“Chaadaev and the Slavophiles: Some Key Differences in Worldview” by Thomas M. Blicharski

(22 yrs of age)

I was a student at the University of Illinois at Chicago from ’07 to ’11. I double-majored in History and Philosophy, making the Dean’s List six times. This is my thesis paper for my History major, which I did focusing on Russia and Nationalism. I have heard positive remarks about it, but am deeply curious whether or not it is worthy of publish in a journal or is simply “creditable” as a student paper. For the record, I am in agreement with the policies outlined on your site.

Abstract: This essay will delineate in certain broad though critical strokes some of the differences as well as parallelisms to be found in the Philosophical Letters of Peter Chaadaev and, on the other hand, central works of Slavophiles Kireevsky, Aksakov and Khomiakov, touching on the nihilist Dobroliubov as well. It is the intention of this essay to navigate the divide separating these writers and derive in symmetrical form a cross-examination of the respective worldviews they each bring to the ideological table.

I

Peter Chaadaev is universally acknowledged in Russia as setting the political and cultural

scene ablaze with his "First Philosophical Letter" in 1863. This letter, though interesting and

provocative, does not exhaust all of the insights he managed to cull, both pro and con, regarding

Russia's national identity and the West. His other letters are also very valuable in their contents,

particularly in relationship with what a group of intellectuals, namely the Slavophiles, wrote in

response. These writers of course, as opposed to the Westernizers, did not want to see Russia

modernized in the same manner that Chaadaev (for our purposes, a “proto-Westernizer”) and

others did. What is of note here is how the approach these Slavophiles followed in ways mirrors

exactly the one Chaadaev took advantage of in his letters, though ideologically in the opposite

direction.

Two views of what I will call ‘universality’ are pertinent here. For instance, whereas the

type of universality Slavophiles had in mind began (instead of ended) with the most basic level

of common life, and broadened out from such individual communities into whole nations,

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Chaadaev took a top-down approach, seeing universality as the overriding 'Supreme Reason'i

which nations were either in or out of alignment with, and which was, moreover, external to

them. Slavophiles in turn indicted this worldview – of "one-sided" reason or "ratiocination" – as

indicative of cultural disintegration and particularization away from a living center that was

grounded in the intimate and familiar landscape of human brotherhood. Chaadaev likewise

pointed out the same one-sidedness of Russia's reticence in moving outward from its particular

zone – that this sort of reason was peculiar to Russia and its philosophers – which were

retrogressive and opposed to a higher structuring.

The natural and logical implications extending from these two very different and yet in

ways completely parallel approaches are such that they exclude each other through a thorough

and utter transvaluation of values. Slavophilic freedom becomes a crippling necessity for

Chaadaev whereas Western freedom allows for the true fruition of mankind's spirit through

necessity. Western freedom becomes a diseased necessity for the Slavophiles, while true freedom

in their eyes can only come about with the necessary curtailment of false freedom. The external

has primacy for Chaadaev, without excluding (though limiting) the internal, while the internal

has primacy for the Slavophiles, without excluding (though limiting) the external. Activity and

progress in the world is privileged by Chaadaev, as opposed to a static and indeterminate

freedom that disavows visible progress which the Slavophiles would in turn like to substitute the

reality of an invisible, moral progress that runs counter to it.

This paper will demonstrate that Chaadaev’s view is grounded in a qualified dualism, as

opposed to the Slavophiles’ which takes on more the form of an absolute monism. The three

main Slavophiles I will look at representing such a generalized view will be Kireevsky,

Khomiakov and Aksakov.

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II

In what ways, first of all, are these two approaches similar? A good starting point should

be the primacy of the true Christian religion and its concomitant universality – not (at least

putatively) respecting differences of nation or race. Among the Slavophiles, this is true enough in

their defense of the Orthodox faith. While it is true that Kireevsky outlines in his essay

"European Culture: Its Relation to the Culture of Russia" the differences between Russia and the

West in stark terms, and that he clearly sees Russia as being and having been culturally, morally

and socially superior in a plethora of ways as opposed to other nations, it is also abundantly clear

that he views this to be more an accidental rather than an essential, fixed feature of Russia, her

having been merely guided by Providence so as to maintain a certain purity of life and thought,

and not specifically because of some idiosyncratic quality found in the Russian people

themselves.ii Very clearly Kireevsky states:

"It is not because of any inborn merits of the Slavic race that we place such high hopes in its future; no! Racial

characteristics are like the soil on which a seed is cast. The soil can only retard or accelerate the freedom in God's

world or strangle it in weeds; but what the fruit will be depends on the seed itself."iii

Russian customs and its early life are "precious" for Kireevsky precisely because they

"still show traces of the pure Christian principles which had been voluntarily accepted by the

Slavic tribes." [my italics]iv This emphasis on freedom time and again juxtaposes itself with

Chaadaev, who in his overwhelming insistence on the necessity of law and the ordered,

structured will of the cosmos, sees even conquest by force as something that is, in the final

analysis, justified. v Within that positive estimate of submission is the residual fact that a culture

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imposes itself on another, something which Kireevsky quite stridently opposes and capitalizes on

ideologically. He speaks admiringly of a "unanimity of views reflected in the harmonious unity

of the body politic" which contrasts sharply with the "death struggle between two hostile races"

which he sees so indelibly imprinted on the Roman systems of rule.vi

Kireevsky does not so much cast other cultures down (besides Western Europe in its

broad content, of course). Instead, he blames the social forms passed down by paganism, by

Roman law, over-ripeness of the logical faculty and the associated defection from the Universal

Church for the ills that have hitherto been wrought.vii Therefore, there is at least some good

reason to believe that Kireevsky (strictly going by his polemics alone, at least) was not very

much or at all interested in demonstrating the absolute superiority of the Russian nation beyond

demonstrating the principles present in it, – whether brought to it by Orthodoxy or perhaps some

other, unique principle in tandem with that spirit of Christianity, – were its animating and

vivifying force, and could, potentially, not only revivify Russia, but extend outward to all other

nations in a spirit of, as it were, freedom.

Aksakov, another Slavophile, wrote that the "order consonant with the spirit of Russia"

may be stated as being "the only proper order to be found on earth."viii He elaborates that "Man's

vocation is to achieve a spiritual approach to God, to his Saviour; man's law is within him, and

that law is unstinted love of God and of his neighbor. If men were like that, if they were saintly,

there would be no need for the state, for we would have the Kingdom of God on earth."ix

Speaking categorically, here it is sufficiently clear that Aksakov does not mean that Russians

alone are to achieve a spiritual approach to God, but all men. He also completely dispenses with

a state that may be called "Russian." He merely asserts, like Kireevsky, that the social forms and

consonant "spirit" of Russia is such that it is in the deepest conformity with the true faith, and

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from that point of view heralds the universal flag of "Truth" such that it alone can bring peace,

real enlightenment, proper values and so on.

