Fundamentals of Orthodox culture. Education and Orthodox culture

Russian cultural tradition and education.

Culture is the basis of human life. In culture he lives, develops, improves, and creates. The values ​​of a person’s creative path can remain in the culture for other people even after his life. Every nation has its own national culture. The most valuable of it is included in the treasury world culture. It is people who are the guardians of their culture. They pass it on to their children, that is, to the next generations. To know, love, appreciate and understand your culture means to be worthy of your ancestors, to understand your history in the past, present and future. It means to be educated.

Our native world Russian culture- huge and unique. a fundamental part of it is Orthodox culture . Without knowing it, it is impossible to understand Russian literature, Russian painting and architecture, Russian music, and historical events in Russia.

Contents of modern Russian education and the system of state, municipal and non-state education itself must be identical to the cultural tradition of Russia and be a mechanism for the creation and continuation of this tradition. A child, regardless of his national or religious affiliation or ideological orientation, has the right to be involved in the cultural and social space of his Motherland - Russia, as well as in the culture of his region. Multinationality and multiconfessionalism are reflected in Russian culture, and this is as indisputable a fact as the fact that Russia is a traditionally Orthodox country.

It is also undeniable that Orthodox culture had a decisive influence on the formation and character of the entire Russian culture, Russian national-cultural identity, the specifics of Russian culture in the world cultural-historical space during the entire thousand-year period of its existence. Having accepted Baptism, Rus' destroyed pagan temples and radically changed family traditions. Orthodoxy became for our ancestors a soul, a family, a community, a home.

A new architecture appeared, directed towards the heavenly heights, and images-like faces that amazed the Slavs with their amazing eyes. The image of the Mother of God, who was considered the patroness of Rus', was especially close to the Russians; her eyes are full of love, tenderness for her baby and pain, she knows his purpose, but without doubting the divine will for a moment, she humbly goes into the world with him. So the Russian woman knew the purpose of her sons, who often gave their lives for their Fatherland.

Orthodox culture also includes a rich Church Slavonic language. This is the only language in the world in which, from the day of its creation to this day, only soul-helping books have been written. Every word of it is a sum of meanings. The thought expressed using it is short, but very capacious in content. This language did not allow verbiage. Along with the Cyrillic alphabet came literacy training, which was facilitated by church schools.

Spiritual choral singing has an extraordinary sound, the manner of sound production is strict and covered (singing “into the dome”). Initially, only men and boys participated in the performance (36).

The traditions of Orthodox culture, being deeply rooted in the history of the Russian people, help the younger generation to find a spiritual and moral ideal, which for many centuries has been the main criterion for the moral and ethical behavioral norms of a person on our land, and which can now become the starting point in the education of youth .

The study of the foundations of Orthodox culture is primarily an extension of general historical and social science education, as well as philological and art history education in terms of knowledge about the traditional religion of one’s land as a sphere of public life. The study of the foundations of Orthodox culture cannot replace other educational fields. On the other hand, historical, social science, philological, art history and other educational aspects of knowledge cannot replace Orthodox cultural education.

Sometimes it can be very difficult to determine the meaning of concepts that are well known from childhood, concepts that have become firmly entrenched in language and consciousness, and the meaning of which is obvious at first glance. When you hear the question: “What does this concept?”, - the answer seems to be ready: “Don’t you know?” - it seems that everyone knows this.

Such familiar but difficult to define concepts include the concept of “Orthodox culture.” We have lived this culture for over a thousand years. The age of Orthodox culture itself is more than two thousand years, and some ontological aspects of Orthodox culture are equal to the age of our world. When heated debates arose over the academic subject “Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture,” it was necessary to define the very concept of “Orthodox culture.” Depending on the meaning that we put into this concept, the content of the educational subject and its place and role in the educational space of the educational institution are determined. To date, during the discussion, several approaches and methodological foundations have emerged, on the basis of which programs and teaching aids have been developed and published on the subject “Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture” (the name of the subject may have other variations). Let's look at these approaches.

1. Local history approach. Textbooks in this area are intended for a subject included in the school or regional components of the state standard. Most often, the developers of such courses limit themselves to the history of Orthodoxy in a particular region and do not pretend to study the entire Orthodox culture.

2. Church approach. The developers of this direction proceeded from the fact that only church culture is Orthodox. The entire Orthodox culture was reduced to church culture and limited by it. Textbooks published from the standpoint of this approach gave our opponents reason to suspect that the Law of God was being introduced into schools under the guise of Orthodox culture. In addition, the creative intelligentsia rebelled against this approach, since in Orthodox culture there was no place for great works of literature, painting, music, cinema, carrying the light of Orthodox values, not always expressed and clothed in the forms of church art.

3. Church-ethical approach. This direction is close to the previous one, but pays more attention to the axiological side of Orthodoxy, its value and moral basis. The developers of this area are already worried about the word “culture” in the name of the subject, and therefore we can observe some rather unfounded and unsystematic inclusions from the field of cultural studies in programs and teaching aids. This approach inherited from the previous one the same limitations and the same criticism addressed to it.

4. Religious studies approach. A certain outside view is used, claiming to be an objective consideration of the position of Orthodoxy and Orthodox culture in the world, and especially in the world of other religions and value orientations. This approach is the farthest from Orthodox culture and closer to the subjects of “Religions of the World” or “Sect Studies”.

5. Cultural approach. This approach is the most promising, but today, as strange as it may sound, it is the least developed. But even in this direction, some limitations are already noticeable. Orthodox culture is considered only as the culture of Orthodoxy or the culture of Orthodox people. This causes criticism from those who see the values ​​of Orthodoxy in works created by non-Orthodox people, people of other faiths, or authors who still live without God.

