetic qualities that were part of its attraction for Aksakov and Khomiakov. In the memoran­ dum on education Kireevsky says that he cannot find a "single book" written in Church Slavonic "which is harmful or without benefit, which cannot strengthen faith, purify the morals of the people, strengthen family ties and social and civic relations."65 Aksakov made a similar point in his dissertation on Lomonosov when he spoke of Church Slavonic as the language of the divine, eternal, s3Russkii

arkhiv, 1879, no. 1, p. 114. his unpublished memorandum on education, 1839. 65 Christoff, Kireevskij, p. 277.

64 See

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spiritual, and Christian. In his essay on education Khomiakov makes no specific mention of Church Slavonic, but he is emphatic in saying that the upbringing of the Russian child must be rooted in the "prin­ ciples of Orthodoxy"—the "only true Christianity"—the family, and the village commune.66 Aksakov then touches on the importance of studying history. It was the duty of every Russian to become familiar early in life with the "fate" of his fatherland, as well as with the "allure of general history and [man's] general fate." Russian history particularly must become part of the child's life; therefore, by twelve or thirteen, he must be initiated into the Russian chronicles and charters, as well as contemporary history. This would also be the time for him to begin the study of the ancient languages, which would be an essential step in introducing him to the "rich classical literature." After about three years of classical studies the student could begin to take foreign languages.67 This seems to be a clear though not explicit reference to the modern Western languages. Apparently foreign languages were proper subjects at an older age, though very bad at an early one. This would also be the time to commence the study of "all the sciences"— meaning, probably, the physical sciences and mathematics, to which Khomiakov and Kireevsky allot a prominent place in their proposed curricula.68 Aksakov, apparently satisfied that he has sketched a suitable foun­ dation for education, omits the details. He is confident that the stu­ dent "brought up in the spirit of the people from childhood, armed with the uniqueness of the people [narodnaia samobytnost'] and a degree of classical education," can boldly step up "before all the knowledge of Europe and humanity and before the feverish life of the moment." This would be in striking contrast to the "powerlessness of our imitative society." He sees hope for the future in the "fresh view of youth, who would . . . accept everything rational and vital, for everything that is truthful belongs to all humanity, and therefore [also] to the [Russian] people." The concluding lines, exhortative rather than reflective, sound the final, ringing note: The Russian student, strengthened "by an original [samobytnoe] sympathy, . . . with original knowledge, will march down the road of life among all the impressions of the world. God be with him!"69 66 Ausskii

arkhiv, 1879, no. 1, p. 116; Christoff, Xomjakov, pp. 181-182. S. Aksakov, "0 vospitanii," p. 16. 68 Ausskii arkhiv, 1879, no. 1, pp. 125, 126-127; Christoff, Xomjakov, pp. 183-184, and Kireevskij, pp. 277-279. 69 K. S. Aksakov, "0 vospitanii," pp. 16-17. 67 K.

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The person who comes through in these last lines is obviously not the wise and experienced pedagogue but the aroused orator, the propagandist of the Slavophil faith. Aksakov was in his true element. AFTER the early forties, when Konstantin broke with Belinsky partly over Gogol's significance, a matter of interest still, he could not pub­ lish witout becoming involved in controversy. Whether he reviewed the works of Prince Odoevsky, Turgenev, Ostrovsky, Dostoevsky, or Belinsky, he aroused opposition. Odoevsky was guilty of creating a character who, after being torn away from her presumed healthy village environment, was to be corrupted in a Western-type educa­ tional institution. Turgenev was condemned for his poetry and love stories but highly praised when he wrote about Russian peasant life. So too was Ostrovsky slighted for his portrayals of the Russian mer­ chants (kuptsy), since they were no match either morally or histor­ ically for the true narod. This attitude aroused Dostoevsky's ire. He, like Ostrovsky, belonged to the so-called pochvenniki (men of the soil), ideologically not very far from the Slavophils. Dostoevsky de­ plored Konstantin's overbearing attitude toward anyone who was not a Slavophil and his contention that the Slavophils were the only true spokesmen for Russia and the narod. While engaged in literary criticism Aksakov also promoted the Slavophil view that art, including literature, must have a social pur­ pose, as conceived of course by the Slavophils. When Belinsky, fol­ lowing the same principle, urged exposing Russia's social, economic, and political ills, Aksakov branded his "natural school" trivial, dis­ torting, and nonsensical. Aksakov's views on education, dealing mostly with the primary grades and general principles, also followed his familiar Slavophil bias, stressing home, commune, and village upbringing at the expense of formal, institutional schooling, which he relegated to a secondary role.

CHAPTER 16 COMMUNE, CHOIR, AND ZEMSKY SOBOR

WHEN AT THE END of the 1830's Kireevsky and Khomiakov raised the question of the commune in the leisurely, relaxed atmosphere of their Moscow salons, and thus brought it into the consciousness of articulate Russia, few probably suspected that within less than a decade it would become an ideological issue hotly debated in some of Russia's leading journals. This debate took the form of the com­ mune versus clan polemics initiated by Kavelin and Samarin in 1847, and these polemics are a striking illustration of the way in which a historical question of considerable antiquity can become a vital ide­ ological, political issue.1 Beyond the question of the nature of "the ancient Russian social order" lay the larger question of the merits of East versus West, for to the Slavophils the commune was the antithesis of Roman law, formalism, Protestant religious individu­ alism, and bourgeois economic acquisitiveness. These thoughts, shared by all the "early," "classical," or Moscow Slavophils, were advocated with unabated vigor in the writings of Konstantin Aksakov as early as the mid-1840's. Aksakov believed that the Christian-communal principle was embodied historically in the commune or mir and artel', which in its sublimated, idealized version assumed the form of his choric principle. Given his habit of ignoring the dismal, depressing aspects of Russian serf existence, one can perhaps understand how he could elevate village communal life to the level of a truly Christian order. But the connection he saw between it and the classical Greek drama from which he first drew his chorus metaphor is puzzling. Perhaps he saw a loose analogy between the chorus preparing the way for Christianity in the Hel1 V. A. Aleksandrov aptly remarked recently that the "polemic around the commune was so complex, sharp, and burning [zlobodnevna] that in a number of cases it is extremely complicated to single out the scientific discussion proper, from the socialpolitical struggle." V. A. Aleksandrov, SeJ'skaia obshchina ν Hossii (XVII-nachalo XIX v.) (Moscow, 1976), p. 6.

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lenistic world and communal life presumably preparing the way for Christianity among the Slavs. Clearly associated with the commune was the family, for which the Slavophils had great respect. Aksakov looked upon the two as inseparable, and believed that they were what distinguished the early Slav and Russian social order from the clan structures of other so­ cieties. His evidence and documentation for this point lay in the old Russian Justice (Russkaia pravda); for the pre-Christian existence of the Russian commune he relied upon the treaties of Oleg (879-912) and Igor (912-945) with Byzantium, on the basis of which, as we have seen earlier, he came to the conclusion that Russian society, from the earliest times, had been the least patriarchal, the most family and socially conscious, and the most communal of any society in existence.2 One must remember that the Slavophils as well as their opponents were writing on a subject which up to that time had been little investigated, indeed scarcely noticed by scholars or anyone else.3 But since the 1840's, in thousands of books and articles there has been a sifting of data and a great deal of speculation, without arrival at firm evidence, as to the precise time and circumstances of the origin of the commune. Certainly we cannot hope to settle the matter here. The best we can do is to point out the major historical concerns, which are the age, origin, and functions of the village commune down through the centuries; to refer to some representative schools of thought and interpretations; to sum up some of the salient results of recent research, including much into archival materials; and then 2K. S. Aksakov, On the Ancient Order, pp. 50, 66, 76, 91. On Russian communal organization during the Kievan period see two works by B. D. Grekov: Kievskaia Rus' (Moscow-Leningrad, 1944), pp. 51-63, and Krest'iane η a Rusi s drevneishikh vremen do XVII veka (Moscow-Leningrad, 1946), pp. 59-82. Grekov deals not only with the mir or commune but also with the old verv', which he likens to the "commune-mark" (p. 59). Β. N. Chicherin's opinion, still held by some present-day historians, that the mid-nineteenth-century Russian peasant commune was basically a fiscal institution created by the Russian monarchs in the eighteenth century, ignores the antiquity of the institution, its great complexities, and its long historical evolution. More on this below. 3 Aleksandrov, whose recent work on the commune based primarily on archival materials of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has uncovered many details of great interest, points out that between 1839, when Ivan Kireevsky and Khomiakov raised the question of the commune, and 1850 there were "only four works" on the Russian peasant commune; between 1856 and 1860, 99; and by 1880, 546. Tokarev counts more than 2,000 books and articles on the subject between 1876 and 1904. See V. A. Aleksandrov, "V. I. Lenin ο sel'skoi obshchine ν krepostnicheskoi Rossii," Sovetskaia etnograflia, 1970, no. 1, p. 59; S. A. Tokarev, lstoriia russkoi istoriografii (Dooktiabr'skii period) (Moscow, 1966), p. 291.

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to see how Aksakov's notions of the village commune fit into the well-established historical limits. Were they completely at variance with the historical facts and the living contemporary peasant insti­ tution? If so, where did Konstantin err in his view of the commune? Furthermore, in considering this problem we must bear in mind that much of the information and, even more, the interpretation bearing on this matter, as on practically all of Slavophilism since the 1840's and 1850's, has come from the Westerners' side and therefore bears a strong anti-Slavophil bias. Since the middle of the last century researchers have brought to light a vast amount of reliable information about the historical in­ stitution that has been designated down the centuries as mir and more recently as obshchina, among other terms.4 Paradoxically, how­ ever, as more and more pieces of the puzzle are brought together, we seem less able to perceive a clear and complete picture. The very multiplicity of detail confuses our perception, and we look in vain for the shape and figure of the whole. With all the detail that has been uncovered, some key pieces are still missing, and may forever be lost. The institution of the mir, as it evolved over many centuries, became almost labyrinthine in its complexity, similar but also dif­ ferent from place to place. Not only were there regional and tribal or ethnic differences, but the mir also had special characteristics by reason of its being an indispensable institution on autonomous and often self-contained gentry estates (still, however, under the tsar's central authority), where, particularly in the extensive Great Russian regions, each one developed its own peculiar characteristics. The problem of terminology, which goes beyond mere semantic compli4 The matter of terminology has recently been enlightened in S. A. Grant's welldocumented and provocative essay, "Obshchina and Mir," Slavic Review, 1976, De­ cember, pp. 636-651. Following perhaps Kliuchevsky's suggestion, Grant maintains that the term obshchina is a neologism introduced by A. S. Khomiakov and I. V. Kireevsky. Since then it has been used along with the much older term mir, often interchangeably or synonymously, as it is here. (Whether the Slavophils rendered a service or confused the issue is a moot question.) Perhaps obshchina caught on be­ cause, unlike mir, a word with three meanings but a single spelling since 1917, obshchina has one, and in a period during which Utopian socialism was in great vogue the meaning of obshchina was perhaps clearer and more unequivocal than mir. It meant die Gemeinde, la communaute, commune. For another discussion of ob­ shchina and mir see Carsten Goehrke's detailed monograph, Die Theorien iiber Entstehung und Entwicklung des "Mir" (Wiesbaden, 1964), pp. 1-5. In his translation of Husskaia pravda (short version), Vernadsky renders the old term verv' as "guild" and mir as "township." In the expanded version verv' is given as "guild." See George Vemadsky, tr., Medieval Russian Laws (New York, 1947), pp. 28, 36-37. For the most authoritiative English definitions of mir, obshchina, and verv', see S. G. Pushkarev et al., Dictionary of Russian Historical Terms/rom the Eleventh Century to 1917 (New Haven, 1970), pp. 62, 71-72, 175-176.

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cations, reveals above all else a rich diversity and a complicated pattern of historical change. Although not a complete lexicon of commune terminology, the several examples that will be given below should serve to suggest something of the bewildering character of the historical commune. It has been customary since the middle of the nineteenth century for students of the Russian commune to look to Kievan Russia, if not beyond, for the earliest documentary evidence of its existence, and there were some who, like Aksakov, looked for signs of Slav com­ munal life in early Byzantine times. Before the end of the 1850's, in addition to Aksakov and Iurii Samarin, the ideological fray over commune against clan and over the organic against the legal origin of the Russian communal order was joined by the historian I. D. Beliaev on the Slavophil side and Kavelin, Solov'ev, and Chicherin on the Westerner. But these fundamental questions of early Russian history, which cast a long shadow over Russian life down the cen­ turies, were already beginning to break out of the narrow ideological confines of the first confrontation. This is true even though the ide­ ological coloration given the debate during the 1840's and 1850's did not completely fade away in later decades. Before the decade of the 1850's was over, Russian scholars were already looking for documentary evidence of the early commune. Thus V. N. Leshkov, in a work published in 1858, found evidence for the existence of the mir in no less than fifteen clauses of Russkaia pravda, going back to the reign of Iaroslav the Wise (1015-1054).5 After studying the document, Leshkov commented that "one arrives at the conclusion that Pravda presents the verv' . . . in detailed description . . . as a living being endowed with complete clear ac­ tion." And he added, "Liudi, mir, and verv' are different expressions of one and the same notion." Further on he gives the term pogost as one more synonym for verv'. The conclusion that a later commentator drew from all this was that "verv' is the peasant territorial commune with its own administration." Characteristic of Russian regionalism, an institution of long standing in the vast Russian land, verv' was not known in Novgorod, where mir was its equivalent.6 The term verv' is said to have disappeared from common usage 5 For an English translation and a discussion of the Short Version, the Pravda of Iaroslav's sons, and the expanded version, see Vernadsky, Medieval Russian Laws, pp. 3-56. 6 V. N. Leshkov, fiusskii narod i gosudarstvo. Istoriia russkago obshchestvennago prava do XVIIl veka (Moscow, 1856), pp. 99,103, 111. For views opposing Leshkov's see, for example, Aleksandra Efimenko, "Krest'ianskoe zemlevladenie na krainem severe," Russkaia mysi', 1882, book V, pp. 63-64; Iu. M. Rapov, "Byla Ii verv' 'Russkoi Pravdy' patronimiei?" Sovetskaia etnografiia, 1969, no. 3, pp. 106-117.

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in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, but not of course the presumed local communal institution for which it stood. The explanation of its disappearance brings us back to the initial dispute of the midand late 1840's between Samarin and Kavelin, and Konstantin Aksakov and Solov'ev—that is, was the ancient Russian social order communal or clan?7 Chicherin and others who subscribed to the clan theory did so in part because they could not bring themselves to ascribe such antiquity to the commune. It had to have come later, they thought, for it was presumed to bave been the creation of the state. But though the clan theorists were wrong on both counts,8 the Slavophils were scarcely closer to the truth when they maintained that the commune was an instinctive expression of Christian social consciousness in the Russian people. Grekov, who did not subscribe to the Slavophil view, gave the following explanation for the dis­ appearance of the term verv': "It proved inconvenient insofar as in the older times it designated a kinship union and did not correspond to the territorial unit into whose composition non-relatives now en­ tered."9 7 In 1826 Johann Philipp Gustav Ewers (1780-1830) published Das alteste Recht der Russen in seiner geschichtlichen Entwickiung. The book appeared in Russian trans­ lation in 1835. Ewers defended the clan or rod theory (Sippentheorie), whose father he is considered to be. This view of early Russian society, as we have seen, was rejected by the Slavophils in the 1840's and 1850's but was embraced by the "legal" or "state" school to which belonged the "liberal" or moderate Westerners Kavelin, Solov'ev, and Chicherin. Cf. Goehrke, Die Theorien, pp. 34, 36-37, 174; also Μ. B. Petrovich, "The Peasant in Nineteenth-Century Historiography," in W. S. Vucinich, ed., The Peasant in Nineteenth-Century Russia (Stanford, 1968), pp. 207-208; Grekov, Krest'iane na Rusi, p. 60. 8 The so-called state (gosudarstvennaia) or juridical school, in Aleksandrov's listing, counted among its later adherents P. N. Miliukov, V. I. Sergeevich, and J. Engelmann, but its "influence" could also be seen in the works of A. I. Efimenko and Μ. M. Bogoslovsky. Goehrke, in his more numerous categories, includes among the "op­ ponents of the communal theory" N. P. Pavlov-Sil'vansky, P. N. Miliukov, V. D. Kliuchevsky, V. I. Sergeevich, and among the 6migr6 scholars V. I. El'iashevich and S. G. Pushkarev. Cf. Aleksandrov, Sel'skaia obshchina, pp. 16-18; Goehrke, Die Theo­ rien, pp. 91-115; Petrovich, "The Peasant," pp. 210-216. 9 Grekov, Krest'iane na Rusi, p. 73. Referring to the Slavophil-Westerner debate of the 1840's and 1850's, Grekov says, "K. S. Aksakov very aptly reproached the rep­ resentatives of the clan theory for their inability to define the essence of clan." In his discussion of the problem Grekov gives several possible meanings of "clan" as dy­ nasty, a group of relatives, compatriots, or nation. But he is no less justified in re­ proaching Aksakov for his definition of the commune. He writes: Aksakov's "notion of the commune is very cloudy: what in the last instance is this 'moral union of the people'? . . . Aksakov was just as unsuccessful in dealing with the notion of the commune as Solov'ev and Kavelin with the notion of the clan." Grekov's preference is clearly on the side of the Westerners, who despite their errors possessed "scientificstructural perspectives" (pp. 61, 67).

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Among the great number of scholars who have studied the early Russian social order, many have taken a view similar to that of the Slavophils but without their Christian Orthodox social overtones.10 In the body of secular-minded scholarship, whether upholding the communal theory or the clan theory, there is no religious idealization of social institutions. After the Crimean War the impending eman­ cipation of the serfs and its concurrent problem, the disposition of the land, made the village commune, staunchly defended by the Slavophils, a focal point of government and public interest. Follow­ ing emancipation, the commune became an integral part of the ques­ tion of local self-government and central in the materialistic, so­ cialistic speculation of Herzen and Chernyshevsky, whose theories were followed in the seventies by rising Russian populism. In all these discussions, the origin, character, and functions of the com­ mune down the centuries were given serious attention as bearing closely on the question of its current status and future role in Russian society. Finally, and perhaps surprisingly for those accustomed to consider the commune as moribund more from tendentious repetitiousness than from evidence, the mir had no attractions for the early Russian Marxists, who extolled the incipient Russian proletariat in place of the peasantry. Scholars as a rule were primarily concerned with the past of the commune; ideologists and publicists with its present and future.11 But few were indifferent. And a similarity of general opinion, of wFor a lucid summary of the Slavophil Orthodox position on the commune see S. G. Pushkarev, Rossiia ν XIX veke (1801-1914) (New York, 1956), pp. 139-141. For an English translation see R. H. McNeal and Tova Yedlin: The Emergence of Modern Russia, 1801-1917 (New York, 1963); see pp. 80-82. 11 There is no standard periodization of the history of the commune since the middle of the nineteenth century, and no standard nomenclature. Recently, for example, the commune's past was divided into three "stages": "up to Maurer" (domaurevskii), 1840's-1850's; "establishment and supremacy of Maurer's theory," 1860's-1880's; and "revision of the mark theory," end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. This division, of course, ignores Russia's own early concern with the com­ mune and the Slavophil contribution. Less esoteric is another periodization: 1840's1850's, the Slavophil-Westerner controversy; the 1870's-1880's, a period "connected with the development of populist historiography," including both nonpopulist and propopulist as well as "bourgeois" authors; and finally the end of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth, including studies of the commune in Siberia. Omitted from this terminology is consideration of the Marxist-Leninist interpretation, from the 1880's on. Cf, P. F. Laptin, Obshchina ν russkoi istoriografii (Kiev, 1971), p. 294; L. N. Vdovina, "Vopros ο proiskhozhdenii krest'ianskoi obshchiny ν russkoi dorevoliutsionnoi istoriografii," Vestnik moskovskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. lstoriia, 1973, no. 4, pp. 34-39. Extremely valuable is Aleksandrov's more recent historiographical review, which includes the Marxist and Leninist views, in chapter

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favor or disfavor, did not preclude argument, since there were so many questions involved—questions about the commune's origin, whether it was "organic" or statist and legal; its possible relationship to the clan theory; whether its origin goes back into Russian antiquity or to much later ages; whether it was an original Slav Russian creation or merely a Russian variation of a universal institution and a stage through which all societies pass; whether it was similar to the Ger­ man mark and the South Slav zadruga. Some of these questions were present from the outset; all entered into the research and discussion of the Russian village commune during the second half of the last century and indeed have been discussed up to the present. In the pro-Slavophil camp, the historian Beliaev is generally con­ sidered to be the most scholarly. His book The Peasants in Rus' (1860), recently characterized as the "first serious work in Russian on the history of the peasants in Russia," can be taken as Beliaev's summation of his four-year debate with Chicherin and Solov'ev on the nature and origin of the commune.12 Leshkov, though he has sometimes been called a pseudo-Slavophil, was a strong defender of the commune, as mentioned above, in The Russian People and the State (1858), in which he took the view that the ancient Kievan verv' was actually "a territorial neighborhood commune" or merely a later form of the commune.13 The opponents ranged against the Slavophils and the village com­ mune were more numerous than the Slavophils and their sympa­ thizers, and some of them had made a more serious effort to study the commune's past than had the early Slavophils. But whereas Kavelin, Solov'ev, and Chicherin, and their later adherents such as Kliuchevsky and Miliukov, were in general agreement, the larger camp of Slavophil opponents was splintered. Herzen and Chernyshevsky, for instance, accepted the commune and saw it as having 1 of his excellent Sel'skaia obshchina, pp. 3-46, and in his previously cited article, "V. I. Lenin," pp. 60-62. Additional historiographical material can be found in Goehrke's monograph, and in Petrovich's excellent summary essay, "The Peasant in Nineteenth-Century Historiography," pp. 191-230. For the more difficult and contro­ versial old period of Russian history see Grekov's standard work, Krest'iane na Rusi, pp. 59-82. All these rely on nineteenth-century bibliographical works. 12 See Aleksandrov Sel'skaia obshchina, p. 7. See also Petrovich, "The Peasant," 1 p. 198; Vdovina, "Vopros ο proiskhozhdenii," p. 38; Goehrke, Die Theorien, p. 70. Laptin, on the other hand, characterizes Beliaev not as pro-Slavophil but as the wellknown "histoTian-liberal." See Laptin, Obshchina ν russkoi istoriografii, p. 123. 13 For differing views on Leshkov's position cf. Laptin, Obshchina ν russkoi istorio­ grafii, p. 144; Vdovina, "Vopros ο proiskhozhdenii," p. 38; Goehrke, Die Theorien, p. 72.

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a future role in a socialistic secular society. The Russian Marxists, from the 1880's on, opposed it for their own ideological reasons, as did conservative circles, but of course on different grounds. The government of Nicholas I suspected the Slavophils of "communism," and that of Nicholas II, early in this century, tried to abolish the commune.14 Finally, from the 1870's on, the populist current—in­ cluding its many subcurrents—on the whole concurred with Sla­ vophil ideas on the age, indigenous nature, and importance of the commune, as well as its future in Russian society, and also with the Slavophil belief in Russia's wonted separate and distinct course of historical development. In opening up for investigation the historical and still vital Russian peasant commune,15 the Slavophils not only stimulated the study of "For a summary chapter on this polemic see Goehrke, Die Theorien, pp. 42-71. See also Vdovina, "Vopros ο proiskhozhdenii," pp. 37-38; Aleksandrov, Sel'skaia obshchina, pp. 5, 7-9, 11; Grekov, Krest'iane ηa flusi, pp. 71-72; Petrovich, "The Peasant," pp. 208-210. Goehrke in his elaborate and detailed classification of pro- and anti-commune forces includes among the Nichtslavophilen A. I. Herzen and K. D. Kavelin; under the subcategory Zadrugatheorie, F. I. Leontovich, K. N. BestuzhevRiumin, and G. F. Blumenfel'd; under Markgemeindtheorie V. N. Leshkov, P. A. Sokolovsky, and M. F. Vladimirsky-Budanov; and under a third subcategory, adher­ ents to the communal theory, J. Engelmann, V. 1. Semevsky, and Otto Hoetzsch. These do not exhaust the categories, but to the extent to which any precise determination is possible, they are halfway between the pro- and anti-Slavophil camps. See Goehrke, Die Theorien, pp, 72-90. 15 Ideological considerations, personal preferences and prejudices, and government policies such as the anti-commune Stolypin reforms combined for over a century to obscure our view of the commune. One fact, however, is absolutely undeniable: it functioned for centuries and through the 1920's. And it is manifest from several recent studies that it possessed considerable strength and vitality to the end, prompting Koval'chenko's comment: "All this compels us to look differently on the place and role of the commune in the history of the development of agrarian relations in Russia. Having existed for hundreds of years it did not simply die, tormented by capitalism, but rather gave birth to such factors which determined in many respects the specific aspects of the peasant order during the capitalistic period." I. D. Koval'chenko, "V. I. Lenin ο kharaktere agrarnogo stroia kapitalisticheskoi Rossii," Voprosy istorii, 1970, no. 3, p. 51. Aleksandrov, relying on Lenin's views on the commune, argues that "constant formation of capitalistic elements inside the 'commune' itself" occurred and that a characteristic Russian phenomenon was the "growth of a bourgeoisie 'inside' our 'commune,' not outside it." Obviously such developments could not occur in a dying institution. See Aleksandrov's previously cited article, "V. I. Lenin," pp. 67, 68; also his Sel'skaia obshchina, p. 241. Discussing the Stolypin reforms, Male concludes that "by January 1917 only 10.5% of all peasant households had been settled in new individual enclosed forms of holding," and that the rebirth of the commune had gone so far that by 1925 "communal holding had returned to preStolypin proportions." D. J. Male, Russian Peasant Organization Before ColIectivi-

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Russian history but also in effect touched on such fledgling academic disciplines as sociology, cultural anthropology, and social psychol­ ogy; but as young Samarin lamented, they relied too heavily on intuition, theory, and hypothesis. This was a case, neither the first nor the last, in which theory and hypothesis in the realm of human relations were misused, for whatever the Slavophils lacked in hard factual evidence on the commune—and that was much—wittingly or not they made up in fervor, and it was mostly this that brought the whole question of the commune into view. At the heart of what seemed to be an academic dispute about clan versus commune was one of civilization's most challenging prob­ lems, still dividing men and the world: What is the essential envi­ ronment that brings out the creative powers in the individual without rendering him egotistical or antisocial in the process? Kavelin's an­ swer was clear and simple: the state, and specifically in Russia's case the state of Peter the Great. The opportunity for play between personality and creativity, "in­ novation" [novatorstvo] in Belinsky's terminology, is absolutely es­ sential for any self-respecting society. Siding specifically with Kavelin, and beyond, with Nadezhdin and Prince Viazemsky, Belinsky (who had been Kavelin's tutor) wrote in 1845, "In ancient Russia the individual (Iichnost') never meant anything; the clan meant every­ thing, and the triumph of the boyar was the triumph of the whole boyar clan." Without individuals, and without the conflict and strug­ gle between them, there could be no new ideas, and no drama. It was not an accident that Shakespeare appeared in England in the six­ teenth century, for " 'nowhere else were the elements of political [gosudarstvennaia] life so contradictory and in such conflict with one another as in England.' "16 Belinsky described Kavelin's "View of the Juridical Order of An­ cient Russia" as a "genuine historical-philosophical revelation" which constituted "an epoch in the history of Russian history." zation (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 19, 206. Similar conclusions were reached earlier by Lewin, who says that during the Bolshevik revolution "the mir took on a miraculous lease on life," and that "once more the mir became representative of the great majority of the peasantry. By about 1927 95.5% of all the landholdings were in 'communal ownership.' " Moshe Lewin, La paysannerie et Ie pouvoir sovidtique 1928-1930 (Paris-La Haye, 1966), p. 79. English translation by Alec Nove, Russian Peasants and Soviet Power (London, 1967), p. 85. These conclusions do not necessarily settle the question of the commune. They should, however, suggest the necessity for further investigation of its fate between 1861 and 1930. 16 D. L. Tal'nikov, "Kontseptsiia Kavelina i istoricheskie vzgliady Belinskogo," Voprosy istorii, 1956, no. 9, p. 136; V. G. Belinsky, Sobranie sochinenii ν trekh tomakh, ed. V. I. Kuleshov (Moscow, 1948), III, 569.

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When Kavelin, in a manner reminiscent of Hegel, advanced the prop­ osition in this celebrated essay that the state is the crowning glory of historical life, and specifically that the "whole private life of Peter I, his whole political [gosudarstvennaia] activity is the first phase in the realization of the principles of personality in Russian history," Belinsky concurred. He saw Peter the Great not only as the embod­ iment of the Russian state but also as being in "blood kinship" with the Russian people.17 Belinsky quickly brushed aside the individual, however, when in reference to Pushkin's famous "Bronze Horseman" he proclaimed that the Bronze Giant—that is, Peter the Great—"cannot defend the fate of individuality while securing the fate of the people and the state."18 Thus the tsar who doubtless contributed more than any of his predecessors to Russia's integration into the life of the rest of Europe was exonerated of his neglect of the Russian peasants. The Westerners easily overlooked the fact that the burden of the headtax fell entirely on the peasants, Peter having exempted the gentry or those best able to pay, and that it was he, more than anyone else, who extended serfdom to the factories and mines through the system of possessional serfs, and who further showed his disregard for the serfs by making them the sole victims of lifelong army service. In Peter's scheme of things, apparently, peasants and serfs did not count as individuals, however much one might wish to absolve him on the ground of public necessity. In a word Peter brought neither physical, nor spiritual, nor intellectual liberation to the vast majority of Rus­ sians, and Kavelin's and Belinsky's eagerness to proclaim him lib­ erator of the individual shows how far they were willing to go in pursuit of an argument. But in the polemics over the theoretical and hypothetical the Sla­ vophils were perhaps only a little less out of touch with historical reality than were the Westerners. In the 1840's the Russian peasant commune was very much in existence and possessed of considerable vitality, but the Slavophils, and particularly Aksakov, wrapped it in a cloak of unreality bordering on fantasy. They could not insist on its exclusive Russianness, for they were aware of the existence of "Tal'nikov, "Kontseptsiia Kavelina," pp. 130, 133-135; D. A. Korsakov, ed., Sobranie sochinenii K. D. Kavelina, 4 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1904), I, 58. (Hereafter cited as Kavelin, Sochineniia.) Referring to the views of Kavelin and Chicherin, Illeritsky says, "recognition of the state in the capacity of the basic creative source in history, and its moving force, became the main principle of the state School. This gave it its name." Β. E. Illeritsky, "0 gosudarstvennoi shkole ν russkoi istoriografii," Voprosy istorii, 1959, no. 5, p. 43. 18 Tal'nikov, "Kontseptsiia Kavelina," p. 140.