Lastly Khomiakov, as we shall see in his cross-analyses of nations and their respective

principles, shows that Russia is to "take the lead in universal enlightenment"x not because of its

naturally inherent particularity (i.e, race), but because of its peculiar aptitude in discerning what

is common, vouchsafed to it by a certain historical niche that was preservative of peasant life.

Hence, it can be safely stated that this approach, specifically focusing on law and social order, is

universal, though originating in particular circumstances, one might say.

III

What is the nature then of Chaadaev's Christianity? It too claims universality, but in a

way that is strikingly different from that of the Slavophiles. For the latter the individual

community, the obschina, was the base-line, the foundation of all conviction, the living hub from

which society was built out of and where the fine ferment of Christian life could be seen.xi For

Aksakov it was the very inner life of the people which did not claim for itself any sort of political

power (and did not desire or need it) that was prized. This life was restricted solely to those

elements not touching the authority of the state - and vice versa - the state not impinging on the

life of the people.xii "Moral freedom" supersedes political freedom such that life, properly

construed, need not have any representation given its rich inwardness and self-sufficiency.xiii This

way, Christianity could flourish, because the life of the people was spiritually free and

uncontaminated.xiv

In this sense, civilization is not separate from, but internal to, the people, – one might say

even identical with it. Chaadaev's view of Christianity (which he equates with civilization) is

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certainly universal, as he offers no doubt in his first letter,xv but it comes across as an external

branch of revealed truth, in the form of an equally external authority, that someone must first

find, and that is not immediately recognizable in familiar, communal termsxvi: "human reason is

not led to its most positive knowledge by a really internal power, but that its motion must always

be impressed on it from without." "Submission" to the external law and truth which "does not

come from us" and which we have not "dreamt” up, is to take absolute priority.xvii The Supreme

Reason, "condescends" to our human weakness, since humanity's egoism, left to itself, can never

rid itself wholly of self-seeking, no matter how it tries.xviii It stands to reason that Chaadaev also

takes a very negative view of free will: "What would happen if man could make himself so

submissive that he wholly rid himself of freedom? Clearly, according to what we have said, this

would be the highest degree of human perfection."xix

Speaking of Christianity’s (i.e, the Supreme Reason’s) ability to “possess souls without

their being aware of it, to dominate, to subjugate them, even when they most resist it,” he

presents ample evidence that freedom in the robust sense of personal liberty is not something to

be much prized.xx Chaadaev's view of progress is such that there has to be an eventual conformity

to a higher principle, which produces all other "movements" in a pure, general accord with all the

rest.xxi Any recalcitrant will out of harmony with this accord, is necessarily a bad influence. In all

of this, he clearly sees Russia's standing outside the fold of this dynamism, – with its own

internal principles that are not alive to the dominant spirit of political and cultural aspiration or

are otherwise completely lacking, xxii as ahistorical and arrogant, being averse to the true spirit of

his Christianity: "For the Christian the whole movement of the human spirit is but the reflection

of the continuous action of God in the world."xxiii

Without movement, then, the human spirit, and Christianity, may as well be dead. As we

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will see all true movement of the human spirit for Chaadaev partakes of the visible, the more or

less tangible and concrete, which is actual and a sure sign of civilization.xxiv Because of his

emphasis on the generality of reason, there is the corollary that Russia does not have a real self-

identity which could partake of this greater mass: "we have nothing that is ours on which to base

our thinking; isolated by a strange fate from the universal development of humanity, we have

also absorbed none of mankind's ideas by traditional transmission".xxv "'What is the life of man,"

Cicero asked, "if the memory of past events does not come to bind the present to the past?"xxvi

i

? Peter Yakolevich Chaadaev, Philosophical Letters & Apology of a Madman, trans. Mary-Barbara Zeldin (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1969), 45. ii Ivan Vasil’evich Kireevski, “On the Nature of European Culture and Its Relation to the Culture of Russia,” in Russian Intellectual History: an Anthology, ed. Marc Raeff, (New Jersey: Humanities Press International, Inc., 1992), 205.iii K 195 iv Ibid.v C 47vi K 182vii K 184, 193viii Ibid.ix Konstantin Sergeevich Aksakov, “On the Internal State of Russia,” in Russian Intellectual History: an Anthology, ed. Marc Raeff, (New Jersey: Humanities Press International, Inc., 1992), 263x Aleksei Stepanovich Khomiakov, “On Humboldt,” in Russian Intellectual History: an Anthology, ed. Marc Raeff, (New Jersey: Humanities Press International, Inc., 1992), 229xi K 199-202xii A 239xiii A 234xiv Ibid. xv C 45xvi C 69-71xvii C 72xviii C 60 xix C 73xx C 49xxi Ibid. xxii C 34-40xxiii C 64xxiv C 110-120, 126, 128xxv C 36

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The emphasis here on memory is very important, as it underlies all of his philosophy of Christian

thought and its conjunction with culture and civilization. Russia, which lives in a "narrow

present"xxvii cannot structure its world in an integrated way, but more importantly cannot reach

into the transcendent space from where a vision of "better life" (which has since been, in

Chaadaev’s eyes, compromised by man’s sinfulness and therefore inherent inability to do good)

may be rekindled: "it is up to us to find this lost life, this more beautiful life, and that we can do

this without ever leaving this world."xxviii Memory is almost as it were an imprint of a former

Edenic state, which must be willed into existence through the active remaking of the world.xxix

This method of integration and hence synthesis (dissolving the difference between 'this

world' from the one hereafter) will be a crucial factor not only in terms of religion, but also in the

resultant forms of reasoning that it produces. Such an outlook, which abandons self-sufficiency

in turn for a dependence on various external matters so as to manifest a higher life in the present,

sets both Chaadaev's (as well as others’) views at odds with the Slavophiles’ project which, I

hope to show, is particular from the standpoint that it prefers a monistic as opposed to a

multifarious reasoning: the latter taking many factors into account and resolving disparate

elements among themselves (for example, the dualities of state versus church) whereas the

former does not wish to deviate from a singular vantage point for fear of compromising its more

idealistic principles which would be occluded, rather than magnified, by an embrace of this

world.

Here, however, is in capsule form Chaadaev's basic Christian presupposition: that true

life does not begin with the people’s innate dispositions, but Reason's (God's) "condescension" to

xxvi C 37xxvii Ibid. xxviii C 74xxix Ibid.