Orthodox culture should be considered as the culture of Orthodox civilization, or it can be called the spiritual and moral culture of Orthodox civilization (DNA of Orthodox civilization). From this point of view, the culture of Orthodox civilization begins from the Nativity of Christ, and some ethical norms are drawn from the Old Testament and transformed by Christianity. It is important to trace the history of the emergence of Orthodox civilization and its culture within the framework of the ancient world, within the framework of the Great Roman Empire. It is necessary to know how Roman law was transformed into a symphony of powers, a symphony of kingdom and priesthood in the Second Rome - the holy Byzantine Empire. To know how the Greek ideal of beauty acquired sacred forms under the influence of Christianity, how an ancient basilica acquired the forms of a Byzantine temple, and then the onions of Orthodox churches in the Third Rome - Moscow were lit with prayerful burning. How the great ancient philosophy bestowed its wealth on Christian theology, which revealed to the world the revelation of the Holy Trinity and that God is Love. Pupils and students should know that Christianity, having freed man from the pagan veneration of nature, from its deification, made it possible to objectively study it scientifically. What literature, painting, icon painting, poetry, architecture, music were born at that time! And how beautiful Byzantium and its capital Constantinople were! It was the most educated, cultural and beautiful empire of that time. It is unlikely that humanity will build on earth a city more beautiful than Constantinople - a city in which more than a million people lived. Only Moscow, in the years of its Orthodox heyday, when it was called the city of “forty forties,” was likened to Constantinople in its unearthly beauty.

Everyone who lives in Orthodox civilization should know about the great theological battle between St. Gregory Palamas and the monk Barlaam the Calabrian, when the saint defended the spiritual foundation of our civilization, its unique existence. And the West was already leaving Christ along the road of romanticism and the revival of pagan veneration of man and the created world, along the road of knightly heroism, but apostasy heroism.

We should all know how the great Orthodox civilization was given for the preservation of Russia and its people. How our princes went to war against Byzantium, wanting earthly wealth, but found heavenly wealth. With courage and desperate courage they won the right to be baptized in the holy water of Byzantium, brought themselves royal brides and thereby acquired royal blood. How our holy ancestors lived, prayed and performed great feats. How our great spiritual literature was born in chronicles and theological treatises, in teachings and lives. We need to know how Venerable Sergius, abbot of the Russian land, begged for the freedom of our people and state, just as our holy princes and warriors shed their blood for native land, for her freedom, for her holy faith and original culture. How the patriarchal spirit grew in our land, and how the royal blood grew stronger. And what family traditions there were, how our ancestors raised chaste, sacrificial and noble heirs, how they loved their faith, their people and their Fatherland!

In no other civilization in the world will you find such respect for the beliefs, culture and languages ​​of other peoples. Many of the ethnic groups that preserved their existence in the Orthodox civilization did not even have their own written language, and it was given to them by the Orthodox civilization.

Everything in our land is sanctified: water, air, land, cities, and villages. Everything around is permeated with the holy atmosphere of Orthodoxy. The living soul yearns without this holy spirit. A Russian in Europe or America, a Jew in Israel, a Muslim in Turkey or the United Arab Emirates can no longer live peacefully outside of Orthodox civilization. Longing for the Motherland, called nostalgia, disturbs the soul and calls for a return to this multinational and multi-confessional community of Orthodox civilization.

Our children should know how the original Russian religious philosophy awakened, how great Russian literature was born. How to understand the depth and religious meaning of domestic and world culture, being raised and trained outside the tradition of one’s own civilization?!

The most amazing thing in our culture is that, being in the atmosphere of Orthodox civilization, breathing its air, inspired by its high ideals, the best representatives of national cultures, people of other faiths tuned in to its tone and made their voice, their contribution to the treasury of the culture of Orthodox civilization. Dagestani Rasul Gamzatov, Kyrgyz Chingiz Aitmatov, Tatar Mussa Jalil, Jews Aivazovsky, Levitan, Dunaevsky, Frenkel. What high poetry, painting, music - and this is all we have in common, this all belongs to our civilization. What books were written by our writers and what films were made by our directors who called themselves atheists - and this is also ours! This list is truly huge. Antiquity and Europe, world and national culture, two Romes, two great empires donated this great Divine gift to the Third Rome - Moscow, the Russian Empire. So why can’t our children know this, study it, store it and pass it on to their descendants? Why can’t we study this together, regardless of nationality and faith, if our ancestors preserved and multiplied this culture together? Does studying the culture of our own civilization prevent us from knowing our national cultures and knowing our faith?

The academic subject “Spiritual and Moral Culture of the Orthodox Civilization” should become part of the federal component of the state education standard. This is a basic subject in the educational field “Spiritual and Moral Culture”. Each educational field should and does carry a spiritual and moral component, it is necessary to highlight, clarify and supplement it.

Instead of the subject “Religions of the World,” which can be studied optionally at the request of parents and students, it will be useful to introduce the subject “Fundamentals of Orthodox Civilization.” As part of this subject, throughout all years of study, students will learn the three foundations of Orthodox civilization: faith, culture and statehood. It is important not only to know about religions, it is important to know how they coexisted within the framework of civilization, what contribution they made to the strengthening of statehood and the unity of the people.

The root that feeds the tree of culture of our civilization is Orthodoxy, it nurtured it and decorated it with beautiful fruits, but over the course of history, the sprouts of many national cultures were grafted and taken root on the branches of this tree, which, feeding on the juices of this tree, bore their own original fruits, multiplying the beauty of our culture. Within the framework of civilization, national cultures outgrew themselves, surpassed the ethnic level and became part of civilizational culture, and therefore part of the world. By falling out and withdrawing from civilization, an ethnos loses the ability to engage in such manifestations of cultural activity and limits its existence to folklore. Refusing to participate in the cultural life of civilization, confining ourselves within the framework national culture, an ethnic group commits an act of cultural separatism, which sooner or later will lead it to a state of state or territorial separatism. The culture of an ethnos is determined by the extent to which it is able to master the culture of civilization and make its own original contribution to it.

Orthodox civilization has always existed within the framework of empires. The more the empire became multinational and multi-religious, the stronger it was, the more beautiful its culture became. Different languages, faiths, and therefore different thinking, different ways of expressing hidden beauty elevated the culture of Orthodox civilization to Divine heights. By studying the history of Orthodox empires, students will better understand the history of our Fatherland, begin to understand how to preserve it, what interferes with its unity and stability. We have always been united by Orthodox civilization, it is our cradle and only Motherland.

