Georgy Petrovich Fedotov

Fedotov Georgy Petrovich (1886-1951), Russian religious thinker, historian and publicist. From 1925 abroad, professor at the Russian Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris (until 1940), St. Vladimir's Theological Academy in New York. One of the founders of the magazine "New City" (1931-39). The studies and numerous essays analyze the uniqueness of Russian culture and history, the place of Russia between East and West, the main cultural and historical types of Russian people (“Saints of Ancient Russia”, “Russian Religious Consciousness”, vols. 1-2, collection of articles “The Face of Russia " and etc.).

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Fedotov Georgy Petrovich (1886-1951) - Russian émigré, philosopher, historian. Fedotov's leading theme is the difference between the paths of Russia and the West, interconnected and at the same time distinctive: Russia is "the third cultural continent between Europe and Asia." Major works: "Saints of Ancient Russia" (1931), "Spiritual Poems" (1935), "Russia and Freedom" (1945), etc. According to Gumilyov, he is one of the major representatives of a powerful trend in historical thought - Eurasianism.

Quoted from: Lev Gumilyov. Encyclopedia. / Ch. ed. E.B. Sadykov, comp. T.K. Shanbai, - M., 2013, p. 611.

Other biographical material:

Frolov I.T. Russian philosopher and theologian Philosophical Dictionary. Ed. I.T. Frolova. M., 1991).

Galakhtin M.G. Essayist, publicist of the Christian socialist direction ( New Philosophical Encyclopedia. In four volumes. / Institute of Philosophy RAS. Scientific ed. advice: V.S. Stepin, A.A. Huseynov, G.Yu. Semigin. M., Thought, 2010).

Kuraev V.I. In the creative possibilities of Russia, which he did not doubt even in the darkest times ( Russian philosophy. Encyclopedia. Ed. the second, modified and supplemented. Under the general editorship of M.A. Olive. Comp. P.P. Apryshko, A.P. Polyakov. - M., 2014).

Gritsanov A.A. Professor at the Department of History of the Middle Ages at the Saratov University ( The latest philosophical dictionary. Comp. Gritsanov A.A. Minsk, 1998).

G.K., V.B. Philosopher, historian, publicist ( Great encyclopedia of the Russian people).

Russian historian ( Encyclopedia "The World Around Us").

Read further:

Fedotov G.V. Singer of Empire and Freedom. Pushkin in Russian philosophical criticism: the end of the 19th - the first half of the 20th centuries. / Comp. R.A. Galtseva. - M .: Book, 1990 [series: "Pushkin Library"]. - S. 356 - 375.

Fedotov G.P. Eschatology and culture (Article by M. G. Galakhtin on the work of G. P. Fedotov).

Fedotov G.P. Russian religious thought (M.G. Galakhtin's article on the work of G.P. Fedotov).

Philosophers, lovers of wisdom (biographical index).

Compositions:

Saint Philip Metropolitan of Moscow. Paris, 1928;

And there is and will be. Reflections on Russia and the Revolution. Paris, 1932;

Spiritual Poems: Russian Folk Faith Based on Spiritual Poems. Paris, 1935; New city. (Sat. Art.). New York, 1948; Ed. 2nd. 1954; Christian in the Revolution. Paris, 1957; Saints of Ancient Russia (X-XVII centuries). New York, 1960; The face of Russia. (Art. 1918-50). Paris, 1974; Russia and freedom. New York, 1981; Litigation about Russia. (Art. 1933-36). Paris, 1982; Protection about Russia. (Art. 1936-40). Paris, 1988; Saints of Ancient Russia. M., 1990; The tragedy of the intelligentsia // About Russia and Russian philosophical culture. Philosophers of the Russian Post-October Abroad. M., 1990; National and universal // Ibid.; Will Russia exist? // There; Spiritual Poems. M., 1991; The fate and sins of Russia. Fav. Art. Russian philosophy. history and culture. T. 1. St. Petersburg, 1991; T. 2. St. Petersburg, 1992; The fate of empires // Russia between Europe and Asia: Eurasian temptation. Anthology. M., 1993.

Literature:

Fedotov G.P. And there is, and will be. Reflections on Russia and the Revolution. Paris, 1932 Karpovich M.M. G.P. Fedotov. - New magazine, 1951, No. 27 Fedotov G.P. Christianity in Revolution. Paris, 1957 Stepun F.A. G.P. Fedotov. - New magazine, 1957, No. 49 Fedotov G.P. The face of Russia. Paris, 1967 Fedotov G.P. Russia and freedom. New York, 1981 Fedotov G.P. Litigation about Russia. Paris, 1982 Fedotov G.P. Defense of Russia. Paris, 1988 Serbinenko V.V. justification of culture. Creative choice of G.P. Fedotov. - Questions of Philosophy, 1991, No. 8 Fedotov G.P. The fate and sins of Russia. St. Petersburg, 1991–1992

Georgy Petrovich Fedotov (1886–1951) - primarily a historian, historian of culture. A medieval scholar (he graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University, where, like L.P. Karsavin, he was a student of the outstanding Russian medievalist I.M. Grevs), Fedotov is the author of numerous works on the culture of the Russian and European Middle Ages. Among them: "Abelard" (1924), "Saints of Ancient Russia" (1931), "Spiritual Poems" (1935), "The Russian Religious Mind" (1946-1948) and others. At the same time, Fedotov is a kind of Christian thinker, not only a researcher, but also a philosopher of culture. Most of his creative biography fell on the period of emigration: he left Russia in 1925; in 1926-1940 - professor at the Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris; in 1940 he emigrated to the USA, taught at the Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York.

The apology of culture is the leading theme in the work of Fedotov the thinker. Defending the unconditional value of cultural creativity, Fedotov rejected both the extremes of anthropocentric humanism and radical theocentrism, which denies the connection between the cultural world of man and the divine world, between “earth” and “heaven” (he criticized, for example, K. Barth’s “theocentric theology”, reproached N. A. Berdyaev in that he “neglects” in the name of the creative act its fruits: “works of art or thought” (“Berdyaev the thinker”) In the images of Christian eschatology, Fedotov refused to see only an indication of the inevitability of the end, denying the tradition of the earthly "common cause" of many generations in the construction of the world of culture. "Now it is already clear which two concepts of eschatology and culture are rejected by the Christian experience of Revelation and history. The first concept is the endless, never completed progress that secularized Europe lived for the last two centuries. The second concept is violent, extrahuman and extracultural eschatology” (“Eschatology and Culture”).

Fedotov's historiosophical position included criticism of various variants of historical determinism: "rationalistic-pantheistic" (Hegelianism), materialistic absolutization of "the meaning of inert, material forces" in history, religious fatalism ("pressure of the Divine will"). “Without sharing the doctrine of historical determinism,” the thinker wrote, “we admit the possibility of choosing between different options for the historical path of peoples” (“Russia and Freedom”). In history, according to Fedotov, "freedom reigns" - this is a living, continuous process of cultural and historical creativity, in which there is no place for mechanical automatism, the fatal predestination of events. The cultural tradition that preserves the unity of history is constantly threatened by social catastrophes, and above all wars and revolutions. The view of the revolution as "God's judgment on the peoples" (J. de Maistre, partly N. A. Berdyaev) was completely alien to Fedotov. He was even less inclined to see revolutionary upheavals as a necessary condition for social progress. For him, a revolution is always a break in tradition, resulting in incalculable human casualties and the danger of social and cultural degradation. For revolutionary "greatness" one has to pay with the hard work of subsequent generations, forced to continue cultural construction on revolutionary ashes. In the idealization of the revolution, in the creation of a revolutionary myth, the thinker saw one of the most dangerous ideological temptations.

Fedotov believed that culture, being a fully universal affair, has a metaphysical (one might say, ontological) meaning, and its “failure” (in the version of N. A. Berdyaev or, with all the differences, L. Shestov) would be tantamount to not only historical, but also the final, metaphysical defeat of man. The experience of the historian and the intuition of the thinker determined his belief in the impossibility of such an outcome and in the fact that the future, even in the eschatological perspective, would not become a negation of the significance of cultural creativity. By creating culture, man wins even in the face of eternity.

Georgy Petrovich Fedotov (October 1 (13), 1886, Saratov, Russian Empire - September 1, 1951, Bacon, USA) - Russian historian, philosopher, religious thinker and publicist.

Born in the family of the governor's office. He graduated with honors from the men's gymnasium in Voronezh, where his parents moved. In 1904 he entered the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology. After the beginning of the 1905 revolution in Russia, he returned to his native city, where he joined the activities of the Saratov Social Democratic organization as a propagandist.

In August 1905, he was first arrested for participating in a gathering of agitators, but was released due to lack of evidence and continued his propaganda activities. In the spring of 1906, he hid under the name of Vladimir Alexandrovich Mikhailov in the city of Volsk. On June 11, 1906, he was elected to the Saratov City Committee of the RSDLP, and on August 17 he was again arrested and exiled to Germany. He attended history lectures at the University of Berlin until his expulsion from Prussia in early 1907, and then studied medieval history at the University of Jena.

After returning to Russia in the autumn of 1908, he was restored at the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University, where he was enrolled at the request even before his arrest and deportation to Germany. At St. Petersburg University, he concentrated his studies in the seminar of the famous medievalist I. M. Grevs. In the summer of 1910, he was forced to leave the university without passing exams because of the threat of arrest. In 1911, using someone else's passport, he left for Italy, where he visited Rome, Assisi, Perugia, Venice, studied in the libraries of Florence. Returning to Russia, G. P. Fedotov in April 1912 turned himself in to the gendarme department and received permission to take exams at St. Petersburg University. After serving a shortened term of exile in Karlsbad near Riga, he was left at the Department of General History of St. Petersburg University to prepare a master's thesis. In 1916 he became a Privatdozent of the University and an employee of the Public Library.

In 1925 Fedotov received permission to travel to Germany to study the Middle Ages. He did not return to his homeland. He moved to France, where from 1926 to 1940 he was a professor at the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris. He was close to N. A. Berdyaev and E. Yu. Skobtsova (Maria's mother).

Shortly after the German occupation of France in 1940, Fedotov left for the United States, where from 1941 to 1943 he lived in New Haven as a visiting scholar at Yale University Theological Seminary. With the support of the Humanitarian Foundation, created by B. A. Bakhmetiev, Fedotov wrote the first volume of the book "Russian Religious Mind", published by the Harvard University Press at the expense of the same foundation in 1946.

From 1944 he was a professor at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Seminary in New York State. In the USA, Fedotov still devoted a lot of energy to journalism. His articles on topical historical and political issues were published in Novy Zhurnal. Among them are the large articles "The Birth of Freedom" (1944), "Russia and Freedom" (1945), "The Fate of Empires" (1947).

Books (9)

Saint Philip, Metropolitan of Moscow

Collected works in 12 volumes. Volume 3

The third volume of the collected works of G.P. Fedotov included his 1928 monograph "St. Philip, Metropolitan of Moscow."

Until today, this work remains a model of modern hagiography - it organically combines a careful attitude to primary sources, a conscientious study of the accompanying historical evidence and a deep religious feeling of the researcher. The publication is supplied with an appendix, which includes the Church Slavonic text of the Life of Metropolitan Philip of the 17th century, published for the first time, as well as its translation.

G. P. Fedotov's research has not lost its relevance even today, when the question of the relationship between the Church and the authorities is again in the center of attention of Russian society.

Russian religiosity. Part I. Christianity of Kievan Rus X-XIII centuries.

Collected works in 12 volumes. Volume 10.

The 1st volume of "Russian religiosity", dedicated to the Christianity of Kievan Rus X-XIII centuries, already by the middle of the 60s. became a "generally recognized classic" (naturally, for Western scientists). The influence of the second was no less.

According to the author, “Kievan Rus, like the golden days of childhood, has not faded in the memory of the Russian people. In the pure source of her writing, anyone who wants to can quench their spiritual thirst; among its ancient authors can find guides who can help amid the difficulties of the modern world.

Kievan Christianity has the same meaning for Russian religiosity as Pushkin has for Russian artistic consciousness: the meaning of a model, a golden measure, the royal way.

Russian religiosity. Part II. Middle Ages XIII-XV centuries.

Collected works in 12 volumes. Volume 11.

The eleventh volume of the collected works of G.P. Fedotov included the second part of his last fundamental work "The Russian religious mind", written in English during his years in the United States.

In this book, Fedotov dwells not so much on the history of the Russian Church of the 13th-15th centuries, but on the peculiarities of the Russian religious consciousness of this period. The author, in his words, describes "the subjective side of religion, and not its objective manifestations: that is, the established complexes of dogmas, shrines, rituals, liturgics, canons, etc."

The focus of the author's attention is the mystical-ascetic life and religious ethics of the Russian people - "religious experience and religious behavior, in relation to which theology, liturgy and canons can be considered as their external expression and form."

M. V. Pechnikov

The name of Georgy Petrovich Fedotov (1886, Saratov - 1951, Bacon, New Jersey, USA) cannot be called forgotten at present. Died in a foreign land, by the end of the 20th century. he was recognized at home as an outstanding publicist, philosopher of history and culture. Meanwhile, Fedotov was a historian in terms of basic education, teaching activities and scientific interests (1). A professional researcher of the past is visible in all the works of Fedotov. His journalism is characterized by a sober, deep look into the past, the balance of each word, behind every thought a good knowledge of historical sources (2). Of the historical works proper, his book “Saints of Ancient Russia” is best known, in which the result of the author’s work on the lives of Russian medieval saints is summarized with great scientific and artistic skill. The purpose of this article is to determine the place of G. P. Fedotov in historiography, to identify the specific contribution of this researcher to historical science (3).