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it. The higher truth is over and above any particular culture and its mores or beliefs, no matter

how warm or dearly felt. It is transcendent and surpasses them. Furthermore, all particular life

must be subordinated and conformed to this higher rationality that eludes any primitive,

hermetically closed self-understanding. The world must configure itself so that its narrative

mirrors God's, and the "Kingdom" is not a purely detached "thing-in-itself" but finds its

actualization in the things of this world - hearkening again to this "memory." This is not to say

that the Slavophiles did not believe in transcendence, that God was not also “Other.” But their

transcendence is one totally different in kind, stemming from, and finding its essential resting

place in, the individual human soul.

IV

The Slavophilic response, first, would be that the West is corrupt in much of its

reasoning, that it cannot take this "universality" for granted since, for one thing, it is not

universal. The same way that Chaadaev critiques humanity's basic and natural reasoning from the

ground up as being essentially ego-centric, Slavophiles Kireevsky and Khomiakov critique

preponderant reason as not "Supreme" or an outflowing of the divine, but as simply the outcome

of various powers.

As with Chaadaev, both Khomiakov’s and Kireevsky’s interpretations lie in the realm of

historical analysis. Pagan Rome won out, through violent conquest, and therefore, by necessity,

certain forms were implemented such that they compromised the soil of Europe’s possible

development as a genuinely Christian nation.xxx Given the dominating mind-set of the Roman, all

things must necessarily be filed away into an uncompromising alignment. Life, if it is not united

by such concepts, is then forced by artificial and violent means so that a unity may be had – even

xxx K 180-185

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if it is merely external, and hence not ultimately real or authentic.

The result of this is the founding of "not a public spirit, but a spirit of individual

separatism"xxxi where the fractious and self-serving politics of individuals who feel themselves

justified takes precedence over any real bonds between humans; those bonds themselves

becoming more or less a front for individual selfishness. The close alignment of this mentality to

things like party-politics, and the one-upmanship inherent in it; the unbridled domination of

cultures and social forms in the name of "reason," xxxii are claims which are valid practically as

well as metaphysically, not only appealing to the highfalutin theorist but also the common

person, again maintaining the focus on the approachable and down-to-earth elements inherent in

Christianity as opposed to the “Supreme Reason.”

For Kireevsky the subjugating Romans became so engrossed in these matters of rational

domination and victory to the point that life itself, the "hearth" which should be prized for its

own sake, became forgotten in the raw calculation of power, and this mentality in turn was

absorbed and internalized to such an extent that not just theology, but individual ways of life for

the European people at large became compromised. A prime example of this false reasoning that

engulfed Europe was the insistence on a rigid code of law that upheld the letter to an inordinate

degree. This rigidity of morals led to an inability to discern anything common beyond individual

rights, and became the basis for greater and greater isolation and individuation:

"Each noble knight within his castle formed a separate state. For that reason, relations between nobles could be only

external relations, entirely formal in character. That same external, formal character had to mark their relations with

other estates. For that reason, civil law in Western states, as it developed, was marked by the same formality, the

same disputatious emphasis on the letter of the law, which constituted the very basis of public relations."xxxiii

xxxi K 187xxxii K 184

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This description very well captures the atomization, the splintering off of individuals into

their own private sectors with only a thin facade of order which could be organized very roughly,

and without personal bonds; every nobleman striving to be a "law unto himself in relations to

others"xxxiv On the other hand, Russians preferred "evident justice to literal formal meaning"xxxv

which could actually reflect the will of the people generally, and factor in more compassionate

values (in the true spirit of Christianity) than any strict code reserved for fractious, disordered

populaces. And so Khomiakov makes clear the distinction between this technical sense of

morality and the ideal Russian view of custom:

"Custom is law; but it differs from the law in that the latter is imposed from the outside as an accidental admixture,

whereas custom is an internal force which permeates the entire life of the people and the conscience and thinking of

all its members"xxxvi

In this sense there is no external force. If something is wrong, one does not merely see if

it is a matter of legalistic right, or whether one can get away with its commission freely. Rather,

conscience itself has a say, the organic, holistic set of factors, both personal and communal,

dictate what may be allowed or not, and not merely through what is correct in an abstract,

technical sense, but also through what is proper. In this way, unusual or absurd, onerous pieces

of litigation did not "fall like an avalanche" to use Kireevsky's phrase, but were assessed out-of-

court and not legislated according to a depersonalized reason, but in accordance with "daily

life."xxxvii However, what is most important here is that law would then reflect the will of the

xxxiii K 187xxxiv Ibid. xxxv K 197xxxvi Kh 223xxxvii K 198

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people (not wholly alien and outward – like Chaadaev’s Supreme Reason), and the individual

person would necessarily have to loosen his hold on being an absolute measure in such affairs.

Khomiakov's examplexxxviii of the callous old man cheating his cousin explains this point

quite well. Instead of bowing to the general crowd's judgment that what he did was wrong, he

instead maintains his private right until he is presented with the fact that what is right is not up to

him to decide. This dissolution of personal egoism in the light of general custom is something

the West could not own to as well given the inflexibility of its laws vouchsafed through conquest

instead of the free, non-compulsory development of organic law among peoples. This then is true

universality for the Slavophiles, but it is rendered as a particular feature in the overall scheme of

Chaadaev and others who would assume that this preservation of freedom itself stands in the way

of any real greatness.

V

The importance stressed on morals and the goodness inherent as opposed to demonstrated

is something that, however, is only part (though perhaps the central component) of a larger

theme the Slavophile program works out. One may say briefly that it invokes the reality of the

invisible. Whereas Western logic pays attention to form to an inordinate extent, Russian

reasoning is more form-less, per the Slavophilic understanding.