Hegumen Georgy (Shestun), doctor pedagogical sciences, professor, head of the department of Orthodox pedagogy at the Samara Theological Seminary, rector of the church in honor of St. Sergius of Radonezh, Samara

Http://www.prokimen.ru/article_2601.html

15. Culture of Orthodoxy

People brought up in the traditions of Orthodoxy, who took part in church Sacraments and attended services in churches, were gradually imbued with the very spirit of Christianity. A person who was baptized in infancy and raised in Orthodox rituals and customs felt himself Orthodox from birth. Through the Holy Tradition, the seeds of the Christian faith penetrated deeply into the souls of people. Accustomed to certain moral norms and moral values ​​in society, people were gentle, kind, honest and sympathetic. Brought up on Christian values, a person felt the world around him and perceived people differently.

About many sins people XIX centuries knew theoretically, or did not guess. Many things and actions that are easily done today could not have occurred to a person of the 20th century. However, one cannot idealize the 19th century. In the history of Russia even at that time there were crimes, rudeness and evil. But the mentality of Russian society, in general, was different than it is now.

Orthodox by birth, education and upbringing, subjects Russian Empire, and not only this state, have developed and created a culture that is Orthodox in its essence, spirit and internal content. It included a whole system of views on the state, social structure, the universe and man’s place in it.

Orthodox culture has developed a special attitude towards man, as well as a god-like being, an individual. She determined public opinion, literature, music, painting, philosophy and many other branches of human knowledge.

From the depths of the church comes the state idea of ​​Russia as an Orthodox Christian state. In 1524, the abbot of the Belozersky Pskov Monastery, Elder Philotheus, in one of his letters to a private individual, formed the state idea of ​​Russia: “Two Romes have fallen, the third stands, but the fourth will not exist.” Moscow, the capital of the Russian state, became the third Rome. Historical events to XVI century, developed in such a way that the only large Orthodox kingdom was Moscow. Rome, capital great empire, fell under the blows of the barbarians, and later fell into “Latinism,” as Catholicism was called in the East. Constantinople, or New Rome, was taken by the Crusaders, and the Byzantine Empire fell and disappeared from the political map. The Russian Tsar became the sovereign of all Orthodox Christians, “the king of all Romans,” and the regalia of imperial power and the coat of arms of the Byzantine (Roman, as they called themselves) emperors were transferred to Moscow. The Grand Duke of Moscow became the “Tsar of Moscow and All Rus',” and the small appanage principality grew to the size of a huge empire. The coat of arms of Byzantium became Russian, and the metropolitan, the head of the Russian Church, became the patriarch.

From the first decades of the existence of the Russian state, the idea of ​​“Moscow – the Third Rome” became decisive for Russia. When, in the 17th century, St. Petersburg became the new capital of the state, the state continued to develop according to its original principles. The socio-political idea of ​​the Third Rome continued to live and exist in the Russian emigration. It was studied by famous scientists and philosophers (Soloviev, Berdyaev), and embodied in artistic images by poets and writers. This religious idea continues to develop in our time, during the restoration of Russian statehood.

There were many deeply believing Orthodox people in Russian science, art, literature, and philosophy. They were bearers of Orthodox culture and the Christian faith. It is enough to name just a few names of great people who left a deep mark on Russian thought.

The founder of Russian science, Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov, a graduate of the Holy Greek-Latin Theological Academy, was a deeply religious man. He was the first to oppose the “Norman theory” of the creation of the Russian state, according to which priority in the creation of the state formation of Kievan Rus belongs to the Varangians invited from overseas, Rurik and the Normans who arrived with him. Later historical research proved the inconsistency of this theory. Mikhail Vasilyevich laid the foundations of Russian literature, defining the Russian language as a literary language and wrote the work “Letters on the Rules of Russian Poetry,” where he outlined the foundations of Russian poetry. Compiled the first scientific grammar of the Russian language.

Lomonosov laid the foundations of the “corpuscular theory”, theoretical physics and chemistry. Developed the basic principles of ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy. He was an outstanding artist.

In addition to scientific works, Mikhail Vasilyevich wrote several philosophical and theological treatises. Having determined the development of Russian science, Lomonosov always remained an Orthodox man.

Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev is perhaps the most famous Russian chemist, the founder of modern theoretical chemistry. He formulated the periodic law, on the basis of which the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements was created, and was also a deeply religious man. He left his religious reflections in diary entries and individual articles.

The famous Russian philosopher, Alexander Fedorovich Losev, a world-class specialist in ancient aesthetics, was a monk of the Russian Orthodox Church. He wrote a number of major philosophical works on antiquity, history, and ethics. His systematic works in the field of antiquity are recognized scientific world classic and translated to all European languages. Alexander Fedorovich wrote many theological works that are little known to a wide circle readers.

Most famous Russian artists decorated Orthodox churches, painted icons for churches, and designed iconostases. Many icons by Vasnetsov are still known. Many painters devoted almost entirely their work to religious themes. These are Alexander Ivanov, and Surikov, the famous marine painter Aivazovsky.

Orthodox commanders - Suvorov and Kutuzov began military maneuvers with prayer, asking for God's blessing for the battle with the enemy. Fedor Fedorovich Ushakov, an admiral who never knew defeat, was canonized as a saint of the Russian Orthodox Church. The Great Commander of World War II, Zhukov, was a believer, and Marshal Vasilevsky was a graduate of the Kazan Theological Seminary.

Alexander Andreevich Ivanov, a world-famous artist, devoted most of his works to Christian subjects. He wrote a series of compositions under the general title “Biblical Sketches.” The most famous painting, “The Appearance of Christ to the People,” was painted by him over the course of twenty years and is a masterpiece of group portraiture. In his later works - “Biblical Sketches”, Alexander Andreevich, maintaining connections with the traditions of classical monumentalism, reached an extraordinary depth of philosophical generalization and interpretation of the theme of the work.

Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov, a monumental painter, in 1895 finished painting the Vladimir Cathedral in Kyiv, creating extraordinary beauty and artistic style frescoes. They combined the traditions of Orthodox icon painting and the features of ancient Russian painting.

A figure of the Russian Orthodox Church, Archbishop Luka Voino-Yasenetsky, our contemporary, was a hierarch of the Church and had a secular education as a doctor. During the Great Patriotic War, he volunteered for the front, where he worked as a surgeon in one of the hospitals. Archbishop Luke proposed a new method of healing wounds, which saved the lives of many Red Army soldiers. For his work “Experience in Purulent Surgery” he was awarded the Stalin Prize.

