Moscow, type. Imperial Moscow University, 1911.
Solid Vlad. bindings with leather spine and embossing on them. Ed. region preserved under binding. T.1: V, 289 p. Volume 2: 290, 4, II, 2 p. Ed. M. Gershenzon.

The collection is divided into three sections: philosophical articles, literary criticism, and fiction.

Contents of the 1st volume: Editor's Preface. - Elagin N.A. Materials for the biography of I.V. Kireevsky. - First section: Nineteenth century. - In response to A.S. Khomyakov. - Review of the current state of literature. - About the nature of the enlightenment of Europe and its relationship to the education of Russia. - On the necessity and possibility of new beginnings for philosophy. - Excerpts. - Notes.

Table of contents of the second volume: Second section: Something about the character of Pushkin’s poetry. - Review of Russian literature for 1829. - Review of Russian literature for 1831. - Russian almanacs for 1832. - “Woe from Wit” at the Moscow Theater. - A few words about Vilmeny’s syllable. - About Russian writers. - About the poems of Mr. Yazykov. - E. A. Baratynsky. - Life of Stephens. - Schelling's speech. - Works of Pascal, published by Cousin. - Public lectures by Professor Shevyrev. - Agriculture. - Bibliographic articles: “Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian.” "About sin and its consequences." “On raising children in the spirit of Christian piety.” "Faust", tragedy, op. Goethe, trans. M. Vronchenko. - “For the coming sleep”, op. gr. V. A. Solloguba. - “The Experience of the Science of Philosophy”, op. Nadezhdina. - “Luka da Marya”, op. F. Glinka. - About the novel by O.P. Shishkina “Prokopiy Lyapunov”.
Third department: Tsaritsynskaya. - Opal. - Excerpt from the novel: Two Lives. - Island. -
Mickiewicz, verse. - Chorus from the tragedy of Andromache, verse.
Letters to: A.I. Koshelev, M.P. Pogodin, P.V. Kireevsky, M.V. Kireevskaya, V.A. Zhukovsky, A.A. Elagin, A.P. Elagina, V.A. Elagin, A. S. Khomyakov, M. P. Pogodin, Optina Elder Macarius, A. V. Venevitinov. – Notes.

Condition:
Volume 1: The title bears the stamp of the former. owner of the Mikhail Genrikhovich Sherman Library. frequent underlining in pencil on pp. 190-257.
Volume 2: The title has a stamp of the former. owner of the Mikhail Genrikhovich Sherman Library. Otherwise good.

"The Nineteenth Century" (1832)

The impression from the article is that an analysis is given of our century, and not the nineteenth. How precisely the character of time is noted, which “changed barely perceptibly with the change of generations; our time has already changed its character several times for one generation... Compare previous times with the present; open historical notes, private letters, novels and biographies of past centuries: everywhere and at every time you will find people of the same time... All were brought up by like-minded circumstances, formed by the same spirit of the time... But look at the European society of our time: not discordant opinions of one you will find centuries in it, no! You will encounter echoes of several centuries, not so much contrary to each other, but heterogeneous among themselves” 1. The author notes that at the end of the eighteenth century the struggle between old opinions and new demands of enlightenment was reflected in the destructive direction of minds, everything was aimed at overthrowing the old. The new was a simple negation of the old. Freedom was understood as the absence of previous oppressions, humanity - like most people, the absence of prejudices was called the kingdom of reason. Religion was rejected, experience was recognized in science, imitation of inanimate nature was recognized in art, and crude materialism was recognized in philosophy. French revolution made a change in minds. Speculation took precedence over experience, disbelief gave way to mysticism, in art preference was given to sentimentality and daydreaming, materialism was replaced by spirituality. Destruction and violence as a struggle against the past century were replaced by the need for peace and unity. Tolerance and respect for religion, the reconciliation of idealism and materialism - this was the main direction of the minds of the 19th century. 2

I.V. Kireevsky writes that enlightened people understood religion “either as a set of rituals, or as an internal, individual conviction in known truths. But is this a religion? No, religion is not one ritual and not one belief. For the full development of not only true, but even false religion, the unanimity of the people is necessary, sanctified by vivid memories, developed in unambiguous legends, intertwined with the state structure, personified in unambiguous and nationwide rituals, reduced to one positive principle and palpable in all civil and family relations. . Without these conditions, there is belief, there are rituals, but there is no religion itself” 3.