Here returning to Kireevsky again will be very beneficial, as he elaborates using many

examples of why Russian reasoning is preferable, as it does not presume to know everything, but

instead allows for a degree of mystery and surrender to sacred revelation which the West cannot

even understand.xxxix Preferring Plato and the Greeks (whom Chaadaev despises) he praises men

like the Desert Fathers who eschew the preponderant method of the West.xl

xxxviii Kh 225-6

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For the West much of sacred tradition was given over to excessive rationalization and

logical deduction, especially evident in scholasticism: "Scholasticism was nothing but an attempt

to evolve a science-like theology".xli This mentality of a "science-like theology" which lasted for

"seven hundred years" as an "endless, tiresome juggling of concepts" and "useless kaleidoscope

of abstract categories revolving constantly before the mind's eyes" paved the way for future

skepticism and loss of faith. For with the appraisal of sacred truths in the light of reason, the

rational faculty, according to Kireevsky, was raised to an undue height, such that human beings

grew proud in their use of it, that they themselves could glean truth on their own in a way

comparable to the excessive and unbridled uses of reason in pagan times. This mind-set

destroyed the "inner equilibrium of the spirit" and the intent on "formal harmony" became the

true resting ground of truth, not holy revelation that surpassed any of humanity's own

mentations.xlii

Hence, according to this reasoning, scholasticism, in its false presupposition of its own

power, corrupted all future thinking, laying the seeds for things like the Reformation and modern

philosophy, which rationally did away with age old convictions. Very early on Kireevsky makes

a striking observation on how, with the dissolution of man's former convictions, a boundless trust

was placed in his reason:

"In the first moments of victory his joy was not only unmixed with regret; on the contrary, intoxicated with self-

confidence, he reached a state of poetic exaltation. He believed that by using his own abstract reason he could

forthwith build a new and rational life for himself and transform the earth into a veritable paradise." xliii

xxxix K 195xl K 191xli K 189xlii K 184-5xliii K 177

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While this may sound overly exaggerated it does capture the growing sense of autonomy

and independence which man progressively felt, away from God, given the centrality of this

faculty and how a life could be built on it; something Kireevsky believes is doomed to failure in

its very principle:

"The Western philosophers [...] assumed that the complete truth (my italics) could be discerned by separate faculties

of the mind, acting independently and in isolation. They used one faculty to understand moral, and another to grasp

esthetic, matters; for practical affairs they had yet a third; to ascertain the truth, they employed abstract reasoning;

and none of them knew what any of the others was doing until its action was completed. They assumed that each

path led to a final goal, which had to be attained before the faculties could unite and make common progress." xliv

I emphasize the factor of oneness in this passage because it is indeed prevalent;

Kireevsky does not deny that there is an overarching theme present. But, what he maintains is

that even when united, all the basic elements remain disparate because they fail to make common

progress. Whereas progress is not held to be as high in Slavophilic eyes (though of course this

must be qualified, as with Khomiakov and his more modern views, Aksakov on censorship, and

so on) xlv its status must, time and again, be kept in check and not allowed to grow out of hand.

For then cultural advancement assumes a character of undue difference (that is, a lack of

harmony and inner connection, cohering in a single binding principle of religiosity), and thus is

corrupted.

Nowhere are the effects of such differentiation best exemplified than in Kireevsky’s

comparison of the “typical” Western man and the “typical” Russian peasant.xlvi The Russian

xliv K 193xlv A 247xlvi K 200

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peasant lives in such a way that every waking moment is seen in the broader light of his moral

and spiritual convictions. It is “with a prayer that he begins and finishes every task.” All his

actions stem from one elemental consciousness that is situated as it were in constant fidelity to

the higher truths of faith and religion. Even in terms of committing vices (such as giving in to

luxury) this springboard present within serves as a moral impetus to consistently better one’s self

and view even enjoyable things as sub-par or not to be prided over, like the West does.xlvii

On the other hand, the Western personality is sub-divided (compartmentalized, to use the

more pejorative term) in such a way that one’s prayer life, for instance, does not have any impact

on other matters of living, say doing business or enjoying oneself in the company of beer

drinkers. One can then separate those elements, such as family affairs or making art, from going

to mass or contemplating God at a certain hour of the day. What this does, however, is leave a

gaping hole in terms of what it is to be a human being. One is then not a coherent Whole, or he is

but not in any natural sense, only in, again, the anti-natural or denatured sense in which Roman

“unity” was considered real unity. One may then be, externally, again, a completely whole

person, but inside have no locus, no living center from which he may direct all such powers

consistently. One may then be driven by such overweening success in one area of life, and,

simultaneously, attempt to be a good Christian. However, since this is not something one can (at

least normally) accomplish, a person becomes torn one way or the other, and so becomes

fragmented: “at every moment of his life he is like a different person.”xlviii

This trouble is not limited to one’s self, but infects all of society as a result. Not only

because everyone is afflicted by this mentality, but because it causes even more damage by its

effects.xlix What this does, then, as an implication for family life, is to cause greater and greater

xlvii K 202xlviii K 200xlix K 201

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egotism to flourish, with each individual person caring more for his own interests rather than the

common good. And so fragmentation and a splitting off are the consequences: the distancing of

women from the roles they fulfill, for example, or the sacrificial mode of life weakening where

members of a clan actually go out of their way to benefit everyone. The former, primitive

harmony which Christianity truly represents in microcosm, rather than macrocosm, is therefore

run underneath the heel of Western progress which gives way to unprecedented desire and

licentiousness in its newer consciousness. People begin living for themselves in such a way that

any cleavage to a “Superior Reason” is preposterous. At least in the sense worked out by “true”

Christianity which has selflessness as a base.

Khomiakov makes many similar points in this regard, about the West infecting the moral

and intellectual faculties of the people, and his example of Max Stirner’s logical conclusion in

particular, surrounding the West’s directionality and how it supposes a dissolution of any

“ethical foundation” to live by besides one’s own personal profit, is noteworthy here. l Since the

conclusion of history appears to be egotism, as Kireevsky’s observations spell out, it makes

sense to say that individualism would grow disproportionately to its surroundings (namely,

society and all the virtues which it still, formally, upholds), – which remain, however attenuated,

in some sense traditional and hearkening back to a unity of mankind. This individualism,

eventually reaching such an extreme pitch, would dispense with any fabricated notions it cannot

pin its hopes on (the artificial ‘unity’ the West would like to pass off – which repudiates the

tangible spirit of pervasive communal love that is so essential to the human) and hence be

reduced to only itself, the individual alone, who as it were detached from everything else, lives

solely for himself.

For Khomiakov it was necessary for God to show forth the inability of mankind to create

l Kh 214

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its own creeds, and so he makes the case that Orthodoxy is present as the only viable form of

Christianity.li Having developed organically, Russia is the pure vessel for this pure faith, and any

arguments (propounded by Chaadaev in particular) that it has not managed to progress due to the

West’s technological or political advantages or social forms, is peripheral and not of essential

importance: “The logic of history passes judgment not on the formal structure but on the spiritual

life of Western Europe”.lii Transposing this into the discussion of art, Kireevsky writes:

“Instead of maintaining an eternal bond between beauty and truth – a bond which, it is true, may slow down the

separate progress of each, but which safeguards the integrity of the human spirit and preserves the genuineness of its

manifestation – the Western world founded its ideal of beauty on the lies of the imagination, on a dream it knew to

be false, or on a supreme straining of an isolated emotion, born of a deliberate dissociation of the mind.”liii

In referencing the Universal Church, similarly, Kireevsky states that while it did not

manage to endow itself with the same outward signs of power, luxury and authority as did the

Roman, what it did manage was the furtherance of moral growth. "[...] by suffusing all the

intellectual and moral convictions of men, it invisibly led the state toward a realization of the

highest principles of Christianity, while never hindering its natural development."liv While

Orthodoxy managed not to meddle in politics and make its presence as tangibly felt, what it did

do was cause a "full and pure" "spiritual influence" precisely because there was no "historical

obstacle" with its onerous, and crushingly deadening necessity of upheaval and inquisition, to

forestall this spontaneous and lively development of Christian ways.