In the public life of the mid-19th century, a special direction of religious and philosophical thought emerged, known as Slavophilism. It was a fairly large public association, which included famous artists, writers, philosophers, and art critics. The narrow circle of the founders of Slavophilism included I. S. and K. S. Aksakov, I. V. Kirievsky, A. I. Koshelev, Yu. F. Samarin, A. S. Khomyakov, V. A. Cherkassky and others. V.I. Dal, A.I. Ostrovsky, A.A. were close to this form of social thought. Grigoriev, F.I. Tyutchev. Slavophiles argued, in contrast to revolutionary-minded circles of Russian society, about the absence of class struggle among the Russian people. They opposed Westerners who spoke of Russia's European path. Slavophiles believed that the Russian people and the Russian state had their own special, own path of historical development. They advocated the abolition of serfdom, arguing that the only form of organization of peasant life in Russia was the community. Slavophiles advocated the monarchical structure of the Russian state, believing that this system was the most perfect. The unifying force of the state and society, in their opinion, is Orthodox Church. They put forward the well-known formula: “Autocracy, nationality, Orthodoxy.”

One of the founders of Slavophilism, A. S. Khomyakov, was a significant religious philosopher of his time. According to Yuri Samarin, Khomyakov became the first secular theologian in Russia to interpret Orthodox doctrine in a new way, from a philosophical point of view. One of A. S. Khomyakov’s students said about his teacher: “We treat the Church out of obligation, out of a sense of duty, like those elderly relatives whom we visited two or three times a year... Khomyakov did not treat the Church at all, precisely because he simply lived in it, and not from time to time, not in fits and starts, but always and constantly.”

Khomyakov could not publish his works in Russia - spiritual censorship did not allow this. Khomyakov's theological activities seemed suspicious. He approached the essence of the church from the inside, and not from the outside. Alexey Stepanovich talked about the Church as a person living in the society of true Christians, as an interlocutor with the saints, as a spectator of God. He formulated the doctrine of the Christian Church from a practical position, and not from the point of view of official scholasticism. In 19th-century theology, the Church was traditionally understood as “the union of the elders of a region with their bishop, which serves as the main means of uniting all the believers of the region into one holy family.” Khomyakov believed that the purity of rituals and the immutability of dogmas were entrusted not to one church hierarchy, but to the entire church people, who are the Body of Christ.

Khomyakov did not divide the Church into earthly and heavenly, as was the tradition of theological schools of the Russian Empire. He saw the Church in unity, and saw this kind of division as conditional. All nations belong to the Church, Alexey Stepanovich argued, when Christianity spreads throughout the world, when local divisions of the united Church disappear. He wrote about the unity of the Church, believing that it comes from the unity of God. The Church is not a multitude of individual persons, but the unity of God’s love living in a multitude of rational creatures. Under the words “intelligent creatures”, A.S. Khomyakov understood everyone, people, angels, people who lived, are living, and even people who will live on earth, since God sees the entire Church as a whole, being unlimited in time. He develops his thought this way: “The Church is one, despite its visible division for a person still living on earth. Those who live on earth, who have completed the earthly path, who were not created for the earthly path - are all united in one Church, since the not yet revealed creation is obvious to God, and He hears the prayers and knows the faith of those who have not yet been called by Him from non-existence to being.” Khomyakov expanded the boundaries of time and space in his works.

Contrary to outdated theological doctrines, Alexey Stepanovich believed that an unbaptized person who believes in Christ can achieve the salvation of his soul. “Confessing one baptism for the remission of sins, as a Sacrament prescribed by Christ Himself for entry into the New Testament Church, the Church does not judge those who have not become involved in it through baptism,” wrote Khomyakov. These words cannot be regarded as a denial of the Sacrament of Baptism, because he supplements his words: “Baptism is obligatory, for it is the door to the New Testament Church, and in baptism alone a person expresses his consent to the redemptive action of grace.”

It was A. S. Khomyakov who formulated one of the main postulates of Slavophilism. He wrote that the main principle of the Church is not obedience to external authority, but conciliarity. According to N. O. Lossky, Khomyakov expressed conciliarity as follows: “Conciliarity is the free unity of the foundations of the Church in action in the matter of common understanding and truth, or their joint search for the path to divine righteousness.” Alexey Stepanovich laid theoretical foundations one of the branches of social thought of the mid-19th century. Yu. Samarin, the closest student of A. S. Khomyakov, said this about his teacher: “In the old days, those who served Orthodoxy such a service as Khomyakov served him, who were given the logical understanding of one or another aspect of Church teaching to win for the Church over by one error or another a decisive victory, they were called teachers of the Church.”

Loyalty to church duty amazed the contemporaries of Alexei Stepanovich. The commander of the regiment in which he served, Count Osten-Sacken, recalled 73 years later about his subordinate: “Khomyakov had willpower not like a young man, but like a man, seasoned by experience. At that time there was already a significant number of freethinkers, deists, and many mocked the implementation of the statutes of the Church, claiming that they were established for the mob. But Khomyakov inspired such love and such respect for himself that no one allowed himself to touch his beliefs.”

The ideas of the Slavophiles were developed in the culture, science and art of the 19th – early 20th centuries. They gave birth to the “Silver Age” of Russian literature, gave impetus to philosophy, and revived interest in many problems of the religious worldview of the Russian people. The activities of the society have given rise to many thinkers among Russian society.

One of them, Vladimir Sergeevich Solovyov (1853–1900), was a remarkable personality in life secular society. At the age of 21, he defended his master's thesis and was elected associate professor at Moscow University. He quickly became a popular lecturer, liberal publicist and writer. Thanks to his original views and judgments, he almost immediately earned both a lot of approval and praise, and a lot of censure from his numerous listeners, readers and interlocutors, but he did not leave any of them indifferent to his work - be it special philosophical works, journalism or poetry. He was an extraordinarily prolific and creatively gifted author. His rich creative heritage is striking not only in its volume (the complete collection of Solovyov’s works in the modern edition is 12 volumes), but also in the breadth of views expressed and topics raised, many of which have not lost their relevance to this day.