In the formation of G. P. Fedotov, a scientist and thinker, several stages can be distinguished (4). The first is associated with a passion for Marxism in early youth, underground activities and studies at the mechanical department of the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology (recognizing a penchant for the humanities, he nevertheless decided to connect himself with industrial production in order to be closer to the working class). The second The stage began in 1906, when, after being exiled for two years abroad for revolutionary activities, he began attending classes in history and philosophy at the universities of Berlin and Jena. Upon his return to Russia in 1908, Fedotov became a student of the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University, where he specialized in the study of the Western Middle Ages under the guidance of prof. I. M. Grevs. The Grevs school played a significant role in the development of Russian medieval studies, cultural studies and religious studies. Among his students were such prominent scientists as L. P. Karsavin, O. A. Dobiash-Rozhdestvenskaya, S. S. Bezobrazov (future Bishop Kassian) and others. socialist convictions), receives a Privatdozentur at the university.

The third stage is associated with conversion to Orthodoxy and churching (1917-1920). It falls on the years of work in the Imperial Public Library (now the National Library of Russia), where Fedotov experienced the influence of the outstanding historian of the Church A.V. Kartashev (5), who served there, which, perhaps, became decisive for his formation as a Russian historian. There he met the religious philosopher A. A. Meyer and in revolutionary Petrograd began to attend meetings of his circle "Resurrection". In 1918, with the publication of the essay “The Face of Russia”, published by the circle, Fedotov’s publicistic activity began.

It should also be noted that the formation of Fedotov's personality fell on the Silver Age - the era of the great flowering of Russian artistic culture, from which Fedotov, who was fond of symbolists and acmeists, forever left a brilliant literary style; in terms of brightness and aphoristic presentation among Russian historians, it can be compared, perhaps, only with V. O. Klyuchevsky. The first third of the century is also the era of the religious and philosophical renaissance. Fedotov was a contemporary of N. A. Berdyaev, S. N. Bulgakov, S. L. Frank and other prominent thinkers, with some of whom he became close friends in subsequent years. Like many of them, Fedotov went through a complex evolution from Marxism to Orthodoxy. The originality of his spiritual and creative path was that since the 1920s. he quite organically, which is so characteristic of his personality, combined a scientist-historian, an Orthodox philosopher and a publicist of the left, Christian-socialist, persuasion (unlike L.P. Karsavin, who moved from historical science first to religious philosophy and cultural studies, and then to theology and poetry).

In 1920, the young historian became a professor at Saratov University, but could not come to terms with the ideological pressure that had begun on science and teaching. Returning to Petrograd, he published several articles on the Western European Middle Ages and a monograph on Abelard (1924). The main works - both scientific and journalistic - Fedotov was destined to write in exile. Forced to leave his homeland in 1925, Fedotov became a teacher of the history of the Western Church, Latin and hagiology at the Orthodox Theological Institute of St. Sergius of Radonezh in Paris. Here he soon became known as a publicist, church and public figure. The famous Parisian publishing house YMCA-Press published his historical studies “Saint Philip, Metropolitan of Moscow” (1928), “Saints of Ancient Russia” (1931), “Spiritual Poems” (1935). In 1941, he and his family moved from Nazi-occupied Paris, first to the south of France, and then, after a long and risky voyage across the Atlantic, to America. In the USA, he first became a teacher at the school at Yale University, and then - a professor at the New York St. Vladimir's Theological Seminary (Academy). Until the end of his days, he continued to work on the work of his life - "Russian Religious Mind" ("The Russian Religious Mind"), which remained unfinished due to the untimely death of the researcher.

To understand the place of Fedotov in historiography, one should first of all take into account the problems and methodology of Russian historical works before the 10s. 20th century, when he entered science. Fedotov, like all Russian historians of the first third of the 20th century who developed the problems of national history, was the heir (although not a direct student) of V. O. Klyuchevsky. Klyuchevsky in Russian historiography was preceded by Hegelian historians (the state school of S. M. Solovyov and others, and the historical and legal school of V. I. Sergeevich). They were interested in the problems of the state and law, foreign policy, the activities of outstanding builders of the state and the functioning of state institutions. The attention of Klyuchevsky, who worked in the era of the heyday of positivism, was attracted primarily by social problems, the theme of the people, social groups and classes, as well as the economy and the everyday way of life. He also showed interest in religious and biographical issues (a book about Russian lives, an article about St. Sergius of Radonezh, portraits of Russian historical figures, etc.). But in his generalizing work The Course of Russian History, Klyuchevsky, as Fedotov noted, allowed the conscious “exclusion of all spiritual culture in the pursuit of a complete explanation of the process” (6). Fedotov explained this by the "spirit of the times", which demanded that historical science reveal the laws of social development and assigned a subordinate role to spiritual culture. Even at the beginning of the 20th century its individual problems were developed not by secular historians, but by church historians, philologists, and art historians. remains, of course, the most “materialist” in the Clio family” (7). This opinion is not entirely fair and is a journalistic exaggeration (one can recall at least “Essays on Russian Culture” by P. N. Milyukov), but on the whole, pre-revolutionary historiography developed in line with the trend that was noted by the thinker.

In Fedotov, we see the construction of not only post-Hegelian, but also post-positivist history of Russia. Like L.P. Karsavin, who was a little older than him (born 1882) and had begun his scientific activity earlier, he noted the central importance of culture for understanding the past, and considered religiosity to be a backbone in culture. Karsavin separated religiosity itself from faith, considered the main thing for a historian to understand what a person of the past does not believe in, but how he believes, he was interested in the subjective side of religion and its influence on social processes (8). Innovative works of Karsavin on the history of Western religiosity of the XII-XIII centuries. and the methodology of history (9), of course, were known to Fedotov and could not but influence the methodology of his own work. Karsavin and other representatives of the Grevs school opened a new research space, which the young historian entered with enthusiasm (10).

From the 20s. in France, the famous direction of the “new historical science”, or the “School of the Annales”, critical of positivism, declaring the interdisciplinarity of research (“total history”), an anthropological approach, the study of basic mental attitudes (mentality) as determining the social behavior of people of one or another different era (11). Fedotov was a contemporary of the older generation of the School, its founders M. Blok and L. Fevre, moreover, being in exile, he lived with them in the same city. It is difficult to imagine that Fedotov, while teaching the history of Western confessions and Western hagiology in Paris, being a medieval historian by education and initial scientific interests, stopped tracking modern scientific literature on this issue and did not read the Annals magazine published here in Paris. At the same time, it is impossible to say that the influence of the Annales School on Fedotov was decisive, in the 1920s. he was already a well-established researcher. Thus, in his research, he developed innovative trends in modern historical science, was "at the forefront" of updating historical knowledge.

G. P. Fedotov, as a researcher of the Russian past, is an example of a representative of that scientific school that could have appeared in Russia (simultaneously, or even earlier than similar trends in the West), if Marxism had not been forcibly imposed on Russian historical science as an obligatory doctrine, and even in a peculiar interpretation of the party-state leadership. Methodologically, in historical science in the 1920s - early. 30s the vulgar sociological approach to the study of the historical process (Pokrovsky's school) prevailed, and from the middle. 1930s there is a new transformation of the official ideology, which affected the historical science by adding to the Marxist ideological guidelines and entering into bizarre interactions with them the “second edition”, outdated already by the beginning of the 20th century. “public school” (12). Many outstanding scientists-researchers of Ancient Russia (both scientists of the old school who worked in Soviet conditions - M. D. Priselkov, S. V. Yushkov, S. B. Veselovsky and others, and formed after the revolution - A. N. Nasonov, L. V. Cherepnin, A. A. Zimin, Ya. S. Lurie, and others), were forced to bypass the ideological traps set “from above” in every possible way, concentrating on the problematic of sources. Leaning more towards the methodology of positivism, they contributed to the accumulation of factual data related to socio-economic and political history. The spiritual life of society in the works of historians (13) was covered only in the aspect of the history of ideological movements and journalistic controversy, while the main purpose of the research was to find out which social group or class views were expressed by one side or another, and which of them were “progressive” .

The only contemporary of G. P. Fedotov who worked in the Soviet Union in the same direction as he was B. A. Romanov (1889-1957), the author of a completely atypical for Soviet science, miraculously published and subjected to persecution of the monograph “People and Morals Ancient Russia: Historical and everyday essays of the XI-XIII centuries.” (L., 1947; last ed.: M., 2002), which has not yet lost its scientific significance. Written brightly and figuratively, on many issues it intersects with legal norms in the everyday life of people of different social status. Unfortunately, the books of Fedotov published by that time could not be known to Romanov, since his monograph was written in exile upon his return from the concentration camp, in any case, they could not be used by him openly. Fedotov also nowhere mentions the book of Romanov published in Leningrad ( Fedotov's work on "Kyiv Christianity" was published a year before its publication).

Speaking about the methodology of G. P. Fedotov, one should single out his program article “Orthodoxy and Historical Criticism” (1932). It declares the need for a critical approach to Orthodox tradition. According to Fedotov, the problem of scientific criticism stems from the spirit of Orthodoxy. Criticism is likened to asceticism, cutting off the false, “intellectual repentance”, its task is “to free the pure basis of sacred tradition from under the historical slag that has grown in history along with religious profit ... Criticism is a sense of proportion, an ascetic finding of a middle path between a frivolous affirmation and a frivolous denial " (fourteen). Further, the unity of the methodology of secular and ecclesiastical historical science is postulated, the understanding of historical criticism as source study, the inadmissibility of fantastic constructions that are not based on sources, even in the name of a higher goal. At the same time, the Christian historian must refrain from judging from the standpoint of common sense when assessing the events of spiritual life described in the sources of supernatural phenomena (“no science - less than others historical - can solve the question of the supernatural or natural nature of a fact ... He (historian - M.P.) has no right to eliminate a fact just because the fact goes beyond the boundaries of his personal or average everyday experience” (15). The legend has value only as a fact of the spiritual culture of this or that era.Historical realism and critical approach Fedotov notes already among the ancient Russian chroniclers and hagiographers, and later - among the representatives of church historical science of the 19th century (E. E. Golubinsky, V. V. Bolotova and others), who breathed “the ascetic air of scientific criticism” (16).

By the time the article was published, Fedotov had embodied its principles in two books published abroad on Russian history. The first of them is “Saint Philip, Metropolitan of Moscow” (1928). The image of St. Philip (Kolychev) is given against the background of the era of the formation of the Muscovite kingdom and the strengthening of tyranny, the apogee of which was the oprichnina introduced by Ivan IV. The protest against the oprichnina became the cause of the violent death of the metropolitan in 1569, who became a martyr not for the faith, but “for the truth of Christ, insulted by the king” (17). The choice of the hero of the book, of course, was not accidental. Events of the 1st third of the XX century. in Russia and the world dictated the perception of Russian history as a tragedy, and not as a natural and progressive movement towards a “bright future”. The book was written during the years of severe persecution of the Churches in the USSR and was published the following year after the appearance in 1927 of the "Declaration" of Met. Sergius (Stragorodsky) about the loyalty of the Church to the power of the Bolsheviks, which was ambiguously perceived by believers both within the country and abroad. This context, of course, gave Fedotov's work a special sound that is not felt by all modern readers. Another “dimension” of the book is historiographical. Fedotov, on the one hand, takes into account all the achievements of specialists in the study of the 16th century, and on the other hand, he strongly opposes the tendency towards the rehabilitation of Ivan the Terrible and the rationale for oprichnina terror is a state necessity. Fedotov, relying on the authoritative and well-founded opinion of Klyuchevsky and Platonov, points out that the oprichnina did not strengthen, but ruined the state. But the main thing is that no state considerations can justify blatant immorality, cruelty and injustice: “St. Philip gave his life in the fight against this very state, in the person of the tsar, showing that it, too, must submit to the highest principle of life” (18). the historian's opinion sounded "outdated", but truly prophetic.

In the book about St. Philip Fedotov outlined the theme of the “tragedy of Russian holiness”, brilliantly revealed in his next, most famous work - “Saints of Ancient Russia” (1931), which is still perceived as an exemplary study of the spiritual life of the pre-Petrine period (19). In the Introduction to the book, the historian notes that “the task of studying Russian holiness as a special tradition of spiritual life was not even set. This was hindered by a prejudice ... uniformity, immutability of spiritual life. For some, this is a canon, a patristic norm, for others it is a stencil that deprives the topic of holiness of scientific interest” (20).

The book about the saints was conceived and written as a popular science book, but its scientific significance is undeniable. For the first time, the methods of historical anthropology were applied to the study of Russian hagiographic literature by Fedotov. Researchers are interested in saints as unique personalities (as a rule, barely distinguishable behind hagiographic clichés), people who, despite their common faith, had different types of religious consciousness. Fedotov is the actual creator of the scientific typology of Russian holiness. It should also be noted that the historian repeatedly uses the comparative historical method: “knowledge of the hagiography of the entire Christian world, primarily the Orthodox, Greek and Slavic East, is necessary in order to have the right to judge the special Russian character of holiness” (21).
The researcher notes the difficulty of the historian using the material itself - Russian hagiographies: “The personal in life, as well as on the icon, is given in fine lines, in shades: this is the art of nuances ... The law of hagiographic style ... requires the subordination of the particular to the general, the dissolution of the human face in the heavenly glorified face” (22). However, life is different from life: “A writer-artist or a devoted disciple of a saint who has taken up his work on his fresh grave can, with a thin brush, sparingly, but accurately, give a few personal features. A writer, a late or conscientious worker, works according to “facial originals”, refraining from personal, unstable, unique” (23). Therefore, a preliminary source study of certain lives plays such a large role. Fedotov abroad could not carry out such work, being cut off from handwritten material, but by that time Russian philology had accumulated quite a few special studies of the lives as literary monuments, on which the émigré historian could rely. Unlike his predecessor, V. O. Klyuchevsky, who wrote the book “Old Russian Lives of the Saints as a Historical Source” (M., 1871) and came to the conclusion in it that the historical content of hagiographic literature is poor, Fedotov is not so pessimistic, since Klyuchevsky I did not look for the facts of the history of spiritual life in the lives. Already the study of A.P. Kadlubovsky “Essays on the History of Old Russian Literature of the Lives of Saints” (Warsaw, 1902) showed the fruitfulness of studying the lives as sources for studying the spiritual culture of the 15th-16th centuries, although in general the study of the Russian hagiographic tradition, even at the beginning of the 20th century. remained “external, literary and historical, without sufficient attention to the problems of holiness as a category of spiritual life” (24). In the disclosure of this topic, Fedotov saw the main task of his work.