Thus it may be said that Russian society developed "independently",lv away from the

li Kh 215lii Kh 212liii K 203liv K 196 lv K 197

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confusions and convulsions of the West, together with its emphasis on blunt and unambiguous

concepts, both theological and state-wise. A "space" was preserved where Russia could co-exist

with the loftiest, and truest, principles of Christian religion. And this, as Aksakov relates, is

something corresponding to Russia but not reducible to Russia:

"Russians are sinners, because man is sinful. But the essential qualities of the Russian people are good, its beliefs are

holy, its way is righteous. Every Christian, being human, is a sinner, but the path he follows as a Christian is the path

of righteousness." (A 234)lvi

Nor was it, in turn, political in anything but in the barest of senses: "[...] in brief, how

does a truly Christian people regard the state? As a protection, and by no means as an object of

the desire for power."lvii The Russian people alone do not "aspire to popular sovereignty."

Russians alone live by the dictum "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that

which is God's" – maintaining a solid division between secular and ecclesiastical power such that

the latter can never be contaminated by the former.lviii This preservation of a core life, in the form

of an untouched purity is something I will return to later on.

Lastly, Aksakov's position that monarchy is the only pure government is a fitting, though

also in some ways an ironic one. For him it is the Tsar alone, an individual ruler, who can

administer the affairs of the state without corrupting it. But why is that? If individualism is

wrong, why not adopt a popular road? The idea is that the state would then again become an

instrument of power and people would, naturally, disown their real life which is apolitical, for

the burgeoning instruments of the state. Even if, writes Aksakov on an oligarchic solution, "we

lvi A 234lvii A 236lviii A 236, 238

18 Blicharski

were to elect ten archons [...] They would become a governing group and hence would form a

kind of national life." lix Already here Aksakov is aware of the creeping influence of a power

structure; an oligarchy even would not suffice because that would eventually convene a

disastrous unity at odds with the greater body of believers, would be a "miniature" of the true

society, and would therefore not answer to the people the way government should: solely by

means of limitation.

Hence, Aksakov is at great pains at self-effacement, in that he wishes only for the purity

of the Russian people's inner life to shine, and he is willing to sacrifice all outward appearances

such that it will remain in a vibrant sort of stasis, undetermined by the kinds of activities that

could defile it. The Tsar then, though an individual, has, at his power of freedom and disposal,

the sole ability to "draw a line" between the people and the state, so that this vibrant stasis will

remain resplendent in-itself and not be the victim of any invasive complexity. This theme of

"setting aside" (that is, making an unalterable division between one side and the other) I will

return to with "The Organic Development of Man in Connection with His Mental and Spiritual

Activities" by Dobroliubov.

When did this freedom then become imperiled? For Kireevsky, it was growing

attachment to form. That is, the inordinate clinging to tangible, worldly things that obscured the

true spiritual meaning above them – as with Old Believers becoming overly disputatious in

details of worship, and passing on such an unhealthy particularist attitude to newer generations,

who then looked to the West in similar fashion.lx For Aksakov it was the installment of a bad

Tsar who infringed on the people’s ways,lxi and for Khomiakov it was the growing “Whiggism”

in the upper classes that grew so detached from the needs of the people. lxii Surprisingly the

lix A 237

19 Blicharski

Slavophiles were not completely against progress. Khomiakov welcomed it, acknowledging that

Russia in the past did not consist of any kind of utopia and that Peter was not to be entirely

discounted as a formidable leader.lxiii Kireevky’s and Asakov's task, too, consisted more in a

revitalization of Russia's spirit than any complete return to old, uncritical rule, making a point of

the importance of free speech.lxiv However, this did not mean there did not ought to exist, in their

eyes, checks on the West's invasive "freedom" which is in reality the inversion of true freedom

existing in communal spirit and life, and that does not partake of material relations – the liberty

of various external powers, which must be kept to a minimum.

VI

Two very striking images to be found in the literature by Russians on the opposite side of

the divide express, in my mind, a key philosophical assumption underlying the putative Russian

consciousness of both Slavophiles and those precursors who were considered similarly

backwards and unevolved (i.e, the “schools”). The first is Chadaaev's mention of a snowball

running down a hillside, progressing gradually as it grows, as it were from a concrete, particular

center, and representing man's spirit in the most simplistic terms imaginable.lxv This is supposed

to represent society before it achieves truly universal consciousness. The other image has to do

with the mind's eye and how it differentiates the world in its earliest stages: "The first act of

consciousness is that we distinguish ourselves from the rest of the world." lxvi From this

lx K 206lxi A 245lxii Kh 217lxiii Kh 217 lxiv A 247lxv C 111lxvi Nikolai Aleksandrovich Dobroliubov, “The Organic Development of Man in Connection with His Mental and Spiritual Activities,” 26 in Russian Intellectual History: an Anthology, ed. Marc Raeff, (New Jersey: Humanities Press International, Inc., 1992), 267

20 Blicharski

differentiation arise all the predominating dualities the physical organism (in this case,

reasonably being a metaphor for the Russian state) afterwards must contend with: darkness and

light, and all other opposites.