The freedom of thought and views of V. Solovyov was never limited to any one particular direction, any one philosophical school exclusively. He was no less familiar with the works of the holy fathers than with the philosophy of modern times. Solovyov was never content in his work with just one cultural-historical worldview layer, be it the classical philosophy of antiquity, medieval scholasticism or German idealism. These and many other directions of religious and philosophical thought, taken separately from each other, suited him little; the broad creative nature of Vladimir Solovyov was cramped within the narrow confines of one closed system.

A close friend of the philosopher, Prince Evgeny Trubetskoy, wrote about this: “He did not reject the values ​​inherited from the past; on the contrary, he carefully collected them: they all fit in his soul and in his philosophy, but he did not find final satisfaction in them. He saw in them particular manifestations of the one and complete truth, various refractions of that light that shines for everyone, but has not yet been revealed in its fullness in any human teaching.” To the undoubted merit of Vladimir Solovyov, his researchers attribute the fact that he, perhaps more than anyone else, managed to combine the rich philosophical heritage of previous eras in his extensive work. Contemporaries wrote about him that in the history of philosophy it is difficult to find a broader, more comprehensive synthesis of the great and valuable that human thought has produced.

The most authoritative researcher of Solovyov’s life and work, A.F. Losev, notes that this philosopher “was a believer from the bottom of his heart. But, in addition, he was also an intellectualist systematizer of faith.” According to V. Ivanov, Soloviev was “an artist of the internal forms of Christian consciousness.” In the thinking of this man, philosophy and theology are closely connected; for him, philosophy played a preaching role in relation to theology. Sometimes Vladimir Solovyov was directly called a theologian, meaning a certain specific orientation of some of his works, containing views that closely resonated with themes traditional for the Christian worldview and doctrine.

In his writings, Soloviev, indeed, sometimes touched upon issues that were repeatedly raised in patristic literature. These questions concern the most diverse spheres of the Christian religion and church life; they have been repeatedly discussed by many thinkers at different times. At times he almost completely ignored all Orthodox dogma, and sometimes he acted as a principled supporter of the purest canonical Orthodoxy.

The famous Russian philosopher and religious thinker, N. O. Lossky, thus defines one of the great merits of his outstanding predecessor: “The main work of Solovyov’s life was the creation of Christian Orthodox philosophy, revealing the wealth and inner strength the basic tenets of Christianity, which in the minds of many people have become a dead letter, divorced from life and philosophy.” Vladimir Solovyov himself wrote that “my task is not to restore traditional theology in its exclusive meaning, but, on the contrary, to free it from abstract dogmatism, to introduce religious truth in the form of free rational thinking and to realize it in the data of experimental science and, thus to organize the whole field of true knowledge into a complete system of free and scientific philosophy.”

Solovyov's philosophical system was created in the atmosphere of Schelling's ideas, but his Christian worldview is directly opposite in spirit to naturalistic pantheism. The similarity between Schelling and Solovyov turns out to be superficial. Neither natural philosophy nor Schelling's philosophy of revelation could influence Solovyov's worldview. He draws from the theology of the Church Fathers (especially Maximus the Confessor, Gregory of Nyssa, Dionysius the Areopagite, partly Origen and St. Augustine), whom Schelling also studied in the last period of his life. Most of the coincidences in the works of Schelling and Solovyov are explained by this general dependence.

Father Georgy Florovsky, apparently in an earlier period of his work, spoke enthusiastically about the philosophy of Vladimir Solovyov: “The spirit of Solovyov’s philosophy is the spirit of true Greek-Eastern Orthodoxy, and the ideas of his philosophy are the idea of ​​God-manhood, the idea of ​​the Church, the idea of ​​integral knowledge, free unity - inspired by patristic thought."

Vladimir Solovyov, the greatest Russian philosopher and religious thinker, was not entirely immune from errors. The main reason for his mistakes was that his deeply cheerful soul was filled with a living, immediate feeling of the accomplished and future transfiguration and Resurrection. But he did not sufficiently feel and penetrate with his mental gaze the abyss between God and the unenlightened man here, that mortal sorrow that is overcome only by death on the cross. He lacked that feeling of the abyss of sin. Precisely because he was given the opportunity to come so close to the Divine in contemplation, he did not sufficiently feel how far it was still from our reality. And here is the source of his most important, fundamental misconceptions.

Vladimir Solovyov was not only socialite and the most subtle thinker. He was a romantic and a poet, so he did not sufficiently feel the entire abyss between the human world and that world, which seemed to him divine. This has always made him too free-thinking for Orthodoxy.

The largest modern researcher of Solovyov’s work writes about him: “With all the deepest originality and even with many of his extravagant philosophical, primarily Gnostic, overexposures, Solovyov is a traditional Christian thinker, as if accidentally lost in the age of positivism, Nietzscheanism and Marxism. A thinker who did not lose her original Christian identity, but who accepted the immutable problematics of her time onto herself and into herself. One can argue endlessly about the degree of success or failure with which he resolved this issue in his philosophical and sociopolitical discussion, but the very importance of the talent and integrity of Solovyov’s perception is hardly in doubt.”

Vladimir Sergeevich Solovyov was an outstanding figure during a turbulent era for Russia, unprecedented successes in science and technology, the Narodnaya Volya movement in Russia, the beginning and imminent collapse of liberal government reforms. A turning point in the history of Russia was a time of great hopes, achievements and disappointments. It gave birth to many great personalities, these were philosophers and writers, scientists and politicians, military leaders and ascetics.

In religious philosophy, these are Nikolai Berdyaev, Lossky, Father Georgy Florensky, Losev, Solovyov, Alexander Men, Archbishop Cyprian Kern, A. Schmemann and others, individuals, thanks to whose work, religious philosophy has become a publicly accessible and understandable discipline. These people have the honor to adequately represent the Russian philosophical thought in the modern world.

The ideas of Christianity have deeply penetrated Russian literature, which is considered the most Christocentric in the world literary heritage. Many Russian authors became famous thanks to the inner, deeply Christian content of their works. Almost everything Russian writers mid-19th XX century, carried the ideas of Orthodoxy. The Western world often learned about the ancient Christian faith from literary works Russians. The works of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, Nikolai Semenovich Leskov, Garin-Mikhailovsky, Shmelev and many other writers carry all the most important Christian doctrinal and moral truths.