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communal institutions among the non-Russian Slavs and at one time or another even among other nationalities and cultures, but they found it difficult to divest the Russian peasant commune of its pur­ ported Christian properties. And in the controversy over the "prin­ ciple of personality" and the freedom and creativity of the individual they had to defend themselves against charges from the Westerners that the very nature of communal life limited the growth of the individual and undermined his potential. Aksakov's answer to such charges, in the early and middle 1850's, was to exalt the individual's place as part of the commune. The commune was, he said, a "moral choir" (nravstvennyi khor), in which the individual voice is not stifled but "is heard in harmony with all other voices. Thus in the commune, the individual [lichnost'] is not lost but renounces his exclusiveness for the sake of common harmony." In an undated fragment the same thought was given a more forceful and unequivocal expression: "In the Russian com­ mune, the individual [lichnost'] is not suppressed; he is only de­ prived of his violence [buistvo], egotism, exclusiveness. . . . He is free in it as in a choir." He returned to this thought in the second editorial (April 19) in Molva in 1857, asserting that in the commune the "individual is not destroyed; he only renounces his exclusive­ ness."19 Developing the idea further, Aksakov likened personality to the concept of nationality and began the fifth of his MoIva editorials (May 10, 1857) with the assertion that "nationality [narodnost'] is the personality of the people. Just as man cannot be without per­ sonality [lichnost'], so the nation cannot be without nationality." Thus "personality does not simply not interfere—it alone provides the possibility of knowing fully and freely another human being, another personality. Precisely in the same manner nationality alone gives a nation the possibility of understanding other nationalities."20 In this passage he defended two cherished convictions: that the best way to constrain man's animal, jungle proclivities was to raise him in a commune, and that Russia's national consciousness was the best 19 K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, I, 292; Russkii arkhiv, 1900, book III, p. 373. Speaking out on the same subject in 1865 Gil'ferding, one of the young followers of the early Slavophils, saw in the Russian communal principle salvation from jungle-like indi­ vidualism and social Darwinism. "The Russian mir," he said, "realizes the genuine endeavor of every Slav generation, attempting to reach higher and farther. It does not understand the personal freedom of man alone, which for it is wolf's freedom, not human freedom." A. F. Gil'ferding, Sobranie sochinenii (St. Petersburg, 1868), II, 478. (Without the commune, "homo homini lupus est.") 20Russkii arkhiv, 1900, book III, p. 377.

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safeguard against indiscriminate cultural borrowing and incursions from abroad, which were assaults on its sense of nationality. A major characteristic of the Slavophil point of view was of course its disregard for the state as a determining element in national char­ acter and consciousness, let alone as man's highest achievement. Instead of the hierarchy from clan to family to patrimonial princi­ palities to state, the Slavophils believed the family and the commune to be of paramount social importance, although they saw the com­ mune not as an extension of family or blood kinship but as the embodiment of the presumed Christian social consciousness of the Russian people. Whereas for Kavelin the growth of the individual and the development of personality were conceivable only within the state, with its juridical norms and standards, for Aksakov it was not the state and its cold, impersonal, legalistic spirit and means of compulsion, but rather the commune, with its informal, intimate environment and presumed Christian characteristics, that was the best milieu—indeed for Russia, the only true one—for the growth and full play of personality. And although both of them had as a starting point Christianity, with its sanction of the sacredness of human life and personality, Kavelin soon descended from the ideal to the actual and pronounced the state of Peter the Great, and the career of the tsar himself, as the birth of personality in Russian history.21 Aksakov, like the rest of the Slavophils conceiving Christianity as brotherhood and the Christian church as more of a fellowship than a formal institution, and seeing the peasant commune as its historical embodiment, could not imagine the growth of the individual and of human personality anywhere but within the commune and its com­ ponent the family. The Westerners considered the individual and personality as inseparable from the state; the Slavophils, as insep­ arable from the commune-family. For Khomiakov and Aksakov, state and personality were antithetical alternatives, whereas for Kavelin and Belinsky (for a time at least) the flowering of personality was inseparable from the growth of the state and therefore from legally guaranteed individualism, from struggle and the inevitable conflict 21 Kavelin in his essay on the juridical order of ancient Russia, after discussing the early Christian communes, concludes: "Thus appeared first in Christianity the thought of the infinite [and] unconditional dignity of man and of human personality. . . . If not in actuality then in terms of possibility he is the representative of God on earth, the beloved son of God for whom the Savior of the world Himself shed His holy blood, and died on the cross. Such an entirely new view of man had to lead him out of nothingness and free him from the yoke of nature, and the external world." Ravelin, Sochineniia, I, 15.

370

THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND'

of personalities—the stuff of drama in Belinsky's view. What Kavelin perceived rationally as a student of legal history, Belinsky assimi­ lated aesthetically as a literary critic, and as if to underscore the complexity of human motivation they both agreed with their ideo­ logical opponents on the alleged absence of conflict among the early Slavs.22 The state as a supreme, all-powerful, and often self-justifying in­ stitution has been apotheosized, for one reason or another, from Plato to Hegel and since, and few would dispute its general indispensability to civilized life. Crediting it, as Kavelin and Belinsky did, with the propensity for achieving the highest good for the individual—an ambiguous notion about an ambiguous institution—is perhaps ad­ missible in the polemical situation in which they found themselves in the mid-1840's. But there was something in the awestruck attitude of the Westerners for the Petrine state, and the state in general, that was no less "one-sided" than the Slavophil intemperance about the commune. Adherents of the "state" or "juridical" school of Russian histo­ riography then and for the rest of the century tended to become locked into the fallacy that the state in the process of "liberating" the individual somehow satisfied all his basic needs. This view took no real account of the ambivalent nature of the state, that is, its double role as liberator as well as jailer and mass murderer. The state safeguards the individual's birthright to live, develop, and create, but it also assumes the right to control individual destinies through war or political punishment. And of course the state, unlike the family, can answer only to physical needs, such as social welfare in recent years. It cannot provide the tenderness, love and devotion, and parental self-sacrifice of the truest family, which more than any­ thing else "liberates" the growing individual from the clutches of the ever present animal in man. Despite all its frailties and all the assaults on it, it is the family—not the state, school, community, club, party, or even church—that has been and remains the one institution capable of carrying out this elementary and irreplaceable function. The Slavophils saw this need more clearly than their opponents did. To be sure, being no less susceptible to the distortions of po­ lemics than the Westerners were, they tended to minimize the role 22 The two warring camps, perhaps to their chagrin, were in effect in agreement on that aspect of the Normanist theory which encouraged the dubious premise that the early Russians, like the other Slavs, were "meek and peaceful," brought up in the family virtues of "meek, quiet dispositions, trustfulness, uncommon kindness, and artlessness." Ibid., pp. 19-20; Tal'nikov, "Kontseptsiia Kavelina," p. 133.

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of the state in the growth and security of the individual, and in Aksakov's case even to condemn the state as a whole (or to glorify it as a commune); perhaps out of this imbalance came their excessive trust in the peasant commune. But with respect to the family, though it may be as faulty as any other human institution, they were on firmer historical and psychological ground. As a matter of historical practice, as we shall soon see, in Russia the mir rather than the state was entrusted with the care of children who had no family. On this matter the Russian state, including Peter the Great's, gave its tacit acquiescence to the peasant commune. MORE than a century and a quarter after the journal controversy

between the Slavophils and the Westerners over the commune, we now have not only the perspective to see the issue more clearly and calmly than they did but also a rich store of knowledge which was unavailable to them. The accumulation and use of this knowledge was inspired by the Slavophils' concern for the commune, a most durable institution which, despite certain ups and downs, main­ tained its vitality and strength through the first third of this century.23 We are still not certain about the time, circumstances, and place or places of its origin, and though we have in some respects a wealth of detail, there are still many gaps in our knowledge; yet we have learned much. What follows is a fleeting review, based heavily on current research, of the commune as it existed on landlords' estates, this being the commune with which the Slavophils were most fa­ miliar and on which they based most of their ideas.24 A convenient starting point is the commune's major functions. In this brief survey it must always be borne in mind that the peasant commune existed within a serf order in which the peasant was con­ stantly under the onerous double yoke of landlord and government; therefore there can be no question about a commune functioning in a free society. Yet, as should soon become clear, the commune also 23 In 1927 the Soviet government decided to favor the peasant soviet at the expense of the peasant commune, and on July 30, 1930, the order was issued to "liquidate" the commune in the RSFSR "where the kolkhozes encompassed no less than 75% of the peasant economic units." Iu. S. Kukushkin, Rol' sel'skikh sovetov ν sotsialisticheskom pereustroistve derevni (Moscow, 1962), pp. 99-100. For the state of the peasant commune and its interaction with the village soviets at the end of the 1920's see Lewin, La paysannerie et Ie pouvoir sovietique, pp. 26-27, 79-87 (English ed., pp. 26-27, 85-93). 24 For the large and important category of communes on crown, church, and state lands see S. G. Pushkarev, Krest'ianskaia pozemel'no—peredel'naia obshchina ν Rossii (Newtonville, Mass., 1976], pp. 132-147, 199-225.

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND'

had a life of its own, performing valuable services for the peasant without which his lot would have been worse. At the end of this summary the views of the Slavophils and Westerners can be com­ pared with the commune as sketched in the pages that follow. Then the question of how close the two contending ideological camps were to the historical and still functioning institution about which they theorized can perhaps be raised again, and considered more factually than before. From the standpoint of the peasant as well as of the landlord and the state the fundamental function of the commune was economic. The peasant as the tiller of the soil in an overwhelmingly agrarian society was the key to the survival of all segments of Russian society, a fact that probably prompted Chernov once to declare him the "true autocrat of Russia." In addition to this function, after the late sev­ enteenth century the peasant rendered to the state the head-tax, and the usual roadwork and transport services. The peasant class was also charged with the duty of provisioning army units and prisoners and exiles, and in addition supplied the village with police, local law courts, and recruits for lifetime army service. All these functions and some additional ones were in the hands of the local mir or commune under the immediate supervision of the landlord's offi­ cials. The obligations of the peasant to the landlord, which often inter­ sected the peasant's obligations to the state, present a more complex picture. They varied considerably in time and from one estate to another. Depending on the section of the country, the peasants were on obrok (quitrent), usually in the north, or on more onerous barshchina (corvee) in the south and the more fertile regions. These obligations and the manner in which they were performed also dif­ fered depending on the individual landlord and his convictions and attitude toward his serfs. In the center of this three-cornered rela­ tionship of state, landlord, and peasant stood the peasant commune or mir, with its important control over land division among the serfs. The peasant needed land to fulfill his obligations and to maintain himself and his family, if only at the meanest level. The communes were therefore "obliged to secure land for all their members even if within the limits of a subsistence minimum. For this reason they did not admit of landlessness for some in favor of others, observing a certain proportionality in land distribution."25 This did not mean, however, equality of land possessions or wealth within the peasant commune. 25 Aleksandrov,

SeJ'skaia obshchina, pp. 237-238.

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Aleksandrov, trying to arrive at a semblance of order in his study of fifty-odd landlords' estates, divided them into three categories.26 The first, the category of the "patrimonial-police regime," as its name indicates, allowed virtually no room for the free functioning of the mir. Wealthy landlords like V. N. Samarin, who "deformed . . . the essence of the mir, that is, the right of every peasant's voice in the decision of the mir," and V. N. Tatishchev, with his "barracks re­ gime," grossly violated the long-established prerogatives of com­ munal administration, characterized to a considerable degree by a sort of homespun peasant democracy.27 The next category of landlords, those who "did not interfere in the internal life of the village" and allowed the mir to function freely in accordance with time-honored practices, was the most favorable to the peasants. The estates of these landlords were usually on obrok, which was preferred by the serfs to the barshchina principle. The landlords' "codes," "instructions," and other documentary evidence from these estates shed much light on the functioning of the mir and commune, which in this category enjoyed considerable autonomy and initiative.28 This peasant communal self-government was the result not of landlords' dispensations and directives or of state edicts but of longstanding peasant practices and custom law.29 Variations in the "instructions" between one estate and another, for instance, were often so striking and fundamental that they could not have been issued by the central government. This is cited as a major piece of evidence against Chicherin's thesis, still persisting in the West, that the modern Russian commune was a fiscal creation of the gov-

26 Although other scholars have used landlords' archives in the study of the Russian peasant order, including some during the nineteenth century, Aleksandrov's three studies, all based on archival materials, are especially valuable. I call attention to the previously cited Sel'skaia obshchina (1976) and an earlier article similarly titled, "Sel'skaia obshchina i votchina ν Rossii (XVII-nachalo XIX v.)," Istoricheskie zapiski, 1972, no. 89, pp. 231-294; also to the article referred to in the preceding pages, "V. I. Lenin." 27 Aleksandrov, Sel'skaia obshchina, pp. 57, 63. 28 Ibid., pp. 69-70. 29 The role and binding power of custom in Russian peasant communal life is well established. See, for example, ibid., pp. 20, 44, 202-203, 232; also Aleksandrov's "V. I. Lenin," pp. 60, 62, and "Sel'skaia obshchina," pp. 259, 267. See also the work of F. A. Shcherbina in Russkaia mysl', 1880, book V, pp. 3, 5, 13, 18; for custom law and Cossack communes, see book VII, pp. 3-4, 12-14, 17, 21-22, 26-30, 33-36; for custom law in Russia proper, book VIII, pp. 90-91, 108; book X, p. 36. Good bibli­ ographies on this subject may be found in F. I. Leontovich, Istoriia russkago prava (Warsaw, 1902), pp. 263-286, and in Tokarev, Istoriia russkoi etnografii, pp. 287-292.

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND'

ernment in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.30 The most complete of the landlords' codes, taking account of the practice of communal self-government, was worked out in the 1790's by Count V. G. Orlov. He and his brothers Ivan, Aleksei, Grigorii, and Theo­ dore, all favored by Catherine II, were granted vast estates in the 1760's in a number of guberniias. By the first quarter of the nineteenth century they owned more than 27,000 serfs in thirty-six villages and hamlets. The "norms of communal life" as established in his code were probably observed more faithfully by him than by most land­ lords. This code provides us with one of the best-ordered and prob­ ably also most favorable regimes for the functioning of the peasant commune.31 The third category of commune, that of "mixed forms," fell more or less in between the "police" type and the second, just described. This category included such wealthy landlords as the Vorontsovs, with estates in sixteen guberniias and about 55,000 serfs of both sexes, and the Panins, who in the 1780's owned nearly 24,000 serfs of both sexes.32 Owing to the many differences between these three categories, as well as within each category, it is impossible to make generalized statements about the manner of organization, precise functions, and overall status of the commune throughout the vast Russian land, but we can look more closely at the major features and characteristics of a composite commune in the second category, the type that en­ joyed the greatest degree of freedom and self-government, and in that way arrive at a frame of reference, however simplified and arbitrary. The elective principle, and the free mir assembly (skhodka), were at the heart of the functioning peasant commune. Primarily from records (prigovory) about mir assemblies—usually consisting of a preamble, reasons for the assembly, questions discussed, and deci­ sions taken—we learn much about the actual operation of local peas­ ant self-government. Elections were held for the head of the village administration (starosta, elder), for the so-called vybornye (elected) who were representatives of the peasants, and also of the "local state 30 As already indicated, the Slavophil responses to Chicherin, particularly Samarin's and Beliaev's, will be examined in the next and final study of this series. For some recent responses from Soviet scholars see Aleksandrov1 Sei'skaia obshchina, pp. 5, 10,13,16-17, 25, 29,116; idem, "V. I. Lenin," pp. 59-60; IIleritsky, "O gosudarstvennoi shkole ν russkoi istoriografii," pp. 141-149, 152-153, 157; Vdovina, "Vopros ο proiskhozhdenii," pp. 36-37. 31 Aleksandrov, Sei'skaia obshchina, pp. 72, 74, and "Sei'skaia obshchina," pp. 243, 259-261. 32 Aleksandrov, Sei'skaia obshchina, pp. 82-83, 85, and "Sei'skaia obshchina," p. 273.

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and manorial administration," for local police (sotskie), for the per­ son in charge of delivering army recruits to the state (rekrutskii otdatchik}, and for "various tseloval'niki" active in a variety of "ju­ dicial administrative and financial affairs" including church financial matters.33 Most of these designations, and many others, were of an­ cient origin, some going back to Kievan times. The peasant mir with its local administrative, economic, and ju­ diciary functions was the only defender of the peasant against ar­ bitrary encroachments of the landlord's authority. An example of this is provided by a case on V. V. Dolgoruki's Suzdal' estates. In 1727 the serfs achieved a partial victory by retaining the right to elect their mir representatives and, under the supervision of the landlord's manager (prikazchik), to maintain authority over communal lands and tax allotments. This was no mean achievement, in view of the all-powerful nature of the government and the unlimited authority of the landlord class over the serfs. Usually within the peasant com­ mune, despite all its weaknesses, the serf found a measure of succor, security, and solidarity which otherwise would have been com­ pletely absent.34 The voice of the peasant was heard in the commune, specifically through the mir skhodka (assembly). These peasant assemblies, which seem of ancient origin, were virtually the world of the peas­ antry and of its elected representatives. They differed in composition, agenda, and manner of operation: they could be stifled as on estates where the "barrack order" prevailed, or they could enjoy a consid33 Aleksandrov Sel'skaia obshchina, pp. 117, 130. See also Pushkarev et al., Dic­ 1 tionary of Russian Historical Terms, pp. 161, 182. 34 In some instances the mir successfully resisted the landlords' arbitrary demands, as for example on the Orlov Elkhovo estate in 1804. The landlord used force but the mir's refusal to sign the landlord's orders "restrained the increase in his demands. It was in this that the real strength of the mir order was manifested in the everyday existence of commune and landlord." Throughout its existence the commune re­ mained a "restraining force" on the "extreme manifestation of landlord authority." Aleksandrov, Sel'skaia obshchina, pp. 131-132, 158, 178, 314. The peasant, well aware of the strength and weaknesses of the mir, made his thoughts and sentiments known in the form of folk sayings (poslovitsy). Dal' cites seventy-one of these in his collection, under the rubric "narod-mir." Some of these are not original, but they express peasant sentiments just the same. Among them are: "The voice of the people is the voice of God." "The mir is a great person, the mir is a great deed." "The mir cannot be judged. God alone can judge it." "The mir yawns, the stone cracks." "You can't bury the mir." "All for one, and one for all. Mutual responsibility." "Peasant assembly [skhodka]—the clerks' vodka." But unlike the theoreticians, such as Aksakov, the peasants had no illusions about the mir and the commune. They also said: "The mir is powerful like [running] water, but foolish like a child." "The muzhik is wise, the mir is a fool." "The voice of the people betrayed (crucified) Christ." V. I. Dal', Poslovitsy russkogo naroda. Sbornik (Moscow, 1957), pp. 404-406.

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND'

erable degree of autonomy as on estates where the landlords "did not interfere in the internal life of the village."35 They could be held on barshchina or on obrok estates, on church, crown, or state lands, or in a Cossack commune (gromada) in the south of Russia. They could take place in complex communes consisting of many villages, in district (volost'] communes, in simple communes, or even within communes or kutki in the Ukraine, and they could be in rich or in poor communes.36 They performed administrative, legislative, and church functions, constituted law courts for local cases, and even served as therapeutic "safety valves."37 Although village elders played a major role in peasant affairs, youths and women also participated in mir assemblies, at least in the second half of the nineteenth century in certain parts of Russia, on the testimony of no less an authority than V. I. Orlov. On the basis of evidence provided by him for the Kalinin, Mozhaisk, and Zvenigorod districts, Shcherbina concludes that "youths" or "ju­ veniles" (nedorostki) "take a certain part in public assemblies [skhodki]," and in "certain cases youths are equal participants in the organization of communal self-government with fully mature com­ petent workers." Participation in mir assemblies and communal selfgovernment was determined not by age or sex but by "labor." Shcherbina adds that "old men, and old women, and people of middle age, and even youths" could ordinarily be considered as "householders." In this case middle-aged men, whose maturity and experience made 35Aleksandrov

speaks of "cases of the complete destruction of communal organi­ zation by the landlords," in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, but does not say whether these estates became agriculturally more or less efficient. See his Sel'skaia obshchina, pp. 69, 111. 36 For communal organization in the Ukraine and among the Cossacks, see articles by Shcherbina in Russkaia mysl', 1880, book V, pp. 4-5, 25-26; book VII, pp. 1-36; book X, pp. 57-61. 37 To N. Zlatovratsky, a friendly observer of a mir assembly in the 1870's, it appeared that "here was gathered, it seemed, the whole village: old men, solid proprietors [obstoiatel'nye khosiaeva], young sons, just returned at harvest time from gainful employment [elsewhere], peasant women and lads. I took my place as always in the hut opposite the assembly. . . . At this moment the oratorical debates reached their apogee . . . [and] I saw before me spontaneous man au naturel . . . in all his color. Above all I was astonished by [his] remarkable frankness. . . . Here there is not even a trace of diplomacy . . . here he reveals his whole soul. . . . In the moment of its apogee the assembly simply becomes an open mutual confession, and a mutual un­ masking, a manifestation of the greatest openness. In these moments seemingly every­ one's private interests and fairness [spravedlivost'j reach their highest degree of con­ trol." N. Zlatovratsky, "Derevenskie budni. (Neskol'ko otvetov na zaprosy uchenykh i neuchenykh liudei, iz dnevnika nabliudatelia)," Otechestvennye zapiski, 1879, no. 6, pp. 510-511. See also ibid., book X, p. 53.

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them the most productive, led the mir, but with respect to wealth the middle-class peasant (seredniak muzhik) predominated.38 Zlatovratsky (cited above), though struck in the 1870's "by the external monotony of the assembled citizens," commented favorably on their seriousness of purpose: Actually all these were peasants of average means [seredniak muzhik], tall, healthy, heavy-set . . . with remarkably self-confident appearance and deportment, conscious of their own dig­ nity. In a word, in the citizen of Nizhnie Lopukhi gleamed the "intelligent," enterprising, industrious, shrewd, "obroshnyi" Russian peasant, possessed of tremendous good sense, who has never known corvee [barshchina], and from time immemorial disposed of his own labor in relative freedom. There were only two or three old men . . . and there were no youths except two or three adolescents of seventeen It turned out that in general during the summer only a third of the peasants remain in the village while the other two thirds, primarily the young people, go to town to earn money. . . . In this manner present at the assembly were the "nucleus people" [iadrennyi narod] exclu­ sively.39 This eyewitness account is, of course, a report on one of the best types of communes in the post-emancipation era, in an obrok village fairly close to a large town where seasonal nonagricultural employ­ ment was available. It belonged to the very wealthy "Count N.," who "lived abroad constantly" and whose manager was guided by the motto, "Go wherever you wish, only pay your obrok." This village was probably atypical of peasant communal organization in the 1870's and even more of the pre-emancipation period, and yet it was not an isolated instance, and in its social stratification it resembled other peasant communes. It is safe to say that despite the basic communal ideal that the "rights of the weak and the poor ought to be guaranteed not con­ ditionally, not periodically, but constantly, steadfastly, [during] every minute of communal life," the peasant commune was a strat­ ified institution. Here we again encounter the eternal discrepancy between the ideal and the actual. The four basic Russian "folk-cul­ tural" guarantees that follow, as stated in 1879, could readily have come from Konstantin Aksakov's Slavophil creed. They were (1) the "guarantee of moral individual freedom; (2) —of equal participation 38 Shcherbina

in Russkaia mysl', book X, pp. 46, 48, 50-51. in Otechestvennye zapiski, 1879, no. 12, pp. 536-537.

39 Zlatovratsky,

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of the individual in communal assemblies and law courts; (3) —of the economic well-being of the members of the commune, achievable through the right of common labor and common use of its results; and (4) communal help in all cases when the first three guarantees prove inadequate to safeguard the rights of the individual."40 Con­ trary to the insistence of the Westerners, particularly the liberal wing, that the Slavophil stress on the communal principle stifled the in­ dividual, the Slavophils and later the populists were not uncon­ cerned about the individual, for these guarantees laid the basis for his economic survival and for equal rights if not for absolute equality. The words of the old folk saying, "From the mir a stitch now and then—to the naked a shirt," summed up the age-old communal prac­ tice of mutual or joint responsibility (krugovaia poruka) at its best. Depending on one's point of view, this practice was either the heart of communal solidarity, the way the Slavophils and later some of the populists saw it, or it was merely a way of foisting various ob­ ligations "on the rich for the poor, on the industrious for the idle, on the capable for the incapable." The fact that joint peasant re­ sponsibility was not abandoned after the Emancipation Edict of 1861 shows that Alexander II knew as well as his predecessors that it benefited the government. It facilitated the delivery of individual peasant dues. But the bulk of the peasantry also seem to have derived certain tangible advantages from it which made their lot under the double burden of landlord and government more tolerable, in that it provided them with a minimum of security against such catas­ trophes as fire, loss of livestock, poor harvest, sickness, death, or loss of a family member.41 In such cases the commune came to the rescue and if necessary resorted to land redistribution in order to save some members from pauperism. To achieve these and other objectives through the deliberations of the mir assembly or of the officers of the mir, annual elections were usually held on the principle of one person, one vote. Both peasant voting and the conduct of mir assemblies were fairly informal. "Strictly speaking, almost no one directs or bosses the assembly," Shcherbina says, and there is no "strictly observed parliamentary order. . . . Everyone acts according to his own discretion and under the influence of the general stimulation."42 As one might expect in an agricultural society in a cold northern country, the mir assemblies were not equally distributed throughout the year. The greatest ac­ tivity occurred between November and April, when there was little 40 Ibid.,

p. 534. in Russkaia mys]', book XII, pp. 44, 46, 55. 42 Ibid., book X, p. 52

41 Shcherbina,

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or no fieldwork. During the spring and summer and through early autumn mir assemblies were convoked only "for decision of the most urgent matters." A system of mir commissions elected by mir assem­ blies, such as existed in the village of Pistsovo, attended to communal matters in the absence of a mir assembly. Such commissions, often consisting of the most influential peasants, were created annually or occasionally for specific purposes.43 The amount of business conducted at the mir assemblies could be quite considerable. Data for one village on one of the Orlov estates show that for 1771, 1780, 1785, and 1786 the mir assembly was convoked between sixteen and thirty-two times a year. For the period 1806-1810 the number declined to four to eight times a year, but when "mir democracy" was restored between 1811 and 1814 the mir assembly deliberated between thirteen and twenty-two times a year. Depending on the size of the commune, the season, and the impor­ tance of the matters under consideration, a mir assembly could attract from 20 to 50 peasants or as many as 150 or 187. From the mir records for one of the village communes on the Golovin estates, at the turn of the eighteenth century, one gets a good idea of the prob­ lems that the mir assembly dealt with. Twelve assemblies were de­ voted to army recruiting, one to roadwork, two to the payment of obrok, six to a controversial dispatching of carpenters to work on A. B. Kurakin's dacha, eight to the election of mir officers, nine to financial matters including the mir's bread store, lending bank, and the expenditures of the manager or bailiff (burmister), seven to workland (tiaglo-zemel'nye) matters, and seven to the building of a church.44 This list of course does not exhaust the functions performed by the mir, by its assembly, or by those empowered to act in its behalf. The mir assembly was on occasion constituted as a court of law. Shcherbina, who attended such a session in the Kuban region, con­ cludes that the "assembly [skhod] in such cases often appears in the role of both judge and executor." In certain cases, he says, the as­ sembly could even pass a death sentence. Men guilty of robbery or theft ordinarily were sent into army service for life; women guilty of the same offenses were subject to corporal punishment; and exile and penal servitude for life were also used as punishment. The day43 Aleksandrov, Sel'skaia obshchina, pp. 140-141,152-156,169,173; Zlatovratsky, in Otechestvennye zapiski, no. 12, pp. 538-539. 44 Aleksandrov, Sel'skaia obshchina, pp. 157, 168-169. For mir responsibility for church construction and repairs see Shcherbina, in Russkaia mysl', book V, p. 20.

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND'

to-day police duties in peasant communities were also performed by mir authorities.45 The mir's central concern, the economic, presents a persistent and often tangled problem. The major forms of peasant wealth were buildings, livestock, tools and implements, money, and some land. One must lay aside any ideas that the mir ever tried to attain eco­ nomic equality among its members. Aleksandrov recently expressed a longstanding and perhaps general conviction when he said that "V. G. OrIov understood the impossibility of the ideal equalization [nivelirovka] of the peasant masses." Orlov's skepticism on this matter was shared not only by his fellow landlords but doubtless also by most of the peasantry; Aleksandrov says, "The communes never put forward the question about the equalization of the property condition of their members, and did not endeavor to retain equality by guaranteeing their basic means of production—land." Nor did the communes strive to maintain individual peasant economies on a "precisely fixed level." What the commune did was to help keep peasants from "ruin and pauperism," usually by reducing taxes or providing land, by means of redistribution if necessary.46 It is important to stress that although it was possible for individual commune members to become well-to-do, as were the hated kulak and miroed (bloodsucker), built-in checks on the accumulation of land seem to have held down the number of wealthy peasants. Here the often maligned or at least misunderstood practice of joint re­ sponsibility (krugovaia poruka) served as a check. Aleksandrov con­ cludes that because of it wealthier peasants had to make larger fi­ nancial contributions than the rest in order to meet the mir's obligations and taxes payable to the landlord and government. Fur­ thermore, the wealthier peasants "could not swallow the weaker workers [tiagla]," a policy that resulted in the "absence of pauper­ ism." He does not tell us what the percentage or proportion of ad­ equately provided for (prozhitochnye) peasants was, but he has no doubt about the "obvious preponderance of the middle-class peas­ antry."47 It is thus clear that there was no more vital concern for the com45 Shcherbina,

in Russkaia mysl', book V, p. 23. Among the mir's most offensive police duties was apprehension of serfs who had fled their masters, and this was at the expense of the serf's family or the mir. Aleksandrov, Sel'skaia obshchina, pp. 159160. 46 Aleksandrov,

Sel'skaia obshchina, pp. 185, 237-238. pp. 238, 241. Shcherbina speaks of only two peasant classes, "rich" and "poor" (bedniaki), whom he considers in the majority. He also gives a couple of examples of individual peasants turning over their lands to the mir, the opposite of kulak greed. See Russkaia mysl', 1880, book V, p. 15; book X, p. 55; book XII, p. 47. 47Ibid.,

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mune than the distribution of land. As a matter of historical practice, based on custom, the "communes had to guarantee land to all their members even if within the limits of a subsistence minimum." The power of custom in the life of the commune in general, and with respect to land specifically, can scarcely be overemphasized. I. N. Boltin, the well-known eighteenth-century historian, who was an astute observer of the Russian peasant scene, stated that "every peas­ ant has his property confirmed not by law but by universal custom, which has power no less than that of law."48 Even if the commune had had no functions other than land allotment and occasional re­ distribution, it would have been indispensable to the peasant.49 But if the commune was essential to the peasant because it pro­ vided him with a minimum of land and certain necessary services, it was equally essential to the state and to the landlord because it supplied them with manpower, wealth, and a police force often used against the peasants. For these reasons the state and landlords, when motivated by "enlightened" self-interest, were willing to allow the commune a fair degree of autonomy. Neither state nor landlord was anxious to provoke the peasantry, living under the wicked system of serfdom, into desperate action. Peasant revolts and unrest in Rus­ sian history were sufficiently serious without further provocation. As Sergeevich points out in crediting Ivan III with having "created" (sozdaJ) the commune in Novgorod at the end of the fifteenth century, "it was easier for the government to deal with communes than with an individual household."50 The point applies equally to the fifteenth century and to later centuries. Certainly no one can deny that, be­ ginning with the early eighteenth century, the mir and the landlord handled Peter the Great's head-tax, army recruiting, and other levies indirectly for the government, thereby removing the government it48Quoted

in Aleksandrov, SePskaia obshchina, p. 202. if refuting the liberal Westerner argument that land redistribution within com­ munes held back the modernization of Russian agriculture, Aleksandrov says that "general redistributions of land inside communes were carried out in extreme cases, when it was necessary to bring the whole land economy into conformity with the possibilities and demands of the whole population comprising the commune." The peasants themselves sometimes exchanged lands within the mir in order to consol­ idate scattered strips into one plot and thus eliminate unnecessary boundaries as well as waste in time and travel from one strip to another. Ibid., pp. 203, 238. Land redistribution from the eighteenth century on was often connected with the head-tax. The peasant had to be provided with some land if he were to pay his tax. See, for instance, Pushkarev, Krest'ianskaia pozemel'no, pp. 191-195. 50V. I. Sergeevich, "Drevnosti russkago zemlevladeniia," Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnago Prosveshcheniia, 1901, February, pp. 320, 323. 49 As

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND'

self from sole responsibility for actions that the peasants universally hated. Once the government had decided on its quotas, it left the col­ lecting of the taxes and the actual recruiting up to the landlord and the commune. The head-tax was levied not on the individual but on the basis of tiaglo, the unit of labor usually consisting of a male and female serf couple. Communal land was also allotted on the basis of tiaglo. This practice allowed the "communes to approach, differ­ ently and with varying degrees of accuracy, calculations of the tiaglo possibilities of peasant households."51 Under certain conditions, par­ ticularly in the north of Russia, where trade and handicrafts were perhaps as basic to peasant econony as agriculture was, private pur­ chase and ownership of land was not unknown. There were, however, strong forces, as already mentioned, which inhibited a great accumulation of land by individual peasants. Among these were the resistance of the poorer peasantry who were upholding communal traditions; pressure from the landlords, and indirectly at least from the government, to see that all peasants were capable of meeting their tax obligations; therefore the necessity of avoiding pauperism; and the prevalence of the three-field system, which worked against profitability even with larger peasant landholdings.52 Unlike the gentry, who were exempt from taxation, peas­ ants with private land were taxed more heavily than the rest of the peasantry. Thus the peasant who acquired land through purchase, often from another's homestead (usad'ba), which the peasants con­ sidered their own, did not threaten the commune, and the "com­ munal principle of the possession of land remained predominant." Yet this created a certain dualism, the "possibility of the existence of private land property inside the commune and among its mem­ bers." In the actual mixed practice the "first reflected the age-old notion of mir communality, [whereas] the second was born and con­ firmed by economic requirements and necessity."53 In the second half of the nineteenth century liberals made a good deal of the occasional redistribution of land by the commune. The argument was that the incentive to improve one's land would be gone if a peasant knew that he would have to exchange it for another 51 Aleksandrov, Sel'skaia obshchina, pp. 114, 202, 218-219; Jerome Blum, Lord and Peasant in Russia from the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1964), pp.