In this article, Kireyevsky formulated questions that he would answer throughout his life. Each subsequent article repeats it in theme and even in form, becoming at the same time a step on his ladder of spiritual ascent, a step towards understanding, and subsequently to insight. The theme of the nature of the enlightenment of Europe and its relationship to the enlightenment of Russia becomes his personal theme and the theme of the entire nineteenth century. A narrower, but no less painful question follows from it: how to relate to the reforms of Peter I?

We will not find answers in the article “The Nineteenth Century,” but the questions have already been formulated: will the “Chinese Wall” between Europe and Russia, in which Peter broke through the doors and which Catherine began to destroy, soon collapse; will our education soon rise to the level to which the enlightened states of Europe have reached; what should we do to achieve this goal; should we take enlightenment from our own lives or borrow it from Europe; what principles should be developed within one’s own life; what can we borrow from those who were enlightened before us? 4

The answers will be in the following articles, but here is only the opinion that the author expresses with apologies and asks not to judge him harshly. He says that we are a thousand years old, but among the enlightened states we are young, enlightenment is not the fruit of our life. Kireevsky names three main principles that determine the nature of enlightenment in Europe and influence the course of its development: the Christian religion, the nature of education and the spirit of the barbarian peoples who destroyed the Roman Empire and the remnants of the Ancient World 5. Kireevsky will use this triad in his further works to compare enlightenment in Europe and Russia, but the meaning and depth of analysis will constantly change.

The author of "The Nineteenth Century" notes that we have Christianity, we have barbarians, but there is no heritage of the classical Ancient world. From a purely mechanical standpoint, Christianity in Europe is assigned the role of judge and reconciliator between barbarians and antiquity. The barbarians are being enlightened, the legacy of antiquity is being transformed. Hence the central role of the Western Church not only in spiritual education, but also in the political structure. Knights and crusades are described in romantic tones, in which “the first element was the Church,” which served as a source of unanimity and order, giving one spirit and one moral code to Europe.

Kireevsky does not yet know that Russia, in the depths of its spirit, preserves the heritage of the ancient classical world, but not in its pagan form, as the West accepted this heritage, but in a transformed and purified form by the Orthodox Church. However, he has already noticed the main thing. It is precisely in the different attitude towards antiquity and its philosophy, in his opinion, that one should look for the difference in the enlightenment of Europe and Russia.

Recognizing our Christianity as “purer and holier,” Kireevsky sees (for now he sees) the reason for the indecision and small influence of the Church on the political structure of Russia in the absence of the classical world. This led, in his opinion, Ancient Rus' to fragmentation into destinies not connected spiritually. 6

Enlightenment in the true sense of the word, explains I.V. Kireevsky, is determined not by the individual development of our particularity, but by participation in the general life of the enlightened world. Our national influence overpowered and distorted the enlightenment that came from outside. Peter's reform is not so much a development as a turning point in nationality, not an internal success, but an external innovation. But was there another way? If classical education was lacking, education was borrowed from outside in the struggle against nationality. To look for the “national” in Russia means to look for the uneducated. If a German is looking for something purely German, this does not prevent him from being educated, but it does hinder us. We owe enlightenment to Peter. The starting point of our enlightenment has also been found: the time of rapprochement with Europe is the period of Minin and Pozharsky. 7

In essence, the article presents the view of a European who knows Europe very well and loves it, is familiar with the history of Russia, but does not know it at all and has not had time to love it.