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, with the help of his high gift of writing, penetrated deeply into the soul of a believer, managing to show in it everything high and bright, vile and base, sinful and holy. His life, literary and family destiny is unusual. Fyodor Mikhailovich was born into the family of a doctor at the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor in St. Petersburg. The writer's father came from a noble noble family of Pinsk district in southern Belarus. The Dostoevo family estate gave the name to the author of Crime and Punishment. The ancestors of Fyodor Mikhailovich were famous aristocrats who participated in the creation of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In 1501, one of the famous writer’s ancestors was publicly executed for the murder of her husband and attempts on the life of her stepson. Dying on the scaffold, the ancestress of the Dostoevsky family cursed the entire family. And indeed, the Dostoevsky family was haunted by an evil fate: some of the family ended their lives under unclear circumstances, some committed suicide, and some members of the family went crazy. Based on the current situation, the Dostoevsky family began to ask God for forgiveness for the sins of their ancestors - many members of the family became clergy, monks, and one of the writer’s ancestors, Lavrenty Dostoevsky, became a bishop of the Orthodox Church.

Fyodor Mikhailovich's father was destined for a spiritual career; with the blessing of his parents, he was to become a clergyman. But Mikhail Dostoevsky abandoned his destiny, for which he received an inheritance and left to seek his fortune in St. Petersburg. Having received a medical education, the writer's father served as a simple doctor in a hospital for the poor. The future great writer of Russia was born in a small house next to the Mariinsky Hospital. Fyodor Mikhailovich, as was the custom of that time, received an engineering education and was enlisted in the engineering department. However, the spiritual need to write and the Christian skills that Fyodor Mikhailovich was instilled in as a child gave such a moral impetus that he left public service and devoted himself to writing.

Fyodor Mikhailovich’s first novel, “Poor People,” propelled him into the ranks of recognized writers. natural school. In this novel, the author's attention was drawn to " little man"with its special little world and spiritual needs, worries and anxieties. Later, “White Nights” and “Netochka Nezvanova” appeared, in which a profound psychologism was revealed that distinguishes Dostoevsky from other writers. Fyodor Mikhailovich actively attended the circle of revolutionaries - Petrashevites, and was carried away by the ideas of the French utopian socialists. Carried away by the fashionable criticism of monarchical power among the intelligentsia of the second half of the 19th century, the writer was drawn into a revolutionary terrorist circle. The activities of the terrorists were exposed, and Dostoevsky was sentenced to death. Pardoned at the last moment, Fyodor Mikhailovich reconsidered his entire life and spiritual values, learning the joy of salvation through Jesus Christ.

Dostoevsky devoted the rest of his life to the spiritual struggle against evil. Returning from hard labor to St. Petersburg, he published a number of mournful stories and novels: “Uncle’s Dream”, “The Village of Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants”, “Humiliated and Insulted”, “Notes from dead house" The writer renounced revolutionary terrorism, socialism and utopianism. He became an ardent supporter of the ideas of the Slavophiles, defending with them the idea of ​​a special historical path for Russia. He developed the theory of pochvennichestvo, according to which the writer national idea is the peasantry. Fyodor Mikhailovich foresaw a spiritual catastrophe among the intelligentsia and upper class of Russia, which would lead to a revolutionary situation in the country.

Looking at the surrounding reality from the position of a religious person, Dostoevsky considered the revolutionary situation in the state to be a manifestation of an evil force of demonic origin. In the novels “Demons”, “The Brothers Karamazov”, he pursues the idea that revolutionaries are people possessed by demons, because such actions committed by them cannot be actions normal people. Fyodor Mikhailovich believed that Russia should move along a different path of historical development than Western Europe and avoid the evils generated by revolutions. He opposed the all-conquering power of money, which manifested itself in Europe and was brewing in Russia, arguing that the purpose of human life was spiritual self-improvement.

In the “Diary of a Writer,” published in the 80s, the writer included personal experiences, spiritual quests and reasoning. Mastering the art psychological analysis, Fyodor Mikhailovich in his works showed that the suppression of human dignity and the enslavement of the soul by sin bifurcates his consciousness and suppresses the will. A person develops a feeling of his own insignificance and, as a result of spiritual emptiness, the need for protest matures. Individuals who strive for self-affirmation and, in order to achieve this goal, renounce God, turn to crime. Revolutionaries, according to the writer, were criminals in the full sense of the word, oathbreakers and apostates.

Advancing on Russian society late XIX centuries to spiritual evil, the writer in his works contrasted the ideal beginning. This idea led Dostoevsky to the image of Christ, in which, according to the writer, the highest moral criteria were concentrated. In the novel “The Brothers Karamazov”, in “The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor”, Fyodor Mikhailovich ponders the situation that could arise in the world in the event of the coming of Jesus Christ. The writer refutes the idea of ​​a “happy society” promised by revolutionary reformers by demonstrating the high personal value of each person. The forced “happiness” promised by socialists and communists will, in the writer’s opinion, lead to the destruction of freedom, God’s main gift to people.

The writer contrasts the heroes of the works, endowed with an atheistic, godless mind and destructive forces of the soul, with other people endowed with subtle spiritual intuition, kindness of heart, a believing and sympathetic soul. This is Sonya Marmeladova in Crime and Punishment, Lev Myshkin in the novel The Idiot, Alyosha Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov. These people brought good into the world and fought against moral vice and sin. Truth and moral strength remained behind them. The final chapter of the novel “The Brothers Karamazov,” “At Tikhon’s” ends in the monastic cell.

In A Writer's Diary, Dostoevsky stated: “Evil languishes in every person deeper than the socialist healers assume; no matter the structure of society, you cannot escape evil.” He was deeply convinced that people could be beautiful and happy without losing the ability to live on earth. Dostoevsky said: “I do not want and cannot believe that evil is the normal state of people.” He combined the strength of a brilliant psychologist, the intellectual depth of a thinker, the passion of a publicist and the strength of faith of an Orthodox Christian.