The undoubted achievements of the work of G. P. Fedotov include: the definition of two spiritual directions in the Kiev-Pechersk monasticism - ascetic-heroic, reclusive and humbly obedient, aimed at serving society; characterization of the cult-princes-martyrs Boris and Gleb as a typical Russian veneration of innocent voluntary death as following the path of Christ; allocation of categories of princely holiness; the study of Russian foolishness as a form of prophetic service, combined with extreme asceticism.

Fedotov shows that starting from St. Theodosius of the Caves (“the father of Russian monasticism”), a feature of Russian holiness was relatively moderate asceticism (through fasting, physical labor, wakefulness) social, public service - kenotism, which was understood as selfless adherence to Christ. In the Russian saints, for the historian, as nowhere else in history, “the image of the humiliated Christ” is visible (25). And vice versa - the opposition of the life of the saints to the life of the people is noted, their denial of the sinful world, which was not at all “Holy Russia” (“the idealization of Russian life would be a perverted conclusion from the radiance of its holiness” (26)). An important clarification of this concept is connected with Fedotov, which makes it possible to use it scientifically: Holy Russia is not a people, much less a state, these are people outstanding in their religious qualities, holy Russia.

Fedotov notes a certain dynamics of ancient Russian holiness: he considers this phenomenon as a spiritual process that has an ascending stage, flourishing (the 15th century, called by Fedotov the “golden age of Russian holiness”) and decline (mainly in the 17th-18th centuries). At the origins of the 15th century, which “passes under the sign of mystical life,” stands St. Sergius of Radonezh. A new type of monasticism is associated with his name - the saints leave the suburban monasteries and go into the forests. Trans-Volga elders of the XV-XVI centuries. preserved in their original purity the precepts of Sergius - non-covetousness (renunciation not only of personal, but also of monastic property), humble meekness, love, solitude, contemplation of God.

Fedotov attached the greatest importance to the history of Russian spiritual culture to the “tragedy of Russian holiness,” as he defined the victory over the Trans-Volga non-sacrifice of the Josephite direction in monasticism. Comparing in accordance with the tradition of science 2nd floor. XIX - early. 20th century spiritual directions of the Monk Nil Sorsky and Joseph Volotsky, the historian notes that in their relationship “the principles of spiritual freedom and mystical life oppose social organization and statutory piety” (27). Fedotov made an interesting observation that the triumph of Josephism was predetermined by the commonality of his ideal of external spiritual discipline with the cause of nation-building, headed by Moscow, which required tension and submission to the supreme power of all social forces, including the Church. The victory of the Josephites ultimately led not only to the consolidation of the dependence of the Church on the state, but also to the "ossification of spiritual life." In the religious life of Russia, the “religion of consecrated matter”, ritualism is affirmed, which largely determined the nature of the spiritual culture of the 17th century. and the Old Believer schism. The drying up of the non-possessive flow of Russian religiosity led to a “shallowing” of holiness. “The great thread leading from St. Sergius,” according to Fedotov, was torn. The historian considers the middle of the 16th century to be the fatal line. (the defeat of the Trans-Volga monasteries): “Vasily III and even Ivan the Terrible had the opportunity to talk with the saints. For the pious Alexei Mikhailovich, all that remained was to make a pilgrimage to their tombs” (28). The revival of this spiritual direction in the form of “elders” (St. Seraphim of Sarov, Optina elders) occurred only in the 19th century.

A special theme in the scientific work of G. P. Fedotov is folk religiosity. The monograph “Spiritual Poems” (1935), articles written on its basis and the corresponding sections in “Russian Religiosity” are devoted to its study. Fedotov can rightfully be called one of the pioneers of the topic of religiosity of the lower strata of medieval society in our science and one of the first to touch upon this issue in world science (29).

Starting to study spiritual verses (songs on religious subjects), as one of the most important sources for studying this issue, the historian wrote: “Until now, no one has approached the study of Russian spiritual verses from the point of view that interests us. Three-quarters of a century of research work was devoted almost exclusively to elucidating the plot material of poems and their book sources. Their religious content ... remained out of sight of the Russian historical and literary school” (30).

Fedotov is well aware of the limitations of his material and warns against regarding spiritual verses as sources for the reconstruction of folk faith; their study “leads us not to the very depths of the masses of the people, not to the darkest environment, close to paganism, but to those higher layers of it, where it is in close contact with the church world” (31), to the environment of spiritual singers, “folk semi-ecclesiastical intelligentsia". Among the broad masses of the people, Fedotov admits, the level of religious knowledge was even lower; but since the creators of spiritual poems come from the people and turn to it, striving to satisfy its spiritual needs, one can nevertheless look for “expressions of the deepest subconscious elements of the religious soul of the Russian people” in these works (32).

Fedotov considers spiritual verses as cultural phenomena of the pre-Petrine era, “a surviving fragment of Moscow culture in the civilization of modern times that is corrupting it” (33). In the popular environment, in his opinion, the Middle Ages survived until the middle. 19th century (this idea echoes the idea of ​​the “Long Middle Ages” expressed later by J. Le Goff). The author examines the folk faith using the main categories of Christian theology: Christology, cosmology, anthropology, ecclesiology and eschatology. The sources of spiritual verses are the lives of the saints, the apocrypha, liturgy, icon-paintings accepted in the church environment, much less often - the Holy. Scripture, however, as the researcher shows, the interpretation of certain plots descending from book culture into folklore culture does not always correspond to their orthodox understanding.

At the same time, the researcher shows that the variant of the “folk faith”, reflected in spiritual verses, is not “double faith”, which it seemed to ancient Russian scribes, as well as to many scientists of the 19th-20th centuries, but a holistic, structurally unified system of world perception ( this view is shared by many researchers of our time - N. I. Tolstoy, V. M. Zhivov, A. L. Toporkov and others, who studied the problem on a wider basis). Despite the clearly revealed pagan layers and distortions of Christian doctrine, Fedotov, nevertheless, characterizes the worldview of the creators, performers and listeners of spiritual verses as Christian. Pagan elements are transformed and submitted to Christian ones. This is the author's principled position, which differs from the direction of both the majority of pre-revolutionary and Soviet studies, the authors of which sought, first of all, to identify traces of archaic thinking and mythology and emphasize their predominance. In Fedotov, we see a conscious shift of emphasis towards how the people perceive Christianity, how the teachings of the church are reflected in their minds. This approach has only recently received recognition in domestic science (34).

In folk religion, the researcher identifies three elements that correspond to their varieties of sins - 1) ritualistic (the religion of law and fear), associated with Christ, Who is seen by the people primarily as a formidable Heavenly King and Judge, and whose earthly life is little known before the passions; 2) caritative or kenotic (the religion of compassion, pity and sacrificial love), associated with the Mother of God, as well as with the saints, through whose images the gospel Christ shines to the people, Fedotov notes; and 3) naturalistic-generic, associated with Mother Earth, sinless and with difficulty enduring human lawlessness. “Mother of cheese earth” takes on the image of the “dollar reflection” of the Mother of God, the ethics of tribal life is associated with her. Rejecting, following the majority of researchers, the idea of ​​the Bogomil influence on spiritual verses, Fedotov sees in them the exact opposite of Manichaean dualism - “sophia”, a sense of the ontological divinity of nature, the idea of ​​an inseparable connection between the natural and the supernatural (here the researcher sees a certain relationship with the works of Dostoevsky, Solovyov, Florensky, Bulgakov).

In spiritual verses, the author highlights such dominant themes as the glorification of begging (verses about Lazarus and the Ascension), the description of the suffering of a hero (Christ, Adam, Lazarus, saints), cosmology (verse about the Dove Book) and eschatology (verses about the Last Judgment, demonstrating gloomy, tragically hopeless perception of this topic, which is associated with the darkening of the image of Christ the Savior and the understanding of Him as a severe Judge). The researcher presumably traces the legalistic elements of spiritual verses to the 16th century. and considers it a consequence of the victory over the mystical and caritative non-accumulation of Josephism, the spiritual nature of which he sees in “the great severity of moral and ritual prescriptions, reinforced by an eschatological threat”, as well as in “the convergence of the power of God with the power of the tsar in the era of the growth of Moscow autocracy and the barbarization of its forms” ( 35). The semantic analysis of basic concepts applied by Fedotov, the systematic approach, as well as the results of the study are highly appreciated by modern scientists (36).

The main work of Fedotov's life was to be the series of monographs he conceived, "Russian Religious Mind" ("The Russian Religious Mind"; another version of the translation is "Russian Religious Consciousness"). It was written in the USA in English and was designed for the Western scientific community. The researcher conceived to bring the presentation to the XX century. inclusive, but during the life of the author, in 1946, only a volume devoted to the period of Kievan Rus was published (37); the second volume, left unfinished and published posthumously, edited by Fr. I. F. Meyendorff in 1966, covers the period up to the end. 15th century (38).

In the Introduction to the 1st volume, the researcher again declares his anthropological approach to the study of the past: “I intended to describe the subjective side of religion… My interest is focused on the consciousness of a person: a religious person in his relation to God, the world, his fellows; this relationship is not purely emotional, but also rational and volitional, that is, the manifestation of the whole human being. The focus of the historian's attention is "religious experience and religious behavior, in relation to which theology, liturgy and canons can be considered as their external expression and form" (39). This is the fundamental novelty of Fedotov's research in comparison with the works on the history of ancient Russian spiritual culture that were available at that time (works on the history of literature, art, and the Church). The famous book about. G. Florovsky's "Ways of Russian Theology" (Paris, 1937), also innovative in its own way, dealt only with the history of religious thought, that is, a narrower sphere than the one that interested Fedotov.

Declaring adherence to the methods of Western science (40), Fedotov actually rather follows the methodology developed by Karsavin. In particular, this refers to the identification of religious types: “Every collective life is a unity of diversity; it manifests itself only through individual personalities, each of which reflects only some features of a common being. One cannot examine the individual as a representative of the whole”, so one should “choose those types that are representative of various spiritual groups and which, in their totality, if they are chosen properly, can reflect the collective being” (41).

In his latest work, Fedotov undertook what in Western scholarship has been called the "dense study" of culture. Like the gradual discovery by scientists of ancient Russian icon painting in the second half of the XIX - early. XX century., Fedotov made the "discovery" of ancient Russian religiosity as a scientific problem. From “speculation in colors” (E. N. Trubetskoy) he moved on to the study of the word of Ancient Russia, the search for reflections of religious consciousness in chronicles, lives, teachings and other sources (42). At the same time, he tried to be unbiased, to exclude pre-worked out concepts: “I let Russian sources speak for themselves, and I got unexpected and exciting results. The living image of the past at every step contradicted the established opinions of historians” (43).

In two volumes, again, this time for the Western reader, the material published in the previous books of the historian, written in Russian, was presented. However, the content of "Russian Religiosity" is far from being exhausted by this. Not being able to dwell on all the problems raised by the historian and note all his observations on the sources, we will single out the main topics and results of the study (except for those mentioned above, when analyzing earlier works).

This is, firstly, the theological and scientific "silence" of ancient Russian culture. According to Fedotov, it was associated with the translation of literature into the Old Slavonic language, while in the West the language of the church remained the language of Roman antiquity - Latin, which predetermined the perception of the scientific and philosophical tradition of classical antiquity. In Russia, however, there was a “separation from classical culture”, with certain advantages in the Christianization of the population, which was provided by worship and literature in a close and understandable Old Church Slavonic language (44). The intellectual influence of Byzantium is reduced by the Fedotovs to theological allegorism, reflected in the few writings of Hilarion, Kliment Smolyatich, Kirill Turovsky (“Russian Byzantinists”) that have come down to us.

At the same time, Fedotov is far from a nihilistic assessment of the spiritual culture of the “Kyiv period”. On the contrary, for Russian religiosity it has “the same meaning that Pushkin has for the Russian artistic consciousness: the meaning of a model, a golden measure, the royal way” (45). The historian notes the importance of the first Christian generation in Russia, which gave already in the XI century. lofty examples of Christian literature (Hilarion), “kenotic” holiness (Boris and Gleb, Theodosius) and art. The great influence on the spiritual life of Russian people is emphasized by the beauty of nature, which had a high religious value in Ancient Russia (“The Tale of Igor's Campaign”, “Teachings of Vladimir Monomakh”) and beauty in culture (temples, icons, worship).

With an almost complete absence of independent scientific thought, even in the field of theology, Ancient Russia, according to Fedotov, was in no way inferior to the West in the field of historiography. The historian puts Russian chronicles and chronographs very highly, and notes a great interest in translated works on world history. The Russian chronicles are marked by "a realistic historical flair, a wealth of detail and an artistic presentation of events," while they gravitate toward a religious philosophy of history. The original Russian theology also manifested itself only in the historical sphere, and not in the rational or logical one, as in the West or in Byzantium. Even the lives of the “Kyiv” period “clearly prefer historical facts to legendary embellishment.” With this penchant for historical realism, "Rus' in its understanding of history is closer to medieval Europe than to Byzantium" (46).

An important place in Fedotov's work is occupied by the problem of the religious ethics of the laity (explored according to Russian articles in collections of teachings, penitential canons, annals and other sources). Mercy is singled out as the main category in it, and this is one of the differences between ancient Russian religiosity and Byzantine religiosity, where, as in the later “Moscow” religiosity of the 16th-17th centuries, “the fear of God” was in the first place (47). The historian notes that Christianity in Russia descended from above, “from princely houses and boyar houses”, down to the masses, and written sources reflect mainly the religiosity of representatives of the upper stratum of society, the most literate and Christianized. The phenomenon of monastic spiritual mentoring of the laity is noted, in general the influence of monastic religious practice on the religious norms of Ancient Russia, the ritualistic understanding of Christian life by most of the clergy.