512-514. 52 Aleksandrov does not elaborate on this point, stating merely that even peasants in this category "could not intensify . . . production." Implied is the complexity of the matter, including it seems the lack of capital for the development of intensive agriculture. See his Sel'skaia obshchina, p. 237. 53Ibid., pp. 236-237, 239.

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piece of land. But the practice of land redistribution seems to have been neither so frequent and general nor so simple as this ideolog­ ically weighted argument would lead one to believe.54 Land redis­ tribution occurred between single communes within large complex communes, sometimes as the result of boundary disputes, but also whenever a peasant got free land in another village, whenever pop­ ulation changes required adjustments in land allotments, and when­ ever peasants consolidated scattered strips of land into one plot. But in spite of these Aleksandrov concludes that land redistribution "did not reflect the daily order of land utilization. The general redistri­ bution of land within the commune was realized in extreme cases."55 One gets the impression that land redistribution between communes occurred more often than that between individuals within a com­ mune. It is clear, however, that redistribution for the purpose of consolidating landholdings was in the interest of more efficient ag­ riculture. Inequalities in the distribution of material possessions in the com54 The emancipation question in the late 1850's and early 1860's raised the issue of the survival of the peasant commune. In Emmons's summary there were three major currents of opinion: (1) the Slavophils and "proto-populists," including men of radical convictions such as Chernyshevsky, all advocating, but for different reasons, permanent retention of the commune; (2) the majority of liberals, who favored "tem­ porary retention"; and (3) the "doctrinaire 'economic liberals,' " led by I. V. Vernadsky, who stood for its immediate abolition. Terence Emmons, The Russian Landed Gentry and the Peasant Emancipation of 1861 (Cambridge, 1968), p. 41. In 1865 a Slavophil response to the demands for immediate abolition of the commune was given by the young Slavophil sympathizer A. F. Gil'ferding. It is not possible to summarize here his meaty thirty-page essay "Peasant Commune," but a few of his views will be given as representative of the early Slavophils of whom only Iurii Samarin was still living. (1) Since land redistribution was not a frequent occurrence it was not a brake on land improvement. (2) After February 19, 1861, land redistri­ bution did not impede production, for the Russian communes "became the principal producers of bread in the country," and "significantly increased" its production. (3) Vast areas of privately owned lands were not subject to communal authority. (4) The Russian peasant was more productive as a member of a commune than when outside of it. (5) The peasant was better protected from the upper class inside than outside the commune. (6) Members of communes could acquire private land. (7) The Eman­ cipation Act of 1861 provided for the disbanding of communes by a two-thirds vote of its members, yet the commune did not disappear. (8) When members of a commune left agriculture for other economic enterprises they "instantly reestablished in their midst a temporary or movable commune in the form of an artel'." Gil'ferding, Sobranie sochinenii, II, 461, 475-476. 55 Aleksandrov, Sel'skaia obshchina, pp. 182-183, 189-198, 202ff., 238. For an ex­ ample of the opposite view long held by Russian liberals and many Western students of Russian history see Blum, Lord and Peasant in Russia, pp. 328-329. Blum maintains that land redistribution "became widespread in the eighteenth and especially in the nineteenth centuries" and that therefore the peasant "had little or no interest in increasing" the fertility of his landholdings.

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND'

mune and the antagonisms that these created of course led to conflict, particularly in more recent times. During the second half of the nineteenth century, in Shcherbina's terminology, there was the wellto-do kulak or kabatchik, the "rich-exploiter," and the riadovaia chern', the poor or the "exploited." And in the 1920's there were still within the mir the poor (bedniak), the "middling" (seredniak), and the rich (kulak).56 But even with these drawbacks, for the period under consideration here, up to the emancipation reform, the mir provided the needy in the commune with the nearest thing to "social security." Widows, wives of those recruited for army service, or­ phans, old people, and old discharged soldiers were provided with subsistence help. Under the existing conditions this and the virtual elimination of pauperism appear as two of the most important achievements of the commune. But the burden of support was borne entirely by the serf population, since the landlord did not contribute. It is possible to overemphasize the existence of economic mobility within the peasant commune to the neglect of the ancient principle of mutual responsibility (krugovaia poruka) preserved by the Eman­ cipation Act but abolished by the government in 1903. This respon­ sibility applied in the case of various peasant obligations and dues to the government and the landlord as well as in the system of mutual aid among the peasants. Since dues and responsibilities were ap­ portioned according to the amount of land held by the peasant, it was in the interest of both government and landlord for all peasants to have at least a minimum land base. Within the commune, the principle of krugovaia poruka extended to responsibility for tilling the land of the poorest peasants who lacked the necessary draft animals or were otherwise unable to do their own tilling. It was this principle of mutual responsibility, including the mir's care for those incapable of providing for themselves, that kept pauperism in the "Russian center" at a minimum, in contrast to the western Russian lands, where the commune was not so central to the land system.57 Perhaps the most hated steady obligation of the mir was that of supplying the government with recruiting levies (rekrutskie nabory). This was army service for life, introduced in 1705 by Peter the Great. 56 Aleksandrov, Sel'skaia obshchina, p. 126; Shcherbina, in Russkaia mysi', book V, p. 29; book X, p. 55; Lewin, Russian Peasants and Soviet Power, pp. 30-31 (La p a y s a n n e r i e e t Ja p o u v o i r s o v i e t i q u e , p p . 3 1 - 3 2 ) . 57 Shcherbina, in Russkaia mysi', book XII, pp. 44-60. For the close connection between the principle of joint or mutual responsibility and the commune's "social security" functions and struggle against pauperism see Aleksandrov, Sel'skaia ob­ shchina, p. 300ff.; Koval'chenko, V. I. Lenin," p. 50; Pushkarev, Krest'ianskaia pozemei'no, pp. 151, 158.

COMMUNE, CHOIR, AND ZEMSKY SOBOR

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The military or civil service required of the nobility, much less onerous than army service for life, came to an end in 1762 with Peter IIFs well-known edict, while merchants and wealthy peasants could buy their way out of the army.58 But the ordinary peasant's appalling service for life continued until 1793, when it was reduced to a mere twenty-five years. By the end of our period (1859) it had been cut down to fifteen years. At first only Great Russia was subject to this levy, but in the second half of the eighteenth century it was extended to White Russia and the Ukraine. For the eighteenth century and the first quarter of the nineteenth, ninety of these recruiting levies were conducted—that is, one every fifteen months. Since the state, as pointed out in Aleksandrov's excellent chapter on the "Commune and Recruiting," was "interested only in the supply of the recruits and did not care how they were selected," it is not surprising that no strictly uniform procedure existed or that the system lent itself to all sorts of abuse. But though it was the mir that did the administrative work, the will of the landlord had "determining significance" in foisting this "ex­ tremely painful service" on the peasantry. As a result of nefarious maneuvering and manipulation, "the army caught up those who did not have the possibility of ransom, i.e., the representatives of the middle and poor strata of the peasantry."59 Boltin's observation that "seldom are decent people sent into army service, but ordinarily the lazy, the drunkards, the depraved, those remiss in their duties,"60 is perhaps an exaggeration, but the point is well made that "undesirables" were usually sent into the army. It was an invidious system which lent itself to favoritism, chicanery, spite, and cruelty on the part of the landlords, and too often also on the part of the mir authorities. Thus the fate of orphans, who were at first charges of the mir but eventually would be ready prey to army recruiting, and of wives of draftees (soldatki), was no less heart-rend­ ing than that of those condemned to lifelong army service. As Aleksandrov wryly concludes, "Recruiting [rekrutchina] as a feudal state levy was charged to the peasant communes at the very moment when Russia was entering the 'new' period of its history."61 58Aleksandrov,

Sel'skaia obshchina, pp. 249, 273, 283, 293. pp. 242, 244-245, 271. 60 Quoted in ibid., p. 273. 61 Ibid., pp. 277, 283-289, 290, 292. The brutality of Peter's recruiting system was underscored by El'iashevich, who was convinced that the fate of the Russian peasant was of no consequence to the tsar, who "was not at all concerned with this aspect of the matter." It was also doubtful whether "Peter thought over the question as to what the results of the method of recruiting he had established would be." V. B. El'iashevich, Istoriia prava pozemel'noi sobstvennosti ν Rossii (Paris, 1951), II, 215. 59Ibid.,

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE " L A N D '

On the other hand, the role of the commune in the church life of the community was relatively unblemished. Here religious, social, and even festive events were occasionally combined, but the primary responsibility of commune and mir assemblies to church and clergy was well defined—in spite of the fact that, as in all other matters connected with the commune, the attitudes of individual landlords made a good deal of difference. Much of the discussion of church affairs in mir assemblies had to do with church finances. The church manager (starosta), elected by the mir, had responsibility for church lands and finances, but the mir itself was responsible for church "construction, repair, belfries, chapels, fences, and guardhouses." Landlords, depending on their own inclinations, could be of assist­ ance. In the middle of the eighteenth century, Μ. M. Shcherbatov, for example, following a tradition in his family, gave much attention to the church, "decreeing [uzakoniv] in its favor one-tenth of the income of his patrimony."62 This was probably generous and excep­ tional support. In addition to material aid for the church the mir assembly had a certain control over the clergy. It nominated candidates for priests and deacons and provided them with housing and a parcel of land. On the Orlov estates, for instance, material support of the clergy "depended in much on the will of the mir assembly." Often the clergy had considerable influence in the life of the commune and was therefore closely watched by the landlords. In the second half of the eighteenth century, landlords like B. A. Golitsyn and V. G. Orlov limited the clergy to "only religious-ideological functions." But other landlords, like P. A. Rumiantsev, exerted pressure on their peasants with respect to "church attendance, observing of fasts, confessions, communions, church holidays, and notable dates." The regular Orthodox clergy, in turn, lobbied with the landlords against the sects of Old Believers or schismatics, located on various estates and forming communes of their own.63 Finally, and not least important, the commune, which served as the only shield that the peasant had against state and landlord, had a role in the social life of its members. The serfs' dreary, work-filled life, especially during the long, cold winters, was enlivened by gath62 Aleksandrov, Sel'skaia obshchina, pp. 71, 130, 151, 164, 169. See also his article of the same title, p. 281, and Shcherbina, in Russkaia mysl', book V, p. 20. Shcherbina also mentions communal aid to schools without giving details. 63 Aleksandrov, Sel'skaia obshchina, pp. 164-165,180; and "Sel'skaia obshchina," p. 286; Shcherbina, in Russkaia mysl', book V, p. 24. See also S. P. Mel'gunov's introduction to his edition of Staroobriadcheskiia i sektantskiia obshchiny. (Zakon 1/ oktiabria 1906 g.J (Moscow, 1907), pp. 3-12.

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erings of various sorts, many of them occasioned by religious holi­ days. There were communal-church observances, celebrations, and feasts, with folk singing and dancing. It was thus the many-sidedness of the commune's activity, not merely the economic and land func­ tions, important though these were, that through long centuries made the mir and the commune the hub of Russian peasant life.64 The commune, like all similar institutions, knew graft, corruption, conflict, and paradox. While doing the bidding of landlord and state, both of which exploited the serfs, it also acted on behalf of the serfs, perhaps as well as any institution could have done under the pre­ vailing conditions. Within the commune was at times displayed what Gorky called the "animal-like individualism" of the peasant, just as for centuries the commune was held together by individuals, who while falling far short of Aksakov's goal of Christian brotherhood nevertheless gave the commune sufficient support to ensure its sur­ vival. Thus the commune survived, in some instances vigorous and at times in the face of strong government hostility, until the summer of 1930. But what was it that fundamentally gave the commune its vigor and longevity? In the ideological constructions of the liberal West­ erners, and in the view of the great majority of Western historians 64 Any discussion of Russian rural life would be incomplete without mention of the artel', usually considered kindred to the commune and mir in spirit and organization if not in function. Although the artel' was an old and active Russian peasant insti­ tution, like the mir, the historian M. P. Pogodin is considered to have "discovered" it for the Russian intelligentsia as the Slavophils "discovered" the commune, and at about the same time (1841). But the artel' did not become quite so much the center of controversy as did the commune. Perhaps the first solid monograph on the subject, Professor Ν. V, Kalachov's Arteli ν drevnei i nyneshnei Rossii (The Artels in Ancient and Contemporary Russia), was published in 1864. This sixty-four-page summary was followed by more detailed and thorough studies, including one each by Alexandra Efimenko and F. A. Shcherbina. (The copy of Kalachov's treatise that I read several years ago in a library in Western Europe had once been used by Karl Marx. His underscoring and handwritten marginal notes testify to careful reading and reflec­ tion.) The origin and age of the arte]', like those of the commune, are controversial. In 1881 Isaev listed fifty-nine fields of economic life in which the artels, based on custom law, like the commune, were active. They ranged from hunting, fishing, and agriculture to shoemaking, weaving, river transport, innkeeping, and music. See An­ drei Isaev, Arteli ν Rossii (Iaroslavl', 1881), pp. 101-102. The spirit of "artel' communality" (artel'noe obshchenie) was similar to the spirit that animated the peasant commune, and like it the artel' experienced a vigorous revival from the 1850's on. Isaev, Arteli ν Rossii, pp. 64, 335-336. See also G. P. Sazonov, "Narodnyia arteli," Russkaia mysl', 1881, no. 4, pp. 311-332. Perusing the third edition of a guide on the formation of new artels published in 1911, one can easily account for Isaev's assertion. See A. I. Grudzinsky, Nastavlenie kak ustroit' artei'nuiu (tovarishcheskuiu lavku) (Guide for the Establishing of an Artei' Company Store), 3rd ed. (Kurgan, 1911).

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND"

of Russia, the commune was a bumbling, dying relic of the past capable only of inhibiting the progress of Russian agriculture and therefore of Russian economic life. To radical Westerners, such as Herzen and Chernyshevsky, and to some populists it was the kernel from which a Russian form of modern secular socialism would spring up. To the Slavophils, and to Konstantin Aksakov in particular, it was Russia's providential gift; through it the peasant showed the way to a true, unselfish Christian living and to the complete reali­ zation of the individual, not in the egotistic pursuit of self-aggran­ dizement but in the supreme harmony of the choir. Where then is the answer? Shcherbina's formulation probably comes as close to it as any other. The Russian narod, he says—and one can also read the Russian commune—was guided "not by written laws, not by civil codes, not even by religious morality, but by those customary rules which were given to it by historical life and experience."65 In other words, it was an institution that was able to adapt itself through the centuries without ever losing sight of the essential functions which had been at the root of its formation, and which it carried out in the usual imperfect human manner under exceedingly difficult condi­ tions. ONE of Slavophilism's nlost honored principles in public life was

the consultative principle (soveshchanie). As Ivan Aksakov put it, the Russian "people wished not equilibrium in rivalry but concord [sogJasie]." This was to be achieved through consultation, not by struggle and majority votes.66 Konstantin Aksakov thought he saw an ironclad sequence from consultation to agreement, unanimity, and finally concord. These were presumed to be the inalienable char­ acteristics of ancient and modern Russian public life, embodied in the old veche, duma, commune, and later in the zemsky sobor. In contrast to these allegedly Russian and Slav principles were the Western: confrontation, conflict, war, and conquest. This rigid and historically doubtful notion of the guiding principles of Russian and Western public life inevitably led Konstantin into serious fallacies and distortions about both Russian and Western affairs and insti­ tutions. Thus in Konstantin's Slavophilism the zemsky sobor was accorded a foremost position as a Russian consultative body. But although the zemsky sobor is a much younger institution historically than the veche, the duma, and very likely the peasant commune, the circum65

Shcherbina, in Russkaia mysl', book X, p. 36. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, I, 12.

66 I.

COMMUNE, CHOIR, AND ZEMSKY SOBOR

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stances of its origin are no clearer than those of the older institutions. A great deal has been written on the subject since Konstantin Aksakov brought it to attention in the mid-1800's, and yet the origins and nature of the zemsky sobor, like those of the mir, still elude us. And as with the mir, the debates, particularly in the last century, have been marked by excess and acrimony whenever ideology has seriously infringed on scholarship.67 Konstantin was so struck by the presumed uniqueness and nobility of the historical zemsky sobor and by the possibility of its reinstate­ ment that he considered writing a treatise about it. In fact he never got further than a couple of fragments68 and a few scattered references, all dating to the 1850's, the time of the Crimean War, which he thought unpropitious for a revival of the zemsky sobor. He mentions the institution in a fragment on Russian history that Ivan Aksakov dates to "probably" 1850. The concept of the zemlia in reference to the united common people of Russia as the major historical force in Russian life had already found expression in Konstantin's plays, written in the late 1840's, but there is no evidence that he subse­ quently engaged in historical research into the origin and nature of the zemsky sobor. On the contrary, his comments and ideas about it are quite clearly his own, based on a certain amount of general 67 In the case of the zemsky sobor, the difficulties presented by a paucity of specific and detailed information are compounded by personal and national characteristics and weaknesses. Thus Konstantin could more easily be absolved of personal than of national pride and vanity. As we have seen, his insistence that the zemsky sobor derived from the older veche was refuted by Solov'ev. In 1866 Chicherin, after giving five reasons to prove the "extremely remarkable parallel" of Russian and Western history, concludes that Russia, like the Western nations, "passed through a period of zemsky sobors." But then he proceeds to give twelve reasons, including weak "social elements," the Tartar conquest, and serfdom to prove that Russia "for long stood at some distance [poodal'] and almost did not participate in the general [European] development." This led him to the conclusion that the zemsky sobors eventually disappeared "as a result of inner nothingness [nichtozhestva]." B. N. Chicherin, O narodnom predstavitel'stve, 2nd ed. (Moscow, 1899), pp. 523-524, 560. Kliuchevsky, on the strength of Solov'ev's work, dismissed Aksakov's contention about a possible historical bond between the veche and the zemsky sobor. He dedicated his monograph, "Composition of the Representation of the Zemsky Sobors of Ancient Russia," to Chicherin but inclined toward a possible influence of the boyar duma, and particularly of the church councils, on the origin of the zemsky sobor. Kliuchevsky, Sochineniia, VIII, 72-75. Professor Jaroslaw Pelenski has recently advanced the intriguing thesis that the zemsky sobor was inspired by the Mongol-Turkic quruitai. His essay will soon appear in print. For a summary of the zemsky sobors of the seventeenth century and of some of the literature see J.L.H. Keep, "The Decline of the Zemsky Sobor," Slavonic and East European Review, 1957, no. 4, pp. 100-122. 68 Another piece of Konstantin's, on the zemsky sobor of 1642, which Ivan Aksakov seems to have published in Den' in 1863, has not been available to me.

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information which in his customary fashion he shaped to meet his personal predilections and ideological ends. The fragment of 1850 is little more than a laudatory statement on the greatness of the zemsky sobor, full of sweeping generalizations and loose pseudo-historical assumptions. Aksakov begins with glow­ ing praise of the peasant commune and the communal principle, identified as usual with true Christianity. After a page or so, he takes up again his metaphor of the choir. This is followed by an apotheosis of the principle of consultation "soveshchanie (veche, skhodka, so­ bor, dumaj" and unanimity. Always a strong admirer of great and unified Russia, he applauds Ivan IV for ignoring the title "grand duke" and "naming himself tsar," concluding, "The first tsar con­ voked the first zemsky sobor." In this manner the "State calls the Land to counsel in those cases when it considers this necessary," and so, he concludes, "this assembly of elected people from the whole of Russia is called zemsky sobor or zems kaia duma." 69 Half a dozen years later, in his review of volume six of Solov'ev's History of Russia, Konstantin linked the zemsky sobor to the ancient veche as uncritically, and with the same self-assurance, as he had earlier linked it to the commune and the duma.70 "The ancient re­ gional veches," he says, "not always remaining within the limits of opinion alone, but mixing . . . crude external force, became trans­ formed under the monarchy into the zemsky sobor of all Russia." Thus the tainted ancient regional veche became the "purely moral force of opinion, without any admixture of external compulsion," that is, it became the zemsky sobor.71 This glib account is Konstantin's 69K.

S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, I, 151, 205, 292, 296-297. Solov'ev's reply that there was no proof of continuity from veche to zemsky sobor, and for Ivan Ill's demand that Novgorod abandon the veche, which did not exist in Moscow, see flusskii vestnik, 1857, book 2, pp. 443-444. 71 K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, I, 150. Strikingly similar views about the alleged organic and historical bond between mir, veche, and zemsky sobor were published in 1862 by Shchapov, the poor son of a Siberian priest. In an essay, "Sel'skaia Obshchina" (Peasant Commune) he describes three concentric circles as the purported manner of the emergence of the zemsky sobor. The first circle consisted of village, town, and country mirs with their assemblies. In the second were the regional mirs and assemblies, and in the third the "assembly of towns, the council of the entire land." Duringthe "gathering of the Russian land" the zemsky sobor "naturally differed . . . from the former incomplete land, veche, and mir assemblies and councils created by the people themselves." See A. P. Shchapov, Sochineniia, 3 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1906-1908), I, 746; vol. Ill, pp. I-CIX, contains a biography of Shchapov by G. L. Luchinsky. For the influence of Russkaia beseda on Shchapov and his ambivalent attitude toward the Slavophils, see pp. xxii-xxm, LV. On this point and on Shchapov's influence on Plekhanov during his populist phase see Walicki, The Slavophile Con­ troversy, pp. 276-279. 70 For

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familiar mixture of myth and polemic, with which Solov'ev quite rightly took issue. Yet it was provocative, and from then on both Slavophils and Westerners, and Russian scholarship in general, con­ sidered the zemsky sobor, as also the veche and the duma, worthy of serious historical investigation. More than the other Slavophils, Aksakov inveighed against ego­ tism, the sort he considered the product of excessive Western in­ dividualism. The antidote for this human weakness was institution­ alized in the peasant commune and in the principle of consultation. Undaunted by Solov'ev's strongly worded arguments against any historical affinity between the veche and the ζemsky sobor, Aksakov persisted in seeing an organic connection and continuity between the two, both of which he regarded as consultative bodies. In 1857 in his reply to Solov'ev's "Schlozer and the Antihistorical Orienta­ tion" (Shletser i antiistoricheskoe napravlenie), he expressed the unusual opinion that the assembly of 1566 was a ζ emsky sobor, though perhaps an "incomplete" one, and he thought it only natural that the "first tsar" should have convoked the first zemsky sobor for the purpose of consultation. Aksakov's reasoning was roughly this: as Russia expanded and became unified under Ivan IV, the commune "simply took on large dimensions." The process was familiar, only on a different scale. "The individual Russian communes renounced their egotism" when they coalesced into the nationwide commune just as the individual shed his personal egotism when he became a member of the local commune. In a similar manner, Aksakov as­ serted, the "separate veches passed over [pereshJi] into the zemsky sobor."72 Here conceiving the Russian state, even under Ivan IV, as a vastly enlarged commune, he easily persuaded himself that not only was autocracy tolerable but it in fact relieved the noble common people (zemlia) of involvement in ignoble political life.73 The calling of the Russian people, he says pointedly, was to be found in the "great moral force of free public opinion, in the power of the allS. Aksakov, Sochineniiα, I, 203-204, 258. This extraordinary but characteristically Slavophil conception of the state, nur­ tured in Aksakov's restless mind, was not as solitary a phenomenon as might appear. In the late 1870's a similar scheme was, knowingly or not, incorporated in the "Pro­ gram of the Working Members of the 'Peoples Will.' " In accordance with it, "The commune (village, hamlet, suburb, factory artel') was represented in this document as the basic economic and administrative (productive and political) embryo of future society. Every commune was 'completely independent and free' in internal matters. All these communal matters had to be decided at meetings (skhodakh) of all mature members of the commune." See V. A. Tvardovskaia, Sotsialisticheskaia mysl' Rossii na rubezhe 1870-1880-kh godov (Moscow, 1969), pp. 192-193. 72 K. 73

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND'

people's council, and therefore in the importance of the zemsky sobor, having only consultative, moral significance."74 The choric principle, with its emphasis on consultation, concord, and peaceful solutions, was, like the function of the zemsky sobor, conceived at least in part in contrast to the principle of majority rule, implying division, conflict, and the preponderance of one side over another.75 As if anticipating the sordid appearance of social Darwin­ ism, Aksakov denounced the Western principles of majority rule and rigid constitutionalism, which, in shielding the individual, let through their porous safeguards those who in the name of individual liberty resorted to the tactics of the jungle. Aksakov thought that the commune and the choir could save Russia from this dire fate without suppressing the individual, and yet he seemed to make no clear provision for those exceptional individuals who down the centuries have counted the most, men such as Homer, Shakespeare, and Gogol', whom he sincerely and ardently admired. In Aksakov's terms it can be said that the voice of each one of these men rose from a choir. Certainly their voices were not those of outcasts from the commune proclaiming the egotistical, the outlandish, or the eccentric. Rather, they were the supremely creative and enriching voices without which mankind would wallow in eternal mediocrity—and medioc­ rity was the last thing that Aksakov envisioned for Russia. He placed his boundless and exuberant faith in the choir, in the conviction that it could through the sheer weight of unanimity of spirit and moral vigor, but without reliance on force, bridle the unbridled—and yet not inhibit those who, without forsaking the harmony of the whole, could rise above it in the name of the selfless, the beautiful, and the universal. IN the preceding pages the quintessential principles of Aksakov's Slavophilism are given in more explicit and succinct form than in the earlier chapters, although it is perhaps clear that they permeate all his Slavophil writings. The principles expressed in institutional form are those of the commune (communality), choir (choric), and zemsky sobor (deliberative). At the heart of it all is the principle of consultation (soveshchanie), underscoring their close interrelation­ ship and their presumed ultimate Christian base, for Aksakov con­ ceived the Russian commune as providentially adapted to the re74K.

S. Aksakov, Sochineniia11, 252. Slavophils countered the principle of majority with that of unanimity. Khomiakov and Aksakov erroneously considered this principle as characteristically Slav and Russian. For a highly competent view see Walicki, The Slavophile Controversy, pp. 261-266. 75 The

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ception of Christianity in Russia. This was the ideal which he ardently advocated and which engulfed him. For this reason he was never able to break through the walls of his hypothetical world and see the living commune just outside Moscow's city limits or beyond the Abramtsevo fence. There he would have encountered an old peasant institution which was at the same time oppressive and ben­ eficial to its serf members, but without which their lot would have been even worse. The chasm between Aksakov's commune and the Russian peasant commune was the chasm between the ideal and the historical.

CHAPTER 17

REFORMISM: EMANCIPATION AND GOVERNMENT; ADVICE TO THE TSAR

THE DEATH of Konstantin Aksakov, in his forty-fourth year in De­ cember 1860, preceded the Emancipation Edict of Alexander II by a scant two months. It is therefore to be expected that during the second half of the 1850's, when Russia was in the throes of one of the most momentous decisions in its long history, Aksakov would be keenly interested in the proposed reform. And yet, he devoted himself to the preservation of what he considered to be Russia's fundamental values and institutions, and found practical reform un­ congenial. He probably would have preferred to shun the issue al­ together, as earlier, on the ground that the national genius of Russia, its spirit, and its historical expressions took precedence over every­ thing else. Aksakov well knew that serfdom and emancipation were discussed in his Slavophil circle in the forties and fifties, and that his own and his family's economic support was based on serf labor. But perhaps above all else there was the gnawing realization that expatiating on the beauty and supreme quality of Russia's Orthodox, communal social order, which had for centuries rested on the debilitating in­ stitution of serfdom, was rank hypocrisy. Furthermore, Aksakov came to realize, as most other intelligent Russians did, that Russian society could not be extricated from the morass of backwardness so long as serfdom existed. Raised in the comfort and security of the nobleman's nest, he had never had to face the daily struggle for existence in the way that Belinsky and others had had to do. This freedom made it easy for him to follow his natural predilection for theoretical speculation, and fostered a high degree of poetic exaltation that often served to screen off daily reality. Aksakov never overcame these obstacles to normal factual vision—not in his perception of peasant life, which could hardly be observed from the smoke-filled rooms of the Stankevich circle or the comfort of the Moscow salons. But at the same

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time it is evident that he could not ignore the enormity of serfdom and the urgency of the emancipation issue, officially raised by Alex­ ander II in 1857. Until the last half-dozen or so years of his life Aksakov's attitude toward the serfs was curiously ambivalent. The narod or folk was the hero of his fiction, the focus of his historical concerns and of his correspondence, and, from the testimony of his brother Ivan and friends, the center around which his conversation and proselytizing constantly revolved. The narod was the guardian of Russian Ortho­ dox values and culture, the God-bearer. But the narod in this exalted sense seemed oddly unrelated to the mass of living serfs. About their plight he said almost nothing. Did he feel that their moral and spir­ itual quality lifted them above their physical suffering and degra­ dation? Did he in some way accept their lowly status as being a necessary condition of their high moral worth and inevitable role as the savior of Russian society? Such a justification would have been in accord with his strong and growing anti-aristocratism, and with Khomiakov's reminder that Christ chose his disciples from among the lowly and the humble. Aksakov saw his own mission as that of a defender of the Russian Orthodox spirit and consciousness, presumably preserved in the peasants' communal Christian way of life, and he never wavered in his vigorous and uncompromising championing of these basic prin­ ciples of Slavophil ideology. But it was only in the last few years of his life that he moved from ideology to the politics of serf emanci­ pation, and even then reluctantly but resolutely, following the lead of his fellow Slavophils. After the tsar took the decisive first step in the emancipation question, the Slavophils and their friends were drawn into the discussion. In public this first occurred in the pages of the monthly journal Russkaia beseda (1856-1860), and at greater length in its supplement, Sel'skoe blagoustroistvo (1858-1859], ded­ icated to the emancipation reform. Both journals, under the direction of Koshelev, Samarin, Prince V. A. Cherkassky, and Ivan Aksakov, played a leading role in advancing the cause of serf emancipation in the last and crucial years of the 1850's. The first three of these directors were wealthy landlords, not unconcerned with their own economic interests, who soon became among the most respected experts on emancipation. Thus Konstantin Aksakov was inevitably drawn into the debate on the Slavophil side, but always with a certain detachment (from which position he could the more easily criticize both friend and foe). To a degree this position could be appreciated and tolerated by those among his friends, like Samarin, Koshelev, and his brother

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE " L A N D '

Ivan, who shared his belief in the indispensability of basic Slavophil principles, but they were often impatient with his refusal to show proper appreciation for the very real problems connected with car­ rying out the vexing reform. This was particularly true of Koshelev, and as we shall soon see, also of Cherkassky. Konstantin's role as the self-appointed high priest of Slavophil ideological purity thus tended to isolate him from his fellow Slavophils, and makes difficult an accurate assessment of his contribution to the emancipation of the serfs. As I pointed out in my two earlier studies, Khomiakov, the Kireevsky brothers, and Koshelevbecame concerned about the peasant question and serf emancipation early in their careers as publicists of the Sla­ vophil cause. As early as 1839 Khomiakov was denouncing the "abomination of legal slavery" and hoping that it would be rooted out by means of "general and lasting measures"—though he ex­ pressed these views in the privacy of the Moscow salons. Later on he was joined, still in the salons, by Peter and Ivan Kireevsky, Ko­ shelev, Samarin, and Ivan Aksakov. Censorship, of course, made any public denunciation difficult and risky. In these circumstances Konstantin kept silent during the forties and early fifties. True, as Semevsky has pointed out, there are no data to help us determine Konstantin's attitude on the peasant ques­ tion in the reign of Nicholas I.1 Indeed, there is no evidence to show that he ever thought of the peasant except through his specially fashioned prism. Unless unpublished Aksakov family correspond­ ence from the 1840's and early 1850's reveals other facets of his interests, one has to conclude that in his view the individual, living peasant was submerged in Konstantin's overriding concern for the grand design of Russian historical life and culture, and for the ab­ straction of the narod. The contrast between Konstantin Aksakov and Ivan Turgenev in this instance is striking. Turgenev's stories of the 1840's and early 1850's, later published together as Sportsman's Sketches (1852), viv­ idly expressed his sensitivity to peasants as human beings who, despite the wretchedness of their lot, were capable of rich inner lives, and whose nobility of sentiment and thought had not been snuffed out by centuries of crassness and oppression. But he also saw that peasants could be mean and selfish; in other words, he saw the peasants not as representing the narod, not as lumps of symbolic 1 V. I. Semevsky, Krest'ianskii vopros ν Hossii ν XVIIl i pervoi poJovine XIX veka, 2 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1882), II, 417.