Dostoevsky was the creator of an ideological novel, in which the development of the plot is determined by the struggle of ideas, the clash of worldviews. The author, within the genre framework of a detective plot, posed the social and philosophical problems of his time. Dostoevsky's novels are distinguished by their polyphony. “The multiplicity of independent and unmerged voices and consciousnesses, the true polyphony of full-fledged voices is truly a feature of Dostoevsky’s novels,” writes M.M. Bakhtin, the first to study the polyphonism of the writer’s work. The polyphony of artistic thinking was a reflection of the polyphony of social reality itself, which Dostoevsky brilliantly discovered, reached extreme tension at the beginning of the 20th century.

The writer had special spiritual sensitivity and exceptional writing talent. Many contemporaries: V.V. Rozanov, D.S. Merezhkovsky, N.A. The Berdyaevs considered Dostoevsky a Christian teacher. This explains the powerful influence of Fyodor Mikhailovich not only on artistic culture, but also on the philosophical and aesthetic thought of the 20th century. The ideas expressed by the great writer and a convinced Orthodox Christian had a huge influence on Russian and world literature.

The second, no less significant figure in Russian literature is Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, one of the greatest Russian writers, a world-class personality, the creator of the grotesque style, a man who made an enormous contribution to the artistic culture of Russia. He created truly countless works, worthy, according to criticism, to become “the head of literature, the head of poets.” The writer’s literary fame was brought to him by “Evenings on a farm near Dikanka”, the collection “Arabesques”, “Mirgorod”. In these works, Nikolai Vasilyevich created a special atmosphere, an extraordinary world inhabited collective images, personifying Russian characters of the first half of the 19th century. The pinnacle of Gogol’s work as a playwright was the play “The Inspector General,” which caused an emotional explosion in Russian society. The production of “The Inspector General” in the St. Petersburg theater went differently than the author expected, and brought down the comedy, revealing negative traits bureaucratic society, to the level of vaudeville. This caused Gogol to become deeply depressed, as a result of which he left Russia.

In Rome, Nikolai Vasilyevich meets Alexander Ivanov, a famous Russian artist. There he conceived and created a work of genius, in its depth, “Dead Souls”. This work has been perceived and interpreted in different ways, evaluated by different critics, and read by millions of people. Theories of its perception and understanding have been put forward. The poem “Dead Souls” is a deeply Christian work; under this name there are human personalities who have died spiritually for God and eternal life with Christ. The writer highlighted the most severe spiritual illnesses that plagued Russian society of his time. The spiritual wounds uncovered by the writer took on the appearance of living people. Heroes " Dead souls“- these are unrealistically existing people, these are spiritual passions, sins, which, having enslaved a person, turn him into an obedient slave. Holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church, engaged in ascetic studies human soul, discovered in her an accumulation of sinful passions, which, like poisonous snakes, entwine the heart of God’s highest creation. Only a spiritually strong person, an ascetic or a monk can discern all the spiritual rot of human nature.

Gogol, like the Holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church, pulled out all the abominations from human souls and presented them in his work in the image of people from whom the main character Chichikov bought up peasants who were listed in revision fairy tales. In them, many readers praised themselves, their acquaintances, superiors and subordinates. The world of passions, revived in the guise of Nozdryov, Manilov, Plyushkin, Korobochka and others, appeared in a veiled form. Nikolai Vasilyevich exposed modern vices and tried to draw public attention to the spiritual deadness that was spreading among the Russian people.

Having shown the severity of the moral state of Russian society in the poem “Dead Souls,” Gogol creates another work - the book “Selected Places of Correspondence with Friends,” where, in the form of instructions, he sought to show the path to moral renewal. "Selected Passages" contains a little-known work: "Reflections on the Divine Liturgy." In it, Gogol turns to thinking about the great Sacrament of the Orthodox Church - Communion.

Having exposed the abyss of sin and spiritual imperfection before human eyes, Nikolai Vasilyevich proposed the only path to the salvation of the soul - Christ. Mental passions, having enslaved people, became omnipotent over the human personality. Gogol shows the powerlessness of human efforts in eradicating moral evil. Gogol demonstrates the only possibility of changing a sinful human being in the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ. Only Jesus, who bore the sins and vices of all mankind and redeemed all living and unborn, can extend a saving palm to perishing people, as happened with the drowning Apostle Peter.

“Reflections on the Divine Liturgy” are based on the works of the Holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church, who explained the doctrinal and moral truths of Christianity. Nikolai Vasilyevich repeatedly quotes the works of Christian theologians of the early and late Middle Ages; he makes accessible to readers a layer of the Christian worldview and spiritual values. Penetrating into the depths of the human being, brilliant writer, horrified by spiritual evil, burns the second volume of the “Dead Souls” manuscripts. Carrying out the planned task of renewing human souls becomes an impossible task for Gogol.

He creates a series of works known as the Petersburg Tales. They contain the theme of hierarchical fragmentation of society and terrible human loneliness. Gogol contrasted this way of life with the ideal of human will, brotherhood and high spiritual values. “Old World Landowners” shows the selfless devotion to each other, the genuine Christian love of two elderly people. Serving the Christian ideal becomes the writer's life goal. “There is no other way to direct society,” Gogol believed, “towards the beautiful until you show the full depth of its real abomination.” In eradicating vices, sins and passions, Nikolai Vasilyevich followed the path of hermits - ascetics, monks, who argued that the true salvation of the human soul from the slavery of sin begins in the case of self-knowledge of the latter.

The likening of characters to animals or inanimate objects is the main technique of Gogol’s grotesque. He captured the moral image of modern society in images of such colossal psychological capacity that they outlived their era. Showing the path to beauty was the central problem when creating the second volume of Dead Souls. The writer chose the path to the renewal of society through the moral abstinence of the individual, its component. This is the pastoral path of Christ Himself and the main sign of the activity of the Orthodox Church in the world around it. Gogol believed that it was in Russia, first of all, that the principle of Christian brotherhood would be established. He looked for those high Christian qualities in the people's soul that would serve as the guarantee of moral and moral revival. He considered the nation to be a single living organism, and the vices that befell him as a spiritual illness. The writer interpreted the Russian people as Orthodox, considering Christianity an integral part of them. This explains the writer’s increasing religiosity in the last years of his life.