“In response to A.S. Khomyakov" (1839)

The article was first published after the death of I.V. Kireevsky in 1861 in the first collection of his works. The story behind this article is as follows. Since 1834, Kireevsky spent almost all winters in Moscow. In 1839, weekly evenings were held at his house for a small circle of friends. According to the condition, each of the guests had to take turns reading something from the newly written book. At these evenings, Gogol read his comedies and the first chapters of " Dead souls", Professor Kryukov - article "On Ancient Greek History". Khomyakov - article “On the Old and the New”. The article was not intended for publication. Perhaps Khomyakov read it to provoke objections from Kireyevsky. The answer was written and belonged to the direction that was then called Orthodox-Slavic, and later Slavophilism. 8

In its form, the article is a response, but in spirit it is already a monologue-reflection. From that time on, Kireevsky abandoned the polemical tone, he was already called and stood before God, aware of the responsibility for the spoken word. Already in the first paragraph, special excitement and trepidation are felt when Ivan Vasilyevich begins to talk about Russia: “Our concept of the relationship of the past state of Russia to the present does not belong to such issues about which we can have one opinion or another with impunity, as about subjects of literature, about music or foreign politics, but it constitutes, so to speak, an essential part of ourselves, for it enters into the slightest circumstance, into every minute of our life" 9 . The question of the attitude towards Russia and its past, according to Kireyevsky, cannot be simplified. They usually reason in this way: if the former Russia was better than the present one, the old should be returned and everything Western that distorts Russian characteristics should be destroyed; if the old Russia was worse, it is necessary to introduce everything Western and destroy the Russian peculiarity. “If the old was better than the present,” wrote I.V. Kireyevsky, - it does not follow from this that it is better now. What was suitable at one time, under some circumstances, may not be suitable at another, under other circumstances. If the old one was worse, it also does not follow that its elements could not themselves develop into something better, unless this development was stopped by the forcible introduction of an alien element. The young oak, of course, is shorter than the same year old willow tree, which is visible from afar, gives shade early, looks like a tree early and is suitable for firewood. But you, of course, will not serve the oak tree by grafting a willow onto it... Instead of asking: was the old Russia better? - it seems more useful to ask: to improve our lives, is it now necessary to return to the old Russian, or is it necessary to develop the Western element, the opposite of it?.. No matter how much we are enemies of Western enlightenment, Western customs and the like; But is it possible without madness to think that someday, by some force, the memory of everything that it received from Europe over the course of two hundred years will be destroyed in Russia? Can we not know what we know, forget everything we know? It is even less possible to think that 1000-year-old Russian can be completely destroyed by the influence of the new European. Therefore, no matter how much we wish for the return of the Russian or the introduction of Western life, we cannot exclusively expect either one or the other, and inevitably must assume something third, which should arise from the mutual struggle of the two principles. .. The point is not: which of the two? But this is: what direction should both of them receive” 10. The importance of the issue is not in the acquisition of this or that, but in the direction of development.

We will dwell in more detail on Kireyevsky’s consideration of the foundations of folk life in Russia, because his views on this issue did not change significantly in the future. This will allow, when getting acquainted with Kireevsky’s other works, to pay more attention to the spiritual side of the matter, which is practically not discussed in this article.

Kireevsky notes that, at first glance, there is one obvious commonality between the peoples of Russia and the West - Christianity. The difference lies in special types of Christianity, in a special direction of enlightenment. If we know where the commonality comes from, we must also see the reasons for the differences. He proposes, ascending (precisely how Kireyevsky considers ascension to approach the historical and spiritual foundations of Christianity) historically to the beginning of this or that type of education, to look for the reason for their differences in the first elements from which they were composed, or to consider the subsequent development of these elements, comparing the results . If the difference that we saw in the elements also appears in the results of their development, then it is obvious that the assumption is correct, and, based on it, conclusions can be drawn.

Kireyevsky proposes to consider three elements that were the basis of European education - Roman Christianity, the world of uneducated barbarians who destroyed the Roman Empire, and the classical world of ancient paganism.