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virtue, but as individuals. This was a way of thinking that Konstantin, though he must have had some experience with individual peasants at home, seemed incapable of adopting. He thought of the collective peasantry, the narod, and only on rare occasions, by some sort of extension, did he show that he glimpsed the presumed virtues of the narod reflected in the individual muzhik.2 How else can one account for Konstantin's prolonged aloofness on the emancipation issue? Khomiakov had branded serfdom in prose in 1839 as an "abomination," and in 1854 in verse as the "mark of slavery." Mariia Kireevskaia, early in 1847, disturbed by the moral question of serf ownership, wished to set her own serfs free and engaged her brothers Ivan and Peter, and their friend Koshelev, in a lively epistolary exchange on emancipation. In the autumn of 1852 Koshelev, in a caustic appraisal of his close friend Ivan Kireevsky, and as a self-indictment, wrote, "I do not understand, dear friend Kireevsky, how you, a Christian, are not tormented by the thought of having people in the state of serfdom."3 Ivan Aksakov, too, was disturbed by the moral questions of owning serfs. And Konstantin's closest friend and fellow Slavophil, Samarin, was consciously pre­ paring himself in the 1840's and 1850's for a role in bringing about the emancipation of the serfs. From Konstantin Aksakov's published works it is clear that until the last few years of his life he paid only the most perfunctory at­ tention to the emancipation issue. The subject is not in his poetry. His play The Liberation of Moscow in 1612 (1848) deals with the abstract Zemlia, the common people, not with serfdom or serfs. In Prince Lupovitsky (1851) he mentions in act one the existence of serfs, and in act two acknowledges the practice of recruiting peasants for the army for "drunkenness and ruffianism," but these are no more than passing allusions. Nor does the essay about the izgoi and the ancient social order among the Russians, written in 1852, raise the question of serfdom. The poem in defense of free speech (1854) is probably his strongest statement on any basic political issue in the reign of Nicholas I, though his defense of the historical Russian commune in his controversy with Kavelin and Solov'ev is not with­ out implications for Russia's present and future social order. The reasons for Konstantin's obvious lack of concern for serfdom as a national problem lay partly in his temperament and circum­ stances, partly in his intellectual makeup. He was much less inclined 2

This point, broached in Part One, is well taken up by L. N. Nazarova, "K istorii tvorchestva I. S. Turgeneva 50-60-kh godov," in M. P. Alekseev, ed., I. S. Turgenev (1818-1883-1958). Stat'i i materialy {Orlov, 1960), pp. 140-141. 3 Christoff Kireevskij, p. 291. 1

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND'

than Samarin and his brother Ivan to descend from ideology to the level of reform and practical politics, and he only did so at the end of his life, when it was no longer possible for him to dodge the overriding issue of emancipation reform. Had he not spoken out, one of the most far-reaching developments in Russian history, vitally touching the narod and the commune, would have bypassed him. But he decided to express his opinions, and having no family and children of his own he could the more easily adopt a cavalier attitude toward the interests of his own gentry class. Even then the choice was not a simple one. He realized, like most of his fellow gentry, that drastic changes and uncertainty were the minimum price of emancipation. His concern in this issue, as always, was mainly for the preser­ vation of the peasant commune. The welfare of the individual serf came second. As the emancipation issue unfolded, particularly after the tsar's public commitment in 1857, it seemed to Konstantin that the fates of three basic elements became intricately interwoven: the peasant commune, the serfs, and the land. He was prepared for changes relating to the last two but was steadfast in upholding the inviolability of the commune. This, in general terms, can be said to have been the Slavophil position, but differences among the Sla­ vophils soon arose that caused disagreement and friction, and Konstantin seems to have become more isolated within the Slavophil camp than anyone else. It is somewhat ironic that, after ignoring the emancipation issue for so long, Aksakov should have stepped out so boldly that he drew the immediate attention of the censors. I refer to his editorials in Molva, which, though unsigned, were quickly spotted by the gov­ ernment, including Prince Viazemsky, the deputy minister of edu­ cation. Viazemsky's letter to Aksakov of September 10, 1857, took issue with what he called the "battery article," that is, the editorial in the May 31 issue of Molva, which "burns and scorches with all its guns."4 It was really about "serfdom in Russia"; this was a "touchy 4 Brodsky, Hannie Slavianofily, p. 103. In 1874, four years before his death, Via­ zemsky still remembered Konstantin. Commenting on his poem "Petru" (To Peter) written in 1845, Viazemsky justified the tsar's efforts to introduce science from the West as the only way for Russia: "Science and enlightenment always traveled this road." Viazemsky justified Aksakov's reference to Peter's hands being "red with native blood" as "state necessity," whereas Aksakov's reliance on the narod's struggle to improve Russia was a "call to insurrection" and "violent measures." He describes Aksakov's outbursts against St. Petersburg as nothing short of an appeal for the "de­ struction of the city" as in "our days the French commune wished to destroy Paris." The poem was "rhetoric and strained bombast," and ignored the fact that "in Russia , nothing develops [razvivaetsia] (this is not in its nature), everything is done by means

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and burning question," and the government would tolerate no "jour­ nal polemics." The tsar had taken charge of this matter and it was not up to any individual to deal with it in "abstract and rhetorical phrases." To Aksakov's thesis that "labor is man's duty," that "life is labor," and that this has been ordained by God, Viazemsky skep­ tically replied, "Labor is almost always and everywhere bondage [nevolia]," and "reliance on the establishment of free labor is Utopia that could perplex the laboring."5 The Slavophils now knew that the lesson they learned in the reign of Nicholas I still applied. If they wished to avoid censorship they had to publish abroad or at least use concealment, or "Aesopian" language, and hope for the best; or they could confine their remarks to private conversation and correspondence. Although during the next two or three years they continued to support the proposed emancipation reform in Russkaia beseda, and for a shorter time in Sel'skoe blagoustroistvo, they had to be constantly on guard, know­ ing that these journals could quickly go the way of Molva. Emancipation in the United States concerned directly about four million slaves. In Russia, emancipation changed the status of nearly twenty-two million serfs on private estates, and a larger number on government lands, for a total of about fifty-two million.6 The prob­ lems were enormous, for it was impossible simply to grant physical freedom to the illiterate and impoverished serfs. The vast majority had no training other than in agricultural labor, and thus virtually no chance for city employment, and of course they had no capital. In the cities, where millions of them would have been tempted to flock, their arrival would probably have brought chaos and suffering to themselves, and grave consequences to landlords and the govern­ ment alike. Unlike England and other parts of Western Europe, which had accumulated considerable capital resources during the so-called of sharp breaks [krutymi perelomami]. The emancipation of the peasants would never have been accomplished in the Moscow of the old order. . . . The peasant reform was achieved in the manner of Peter's reforms." Although Aksakov had an "honest mind and a good heart," his "Moscow self-adoration [was] some sort of Old Believer's folly. . . . He was born a reformer, a Russian civic and political Luther." See "Zamechaniia na stikhi K. S. Aksakova 'Petru,' " Russkii arkhiv, 1892, no. 10, pp. 237-238; Mashinsky, Poety, pp. 392-394. 5 Brodsky, Rannie Slavianofily, pp. 103, 118-119. 6 According to statistics recently published by the U.S. Department of Commerce, in 1860 in the United States there were 1,982,625 male slaves and 1,971,135 female slaves for a total of 3,953,760. See Historical Statistics of the United States, 2 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1975), I, 18. Zaionchkovsky cites the figure 21,967,232 serfs of both sexes on gentry estates in 1859. P. A. Zaionchkovsky, Otmena krepostnogo prava ν Rossii, 2nd ed. (Moscow, 1960), p. 18.

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND'

commercial revolution, Russia as a capital-poor country had no way of promoting rapid and extensive industrialization in the 1860's. Even if there were suitable jobs, it could not have provided its new factory workers with living quarters even as bad as the slums of Manchester. City employment for freed serfs on a mass scale was out of the question.7 Not that the Russian peasant would have been consulted in the matter—any more than the Western peasant was consulted when he was confronted with the choice of starving on the land or taking his chances in the new industrial centers. The emancipation reform re­ flected the interests first of the government, then of the gentry, and lastly of the peasants, as conceived, of course, in bureaucratic and gentry councils. In the face of such insurmountable barriers to an immediate in­ dustrialization of Russia capable of absorbing millions of peasants, the decision that the peasant would remain on the land after eman­ cipation was inevitable. Since this prospect coincided with the basic economic interests of government and gentry, the Slavophils could readily support it. From this position derive several major related questions which those charged with the emancipation reform had to face. Given that the great majority of peasants would remain in their villages, were they to be landless hired hands? If not, while continuing to till the gentry lands were they to own land individ­ ually, in fee simple, or communally, as was the established practice in much of Russia? Even from this oversimplified scheme it should be evident that the land question involved a complex of inseparable personal, psychological, and sociological problems along with ide7 The fundamental and highly complex role of capital and credit in the modern industrial and economic growth of nations did not escape Russian society at the time of the emancipation reform. The question was not whether capital was good or bad but how it was to be accumulated, who was to control it, and what use it would be put to. FOT the views on these questions of such socialists as N. A. Serno-Solovevich, N. G. Chernyshevsky, N. P. Ogarev, and Alexander Herzen, see Franco Venturi, Roots of Revolution (New York, 1960), pp. 254-260. Serno-Solovevich described the peasant commune as "an organization of mutual aid on which agrarian credit could be based" (p. 258). For the views and activities in banking, manufacturing, and railroad con­ struction of such prominent Russian capitalists as F. V. Chizhov, T. S. Morozov, P. N. Tretiakov, I. F. Mamontov, D. P. and A. P. Shipov, and others, see the excellent recent studies of Th. C. Owen, "The Moscow Merchants and the Public Press, 18581868," in /ahrbiicher/iir Geschichte Osteuropas, 1975, Band 23, Heft 1, pp. 25-38; and A. J. Rieber, "The Moscow Entrepreneurial Group: The Emergence of a New Form in Autocratic Politics," ibid., 1977, Band 25, Heft 1, pp. 1-20; Heft 2, pp. 174-199.

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ological, political, and governmental issues as well as individual and class economic interests. By the time Konstantin Aksakov spoke out on emancipation it had become apparent to everyone who had studied the problem that emancipation was only one aspect of a basic but many-sided issue involving not only the problem of the ownership and disposition of the land but also the relationship between government, landlords, church, and court; involving all large landowners, on the one hand, and peasants and serfs on the other; and involving the sticky legal and ethical question of the difference between the ownership and the use of land. Only Konstantin, with his eye on the preservation of the commune, seems to have found the answers simple. For all the other aspects he had very little knowledge on which to base a judgment. He did, however, undertake some investigation of the old peasant order in Russia—we have this not only on Ivan's authority but also on the evidence of two fragments, one of four pages only and a longer one of sixty-three pages, both having the title "On the Condition of the Peasants in Ancient Russia."8 They were apparently written some time during the years 1852-1856. These fragments contain Konstantin's comments on more than one hundred documents on peasant conditions, most of them falling in the category of charters "granting properties, rights, privileges, or immunities," that is, zhalovannyia or zhalovan'nyia gramoty. The majority date from the fifteenth century, but a few are from the four­ teenth and sixteenth centuries. This is one of the rare instances in which Konstantin grapples with documentary historical materials, but the project is unfinished and without a conclusion. We are, how­ ever, given some hint of how it might have ended in the first fragment, in which he expresses some of his thoughts on the peasant problem. The Russian peasant order "up to Peter was completely communal," he says, "among serfs as among non-serfs": After the enserfment of the peasants (serfdom up to the time of Peter was not at all what it is today) they lost neither their rights nor their organization. They merely did not transfer from one . . . land to another, and . . . understood that the land that they 8 The first fragment has the subtitle "The People's [narodnaia] Peasant Commune. Its Relationship to the Land. The Relationship of the Peasants to the Landlords." K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, I, 415-482. A third fragment, undated but probably of the same period, has the title "Historical Remarks with Respect to the Condition and Significance of the Peasants of the Landlords as Well as in General," pp. 483-494.

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND'

. . . inhabited and tilled was their own property, the property of the commune. This was a just conviction . . . existing to the present both among our serfs and non-serfs.9 Before Peter, both state and gentry serfs elected their own "judicial administrative and financial officials [tseJoval'niki]," and their "ju­ dicial organs [gubnye], etc." Moreover, the peasant's "right to legal transfer [perekhod]" existed "almost to the time of Peter." Giving himself the benefit of the historical doubt, he comes to the conclusion that "there was no personal domination. The crown peasants could dispose of their land, it seems also the monastic peasants, and prob­ ably also the landlords'—and of course the other classes too." The same conviction appears at the beginning of the second fragment when he attempts to refute the "accusation" that serfdom was es­ tablished in early Russian history. He found no proof for such al­ legations.10 The notion that serfdom did not exist in Russia before Peter I was probably not original with Aksakov. He must have heard it in the Slavophil circle before the early 1850's, for Khomiakov had already gone on record on this issue. In his essay "About the Old and the New," read in Elagina's salon in the winter of 1839, he condemned the "right of serfdom [krepostnoe pravo], if it is possible to call a right such a brazen violation of all rights," and attributed its intro­ duction in Russia to Peter, but with significant qualifications: Serfdom for the peasants was introduced by Peter I, but when we remember that they could not move from their lands . . . would we not understand that the slavery of the peasants existed in custom even if it had not been recognized by law? . . . The law agreed to take upon itself responsibility for the abomination of serfdom . . . [it] sanctified and implanted the abuse of the aristocracy that had already crept in." After Konstantin changed his mind about the role of Peter I in Russian history, in the mid-1840's, he found it easy to blame Peter for the undesirable aspects of Russian life, and serfdom was first on his list. He still thought the same in 1858, when he could publish his views on emancipation. In the meantime, under the impact of the tsar's public declaration in the autumn of 1857 in favor of eman­ cipation, Konstantin seems to have made an effort to think the matter 9

Ibid., p. 416. pp. 417-418. " A. S. Khomiakov, Sochineniia, III, 13, 16. 10 Ibid.,

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through. We know this from a brief but meaty letter to Khomiakov from the end of 1857.12 Repeating in his own words the essence of the tsar's proclamation that the serfs should be freed, Konstantin says, "It would be laughable if I [decided] to convince you of my sympathy for this cause.. . . You are very well aware, and convinced of this." The pertinent question was: under what conditions should the reform be carried out? Aksakov was uncertain what the government had in mind, but he had no doubt that it would be "truly beneficial" for his and Khomiakov's class. They would be rescued from the "duty of the jailer," since "authority is much more corrupting to those who exercise it than to those who live under it." But he was not so positive about the lot of the liberated serfs. Would they not be rescued "from one jail only to fall into another?"13 It is not surprising that Konstantin should try to rationalize his position and Khomiakov's and that of their own class, and in the process show Slavophilism's profound distrust and dislike of the bureaucracy. The "authority of the gentry," he says, "served as a glass dome [stekliannyi koJpak] under which the peasants could live in their own way [samobytno] and freely . . . being saved from the government's guardianship, with which the state peasants, and yes, the princely, are all too familiar." Furthermore, he says, the landlords could be physically removed from the peasants, who "often did not see the landlord for a hundred years. The best example is your Vo­ logda estate." Khomiakov, who made no secret of his distrust of the government, usually used milder terms than Konstantin's. He was sympathetic with Konstantin's views although they were too often based on preference and conviction rather than on historical fact. The Russian people, Konstantin declared, "never sought political freedom" and avoided participation in "government, but strongly valued the freedom of its life, customs, and culture [byt]." When these were violated it felt oppressed. Freedom had more than polit­ ical implications, and this was confirmed by the etymology of the word svoboda, freedom, from svoi (one's own) and byt (to be), from which it followed that the Russian peasant put "freedom in the depth of the spirit." He was thus "able to preserve all his moral inde­ pendence in spite of political slavery . . . in which Peter the Great and his successors so assiduously shackled him." But the muzhik, unperturbed and uncowed by physical suffering, upheld his spiritual freedom "under both the state and the landlord's yoke."14 12 This

was published by Ivan Aksakov in Rus' in 1883, no. 3, pp. 34-36. p. 34. 14Ibid., pp. 34-35. 13 Ibid.,

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND'

The landlord was deluding himself in thinking that he was the serf's lawful master. As for the peasant, he dismissed "such an ab­ surdity." If this had ever been so he would either have "become a slave . . . or he would have decisively and forever thrown off this authority." The peasant tolerated the power of the landlord and his conditions of existence as he would a "storm, a cloud of hail, a raid by outlaws," or any "natural disaster inflicted by God." Along with this acceptance was the peasants' "faith in the mir . . . having no doubt that the land belongs to him by right." Thus the peasant "bore the imprint of a free man" in his life and appearance. We may never know how much of this Slavophil view of serfdom and the peasant was a sort of a poetic-intellectual perception, and how much was salve for Aksakov's conscience. In this manner he arrived at his two-world concept of peasant life, thus providing the peasant with a mid-nineteenth-century means of escape of "internal emigration." The serf had to endure the "cloud of hail"—which presumably would pass—and he could put up with the iniquitous demands of government, bureaucracy, and landlords as long as he could continue to breathe the pure and serene air of his commune. Small wonder that Aksakov denigrated the "public," urging it, a generation before the "going to the people" movement, to go to the people, and exhorting it, years before Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, to seek there the Christ-bearers and dip into the well of living Christian wisdom. From this mixture of some fact and history and a much larger measure of poetic exultation and license was wrought Aksa­ kov's view of the peasantry. And from this comes his notion that the Russian peasant understood freedom not in political terms: "The peasant . . . does not prostrate himself before the words 'homme libre!' " Getting to the crux of the emancipation issue, Aksakov takes his argument a step further: the serf, never having considered himself a serf in the landlord's sense, was not interested in the "destruction of the designation of serf." Thus the return of his personal freedom would not be enough. It would merely be setting right an illegality and an abuse. What the serf needed was "a free and independent order, and . . . a guarantee of it. . . ." And for this "he needs land, a guarantee of land which he considers to be his own." The "deci­ sive" question, therefore, which Aksakov must have known would shake up any prosperous landlords such as Khomiakov and Koshelev, was, "To whom does the land belong?" And when the peasant says "it is mine . . . he will be right, at any rate more so than the landlord."15 15 Ibid.,

p. 35.

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This argument shows that Aksakov, for all his romanticizing of commune and narod, had grasped the essence of the matter. He chose neither "bird freedom," a legal personal freedom without land, which is what the Slavophils, among others, called the emancipation of the serfs in Prussia, nor "wolf's freedom," the predatory midnineteenth-century bourgeois liberal freedom that Gil'ferding elo­ quently deplored. Aksakov was, however, extremely skeptical that a true emancipation reform could ever come from St. Petersburg, given the "complete incomprehension of the Russian people [zemlia] by the government and the upper classes." And Khomiakov was reminded of a thought he had heard before, that the "best. . . thing that St. Petersburg could do for Russia was to drown [utopit'sia]." Nonetheless, despite serious misgivings about the government, Aksakov admitted that he expected "enormous results" from the Emancipation Act. Surely, he tells Khomiakov, Russia could not settle for anything as simple and small-scale as the Prussian example early in the century. Emancipation was one of a series of interrelated and inseparable problems, and he wished to see all of them resolved, including the question that existed "between State and Land [Peo­ ple], between alien and national spirit, between a forcefully imposed Western system and the Russian people's principles. In other words between public and people, narod."16 The contrast between public and narod was, as we have seen, very much on Aksakov's mind. That December he published in Molva the fateful editorial entitled "An Attempt at Synonyms: Public-People [Narod]" (Opyt sinonimov. Publika-narod), in which he denounced the public for having renounced "Russian life, language, and dress" and for having bowed to the West "as before a teacher." This editorial uses a series of carefully balanced sentences to draw a forceful con­ trast between public or society and narod, in language, dress, man­ ners, diet, mode of life, and morality. It ends with the words: "The public despises the narod, the narod forgives the public. . . . The public has its world (monde, balls, etc.), the narod has its mir, as­ sembly [skhodka].... The public is transitory, the narod is eternal."17 Clearly, Konstantin knew what he was about when he chose to treat the issue of emancipation not alone but as an integral part of a complex of problems that included the disposition of the land and the preservation of the peasant commune. Emancipation was essen­ tial and would be salutary for both serf and landlord, but it would 16

Ibid., pp. 35-36. Brodsky, Rannie Slavianoflly, pp. 121-122. See also Chapter 9, pp. 168-169 above. This was the editorial that ended Molva. The tsar's penciled comment, "I find that [this editorial] has been written in a very bad sense," was enough. Brodsky, Hannie SJavianolflly, p. 105. 17

406

THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND'

not be enough so long as the public and not the narod was leader and conscience of the nation. The roles had to be reversed. Russia also needed to be emancipated from the gentry and St. Petersburg; therefore at the end of his letter to Khomiakov, Konstantin added a slogan embodying the advice that he had given in Prince Lupovitsky six years earlier: "Return to the people" (vozvrashchenie k narodu). The last paragraph of this letter contains a confession and a com­ mitment: "I consider it my duty to cooperate on emancipation in accordance with my convictions. I am sincerely and profoundly happy that the cause of emancipation has commenced." 18 In 1858, as a partial fulfillment of the commitment, Konstantin published a book review in Russkaia beseda in which he elaborated on the pre­ sumed absence of serfdom in pre-Petrine Russia, on what he con­ sidered to be hired labor (voJ'nonaemnyi trud) throughout the cen­ turies, and on the meaning of landownership in Russian history. 19 As in the letter to Khomiakov, so now in print Konstantin reiterated his conviction that serfdom was of recent origin and that Peter I was responsible for its introduction—indeed, "serfdom did not exist in Russia until Peter.. . . [it] is an act of the transformation of Russia." 20 His history of serfdom differs here in some respects from Khomiakov's, notably on Tsar Feodor's decree at the end of the sixteenth century which limited the peasant's right to free movement. Tying the peasant to the soil is a sure sign of serfdom. Khomiakov, in his essay on "Tsar Feodor Ivanovich" (1844), had deplored the "painful consequences" of Feodor's act, since until then the peasants had freely "transferred from one landlord to an­ other," but he justified it on the ground of national necessity. New towns in newly conquered lands induced peasants to move about in search of a better life. This was harmful to state and society because it resulted in a "decline of national morality." But the real proof that Feodor's decree was "necessary" lay in the fact that "it was never completely abrogated by any of the succeeding tsars." 21 In other words, its continued existence proved its value, if not its morality. Aksakov, though seemingly free of Khomiakov's bias as a landlord, was no more objective than he. The new order established by the tsar concerned the landlord as well as the peasant, and the landlord 18 Ibid.,

p. 106. review covers the first two volumes of N. A. Elagin's BeIevskaia vivliofika. These included the census-books for 1632, containing a good deal of factual material and data on agricultural matters. See K. S. Aksakov in Russkaia besed a, 1858, III, book 2, 14-46; and his Sochineniia, I, 495-528. 20 K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, I, 516. 21 Khomiakov, Sochineniia, III, 61. 19 The

EMANCIPATION AND GOVERNMENT

407

could not change it, for "he himself was only a state person and was in a purely state relationship to the peasants," who were allegedly "free people only bound to the land, and not completely (and not at all to him)." There was no difference between the status of peasants living on private lands and those living on state lands: "peasants fled from landlord to sovereign as from sovereign to landlord—some­ thing that is now unthinkable." This line of reasoning and a phil­ ological explanation convinced Aksakov that "until Peter the peas­ ants on both manorial and patrimonial estates were free people with full rights," and that the "serf before Peter and the serf after Peter" were not at all similar.22 This reasoning was at best an oversimplification. It is widely ac­ cepted that serfdom reached its most cruel phase in the eighteenth century, but that does not justify reducing it to virtual nonexistence before Peter's reign. Here as in other places Aksakov is indulging his strong urge to gloss over any undesirable aspect of life in pre-Petrine Russia. A similar fault mars his attitude on the ownership of the land. In the letter to Khomiakov he gave the edge to the peasant, who had at least as good a claim as the landlord had. In the book review of 1858 he has evidently made up his mind: the landlord, he says, whether of the manorial or hereditary variety, "up until enserfment [ukreplenie], and after enserfment, was not the owner [either] of the estate in general or of the land. . . . The land of the Russian people belonged to [them] . . . and through them to the government as their external representative." Stripped of its elaboration, his argument is that in the "narrowest" sense of the word the landlord's estates "belonged to the population while he owns [vladeet] it by state law." To the question, "To whom does the land of Russia belong?" the answer is: "To the Russian people while the sovereign owns it by state law."23 The essence of such landholding is thus reduced to the right of use as distinct from the right of absolute ownership, in fee simple. The effect of this narrow, legalistic view of the landlord's position is to render the landlord weaker and more helpless than he actually was. Aksakov's assertion that in his time there was no difference between the manorial and hereditary landowner was justified, but when he raised the question whether one could sell or will a hered­ itary estate, votchina, his answer was that one could sell or will "only the relationship [otnoshenie]," not the land itself. "Here," he concludes, "there is no other property except income." Referring to 22 23

K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, I, 512, 515-516. Ibid., pp. 512ff.

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND'

the Belev district census-books of the early seventeenth century, he asserts: "Nowhere is it said that the land belonged to the manorial landlord [pomeshchik] or to the hereditary landlord [votchinnik]."24 Similarly with respect to the use of forests and grazing lands, the landlord had no claim to ownership. By thus glossing over the importance of such landlord privileges and legal rights as "income" and the right to sell and will estates Aksakov arrives at the conclusion that the Russian gentry were only a little less discriminated against than the serfs. He attempts to nar­ row the gap between the two classes even further when he refers to the matter of the serfs' freedom of movement, or free transfer (perekhod or vykhod).25 Such a right existed "at least in the 1630's, in the reign of Michael Feodorovich . . . not only de facto but also de jure." But he immediately qualifies this by saying that "free transfer [perekhod]" has long been subject to certain limitations, and that in case of transgression the peasant was guilty of "flight" (begstvo). He seems convinced, however, that "free transfer was not prohibited" but was only subject to certain limitations.26 As if still having lingering doubts on the central issue of peasant freedom, Aksakov returns to the matter a few pages further on in the review and arrives at a startling rationalization: "The limitation of the right of free transfer or . . . attachment [prikrepJenie] of the peasant, even if understood as complete attachment . . . did not at all change the relationship of the manorial and hereditary landlords to the peasants." This is true, he explains, because peasant selfgovernment with its elected judges, assemblies, and other officials continued to exist and function. Furthermore, documents contained in the two volumes under review "show us examples of . . . agree­ ments between the landlord and his peasants . . . which are unthink­ able under the conditions of our [present] state of serfdom"—which, he says, is "frightful and inhuman."27 After emancipation, however, it would be possible to return to the conditions of what he looked upon as that blessed era when free labor prevailed, that is, pre-Petrine Russia, in which "its existence Ibid., pp. 514, 516. Vykhod krest'ianskii in Muscovy was the "right of peasants living on privately owned lands to leave their landlords and move elsewhere," provided they fulfilled certain conditions. This right was confirmed by the codes (sudebniki) of 1497 and 1550, but in the 1580's this freedom "was subjected to legal limitations . . . and was completely revoked by the Statutes [Ulozhenie] of 1649." See Pushkarev et al., Dic­ tionary of Russian Historical Terms, p. 183. 26 K. S. Aksakov, Sochineniia, I, 506, 509. 27 Ibid., pp. 514ff., 518. 24

25

EMANCIPATION AND GOVERNMENT

409

on a significant scale—cannot be denied." The same thing would be possible in Russia after emancipation, when the "serfs will be given land and will become completely independent of the landlord, when they are outside all compulsory labor, while the landlord retains land alone." Gentry fears that their "fields will remain unfilled" under such conditions were unfounded. They had been duly allayed by Sel'skoe blagoustroistvo. As for Aksakov, pre-Petrine Russia pro­ vided an "extremely important" example.28 The landlord had nothing to fear from free peasant labor. In the preface to Konstantin Aksakov's Commentaries on the New Administrative Organization of the Peasants in Russia, published in Leipzig in 1861 under Ivan's editorship, Ivan stressed two prin­ cipal issues that concerned his brother in the last year or two of his life. The first was Konstantin's views on the work of the Editing Commissions on emancipation of 1859 under la. I. Rostovtsev, and the second, as Ivan put it, was Konstantin's "dogmatic exposition of the general fundamental principles of Russian life."29 Ivan's fourpage preface is followed by Konstantin's letter to Khomiakov of 1857, cited above, a nine-and-a-half-page letter to N. N.,30 with Ivan's ed­ itorial notes and comments, and Konstantin's own three-page pref­ ace. The rest of the nearly one hundred pages contain Konstantin's commentaries on the first eight reports of the Editing Commissions, commentaries he left unfinished before he departed from Moscow in the summer of 1860, never to return. Konstantin's letter to N. N., as Ivan indicated when he republished it in 1883, was addressed to Prince V. A. Cherkassky, who was a member, with Iurii Samarin, of the "experts" group on the Editing 28Ibid.,

p. 499. See K. S. Aksakov, Zamechaniia na novoe administrativnoe ustroistvo krest'ian ν Rossii, ed. I. S. Aksakov (Leipzig, 1861). (Hereafter cited as K. S. Aksakov, Com­ mentaries.) Ivan considered this work of sufficient merit to republish it in serialized form two decades later. See Rus', 1883, no. 3, pp. 39-47; no. 4, pp. 20-34; no. 5, pp. 20-30. I have used here the original (1861) edition, which contains fuller editorial comments and notes than the Rus' edition. 30 Ivan republished this letter to Cherkassky in 1883 in Rus' (no. 3, pp. 36-39) without any explanation of the earlier use of the initials Ν. N. in place of Cherkassky's name. The same letter was republished at least three more times—first in Russkaia starina, 1887, no. 4, pp. 210-213, and again in the same journal in 1904, no. 12, pp. 706-710, and also in 1904 in Ol'ga Trubetskaia's two-volume work on Cherkassky, Kn. V. A. Cherkassky i ego uchastie ν razreshenii krest'ianskago voprosa. Materialy dlia biografii, I, book 2, pp. 115-120. No two versions of the letter are absolutely alike, although with the exception of two important points explained below, the texts are practically the same. I use here Ivan Aksakov's edition with his editorial notes, but I have checked it against the other versions and have supplemented it as indicated in the proper places. 29

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE " L A N D '

Commissions. They also served on their respective provincial com­ mittees for Tula and Samara (their friend and collaborator A. I. Koshelev was a member of the Riazan committee). During the crucial half-dozen years prior to emancipation, Cherkassky had been friendly with the Slavophils, particularly with Samarin and Koshelev, but his ideological position was ambiguous.31 He himself considered his relationship to the Slavophils a "marriage of convenience"; others described him as "acting as a Slavophil" ( slavianofil'stvuiushchii). Konstantin is not certain about Cherkassky; toward the end of the letter he implies that he does not consider him one of the "Petersburgers or Westerners" but neither does he definitely include him in the Slavophil camp. Ivan Aksakov tells us that Konstantin wrote to Cherkassky because the prince was the author of the reports (doklady) of the Adminis­ trative Section of the Editing Commissions, but Konstantin obviously intended his letter, and his commentaries, to reach beyond the com­ missions, whose reports he had studied carefully and on which he commented at length. The letter and the eight commentaries were written after Sergei Aksakov's death at the end of April 1859, and bear the mark of Konstantin's deep and hopeless state of despond­ ency. In them we see that Konstantin, who in his brother's words 31 There are varying opinions on the precise nature of Cherkassky's relationship to the early Moscow Slavophils. As will soon be seen, Konstantin roundly upbraided him on ideological grounds, provoking a stern reply from Cherkassky. Semevksy, relying on Koshelev's opinion, stated in 1888 that strictly speaking Cherkassky "was not a Slavophil," and quoted Koshelev that "he did not at all consider the Christian Orthodox teaching as the foundation of our [Slavophil] Weltanschauung, constantly expressed him self against the peasant commune, and loved to poke fun at the people [narod] who, in his opinion, were presumably the idol before whom Khomiakov and K. Aksakov bowed." But Koshelev says that Cherkassky "recognized that in our orientation there was more strength and future than in the opposite," in Westernism. Semevsky cites evidence that toward the end of his life Cherkassky moved closer to Katkov's pro-government position. Semevsky, Krest'ianskii vopros ν Rossii, II, 422; A. I. Koshelev, Zapiski (Berlin, 1884), pp. 84-85. Acknowledging Cherkassky's col­ laboration on the Slavophil Husskaia beseda and Sel'skoe blagoustroistvo (which Koshelev, their principal backer, had made conditional), Princess Trubetskaia says that his "relationship to Slavophilism had the character of a union based on the practical solution of certain problems, but he did not share their views on Orthodoxy and nationality and was not a worshiper of the commune." Velikaia re/orma, 6 vols. (Moscow, 1911), V, 110. Cherkassky's collaboration with Samarin and Koshelev at the end of the 1850's, though also marked by serious disagreements, led Wortman to consider him "another member of the younger generation of Slavophiles." Richard Wortman, "Koshelev, Samarin, and Cherkassky and the Fate of Liberal Slavophilism," Slavic Review, 1962, June, p. 265. For Andrzej Walicki's views on this problem see his Slavophile Controversy, pp. 234, 460-461, 484-485. See also N. G. Sladkevich, Ocherki istorii, p. 98.

