Introductory Remarks The first Polish edition of the present book included in its title the words Russian philosophy and social thought. The formula combining philosophy and social thought, very popular at the time in Socialist countries, is, however, somewhat misleading. Indeed, the book does pertain to philosophy, but it defines philosophy very broadly, renouncing strictly academic criteria. Rather than with philosophy in Russia, i.e., a history of a certain theoretical matters within the boundaries of the Russian state, it is concerned with the philosophical aspects of the ideological search by the Russian elite to claim responsibility for the fate of their country. It does, of course, comprise social thought along with political and religious ideas; it does not, however, discuss social thought on the level of popular consciousness, or political thought in particular actions of the Russian Government, or the religious thought of the official Orthodox Church and other religious structures in Russia. The subject of the book is thus, in essence, a history of the critically thinking elite with particular regard to philosophy especially social, political and religious philosophy. The title of the English edition which refers to a history of Russian thought is therefore more adequate. 1 Discussing the developments of philosophical controversies in the context of a broadly defined intellectual history is, I believe, a natural option for a scholar studying the history of philosophy in a national cross-section. The history of philosophy as philosophy, i.e., as a history of the theoretical problems of ontology, epistemology and other classical philosophical disciplines, can hardly be squeezed into a national frame unless the philosophy of a nation constitutes, in a particular period, a separate chapter of universal philosophy. On the other hand, for a historian interested, first of all, in the worldview content of philosophical theories, their historical conditionings and their functioning in a society, examining philosophy in the context of a particular national culture creates an especially favorable situation, in that it allows for perceiving its multifold connections with a certain political and intellectual situation, as well as with the cultural traditions of a given country. In order to exploit this 1 History of thought is in the U.S.A. a synonym of intellectual history. The former term is chronologically older. Cf. eg. Vernon L. Parrington, Main Currents in American Thought, vol. I: The Colonial Mind, 1620-1800 and vol. II: The Romantic Revolution, 1800-1860, New York 1927.
20 possibility, however, one must not limit oneself to the philosophical question itself it is necessary to treat the examined philosophical concepts as integral elements of a given national culture and show how they reflect and shape the spiritual biography of the nation that has created them. In the case of Russia (as in the case of Poland), there exist a number of additional arguments for a broadened treatment of the subject of philosophical history. In Russia, philosophy appeared rather late and for a long time it could not find a way to constitute itself as a separate, autonomous area of knowledge and creative effort. Its autonomy was hindered by exceptionally difficult political conditions which made an unrestrained development of philosophy impossible at strictly politically-controlled state universities (certain symptoms of changes for the better appeared in this respect only in the second half of the 19 th century). Nor was it favored by the intellectual situation of the 19 th century Russian intelligentsia a painful awareness of political oppression, backwardness and the ensuing social problems distracted attention from questions that were not directly related to social practice and focused reflection on ethical, historico-philosophical and political oftentimes religious questions, at the same time provoking a certain undervaluation and neglect of classical ontological and theoretical-cognitive issues. Apparently constituting the most influential intellectual formation of the second half of the 19 th century, the Populist intelligentsia went so far as to maintain that a preoccupation with pure philosophy was immoral and a betrayal of the hallowed issue of the people. These particular qualities of Russian philosophical thought in the 19 th century make writing its history from the point of view of a narrowly defined philosophical perspective an especially thankless task as proved by its synthetic treatments by Radlov, Shpet and Yakovenko, among others. 2 Having focused on professionally practiced philosophy and employed formalized criteria of the philosophic, the authors produced an impoverished picture of the history of Russian philosophical thought and, in their final conclusion, denied it any originality. Even though the conclusion can be refuted on the grounds of their own assumptions, it must be admitted that with the narrow 2 E.L. Radlov, Ocherk istorii russkoi filosofii, Sankt Petersburg 1912; G. Shpet, Ocherk razvitiia filosofi v Rossii, Petrograd 1922; B. Jakovenko, Dejiny ruske filosofie, Prague 1939. The books are of little use nowadays, whereas the classical book by Masaryk, treating the history of Russian thought from the perspective of the historicalphilosophical and philosophical-religious issues, has retained considerable value until this day. (See T. G. Masaryk, Zur russischen Geschichts-und Religionsphilosophie, vol. 1-2, Jena 1913).