All the dichotomies between matter and spirit, between people and the

state which Kireevsky and Khomiakov come to combat in their utter

repudiation of such conflicts – as being indicative of the fragmentation they

see as so characteristic of the West,lxvii come to a head in terms of what their

opponents have to say. The tables then become turned and it is Chaadaev

who launches his critique against the one-sided reason and "philosophy" of

the Russians, who cater to the most depressing and somnolent

dispositionslxviii owing solely to the wisdom of “sages” who may merit some

respect but otherwise are cast in a practically crooked, deceitful light. lxix

What is important to bear in mind is the fact that he thinks humanity is

varied through and through and that each nation has its own “personality”

which it starts with and grows accustomed to – thus being in possession of

various forms of wisdom and understanding, and which pan out unequally

across the spectrum.lxx For Chaadaev "the inspirations of God" were

preserved "in a purer and more certain form" among some people than

others, and this was because of the essential character of those people, on

an inward basis.

lxvii K 205, Kh 225-6lxviii C 32lxix C 63-6lxx C 107, 114

21 Blicharski

[…] if we recognize that nations, although composite beings, are, in fact, like individuals, moral beings, and that

consequently an identical law governs the mental life of each, then we shall find that the activity of the human

families depends necessarily on this personal feeling which makes each consider itself distinct from the rest of the

human race, having its own existence and individual interests; that this is a necessary element of universal reason

and constitutes as it were the “I” of the collective human being.” lxxi

There is no democratic nature of man such that all persons, in

whatever space or time, have equal access to the truth. This does not

compare entirely favorably with the remarks earlier shown by the

Slavophiles, that humans are in a sense the same; that it is precisely the

external, evil and alien influences, which overlay and overshadow the natural

disposition to communality, either as in the form of overshadowing God's

purpose for mankind in Aksakov, or in terms of the basic debasing upheavals

which Kireevsky revolts against, and which contaminate humanity's innate

capacity to love. On the other hand, it is within the context of individual

nations that they can either rise to dominant supremacy, or “denature” (that

is, artificially limit and falsify) mankind to the level at which various

confusions result.lxxii

One might be tempted to say that Slavophiles, like Kireevsky, would

argue it was the “party-spirit” of old Rome that caused things to be

corrupted, or that the psychological make-up of the people led to various

forms of “Whiggism” in Khomiakov, and that they were necessary and

invariable results rooted in inherent maladies and malformed societies. But

lxxi C 114-5lxxii C 82

22 Blicharski

in Chaadaev it is abundantly clear that nations are “persons,” not simply

conglomerations of influences that may impede the natural growth of

humankind. Here Chaadaev is flatly inflicting moral unction on nations

personally, for he speaks of mankind’s “spirit”lxxiii being defiled, not merely in

terms of relations of inauspicious facts looked at without intimate reproach,

but as the decisions of collective "I"'s in the form of nations.

VII

Chaadaev is in some ways much more pessimistic about human nature

than the Slavophiles and his often sarcastic remarks cut to the core of what

he thinks is wrong with the general schools’ appraisal of human nature:

“For the schools man is always the same; he has been the same at all times and is the same

in all places; we are as we must be; and that mass of incomplete, fantastic, incoherent ideas

which we call the human mind is, according to the schools, pure intellect, a divine

emanation from God Himself; nothing has altered it, nothing has touched it. Behold the

wisdom of mankind!”lxxiv

This description would not sound so damning if it were directed solely to the

external, “outer man” who is himself unconsciously deceived by outward

forces. Say, by the scintillating and enticing forces of the West. Rather, it is

again man’s “spirit” which he is after. The Slavophiles do not ask nations to

“repent” in the same exaggerated ways that Chaadaev does because their

lxxiii C 101lxxiv Ibid.

23 Blicharski

personhood is not as real.lxxv One may say nations would precisely have to be

depersonalized in the light of true faith (for what is patriotism but a holding

onto the temporal order?), but for Chaadaev it is individual persons who

must in some ways constitute a single body at large with a will of its own. In

this way the state is not simply a vacuous non-entity that human beings

retire from in a way that is impersonal. And so, his paraphrase of Pascal’s

quote is apt here, that “the whole succession of men is one man who exists

always”lxxvi Such a conception constitutes for him the idea of submission in

the moral order to one striking accord of personality. Were people free to

revel in their own ways this would denude such a nation of any intimate

force. Matter is conceived of as a complete whole, not just as this body and

that, each disparate and on its own. For this same reason is the mind seen in

this coherent set of terms for Chaadaev.lxxvii Individuality at the ground level

would of course be an impediment to erecting this universal personality, and

so is logically dispensed with. Thus the personal becomes the impersonal, or

the other way around, depending on which perspective one chooses.

In his letter focusing on the sciences Chaadaev writes of the “strange

indolence” of the human mind whereby it becomes incapable of intellectual

progress and, as a result, instead of seeing the world in all its comprehensive

breadth and sweep, mocks it by narrowing it down within a preset method,

namely the scientific which, though it can sufficiently “circumscribe” a

lxxv C 115lxxvi C 95lxxvii Ibid.

24 Blicharski

number of phenomena in a “legitimate circle” (as in chemistry or physics) is

nonetheless incapable of measuring with the same exactitude other

phenomena – particularly the moral kind. For, here we are dealing with “free

and divergent wills which recognize no law but their own whim." lxxviii To try to

implement any sort of experimental model here is useless, as the subject is

not something explicable through analytic reason alone.

Here now we can better understand Chaadaev’s dismissal of Russian

morality earlier when he says that, though Russians are in fact “Driven by an

invisible power” of moral goodness and spirit, and that it can be analyzed in

sundry ways, one could not, no matter how “consistently” – to use the

outlook of the Slavophile’s view of integrated reason – manage to “deduce

from all this the positive law of our moral nature” – that this amounts solely

to a “vague feeling, and a disembodied authority.”lxxix Were we to strip away

the West’s abstract reasoning, we would be left with nothing, which is just

what Chaadaev presumes Russian’s have – a lack that manifests itself in a

complete absence of moral force to compliment its egotism. To even

presume oneself to be a moral person has in it, from the outset, a wealth of

pride.

VIII

Continuing on in viewing nations as discrete individuals who are by

nature unequal, Chaadaev says that those who in fact have gone awry

lxxviii C 83lxxix C 61

25 Blicharski

(which, of course, would include Russia) must "repent" of their waywardness,

of the "crimes" that they have committed.lxxx Having Greek influence and

Byzantium in mind, he goes on to talk about how Greece, this "land of

deception and illusion", with all its "seduction and deceit" will fade away in

due timelxxxi. Chaadaev thinks that Russia is still trapped in philosophy.

The issue he thinks is really the other way around, and it is the

transcendent Reason of God which has to come down and usurp such lesser

reason and laws. Such forms, in all their supposed loyalty and apparent

virtue, hide a dark secret. It is not the West's "ratiocinations" which are to

blame for Russia's calamity but the "sensual inspirations of Plato." lxxxii This is

the direct inversion of Kireevsky's view to abstract reason (as well as his

upholding Plato as a more beneficial model), that it is the West's fragmented

reason that is responsible for so much dissent and amorality. On the other

hand, it is Russia's own inability to separate "mental fact" from "material

fact"lxxxiii which is problematic and an inveterate worry of Chaadaev's - that it

is seemingly one and the same because it springs from such particular and

deadening circumstances as admit of no dynamism and variegatedness. It is

because of this innate inability to clearly and definitively make a

demarcation that confusion results.