In the second volume of a study on Russian Christianity of the XIII-XV centuries. (48), the central place is occupied by the theme of Russian holiness. In addition, it provides a deep analysis of such problems as the Christian ethics of the laity in the post-Mongolian period (according to the collection “Izmaragd”), the first Russian sect of the Novgorod-Pskov Strigolniks, the appearance of which is explained by the success of the Christianization of the masses, the feudal world in the religious assessment of the chroniclers, religious art as the silent, but no less lofty theology of Russia, the “republic of Hagia Sophia” - Veliky Novgorod as an alternative, not monarchical, but republican path of development of the Russian Orthodox society.

The 1st volume of "Russian religiosity", dedicated to the Christianity of Kievan Rus X-XIII centuries, already by the middle. 60s became a “generally recognized classic” (49) (of course, for Western scholars). The influence of the second was no less. It can be said that G. P. Fedotov, along with the specialist in the ancient world M. I. Rostovtsev, the medievalist P. G. Vinogradov, the historian of Russia G. V. Vernadsky, the Byzantinist A. A. Vasiliev, became one of the Russian emigrant historians "first wave", which received unconditional recognition and scientific authority in the West, primarily in the Anglo-Saxon world. Since the end of the 80s, when the books and articles of G.P. Fedotov began to be published in their homeland, they were highly appreciated by such historians, philologists, religious scholars as D.S. Likhachev, Fr. A. Men, A. Ya. Gurevich, Ya. S. Lurie, A. I. Klibanov, N. I. Tolstoy, V. N. Toporov, Ya. N. Shchapov, I. N. Danilevsky, etc., and also Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy II.

Both in his historical works and in publicism, G. P. Fedotov did a lot for the knowledge of Russia, for the education of a spiritually sober look at it, devoid, on the one hand, of flattering self-deception and national pride, on the other hand, of national self-abasement and disbelief in the future of the country. Often, as it seemed to the nationalists, he attacked Russia and the Russian people too harshly. But, according to the just remark of Fedotov's friend, the poet Yu. P. Ivask, “these philippics of his are jeremiads. Jeremiah and other Old Testament prophets harshly rebuked Israel out of love for Israel. So Fedotov denounced Russia, loving her” (50). It seems that the definition of a historian as “a prophet turned to the past” (F. Schlegel) is fully applicable to him. The historicism of thinking preached by G. P. Fedotov in all his work was reflected in his favorite thought that “the face of Russia cannot be revealed in one generation, modern to us. It is in the living connection of all obsolete genera, like a musical melody in the alternation of dying sounds” (51). To pick up this "melody" of Russian culture, to develop, harmonize, enrich, while preserving the main theme, is the task of present and future generations, and Fedotov's works will undoubtedly contribute to this.

Notes

1. It was precisely as a historian that the Russian Diaspora perceived him. It is noteworthy that the philosophical views of Fedotov did not find any reflection in the two fundamental émigré "Histories of Russian Philosophy" - Fr. V. V. Zenkovsky (1948-1950) and N. O. Lossky (1951).
2. An example of the opposite is the works on Ancient Russia by L. N. Gumilyov, who openly called the study of sources “small things”; it is not surprising that a number of “facts” that he cites in his now so popular books do not correlate with the sources.
3. This topic received some coverage in the works: Raev M. Russia abroad: the history of the culture of Russian emigration 1919-1939. M., 1994. S. 165-166, 228-232; Yumasheva O. G. Traditions of Russian historical science in the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries. in the legacy of Georgy Petrovich Fedotov. Abstract dis…. cand. ist. Sciences. M., 1995; Volodikhin D. M., Grudina E. A. Christian methodology of the history of G. P. Fedotov // Russian Middle Ages. 1999 M., 1999. S. 124-126.
4. For more information about his life path, see: Fedotova E. N. Georgy Petrovich Fedotov (1886-1951) // Fedotov G. P. Face of Russia: Articles 1918-1930. Paris, 1988. S. I-XXXI; Bychkov S. S. G. P. Fedotov (biographical sketch) // Fedotov G. P. Sobr. op. in 12 t. M., 1996. T. 1. S. 5-50.
5. In the summer of 1917, who became the last Chief Prosecutor of the Synod and the Minister of Religions of the Provisional Government.
6. Fedotov G. P. Russia of Klyuchevsky // Fedotov G. P. Fate and sins of Russia: Selected articles on the philosophy of Russian history and culture. St. Petersburg, 1991. T. 1. P. 339.
7. Ibid. P. 348. Already in 1918, Fedotov noted that “the difficult social process too exclusively occupied the attention of our historians, obscuring its deep spiritual content” (Fedotov G.P. Face of Russia // Collected works. M., 1996. T. 1. S. 107).
8. See for more details: Yastrebitskaya A. L. Lev Platonovich Karsavin: his experience of the “new” history of religiosity in the Western European Middle Ages as a cultural and historical phenomenon // Religions of the World: History and Modernity. Yearbook, 1999. M., 1999. S. 121-133.
9. Karsavin L.P. Essays on religious life in Italy in the 12th-13th centuries. SPb., 1912; he is. Fundamentals of medieval religiosity in the XII-XIII centuries, mainly in Italy. Pg., 1915; he is. Culture of the Middle Ages. Pg., 1918; same. Introduction to History: Theory of History. Pg., 1920.
10. See his works devoted to the religious life of the Western Middle Ages (mainly Merovingian hagiography, on which he prepared his dissertation), published in 1911 - 1928: Fedotov G. P. Sobr. op. M., 1996. T. 1; M., 1998. T. 2.
11. See: Gurevich A. Ya. Historical Synthesis and the Annales School. M., 1993.
12. In fact, the highest value was declared the Soviet state as the pinnacle of progress (just as for Hegel it was the Prussian state). Accordingly, the previous nation-state building and imperialism of pre-revolutionary Russia, which prepared the way for the creation of the Soviet state, were also declared progressive phenomena. A direct consequence of this was the "canonization" under the "Marxist" Stalin of Peter I and Ivan the Terrible. By the way, it should be noted that G. P. Fedotov had a hierarchy of values ​​that was different from the Soviet patriot: as for an eschatologically minded Orthodox Christian, the “heavenly fatherland” meant more to him than the earthly one, albeit hotly, to the point of pain in the heart (the reason for the death of the thinker), beloved. Back in the late 1940s. he predicted the inevitability of the unification of Europe and the collapse of the Soviet system (“Genghis Khan’s Empire”, as he, in defiance of the Eurasians, called the post-war Stalinist USSR). Higher than the transient state in time, for him stood eternal, in his deep conviction, culture (see. articles “The Fate of Empires”, “Eschatology and Culture”).
13. It was believed that philologists and art historians, who study certain problems of ancient Russian literature and art, are engaged in spiritual culture. They own a lot of outstanding research, but they were also under ideological control.
14. Fedotov G. P. Orthodoxy and historical criticism // Fedotov G. P. Sobr. op. T. 2. M., 1998. S. 220, 221.
15. Ibid. S. 223.
16. Ibid. S. 229.
17. Fedotov G. P. St. Philip, Metropolitan of Moscow. M., 1991. S. 5.
18. Ibid.
19. So, many of Fedotov's ideas were adopted and developed in the study of V. N. Toporov: Toporov V. N. Holiness and saints in Russian spiritual culture. M., 1995. Vol. 1; M., 1998. T. 2; See also: Toporov V. N. On the Russian thinker Georgy Fedotov and his book // Our heritage. 1988. No. 4. S. 45, 50 - 53.
20. Fedotov G.P. Saints of Ancient Russia. M., 1990. S. 28.
21. Ibid. S. 29.
22. Ibid. S. 28, 30.
23. Ibid. S. 30.
24. Ibid. S. 32.
25. Ibid. S. 236.
26. Ibid. S. 237.
27. Ibid. P. 186. Not all modern scholars are inclined to give the relationship between Nile and Joseph the character of a direct confrontation (see: Lurie Ya. S. Ideological confrontation in Russian journalism of the late XV-1st half of the XVI century. M .; L., 1960; Romanenko E.V. Nil Sorsky and the traditions of Russian monasticism. M., 2003), however, this is quite applicable to their students and followers (see, for example: Pliguzov A.I. Controversy in the Russian Church of the 1st third of the 16th century. M., 2002).
28. FedotovG. P. Saints of Ancient Russia. P. 196. Attempt of igum. Andronik (Trubacheva) to revise Fedotov’s conclusions on the basis of statistical data, taking into account non-canonized ascetics of piety (Andronik (Trubachev), abbot. Canonization of saints in the Russian Orthodox Church // Orthodox Encyclopedia: Russian Orthodox Church. M., 2000. P. 367-370) does not cancel Fedotov's main position - the extinction of the mystical current in monasticism, which, without any doubt, is reborn only in the synodal era. Indirectly, this is confirmed by the steady weakening of the artistic power of religious art, which is outlined just about the middle of the 16th century.
29. Based on the material of the Western Middle Ages, the theme of “alternative” religiosity of the broad masses of the people, who did not leave written sources (“the silent majority”, in the words of A. Ya. Gurevich), began to be developed only since the 1970s. See, for example: Gurevich A. Ya. Problems of medieval folk culture. M., 1981; he is. Medieval World: The Culture of the Silent Majority. M., 1990; Le GoffJ. Another Middle Ages: Time, labor and culture of the West. Yekaterinburg, 2000 (1st edition - Paris, 1977); Le Roy Ladurie E. Montaillou, Occitan village (1294-1324). Yekaterinburg, 2001 (1st edition - Paris, 1975).
30. Fedotov G.P. Spiritual Poems: Russian Folk Faith Based on Spiritual Poems. M., 1991. S. 16-17.
31. Ibid. S. 15.
32. Ibid. S. 16.
33. Ibid. P. 13. Modern studies do not confirm, although at the same time they do not refute this point of view.
34. See, for example: Panchenko A. A. Research in the field of folk Orthodoxy: Village shrines of the North-West of Russia. SPb., 1998: Musin A.E. Christianization of the Novgorod land in the IX-XIV centuries: Funeral rite and Christian antiquities. SPb., 2002.
35. Fedotov G.P. Spiritual Poems. S. 121.
36. Tolstoy N. I. A few words about the new series and book by G. P. Fedotov “Spiritual Poems” // Fedotov G. P. Spiritual Poems. pp. 5 - 9; Nikitina S. E. “Spiritual Poems” by G. Fedotov and Russian Spiritual Poems // Ibid. pp. 137-153.
37. Fedotov G. P. The Russian Religious Mind. Cambridge, Mass., 1946. Vol. 1: Kievan Christianity: The Tenth to the Thirteenth centures.
38. Fedotov G. P. The Russian Religious Mind. Cambridge, Mass., 1966. Vol. 2: The Middle Ages. The Thirteenth to the Fifteenth centures. The approximate content of the unwritten volumes is reflected in the anthology compiled by Fedotov “Treasury of Russian Spirituality” (“A Treasure of Russian Spirituality”), published in New York in 1948.
39. Fedotov G. P. Sobr. op. M., 2001. T. 10. S. 8-9.
40. In particular, Fedotov refers to the book of Abbé A. Bremond as an influence on him (Bremond H. Histoire Litteraire du Sentiment Religieux en France. Vol. 1-2. Paris, 1916-1933).
Fedotov G.P. Sobr. op. T. 10. S. 13. Compare: Karsavin L. P. The foundations of medieval religiosity in the XII-XIII centuries. SPb., 1997. S. 29-30.
41. It remains to be regretted that Fedotov did not know the birch-bark letters discovered in Novgorod just a little over a month before his death. The theme of reflecting in them the religious consciousness of ancient Russian man has only recently begun to be developed by historians.
42. Fedotov G.P. Sobr. op. T. 10. S. 12.
43. This thesis, put forward in the articles of the 1930s, was disputed by G. V. Florovsky: G. Florovsky, prot. Ways of Russian theology. Paris, 1937, pp. 5-7; cf .: Meyendorff I.F., prot. History of the Church and Eastern Christian mysticism. M., 2000. S. 352-353.
44. Fedotov G. P. Sobr. op. T. 10. S. 367.
45. Ibid. pp. 340, 341, 343.
46. ​​Hence the difference in the perception of Christ: “The severe or Byzantine type is rooted in the religion of Christ the Almighty, the Heavenly King and Judge. Moderate or purely Russian ethics is based on the religion of the humiliated or “kenotic” Christ” (Ibid., pp. 348-349). Both types of religious interpretation of the image of Christ, as noted by Fedotov, coexisted in Russia.
47. Fedotov G. P. Sobr. op. M., 2004. T. 11.
48. Fedotov G. P. Sobr. op. T. 10. S. 5 (“From the publisher”).
49. Ivask Yu. Eschatology and culture: In memory of Georgy Petrovich Fedotov (1886-1951) // Fedotov G. P. St. Philip. S. 125.
50. Fedotov G.P. Face of Russia // Collection. op. M., 1996. T. 1. S. 107.

Georgy Petrovich Fedotov Born in Saratov in the family of the ruler of the governor's office. He graduated with honors from the men's gymnasium in Voronezh, where his parents moved. In 1904 he entered the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology. After the beginning of the 1905 revolution in Russia, he returned to his native city, where he joined the activities of the Saratov Social Democratic organization as a propagandist. In August 1905, he was first arrested for participating in a gathering of agitators, but was released due to lack of evidence and continued his propaganda activities. In the spring of 1906, he hid under the name of Vladimir Alexandrovich Mikhailov in the city of Volsk. On June 11, 1906, he was elected to the Saratov City Committee of the RSDLP, and on August 17 he was again arrested and exiled to Germany. He attended history lectures at the University of Berlin until his expulsion from Prussia in early 1907, and then studied medieval history at the University of Jena. After returning to Russia in the autumn of 1908, he was restored at the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University, where he was enrolled at the request even before his arrest and deportation to Germany. At St. Petersburg University, he concentrated his studies in the seminar of the famous medievalist I.M. Grevs. In the summer of 1910, he was forced to leave the university without passing exams because of the threat of arrest. In 1911, using someone else's passport, he left for Italy, where he visited Rome, Assisi, Perugia, Venice, studied in the libraries of Florence. Returning to Russia, G.P. Fedotov in April 1912 turned himself in to the gendarme department and received permission to take exams at St. Petersburg University. After serving a shortened term of exile in Karlsbad near Riga, he was left at the Department of General History of St. Petersburg University to prepare a master's thesis. In 1916 he became a Privatdozent of the University and an employee of the Public Library.