Considering the classical world of ancient paganism, which was not inherited by Russia, he sees in it the triumph of the formal reason of man, based on himself. This reason manifests itself in two forms characteristic of it - formal abstraction and abstract sensuality. The deviation of the Roman Church from the Eastern Church occurred, according to Kireyevsky, due to the triumph of rationalism over tradition, external rationality over internal spiritual reason. “In this last triumph of formal reason over faith and tradition,” he wrote, “a discerning mind could already see in advance the entire current fate of Europe in embryo” 11. Here one can see a new philosophy and industrialism as the spring of social life, and philanthropy based on self-interest, and a system of education accelerated by the power of excited envy, and many of the results of hopes and expensive experiments.

One should not think that Kireevsky, who has changed his views, is beginning to denounce the West. But the depth of life began to be revealed to him, he saw, under the cover of the brilliance of external life, another life, which is true. Let's listen to Kireyevsky himself. “I have no intention at all of writing satire on the West. No one appreciates more than I those conveniences of public and private life that stem from the same rationalism. Yes, to be frank, I still love the West, I am connected with it by many inextricable sympathies. I belong to him with my upbringing, my habits of life, my tastes, my controversial turn of mind, even my habits of heart. But in a person’s heart there are such movements, there are such demands in the mind, such a meaning in life that are stronger than all habits and tastes, stronger than all the pleasures of life and the benefits of external rationality, without which neither a person nor a people can live their real life. Therefore, fully appreciating all the individual benefits of rationality, I think that in its final development, with its painful dissatisfaction, it clearly reveals itself as a one-sided, deceptive, seductive and treacherous principle. However, it would be inappropriate to dwell on this. I only remember that all the high minds of Europe complain about the current state of moral apathy, about the lack of convictions, about general egoism, they demand a new spiritual force outside of reason, they demand a new spring of life outside of calculation, in a word, they are looking for faith and cannot find it in themselves , because Christianity in the West has been distorted by its own thoughts” 12.

Speaking about education in Russia, I.V. Kireevsky noted that “our educational beginning lay in our Church” (he says so - “in our Church”). In it, “together with Christianity, the still fertile remnants of the ancient pagan world acted on the development of enlightenment.” Upon closer examination, it turned out that Russia also had the heritage of the ancient classical world, but not in the fullness of its paganism, but in the “fruitful remnants” received by Russia from Byzantium along with the Orthodox faith.

The Roman Church accepted into itself “the germ of that beginning that constituted the general shade of the entire Greek-pagan development - the beginning of rationalism.” This is the reason for the separation of the Roman Church from the Eastern. She changed some dogmas that existed in the tradition of all Christianity on the basis of inferences, and spread some as a result of the same process and contrary to the tradition and spirit of the Universal Church. Logical conviction formed the basis of Catholicism. Scholastic philosophy, which could not reconcile the contradiction between reason and faith in any other way than by the power of syllogism, gradually became the property of the clergy, previously educated in a different spirit. But if faith is logically proven and logically opposed to reason, then it is no longer faith, but a logical negation of reason. That is why, during the period of its scholastic development, Catholicism, due to its rationality, oppressed reason and was its desperate enemy. But the desire to destroy reason produced a reaction, the consequences of which, according to Kireyevsky, constitute the nature of the current enlightenment. 13

Eastern Christianity, he wrote, knew neither this struggle of faith against reason, nor this triumph of reason. Therefore, the fruits of enlightenment were completely different. There were many differences in the social structure of Russia from the West. The main difference is the formation of society into “small worlds”. Private personal identity - the basis of Western development - was little known among us, as was public autocracy. Man belonged to the world. And peace be with him. Landed property - the source of personal rights in the West - was a part of society in our country. A person participated in the right of ownership if he was part of the company.