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"never served, never kept house or farmed [ne khozianichal], did not know . . . any practical activity, did not know compromise in conviction," was at the age of forty-two more obdurate an idealist and in some ways more exasperating in his convictions than he had ever been.32 Feeling his own life rapidly ebbing away, Konstantin seems in the spring and summer of 1859 to have withdrawn more and more from the everyday world of things into the world of reflection and spec­ ulation. In this state of mind he seems totally unconcerned about the very real and difficult economic, political, and social problems that were associated with emancipation—the problems that Samarin, Koshelev, and Cherkassky were struggling to solve—and concerned only with the larger questions of preserving the vitality and presumed spirituality of the peasant commune and the Russian way of life. He starts his letter to Cherkassky (dated August 26,1859) by saying, "I have become indifferent to much but not to the decision about the fate of the Russian people that is now being made in St. Peters­ burg." Though he was in favor of emancipation with land, he had not decided how much land should go to the serfs and on what conditions. In fact he had no knowledge of this problem, and no interest in it. But, he says, "when the matter concerns the soul of the Russian people, their vital communal principle, the mir, assem­ blies [skhodki], then I . . . cannot be silent.33 When the word about emancipation first spread, Konstantin says, he wrote to Khomiakov that the landlords would be the great ben­ eficiaries of the reform, for it would be "their salvation from their monstrous and immoral right." With respect to the serfs, however, he had serious misgivings since the hope for improvement was not completely justified. He was "terrified" after reading Report No. 5 of the Administrative Section, identified with Cherkassky, that emancipation would bring further intrusion of the government bu­ reaucracy into peasant affairs—which would be far worse than the old landlords' authority. Fragile and artificial though the "glass dome" (stekliannyi kolpak) of the gentry over the serfs was, it pre­ sumably shielded them from government regulation and "from out­ ward administrative public welfare." Under its protection "our peo­ ple lived their life in complete originality [samobytnost'] of their principles," thus excluding "that definiteness [opredelennost'], alien to our spirit, which is in effect restrictiveness deforming the living 52Rus', 1883, no. 3, p. 31. Ivan wrote a new introduction and notes when he re­ published the letters and commentaries in 1883, and I occasionally refer to these, although in general I have relied on the 1861 edition. 33 K. S. Aksakov, Commentaries, p. 7.

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND'

principle that forms from within." Aksakov feared that if the "godless [bogoprotivnoe] gentry right" over the serfs should end along with the peasant commune, which was the guardian and savior of the Russian principles of life, the weight of the "statism of institutions" (gosudarstvennost' uchrezhdenii) would fall on the peasants' heads with "complete oppressiveness."34 There is in this anti-government stand not a little of the Slavophil notion that since Peter's time Russia had been ruled in an alien spirit and manner. But there is something more than that, something more fundamental and universal, harking back to the Slavophils' episto­ lary exchange six years earlier, when they were concerned with the problem of "systematism." In current terminology, Konstantin was raising the issue of social engineering in his concern about "definiteness." Earlier in the decade, his brother Ivan and Koshelev had articulated the Slavophil distaste for the "sistematik" and for sys­ tematism, which they considered un-Russian, and characteristically German.35 It was a mistrust shared by Ivan Turgenev (though he was not in any sense a Slavophil). The notions of "definiteness" and "systematism" were hallmarks of deliberate, purposeful forethought and initiative; therefore they lacked the spontaneity and unpremeditation of the slow, organic change characteristic of folkways. Aksakov considered the peasant commune to be the product of the spontaneous unfolding, throughout the centuries, of the spirit and genius of the Russian people, narod, a thing divinely sanctified and far too precious to be tampered with by government, bureaucracy, or reformers. What is in this report? Aksakov asks (referring to Cherkassky's Report No. 5 of the Administrative Section), and answers, the "com­ plete violation of the ... essence of the Russian communal principle, the complete torture of the mir, destruction of all the original social freedom of the Russian people, and presenting them with the sem­ blance of civic social rights composed according to an alien model."36 34Ibid.,

pp. 7-8. Kireevskij, p. 283. 3611Alien model" is almost certainly an allusion to Alexis de Tocqueville's Old Regime and the French Revolution, published in Paris in 1856 and reviewed within a year by Cherkassky in flusskaia beseda (1857, II, Kritika, pp. 25-88). Although Aksakov nowhere mentions the book or its author, it is inconceivable that he was not familiar with Cherkassky's review and with the discussion that Tocqueville's work provoked in Russia at the time. For Cherkassky's concurrence in Tocqueville's pref­ erence for federalism as against centralism, and for the longstanding thoug'h often censorship-muted debate in Russia of the same topic, see S. F. Starr's lucid account in Decentralization and Self-Government in Russia, 1830-1870 (Princeton, 1972), pp. 71-79. For an expert sociological summary of the problem of local autonomy against 35 Christoff,

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Any thought of Russian independence, of a living social principle, had been thoughtlessly discarded, and what was left? "A purely mechanical, completely useless existence not of a society but of a certain multitude of people."' Aksakov was particularly incensed by Cherkassky's definition of the mir and by his efforts to regularize mir assemblies, define the functions and rights of mir officials, and standardize mir organization and activities. The prince's effort to define the mir was his "first non sens," Aksakov says sarcastically, and his "first impertinence against the [Russian] people." No government official could say what was a mir—only the mir itself could: "When the mir recognizes itself as a mir, then it is a mir." The mir needed no definition, only "greater range" and more freedom.37 Insisting on absolute equality and spontaneity in mir affairs, he denied the existence of any mir leadership, saying, "When the mir is convoked, the first person [leader] here is only one: the mir. There is no other, and there can be no other." And further, "A mir under the leadership [and] . . . guidance of the starosta [bailiff, chairman] is a sad mir!" Cherkassky had proposed that in case of a tie the bailiff would have the deciding vote; Aksakov, who loathed the very idea of majority rule, scoffs at the proposal, saying that such a mir could only be found "in the English club [in Moscow], in the gentry club," but never in the true peasant mir. The alien club idea, the "perversion of the mir," was something that had been foisted on Russia under "Peter's stick"—and was quite as bad as the "forced shaving of beards" under the "most august barber in the Fatherland."38 Cherkassky, under the influence of Peter the Great and Western formalism, had fallen prey to foreign abominations, and thus, Ak­ sakov says, "you destroy and kill the very principle of our life; . . . our Russian freedom, our commune, our mir." All this because Cher­ kassky was trying to cast the mir activities in the "sad image of a gentry election." Placing the mir morally above all classes and any civil government, Aksakov concludes, "We have had self-styled tsars, but we have never had a self-styled mir." The mir is "a people's assembly. . . . [It] is the narod as one, thinking, speaking, and acting whole."39 With heavy heart Aksakov sums up the burden of his complaints. centralism at the time of emancipation and soon thereafter see Alexander Vucinich, "The State and the Local Community," in C. E. Black, ed., The Transformation of Russian Society (Cambridge, Mass., 1960), pp. 191-209. 37 K. S. Aksakov, Commentaries , p. 9. 38 Ibid., pp. 12-13. Ivan Aksakov omitted the reference to Peter in the Rus' edition. 3® Ibid., pp. 13-14.

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND"

It was "painful and disgusting" to read Report No. 5, he says; he would have been more tolerant if it had been written by "St. Petersburgers or Westerners, but it was you instead"—you who, he implies, have shown sympathy for the Slavophil cause. He felt be­ trayed. The study of Russia's ancient peasant order, its principles, and organization was in vain. Cherkassky's suggestions about "social self-government" and the like were worse than nothing, and Aksakov indicted him: "You have made an attempt on the soul of the people, and this is the real murder [dushegubstvo]. . . . You are now cruci­ fying the Russian people."40 Aksakov's commentaries on the eight reports of the Administrative Section of the Editing Commissions follow much the same line as his letter to Prince Cherkassky—that is, he condemns serfdom and declares himself in favor of emancipation with land for the peasants, and then plunges into what he considers to be the real heart of the matter—the preservation of the commune for posterity, pure and undefiled by St. Petersburg, bureaucracy, gentry, and invidious in­ novations from the West. It was indeed the last great hope and cause of his life, the cause to which he devoted the last months that re­ mained to him before his deteriorating health forced him to leave Russia in August 1860. Undoubtedly the gloom that pervaded his life after his father's death in the spring of the preceding year inten­ sified his dedication to the one thing that he considered to be per­ manent and immutable in the life of Russia. That was the peasant commune, the reality and the symbol; and he writes of it in impas­ sioned, hyperbolic language unsurpassed even for a man who never knew moderation or discretion in loyalty and devotion. In his letter to Cherkassky, as we have seen, Aksakov took special issue with Report No. 5, and the commentaries make clear his rea­ sons; but he approached all eight reports from the same frame of reference—that is, from his uncompromising belief in the Slavophil point of view—and in all his criticism the underlying theme is that 40Ibid., pp. 15-16. In the versions he published in 1861 and 1883 Ivan Aksakov omitted a stronger final passage. The 1883 edition also attempted to soften Konstantin's censure with the comment that later "K. S. thanked the prince for his benign [blagodushnyi] attitude toward his harsh letter." Rus', 1883, no. 3, p. 36. The omitted passage, printed in Russkaia stanna in 1887 and 1904, runs as follows: "But my letter will not disturb you, what will disturb you?! But think of it even for a minute. Remember the Jews crucifying Christ were not troubled by what awaited them, and . . . did not think that they would become the living shame among people, and that their name would turn into abuse. You are now crucifying the Russian people and, of course, are not thinking that your name will become a word of abuse, and that defamation will mark your memory. In my letter there are no secrets. You may show it . . . to whom you wish." Russkaia starina, 1887, no. 4, p. 213; 1904, no. 10, p. 710.

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the village commune, particularly as it existed on gentry obrok (quitrent) estates, must remain inviolate. It must be made secure from government interference or encroachment and immune to any tam­ pering, even if well-intentioned. In these commentaries Konstantin is more outspoken in his mistrust of government in general, and of the St. Petersburg bureaucracy in particular, than he had ever been in print, and it was with good reason that Ivan decided to have them and the two letters published in Leipzig: they would not have passed the censorship at home.41 It is probably unnecessary here to do more than give a brief sum­ mary of the eight commentaries, taken in numerical order. Each report of the Administrative Section dealt with a specific aspect of the proposed emancipation, and Konstantin, in his commentaries, found little to his liking in any of them. Summing up his comments on Report No. 1, dealing with administration, he put at the top of the list: "The most complete noninterference [nevmeshatePstvo] of the government in the order [ustroistvo] of the people."42 Specifi­ cally, he objected to the recommendation that the administrative functions of the mir should be separated from its economic functions. The creation of two "centers," a land commune (pozemel'naia obshchina) and a peasant society (seJ'skoe obshchestvo), was com­ pletely unnecessary, he thought, particularly when they coincided.43 With characteristic candor he reiterated his guiding principle: "The fewer points of contact between government and people [narod] . . . the better." He did not wish to see the peasant mir contaminated by any government authority. But since Aksakov did not propose an immediate end to all gov­ ernment, some contact between it and the narod was inevitable, and he made a concession that probably caused him some anguish. The contact between narod and government, operating in the "realm of external truth," would be made through the district or "general mir," thus preserving the local peasant mir pure and undefiled by the organ of "external truth." The general mir would serve as a "transmission point" (peredatochnoe mesto) for government demands (trebovaniia) 41 Ivan sent the manuscript of the commentaries to Herzen in London in April I860, and they exchanged letters about it. On June 7, 1861, Ivan wrote Herzen that Konstantin's book had been published in Leipzig and that he had instructed the publisher to send a copy to Herzen and Ogarev at once. Herzen found the book particularly congenial because it advocated "emancipation of the serfs with land, preservation of the commune, and the right of the peasants to free self-government." See editorial comments in Herzen, Sochineniia, XV, 375-376. 42 K. S. Aksakov, Commentaries, p. 36. 43 Ibid., pp. 22-24, 26.

416

THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE " L A N D '

such as money, army recruits, and transport. The people would re­ spond to these, and thus the government would say what, the people how. Beyond this line the narod lives and governs itself completely in its own way." This is only natural "since the mir itself is its own creation."44 In addition to this major and rather novel point about the general mir, Aksakov also enumerated the standard administrative, economic, church, and police functions of the local mirs. The commentary on the second report begins with a clear affir­ mation of Aksakov's belief in gradual, spontaneous, organic evolu­ tion. The "centers" or "districts" should not be decreed in St. Pe­ tersburg but should be "formed and defined by the narod itself." The government could "only mark" the districts, and "only initially and only temporarily, allowing life to express itself freely." Any count such as a census should take the household (dvor) as a unit; this was the "people's count," not the person or "soul," as the Administrative Section would prefer. Count by souls was introduced by the Tartars and accepted by the St. Petersburg emperors. It was not Russian but ''Tartar-Western.'' Aksakov also criticized the commission on religious matters, par­ ticularly in the location of churches. Since matters of faith were "more important than mundane matters," new parishes and churches ought to be placed at convenient intervals for the parishioners; here again, although the government could take the initiative in locating new churches, its initiative should be subject to the "people's di­ rectives" (narodnyia ukazanha). In matters of faith as in other mat­ ters, when government or landlords were involved, the ultimate de­ cision rested on the "consent of the people."45 The shortest of the commentaries is the one on the third report, having to do with the delineation of "centers and districts." This two-page commentary quite agrees with the commission's recom­ mendation that the peasants be given the "right of limitless lobbying [khodataistva]" on the location of districts and district centers, but Aksakov stresses that permanent delineation should be left to "life itself." No special commission, as proposed in the report, was nec­ essary.46 44 Ibid., pp. 26, 34-36, 64. For the role which the concept of the people played in mid-nineteenth-century Polish thought, and in Lamennais's considerations in the 1830's, see the excellent recent studies, respectively, by Peter Brock, Polish Revo­ lutionary Populism (Toronto, 1977), and Ν. V. Riasanovsky, "On Lammenais, Chaadaev, and the Romantic Revolt in France and Russia," American Historical Review, 1977, December, pp. 1165-1186. 45 K. S. Aksakov, Commentaries, pp. 38-44. 46 Ibid., p. 44.

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Report No. 4, which Aksakov saw as part of No. 5, concerned the key subject "of village social governance." Once again he defended the mir against government encroachment, doing this in two and a half pages. He analyzed Report No. 5 in some detail, however, fol­ lowing the line of criticism set in his letter to Cherkassky, which has already been discussed; but his beginning and closing summaries are still worth noting. "Every private mir," he says, "governs itself and by itself." It as­ sembles and "elects the bailiff [sfarosta] entirely as it sees fit [posvoemu proizvolu]," since "its organization is of no concern to anyone except itself." Further, the "private mir will act according to cus­ tom." It will conduct its assemblies and law courts, and "all this will proceed of itself." In this manner Aksakov wished to guarantee the autonomy, inviolability, and indeed the isolation (from the gov­ ernment) of the local peasant mir, which was subject to no outside limitations. The decisions of its assemblies were absolutely free. This was so because the mir was the "self-legislated [samozakonnoe] su­ preme phenomenon of the people," and as such "combined in itself all authority." Accordingly it could also delegate authority. "Such is the people's [narodnoe] meaning of the mir," Aksakov declares, and "such is it in the Russian villages."47 The judiciary functions of the mir were no less absolute and farreaching in Aksakov's view than were its administrative preroga­ tives. The judiciary authority of the district, "like all other authority, is contained in the mir, in which is concentrated all authority." But since the mir cannot be in session continuously it has to delegate authority to judges—in ancient Russia "elected judges" (izliublennykh sudei). On landlords' estates in modern times these law courts consist of elders or of those elected by the peasants. Aksakov pro­ poses that the district court should consist of two judges and two court assistants. His suggestion that the government should be no­ tified of the elections again shows the government as only an ex­ ecutive, clerical arm of society, inferior and subordinate to the narod. By the very "moral essence of the mir, to it properly belongs the law court [sud] but not the punishment." The mir court either does not concern itself with serious crimes that involve heavy punishment or leaves the "carrying out of punishment to state authority." Serious cases in which the punishment is "outside the limits" of the local mir would be passed on to the district court (another reminder of Aksakov's Slavophil notion that the "inner," moral life of mir and 4 7 Ibid.,

pp. 50-53.

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND'

narod is far superior to the "external," legal life of government and state].48 Our historical glance at the mir in the preceding chapter may raise doubts about the accuracy of Aksakov's observations of a functioning peasant mir. But it should be clear by this time that, as with the narod, pre-Petrine Russian history, and other aspects of Russian life, Aksakov found it remarkably easy not to take note of reality. He firmly believed that the mir in its purest form was to be found on obrok landlord estates, and in this instance at least could praise the gentry. Thus he could say: "The people's mir in it essence and ex­ istence is completely free and outside all definitions. It assembles when it wishes, where it wishes, how it wishes, and deliberates what it wishes." It could maintain outside connections, but its contacts with the government could only be made through the general or district mir.49 In taking up the subject of Report No. 6, the functions and duties of local peasant officials, Aksakov proceeds with the same sublime disregard for formal regulations. The fundamental concept and spirit of peasant institutions mattered far more than rules and qualifica­ tions—as he said, "Tight formalism Lformennost'] is always narrower than life [and] . . . is never sufficient for life with its infinite accidentalness." Therefore he declared the five conditions laid down by the commission for elected officials "deadening state forms in the living and free realm of the mir."50 There was no reason for this government "intrusion" (vtorzhenie) into the serene life of the peas­ ant mir through its special officials, its insistence that elected officials serve whether they wanted to or not, and its provisions for punish­ ment—in some cases corporal—for those found guilty of offense. The mir possessed sufficient discretion, and its wisdom was better than that of superfluous regulations. As for the government, it had one legitimate demand, that there should be "a certain obligatory-service person with whom it could communicate, and that was all."51 Aksakov also wanted the mir to decide terms of office for peasant officials and the amount of pay. The state should stay completely out of such matters. Corporal punishment, "not known in ancient Rus'," was another "Tartar gift" and had to be eliminated, likewise capital punishment or "legalized murder." But in all these matters, and in army recruiting, the decision was not the state's but was up to "so48 Ibid.,

pp. 56-59. pp. 62-63. 50 Ibid., pp. 68-69. 51 Ibid., p. 78. 49 Ibid.,

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ciety itself, the mir itself."52 Although Aksakov seems not to have realized that the mir's recruiting could be as cruel and corrupt as that of government bureaucrats and landlords, he does show an awareness that mir officials could be guilty of misconduct. In such cases the government should turn to the mir through the district bailiff. The mir was also the proper channel when the mir itself or a landlord had a grievance against a local official. The general principles that determined relations between mir and government applied to the sphere of justice and the courts, the sub­ ject of Report No. 7. On this Aksakov supplements what he said earlier about the courts. (His criticism of the fuzzy, legalistic language in which the report is written strikes sympathetic contemporary ears: what is needed, he says, is simple, straightforward Russian.) He reiterates that local justice and selection of judges should be left to the people. All the government needs is a functioning court. "How it is composed . . . is not its business."53 If a judge is not competent or honest the mir "will simply replace" him. All this followed from the fact that the "mir is a supreme person.... The mir is the supreme court. It is only temporarily replaced by an elected court."54 And he goes on, reaching for the heights of fantasy even as he speaks of the "fantasies" of the Administrative Section, which of course included Cherkassky and Samarin. The more he discusses the mir, the more absolute and uncompromising his language be­ comes. "The peasant," he says, "is the most vital part of the mir. Being in it, he acknowledges its ultimate will, its sovereign [polnovlastnoe] meaning." The peasant could leave the mir if he wished, but while in it, it was his "final court subject to no appeal, and its verdict is the most inexorable truth." The mir is a "council [sobor], the supreme authority over which there is no court." Decisions of the mir could be violated, disregarded, or altered, but only by force or violence. "You cannot judge it lawfully or by right. Such is [its] meaning and essence, otherwise it is not a mir." And the narod is fully aware of this, "for it says, 'No one judges the mir; God alone judges the mir.' "55 The last few pages of the commentaries, dealing with Report No. 8 (and unfinished), are mainly concerned with defining the relation­ ship between the gentry and "peasant societies." Here again Aksakov complains of the commission's obtuse language (officialese), which simply wished to say that there must be "complete elimination of 52

Ibid., pp. 82-85. p. 98. 54 Ibid., p. 105. 55 Ibid., p. 107. 53 Ibid.,

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND'

landlord interference in peasant matters." This he roundly ap­ proves.56 But he takes the commission to task for surrounding the principle of complete noninterference with conditions, limitations, and other evasions; it would be better if they adopted his direct and unequivocal statement of principle. On the crucial point concerning the serfs on private gentry estates the commentaries break off abruptly. Aksakov of course had neither the expertise nor the desire for active participation in the emancipation reform, and it is probably unlikely that he would have done more even if he had been asked to. His views on emancipation were not well publicized. With the exception of his review of N. A. Elagin's Belevskaia vivliofika, vir­ tually nothing had appeared in print. His closest friend, Samarin, and also Koshelev and Cherkassky were in key positions, but there is no indication that their practical work was seriously touched by Aksakov's views. With respect to the basic provisions of the Eman­ cipation Edict, Aksakov's role seems to have been nonexistent, or at most negligible. Not even Ivan expected recognition for his brother on this count. In regard to the peasant commune, however, Ivan in his preface to the 1861 edition of the Commentaries made an oblique but strong claim for his brother. Indeed, the quickness with which he got the manuscript and the two letters into print, within a few months after the Emancipation Edict, and his republication of them in 1883, show that he regarded them as important. This is particularly borne out in the preface to the second edition. He says there, "It can be said positively that Russia is indebted [obiazana] primarily to Samarin, with the able collaboration of Cherkassky, for the preservation . . . of the communal form of landownership in the Edict of February 19." Since communal landholding was the foundation of communal organization, Ivan says, "It is essential to be reminded that twentytwo years ago behind the commune and its mir order stood only . .. the Slavophils, and that all 'men of science,' and 'liberals' . . . those standing at the 'height of European culture and civilization' were its archenemies." A little later in the preface Ivan makes it clear that he considered Konstantin one of those who stood behind the commune. Samarin had been particularly patient and forbearing to­ ward Konstantin's continual hammering away at the inviolability of the commune. When Khomiakov, however, said that one cannot expect any occurrence to "manifest itself in reality or historically in complete purity and without admixture," Konstantin kept insisting 56 Ibid.,

pp.

110, 112.

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on a communal order undefiled by direct contact with government and Western ways. This placed Samarin in a position of "often jus­ tifying himself before his stern> idealist friend, something that he always did patiently and good-naturedly"—even though, as Ivan recalls, Samarin had likened a visit to Konstantin to the euphoria of "passing from a noisy street into a church."57 Samarin's world at the time was vastly different from Konstantin's. He knew all too well that the emancipation issue would be resolved not in a church but in the palace halls and bureaucratic offices of St. Petersburg, and he persisted in his work in spite of strong opposition, including threats of bodily harm from intransigent landlords.58 Samarin was willing to face opposition for the sake of his overriding goal, emancipation with land, and he knew, as Konstantin Aksakov did not know, that this goal was not assured or irrevocable. As a member of the original four "early" Slavophils, Samarin did not have to be convinced in the 1850's of the central place of the communal principle and the historical peasant commune in Slavophil ideology. His defense of the commune and of its preservation after emanci­ pation came to him as a matter of course. It is likely, however, that Konstantin's boundless devotion to the commune was reassuring to Samarin, and thus in his own way Aksakov probably contributed to its survival after 1861. It must be stressed that Konstantin Aksakov did not advocate that the people should absorb the state. Again and again he emphasized the alleged purity and Orthodoxy of the people and their apolitical nature. In 1855 he made the point forcefully in his "Memorandum to Alexander II," to which I have referred in earlier chapters. Al­ though it is unlikely that Alexander laid eyes on the memorandum— and certainly he would not have been much pleased with it if he had—the terms in which Aksakov defined his idea of the state and the people have direct bearing on the views he took of emancipation, 57Hus',

1883, no. 3, p. 32. In the late 1850's, while Konstantin sat dreaming of the perfect commune, Sa­ marin, Koshelev, and Cherkassky were being subjected to considerable abuse. They were "plied with poison-pen letters; Koshelev was driven out of the Riazan committee at one point; Cherkassky was censured by the gentry assembly of Tula and challenged to a duel (which was eventually averted); and Samarin for a time wore a pistol in his belt and was accompanied by serf bodyguards while attending committee meetings in Samara. And as deputies for the government, all three were accused of being traitors to their class, operating on secret orders from the government." Emmons, The Russian Gentry and Emancipation, p. 175. In additon to opposition from some of the landlords Samarin also had to cope with serious disagreements with Koshelev and Cherkassky. See Wortman, "Koshelev, Samarin, and Cherkassky and the Fate of Liberal Slavo­ philism," pp. 263, 268-279. 58

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as shown in the letters to Koshelev and Cherkassky, and in the com­ mentaries. Among other things, Aksakov wished to convince the tsar that he need not fear revolution from the narod. It was of course precisely because of such fear of a revolution from "below" that Alexander II declared two years later (1857) in favor of emancipation. The tsar would hardly have been convinced by Aksakov's argument that the Russians were different from the citizens of other nation-states in that they alone eschewed "sovereignty of the people" (narodovlastie), and political life in general. The Russian people had found the ul­ timate solution to the "great state-people" relationship, for if they had succumbed to political blandishments, they too would have lost the supreme goal in life, which is "inner truth, inner freedom, the spiritual exploit." This being so, Aksakov says, the only purpose of the state was "defense" (zashchita). It could never be the object of "power-hungry desires." 59 But given the people's noninterference in political life, state authority had to be unlimited, absolute, and in its one true form, monarchical. Other forms, such as democratic and aristocratic, were out of the question, since they involved participation of the people to a greater or lesser degree. In other words, Russia must avoid any sort of "mixed" constitution such as the English or the Athenian under the ten archons. Only under an absolute monarch, Aksakov declared, "can the narod insulate [otdelit'] itself from the state and deliver [izbavit'] itself from all participation in govern­ ment." What Aksakov saw as a dualism between state and land, govern­ ment and people, demanded "mutual noninterference"—hence his insistence on absolute political authority and absolute local, com­ munal autonomy. Between government and narod there could be only one bond, "public opinion." 60 This was the sole way in which the "narod should serve its government, and here is the living moral and not at all [niskol'ko ne] political bond." Consistent with such a relationship and with the supreme moral authority of the people, there could be no place in Russia for idolatry of the tsar. He makes this point several times, implying that the notion of the divine right of kings was a Western abomination, and he blasts away at Lomo59 Brodsky, flannie Slavianoflly, pp. 76-77. The memorandum was first published by Ivan Aksakov in Hus', 1881, no. 26, 11-15; no. 27, 17-20; no. 28, 12-14. For many years this edition was unavailable to me. As a result I have used the Brodsky text throughout this study. 80 Brodsky, flannie Slaviartofily, pp. 77-78.