In 1918, Fedotov, together with A. A. Meyer, organized the religious and philosophical circle "Resurrection" and published in the journal of this circle "Free Voices". In 1920-1922. taught the history of the Middle Ages at Saratov University. Fedotov published a number of studies on the European Middle Ages: "Letters" Bl. Augustine" (1911), "Gods of the Underground" (1923), "Abelard" (1924), "Feudal Life in the Chronicle of Lambert of Ard" (1925). Fedotov's work on Dante was banned by Soviet censorship.

In 1925 Fedotov received permission to travel to Germany to study the Middle Ages. He did not return to his homeland. He moved to France, where from 1926 to 1940 he was a professor at the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris. He was close to N. A. Berdyaev and E. Yu. Skobtsova (Maria's mother). In the center of historical and cultural studies of Fedotov in exile is mainly the spiritual culture of medieval Russia, he publishes the works “St. Philip Metropolitan of Moscow" (1928), "Saints of Ancient Russia" (1931), "Spiritual Poems" (1935).

In 1931-1939, Fedotov edited the Novy Grad magazine, in whose publications an attempt was made to synthesize a new spiritual ideal that unites the best aspects of socialism, liberalism and Christianity. In 1939, professors at the theological institute presented Fedotov with an ultimatum: either leave the institute or stop writing articles on political topics in the New Russia newspaper and other left-liberal print media. Berdyaev spoke out in defense of Fedotov.

Shortly after the German occupation of France in 1940, Fedotov fled to the United States, where from 1941 to 1943. lived in New Haven as a visiting scholar at Yale University Theological Seminary. With the support of the Humanitarian Foundation, created by B.A. Bakhmetiev, Fedotov wrote the first volume of the book "Russian Religious Mind", published by Harvard University Press with the same fund in 1946. Since 1944, he was a professor at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Seminary in New York. In the USA, Fedotov still devoted a lot of energy to journalism. His articles on topical historical and political issues were published in Novy Zhurnal. Among them are large articles "The Birth of Freedom" (1944), "Russia and Freedom" (1945), "The Fate of Empires" (1947).

GEORGY FEDOTOV

Hello, friends! Today we are meeting with another wonderful person who seems to be opening up for us again - this is Georgy Petrovich Fedotov. More recently, in the journal Our Heritage, which, as it were, bit by bit collects much of what was scattered, scattered and destroyed, an excerpt from his book The Saints of Ancient Russia appeared, with a foreword by the remarkable cultural historian Vladimir Toporkov. Almost seventy years have passed since Fedotov's last work was published in Russia.

Fedotov is often compared to Herzen. Indeed, he knew how to clothe historical, historical and philosophical problems in a vivid journalistic form. But he did not become a legend during his lifetime, like Herzen, although he was an emigrant and died in a foreign land. And he was not, like Berdyaev and Father Sergius Bulgakov, well known in Russia before his emigration. Most recently, in 1986, it was one hundred years since his birth.

The origins of Georgy Petrovich are on the Volga. He was born in the Saratov province in the family of an official who served under the mayor, was born in the same environment and environment that is described by Ostrovsky. His mother, a thin, sensitive woman (she was a music teacher), suffered greatly from poverty, which entered their house shortly after the death of her husband, Pyotr Fedotov. They were assisted by their grandfather, who was a police chief. She took music lessons.

Fedotov was a fragile, small, small, gentle boy. Such people are often broken by complexes, such people often have a Napoleon complex, they want to prove their importance to the whole world. And as if refuting this, in general, a fair observation, Fedotov from childhood showed an amazing harmony of character, in this respect it is impossible to compare him with any of the natures of the great thinkers that we talked about. And the stormy, proud Berdyaev, and the suffering, sometimes restless, but purposeful, passionate father Sergei Bulgakov, and Merezhkovsky with his contradictions: “God is the beast is the abyss”, and Tolstoy with his titanic attempts to find a new religion - they did not have this. Georgy Petrovich, according to the recollections of his school friends, amazed his comrades, amazed everyone with his benevolence, his gentleness, friendliness, everyone said: "Georges is the kindest among us." At the same time - colossal intelligence! He instantly grasped everything! The philistine life of the Volga weighed heavily on him. From the very beginning he was a black sheep there, but he never showed it. It’s just that a calm and confident thought ripened in his harmonious soul: it’s impossible to live like this anymore, life needs to be radically changed.

He studies in Voronezh, then returns to Saratov. At that time, it was already stuffed with the ideas of Pisarev, Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov. Why is it so? Why was he, who subsequently gave the most devastating, objective, cold-blooded criticism of their ideas, been carried away by them at first? For the same reason, they called for transformation, and he honestly, sincerely, with his mind and heart, understood that it was impossible to live like this any longer.

He wants to serve the people, but not in the same way as Bulgakov, who took up political economy - he wants to do engineering in order to raise the industrial level of a lagging country ... But before he really does science, he, like many of his young peers, begins to come to meetings of revolutionaries, populists, Marxists, keeps illegal literature, and it ends with the fact that they come to arrest him, and the gendarme whispers “hush, hush” so as not to wake up his grandfather (grandfather is a police chief). And so, without waking the grandfather, Georges is quietly taken away by the arms.

But the efforts of his grandfather led to favorable results, for illegal subversive activities he received a not very severe measure - he was sent to Germany ... where he lived in Jena and other cities, attended courses at universities and became interested in history for the first time. And suddenly, with his mighty tenacious mind, even then, at the turn of the century, he realized that slogans, utopias, political myths - all this leads nowhere, all this cannot change the world and cannot lead to the results that he dreaming.

He gets acquainted with the work of German historians, mainly medievalists, specialists in the Middle Ages. He is interested in this era, because even then he understood that it is possible to understand the current situation only by tracing all the stages of its occurrence. The European situation, like the Russian one, goes into medieval models - political, social, cultural and even economic. And, having returned after exile to St. Petersburg, He enters the Faculty of History.

And here he was lucky: the famous St. Petersburg historian Grevs became his professor, he received a lot from Vladimir Ivanovich Guerrier - these were the largest specialists, brilliant teachers, masters of their craft. They helped Fedotov not only to look for some realities in the Middle Ages, but also to fall in love with this era and become a top-class specialist. But when he graduated from St. Petersburg University, the First World War broke out and the medievalists were no longer needed.

He gets a job in the library, thinks all the time, studies, discards something. This is the time of his teaching in the high Goethe sense. And when the February Revolution comes, and then the October Revolution, Georgy Petrovich, a young man, still a bachelor, meets her with a complete understanding of the situation, like a real historian. Conducting a deep comparative historical analysis, he said that violent actions are not the path to freedom. Analyzing the situation of the French Revolution, he was one of the first to explain that the French Revolution was not the cradle of freedom: it created a centralized empire, and only the military collapse of Napoleon's empire saved Europe from the totalitarianism of the 19th century.

He further noted that in the previous formations (being well acquainted with Marxism, he liked to use these terms, he was well versed in Marxist historiography), medieval and capitalist, already contained many elements of the free development of social structures, economics and politics. The Middle Ages forged the autonomy and independence of urban communes, and the capitalist development that preceded the French Revolution did much more for freedom than the bloodshed committed by Robespierre, Danton and their henchmen. On the contrary, the events of the Great French Revolution threw the country back, and this would have ended very tragically for France if it had not been stopped by the liquidation of Robespierre, and then Napoleon.

One should not think that Thermidor, when Robespierre was removed, was the path to freedom: no, "Robespierre's death cleared, says Fedotov, the path for the "little corporal" - Napoleon." The bloody romantic dictator of the 18th century has gone and the new dictator of the 19th century has come - they always come when society falls into a state of destabilization.

Fedotov called the Russian revolution (February, October) great and compared it with the French Revolution. But he was extraordinarily restrained in assessing the prospects for what was happening. And what he said about the French Revolution allowed him to foresee in the near future the emergence of what we now call the administrative-command system. History taught him, allowed him to be a forecaster (of course, not history itself, but an attentive and objective approach to events).

At this time he got married, he needs to feed his family. Devastation, famine sets in, from St. Petersburg he goes again to Saratov - it was still possible to live there at that time. And here is the break! An innocent thing, it would seem. Universities of those years (early 1920s) entered into patronage relations with various peasant and worker associations - they took them under their patronage, they fed them, they gave lectures to them (things were fantastic!). By the way, Merezhkovsky, when he fled from Russia in 1920, had a business trip on his hands to read lectures about Ancient Egypt in the Red Army units (you can’t imagine it on purpose!). Some kind of lectures of this kind and some kind of relations of this kind arose between Saratov University and workers' associations. But at the same time, rallies took place, at which all the professors had to speak and ... train already in those loyal speeches that Fedotov did not like at all. And he said that he would not compromise! Even for a piece of bread. There was something chivalrous in him, in this small, fragile man. It continues to amaze him; Another thing is Berdyaev, who was really a descendant of knights, a powerful man, but this one - a quiet, modest intellectual - said no! And he leaves Saratov University and leaves for St. Petersburg with his family. Beggar, hungry Petersburg of the 1920s!

He is trying to print his work. And then he meets the wonderful, interesting personality of Alexander Meyer. A man of a philosophical turn of mind, insightful, with broad views; not yet a Christian, although by birth a Protestant, from Germans, but very close to Christianity. Meyer felt like a guardian of cultural traditions. Now it seems to us quixotic. When there was hunger, devastation, madness, executions all around, Meyer gathered a handful of people around him, mostly intelligent people who systematically read reports, abstracts, and communicated spiritually. There were Christians among them, not believers, but close to Christianity - it was not some kind of church association, but was a small center of culture. At first, they even tried to publish a newspaper (I think it came out in 1919, but it was immediately shut down).

Meyer (he was ten years older than Fedotov) eventually took shape as a Christian philosopher. We only recently learned about his work. The fact is that Meyer, who was arrested and died in places not so remote, somehow managed to leave his works, save them, and the manuscript was taken into the light of God just a few years ago and published in Paris in a single volume. Probably, this edition will also appear with us.

In St. Petersburg was Sergei Bezobrazov, a young historian, a friend of Fedotov, who had gone through a difficult path from vague pantheistic religiosity to Orthodoxy. Bezobrazov worked in the St. Petersburg library (now named after Saltykov-Shchedrin) together with Anton Kartashov (one time Minister of Culture in the Provisional Government, then a famous historian in exile), and Kartashov brought him to the threshold of the Orthodox Church, in the literal sense of the word. Subsequently, Bezobrazov emigrated and became a scholar, researcher of the New Testament (he died in 1965). He owns the editorial board of the new translation of the entire New Testament corpus, which was published in London.

Bezobrazov began to tell Fedotov and Meyer that it was time to leave, soon everyone would die here. Meyer replied: “No, I was born here. Is there any industry in this? Stick where you stuck it, ”he had such a saying. The discussions were intense...

Georgy Petrovich is getting closer and closer to Christianity. As a matter of fact, materialism no longer exists for him: it is a superficial doctrine that does not reflect the main, specific, which is the essence of human life and history. He tries to reveal Christian historiography, Christian historiosophy.

The beginning of his activity as a publicist is modest. In 1920, the publishing house "Brockhaus and Efron", which then still existed, so to speak, by the grace of the winners (not for long, however), publishes Fedotov's first book about the famous French thinker Pierre Abelard.

Pierre Abelard lived in the 13th century. He had an unusually tragic fate, he loved one woman, and fate divorced them (I will not go into this), it all ended very badly: in the end, both Abelard and Eloise were forced to go to the monastery. Abelard was the founder of medieval scholasticism (in a good sense of the word) and rational methods of knowledge. And it was not by chance that Georgy Petrovich turned to Abelard, because for him reason was always a sharp and important divine weapon.

Having broken with Marxism, he remained a democrat for life. Being engaged in science, he never renounced faith. Becoming a Christian, he never renounced reason. This amazing harmony, which merged in one person faith, knowledge, kindness, diamond hardness, principled democracy, an extraordinary intensity of love for the fatherland, a complete rejection of any chauvinism - all these are features that characterize Fedotov's appearance as a writer, thinker, historian and publicist .

At this time, he writes a work about Dante, but it is no longer censored. And this serves as a signal for him: he understands that he must either compromise or ... shut up. He prefers to leave. To study the Middle Ages, he receives a business trip to the West and stays there. For some time wandering, like most emigrants, but in the end he approaches a circle of wonderful people: these are Berdyaev and mother Maria, Kuzmina-Karavaeva (or Skobtsova), a poetess who knew Blok and received his approval, a public figure, an active activist in the past the Socialist Revolutionary Party, which did not surrender to anyone. At that time she became a nun. As you know, she died in a German camp shortly before the end of World War II. In France, she is considered one of the greatest heroines of the Resistance. We wrote about her, there was even a film. I have heard from people who personally knew mother Maria that they were deeply upset by this film. But I liked it, because finally such a wonderful woman was shown, and even the actress Kasatkina managed to convey some external resemblance, judging by the photographs. But that deep religious, spiritual intensity that moved this woman cannot be conveyed! Mother Mary was an ideologue! She created a certain ideology, which followed from the famous phrase of Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov - "great obedience in the world", - she became a nun in order to serve people in the world, she was a champion of active, effective Christianity, life-affirming, bright, heroic . She was like that both before her monasticism and in monasticism. She served people and died for people - that means, for Christ. Fedotov was her closest friend, except for her father Dmitry Klepinin, who also died in the German camp.