“But this society,” wrote Kireevsky, “was not autocratic and could not organize itself, invent laws for itself, because it was not separated from other similar societies governed by uniform custom. The countless number of these small worlds that make up Russia were all covered with a network of churches, monasteries, and the dwellings of solitary hermits, from where the same concepts about public and private relations constantly spread everywhere. Little by little, these concepts had to turn into convictions, convictions - into customs, which replaced the law, arranging throughout the entire expanse of lands subject to our Church, one thought, one look, one aspiration, one order of life. This universal monotony of the custom was probably one of the reasons for its incredible strength, which has preserved its living remains even to our time, through all the counteractions of destructive influences that, for 200 years, have sought to introduce new principles into its place” 14.

Any change in the social structure that was inconsistent with the structure of the whole was impossible. Family relationships were determined even before the birth of a person, the family was subordinate to the world, the world to the gathering, the gathering to the veche, and so on, until all circles closed in one Orthodox Church. Private understanding or artificial agreement could not establish a new order, invent new rights and advantages. Even the word “right” was unknown in Russia in its Western sense, but meant only justice and truth. Therefore, no power, according to Kireevsky, could either grant or concede any right to any person or class, for truth and justice can neither be sold nor taken, but exist on their own, regardless of conditional relations. In the West, on the contrary, all social relations are based on conditions; without conditions there are no correct relations. But there is arbitrariness. Therefore, the social contract is not an invention of the encyclopedists, but an ideal that was previously sought unconsciously, but now consciously. The rational element exceeded the Christian one. 15

From the point of view of communal relations, Kireevsky also considers the princely power that existed in Rus' before the subordination of the appanage principalities to Moscow. Analysis and trial, the right to which in some cases belonged to the prince, could not be carried out in disagreement with comprehensive customs. For the same reason, the interpretation of these customs could not be arbitrary. The general course of affairs was carried out by peace and orders, which judged in the same way, according to centuries-old custom and therefore known to everyone. In extreme cases, a prince who violated the correctness of his relations with the people and the Church was expelled by the people themselves. It is obvious that the princely power itself consisted more in the leadership of squads than in internal government, more in armed patronage than in the possession of regions. 16

Before the depth of truth, Kireyevsky’s last romantic ideas about knights and crusades dissipate. In Russia there have always been many people who wanted to live outside society, and often through robbery and robbery, through force. But they could not form a special class in Russia, because with their lives they separated themselves from the Church. After the introduction of Christianity there were robbers, gangs, but gangs rejected by the Church. The Church could take advantage of them, forming from them separate orders with their own charters and directing them against the infidels, like the Western crusaders. She, according to Kireyevsky, did not do this because she did not sell purity for temporary benefits. Nothing would be simpler than to initiate crusades among us, classifying the robbers among the ministers of the Church and promising them forgiveness of sins for killing infidels; many would become honest robbers. Catholicism did just that. “Our Church,” Kireevsky concludes, “did not do this, and therefore we did not have knighthood, and with it that aristocratic class, which was the main element of everything western education» 17.

Where there was most disorder in the West, chivalry flourished more strongly. In Italy there was the least amount of it. Where there was less chivalry, there society was more inclined towards a national system, where more towards autocracy. Thus, Kireevsky believed, the Western Church formed knights from robbers, secular power from spiritual power, and the Holy Inquisition from secular police. She acted in the same way in relation to pagan sciences and arts. She did not produce new Christian art within herself, but she directed the old one, born and nurtured by another spirit, another life, to decorate her temple. From this, art began to sparkle romantically, but ended in the worship of paganism, the worship of the formulas of abstract philosophy. The sciences flourished greatly in Europe, but the pagan philosophy underlying them led them to godlessness. 18

“Russia did not shine with either arts or scientific inventions,” wrote I.V. Kireevsky, - not having time to develop in this regard in an original way and not accepting someone else’s development, based on a false view and therefore hostile to her Christian spirit. But on the other hand, it contained the first condition for the development of the correct, requiring only time and favorable circumstances; in it that organizing principle of knowledge, that philosophy of Christianity, which alone can provide the correct foundation for the sciences, gathered and lived. All the Greek holy fathers, not excluding the most profound writers, were translated, and read, and copied, and studied in the silence of our monasteries, these holy embryos of unfulfilled universities... And these monasteries were in living, unceasing communication with the people. What enlightenment in our vile class are we not entitled to conclude from this one fact! But this enlightenment is not brilliant, but deep, not luxurious, not material, aiming at the convenience of external life, but internal, spiritual” 19.