He speaks of how easy it is to fall into this trap: "Since the law of

identity is common to nature and intellect, you may operate on either one in

lxxx C 115lxxxi Ibid. lxxxii C 116lxxxiii C 92

26 Blicharski

the same manner."lxxxiv This transposition is so easy to fall into, Chaadaev

presumes, because the very basis of Russian thought is itself philosophical,

and as he says from the outset philosophy is nothing more than a "vain

agitation of the mind which satisfies only the needs of our material

being."lxxxv The implication is staggering when looked at from the perspective

of Dobroliubov. Here we see the exact indictment of Russian thought in

capsule form: that it is the result of an ideal that has progressed to an undue

length and that, in itself, serves only as a cover for material interests.

Chaadaev of course himself believes we must not dispense with the

physical. This is evident in many of his descriptions surrounding art and the

importance of living a leisurely, aesthetic life. He is open about how he

believes the mental and the physical do in fact lie in a sort of one-to-one

correspondence with each other, that the mental "corresponds perfectly to

the principle of the physical world"lxxxvi In fact, you cannot have such a thing

as a “pure” spirit in the abstract sense and even German philosophy must,

necessarily, bow its head and come down to more agreeable climes.lxxxvii It

isn't transcendence to dispense with the world and all its (robust) social

forms, as it is for Aksakov. A complete and thorough repudiation of this world

for the next, and any forms reflective of such an appraisal, are inadequate

because one-sided. Spiritual life is not the opposite of material engagement,

but belongs together with it, as its logical correlate. How does this differ from

lxxxiv C 94lxxxv C 44lxxxvi C 69lxxxvii C 94

27 Blicharski

the Russian conception which Chaadaev seems to attack as overcome by

materialism?

The problem is one of opposites. The greater the separation from

physical fact, the more etherealized and immaterial life becomes. However,

since it is not separate from the physical, both degrees grow to unduly

extreme lengths. All this has to do with a different view of what

'transcendence' really entails. For Akshakov it is perpetuation and inner

flowering of spiritual freedom detached from material interests. For

Kireevsky likewise, luxury, the things which make an outward appeal, are to

be more or less shunned. Though in this regard he and Khomiakov appear

more progressive and do not dispense with matters like art and innovation.

What they all have in common, though, is the steady progress which is

evident in Chaadaev's image of the running snowball. What remains indelibly

and utterly established is the absolute nature of the soul or spirit in

contradistinction to matter. This is the extreme which cannot be

compromised in any way. This is the backbone, as it were, on which all the

accessory things the Slavophile project may afterwards graft. The difference

then for Chaadaev is that his view of transcendence is more integrated and

is less an internal skeleton than a type of exoskeleton, which may house

various other things, those things then lending support to the entirety of the

structure as a whole. It is exactly this apparently barren skeleton of

foundationalism which Chaadaev excoriates.

28 Blicharski

IX

Once again we must return to the idea of memory; but also, with it, the

notion of space and time collapsing, but not through their utter

abandonment. Rather, to reach the "higher life" which mankind "possessed

in the past" but is promised to him in this very life, an appraisal of the

current order is needed:

"It is Heaven - there is no other heaven but this. We are allowed to enter it right now, do not

doubt this. It is nothing but the complete renewal of our nature within the given order of

things, the last stage of the labors of intelligent beings, the final destiny of the world." lxxxviii

Chaadaev does not like space and time, as he writes of "escaping the stifling

embrace of time", being in awe of an "unlimited duration" and that the

"infinite is the natural atmosphere of thought" which humankind truly wants

to go to, being unbound by paltry limitation. The same goes for space. lxxxix

The difference in his view of spirit then lies not in collapsing space and time

by means of neglect or wholesale dissociation (as he might accuse his

opponents), but through an all-out integration so that the "absolute unity in

the totality of beings" is brought to light, as the image and axis from which

real, transcendent and "heavenly" life may rain down. It isn't, on the

contrary, an ascetical, detached view that is one-sided in its treatment of

transcendence. Such is precisely the scientific method which "instead of

rising to the true unity of things, it merely lumps together what ought to

lxxxviii C 75-6

29 Blicharski

remain eternally separate."xc

What is it that should remain eternally separate in the Slavophiles? The

very same dualities which Kireevsky critiques which should in truth be

integrated: the "dichotomy of spirit, dichotomy of thought, dichotomy of

learning" and so on. xci For Chaadaev it is not dealing with dualities by

avoiding them that defuses their problem, it is wrestling with them by

integrating them through a higher synthesis whereby a change is actually

effected. This is especially relevant in his remarks about the one law that

underlies human production:

"nothing is generated but by the contact or fusion of beings; no force or power acts in

isolation. It must merely be remarked that the event of generation itself occurs in a region

screened from our direct perception."xcii

What is "screened from our direct perception" is the serial order and

complimentarity of elements such as they may furnish the instantly

recognizable order Kireevsky and company would vouch for. But this is a

mistake as it is precisely those "powerful memories" which, floating and

concurring with each other in the cultural milieu, manage to come unite all of

human experience in a definitive and meaningful fashion. Else, if there is no

concrete history, no "happenings" man is like an animal, a blank tabula rasa

with no self-narrative.xciiiAgain, this ties into Russia being ahistorical and

lxxxix Ibid. xc C 91xci K 205xcii C 97

30 Blicharski

putatively, in Slavophilic eyes, preserved from various wounds. Chaadaev

thinks that these wounds themselves make for greater story-telling and

stronger memories - almost piercing through the veil of space and time by

their intensity - whereas in the Russian idea there is only steady

homogeneity without the required impulse needed to achieve real, full-

bodied and robust transcendence. What use is freedom and generosity,

human kindness and goodness - if it is only the outcome of mere human

morality and presumption - the outcome of sage wisdom but not of earth-

shattering divine reason? Who cares about dead mysticism and what the

Church Fathers taught? That is only a chimera, passed off by humanity’s

desperately wicked self-will.