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nosov for saying that Peter I was "your god, Russia." He reminds Alexander II that in Orthodoxy Christ alone is head of the church.61 Nearly everything bad in Russia, according to Aksakov, dated from the reign of Peter the Great. Before him, imports and innovations had been helpful to the people—he praises Aleksei, for example, for strengthening diplomatic relations with Western Europe, for ordering foreign journals, for building the "first Russian ship, Orel," for be­ ginning "the quiet and peaceful spread of enlightenment," including the establishing in Moscow of an institution of higher learning, a "university under a different name . . . the Slav-Greek-Latin Acad­ emy." Peter's innovations, on the other hand, were a "deep inner evil," an intrusion, and a profound disturbance of the peace and serenity of the nation.62 Moreover, the heritage of illegal acts and revolution that he introduced continued for the rest of the century and into the nineteenth. Catherine I came to the throne illegally; Anne was "illegally called" to reign; Elizabeth ascended the throne with the help of soldiers; and, he asks, "Is it necessary to speak about the deposing of Peter III?" The Decembrist revolt was a non-Rus­ sian—uncharacteristic—"fruit of the principles" that Peter intro­ duced. With total disregard for the four major peasant revolts since the Time of Troubles (Bolotnikov, Bulavin, Razin, Pugachev) and for countless lesser ones, Aksakov remarks glibly "how contrary to the Russian spirit every revolution is," and gives Alexander II the as­ tounding guarantee that the "absolute anti-revolutionism of the Rus­ sian people is the true prop of the throne."63 Still, he warns that there are several basic evils in Russian life that need immediate correction—these are the "inner ulcers [of] schism, serfdom, and venality." How is Russia to cope with these problems, and with the rampant temptation to "rob, pilfer, swindle?" As the government continues its intrusion into the life of the people they become "more and more contaminated," and "public debauchery increases." These evils have become so prevalent, Aksakov tells the tsar, that "bribery and bureaucratic thievery have become almost universal."64 Aksakov's recommendation for the way out of this national di­ lemma was not new or Russian but old, and one may even say West­ ern—that is, unleash public opinion through freedom of speech, put an end to the "suppression of the oral and written word." Censorship, he says ambiguously, can be condoned only when it is necessary to "guard the personality of man." Aside from that, free expression is 61

Ibid., pp. 79, 81, 90-92. p. 84. 63 Ibid., pp. 86-87. 64 Ibid., pp. 92, 94, 96. 62 Ibid.,

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THE CHORIC PRINCIPLE AND THE "LAND'

essential, not only for the consultative zemsky sobor, which he rec­ ommended should be reconstituted and convened in the future, but also for the people in order to bring into the open all public abuses. This way was the most effective and was thoroughly consistent with the Christian dignity and personal freedom of the Russian people. "Truth acting freely is always sufficiently strong to defend itself and pulverize all lies."65 Aksakov well knew that perfect solutions to any nation's problems are unattainable, but in this instance he seems to be saying to those critics who charged the Slavophils with utopianism—then and now—that he, supposedly the most Utopian of all, had a practical approach to some of Russia's most pressing problems, and one that had been proved effective abroad. Perhaps most important, Aksakov in this memorandum to the tsar made the point that Russia had to show respect for the thin line that separates man from animal. Under present conditions in Russia, he cautions, the people were not simply expected to have "good thoughts"; they were not expected "to have any thoughts at all." It was a system that if carried too far "transforms man into an [unthinking] animal."66 If in 1855 Aksakov sensed the precariousness of the spiritual bal­ ance in human beings, he was shortly to know it in his own person, after his father died and he felt himself to be no longer living. Late in 1859, after his severely critical letter to Prince Cherkassky, he wrote another, more personal letter to him in which he said, "Death for me has been slain for the first time because I myself have died."67 Although he is resolved to live, even in sorrow, he implies that it would be easy for him to give way to a state of total unthinking—an echo of his remarks to the tsar about what could happen to the people of Russia under the oppressive system of censorship. Without hope, without self-respect, even religion can mean nothing. "Christ's solace seems to man more frightful than sorrow itself," he says. "How dear to us are our faults, our semi-vices, and semi-virtues! It is a pity to have to part with transitoriness. How strong is the animal in man!"68 Thus the champion of the presumed moral and spiritual perfection of the common Russian people expressed serious doubts that com­ plete human rectitude could ever be achieved. 65 Ibid.,

pp. 95-96. p. 91. 67 Two letters from Aksakov to Cherkassky subsequent to the letter of August 26, 1859, are known; one is undated, the other is dated November 16, 1859.1 quote from the latter. They are printed in Trubetskaia, Kn. V. A. Cherkassky, I, book 2, pp. 120123, but without Cherkassky's replies. ® Ibid., p. 122. 66 Ibid.,

CONCLUSION Oh wad some power the giftie gie us To see oursels as others see us! —Robert Burns APPROACHING the study of Moscow Slavophilism through separate studies of its foremost proponents, A. S. Khomiakov, I. V. Kireevsky, K. S. Aksakov, and Iu. F. Samarin, has certain obvious advantages as well as certain disadvantages. Among the advantages is the pos­ sibility of a degree of precision in determining the sources of Sla­ vophil ideas and the amount of stress placed on them by each in­ dividual. The depth of mind and personalities of the several contributors thus revealed could be lost in a more general treatment. Slavophilism, like other kindred currents, was a synthesis, however imperfect, of the views and convictions of a number of strong in­ dividuals, each of whom had his own aptitudes and preferences and was conscious of his intellectual and spiritual independence, yet willingly associated with others and contributed to a "school" of thought. It was part of the essential character of Slavophilism that it should be a synthesis but not an amalgam. There was never a Slavophil party, which would have tended to produce a more unified ideology or program. Yet this is not to say that Slavophilism was no more than a collection of highly individual explorations; on the contrary, it had considerable cohesiveness and a strong ideological direction. In the 1840's and 1850's under the conditions imposed by Russian autocracy there could be no talk of political parties in Russia. The small, loosely held together, often ephemeral kruzhok, or circle, was the substitute, but there was an enormous difference between it and an organized, disciplined, and self-aware political party. The Sla­ vophil circle, including its dei minores and various sympathizers, did not include even two dozen persons through the 1850's, and of these, the four men who are the subjects of this introduction to nineteenth-century Russian Slavophilism contributed virtually all its doctrinal and programmatic points. In the absence of anything like formal affiliation, it is difficult to determine who else may have been a Slavophil, for how long, and to what extent. Slavophilism's wide-ranging scope and a certain amorphousness in the Slavophil mode of expression and association have led to confusion as to who was or was not a Slavophil. There were perhaps a few persons on the fringes of Slavophilism whose ideas, though not Slavophil, pos­ sibly even anti-Slavophil, nonetheless partook of some elements of

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"classical" Slavophilism. Some of these problems can more appro­ priately be raised in the final study. But it should be emphasized that, although Moscow or "classical" Slavophilism remains in some ways poorly defined, and contains contradictions, its core content is not at issue, and as has been well known for some time, it was practically the product of the four "early" Slavophils. In its most rudimentary form Slavophilism rested upon Khomiakov's doctrine of sobornost', Christian fellowship in love and free­ dom; upon Kireevsky's wholeness of the spirit, the free union in faith of all of man's cognitive faculties including reason; and upon Aksakov's choric principle, under which the social order is con­ ceived as a vast harmonious choir, and the individual as an artist with a social purpose. By the mid-1850's, with the help of Samarin, the fundamental principles of Moscow Slavophilism had been given their final elaboration and a certain degree of integration. This foun­ dation rested upon Eastern Orthodoxy as conceived and interpreted by Khomiakov and Kireevsky, and this means that Slavophilism was not free of personal and national bias. The essential and indispensable components of Moscow Slavo­ philism were agreed upon not by way of formal debate, nor even through informal debate at Jcruzhok meetings (such meetings were on the decline from the early 1850's), but came about in the natural course of thought and discussion. The starting point for all the ideas was Orthodoxy, and Moscow Slavophilism was in this sense a dis­ tinctly Russian school of thought, notwithstanding certain early (1830's) Western influences, notably romanticism, which was par­ ticularly strong in the case of Kireevsky and Aksakov. Although proprietary claims on ideas are not of major concern here, it is worth recalling a few essentials, in order to lay to rest the assertion, heard then and still repeated, that the Slavophils did not have a single idea that was not borrowed from second-rate Western thinkers, and that Russia in the nineteenth century did not produce a single noteworthy idea of its own. Few ideas belong to one nation alone. Orthodoxy in Russia is considered to be Russian, and Ca­ tholicism and Protestantism Western, but all three grew out of a Near Eastern doctrine. Western science, particularly mathematics, had its origins in classical Greece and the Near East. And yet a nation may take an idea, or an art form, as Russia did with the ballet, and make it its own. The important thing here is not the origin of an idea or an institution or an art form but what is done with it. Thus to say that Slavophilism, whether one considers it good or bad, was some sort of feeble variation on a familiar Western theme is to miss its essence, its meaning, and its message.

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Slavophilism was Russian in the sense that sobornost' was Rus­ sian. By this I do not mean that nothing like it had ever been heard of in the West, but rather that Khomiakov saw sobornost' in Eastern Orthodoxy, not in Catholicism, where the pagan Roman legacy of legalism, formalism, and cold rationalism rendered the Christian church indistinguishable from the state, or in Protestantism, which splintered the church into dozens of fragments. He found great sup­ port for his views in the Encyclical Epistle of the Eastern patriarchs of 1848, and made sobornost' the cornerstone of Slavophil doctrine. Similarly, Kireevsky's notion of wholeness of the spirit, which was inspired by ancient Eastern patristic ideas although superficially re­ minding one of certain recent romantic yearnings, does not rest on the same ground as secular romanticism. And though the communal order had once existed in the West as in Russia, Konstantin Aksakov found the centuries-old and still living Russian commune not in the West but in Russia, and on the Slavophils' own estates. His choric principle could be viewed as a secular expression of the principle of sobornost' and a sublimation of the historical and, in his day, far from moribund Russian village commune. In the case of Kireevsky's doctrine, perhaps even more than in the views of the other Slavophils, there was a strong but negative Western influence. Kireevsky believed that the individual in the West was being "atomized," split into separate faculties, partly because of a predilection for individualism and analysis. From "I think; therefore I am" and another variant, I have reason; therefore I am, Western man had shifted to I feel; therefore I am, and, as Kireevsky may or may not have realized, to the nineteenth-century variants, I am an economic being; therefore I am, and I have a will; therefore I am. Kireevsky strongly believed that the Western penchant for dividing the individual into separate compartments within which human fac­ ulty dwelt in isolation, if not in complete neglect of the other faculties until the next fashion set in, had gone far enough. Rather than being compartmented further, the individual needed reintegration, to­ gether with which would come the reintegration of society. In saying that cold, bloodless individualism, formalism, and legalism had iso­ lated Western man from his fellow men and that the process of division, separation, and isolation of the human faculties had reached absurd limits, Kireevsky and Khomiakov as well were de­ claring that the time had come for reconstituting both man and so­ ciety. Since the grotesqueness of defining the individual as being reason alone, or feeling, or will, or sexual appetite, or whatever, had gone further in the West than anywhere else, Kireevsky viewed the West as having quite as much need of the doctrine of the wholeness

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of the spirit as did Russia. There was more than a hint of messianism in the hope that his "Russian philosophy," based on Eastern patristic thought, would find applicability in the West as in his native land, and the notion could hardly have been joyfully accepted by the West. Konstantin Aksakov's resistance to the West was different from Kireevsky's. Aksakov bent his efforts in two directions: to fortify Russia against Western imports in the area of human relations and religion (as distinct from science and technology), and to give free rein to Russian principles and institutions, highly idealized and al­ legedly resting on Orthodox Christian foundations. Beginning in the Stankevich circle as a devotee of German liter­ ature and philosophy, particularly that of Hegel, Aksakov made a second try at Hegelianism at the turn of the 1840's, this time together with Iurii Samarin. But under Khomiakov's guidance the two young men came to realize that there was no way of reconciling the irrec­ oncilable, Hegelianism and Orthodoxy. The stumbling block was the West's millennial problem of the relationship of faith to reason, and Hegel's belief that faith had to submit to the sanction of reason, to that same human knowledge that was the forbidden fruit and the cause of the fall of man. With faith supreme, Khomiakov and Kireevsky saw no intrinsic conflict between faith and reason. It was characteristic of Aksakov and Belinsky that their anti-Hegelian reaction, once it came in the early forties, should have been similar in spite of the fact that they were no longer on speaking terms, and were rapidly moving in different directions. What they found lacking in Hegel, and the sort of thing that they chose to put in place of Hegelianism, showed how close they still were in one very important respect. Belinsky gave up Egor Fedorych (Hegel) be­ cause, although Hegel was concerned with the "higher rungs on the ladder of development," he had nothing to say about "all the victims of the circumstances of life and history, about all the victims of chance, superstition, the inquisition, Phillip II, etc., etc." That is when Belinsky resolved to devote himself to the betterment of the lot of his fellow man. Aksakov forsook Hegel in order to embrace the cause of the Russian people, the narod. Although the paths that Belinsky and Aksakov chose diverged widely, their all-absorbing social consciousness, scorned in principle by speculative philoso­ phy, was equally at odds with the prevailing Western bourgeois individualistic liberalism. Both abandoned Hegelian views about the merging of the Divine and the human, about "uncreated" truths, rational necessity, rational reality, and man's lack of freedom. Belinsky embarked on a course of positivistic socialism while Aksakov raised the Russian communal principle to a Christian verity and

CONCLUSION

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came close to a deification of the collective, the narod. He, more intensely than the other Slavophils, sought a middle ground or per­ haps a synthesis of what Vladimir Solov'ev later called the "hypnosis of individualism" and the "hypnosis of collectivism." Whatever Aksakov found, he left little doubt that he inclined toward the col­ lectivism of the village commune. For Aksakov, who never completely freed himself from certain residues of Western romanticism and Hegelianism, as also for the other early Slavophils, the Western concept of man as an embodi­ ment of reason, or again of feeling, or will, or aesthetic sensibility (or even the irrational and the subconscious) seemed both cold and incomprehensible. Since the days of the ancient Greeks, at least, man had had an awareness of his own complexity and the need for har­ mony among all his faculties. Why now did Western man seem to feel the need to distort the individual into an ever tighter mold? Was it that Western man sought to reveal the essence of God and thus felt compelled to elevate man by means of reason and speculative philosophy to the level of the Divine? The theocentric thought of the Slavophils was the opposite not of Western rationalism, positivism, or atheism but of its anthropotheism, which, far from denying all religion, at times endowed man with the gift of prophecy, eternity, infallibility, and omnipotence, as in the days of the Pharaohs. It is not at all surprising that the Slavophils should have sensed the Western dilemma and challenged Western rationalism and spec­ ulative philosophy. The West was ripe for such a challenge—and indeed there were some in the West, chief among them Kierkegaard, who were expressing anguished doubts about the West's faith in reason. Although Kierkegaard and the early Slavophils were contem­ poraries (Kierkegaard died in 1855, Kireevsky in 1856, and Khomiakov and Aksakov in 1860), there is no evidence that they had heard of one another, nor can they easily be compared except in their Christian challenge to German idealism, specifically Hegelianism, and to rationalism and speculative philosophy. The aversion of the Slavophils for the German "study-thinking mentality" (kabinetnoe myshlenie) was more than matched by Kierkegaard's disdain for the Dozenten, and they both opposed that powerful Western anthro­ potheism which in one way or another, bolstered by the agelong Western cataphatic religious tradition, nurtured the hope that God was somehow accessible to human knowledge, and the equally chal­ lenging thought that not everything was possible for Him. The Slavophils, although not free of doubts and personal problems, did not experience the never ending inner turmoil which accom­ panied Kierkegaard's search for a Christian faith capable of redeem-

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ing man after the fall. Kierkegaard's struggles were more akin to those of Dostoevsky, whose existentialism, like Kierkegaard's, related to the role of faith in Christianity and to faith's imperative applicability to Christian living. The Slavophils, lacking Dostoevsky's genius and clinging to the apophatic tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy, were con­ vinced that God is not knowable by any means at the disposal of man, and were therefore saved the anguish of trying to resolve the problem of faith against reason. Luther's intense concern for personal salvation and Kierkegaard's no less intense search for a living faith seemed to dissolve in Sla­ vophil sobornost' and Orthodox apophaticism. Quite simply, with­ out anguished soul-searching, Kireevsky declared in 1856 that there was no inherent conflict between faith and reason, "For what kind of religion is it that cannot stand in the light of science and con­ sciousness? What kind of faith is it that is incompatible with reason?" God's mysteries and designs can never be completely known to man, and will never become accessible to reason, to any other human faculty or to all human faculties together. The Slavophils did not see two antagonistic realms locked in mortal struggle. For them, there was only one realm—that of "believing reason" or "believing think­ ing," the "inner concentration of existence where reason, and sen­ timent, and conscience, and the beautiful, and the true, and the wondrous, and the desirable, and the just, and the merciful, and the whole realm of the mind flow together into one living unity, re­ creating in this manner the actual personality of man in its primeval indivisibility." Far from yielding to despair at the thought of the fall of man, Kireevsky attributed the violation of man's integrity to "sin," and found "serenity" in the knowledge of man's primeval wholeness. Epistemologically, he arrived at a hierarchical or "level" structure, with faith on the highest plane, and saw the Orthodox believer as "constantly striving to elevate reason to the level at which it can be in sympathy with faith." The Slavophil position on this crucial issue was the opposite of Hegel's. Faith was not inferior to rational knowl­ edge but prior and superior to it. In this instance as in other matters of religion the Christian Or­ thodox tradition stood the Slavophils in good stead. It provided them with a firm link to past generations of Christians and strengthened their sense of sobornost' and Christian brotherhood. When Khomiakov said in jest that "the Russian alone will not find his way to heaven, but a whole Russian village cannot be denied entrance to it," he brought out very simply the Orthodox social core of Moscow Slavophilism. For Slavophil Orthodoxy was above all else social

CONCLUSION

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Christianity, and Dostoevsky, who took sharp issue with the Sla­ vophils on certain points but never shook off everything that he heard and learned from them, could say a year before his death, in contrast to Herzen many years earlier, that Orthodoxy is "our Russian socialism." And the Orthodoxy that he had in mind was not that of the official Russian church. No summary of the Slavophil reaction to Western thought and religion should fail to stress the Slavophils' "one-sidedness," clearly reflected in their views of Western thought. Their almost monolithic concept of Western philosophy and religion, both Catholic and Prot­ estant, was biased and not entirely factual. This, coupled with their idealization of Russian Orthodoxy, resulted in serious distortion. Rationalism was not quite so pervasive in Roman Catholicism as the Slavophils presented it to be. Khomiakov, for instance, failed to notice that Tertullian as early as the second and third centuries, Peter Damian in the eleventh, and John Duns Scotus and his pupil William of Ockham in the thirteenth, both Franciscans, defended the antirationalist thesis that God is free will, and that neither "uncreated" truths nor any principle or law could stand above Him. Khomiakov's complaint that the German Glaube was feeble and unimportant in German philosophy is perhaps well taken with respect to Hegelianism and German rationalism and idealism, but the same could not be said of Luther's compelling sola fide, which had a central place in Lutheranism. Of course German rationalism had no connection with this strain in Lutheranism, the line of descent to Hegel being through Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Kant. But Berdiaev is not wrong in reproaching Khomiakov for his failure to appreciate the nonrationalist, mystical current in Germany. Particularly important are Khomiakov's neglect of the Lutheran Jacob Bohme and the Catholic Franz Baader. Al­ though Berdiaev seems certain that Baader (1765-1841) did not in­ fluence Khomiakov (1804-1860), he sees "kinship in spirit" in their views. On the other hand, it should be stressed that Khomiakov, and particularly Kireevsky, recognized the merit and independence of Pascal and the Port Royal school in France, showing perhaps that they were not totally oblivious to nonrational Western thought. On balance, the Slavophils sensed, as some had done in the West, that reason and its progeny—speculative philosophy, science, and technology, the crowning glory of the Western achievement—were not an unmitigated blessing, and that Western man and civilization were paying a heavy price for the unrestrained domination of reason. The Slavophil warning was unheeded in the West, and if it was noticed at all it was dismissed perfunctorily, as if it were mere pre-

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CONCLUSION

sumption for a Russian to challenge anything in the West. In Russia, the weak liberal center, and particularly the strong left, sharply at­ tacked the Slavophil religious and philosophical premises, but the thought of the classical Slavophils did not lose its appeal for Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Vladimir Solov'ev, and others. The Slavophils, like many of the outstanding figures in nineteenthcentury Russian arts and literature, were amateurs who worked in fields for which they had no special training. (Khomiakov was a mathematics major, Dostoevsky studied military engineering, Bo­ rodin chemistry and after that medicine; Rimsky-Korsakov was a naval officer, Mussorgsky a civil servant, Chekhov a physician; Tol­ stoy had no major subject, Goncharov was a civil servant, a censor; Konstantin Aksakov majored in the liberal arts.) For this reason, when Aksakov is characterized as the historian of the Slavophils— and this is often done—it can only be with qualifications. Aksakov was not a historian of the category of Karamzin, Sergei Solov'ev, and Kliuchevsky. He was not at all interested in, or suited for, careful historical scholarship, and had he been compelled by circumstances to engage in it, he would probably have found it most uncongenial, as would have Khomiakov and Kireevsky. There was not much of the GeIehrter in Konstantin, as his brother Ivan has told us, nor in the older Slavophils, widely read though they were; and though they had a profound respect for the superb achievements of German schol­ arship, including speculative philosophy, they had no love for the sistematik. The two-and-two-is-four mentality, which later so enraged Dostoevsky, was already seriously suspect in the Slavophil epistolary exchanges of the early 1850's. The cold mechanical use of reason, logic, and data seemed to the Slavophils to have gone so far as to have enserfed Western man. There was something as implacable in this as the Old Testament injunction of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. This is good logic and good arithmetic: one equals one. But this is the logic not of life but of eternal retribution. In place of this the New Testament advanced the illogical, nonarithmetical, and in­ consistent admonition to turn the other cheek, in which case, seem­ ingly, two equals zero! This shortcoming of German rationalism and "systematism" was brought out most clearly in the correspondence between Koshelev and Ivan Aksakov in late 1852 and 1853. Both men were interested in the relationship between rationalism and Christianity, and under the influence of Khomiakov and Kireevsky were reading some of the Eastern Orthodox church fathers. "We are not Germans but Rus­ sians," Ivan Aksakov wrote in June 1853. "We err not because of our

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systematism but because of its absence." And a week later, "I feel that systematism is false, artificial, cold, that there is in it self-sat­ isfaction, but no living relationship to God, no freedom." Toward the end of the same letter he amplified this, saying that the Slavophil "noble inconsistency" is the exact opposite of the law of reason and mathematical logic, and that it convinced him to say, "Let the un­ systematic person [bezsistemnyz] love the truth of Christ with all his heart, let him enlighten his inner understanding of the word of Christ; it is easier for him to do this than for the systematic person." It was this inner comprehension, the "comprehension of the soul," that Ivan's brother, more a poet than a historian, put to use in his study of Russian history, in place of the German type of systematic research in the source materials of Russia's past. This approach, somewhat surprisingly perhaps, proved unusually vital and timely, though not so much in itself as in the work that grew out of it. It is of no special concern here whether the Slavophils "discovered" the Russian commune, or whether they were the "first" to mention it in public and in print. One would, however, be hard put to contend that anyone else contributed more to stimulating interest and re­ search in such basic Russian institutions as the mir, commune, artel', zemsky sobor, duma; in exploring the role of the people (narod) in Russian history in addition to the standard approach through the study of tsars, the nobility, and administrations; in defining Ortho­ doxy in terms somewhat different from those of the historical Russian church; and finally in contributing, for good or bad, to the reappraisal of past cultural relations between Russia and the West. On all these, except the religious issue, which was not his province, Konstantin Aksakov's work, for all its many shortcomings, merits the attention of all those concerned with Russian history. SOCIOLOGY was not yet an academic discipline in the 1830's or even

the 1840's (the word in English dates from 1843), and Ivan Kireevsky had no more training in the study of sociology than Aksakov did in history. Yet Kireevsky and the other early Slavophils raised a number of basic sociological questions which after the Slavophils were gone engaged the attention and scholarship, in varying degrees, of Fer­ dinand Tonnies, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, Le Play, D. H. Cooley, and others. Whether late nineteenth-century Western sociology was familiar with classical Slavophilism, and if so whether it was in any way touched by it, is a question beyond the scope of this study, and furthermore it does not seem particularly important. The pertinent fact here is that in the middle of the last century the Slavophils were cognizant of a wide range of problems that belong to the central area

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where history, sociology, and cultural and social anthropology over­ lap. To these problems they sought solutions in their own way, that of the intuitive, ethical-Christian response as distinct from Western scholarly "systematism." Creativity in Russia or the West does not necessarily depend on "systematism," and even in the physical sci­ ences "intuition," the "hunch," and pure chance have never been ruled out. With respect to the classical Slavophils and their labors in the field of sociology, which in their day was not yet academically de­ fined, one is greatly favored by the recent work of Andrzej Walicki. He has brightly illuminated a major Slavophil contribution to the study of social formations and their relationship to the individual, which to the non-specialist confronted with sociological problems might seem disconcertingly removed from Russia's pressing prob­ lems of the day, but which was quite important to Russian thought at the time. From the late 1840's on, particularly in the works of Konstantin Aksakov and Iurii Samarin, but also in those of the two older Slavophils and their friends Koshelev and Ivan Aksakov, the matter of early Russian social organization became not only a his­ torical and sociological concern but a central ideological bone of contention with the liberal Westerners, Kavelin, Sergei Solov'ev, and later Chicherin. It goes without saying that the pivotal theme in the polemic— whether the ancient Russian social order was communal or clan— could not be dispassionately investigated by either side. As usually happens in such situations, the controversy produced more argument than fact when facts were much needed and were extremely hard to find. The Slavophils contended that the ancient Russian order was communal, transcending physiological blood ties, and was therefore an expression of a highly developed social consciousness, the prov­ idential prerequisite for the reception of Christianity. The Westerners held that the ancient Russian social order was of the clan, blood type, as in a certain stage in the evolution of all nations. They saw, of course, no bond between the clan order and Christianity. From their position of devotion to the communal principle and the historical and still functioning Russian village commune, the Slavophils engaged in a double controversy—a direct one with the Russian Westerners and an indirect, one-sided one with the West, an opponent who was scarcely aware of the Slavophils' existence. Not content with contrasting the Russian commune with historical clan organizations, the Slavophils also took on the prevalent Western phenomenon of the association, thus in effect touching upon soci­ ology and cultural and social anthropology as well as upon the more

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conventional areas of history, economics, psychology, and political science. Latex, in the work of Ferdinand Tonnies (b. 1855) and in the field of sociology, the two sides of this debate became the well-known contrast between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft—community and society. Irrespective of Tonnies, this distinction had important over­ tones in the areas of psychology, law, economics, and comparative anthropology. In its rudimentary Slavophil form, notably in the works of Aksakov and Kireevsky, that which later became known as Gemeinschaft was identified with the people, the "Land" (people of the land or common people). Specifically with respect to the bulk of Russia or Great Russia, the people (narod) were members of local communes, and also, in Aksakov's view, of the great Russian com­ mune or the Russian nation conceived as a vast commune. This was the narod which Aksakov dramatically contrasted with the "public," the minority, the Russian gentry and intelligentsia who were said to have forsaken the simplicity, communality, and Orthodoxy of the Land for Western ways and thought. The first was natural, organic, whole, and living, the second artificial, imported, grafted by design, and surviving but alien and not vital. In Walicki's summary, Tonnies distinguished between the "natural will" of Gemeinschaft and the "rational will" of Gesellschaft. In the Slavophil view, Kireevsky's specifically, the first embodied the whole personality, the second the "personality disintegrated by ra­ tionalism." Tonnies's Gemeinschaft, like the Slavophil commune, was a "living organism," whereas Gesellschaft—that is, Aksakov's public—was an "artificial product." The first was characterized by "organism," the second by "mechanism." Gemeinschaft was per­ vaded by a sense of family solidarity, common faith, and custom and rested on concord, whereas Gesellschaft was a matter of a "temporary community of interests" based on legal, contractual relationships. Kireevsky also made the distinction between conviction (which he identified with religion, the result of "life as a whole") and opinion, the product of "logical reasoning." On the crucial question of private property as well, Tonnies's Ge­ meinschaft resembled the Slavophil commune in that neither im­ plied an absolute right to property. It must be stressed, however, that the Slavophils as landowners found it convenient and reassuring to claim that their own right to private property was limited, like the right of the peasants, to land in the village commune. In fact, although the land at the disposal of the village commune was for the most part communally held, the land of the landlords was individually held as virtually unlimited private property. In the Gemeinschaft, as in

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CONCLUSION

the Russian commune, the land question and all other matters were governed by common custom, or family law, rather than by formal theoretical statute law. In the Gemeinschaft as in the Russian village commune, the com­ mon people, the narod, were the key element. Standing in contrast to the harmony of the people in the commune was the life of society, Aksakov's public, a life of constant, sometimes concealed tension and conflict. On the one hand were the "stable customs" of the commune, on the other the "whims and fashions" of society—that is to say, the organic, inner, spiritual unity of the Gemeinschaft was the antithesis of the conflict and individual rivalries of the Gesellschaft. Many of these points of contrast were brought out in the Slavophil criticism of ancient Roman civilization, and Walicki stresses the "remarkable" similiarities between Kireevsky's and Tonnies's criticism of Roman law and its role in "the erosion of 'organic' social ties," as well as the importance of Slavophil criticism of Western feudalism and the corresponding views in the works of Tonnies and Max Weber. He also distinguishes between Kireevsky's sociological views and Tonnies's "incomparably more complex and internally coherent contribution to sociological theory." One should perhaps add that the inspiration for the Slavophil sociological views did not come from a scholar's study but from the living Russian village commune. The Slavophils presumed to be dealing with life, not with theory. Yet this Slavophil contribution was not irrelevant to sociological theory, for as Walicki has said, "the Slavophile think­ ers anticipated a theory put forward later by many nineteenth-cen­ tury sociologists (Le Play, Tonnies, and Durkheim) as well as by contemporary scholars." IF the Slavophils had divided their studies into well-defined aca­ demic subjects they would have produced tracts and monographs not only on sociology but also on economics, psychology, anthro­ pology, literature, and political science. There is, of course, nothing in Khomiakov's eight volumes of collected works, Kireevsky's two volumes, Aksakov's three volumes, or in the score of individually published works which remotely resembles such specialized and systematic writing, and on economic questions as on others Slavo­ phil views have to be sorted out of the mass of interwoven comments. Here again the village commune is the center where ethical-religious, psychological, administrative, social, and economic problems meet and often imperceptibly intersect or, perhaps more accurately, co­ alesce. In their examination of the commune, the four leading Sla­ vophils agreed on the importance of its economic function in the

CONCLUSION

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daily lives of both peasant and landlord. They clearly understood that the commune was the productive agricultural unit on which the serf, the state, and the landlord were dependent for their income. For the peasant, the economic function was hardly less important than the religious, ethical, and psychological functions, and the Sla­ vophils were in strong opposition to the liberal faction that wanted to replace the commune and communal landholding with a Westernstyle system of small private holdings. The main arguments of the liberals against the commune were that it inhibited personal initiative, self-reliance, and freedom of move­ ment, and that by its custom of occasional and irregular land redis­ tribution it presumably discouraged land improvement. The Slavo­ phil pro-commune views were conveniently summarized in 1865 by Khomiakov's young friend and admirer, A. F. Gil'ferding, whose reply to the liberals was that the Russian village commune was not the product of Utopian socialist dreams but the practical historical outgrowth of Russian national life, which in part rectifies the ine­ qualities of nature and man's greed. Far from stifling the individual, Gil'ferding argued, the commune provided him with a considerable degree of local self-government, some property, and a measure of material security. The peasant's freedom of movement was limited not so much by the mir as by the government and the landlord, and land redistribution was neither universal nor as regular as the liberals believed it to be. Gil'ferding pointed out that after February 19,1861, the commune could be dissolved by a two-thirds vote of its members, but the strength of the institution was proved by its having become since 1861 the "principal producer of bread in the country." In contrast to what had happened in the West, where the worker was deprived of the essential "material base" of freedom, the Russian commune by providing such a base prevented the creation of the dreaded West­ ern-type proletariat. The difference between the Western laissez-faire concept of freedom and the Slavophil concept was vividly under­ scored in Gil'ferding's assertion that the Russian mir "does not un­ derstand the individual freedom of man alone, which for it is wolf freedom, and not human freedom." For it, freedom of the individual needs a "material fulcrum." Thus the Russian peasant commune had to go beyond mere personal liberty and provide it with an economic foundation. Even though the Slavophil view of the history and character of the commune was a much simplified one (and the liberal view even more so), the Slavophils recognized that there was a close connection between the past and future of the commune and the problem of the

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land. This was another enormously complex and difficult issue, and in the days of the Slavophils, particularly at the end of the 1850's, both questions were fused with the overriding question of the eman­ cipation of the serfs. From the early 1840's the Slavophils had op­ posed serfdom. Led first by Khomiakov and then by Samarin and Koshelev, who became well known for their pro-emancipation views, they insisted upon emancipation with land and upon preservation of the village commune. Being pro-emancipation did not imply readiness to sacrifice their own economic interests and social position, but the Slavophils were quite willing to sell part of their lands to the mir if they could be compensated by the government, since the mir itself had no funds. It should be added, too, that the preservation of the commune was for them also a matter of self-interest in that they found it easier, and perhaps safer, to deal with the mir functionaries on their estates than with individual peasants. For all the self-interest involved, however, preservation of the commune was a matter of firmly held principle. They could not condone the Western concept of individual freedom, too formal and too legalistic to suit them, and too susceptible to degeneration into predatory "wolf freedom." Such freedom might have been an aberration of the "Puritan ethic," but there is no ques­ tion that to the sobornost'-minded Slavophils the Western doctrine of laissez faire was quite uncongenial. That the Russian village com­ mune and the kindred artel' on the whole survived the emancipation reform of 1861, the Stolypin reforms early in this century, and the October revolution, up until 1930, is irrefutable testimony that, whether desirable or not, the commune had not outlived its useful­ ness in the middle of the nineteenth century. On two counts the liberal opponents of Slavophilism were a good deal more Utopian than the Slavophils, who were, and still are, tediously, mechanically, and indiscriminately branded Utopians by their opponents. On the vitality of the commune the Slavophils were closer to the facts than their critics were, and they were more astute in seeing the unlike­ lihood of successfully transplanting the Western type of individual freedom and unbridled, mid-nineteenth-century, laissez-faire eco­ nomic enterprise on the centuries-old Russian communal soil. Increasing the efficiency of agriculture in an overwhelmingly peas­ ant and poor society was, as the Slavophils well knew from firsthand experience on their estates, one of the nation's most complex prob­ lems, for which solutions were urgently needed. It is not surprising that as a group the Slavophils showed much interest in the devel­ opment of scientific farming and in agricultural technology. Koshelev and Kireevsky both recognized the necessity for the harnessing of

CONCLUSION

439

"chemistry, botany, technology, and mechanics" in the service of modern farming. Koshelev traveled to London in 1851 to see the latest English and American agricultural machinery at the Crystal Palace and soon introduced some on his own estates. He was one of the leading authorities in Russia on agricultural technology.