“How could all this be destroyed? - asks Kireevsky. “How was Peter possible, the destroyer of the Russian and the introducer of the German?” And he himself answers this: “One fact in our history explains to us the reason for such an unfortunate coup, this fact is the Hundred-Glavy Council. As quickly as heresy appeared in the Church, discord in the spirit was bound to be reflected in life. Parties appeared that more or less deviated from the truth. The party of innovation defeated the party of antiquity, precisely because the antiquity was torn apart by differences of opinion. From there, with the destruction of the spiritual, internal connection, the need for a material, formal connection arose, from there localism, oprichnina, slavery and the like. From there, the distortion of books due to error and ignorance and their correction according to private understanding and arbitrary criticism. From there, before Peter, the government was at odds with the majority of the people, rejected under the name of schismatics. That is why Peter, as the head of the party in the state, forms a society within a society and everything that follows” 20.

Realizing that the very peculiarity of Russian life could no longer be returned, Kireevsky reminded that it consisted in the living origin of the life of the people from pure Christianity. And only those who do not believe that Russia will someday return to that life-giving spirit that its Church breathes can destroy the remaining forms.

But Kireevsky himself does not yet know how to accomplish this return to the Church. He (and after him we) already understood the relationship between the life of Russia and the life of the Church, understood the differences between the West and the East in external manifestations, the reasons for these differences, understood the rationalism of Catholicism and felt (but did not yet realize) the breath of the Holy Spirit in the Orthodox Church . He already understands what an enlightened Europe needs and what wealth, which we do not value, we possess, which is why he gives his advice in a half-joking form: “Now we have only one thing left to wish: that some Frenchman would understand the originality of the Christian teaching, as it is in our Church, and wrote an article about it in a magazine; so that a German, having believed him, would study our Church more deeply and begin to prove in lectures that in it, quite unexpectedly, exactly what the enlightenment of Europe now requires is revealed. Then, without a doubt, we would have believed the French and the German and ourselves would have known what we have” 21.

"Review of the Present State of Literature" (1845)

Reviewing the state of Western literature, I.V. Kireevsky notes that multi-mindedness, heteroglossia of systems and opinions, arising from the lack of one common belief, not only fragments the self-awareness of society, but also affects the individual, bifurcating every movement of his soul. “That is why, by the way,” said Kireevsky, “in our time there are so many talents and there is not a single true poet. For the poet is created by the power of inner thought. From the depths of his soul, he must bring out, in addition to beautiful forms, the very soul of beauty, his living, integral view of the world and man” 22.

If a person does not have heart goals, despair becomes the dominant feeling. Coming out of despair, thought, not supported by the highest goals of the spirit, enters the service of sensual interests or feels the need for faith. “A living, integral view of the world”, “a thought supported by the highest goals of the spirit”, “a transformed mind” - this is Kireevsky’s new theme and new view of the problems under study, which makes it possible to accurately clarify the concept of “education”. He rises above immediate problems and asserts, that “everything beautiful, noble, Christian is necessarily our own, even if it is European, even if it is African. The voice of truth does not weaken, but is strengthened by its consonance with everything that is true, Kireevsky does not pronounce it anywhere. will pronounce the word “conciliarity,” but he will take this very concept, expressed as “consonance with truth,” as the basis for further discussions about the features of spiritual life 23.