concept of philosophy s subject matter, the originality of Russian philosophy is indeed hardly discernible, marked above all else by a dependence on the philosophy of the European West. Its originality can only be fully perceived when we regard it from the perspective of Russia s intellectual history from the point of view of the issues that had moved the hearts and minds of thinking Russians the most and were believed by them to be the most important for the fate of their country. This is especially true of the 19 th century. A unique intersection of influences; modernization of the life and culture of a huge nation in which curtailed historical development were rapidly evolving; an astonishing co-existence of the archaic and the modern in social, as well as mental, structures; the issue of an intensive Europeanization and resistance toward it; confrontations of the Russian intellectual elite with the social reality and the ideas of, on the one hand, Western countries and, on the other hand, the continuously rediscovered Russian reality; the deep and uncompromising ideological involvement of the Russian intelligentsia, the fervor of its ethical research, the acuteness and fundamentalism of its damned problems all these accounted for the fact that the spiritual biography of the Russian nation in the 19 th century was more interesting and more dramatic than the intellectual histories of many other nations of incomparably richer philosophical traditions that were much more advanced in historical progress. It is by no means the intention of these remarks to dilute philosophical issues in socio-political matters. I fully appreciate the importance of the current studies of Russian academic philosophy, practically unknown in the West and until recently ignored even in Russia. 3 The neglect was largely due to the official Soviet school, interested solely in a mystified controversy about the so-called fundamental philosophical question (materialism vs. idealism), and in dividing thinkers into progressive (i.e., falsifiable through co-optation) and reactionary (i.e., totally rejected and purposefully marginalized). This had created a situation in post-soviet Russia in which a separation of studies of strictly philosophical matter from studies of ideologies was perceived as an indispensable condition of scholarly reliability. I also share the opinion that it is not true that all that is valuable in Russian philosophy had been allowed to be born only outside university walls. However, I agree with Berlin s opinion (quoted recently in an interesting book by his pupil Lesley Chamberlain) that the philosophical significance of Russian intellectual history has been the making of 3 A breakthrough in this domain is the 900-page work by W.F. Pustarnakov, Universitetskaia filosofiia v Rossii, Sankt Petersburg 2003. It comprises a monographic study and a biographical-bibliographical dictionary, offering information on Russian academic philosophers from the Enlightenment to the beginning of the 20 th century. 21
22 people who were, broadly speaking, thinkers rather than merely professors of philosophy. 4 The validity of studying Russian philosophy in an autonomous and strictly professional sense cannot thereby undermine the validity of studying philosophically significant aspects of Russia s intellectual history. Besides, there seems to be no doubt that the intellectual history of pre-revolutionary Russia is of worldly importance, which cannot be said of studies on the contributions of Russian philosophers of the time to the theoretical achievements of universal philosophy. Considering these facts, it seems understandable that the chronological scope and the structure of the present book have been determined by criteria related to the general intellectual history of Russia, rather than to the development of philosophy itself. Priority in the book is given to the 19 th century the period of the greatest flourishing of Russian literature. It had a number of features that allow it to be treated as an integral entity. The 19 th century saw the emergence and the making of a tradition by the intelligentsia, in the specifically Russian sense of the term, denoting a class of people who were educated and felt responsible for the future of their country, hardly unanimous but united by the ethos of fighting for progress. (In that sense, intelligentsia was an ethical category; sometimes it was ascribed a political meaning which was in opposition to the authorities an indispensable element of an intellectual s attitude). 