Individual efforts of this sort were hardly a solution for the country as a whole, nor were the efforts at railroad building, which the Sla­ vophils welcomed, anything more than a beginning to a solution of Russia's transportation problem. With an impecunious government, a debt-ridden gentry class, an abysmally poor peasantry, and hardly anything in between—the third estate was insignificant and the en­ trepreneurial class extremely small—where was the necessary capital to be found? Russia, unlike England, Holland, and other parts of Western Europe, never experienced the several centuries of capital accumulation that preceded the industrial revolution in the West. The Slavophils at least knew where they stood on the question of emancipation, the land, and the village commune, though they had no broad solution to the complex agricultural problem. On the ques­ tion of industrialization they were less certain. From reading and from their travels and observations in Western Europe they had some knowledge of industrial capitalism. They were dismayed and de­ pressed by the lot of the Western industrial worker; they feared and abhorred the appearance of the proletariat, and wished to escape it entirely in Russia. They had illusionary hopes that the Russian com­ munal experience would save Russia from the "ulcer of proletarization." Thus at the end of the 1840's Khomiakov entertained the vain hope that somehow out of the age-old Russian village commune would evolve a "phalanx" (falanstera) or an "industrial commune." Nothing more was heard of this Utopian dream, and a decade later he, like the rest of the early Slavophils, had no more a solution to the problem of industrialization in Russia than before. Somewhat belatedly, toward the end of his life, Khomiakov became aware of the British cooperative movement and, more as a matter of con­ science than as a policy or a course of action, declared that in Eng­ land, "unions of small capital or labor are being formed on a vast scale, promising a new era in its national life. The savage power of property [dikaia sila sobstvennosti] is being bridled by the demands of human morality." Beyond this pious sentiment Khomiakov had nothing to say about industrialization, which was as unavoidable for Russia, despite the time lag, as for the rest of Europe; it was the fatefully neglected issue, for neglect was an assurance that the "sav­ age power of property" would not be "bridled" in Russia any more than in the West. This is a factual judgment of Khomiakov's, but

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CONCLUSION

perhaps it is unduly harsh. Viewed from the perspective of the 1850's, the Slavophil perspective, the industrial problem in Russia was secondary compared with the overriding need to rid Russia of serfdom. THE SUBJECT of the Slavophils and literature has been touched on

in varying degrees of thoroughness, and from several different points of view. The amount of writing on this subject is extensive. In the Soviet Union, particularly, it seems to be receiving increasing atten­ tion. One recent work is Professor V. I. Kuleshov's fine monograph, Slavianofily i russkaia literatura (1976), and in 1978 the Soviet Academy of Sciences published a collective work under the editor­ ship of K. N. Lomunov et al. entitled Literaturnye vzgliady i tvorchestvo slavianofilov, 1830-1850 gody. I have taken particular note in this volume of the literary works and literary criticism of Konstantin Aksakov, but he was not exceptional among the Slavophils in his interest in literature and criticism. Literature was part of the family and social heritage of all the Slavophils, besides being a matter of personal preference. Perhaps no subject was more discussed than literature in the Moscow salons of the thirties and forties—German and English literature in the 1830's, particularly romantic, or in­ creasingly in the next decade Russian literature, with heavy empha­ sis on Pushkin and Gogol'. During the 1850's Turgenev and Dostoevsky came in for Slavophil consideration, and the Slavophils' keen literary sense served them well when young Tolstoy appeared on the Russian literary scene in the middle 1850's. It did not take Khomiakov long to recognize the literary merit and promise in the youthful author. With their proficiency in French and German, and in Khomiakov's case also English, the Slavophils read the Western literary master­ pieces in the original. But instead of wringing their hands over Rus­ sia's lack of a great body of literature of its own, they looked forward with enthusiasm to a future when Russia would be recognized along with England, France, and Germany as a great literary nation. Ar­ guments about "historical" and "unhistorical" nations carried no weight with them. They were confident that they were seeing the birth of their own literature in the writings of Gogol', Turgenev, and others, whose works they read and discussed and whom they often encouraged. Aksakov may have exalted Gogol' to a higher literary pedestal than he deserved, but Gogol's merit could not be denied. Wittingly or not, the Slavophils were themselves nurturing a new quasi-literary genre, that of publicistic writing. More than anything else, the Slavophils were polemical publicists, who sparred with the

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no less brilliant and able Belinsky, Herzen, Granovsky, Kavelin, and Sergei Solov'ev. By the very nature of the writers' genius, and because of their historical circumstances, literary criticism and publicistic work in mid-nineteenth century were merged into one integral sphere. Matters of public, national, and often individual concern could not be freely aired in print; therefore literary criticism became a convenient and often the only means of bringing such concerns before the reading public. But even without the onerous intrusion of censorship, the special character of classical Russian literature, in which literary and ethical matters are closely interwoven, would have tended to emphasize the affinity between literary criticism and publicistic work. This melding of the literary with the ethical, by no means unknown in the West, is a characteristic of much of the Rus­ sian literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and is strikingly reflected in the great Russian periodical literature of the nineteenth century. It is curious that the Slavophils should have had so much more difficulty with the censors than did the liberals and even the radical Westerners, for all of them shared certain views that the government found distasteful. They agreed in principle on the importance of art, notably literature, with a social purpose, and the radical Westerners, Chernyshevsky in particular, found it easy to share the Slavophil views in regard to the village commune and the social communal principle, which the Slavophils had made their own since the early 1840's. Khomiakov, speaking one assumes for all the early Slavophils, welcomed the young Tolstoy to membership in the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature (of which he was president) in February 1859 with a speech in which he made specific reference to the importance of literature as a way of expressing ethical and social concerns. The "rights of literature, the servant of eternal beauty," he said, "do not destroy the investigative-accusatory [oblichitel'naia] literature which always accompanies human imperfection, and which sometimes ap­ pears in the role of the healer of public ulcers." In spite of the Slavophils' manifest patriotism and Russianism, their principal in­ terest was not in national preservation—even after the Crimean War—nor in territorial expansion and empire building, but rather in cultural creativity, at the apex of which stood literature. But the literature they had in mind was a matter not only of the imagination but also of the purported national Christian spirit and consciousness. It was not simply the individual who was of literary interest but also the narod and the principle of sobornost'. Here again we are led to a striking difference between Western and

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CONCLUSION

Slavophil notions. The list is long—rationalism as against wholeness of the spirit; Protestant individualism and Catholic ecclesiastical centralism and statism against sobornost'; individualism and legal­ ism against customary communality; individual enterprise and ini­ tiative against communal effort and social concern; personal isola­ tion against social integration. To these we can add the difference in attitudes toward government, perhaps to most Western observers the most baffling of all. The difference here is between the exaltation in the West of political life and of participation in it, both conceived as the height of civic virtue and personal distinction, against the Slavophil withdrawal and even recoil from politics in general. The Slavophils, particularly Khomiakov and Konstantin Aksakov, easily and fatefully projected their own political convictions into the na­ tional character of the Russian people, the narod, concluding that the Russians were a nonpolitical nation. There was a certain Christian motivation behind this attitude— Christ's complete uninvolvement in political life was, of course, the example. In a negative sort of way, Rome's elevation and perfection of the legal and physically compulsive element in the state and in political life was also a reason. In Aksakov, the Normanist theory, with its concomitant assumption that the Kievan Slavs were a peaceloving people not given to compulsion and the use of force, was evidently a strong conviction. The contrast often drawn between the constantly warring West and the allegedly peaceful Russians, with the equally dubious contrast between the prevalence of conquest in the West and the peaceful, communal life of the Russians and the Slavs, was still another possible argument. These may have been no more than fictions, but they carried great force. For Khomiakov, and even more for Konstantin Aksakov, there was no doubt about the nonpolitical nature of the Russian people, and since it was a conviction it required no proof. No proof was needed to show that the Russian people did not wish to govern and preferred the life of the spirit; or that this choice embodies the true values of life and should serve as inspiration to the less worthy political, executive organ—the government; or that the tsar, far from being the master of the Russian people, was or should be their best servant; or that the state was of an inferior order as compared with the nation, the narod. At times, both Khomiakov and Aksakov theoretically re­ jected the state, arriving at a form of Slavophil anarchism. For the most part, however, the Slavophils upheld the Russian monarchy, because they conceived it as most suitable for Russia, but only as a secular government bearing no relation to the rule by divine right of kings in the West. At the same time, they rejected Western notions

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of constitutional guarantees or checks and balances as being un­ worthy of the noble narod. And with the exception of Samarin and Ivan Aksakov, they had a lofty contempt for government service and the bureaucracy, which they thought dragged the people down. The Slavophils had good and sufficient personal reasons for this loathing. In the early 1830's the government banned Kireevsky's journal Evropeets. Throughout the 1840's it denied Slavophil re­ quests for a journal. In 1849 it imprisoned for about two weeks first Samarin, then Ivan Aksakov. Nicholas I accused them of expressing in writing anti-government views, and personally intervened in their chastisement. The censors became particularly harsh in 1853, when after the Slavophil symposium of the preceding year they banned the rest of several projected issues. Even the banning of "Russian dress" and "Russian beards" seemed designed particularly to annoy Konstantin Aksakov. The Crimean War provided an excuse for even tighter controls, and in 1854 and 1855 the Slavophils seemed to have reached their low point. Khomiakov's indignation overflowed in his well-known poem Rossii, and almost sent him into exile. In lines such as these, F. F. Vigel' and others, in St. Petersburg darkly saw the "beginning of heresy": Smeared with dark injustice in the law courts, And branded with the mark of slavery; Full of godless flattery, foul lies, Of deadly apathy and vice, And every other known depravity! Unworthy of your calling, You are the chosen nonetheless! Kireevsky's wrath against existing conditions, and against Nicho­ las I, was given full play at the end of 1855 in a letter to P. A. Viazemsky, deputy minister of education. Written only a few months after the death of Nicholas I, and a few months before Kireevsky's own death, this letter remained unknown for more than a century. When it was first published in 1966, its editor Μ. I. Gillel'son called it Kireevsky's "spiritual testament," and compared it with Belinsky's famous letter to Gogol'. Whereas Viazemsky eulogized Nicholas I, Kireevsky gave vent to his bitterness over the tsar's draconian cen­ sorship and the stifling of Russian art and thought. To praise the tsar "for his patronage and sympathy for education and literature," Kireevsky sarcastically said, "is the same as praising Socrates for his beautiful profile." As if not to be outdone by his older fellow Slavophils, Aksakov drafted at the same time (1855) his well-known "Memorandum [ Za-

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CONCLUSION

piska] to Alexander II," on the internal state of Russia. This fortyodd-page statement of Slavophil views, principles, and policies is often audacious, often strident, and though it is written as a guide to policy and action for a tsar who had just ascended the throne of a vast multinational empire, it ends as an exhortation. With char­ acteristic Slavophil bias Aksakov distinguished between the state and the narod, or the "Land" (ZemIia), and left no doubt that the true substance of Russia was the narod, not the state, the monarch, or Aksakov's own gentry class. The unforgivable sin of Peter the Great was that during his reign the state usurped the primacy of the narod, while the monarch became a "despot" and the people his "slaves." The influence of this "oppressive system" of government was soon translated into "discord," "falsehood," "deceit," and cor­ ruption. Much that the Slavophils disliked or hated was identified in this Zapiska. Aksakov considered the state, as an institution, Roman and German rather than Slav or Russian. It was to be tolerated merely because of human weakness. The Slavophils abhorred and feared the bureaucracy recruited heavily from their own class, and felt that it was more oppressive for the serfs than the landlords were. Finally, they conceived the tsar not as a God-appointed lord and master but as the repository of the necessary but unworthy, "dirty" political function of the state, a function they contrasted with the superior, noble life of the spirit that was led by the nation, the narod. Indeed, the "going to the people" movement did not begin in the Russian villages in the 1870's but in the Slavophil salons in the 1840's and 1850's. There was something profoundly democratic and paradoxical about these Russian aristocrats who marched so resolutely against their own class and for the narod. When Aksakov raised his hymn to free speech and public opinion he passionately wished that the "Land" as well as the individual could be heard in Russia. The concluding exhortation was an expression of his deep romantic mys­ ticism: "To the government the right of action, and therefore of law; to the people the right of opinion, and therefore of speech." The fog of hostile opinion that has built up around classical Sla­ vophilism has been to a considerable extent the result of charges against it that relied on the tendentious use of the words "conser­ vative," "romantic," and "Utopian." Branding Slavophilism in this manner was considered then and has often been considered since then sufficient to discredit it without examining it or refuting it. But the Slavophil views on the role of the narod in Russian history, on Russian local institutions such as the commune, on the distinctions between state and people, commune and association, were not only

CONCLUSION

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not Utopian but, from a scholarly point of view, were timely and even prophetic. Nor was there anything Utopian or conservative about their visions of Russian literature, art, and music, or of an improved agriculture which would benefit the landlord as well as the commune and narod. Their concern for Russian literature and their encouragement of it was genuine and practical. In their general approval of the new railroads (shared with the Westerners, though Aksakov wavered), agricultural technology, and modernization there was no class or group ahead of the Slavophils. They may have been in advance of their time, but they were not Utopian. Even on the question of government and politics they cannot be branded as com­ pletely Utopian, for their pleas for freedom of conscience, speech, and opinion, reform of the legal and judicial system, and local selfgovernment were not beyond reason. Finally, on one of the most crucial reforms in Russian history, the emancipation of the serfs, the Slavophils were not only not "utopian" but took a leading part in bringing it about. What was truly Utopian, conservative, and romantic in Slavophi­ lism has been brought out in these volumes and in many other studies of Slavophilism, and needs no further recounting. Moreover, this volume has already strayed too far from the Slavophil manner of writing and expression, which was more simply integrated, more spontaneous, and more lively than the dissertation form which they disliked and eschewed. Obviously this and the preceding two studies are oversystematized, overrationalized, and overorganized. The Sla­ vophils never ceased saying simply that there is something beyond the state—and even more, that there is something beyond man, be­ yond reason, beyond logic, beyond law, beyond science. A world that has brought itself to the brink of total extinction might well pause to ponder the Slavophil version of these universal concerns, although the search is no longer for solutions, old or new, but for survival.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

As IN THE STUDY on I. V. Kireevsky, here also an attempt has been made to avoid bibliographical duplication; therefore titles that ap­ pear in the bibliographies of the Kireevsky and Khomiakov volumes are not listed below. The division of the bibliography into books and journal articles in the first two studies is continued in this volume. Experience since the publication of the Khomiakov and Kireevsky studies, however, has convinced me that the readers of this work do not need English translations of the Russian titles of books and jour­ nal articles; therefore I have omitted them from this bibliography. Titles from the periodical literature are cited by volume, issue, date, and so forth according to the information printed on the individual journal, since there was no uniform standard for all Russian peri­ odicals of the nineteenth century.

Unlike the works of Khomiakov and Kireevsky, Konstantin Aksakov's works have never appeared in a comprehensive edition. Ivan Aksakov's edition of his brother's works, planned in six volumes, was never completed. Volume one of this project, under the title Polnoe sobranie sochinenii Konstantina Sergeevicha Aksakova, con­ taining Konstantin's historical works, appeared in Moscow in 1861. Volume two, part one, with some of his philological works, was published in 1875. Part two appeared in 1880 with P. A. Bezsonov as linguistic editor and Ivan Aksakov as general editor. In 1915 E. A. Liatsky edited in St. Petersburg Konstantin Aksakov's "poems, plays, tales, and stories" under the title Sochineniia Konstantina Sergeevicha Aksakova. Voiume I. This project also remained incom­ plete. As a result Konstantin Aksakov's publicistic works and cor­ respondence have not been incorporated into his Complete Collected Works, and for this reason I have had to resort to many of his in­ dividually published articles and essays. His correspondence has never been completely assembled and published. Quite a number of his letters have appeared in print one, two, or several at a time, and sometimes in a series, as for instance those written to his family from abroad in 1838 and 1860.1 obtained his essay on education, and his unpublished correspondence with S. M. Solov'ev in the 1840's and with M. P. Pogodin between 1837 and 1860, on microfilm from the Lenin Library in Moscow. Works in these two categories, articles

BIBLIOGRAPHY

448

and correspondence, that do not appear in his collected works are listed separately in this bibliography under Aksakov's name, with the names of the editors given after the title. This establishes the pattern for other similar items. Also included in this bibliography are several titles on A. S. Khomiakov and I. V. Kireevsky that were either published too late to be included in their respective bibliographies or were unavailable to me at the time.

BOOKS Aksakov, I. S. Stikhotvoreniia i poemy. Edited by A. G. Dement'ev. Lenin­ grad, 1960. Aksakov, K. S. Kniaz' Lupovitsky Hi priezd ν derevniu. Komediia ν dvukh deistviiakh s prologom. Moscow, 1856. . O russkikh glagolakh. Moscow, 1855. . "0 vospitanii." MS. Lenin Library, Moscow. . Oleg pod Konstantinopolem, dramaticheskaia parodiia, s epiJogom,

ν 3-kh deistviakh, ν stikhakh. St. Petersburg, 1858. . Osvobozhdenie Moskvy ν 1612 godu. Drama ν piati deistviakh. Moscow, 1848. . Polnoe sobranie sochinenii. Vols. I and II. Edited by I. S. Aksakov. Moscow, 1861-1875. . Polnoe sobranie sochinenii. Vol. Ill, part II. Edited by I. S. Aksakov and P. A. Bezsonov. Moscow, 1880. . Sochineniia. Vol. I. Edited by E. A. Liatsky. St. Petersburg, 1915. . Stikhotvoreniia. Edited by S. G. Aksakov. Moscow, 1909. . Vospominanie studentstva. St. Petersburg, n.d. . Zamechaniia na novoe administrativnoe ustroistvo krest'ian ν Rossii. Edited by I. S. Aksakov. Leipzig, 1861. See also Rus', 1883: no. 3, pp. 39-47; no. 4, pp. 20-34; no. 5, pp. 20-30. Aksakova, V. S. Dnevnik 1854-1855. Edited by Ν. V. Golitsyn and P. E. Shchegolev. St. Petersburg, 1913. Aleksandrov, V. A. Sel'skaia obshchina ν Rossii (XVII-nachalo XIX v.). Moscow, 1976. Azadovsky1 M. K. Istoriia russkoi fol'kloristiki. Moscow, 1958. , ed. Pis'ma P. V. Kireevskogo k N. M. Iazykovu. Moscow-Leningrad, 1935. Bakhrushin, S. B., ed. B. N. Chicherin. Vospominaniia, Moskva sorokovykh godov. Moscow, 1929. Barkhudarov, S. G., ed. S. P. Obnorsky. Izbrannye raboty po russkomu iazyku. Moscow, 1960. Baron, S. H. Plekhanov: The Father of Russian Marxism. Stanford, 1963. Belinsky, V. G. Sobranie sochinenii ν trekh tomakh. Edited by V. I. Kuleshov. Moscow, 1948.

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449

. Sochineniia ν chetyrekh tomakh. Edited by F. Pavlenkov. St. Pe­ tersburg, 1900. Berdiaev, Ν. A., et al. Vekhi. Sbornik statei ο russkoi intelligentsia 2nd ed. Moscow, 1909. Bestuzhev-Riumin, K. N. Biografii i kharakteristiki. St. Petersburg, 1882. Billington, J. A. The Icon and the Axe: An Interpretative History of Russian Culture. New York, 1970. . Mikhailovsky and Russian Populism. Oxford, 1958. Blum, Jerome. The End of the Old Order in Rural Europe. Princeton, 1978. Borodkin, M. M. Proiskhozhdenie slavianofil'stva. St. Petersburg, 1891. Bowman, H. E. Vissarion Belinsky, 1811-1848. Cambridge, Mass., 1954. Brock, Peter. Polish Revolutionary Populism. Toronto, 1977. Bromlei, Iu. V., et al., eds. Slaviane i Rossiia. Moscow, 1972. Brown, E. J. Stankevich and His Moscow Circle, 1830-1840. Stanford, 1966. Bukhmeier, K. K., ed. Ν. M. Iazykov. Polnoe sobranie stikhotvorenii. 2nd ed. Leningrad, 1964. Byrnes, R. F., ed. Communal Families in the Balkans: The Zadruga. South Bend, Ind., 1976. Cherepnin, L. V., ed. Iz istorii ekonomicheskoi i obshchestvennoi zhizni Rossii. Moscow, 1976. Cherniavsky, Michael. Tsar and People: Studies in Russian Myths. New Haven, 1961. Chicherin, Β. Ν. O narodnom preds tavitel'stve. 2nd ed. Moscow, 1889. Chmielewski, Edward. Tribune of the Slavophiles: Konstantin Aksakov. Gainesville, Fla., 1961. Dal', V. I. Poslovitsy russkogo naroda. Sbornik. Moscow, 1957. Debreczeny, Paul. Nikolai Gogol' and His Contemporary Critics. Philadel­ phia, 1966. Dostoevsky, F. M. Occasional Writings. Translated and edited by David Magarshak. New York, 1963. Dragomanov, M. P., ed. Pis'ma M. A. Bakunina k A. I. Gertsenu i N. P. Ogarevu. St. Petersburg, 1906. Efimov, A. I. Istorii a russkogo literaturnogo iazyka. Moscow, 1971. Emmons, Terence. The Russian Landed Gentry and the Peasant Emanci­ pation of 1861. Cambridge, 1968. Fadner, Frank. Seventy Years of Pan-Slavism in Russia: Karazin to Danilevskii, 1800-1870. Georgetown, 1962. Fasting, Sigurd. V. G. Belinskij. Die Entwicklung seiner Literaturtheorie. I. Die Wirklichkeit ein Ideal. Bergen, 1972. Field, Daniel. Rebels in the Name of the Tsar. Boston, 1976. Fischer, Joseph. Myslenka a delo Frantiska Palackeho. 2 vols. Prague, 19261927. Galaktionov, A. A., and Nikandrov, P. F. Russkaia filosofi ia XI-XIX vekov. Leningrad, 1970. Gillel'son, M. I. P. A. Viazemsky. Zhizn' i tvorchestvo. Leningrad, 1969.

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. "Russian Social Thought: An Introduction to the Intellectual History of Nineteenth-Century Russia." Russian Review, 1977, January, pp. 145. Watters, F. M. "The Peasant and the Village Commune." In W. S. Vucinich, ed., The Peasant in Nineteenth-Century Russia, pp. 133-157. Stanford, 1968. Wortman, Richard. "Koshelev, Samarin, and Cherkassky and the Fate of Liberal Slavophilism." Slavic Review, 1962, June, pp. 261-279. Zelnik, R. E. "The Peasant and the Factory." In W. S. Vucinich, ed., The

Peasant in Nineteenth-Century Russia, pp. 158-190. Stanford, 1968. Zlatovratsky, Ν. N. "Derevenskie budni. (Neskol'ko otvetov na zaprosy uchenykh i neuchenykh liudei, iz dnevnika nabliudatelia.)" Otechestvennyia zapiski, 1879: no. 6, pp. 507-544; no. 12, pp. 527-567.

INDEX

Aksakov, G. S., 5, 43, 47, 58, 73n, 76, 83, 103, 129n-130n, 135, 160, 170, 186 Aksakov, I. S., 4n-5n, 13, 14, 43, 47, 58, 70, 70n, 77, 78, 81-83, 85, 88, 90, 93, 99-103, 105, llln, 115, 123, 123n, 129, 129n, 131-133, 135, 136, 139146, 148-149, 155, 157, 159-160, 162n, 165-167n, 169-170n, 172, 181, 182, 18411-186, 188-193, 198, 200, 242, 245n, 248n-253n, 256, 257, 260264, 266, 272, 281, 294, 304, 305, 324, 348n, 349, 351, 388, 389n, 395397, 401, 409, 409n, 411n, 414n, 415n, 420, 432, 443 Aksakov, K. S.: childhood and family, 4, 6-12; on the Crimean War, 160, 161, 268-270, 338, 363, 389; on the Duma, 314, 389n, 390, 433; on educa­ tion, 151, 351-357; on the family and its importance, 287, 359, 370, 371; on free speech, 161, 423; on the French and the French language, 13, 110, 120, 124, 130, 131, 206; and Great Russianism, 209-211, 222, 296; and narod (people), muzhik (peasant), zemlia (land, people of the land), populism, 114, 122, 123, 125-127, 142, 147, 149-151, 166, 182, 183, 194, 199, 200, 202, 204, 250, 252, 270, 272, 273, 275-277n, 283-285, 292, 296, 299, 301, 304-306, 308, 310, 312, 316-318, 321, 323, 324, 335, 350, 357, 363, 375n-377, 395-398n, 403, 405, 410n, 415, 416, 418, 422, 433, 435, 436, 442-445; and non-Russian Slavs, 137, 172, 173, 211, 269, 270; and public opinion, 162, 162n, 164, 164n, 422, 423; and the revolutions of 18481849, 129, 130, 135; and Russian dress and beards, 101, 105, llln, 132, 133, 147, 148n, 168, 281, 441; and the University of Moscow, 15-22, 24-26 Aksakov, Mikhail Sergeevich, 76, 84 Aksakov, S. T., 3-12, 14-15, 18n, 43, 46, 50, 51, 67, 70, 71-76n, 78, 78n, 83-86,

89, 89n, 95-97, 99-103, 114, 123, 123n, 130n-133, 140-141n, 143-147n, 153n, 160, 164, 169, 170, 171, 188, 226, 226n, 231, 260-261n, 263, 264, 272, 281, 322n, 338, 340, 340n, 412 Aksakova, Liubov S., 173 Aksakova, Nadia S., 141 Aksakova, O. S., 6, 7-9, 11, 14, 43, 46, 46n, 70, 72n, 100, 111, 153n, 171, 173, 261 Aksakova, V. S., 46n, 67, 68, 76, 83, 85, 92, 101, 141, 160, 162-163n, 173, 186187n, 195, 195n, 261n Aksakovs (family, salon), 4-6, 8, 10-12, 15, 15n, 46, 72, 75, 78, 84-86, 92n, 95, 96n, 98, 99, 102-104, 108, IlOn, 113-115, 121, 122, 128-130, 141, 143145, 148, 149, 159, 160n, 164n, 171, 182, 186, 187, 211, 231, 260, 262-264, 268, 338 Aleksandrov, V. Α., 358n, 359n, 362n, 363n, 373, 373n, 376, 380-383, 385 Aleksei, Tsar, 216, 423 Alexander of Macedon, 237n Alexander I, 17, 246n, 264n Alexander II, 186, 230, 262, 282, 305, 336, 378, 394, 395, 421-423, 444 all-Slav language ("literary pan-Slav­ ism"), 234-243, 248, 248n, 269 Anne, Empress, 423 Aristotle, 237n, 271, 293 Armfeld, A. O., 83 artel', 248n, 281, 292, 311, 358, 387n, 391n, 433, 438 Azadovsky, M. K., 297, 299n, 300 Baader, Franz, 431 Bakunin, Μ. A., 27, 31, 32, 34-35, 37n, 38-49, 54, 54n, 56n, 57, 59, 62-63, 69, 196n, 197, 199, 256n, 279, 299, 302n, 343 Bakunin, P., 56n Bakunina, Alexandra, 41, 46 Bakunina, Liubov, 41 Bakunina, Tat'iana, 41 Bakunina, Varvara, 41 Balzac, Honore de, 29, 33n

468 Baratynsky, E. A., 75n Barkhudarov, S. G., 214n Barsukov, N. P., 113, 229n-231n Bartenev, P. I., 127, 161n, 166n, 170n, 250n, 294n Basil the Great, 158 Basil III, 295, 316 Beer, Alexandra, 41n Beer, Natalia, 41n Beliaev, I. D., 155, 155n, 291, 361, 364, 364n, 374n Belinsky, V. G. (circle), 18, 24, 25, 27, 30-32, 34-35, 37, 40-48, 50-52n, 54, 54n, 56-57, 59-71n, 74-75, 78-80, 8893, 96, 97, 99, lOln, 102n, 115, 117n122, 128n, 129, 137, 147, 154, 167, 182, 196, 196n, 207-209, 213, 220n, 255n, 273, 281, 293, 293n, 299, 302n, 328n, 330-332, 334, 336, 336n, 341, 348, 357, 366, 367, 369, 370, 394, 428, 441, 443 Belyj, Andrei (Bugaev, B. N.), 56n, 275, 276 Benkendorff, Count A. Kh., 63 Berdiaev, N. A., 275-277n, 292, 324, 324n, 431 Berlin, Isaiah, 28n Bestuzhev, A. A. (Marlinsky), 60n Bestuzhev-Riumin, K. N., 291, 365n Bezsonov, P. A., 201, 202 Bitsyn, N. See Pavlov, N. M. Blanc, Louis, 119n Blok, A. A,, 56n Bludov, Count D. N., 162 Blum, Jerome, 383n Blumenfel'd, G. F„ 365n Bodenstedt, Friedrich, 172 Bodiansky, I. M., 31, 111 Bodiansky, O. M., 34, 226n, 294n Boehme, Jacob, 29, 431 Bogoslovsky, M. M., 362n Bolotnikov, Ivan, 326, 423 Boltin, I. N., 381, 385 Borodin, A. P., 432 Borozdin, K. A., 139n Botkin, V. P., 31n, 34, 41n, 43n-47, 68n, 69, 273-275 Boucek, T., 228n Bowman, H. E., 66n Briullov, K. P., 61 Brodsky, N. L„ 23, 34n, 35n, 162n, 166n,422n Brown, E. J., 35n