Many disagreements in matters of education stemmed from the lack of clarity of the concept itself. I.V. Kireyevsky expressed ideas that were obvious at first glance: “Two educations,” he wrote, “two revelations of mental powers in man and peoples, represent to us impartial speculation, the history of all centuries, and even daily experience. Education alone is the internal structure of the spirit by the power of the truth communicated in it; the other is the formal development of the mind and external knowledge. The first depends on the principle to which a person submits and can be communicated directly; the second is the fruit of slow and difficult work. The first gives meaning and significance to the second, but the second gives it content and completeness. For the first there is no changing development, there is only direct recognition, preservation and spread in the subordinate spheres of the human spirit; the second... cannot be created instantly... but must be composed little by little from the combined efforts of all private understandings. However, it is obvious that the first is the only one that has significant significance for life, investing in it one or another meaning” 159. Submitting to higher education, the second education, without containing any compulsory force, manifests itself in the external expression of thought and arrangement of life. Far from extraneous influences, this education is something between good and evil, between the force that elevates a person and the force that distorts him.

The lack of character inherent in the second education, according to Kireevsky, allows it to remain among a people or a person even when they lose or change the internal basis of their being, their initial faith, their fundamental beliefs. The remaining education, experiencing the dominance of the higher principle that controls it, enters the service of another and thus passes through all the turning points of history unharmed, constantly growing in its content. During turning points in history, in eras of decline of a person or a people, the basis of life becomes double in the mind, falls apart and loses its strength, which lies in the integrity of being. Then rationally external formal education dominates and is the only support of unestablished thought. 25

If these two educations are mixed, then an opinion arises about some kind of constant, natural and necessary improvement of man. All misconceptions, Kireevsky believed, stem from the assumption that the living understanding of the spirit, the inner structure of a person, which is the source of his guiding thoughts, strong deeds, reckless aspirations, sincere poetry, strong life and higher vision of the mind, can arise from the mere development of the logical mind. But it is already becoming clear that the logical mind, cut off from other sources of knowledge and, as a result, not having experienced the fullness of its power, itself realizes the incompleteness of its knowledge.

From these considerations, Kireevsky draws a natural conclusion: if “the fundamental principle of our Orthodox-Slavic education is true (which, however, I consider it unnecessary and inappropriate to prove here) - if it is true, I say, that this supreme, living principle of our enlightenment is true, then It is obvious that just as it was once the source of our ancient education, so now it should serve as a necessary complement to European education, separating it from its special directions, clearing it of the character of exclusive rationality and imbuing it with new meaning” 26. Therefore, according to Kireevsky, love for European education, as well as love for our education, coincide at the last point of their development into one love, into one desire for a living, complete, all-human and truly Christian enlightenment.

Archimandrite Georgy (Shestun), Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences, professor, academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, head of the interuniversity department of Orthodox pedagogy and psychology of the Samara Orthodox Theological Seminary, rector of the Trans-Volga Monastery in honor of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord, rector of the Trinity-Sergius Metochion in Samara

Literature

1. Kireevsky I.V. Complete works in 2 volumes. T. 1. - M., 1911. - P. 86.

2. Ibid. - pp. 88-89.

3. Ibid. - P. 94.

4. Ibid. - pp. 96-97.

5. Ibid. - P. 98.

6. Ibid. - P. 100.

7. Ibid. - P. 105.

8. Ibid. - P. 63.

9. Ibid. - P. 109.

10. Ibid. - pp. 109-110.

11. Ibid. - P. 112.

12. Ibid. - pp. 112-113.

13. Ibid. - pp. 113-114.

14. Ibid. - P. 115.

15. Ibid. - P. 116.

16. Ibid. - P. 116.

17. Ibid. - P. 117.

18. Ibid. - P. 118.

19. Ibid. - P. 119.

20. Ibid. - pp. 119-120.

21. Ibid. - P. 120.

22. Ibid. - P. 126.

23. Ibid. - P. 157.

24. Ibid. - P. 159.

25. Ibid. - P. 160.

26. Ibid. - pp. 161-162.

"Review of the current state of literature"

In 1844, Pogodin decided to transfer the magazine “Moskvityanin” to Kireyevsky. During 1845, the first four books of the magazine were published under the editorship of IV. with a number of his articles, mainly of a literary nature.