He was confident that the monarchical structure of the Russian state was the only correct one and considered the foundations of Russian social life to be unshakable. The internal complexity of Gogol's work, which gained worldwide fame, has led to intense debate in criticism about his assessments. Various schools of Russian and foreign literary criticism have given numerous interpretations of his work. However, fragmentary judgments cannot provide a comprehensive picture of the interpretation of Gogol’s works. The writer’s activities cannot be considered without analyzing his inner spiritual life. Diary entries from “Selected Places” provide a snapshot of the emotional character of Nikolai Vasilyevich, who all his life was a believer, an Orthodox Christian. His literary creations should be viewed from an Orthodox Christian perspective; this is an ascetic sermon of a contemporary to subsequent generations. Gogol literary word tried to influence Russian society, seeing him as one living organism that is possessed by a spiritual illness. The healing of vices and passions, according to the writer’s conviction, could only be achieved in the Orthodox Church, and through it - in Christ. Nikolai Vasilyevich was and remains a Christian writer, a continuer of the traditions of ancient Russian spiritual literature. His contribution to Russian and Myrrh literature is enormous, and his works have lasting value.

Often spiritual meaning the works of two famous writers of Russian literature, Gogol and Dostoevsky, are compared together. The continuity of ideas of these authors is obvious. Works that provide a snapshot of social life Russian state mid and late 19th century, the central works of both writers - “Dead Souls” and “Demons”, are consistent in their description of spiritual reality. The Russian people have experienced several states of apostasy - from the death of human souls to obvious demonic possession. These spiritual illnesses of society led to a spiritual crisis, expressed in a bloody revolution and fratricidal war. The new, anti-Christian government tried to destroy and eradicate all the seeds of goodness and Christian love in the souls of people.

A worthy successor of Christian traditions in Russian literature is V.V. Nabokov, Russian writer, forced emigrant who left Russia during the bloodshed of the civil war. Born into the family of a Russian aristocrat and politician, Vladimir Nabokov continued literary traditions Gogol. Just as Nikolai Vasilyevich created in his works an illusory world of passions and vices, dressed in human faces - masks, Vladimir Vladimirovich synthesized the world of ideas, endowing them with life. Nabokov is a world-famous writer, an author with a masterly command of language and figurative symbolic style. He created a unique literary style, an inimitable play of passions. By creating the novel “Mashenka,” Nabokov opened a new page in world literature.

The story “The Defense of Luzhin” concentrated the author’s life position. The main character, the famous chess player Luzhin, is so immersed in the world of the game that the surrounding reality seems unreal and unsteady to him. He sees people in the form of chess pieces, and their actions in the form of steps. Nabokov argues that the world is nothing more than an illusion. Life is a drama, a comedy or a tragedy, a theatrical play performed by an unknown author. In his work, the writer, masterfully using the word, separates and revives individual concepts, properties of things and ideas. They start living with him independent life. Earthly life is illusory, its manifestations and goals are illusory. Nabokov believes that the desire for material values ​​is stupid because they are transitory and relative. Having achieved a certain goal, having achieved a result, Nabokov’s hero stumbles upon an emptiness that does not bring complete moral satisfaction.

The world always rejects a person who does not correspond to it, Nabokov believes. Any extraordinary personality causes aggression, anger and envy among others. An outstanding person is doomed to misunderstanding and loneliness. Like Cincinnatus T, the hero of the work “Invitation to an Execution,” a talented person is defenseless in front of the crowd, goodness and love and decency are punished very cruelly in the world - suffering and death. Cincinnati C – literary image Jesus Christ, who is different from the scribes and Pharisees. His righteousness was greater than their legality. Nabokov analyzes the causes of human anger and finds their root in envy - an ancient passion that has befallen humanity. It was envy that pushed the zealots of Jewish legalism to demand the death of Christ. Everyone understood perfectly well that Christ is the Messiah promised to the Jewish people, this is He for whom they have been waiting so much. But even a full understanding of the gravity of their act forced the Jews to shout “Crucify him!” This idea was also expressed by Vladimir Vladimirovich in “Invitation to Execution.” People as spectators calmly await the murder of an innocent person; they are invited to execution. But Cincinnatus C understands that everything that happens is an illusion, and the illusion can be overcome and defeated. He overcomes the influence of the mirage of life, He conquers lies and gains immortality.

In understanding the personality of Cincinat C lies an attempt to illuminate in a new way the events of the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The timeless events of two thousand years ago are revisited by the great writer. Nabokov continues the creative line of Dostoevsky and Gogol. In the novel “Despair,” he describes the state of the soul of an atheist, a person who not only does not believe in God, but also does not want to know or listen about him. State of mind“Dead souls”, “Demons”, are replaced by the last human feeling - “Despair”, followed by death, achieved by suicide.

According to the holy fathers of the Orthodox Church, this is precisely how a person’s individual absorption into sin occurs. A deadened soul is deprived of God; it is simply unable to retain the Being within itself. According to the Gospel, such an empty soul is inhabited by demons. Having found a human soul unfilled with grace, the demon moves into it, bringing with it several more demons stronger than itself. The last step of a person who despairs in life is suicide, the most terrible sin that a person can commit, because in this case he completely and forever renounces God and the redeemer of the sins of all mankind - Jesus Christ.

Vladimir Vladimirovich is accused of literary snobbery and reminiscences. However, his works have a different goal - to demonstrate to the world the thirst for divine love in the human soul and his search for the only worthy goal of human life - Jesus Christ. His deeply individual style is not clear to everyone, just as it was not clear to contemporaries of Gogol’s work. However, most of his works are Christocentric, imbued with the spirit of Christianity in Russian literature. The three apostles of Russian literature - Gogol, Dostoevsky and Nabokov - saw the goal of their work in the spiritual awakening of humanity. They lived and wrote at different times, for different people and in different spiritual atmospheres, but all together they expressed the natural desire of the human soul to find rest in God. All human good goals are concentrated in Christ. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” the Lord said to his followers.

Russian culture and social life of the 19th – early 20th centuries were the product of the best traditions of the Russian people, purified by the fire of love for God. The tradition contained in the rituals and customs of Russians has educated and nurtured great thinkers who created the Russian national mentality. It is embodied in the language, actions, motivations for actions, goals, desires, objects of love of the people, about whom they say: “Russian means Orthodox.”