INDEX Budilovich, A. S., 237n, 239n Bulavin, Conrad, 423 Bulgarin, F. V., 17 Buslaev, F. I., I l l , 170, 201n, 228, 231 Buturlin, D. P., 132 Byron, G. G„ 33n, 90, 109n, 195n, 235 Byzantium (Byzantine), 141, 229, 230, 314, 316, 317, 323, 323n, 359 Catherine I, 423 Catherine II, 264n, 374 Celakovsky, F. L., 227, 228n, 236-238n Cervantes, 90, 330 Chaadaev, P. Ia., 25, 26, 32, 39, 52, 61, 62, 79, 91, 97, 99, 100, 116, 121, 226n, 276n, 279, 290, 303, 306, 330, 331n Charles V, 230 Charles XII, 230 Chekhov, A. P., 61, 255, 432 Cherkassky, Prince D. M., 322 Cherkassky, Prince V. A., 159, 171, 322323n, 395, 396, 409-414, 419-422, 424, 424n Chernov, Victor, 372 Chernyshevsky, N. G., 56n, 255, 256n, 267, 274n, 281, 328, 363, 364, 383n, 388, 400n, 441 Chicherin, B. N„ 35n, 151, 188, 191, 192, 194, 201n, 203, 281, 289, 291, 359n, 361-362n, 364, 367n, 373, 374n, 389n, 434 Chivilev, A. I., 19 Chizhevsky, D. I., 36n, 37n, 40n, 44n, 56n, 107, 194, 195, 197, 203, 302n Chizhov, F. V., 136, 246n, 248n, 400n Chmielewski, Edward, 302n choric principle, 123, 127, 128, 146, 152, 182, 271, 331, 333, 353, 354, 358, 368, 392, 426, 427 Christian anarchism, 129, 183, 194, 211, 256n, 264, 309, 310, 369, 442 Church Slavonic, 212-221, 226, 240, 269, 334, 355, 356 clan-commune controversy, 149, 151, 179-187, 189, 281, 286-290, 292, 294, 358, 362, 433 commune (mir, obshchina), 267, 269, 272, 277, 278, 280-283, 292, 305, 310312, 317, 323, 331, 358-363n, 365367, 370-375n. See also mir (commune, obshchina) Cooley, D. H., 433

469

INDEX Cooper, J. F., 70, 90 Cousin, Victor, 30, 33 Croce, Benedetto, 293 Dal', V. I., 375n Damian, Peter, 431 Dante, 90 Darwin, Charles (Darwinism), 368n Davidov, I. I., 195, 195n Debreczeny, Paul, 122n Dement'ev, A., 331n Derzhavin, G. R., 60n, 221 Descartes, Rene, 431 Dickens, Charles, 334 Dilthey, Wilhelm, 293 Dmitriev, I. I., 9 Dmitriev, M. A., 83, Dmitriev-Mamonov, E. A., 80 Dmitry, Donskoi, 307 Dmitry, Tsarevich, 219, 320 Dmitry the Pretender, 319, 320n Dobroliubov, N. A., 281, 328 Dolgoruki, V. V., 375 Dostoevsky, F. M., 56n, 92, 160, 255256n, 264, 275, 276-277n, 334, 345, 349-351, 357, 404, 430, 432, 440 Dudzinskaia, E. A., 164 Duns Scotus, John, 431 Durkheim, Emile, 433, 436 Durylin, S. N., 72-73n Efimenko, A. I., 361n, 362n, 387n Efremov, A. P., 31, 34, 41n, 56n, 74n, 105n,121 Elagin, N. A., 165, 420 Elagina, A. P. (salon), 5, 25, 80, 83, 85, 93, 94, 114, 186, 186n, 211, 300n, 402 El'iashevich, V. I., 362n, 385n Elizabeth, Empress, 423 emancipation of the serfs, 169, 170, 349, 395, 397-400, 402, 405, 406, 414, 420, 421, 4 3 8 Emmons, Terence, 383n Engelmann, J., 362n, 365n Ephraem of Syria, 158 Ewers, J.P.G., 33, 282, 282n, 285, 287, 291, 362n Fadner, Fransk, 211n, 237 Fasting, Sigurd, 44n Fedor, Alekseevich, 307 Fedor, Ivanovich, 312, 319 Fet, A. A., 56n

Fichte, J, G., 33, 37n, 52n, 57, 58 Filaret of Rostov, Metropolitan, 323 Filippov, M. M., 1 9 6 , 1 9 6 n Florinsky, T. D., 239n Florovsky, G. V., 194, 323-324n Fonvizin, D. I., 60n Frederick II, 230 Freeborn, Richard, 342n Frolov, P. G., 14 Frolova, E. P., 35n Gagarin, I. S., 116 Gaj, Ljudevit, 226-228, 233-234, 242244n, 246, 247, 270 Galaktionov, A. A., 196 Galileo, 293 Garshin, V. M., 255n Gastev, M. S., 19, 19n Ger'e, V. I., 259n Gil'ferding, A. F „ 234n, 368n, 383n, 405, 437 Giliarov-Platonov, N. P., 260n, 264n Gillel'son, M. I., 443 Glinka, F. N., 65n, 69n, 123 Glinka, M. I., 61 Godunov, Boris, 319-321 Goehrke, Carsten, 362n, 364n, 365n Goethe, von J. W., 33, 52, 54-58, 69, 77, 90, 109n, 133, 173, 195, 247 Gogol', N. V., 25, 33n, 39, 56n, 58, 60, 60n, 61, 69-80, 82-87, 98-104, 109, 114, 115, 121, 127-128n, 141, 141n, 143-145, 147, 160, 167, 169n, 197, 201n, 205, 208, 210-212, 225, 231, 237n, 250n, 255n, 261n, 263, 266, 274, 276, 276n, 293n, 328, 330-332, 334, 336, 336n, 341, 345-347, 354, 357, 392, 440, 443; K. S. Aksakov and Dead Souls, 88-97; K. S. Aksakov and Selected Passages, 122-126n Goldsmith, Oliver, 234 Golitsyn, B. A., 386 Golovins, 379 Goncharov, I. A., 18, 21-25, 432 Gor'ky, Maksim, 255, 387 Gradic, Ignac, 232 Gradovsky, A. D„ 291 Granovsky, T. N., 19, 32, 34n-35n, 37n, 40, 56n, 59, 65, 70n, 97, 99, 108, 111, 154, 196, 283n, 290n, 441 Grant, S. A., 260n Grech, N. I., 17 Gregory the Theologian, 158

470 Grekov, B. D., 359n, 362, 362n Griboedov, A. S., 23n, 60n, 65, 65n, 69n Grigor'ev, A. A., 32, 56n, 91n, 102n, 113n, 122, 330, 349 Grigorovich, D. V., 226n, 344 Grigorovich, V. I., 226n, 246n, 273 Grot, K. Ia., 239n Guizot, F.P.G., 33, 130 Gut'iar, N., 148n Hanka, Vaclav, 153n, 173, 226-228n, 236-239, 246 Hartman, von Edward, 265n Hattala, Martin, 173, 201n Havlifiek, Karel, 238, 238n Haxthausen, Baron August von, 119n, 279-280n Hegel, G.W.F. (Hegelianism), 14, 18, 25, 31, 33, 37, 37n, 44n, 47n, 48n, 54, 54n, 57, 58, 60n-63n, 65-66n, 68n, 70, 79, 81, 82, 87, 88, 91, 97, 99-101, 104, 107, 117, 133, 159, 160, 173, 181, 187-200, 203-205, 207, 208, 213, 231, 239, 250, 264-265n, 271, 294n, 297, 299n, 300-303, 306, 332, 338, 370, 428-431 Heine, Heinrich, 58 Herder, G.W.F., 33, 195n, 231, 235, 239, 293 Hermogenes, Patriarch, 219, 323 Herodotus, 33 Herzen, A. I. (Iakovlev, A. I., Iskander) (circle), 18, 22n-24n, 27-30n, 32, 34, 48, 48n, 56n-58, 60, 65n, 66, 69, 79, 81, 92, 99-102n, 105n, 108, 116-121n, 154, 188, 190-193, 255n, 256n, 267, 276, 277n, 280, 290n, 328, 334, 335, 339, 363-365, 388, 400n, 415n, 441 Hobbes, Thomas, 278n Hoetzsch, Otto, 365n Hoffmann, A. H., 33n, 52 Homer, 19, 33n, 69, 77, 88, 90, 91, 93, 96, 122, 126, 144, 197, 209, 331, 392 Hugo, Victor, 33n Hurban, J. M., 240n Iaroslav the Wise, 361 Iavorsky, Stefan, 81, 216 Iazykov, N. M., 25, 39, 60n, 105, 120 Igor, 288, 359 Ikonnikov, V. S., 21n Illeritsky, B. E., 367n Illyrian movement, 231, 231n, 233, 233n, 236, 246, 247

INDEX Isaac of Syria, 158 Isaev, Andrei, 387n Ivan III, 215, 216, 295, 316, 381 Ivan IV (the Terrible), 156, 216, 295, 307-309, 312-316, 318-319, 321 Jagic, Vatroslav, 218n, 229n, 233n, 238n Jakobson, Roman, 207n John Chrysostom, 158 Jungmann, Josef, 226-228n, 234-235n Kachenovsky, M. T. (his skeptical " s c h o o l " of history), 20-23, 26, 39, 48, 61, 62, 152, 156, 295 Kalachov, N. V., 282, 307n, 387n Kankrin, Count E. F., 326n Kant, Immanuel (Kantiansim), 18, 25, 33, 37n, 58, 160, 197, 265n, 431 Kantemir, A. D., 217, 339, 347 Karadjordjevic dynasty, 171 KaradSifi, Vuk S., 225n-228, 233, 234n Karamzin, N. M., 15, 21n, 33n, 60n, 220n, 221, 285, 286, 294, 295, 313, 325, 325n, 334, 432 Karatygin, V. A., 10 Kartashevskaia, Maria Grigor'evna (Masha), 36, 50, 67, 67n, 76-78, 85, 89, 90 Kartashevsky, G. I. (Kartashevskys), 53, 68, 76, 76n, 84 Katenin, P. A., 220n Katkov, M. N., 31, 32, 34, 34n, 41, 41n, 43n, 46, 47, 111, 166n, 410n Kavelin, K. D., 24, 32, 99, 149, 149n, 151, 154, 280, 281, 286, 289, 290, 307, 307n, 325n, 361-362n, 365-367n, 369-370, 397, 434, 441 Keller, Aleksander, 34 Ketcher, N. Kh., 24n, 97 Kheraskov, M. M., 9, 221 Khomiakov, A. S. (salon), 5, 16, 31, 32, 49, 50, 56n, 57, 59, 67n, 69, 75n, 78, 80, 81, 85-89, 92-94, 99-101, 104, 105, 108-110, 114, 115, 118, 120, 128, 129, 136, 140, 141, 151-153, 155-162, 170n, 171, 181-189, 191, 195n-197, 200, 211, 237, 239n, 240n, 246-249, 251, 254-256, 260, 262, 263, 270, 272, 275, 278, 279, 281, 301, 302, 304, 305, 310, 320, 324n, 331, 340, 341, 351, 354-356, 358-360n, 392n, 395397, 402-407, 409-411, 420, 425-432, 436-443

INDEX Khomiakova, E. M., 83 Kierkegaard, S. A., 429, 430 Kireevskaia, Mariia, 397 Kireevsky, I. V., 10, 16, 25, 27, 27n, 31, 32, 39, 49, 50, 57, 59, 60-62, 69, 78, 80, 86-89n, 93, 94, 99, 100, 104-106, 109-110n, 112, 117, 129, 134, 143145n, 151, 152, 155, 156, 158-160, 165, 167, 171, 181, 182, 185-187, 189, 190, 195n-197, 199, 200, 239n, 240n, 247-249, 251, 253, 255, 256, 260, 260n, 263, 266, 276-279, 301, 303, 304, 331, 354-356, 358-360n, 369, 397, 425-433, 435, 436, 438, 443 Kireevsky, P. V., 61, 99, 155, 171, 182, 185, 201, 256, 279, 351, 397 Kiuchel'beker, V. K., 220n Kliuchevsky, V. O., 283n, 288n, 289, 291, 317n, 325n, 360n, 362n, 364, 389n, 432 Kliushnikov, I. P., 34, 36, 41n-42n, 45, 70n Kniazhevich, A. M., 171 Kniazhnin, la. B., 9 Kniazhnin, Vladimir, 113n Kohn, Hans, 229n, 230n Koliupanov, N. P., 252, 304 Kollár, Jan, 227-228n, 233n, 235-237, 239, 247 Kopitar, Jernej, 227, 228n, 233n, 238, 238n Korf, Baron M. A., 132n Korkunov, M. A., 19n Kornilov, A. A., 34n, 162 Korsch, E. F., 121 Kosakowski, Jan, 235n Koshelev, A. I. (salon), 5, 85, 101, 129, 129n, 143, 150n, 151, 155, 155n, 158160, 165-167, 169, 170n, 181, 252n, 266, 279, 304, 354, 395-397, 404, 410412, 420-422, 434, 438, 439 Kossovich, Kaetan A., 34 Kostenetsky, la, I., 28 Kostomarov, N. I., 291, 313n, 318 Kotoshikhin, Gregory, 216 Koval'chenko, I. D., 365n Kozhinov, V., 330, 330n Kraevsky, A. A., 56 Krasov, V. I., 34, 36, 42, 42n Kriukov, D. L., 19 Krizanic, Juraj, 231, 232n, 236n Kiopotkin, P. A., 256n Krylov, N. I., 19, 60n, 291 Kukol'nik, N. V., 326n

471 Kulakovsky, P. A., 234n, 236, 241n Kuleshov, V. I., 329n, 440 Kurakin, A. V., 379 Kurbsky, Prince Andrei, 216 Kuzm^ni, Karel, 235n, 239 Lamansky, V. I., 234n, 239n Lamennais, F. R. de, 416n Lampert, Evgenii, 44n Lansky, L., 77n Laptin, P. F., 364n Lavrin, Janko, 122n Leibniz, Wilhelm von, 33, 431 Lenin, V. I., 365n Leo XIII, 279 Leontovich, F. I., 283n, 291, 365n Le Play, F.P.G., 433, 436 Lermontov, M. Iu., 18, 23-25, 56n, 82, 87, 237n, 328, 339, 340, 342, 355 Leshkov, V. N., 291, 361, 361n, 364365n Lessing, G. E., 343 Lewin, Moshe, 366n Linde, S. G., 228n, 229, 235n Lomonosov, M. V., 9, 50, 60n, 71, 81, 100, 152, 187, 189, 199-202, 205, 212, 218-221, 253, 271, 281, 294, 296, 319, 323, 327, 332, 339, 422 Lomunov, K. N., 440 Louis Philippe, 130 Luchinsky, G. L„ 390n Lukashevich, Stephen, 142n Luther, Martin, 430, 431 Maciejowski, W. A., 226, 228n-229n Maikov, A. P. 334, 335 Majar, Matija-Ziljski, 235n Makarii, Bishop, 260, 260n Makarii, Father, 158 Maksimovich, M. A., 141, 211 Mamonov, E. A., 188 Mamontov, I. F., 400n Mamontov, S. I., 103n Mann, Iurii, 21, 33, 52n Maretifi, T „ 225n Marlinsky (A. Bestuzhev), 56n, 60n Marx, Kari (Marxism), 275, 279, 311n, 387n Masaryk, T. G„ 194, 195n Mashinsky, S. I., 4, 5n, lOn, 11, 34n, 36n, 43n, 56n, 195n, 199n, 200 Mazour, A. G., 21n Meinecke, Friedrich, 293 Mel'gunov, N. A., 15n, 75n, 279

INDEX

472 Menzel, Wofgang, 65n, 69n Mérimée, 91 Michael Feodorovich, 408 Michelet, Jules, 33 Mickiewicz, Adam, 118, 119, 153, 311n Mikhailov, A. A., 134 Mikhailovsky, N. K., 56n, 255n, 267n Miklosic, Franjo, 228n Miliukov, P. N., 20n, 21n, 59, 143, 283n, 290, 291, 362n, 364 Miller, O. F., 201n Minin, Kozma, 13, 319, 321, 322 Mir (commune, obshchina), its historical, economic, social, military (recruiting), religious, and other functions, 358-368, 371-388, 398, 404-405, 41 On, 413-415, 417-421n, 427, 429, 433, 435, 437-439, 441, 445. See also commune (mir, obshchina) Mochalov, P. S„ 9, 10, lOn Modzalevsky, B. L., 327n Molva, 165, 166, 168-170, 260n, 262, 270, 282, 368, 398, 405 Morozov, T. S., 400n "Moscowphilism," 11, 13, 23n, 106108, 112, 119, 147, 192, 222 Mosely, P. E„ 233, 243, 243n Miiller, G. F., 285 Murzakevich, N. N., 21n Mussorgsky, M. P., 432 muzhik. See Aksakov, K. S. Nadezhdin, N. I., 12, 19, 25, 33, 33n, 39, 60n, 226n, 227, 228, 366 Napoleon (Napoleonic wars), 17, 36, 160, 223, 224, 230, 232, 309, 335 narod. See Aksakov, K. S. Nechaeva, V. S., 44n Nechkina, M., 27n, 34n Nekrasov, N. A., 56n, 273, 274, 334 Nessel'rod, Count K. V., 131, 132 Nestor, Chronicle of, 214, 215, 287 Neverov, I. M., 34-37, 41n-42n Nicholas I, 16, 22n, 31, 32, 62-65, 78n, 85, 89n, 105, 129, 131-132n, 134-137, 162, 164n, 184, 223, 230, 233, 238, 240n, 242-245, 247, 281, 325, 326n, 365, 396, 397, 399, 443 Nicholas II, 336, 365 Niebuhr, B. G., 20n Nifontov, A. S., 130n, 131 Nikandrov, P. F., 196 Nikitenko, A. V., 333, 334

Nikolaev, D., 331n Norov, A. S., 163, 163n, 169 Novikov, N. I., 255n Novosil'tseva, K., 123 Obnorsky, S. P., 214n Obolensky, I. A., 34 Obolensky, V. I., 19n Obradovic, Dositej, 225n ObradoviC dynasty, 171 Odoevsky, V. F., 10, 36, 333, 357 Ogarev, N. P., 18, 23, 24n, 27n-28n, 30, 48, 48n, 56n, 400n, 415n Oleg, 288, 359 Orlov, M. F., 83 Orlov, "V. G. (Orlov brothers), 374-376, 379, 380, 386 Orthodoxy, 181, 198, 200, 202, 204, 213, 249-252, 254, 255, 257-261, 267, 269, 305, 306, 310, 311, 356, 362, 363, 369, 369n, 387, 388, 399, 404, 421, 423, 426, 428, 430, 431; K. S. Aksakov on Christ as truth, 183; K. S. Aksakov on "inner," Christian freedom, 183, 253, 263, 310, 311; K. S. Aksakov on God, 304-306 Ostrovsky, A. N., 344, 345, 349, 350, 357 Paisii, Father, 232 Palacky, Frantisek, 153n, 173, 226228n, 238-239n, 242 Paleologue, Sophia, 316 Panaev, I. I., 46-47, 68, 70, 71n Panaeva, A. Ia. (Golovacheva), 83n Panins, 374 Panov, V. A., 84, 155, 248n par.-Slavism, and literary pan-Slavism, 136-137n, 171, 211n, 229-230n, 232n, 234, 236n, 243, 245, 245n, 256n, 270, 271 Pascal, Blaise, 159, 160, 431 Passek, Tat'iana, 28n, 30 Passek, V. V., 28, 30n Pavlov, M. G., 8n, 16n, 35 Pavlov, N. F. (salon), 4, 12, 43, 75n, 97n,111 Pavlov, N. M. (Bitsyn, N.), 8n, 164n, 188, 301 Pavlov-Sil'vansky, N. P., 362n Pavlovna, Grand Duchess Elena, 163 Pecherin, V., 56n Pelenski, Jaroslaw, 389n Peter the Great, 22n, 81, 91, 105, 106,

INDEX 111, l l l n , 125, 133, 135, 147, 151153n, 204, 212, 216, 232, 294n, 297302n, 206, 207, 309, 310, 312, 313, 315, 319, 324-328, 332, 333, 336-339, 366, 367, 369, 371, 381, 385n, 398n, 399n, 401-403, 406, 407, 412, 413, 432, 444 Peter III, 385, 423 Petrov, Pavel, 34 Petrovich, M. B., 228, 228n, 239n, 364n Phillip II, 428 Pirogov, N. I., 24 Pisemsky, A. F „ 344 Plato, 65n, 278n, 370 Platonov, S. F „ 317n Plekhanov, G. V., 66n, 267n, 390n Pleshcheev, A. N„ 56n Pocheka, la. I., 34 Pogodin, M. P., 10-12, 14-16, 16n, 18n, 20, 22n, 32, 35, 43, 56n, 72, 73, 75n77n, 86n, 89, 90, 92, 94-97, 104, 109115, 123, 155, 163, 184, 186, 193, 196, 225-231n, 240, 243, 246n, 247, 250, 270, 279, 291, 387n Polezhaev, A. I., 34n Poliakov, M. Ia„ 60n Polonsky, la. P., 56n Popov, A. N„ 93, 105, 135, 141, 153, 200, 228n, 246n, 248, 248n, 300n Potekhin, A. A., 344 Pozharsky, Prince Dmitrii, 319, 321, 322 Preis, P. I., 226n Presniakov, A. E., 282n, 289, 290, 290n, 291 Procopius of Caesarea, 286 Prokopovich, Theofan, 81 Puchmajer, A. J., 235n, 239 Pugachev, Emelian, 423 Pushkarev, S. G., 362n Pushkin, A. S., 21, 23, 29, 33n, 34n, 39, 60-61, 65, 69-71, 74, 87, 91, 220n, 221, 225, 232, 237n, 245n, 246, 266, 328, 367, 440 Pypin, A. N., 192, 193, 201n, 232n, 237, 239, 241n, 242, 248n Pyziur, Eugene, 49n

Radischev, A. N., 255n Raevsky, Reverend M. F., 172 Ranke, Leopold von, 18, 293 Razin, Stenka, 423 Redkin, P. G., 19, 83

473 Rieger, Frantisek, 173, 242 Rimsky-Korsakov, N. A., 432 Robespierre, M.F.M., 322 Romanov, Michael, 216, 323 Rostovtsev, la. I., 409 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 278, 278n Rozhalin, N. M., 10 Rumiantsev, P. A., 386 Rurik, 309 Ruzifi, Stefan, 323 Ryleev, K. F., 29, 34n

Safarfk, Pavel Josef, 75n, 153n, 226228n, 236-239, 286, 287 Saint Basil, 304 Saint Dmitry of Rostov, 216 Saint John, 33n Saint Paul, 169n, 304 Saint-Simon, Comte de (Saint-Simonism), 29, 30, 280n Saint Vladimir, 249, 295 Sainte-Beuve, 91 Saints Cyril and Methodius, 238, 241n, 244 Saints Cyril and Methodius Society, 136, 211, 211n, 243 Sakulin, P. N., 36n Saltykov, M. E. (Shchedrin, N.), 346, 346n Samarin, Iu. F., 16, 18, 27, 31, 32, 37n, 54, 69, 79-83, 86-89, 92, 93, 96, 97, 100, 101, 104-108, 114-117, 132, 134137, 140, 155, 161-162, 171, 181, 184187, 190, 191, 195n, 197, 199, 200, 203, 247-248n, 256, 259, 260, 266, 278, 281, 291, 295, 296, 300, 303, 306, 322, 361, 362, 366, 374n, 383n, 395-398, 409-411, 419-420n, 425, 426, 428, 434, 443 Samarin, V. N., 373 Sand, George, 347, 349 Satin, N. M., 24n, 28 Savich, A. N., 28 Sazonov, N. I., 24n, 28, 29 Schelling, F.W.J. (Schellingism), 18, 25, 29, 30, 33, 35, 37, 37n, 54, 57, 58, 159, 160, 195, 195n, 207, 208, 231, 265n Schiller, J. Ch. F. von (Schillerism), 33, 33n, 44n, 52, 54-58, 69, 77, 90, 109n, 133, 173, 195, 247, 320n, 338, 347 Schlozer, A. L. von, 152, 165, 285, 286 Schmidt, Heinrich, 43n

474 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 265n Scott, Sir Walter, 33n, 70, 90, 91, 195, 195n Semevsky, V. I., 396, 410n, 365n Senkovsky, O. I., 17 Sergeevich, V. I., 291, 362n, 381 Semo-Solovevich, N. A., 400n Shakespeare, William, 33n, 61n, 69, 77, 90-91n, 93, 122, 126, 195, 209, 331, 346, 347, 366, 392 Shakhmatov, A. A., 214n Shchapov, A. O., 390n Shchepkin, Dmitry M., 48, 69, 75 Shchepkin, M. S., 9-10n, 12, 75, 104, 164, 164n Shchepkina, Alexandra M., 41n, 46 Shcherbatov, Prince M. M„ 386 Shcherbina, F. A., 376, 378, 384, 387n, 388 Shenrok, V. I., 170n, 193 Shevyrev, S. P., 10, 12, 15n, 19, 32, 33, 35, 77n, 89n, 92, 92n, 102n, 110, 111, 201n, 240n, 247, 294n Shipov, A. P., 400n Shipov, D. P., 400n Shipov, S. P., 229 Shirinsky-Shikhmatov, Prince P. A., 281n Shishkov, A. S„ 184, 220n, 225-226n, 334 Shpilevsky, S. M., 166, 291 Shuisky, Prince Vasilii, 319, 320 skhodka (peasant assembly), 289, 374377, 379, 390, 405 Smirnova, A. 0 . , 94, 102n, l l l n , 124, 139n, 141n Sobolevsky, M. V., 219n Society of United Slavs, 211, 211n Socrates, 443 Sokhanskaia, N. S. (Kokhanovskaia), 170n, 182, 184, 251, 260n, 262, 263 Sokolovsky, P. A., 291, 365n Sokolovsky, V. I. (circle), 27, 27n Sollogub, Count V, A., 102n Solov'ev, S. M., 21n, 105, 111, 149, 149n, 151-155n, 165, 204, 281-283n, 286, 288-291, 294, 295, 306-307n, 312, 314, 317-324, 327, 338, 361362n, 364, 389n, 391, 397, 432, 434, 441 Solov'ev, V. S., 256n, 276n, 429 Somov, O. M„ 220n Soroka, Grigorii Vasil'evich, 61

INDEX Spinoza, Baruch, 33, 431 Sreznevsky, I, I., 201n, 214n, 226n Stakhovich, M. A., 344 Stankevich, N. V. (circle), 18, 21-24n, 27-28, 30-45n, 47-54n, 56-59, 62, 6465n, 67, 69-70n, 73-75, 89, 105, 111, 121, 137, 150, 166n, 188, 195-197, 213, 293, 299, 329, 330, 343, 394, 428 Starr, S. F., 311n, 412n Stasov, Sergei, 34 Steppun, F. A., 255, 255n, 263, 265n Stolypin, Peter A. (reforms), 267n, 438, 365n Strakhov, N. N„ 56n, 349 Stroev, S. M., 24n, 31n Stroganov, Count A. P., 153 Stroganov, Count S. G., 43n, 111, l l l n , 127, 127n, 229, 230n Struve, Gleb, 83n Stur, L'udovit, 118, 228n, 239-242 Sumarokov, A. P., 221 Sungurov, N. P. (circle), 27, 28 Suvorov, A. V., general, 7 Sverbeev, D. N. (salon), 4, 80, 97n, 105, 154, 279 Sverbeeva, E. A., 82 "systematism," German, and Russian non-systematism, 149n, 150n, 252n, 253n, 256, 257, 412, 432-434 Tatishchev, V. N., 373 Tchaikovsky, P. I., 329n Terras, Victor, 62n Tertullian, 431 Thucydides, 33 Titov, V. P., 10 Tiutchev, F. I., 23, 56n, 237, 246, 340, 340n Tiutcheva, Anna F., 340n Tocqueville, Alexis de, 412n Tonnies, Ferdinand, 433, 435, 436 Tokarev, S. A., 359n Tolstoy, Countess A. A., 35n Tolstoy, Count L. N., 28, 35n, 160, 237n, 255-256n, 264, 275, 277, 277n, 343, 345, 346, 404, 432, 440, 441 Toporin, Aleksei, 34 Toporin, Dmitrii, 34 Trediakovsky, V. K., 217 Tretiakov, P. N., 400n Trubetskaia, Countess A. I., 11 Trubetskaia, Princess Olga, 410n Tsonev, Beno, 225

INDEX Turgenev, A. I., 83 Turgenev, I. S., 18, 24, 34n-35n, 56n, 78, 92, 102n, 104, 147-151, 154, 237n, 155, 173, 175, 328, 334, 335, 342, 344-346, 357, 396, 412, 440 Uspensky, Gleb I., 56n, 255n Uvarov, S. S., 19, 36, 61, 62, 78n, 111n, 132n, 136, 237, 243-245n Valuev, D. A., 153 veche, 308, 315, 315n, 189n-190n Velikopol'skaia, S. M., 327, 337-338 Velikopol'sky, I. E., 75n Venelin, Iu. I., 14, 16, 225-228n Venevitinov, D. V., 10, 60n Vengerov, S. A., 4, 8, 90, 105, 165n, 169n, 193, 200-203, 208, 212, 272, 273, 291, 300n Vernadsky, George, 260n Vernadsky, I. V., 383n Viazemsky, Prince P. A., 23, 78, 83, 163, 168, 245n, 266, 366, 398-399, 443 Vico, Giambattista, 283 Vigel', F. F., 443 Vinet, A. R., 158-159n Vinogradov, P. G., 194, 194n, 265, 266 Vinogradov, V. V., 207n, 212n, 224n, 225n

475 Vistengof, P. F., 24 Vladimir Monomakh, 215, 316 Vladimirsky-Budanov, M. F., 291, 365n Volotsky, Joseph, 216 Vompersky, V. P., 219n Vornotsovs, 374 Vostokov, A. Kh., 213n Walicki, Andrzej, 297, 311n, 434-436 Weber, Max, 433, 436 William of Ockham, 431 Wortman, Richard, 410n Zabelin, I. E., 283n Zacek, J. F., 239n zadruga, 269, 291, 311n, 364 Zagoskin, M. N., 83 Zaionchkovsky, P. A., 399n Zakrevsky, Count A. A., 164 Zakrevsky, A. D., 23 Zaplatin, General S. G., 7 Zasulich, Vera, 311n zemlia. See Aksakov, K. S. zemsky sobor, 308, 309, 315, 318, 320, 388-392, 422, 433 Zenkovsky, V. V., 194 Zhukovsky, V. A., 23, 55, 56n, 60n, 66n, 85, 125, 220n, 246 Zlatovratsky, N,, 376n, 377

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA Christoff, Peter K. An introduction to nineteenth-century Russian Slavophilism. Vol. 3- has imprint: Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Vol. 3- lack series statement. Includes bibliographies and indexes. Contents: v. 1. A. S. Xomjakov—v. 2.1. V. Kireevskij—v. 3. K. S. Aksakov. 1. Slavophilism. I. Title. II. Series. DK38.C45 vol. 3 947.08 63-45564 ISBN 0-691-05334-0 (Princeton University Press: v. 3) AACR2