5 In the 19 th century, the central problem of Russian thought became 4 Lesley Chamberlain in her philosophical history of Russia has argued very strongly against the use of strictly formal philosophical criteria in a study of Russian philosophy, supporting her case with the opinions of I. Berlin and the present author (see L. Chamberlain, Motherland. A Philosophical History of Russia, London 2004, pp. XI- XII). In this context, she quotes Berlin s devastating article on the book by N. Lossky, History of Russian Philosophy (1952), published in the Times Literary Supplement of March 27, 1953 (see Lesley Chamberlain, op. cit., p. 92). 5 Especially characteristic in this respect is the neo-populist history of Russian social thought by Ivanov-Razumnik (Istoriia russkoi obshchestvennoi mysli, Sankt Petersburg 1907). It presents the history of Russian thought from the perspective of two combating abstract principles the non-conformist ethical individualism (culminating in selfsacrifice for the benefit of the people) and bourgeois morality implying philistinism, egotism and acceptance of reality. The intelligentsia is for Razumnik an ethical category par excellence, a true intellectual is only one who is an individualist opposed to the bourgeois philistinism personified as official Russian reality. Ivanov- Razumnik s book offers the quintessence of the specific mythology of the Russian intelligentsia. It is a panegyric praise. In the 19 th century, such an extolling tone would have been utterly unacceptable, as the Russian intelligentsia was then rather prone to lashing self-criticism. It was only in the 20 th century when the role of the intelligentsia
23 Russia itself. Who are we? Where do we come from and where are we heading? What are we bringing to humanity? What should we do to fulfill our appointed mission? Looking for answers to those questions, thinking Russians employed the specific benefit of backwardness a possibility to compare the situation of their own country with those of more developed countries and making use of the intellectual achievements born in more advanced and progressive social conditions. Hence the immense importance of the reception of those achievements. A careful study of this reception is not a, study of influences, since it does not seek the reasons of intellectual development in external influences instead, it investigates the intellectual context in which Russian thought took shape and which became a powerful catalyst of its development. The introduction of the philosophical and socio-political issues of the 18 th century is justified by their close connection with 19 th century problems. It was then, during the reign of Catherine II, that a profound reflection on the model of monarchy and the roads of development for Russia started to emerge. The alliance of the ruling and educated elites was beginning to crumble. The enlightened class was gradually gaining independence from both the absolute power which had brought it to life by initiating the process of Europeanization and the ruling social class; Radishchev, who definitely severed his ties with the gentry, was in this sense the first Russian intellectual. Pavel Milyukov s opinion that it was in the age of Catherine that the unbroken tradition of critical social-political thought in Russia took roots, therefore seems fully justified. 6 Obviously, it did not emerge in a void. Recent studies have largely confirmed the fact that the dialogue between the Monarch and his closest advisers on the one hand, and the representatives of the social and cultural elites on the other, had been going on from the very beginning of the Europeanization reforms of Peter I. 7 It concerned the general direction of the reforms, but also the ideal model of power, and therefore had to include elements of a critical reflection on the current state of affairs. That is why the presentation of the mature Enlightenment ideas of the age of Catherine has been preceded in the as the leading force of the Russian struggle for independence came to its definitive end that a tendency toward such an advanced retrospective self-idolatry could appear. 6 P.N. Milyukov, Ocherki po istorii russkoi kultury, St. Petersburg, 1901, pp. 248-250. See also Marc Raeff, Origins of the Russian Intelligentsia: The Eighteenth-Century Gentry, New York 1966. 7 See Cynthis Hyla Whittaker, Russian Monarchy. Eighteenth-century Rulers and Writers in Political Dialogue, Dekalb 2003.