X

I think it is hardly any accident that the characteristic features of Dobroliubov's essay

"On the Organic Development of Man" carry over so well into Chaadaev's general critique,

replicating many of the same insights, as it were. The inability of Russia to "waken" as from a

slumber, to attain to maturity in her views instead of remaining at the level of childlike stuporxciv

and the monistic principle inherent in things like morality, which is born only of habit and not a

robust and evaluative self-reflection on the true principles of morality.xcv These are all indications

of a common ideological foe both a full-fledged nihilistic Westerner (Dobroliubov) and a proto-

Westerner (Chaadaev) see in Russia. It is the direct inversion of Kireevsky's moral peasantxcvi;

xciii C 98-9xciv C 36, D 273xcv C 61, D 283xcvi K 200

31 Blicharski

the core of whose heart, previously convicted by moral truth, is now seen as ultimately cold and

vacuous, not to mention maladjusted. For it is not the sights and sounds of foreign places which

are to blame (say France and its wayward art); being the breeding grounds for corruption and

licentiousness; but in the Russian people's own immaturity and waywardness.xcvii

Firstly, Dobroliubov’s essay was meant to convey, in analogous form, a description of the

affairs in Russia mainly in terms of education from the standpoint of a nihilistic perspective.xcviii

The fact that Chaadaev is not a nihilist is irrelevant in the following respects, because what is so

important regarding both of these writers is the emphasis they lay on the physical, both mocking

the solely spiritual. For Chaadaev as well as Dobroliubov, one cannot exist without the other;

there is no such thing as a pure thing-in-itself separate from mankind’s own physical and

material contribution. Again, Heaven on earth itself, for Chaadaev, the very capacity to transcend

space and time, is not to forsake the world of objects, but precisely to recognize and become

united to it in a comprehensive scheme of integration. Just so the goal for a happy, successful life

in Dobroliubov, the brain must be kept healthy through proper nutrition.xcix The opposite to this is

a view to the world which takes only one thing and makes it the All – a primitive conception

which has its source in reactivity – the labeling of one thing as simply “evil” or “bad” and

juxtaposing this with something absolutely “good” or “resplendent” as mirrored in the early

dualistic conceptions of God found in mankind’s history.

This "false idealism"c which interpenetrates the Slav's conceptions really only cloaks a

pile of "base desires" and the people hover in-between hollowed out abstractions and the most

perverse appetites.ci Instead of treating mankind as a single, indivisible being, he is cut up; thus

xcvii D 283xcviii D 262-3xcix D 278c D 272ci D 267

32 Blicharski

pointing to the old, pagan division between body and soul, which only began to be dislodged

with the coming of Christianity.cii This inability of Russia's to come down to earth, to warm

herself in the glow of brotherhood from a common, Christian base, is seen also in philosophy.

Chaadaev heaps unparalleled contempt against Greek culture and thought, making out Homer to

be nothing more than a liar ciii and Plato a sensualist. The similarity between these two ways of

thinking: the one primal and the other nuanced, is that they are involved in cutting up experience.

But without a view to variegated experience, this is an artifice.

In writing about education Dobroliubov makes clear, by his example of “Triphon,” that

education in Russia is one-sided by its insistence on the primacy of high and abstract knowledge

which is detached from daily concerns.civ The fact that the word “cook” by the growing boy may

not be understood is evidence of alienation from life’s concerns and, what is more, an

understanding of life that is coherent and varied in an experienced, down-to-earth manner. This

state of being out-of-touch is something that poisons and falsifies all experience and gives a

skewed picture to reality. In talking about the artistic vision that is overlaid on all things, for

instance:

“We are ashamed to see things as they really are; we always try to beautify, ennoble them, and often take up a

burden too heavy for us to carry.”cv

In making everything better than it really is by “adorning” and idealizing it, it is therefore

objectified and rendered meaningless, or imbued with a senseless meaning. What is even more

telling is how young children are brought up to think of themselves heroically, and as in the thick

cii D 268ciii C 113civ D 274cv D 272

33 Blicharski

of things, even though doing so may merely hide the “crudest” material ambitions of, say,

becoming a successful lawyer, or something to the effect which is more than mundane, and can

never extricate itself from mundane circumstances:

“The praiseworthy qualities and feats of these gentlemen and the eloquent admonitions of the parents create a strong

impression on the child. He is ready to go to war and perform miracles of valor right now. But right now,

unfortunately, he cannot even go into the garden because it rained yesterday” cvi

It is this mismanagement of faculties, this inherent maladjustment within the Russian

mentality that indicates problems stemming from bodily affairs. For it is the brain, the actual

physical organ, which is responsible for thought, and not some hazy and dismal ether in the form

of a disembodied soul. cvii This mirrors exactly Chaadaev’s own criticism of mankind’s “soul” as

in some sense being the All, as though it were another absolutely simple being alongside God.cviii

Seeing as this misunderstanding is so elemental, yet so convincing, being a primal, early

awareness of oneself contra the world, and in terms of ideas which stem or derive from this

primal consciousness, it is plain by now that the Slavophiles’ project takes itself as being on an

cvi D 273cvii D 271cviii C 92

34 Blicharski

opposite side of the ideological spectrum. Not necessarily because it reduces to such a vast

caricature, but because that is the trajectory it takes by comparison to those philosophies which

compete with it.

XI

What one sees in the end is an opposition that is whole and complete, the Slavophiles’

general project being likened to an absolute monism which does not extend beyond certain set

boundaries which are delineated by vaguely felt human concerns, as opposed to Chaadaev’s

which may be rendered a qualified dualism, with there existing antagonisms which are not

dispensed but wrestled with beyond the edge of the line of demarcation etched out by the

Slavophiles. Transposed into the ideas of infinite sets, Chaadaev’s project would be like the

overarching, contextualizing inches on a ruler, as opposed to the extenuating millimeters the

Slavophile project consists of – beginning from an indiscernible center and not being quite as

bold or explicit in its moves.

Sources Used:

Aksakov, Konstantin Sergeevich. “On the Internal State of Russia.” In Russian Intellectual History: an Anthology. Edited by Marc Raeff, 230-251. New Jersey: Humanities Press International, Inc., 1992.

Chaadaev, Peter Yakolevich. Philosophical Letters & Apology of a Madman. Translated by Mary-Barbara Zeldin. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1969.

Dobroliubov, Nikolai Aleksandrovich. “The Organic Development of Man in Connection with His Mental and Spiritual Activities.” In Russian Intellectual History: an Anthology. Edited by Marc Raeff, 262-287. New Jersey: Humanities Press International, Inc., 1992.

Khomiakov, Aleksei Stepanovich. “On Humboldt.” In Russian Intellectual History: an Anthology. Edited by Marc Raeff, 208-229. New Jersey: Humanities Press International, Inc., 1992.

35 Blicharski

Kireevski, Ivan Vasil’evich. “On the Nature of European Culture and Its Relation to the Culture of Russia.” In Russian Intellectual History: an Anthology. Edited by Marc Raeff, 174-207. New Jersey: Humanities Press International, Inc., 1992.

Endnotes

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