Berdyaev, Fondaminsky and Fedotov are between two camps. On the one hand, these are monarchists, nostalgic people, people who are sure that in the former world everything was fine and that it is only necessary to revive the bygone order. On the other hand, people who sympathized with revolutionary changes in everything and believed that a new era had come, which should put an end to all the old heritage. But Fedotov did not accept either one or the other. And he begins to publish the magazine "New City".

Novy Grad is a journal of a social ideal. Economists, politicians, philosophers are published there; they want to provide intellectual food for people who can think, of course, mainly for emigrants. Accurate political forecasts! (Basically, this magazine is filled with Fedotov's articles.) I was lucky enough to re-read the entire binder of this magazine, which came out before the war, in Paris. Fedotov says: in vain do you (he addresses the monarchist group) dream of overthrowing the Bolsheviks - they have long since been overthrown! They no longer rule - he rules; and it is no coincidence that he is fighting against the Society of Old Bolsheviks (there was such a Society that Stalin liquidated). This is a completely innocent society, but Stalin does not need them, they remind him that he himself came from outside. All those characteristics of Stalinism that are now filling publicism and serious studies were given by Fedotov at the very time when this was happening. On distance! I read his articles: 1936-1937 - all forecasts, all descriptions of events are absolutely accurate.

Fedotov was remarkably able to capture the most important trends in history. But what is remarkable about him as a thinker? He believed that either culture is generally an unnecessary thing, or it has a sacred, divine content. He became the first major Russian theologian of culture. Being a democrat and a man of absolute national tolerance, he nonetheless emphasized that culture must acquire specific national forms, that each culture has its own individual features, and this is creativity. Each artist must create his own, because he is an individual. And Fedotov emphasized that culture as a whole is also a kind of collective individual.

In order to understand the meaning and characteristics of the cultural whole in Russia, he turns to the past and writes, perhaps, one of the main books of his life, which is called "The Saints of Ancient Russia." He was prompted to turn to her by teaching at the Paris Theological Academy. In this book, he shows that, having adopted the ascetic ideal from Byzantium, Russian Christianity begins to introduce into it a caritative element, an element of service, an element of mercy - one that was less manifested in Byzantium. He shows how this was done in Kievan Rus, in the era of Rublev and Stephany the Wise, during the Renaissance; how the people who created the monasteries were at the same time breadwinners, hostels and educators of the surrounding world.

The book "Saints of Ancient Russia" shows the enormous cultural and economic work of the monasteries. But don't think this book is a one-sided panegyric! It contains a section on the tragedy of Russian holiness. The tragedy was that in a certain era, in the 15th-16th centuries, the church leadership, striving for active social caritative (merciful) activity, simultaneously strove for wealth. It would seem that this is understandable. Saint Joseph of Volotsky said: monasteries must have land, must have peasants in order to raise the country, to promote its economic prosperity, to help people in times of famine and hardship. The task was good, but you yourself can easily understand what abuses this all led to. And a group of Trans-Volga elders opposes this Josephite tendency.

A Volzhan himself, Fedotov loved them very much. At the head of the Trans-Volga elders, who were called "non-possessors", was the Monk Nil of Sorsk, who, firstly, opposed the executions of dissidents (and Joseph recognized the legality of the execution of heretics). Secondly, he opposed monastic landholdings, against the riches that the Church has, for evangelical simplicity. He was so opposed to everything ceremonial, superfluous, burdening the Church, that he even made ... such an absurd testament, as it were ... He said: I don’t need a magnificent funeral, nothing, even let my body go to the animals, throw it in the forest ( hungry wolves will gnaw it - at least it will be useful). Of course, the monks did not do this, he wanted to emphasize by this how much he puts everything earthly in nothing.

The Orthodox Church, the Byzantine, Bulgarian, Serbian and Russian as one of the largest Orthodox Churches, was often reproached for social passivity. And so Fedotov decided to show that this is not true.

He writes a brilliant study (a very well written book, it can be read like a novel) - this is "St. Philip, Metropolitan of Moscow." In it, Fedotov says that if the Church, in the person of Metropolitan Alexy, confessor of Dmitry Donskoy and friend of St. Sergius, contributed to the strengthening of the Muscovite state and the power of the Moscow Tsar, then as soon as this power departed from the gospel covenants in the person of Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible), so the same Church, in the person of Metropolitan Philip, began the struggle against tyranny. The entire book is permeated with the pathos of struggle, because Philip, Metropolitan of Moscow, for Fedotov is an example of an unbending servant of the Church.

After these books, a number of articles devoted to the problem of the origin of the Russian intelligentsia are published in various publications. Fedotov, with brilliant literary skill, showed how, in the era of Peter I, two peoples were created in the bosom of one people. They spoke different languages, actually had different worldviews, dressed in different clothes, they had different psychology; they lived side by side like two alien tribes. And this abnormal situation later led to a painful guilt complex in the educated class, the intelligentsia, which began to deify the people, feeling guilt towards them and thinking that they could be saved by breaking everything in the world, breaking all structures. Fedotov describes this in one of his articles as a drama that ends in a great collapse: the intelligentsia is making every effort to destroy the empire, and itself is crushed under its rubble.

What did Fedotov offer in this difficult, turbulent time? Creativity and work. Creation, he said, is God's gift and God's call.

His objectivity was amazing! In one of his articles, he wrote: yes, Pasionaria is a terrible woman (Dolores Ibarruri), she is filled with hatred, but she is closer to me than Generalissimo Franco, who considers himself a Christian. When this article came out, such a scandal erupted in exile that the professors were forced to reprimand him. But just as in the 1920s Fedotov did not compromise, so he did not intend to do so in exile.

Assessing the policy of the Soviet Union, he was always objective. And if some manipulations of Stalin seemed to him important and useful for Russia (internationally), then he wrote positively about them. Fedotov said that here Stalin was acting not on his own behalf, but on behalf of the state, for the benefit of the state. Again screams were heard, and it all ended with a difficult scene - a meeting of the Theological Academy, where everyone was forced to sign a petition that he was "red", that he, therefore, cannot be tolerated, he must publicly repent, in short, a micro-party meeting. Then Berdyaev burst into a thunderous article “Does freedom of conscience exist in Orthodoxy?” The article was killer! He wrote it with pain, because Fedotov’s condemnation was signed out of timidity even by people like Bulgakov (who, of course, did not think so in his heart, he understood that Fedotov stood on a solid rock of objectivity and it was impossible to blame him). He had to leave the academy. Then the war broke out and put everyone in their place.

With great difficulty, Fedotov got out of German-occupied France. Mother Maria, his friend, was arrested and sent to a camp. There are mass arrests all around. Father Dmitry Klepinin, arrested on charges of issuing documents for Jews who tried to escape from occupied France, was also thrown into the camp and died. Fedotov, after long adventures, thanks to the assistance of various committees, finally ended up in America ... There was nothing else for him to do in Paris ...

He becomes a professor at the Theological Seminary (now existing) named after St. Prince Vladimir. And there he is working on his latest book, The History of Russian Religious Thought. Everything that he had accumulated in the book about Metropolitan Philip and the saints of Ancient Russia was included in this two-volume book. Alas! This book is published in English only. I believe that Georgy Petrovich wrote it in Russian, and there probably exists ... the original, and one can hope (his relatives still live in America) that it will still be found, and then, God willing, it will be published by us, in Russian.

Before his death, Fedotov writes an article-testament, which is called "Republic of Hagia Sophia." Not with declarations, not with slogans, not with some abstract philosophical arguments - Fedotov operates here with real history. He writes about the democratic foundations of Russian culture, which were laid in its Novgorod channel. The Republic of Hagia Sophia is Novgorod. And he ends this article just before his death with a call to the need to revive the ancient spirit of Novgorod, where there were already elements of popular representation, election, where even the Novgorod archbishop was elected; it was an ancient germ of democracy! And as Fedotov showed in his research, any culture eventually feeds on the juices of its history. And there is no reason to believe that the cultural tradition of Russia has rigidly determined tyranny and totalitarianism. There were other elements in it that are able to be reborn and bear fruit.

I recall one parable that Fedotov cited, explaining his position in relation to creativity and culture. Many Christian-minded people said: creativity and culture are not needed, because one should deal only with divine things. Fedotov cited the story of a Catholic saint: when he was a seminarian, he played ball in the garden; a monk approached him, who decided to test him, and said: “What would you do if you knew that tomorrow would be the end of the world?” And he replied: "I would play ball."

What does this mean? If it is bad to play the ball, then you should never play it, whether the end of the world will be soon or not soon; if it has some significance before the Face of God, one should always play when there is an opportunity. And he brings it to culture. If culture is a product of Satan (and Fedotov does not believe in this), it must be discarded, whether the end of the world will be tomorrow or it will be in a million years. If culture is a form of human creativity before the Face of God, then we must deal with it without frightening ourselves with a quick end. For for centuries, people who did not want to work, did not want to create, frightened themselves so much, who said: but, anyway, the end of the world. And as a result, they found themselves in the position of those who squandered and spent their gifts in vain. To this we can add that in the Gospel the Lord Jesus says that the Judge can come at any moment.

Fedotov encourages us and tells us that freedom is a small, tender plant and that we should not be surprised at this and we should not be so afraid for it, because just as a small and timid life arose in a vast universe, and then conquered the whole planet, so too does freedom from the very beginning was not a feature inherent in all mankind. (This is all exactly true. I will not give facts, but it was exactly so.)

Fedotov writes: “Rousseau, in essence, wanted to say: man must be free, for man was created to be free, and this is the eternal truth of Rousseau. But this is not at all what to say: man is born free. Freedom is a subtle and late flower of culture. This in no way diminishes its value. Not only because the most precious thing is rare and fragile, but a person becomes fully human only in the process of culture, and only in it, at its peaks, his highest aspirations and possibilities find their expression. Only by these achievements can one judge the nature and purpose of man.

Further he writes: “In the biological world, the iron law of instincts, the struggle of species and races, the circular repetition of life cycles dominates. Where everything is conditioned to the end by necessity, there is no gap or chink through which freedom could break through. Where organic life takes on a social character, it is totalitarian through and through: bees have communism, ants have slavery, and in a pack of animals there is the absolute power of the leader.

Everything that Fedotov writes is exactly true. And he wants to say that our social forms repeat only animal life. And freedom is the privilege of man. “Even in the world of culture,” continues Fedotov, “freedom is a rare and late visitor. Surveying those ten or dozen higher civilizations known to us, of which the world is composed for the modern historian, which once seemed to be a single historical process, we find freedom in our sense of the word only in one of them.

I'll explain. He says that despotism existed in Iran, on the banks of the Yellow River, the Yangtze, in Mesopotamia, in Iraq, in Ancient Mexico, in Egypt - tyrannies existed everywhere - and only in the small country of Greece does the idea of ​​democracy arise. Like some kind of historical miracle.

“The individual,” he continues, “everywhere is subordinate to the collective, which itself determines the forms and boundaries of its power. This power can be very cruel, as in Mexico or Assyria, humane, as in Egypt or China, but nowhere does it recognize an autonomous existence for a person. Nowhere is there a special sacred sphere of interest forbidden to the state. The state itself is sacred. And the highest absolute requirements of religion in these models coincide with the claims of state sovereignty.

Yes, freedom is an exception in the chain of great cultures. But culture itself is an exception against the backdrop of natural life. Man himself, his spiritual life is a strange exception among living beings. But after all, life, as an organic phenomenon, is also an exception in the material world. Of course, here we are entering the realm of the unknown, but there are many reasons on the side of those theories that believe that favorable conditions for the emergence of organic life could be created only on planet Earth (by the way, many of our scientists now think so). But what does the Earth mean in the solar system, what does the Sun mean in our Milky Way, what does our Galaxy mean in the Universe? One of two things: either we remain on the outwardly convincing natural-scientific point of view and then come to a pessimistic conclusion: Earth, life, man, culture, freedom are such insignificant things that it’s not worth talking about. Arising accidentally and spontaneously on one of the dust particles of the universe, they are doomed to disappear without a trace in the cosmic night.

Or we must reverse all the scales of assessments and proceed not from quantity, but from quality. Then a person, and his spirit, and his culture become the crown and goal of the universe.

All countless galaxies exist to produce this miracle - a free and intelligent bodily being, destined for domination, for royal dominion over the Universe. An important mystery remains unresolved - the meaning of small quantities! Why is almost everything that is great in terms of value accomplished in the materially small? An interesting problem for a philosopher! Freedom shares the fate of everything high and valuable in the world. Small, politically fragmented Greece gave the world science, gave those forms of thought and artistic perception that, even before the consciousness of their limitations, still determine the worldview of hundreds of millions of people. Already tiny Judea gave the world the greatest or only true religion, not two, but one, which is practiced by people on all continents. A small island across the Channel has developed a system of political institutions which, being less universal than Christianity and science, nevertheless dominate the three parts of the world, and now victoriously fight against their mortal enemies, - written at the end of the war, when the Allies fought against Hitler.

Limited origin does not mean limited action and meaning. What was born in one point on the globe can be called to dominate the world, like any creative invention or discovery... Not all values ​​allow such a generalization. Many remain forever associated with one specific cultural circle. But others, and the highest ones, exist for everyone. It is said about them that human genius is a miracle. All peoples are called to Christianity, every person is more or less capable of scientific thinking... But not everyone recognizes and is obliged to recognize the canons of Greek beauty. Are all peoples capable of recognizing the value of freedom and realizing it? This issue is now being resolved in the world. It can be solved not by theoretical considerations, but only by experience.

Thus, Georgy Fedotov puts before the peoples the question of who will be capable of freedom and who will remain in slavery.

Georgy Petrovich FEDOTOV: quotes

***
“Will Russia exist?”, I cannot answer with simple sedatives: “It will!” I answer: “It depends on us. Wake up! Wake up!