24 book by a brief discussion of the crucial issues of Russian political thought in the first half of the 18 th century. Closing the book are chapters on the Russian thought of the first decade of the 20 th century. I have adopted the assumption that the 1905 Revolution marked the natural end of the Russian 19 th century. In 1905, the Russian autocracy entered the phase of its final decline; the opposition against it took on organized political forms while the newly won constitutional freedoms allowed for an open political life and the rapid development of institutionalized forms of civic society which, however, did not cut short the revolutionary processes. This is how the revolutionary 20 th century began within the history of the Russian Monarchy. The present book deals with this only insofar as it is necessary for understanding the intellectual trends born in the 19 th century. In Russia s intellectual history, the 19 th century that had ended in the first Russian Revolution and the 20 th century were divided by several years of transition a period of critical reflection on the experience of the Revolution, a painful reckoning of the hallowed traditions of the radical intelligentsia, and an axiological revaluation of the entire intellectual achievement of the previous century. A profound account of the radicalism of the intelligentsia was offered by the almanac Vekhy [Signposts], published in 1909 and rightly considered to denote the close of the Russian 19 th century. 8 In the following year, the philosophical publishing house Put [ Road ] was founded (in co-operation with the authors of the almanac), its objective being to reevaluate the heritage of the past and to radically renew Russian culture in the spirit of a modernized religious and national consciousness. It was an elitist program, breaking with the populism of the old intelligentsia, rehabilitating independent creativity and emphasizing the transcendental dimension of culture. I was inspired by the socalled religious-philosophical renaissance the major ideological trend of the Silver Age of Russian culture. The turn of the first and the second decades of the 20 th century discussed at the end of this book was thus a vitally important caesura in the history of Russian thought. From that moment, Russian culture has been marked by a dramatic dualism, the culture of the intellectual elite standing apart from the culture of revolutionary Russia. 9 After the October Revolution, these two 8 See W. Rydzewski, Syndrom rosyjskiej idei, Archiwum Historii Filozofii i My li Społecznej, No 43, 1998, p. 115. 9 Cf. I.V. Kondakov, Vvedeniie v istoriju russkoi kultury, Moscow 1994, Ch. IX and X. This cultural dualism is reflected in synthetic discussions of the history of Russian philosophy. Soviet books used to utterly marginalize, or even eliminate, the idealistreligious trend, while the syntheses published in exile marginalized the trend of secular
cultures split definitively symbolically manifested in the expulsion of idealist philosophers from Soviet Russia in 1922. Following that incident, the culture of the Russian religious-philosophical renaissance was continued only in the diaspora, while the culture of revolutionary Russia, left prey to an ideocratic dictatorship, became self-destructive or primitively degraded. * The original version of the present book included seventeen chapters the present one has twenty-three. To help the Reader find his way in the contents, I have divided them into five sections, defined by chronology and subject matter. I hope this is a clear division which requires no comment. Five of the twenty-three chapters of this book are entirely new: Chapter 15 concerning Chicherin; Chapter 20 discussing metaphysical idealism, including a detailed presentation of Leo Lopatin s and Sergei Trubetskoi s philosophies; as well as the three final chapters, 21, 22, 23, which concern the 20 th century. There are also some new sub-chapters: Part 1 of Chapter 1 which deals with the paradoxes of Westernization); Parts 1-2 of Chapter 3 on the concepts of international order and liberalism in the times of Alexander I; Part 2 of Chapter 4 on the anti-philosophical crusade; Part 4 of Chapter 5 detailing the religious Westernism of Ivan Gagarin and Vladimir Pecherin; Parts 5-6 of Chapter 6 on the ideology of official nationality and the imperialist utopia of Tutchev; Part 5 of Chapter 9 which deals with Pamfil Yurkevich and Fedor Bukharev; Part 5 of chapter 13 on Nikolai Chaikovsky and Godmanhood; Parts 4, 5, 7 and 11 of chapter 18 related to the ecumenical and theocratic ideas of Soloviev, his philosophy of law and his place in the intellectual history of Russia; and lastly, Parts 5-6 of chapter 19 on the beginnings of the anti-positivist breakthrough and the theological anthropologism of Nesmelov. All the remaining parts of the book 25 radicalism, which made them useless for understanding of the genesis of the Russian Revolution. This is quite strikingly evident in the aforementioned (see footnote 4) book by Lossky; a subtler approach was that of V. Zenkovsky (A History of Russian Philosophy, London 1953) who described the secular radicals as subconsciously religious thinkers with close links to Orthodox Christianity. It is worth noting that the eminent British historian of philosophy F.C. Copleston (a Jesuit and admirer of Russian religious philosophy) found such a biased approach unacceptable. See F.C. Copleston, Philosophy in Russia. From Herzen to Lenin and Berdyaev, Notre Dame, In., 1986, p. VII. On that point, W. Goerdt s Russische Philosophie. Zugange und Durchblicke (Freiburg-München 1984) totally marginalizes Russian Marxism, devoting a mere couple of pages to it.
26 have been re-edited, introducing a number of important changes and additions. New footnotes have been supplied, naming the most important books on the subject published since the appearance of the book in its first English edition in 1979. Andrzej Walicki Granger, Indiana, August 2004