***
In the Russian Church, it has long been the living center of our national work, the source of its inspiring forces.

***
For young people, sometimes it seems beyond the power to lift the cultural burden of their fathers. But it is necessary not only to raise it, but also to carry it further and higher than the fathers knew how.

***
If we draw up a literary map of Russia, marking on it the homelands of writers or the scenes of their works (novels), then we will be amazed at how poorly the Russian North will be represented on this map, the entire beyond Moscow region - the region that created the Great Russian state, which keeps in itself living memory of Holy Russia.

***
Of the peoples remaining in Russia, direct hatred of the Great Russians is found only among our blood brothers - the Little Russians, or Ukrainians. And this is the most painful issue of the new Russia

***
The multi-tribal, polyphonic nature of Russia did not detract from, but increased its glory.

***
We must also honor the heroes - the builders of our land [Russia], its princes, tsars and citizens, studying the annals of their struggles, their labors, learning from their very mistakes and falls, not in slavish imitation, but in free creativity inspired by the feat of ancestors.

***
A heavy responsibility falls on the Russian intelligentsia: not to give up their cultural heights, to go tirelessly, without rest, all the way to new and new achievements. Not only for myself, to satisfy cultural thirst or professional interests, but also for the national cause of Russia.

***
Russia becomes a geographical space, meaningless, as if empty, which can be filled with any state form.

***
One of two things: either we remain on the outwardly convincing, "natural-scientific" point of view and then come to a pessimistic conclusion. Earth - life - man - culture - freedom - such insignificant things that it's not worth talking about. Arising from a random play of the elements on one of the dust particles of the universe, they are doomed to disappear without a trace in the cosmic night.

Or we must reverse all the scales of assessments and proceed not from quantities, but from qualities. Then man, his spirit and his culture become the crown and goal of the universe. All countless galaxies exist in order to produce this miracle - a free and intelligent bodily being, destined for royal dominion over the Universe.

Remains unresolved - practically no longer important - the riddle of the meaning of small quantities: why is almost everything great value-great accomplished in the material-small? An interesting problem for a philosopher, but we can leave it aside.

Freedom shares the fate of everything high and valuable in the world. Little, politically fragmented Greece gave the world science, gave those forms of thought and artistic perception that, even with the awareness of their limitations, still determine the worldview of hundreds of millions of people. Already tiny Judea gave the world the greatest or only true religion - not two, but one - which is practiced by people on all continents. The little island across the Channel has developed a system of political institutions which, though less universal than Christianity or science, nevertheless dominates the three parts of the world, and now victoriously fights against its mortal enemies.

Georgy Petrovich FEDOTOV: articles

Georgy Petrovich FEDOTOV (1886-1951)- philosopher, historian, religious thinker, publicist: | | | | | .

ABOUT THE ANTI-CHRIST GOOD

These critical remarks have in mind the concept of the "Legend of the Antichrist", proposed in the "Three Conversations", by V. Solovyov: more precisely, one of the aspects of this concept, which is very significant for Solovyov of the last period and for the eschatology of modern times.

Now Solovyov is little read. Many look down on him as superior, or with suspicion, as a heretic. Of all his literary heritage, apart from poetry, Three Conversations alone has not lost its power over the minds and, probably, will not soon lose it. In this last dying work of the Philosopher, there lives an exciting acuteness of the problem, an extraordinary maturity of vision, as if transgressing the measure of artistic vision. The author, for whom "the not-so-distant image of a pale death was palpable" (Foreword, dated the Bright Resurrection, 1900), outgrows the boundaries of literary form and in his Legend speaks with almost prophetic inspiration.

It was as a prophecy that it was accepted; like a prophecy, it lives among the Russian Christian intelligentsia, seeping into broad church circles. People who are hostile to Solovyov stand firmly on this testament of his, in which the thinker renounces what he has served all his life: the ideal of Christian culture.

There was a striking distortion of perspective. It is already difficult to distinguish the peculiar Solovyov in the image of the Antichrist from the traditional church, the Antichrist of the "Three Conversations" has become a canonical image for many. It seems that he is simply transposed from the Apocalypse into the modern historical plan. And in the light of this illusion, the idea of ​​antichrist goodness acquires a false-traditional and canonical character.

Maybe we are breaking through open doors, showing with quotations what is clear to everyone: that the work of the Antichrist in Solovyov is accomplished in the form of serving the good. These quotes are for the sake of accuracy only. And that Solovyov himself saw the significance of his idea is clear from the preface to "Three Conversations", published in the newspaper "Russia" under the heading "On counterfeit good",

Solovyov's Antichrist is primarily a "spiritualist" and a man of strict virtues. "Not by deception of feelings and low passions, and not even by the lofty lure of power" to seduce him. "In addition to exceptional genius, beauty and nobility, the greatest manifestations of abstinence, disinterestedness and active charity seemed to justify enough the great pride of the great spiritualist, ascetic and philanthropist." Deprived of true love for the good ("he loved only himself" - Kurs B.C.), he nourishes his self with the consciousness of his superhuman virtues and talents - after all, as it is said, he is "a man of impeccable morality and extraordinary genius." In a word, this is a "proud righteous man." His ethics are primarily caritative, social. "Not only a philanthropist, but also a Philosophy", "he was a vegetarian, he forbade vivisection and instituted a strict supervision of slaughterhouses; animal protection societies were strongly encouraged by him." The business of his life is the establishment of universal peace on earth and "equality of universal satiety." His book, which paves the way for him to dominate the world, conquers the world with a word, not with a sword, disarms even enemies with its high idealism. "Here, noble reverence for ancient legends and symbols is combined with a broad and bold radicalism of socio-political demands and instructions, unlimited freedom of thought with the deepest understanding of everything mystical, unconditional individualism with ardent devotion to the common good, the most exalted idealism of guiding principles with complete certainty and vitality practical solutions." It does not contain the name of Christ, but the whole "content of the book is imbued with the true Christian spirit of active love and universal good will..." root ruined by the lack of love and exorbitant pride. This original vice makes him a false messiah, a partaker of satanic grace, and in the final clash with the confessors of Christ, turns the philanthropic sage into a disgusting tyrant.

The first question that we put to ourselves is: does the image of the virtuous Antichrist belong to the composition of church eschatological tradition?

For any reader of "Conversations" it is clear how attentively the author treated this legend, how much even outward features he drew from here: the birth of the Antichrist from an unknown father and the "doubtful behavior" of his mother, a mysterious connection with Satan, the role of the magician Apollonius, corresponding to the beast coming out from the earth (Apoc. 13, 11), his miracles ("fire from heaven"), Jerusalem as the place of the last struggle, the uprising of the Jews against the Antichrist, the death of two witnesses, the flight of the faithful into the wilderness, etc. - all these features are deeply traditional . However, it is clear that Solovyov consciously deviated from tradition in some respects. Thus, in the "witnesses" he sees not the risen Moses and Elijah (or Enoch, Jeremiah), but Peter and John, embodying the Western and Eastern churches. Developing this idea, he had to add to them Paul (Dr. Pauli), who no longer has any basis in tradition, like the whole vision of the last union of the churches. The pallor of the bloody background is also striking, against which the latest tragedy is revealed. The invasion of the Mongols is depicted in schematic terms. We hear nothing of the devastation of Europe, besides, Christian humanity soon overthrows this yoke and enjoys lasting peace in the last century of its existence. Also in passing (in the preface) it is said about the last persecution, during which many thousands and tens of thousands of faithful Christians and Jews perish. The work of the Antichrist is accomplished in the world, in the silence of a mature and complete civilization—such is, obviously, Solovyov's idea, closely connected with the idea of ​​the virtuous Antichrist. The Mongols are drawn by the hair - partly as an echo of the "yellow danger" that haunted Solovyov's imagination, partly for the sake of observing apocalyptic propriety.

All this forces us to approach the portrait of the Antichrist in the legend with extreme caution. We are interested here in only one feature of this image: its virtue. Does it belong to the general church tradition? We are forced to confine ourselves to a brief reference, although this topic, due to its importance, would deserve independent work. The best researcher of the legend about the Antichrist Buss, in a strange way, bypassed the ethical side of the legend. Yet it is precisely at this point that the legend proves to be the least stable in comparison with outwardly biographical details.

As you know, in the New Testament the following places refer to the Antichrist: John 2, 18; Thessal. 12; Rev. 13. Only the author of the epistle of John gives this name, however, not only in the singular (antichrists along with the antichrist). The Apocalypse of John by no means underlies the patristic tradition, as one might think, based on modern ideas. Not all church fathers accept the Apocalypse as a canonical book (for example, St. Cyril of Jerusalem), and most approach the Antichrist not from New Testament texts, but from the prophecy of Daniel (ch. 7). However, Busse is apparently right in considering that the myth of the Antichrist develops in the Christian Church to a large extent independently of the Holy Scriptures, on the basis of some esoteric, probably Jewish-Messianic tradition, not fixed in any of the surviving us monuments.

In relation to the ethical understanding of Antichrist, two currents can be traced - we confine ourselves to ancient and predominantly Greek patristics. The first goes back to St. Hippolytus, the second - to St. Irenaeus.

At St. Hippolytus reads: "In everything this seducer wants to appear like the Son of God... Outside he will appear like an angel, he will be a wolf inside."

This parallelism of false imitation of Christ runs through Hippolytus's entire biography of the Antichrist, but without any ethical content. The formula of the "lamb" remains unrevealed, if we ignore the pseudo-Hippolito's late work "On the Accomplishment of the Age".

The definition of St. Cyril of Jerusalem: “At first, as a reasonable and educated man, he will put on hypocritical moderation and philanthropy. Then, being recognized as the Messiah, he will cover himself with all the crimes of inhumanity and lawlessness, so that he will surpass all the villains and wicked who were before him, having a cool mind, bloodthirsty, ruthless and changeable".

St. Ephraim the Syrian clearly develops the thought of Hippolytus and gives the most complete image of the hypocritical righteous man: “He will take the form of a true shepherd in order to deceive the flock... beautiful, meekest, clear with seven. And in all this, under the guise of piety, he will deceive the world until he achieves the kingdom. After his accession to the throne, he drops the mask: "Now he is no longer pious, as before, not the patron of the poor, but in everything severe, cruel, fickle, formidable, implacable, gloomy, terrible and disgusting, dishonorable, proud, criminal and reckless ".

This line of tradition is completed by St. John of Damascus, perhaps diverging from St. Ephraim only at the moment of a turning point: “At the beginning of his reign, or rather, tyranny, he will appear in a hypocritical robe of holiness.

Such an understanding of the Antichrist as a hypocrite and imitator of Christ is, of course, not alien to the Western Church, where it is also accepted by Gregory the Great7, who calls all hypocrites members of the Antichrist.

However, there is another very ancient tradition that sees in the Antichrist the embodiment of pure, unalloyed evil. The teacher Hippolyta St. Irenaeus of Lyon knows nothing about the virtues of the Antichrist. "He will come not as the king of a righteous law, in obedience to God, but as an ungodly, unrighteous and lawless man, as an apostate, villain and murderer, as a robber repeating the apostasy of the devil." If with some fathers the Antichrist imitates Christ, then with others he imitates his father, Satan. The idea of ​​absolute antichrist evil is developed with great force by Theodoret of Cyrrhus. "To none of the other people whom the devil taught to become workers of sin, he communicated all the ideas of evil. To him, being wholly involved in it, he revealed all conceivable tricks of his evil nature ... all the energy of sin." Yes, and St. Cyprian Vali was thinking about the hypocritical virtue of the Antichrist when he spoke of his "threats, perversions and lupanaries." It is very characteristic of the later Latin legend that the Dominican Malvenda, who consecrated an extensive tome to the Antichrist at the beginning of the 17th century, could devote only one page to the “hypocrisy” (Lob. VI p. I) of his hero with the only reference from the West to Pope Gregory, while chapters on luxury, feasts and his voluptuousness have grown into entire treatises.

Let's not multiply quotes. We do not write studies about the Antichrist and his legend. For our negative task and the references given, it is enough to draw some conclusions.

1. In the church there is no single, obligatory and in everything concordant tradition about the Antichrist.

2. One of the two currents in church tradition tends to view the Antichrist as pure evil.

3. The other prevailing trend sees in the virtues of Antichrist mere hypocrisy, a means for seizing power over the world, which falls away immediately after the goal is achieved. The subsequent tyranny and atrocities of the Antichrist are depicted here as not as bright as those of the writers of the first group.

We do not find even a hint of the sincerity of virtue, of the self-deception of the last deceiver, in any of the fathers cited.

By emphasizing the absence of the roots of the Soloviev Antichrist in the ancient tradition, we do not at all want to discredit him by this. The modernism of this image does not yet mean its mendacity. We only want to have our hands untied in relation to him. Now we can be sure that, in evaluating it, we are dealing with the conjecture or insight of our contemporary, and not with the thousand-year-old voice of the Church.

How can a prophecy be evaluated before it is fulfilled? This attempt will not seem so senseless if we realize that the prophetic contemporary proceeds from the feeling of his - our - time and may turn out to be objectively right or wrong in his historical intuition. The quarter of a century that lies between us - one of the most turbulent and significant epochs of the new humanity - already provides some material for verification. It is possible to evaluate prophecy from another point of view - pragmatic: from the point of view of vital, religious and moral conclusions arising from it. Let us look at the creation of Solovyov through the eyes of a historian and the eyes of a pragmatist.

Whatever the literary images of Solovyov, one thing is clear: in his conception, he consolidated the experience of the 19th century and continued the lines of his destinies into the centuries. Subjectively, judging by the theme of all the "three conversations" and the author's preface to them, Solovyov, creating the image of the Antichrist, pursued the goal of exposing non-church goodness in the teachings and life of Leo Tolstoy. But, undoubtedly, the artist deceived the critics here. In no way does the brilliant superman, the reconciler of all contradictions, the consummator of the cultural work of the ages, resemble the one-sided and anti-cultural moralist from Yasnaya Polyana. On the other hand, the image of Napoleon is undoubtedly felt in the forms of his historical work, and in the ideological content of this work, the synthesis of the scientific, socialist and theosophical movements of the 19th century.

The understanding of socialism as a positive paradise of universal satiety, completing European civilization, was given to Solovyov by Dostoevsky. Solovyov added Theosophy from himself, in accordance with the hobbies and tastes of youth. The idea of ​​an emperor-scientist who painlessly resolves all the damned questions of mankind, of course, strongly resonates with O. Comte, recalling another old hobby of the author.

For all his perspicacity, Solovyov is a child of the 19th century, and, fighting with him all his life, he cannot get out of his shadow. He is mesmerized by the comfortable solidity of his civilization, by the belief in the finality of the world he has established: Pax Europaea. In some irrational Russian part of his soul, Solovyov was tormented by visions of the Mongol hordes: as if he foresaw the death of the empire:

"And yellow children for fun
They will give you shreds of your banners."

This is about Russia he said.

But when he judges the future of European civilization, he does not feel a crisis. Mongolian disease is easily overcome by a strong organism. All questions tearing apart old Europe, including social ones, are resolved with extraordinary ease by the method of the Antichrist, that is, the enlightened state mind. The last thunder will break out among the cloudless sky of a calm, great civilization that has reached its zenith. In this Solovyov retreats, as we have seen, from the whole Christian apocalyptic tradition in order to adapt to his own perspective - that of the 19th century.

It can be said that Solovyov was completely alien to the feeling of the explosive substances that make up our culture: the sinking of the Titanic, Messina, the World War, the connection of which pierced Blok, remained out of Solovyov's field of vision. It is impossible to read without a smile the idyllic descriptions of the wars of the 20th century in his "Legend". It is written off from the Russian-Turkish war of 1877, which remained the strongest historical impression of his entire life (cf. the story of the general). There is a striking complete lack of technical fantasy in his novel of the future, and he does not even foresee aviation, lagging behind Jules Verne and Wells. However, perhaps he deliberately closes his eyes to the external side of life - this is his right. But here's what he had no right not to see:

European civilization, lulling itself into the specter of an endless uniformly progressive movement, entered (already under Solovyov) into a period of painful crisis, from which it was destined either to emerge completely renewed, unrecognizable, or to perish.

Solovyov overlooked the growth of imperialism, which was preparing a world war; especially the imperialism of the spirit that denies the value of love for man. Bismarck and Marx, Nietzsche and Wagner, Plekhanov and Lenin were simply not noticed by him. He lived in the humane society of Comte, Mill, Spencer and Gladstone.

Solovyov overlooked "decadentism" and symbolism, although he was one of the founders of the latter, overlooked the death of naturalism and the birth of an entirely new aesthetic perception of the world.

Solovyov died without seeing the crisis that struck not only materialistic, but also idealistic philosophy, opening up the possibility of a new religious metaphysics, concretely realistic, and therefore Christian. Solovyov overlooked the revival of the Catholic Church, partly associated with the revival of a new artistic soul (Verlaine, Baudelaire, Wilde and Huysmans) and foreshadowing, in a kindred crisis of the Russian spirit, the revival of Orthodoxy.

We say all this not as a reproach to him, but as a reproach to those of our contemporaries who have been taught nothing by the experience of a whole generation.

What does this experience teach?

Firstly, the fact that the cause of the universal, and not the catacomb only building of the church is not hopeless. European culture in its spiritual heights is again ready, like a ripe fruit, to fall at the feet of Christ. The world appears to be entering a new era of Christian culture. Again the church is called to come out of the dungeons (or seminaries) into the streets of the city, into the auditoriums of the universities and into the courtyard of the parliaments. Are we ready for that?

Secondly. The enemy, the "antichrist", who is still strong, has ceased to wear the mask of humanism, that is, human goodness. A civilization hostile to Christianity in its most diverse manifestations becomes anti-humanistic, inhuman. Inhuman is technology that has long since refused to serve comfort for the sake of the idea of ​​self-sustaining productivity that devours the manufacturer. Art is inhuman, banishing man from its contemplation and intoxicated with the creativity of pure, abstract forms. Inhuman is the state that revealed its bestial face in the World War and now tramples on the shrines of personal freedom and rights in half of the European countries. Both communism and fascism are equally inhuman (fundamentally, i.e., anti-humanistic), considering the individual as an atom, fascinated by the grandiosity of the masses and social structures.

Many now see communism as the ultimate expression of the Antichrist's assault on Christianity. Let it be. But what has Russia revealed to us? Can communism really be ranked among the type of humanistic worldviews, and the work it does can be tempted by goodness? Marxism, especially Russian, is characterized from the very beginning by a positive hatred of the ethical substantiation of its goals. For him there is nothing more contemptible than "slobbering idealism." He does not tempt with compassion or even with justice (“is there any non-class justice?”), but only with the satisfaction of interests; not good, but good and, still in its subconscious, but active center, the sweetness of revenge, the pathos of class hatred.

In general, the development - or rather, the revival - of the socialist idea over the past century is extraordinarily instructive. At first, it appears in the form of a Christian sect that lived with the pathos of humanity: Weitlin, Saint-Simon, George Sand. Dostoevsky, a Petrashevite, knew her like that, having devoted his whole life to its disintegration. Then Marxism and Social Democracy. Not humanism, but still humanity, utilitarianism, but bound by the ethos of the bourgeois nineteenth century. Finally, communism, which breaks with both ethics and humanism. However, we can trace the same line in the ideologies of the reaction, ending with the cult of brute force and dictatorship. So, pure, godless humanity is not the last temptation - within our culture. This is the middle, now disappearing link of the descending series: the God-man - man - beast (machine) * The warmth of human goodness ("not cold, not hot") is only the process of cooling the fiery love of Christ to the human face - "one of my brothers." It may be a temporary mask of dark power—everything is suitable for disguises for those who do not have a Face—but the mask is already being torn off. She is shy. The temptation of homicide is more effective for dark souls than the temptations of philanthropy.

Where does the illusion of subtle deception come from in what is essentially only a phase of the naive coarsening of the spirit? In the 19th century, the Christian church, impoverished in holiness and even more wisdom, found itself face to face with a powerful, rationally complex and humanly good culture. A seductive line of "Saints who do not believe in God" passed in front of her. Seductive for whom? For weak Christians - and how few were strong among them! In a panic, and in the consciousness of its historical impotence and isolation, the thinned Christian society refused to recognize in the secular righteous the lost sheep of Christ, refused to see on their faces the sign of "the Light that enlightens every person coming into the world." In this light, there seemed to be a reflection of the Luciferic radiance of Antichrist. Horrified by the blasphemy against the Son of Man, they fell into an even more serious blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, Who breathes where He wants, and speaks through the mouths not only of the pagans, but also of their donkeys.

But this leads us to a different, no longer historical assessment of that deceit, which we call the mirage of antichrist goodness.

The fatal consequence of such an attitude, when it acquires power over the spirit, especially in an eschatologically tense era like ours, is suspicion of the good. In the Middle Ages, the inquisitor was looking for a Manichaean heretic by ascetic pallor of the face, by aversion to meat, wine and blood, by abstaining from marriage and oaths. For a good Catholic, it remained to work up rosy cheeks, swear at every step, drink and fight in taverns. In our days, the Russian religious revival proceeded in the struggle against the traditions of the intelligentsia Old Believers. But the Russian intelligentsia was distinguished at the best of times by its moral rigor. She was chaste, generous, despised mammon, had a heart sensitive to human suffering, and a will ready for self-sacrifice. She created a number of ascetics who favorably differed from the decadent life of a Christian, even a spiritual society. Solovyov ran into her in the fight against Tolstoyism. Others had before their eyes the martyrs of the revolution and hated with all their hearts their godless righteousness, consciously or unconsciously opposed Orthodox immorality to it. The atheists are chaste - we are allowed the abysses of Sodom, the atheists love the poor and the destitute - we demand for them the rod and lead "the atheists preach the brotherhood of peoples - we defend eternal war, the atheists renounce the estate - we want a holy bourgeois way of life, the atheists bow before science - we vilify reason, atheists preach love - we are "holy violence", "holy vengeance", "holy hatred". The Antichrist is so similar to Christ that people, afraid of being deceived - or rather, repelled by hatred - begin to hate the very image of Christ. An external indicator of this secret disgust is the low appreciation, if not outright rejection, of the gospel in neo-Christian circles.

Leontiev and Rozanov were the brightest bearers of this Orthodox immoralism. Solovyov remained clear of it, but his whole life was dedicated to serving the Christian ideal, incompatible with the Legend of the Antichrist. Solovyov wrote "Justification of Good". After "Three Conversations" no one wants to read this book. They find it fresh. Still, evil is much more interesting than good, and not a single ascetic treatise can stand comparison with the Kama Sutra. With his characteristic sharpness and frankness, V.V. Rozanov mentioned once that all modern Christians have some kind of organic vice, which distinguishes them from pure and proud atheists. The trouble is not that people come to Christ by the way of sin (the way of the publican and the thief), but that they affirm sin in Christ.

Shying away from the Antichrist, they fall into the arms of the devil. The Antichrist, perhaps, is imaginary, but the devil is clearly genuine: you can’t hide your hooves! We have a classic definition: "This murderer is not worthy of origin and in truth" . Wherever the pathos of homicide and the pathos of lies are manifested (I do not say murder and lies, because they are from human weakness), there we know whose spirit it is, no matter what name it hides behind: even the name of Christ.

There is a problem much more painful for the Christian consciousness than the problem of the "saint who does not believe in God": it is the problem of "saint saint." The words addressed half-jokingly, or rather, prompted by the spirit of style to Cardinal Peter Damiani about his great friend Pope Gregory VII, hint at some terrible mystical truth. Can Satan take the form of a "saint", a zealot of the church? Is the name of Christ or His cross sufficient protection?

We read about many ascetics that Satan tempted them in the garb of an "angel". He appeared to Saint Martin in the image of Christ, demanding worship, but he could not deceive the clairvoyant. The memory of the wounds of the godparents, of the crown of thorns, was too strongly imprinted in Martin's heart, and he did not bow to the one dressed in a diadem and purple. The thought suggests itself that the contemplation of the diadem, that is, the earthly power of the church, dulls the contemplation of thorns and quenches the gift of discernment of spirits.

We Orthodox cannot help feeling tempted by Satanism at certain points in the history of Catholicism. What can I say, without false pride, about ourselves. There were many sins in the Russian church, but it has been free from Satanism - until now. Our sins are the sins of weakness. Lies come from ignorance, homicide from cowardice. From the pathos of blood, God had mercy on us. But in the very last days, Satanism, along the paths mentioned above, began to creep into the Russian church. The immoralism of the intelligentsia reaction, coming into contact with the temptations of unenlightened asceticism, gave a sharp bouquet of hatred for the human flesh and spirit. Mysticism without love degenerates into magic, asceticism into hardness of heart, Christianity itself into the pagan religion of mysteries. Just as the body of Christ can be made an instrument of sorcery and blasphemous black masses, so the name of Christ can be a sign for the religion of Satan. Antichrist's non-ecclesiastical goodness is opposed to the ecclesiastical evil of his father. And how much more terrible this temptation!

Re-read the above testimonies of the fathers - Ephraim the Syrian, Damascus. For them, the Antichrist comes dressed not only in goodness, but also in holiness and piety. They foresaw danger and pointed it out. The enemy is not behind the fence, but in the walls!

Who can be seduced by the ideal of positive virtue today? Only the naive and weak-minded. The worldview that stood before Solovyov like an indestructible wall is already dilapidated, cracks gape everywhere in it, it seems to us already primitively rude. These little ones are attracted to him because of the childishness of the mind, and discord with the heart. But is this deception worthy of a subtle and clever tempter? Set against it wise and deep theology, the aesthetic charm of the cult, the mysticism of the sacraments, the temptations of subtle pride, false humility, the subtle eroticism of false asceticism - the church without love, Christianity without Christ - and you will feel that here is the ultimate deceit, the ultimate abomination in a holy place. . This is the only way to imagine the Antichrist.

Fortunately, this dark shadow has fallen only on the edges of our religious revival, like foam raised by a spiritual storm. Many sins are washed away in the blood of the martyrs. Satanic temptations are powerless in the hour of confession. But they still live for those who are especially sheltered under a safe shelter, in whom persecution awakens hatred, and blood calls for blood.

In the blindness of agony, it is difficult to maintain clarity of vision. It is difficult to correctly assess the hostile forces of "this world", and our place in this world. For many, the collapse of the Russian kingdom turned out to be tantamount not only to the death of Russia, but also the death of the world. Apocalyptic moods easily take possession of the minds, and in these moods the deathbed work of V. Solovyov acquires an inappropriate prophetic meaning.

In a peaceful, but suffocating, pre-stormy era, when it was written, it had not yet revealed all the dark possibilities inherent in it*. It has already illuminated the gap between Christianity and culture, the final withdrawal of the Church from the world, the cowardly renunciation of the struggle. But the purity of his moral-religious inspiration is undeniable. Only in the course of the fierce political struggle that tore apart Russia in the 20th century did Solovyov's negative formulas begin to take on a positive satanic content. Both were local (Russian) temporal distortions of the attitude of the Church to the world: as to the land that receives the seed-Word, as to the host of those who are announced, as to the lost sheep of Christ. Now the world, which has half forgotten Christ, but in its life and prophecy keeps His indelible seal, again, as two thousand years ago, is tormented by spiritual thirst. It is time to repeat the words of reconciliation:

"Athenians! I see in everything that you are, as it were, especially pious. For, passing and examining your shrines, I also found an altar on which it is written:" to an unknown God. "This, which you, not knowing, honor, I preach to you" .

* Published: Way. - No. 5. - 1926. - Oct.-Nov. - pp. 580-588
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