Previously, Moskvityanin was published under the auspices of Count Uvarov and expressed official ideology- nationalities. Although the Slavophiles did not fully share these ideas, the general patriotic and Orthodox spirit of the magazine, its opposition to Westernizing trends in education, forced them to publish in this magazine in the absence of their own printed organ.

The manifesto of the new “Moskvitian” was Kireevsky’s article “Review of the Current State of Literature.” The work was published in parts in three issues of the magazine and remained unfinished.

The article is of great importance for studying our issue. The philosopher highlights: the most important condition to create the integrity of the spirit: the presence of conviction, from which, as from a single root, all mental ideas of a person and his daily activities are built. Kireyevsky returns here again to the problem of the creative subject: “His sonorous and trembling thought must come from the very secret of his inner, so to speak, subconscious conviction, and where this sanctuary was fragmented by the heteroglossia of beliefs or simply their absence, there can be no question of poetry, not about any powerful influence of man on man.”

Conviction must be found not only in an individual, but also in an entire nation. There must be one conviction, because “many thoughts,” the heteroglossia of seething systems and opinions with the lack of one conviction, not only fragments the self-awareness of society, but must necessarily act on a private person, dividing every living movement of his soul.” From this quote it is clear how erroneous this was a tradition that arose at the end of the last century to bring Slavophilism closer to liberalism.43 The latter doctrine, with its utilitarian character, the priority of the sovereign individual, secularized morality and the cult of formal relations, can serve as a characteristic example of the spiritual fragmentation of society and man, which was criticized by the Slavophiles.

In his article, Kireevsky proclaimed an inextricable connection between “the first elements that make up the people’s life” with the highest achievements of literature. Concepts that are based on the traditional relations of national life “form the root from which the highest education of the nation grows.” The philosopher called these first elements, certain stereotypes of thinking reflected in the language of the people, the basic principles of enlightenment.

The state of the integrity of the spirit does not require any conviction, but one based on the Christian faith, the extinction of which in Europe led to the fact that “...On the one hand, thought, not supported by the highest goals of the spirit, fell into the service of sensual interests and selfish views, hence the industrial direction of minds." On the other hand, “the very lack of convictions produced the need for faith,” but this faith cannot be reconciled with abstract reason. Then a duality arises in a person, forcing him to invent for himself “a new religion without a church, without tradition, without revelation and without faith.”

So, the disadvantage of Western religions is their excessive preoccupation with issues of formal reason, which takes a person away from living communication with God and leads to unbelief.

Kireevsky distinguishes two types of education: “One education is the internal structure of the spirit by the power of the truth communicated in it; the other is the formal development of the mind and external knowledge. The first depends on the principle to which a person submits and can be communicated directly; the second is the fruit of slow and difficult work. The first gives meaning and meaning to the second, but the second gives it content and completeness. For the first there is no changing development, there is only direct recognition, preservation and distribution in the subordinate spheres of the human spirit; the second, being the fruit of centuries of gradual efforts, experiments, failures, successes, observations, inventions and all the successively rich mental property of the human race, cannot be created instantly, nor guessed by the most brilliant inspiration, but must be composed little by little from the combined efforts of all private understandings “44 This is one of Kireyevsky’s first detailed definitions of spiritual integrity and formal rationality in their opposition.

Integrity of the Spirit in the West Kireyevsky believes that the West was characterized by the education of the integrity of the spirit, but due to a one-sided enthusiasm for syllogistics, abstract reason took precedence over the convictions of the spirit, and the European world lost the integrity of being. Therefore, the missionary duty of the Orthodox-Slavic world is to remind the West of the highest principles of the human spirit, inaccessible to the abstract mechanism of formal thinking

However, reason as such does not threaten the integrity of the spirit; the danger comes from its isolation, its unconditional priority over other cognitive abilities. Reason must be enlightened by faith, serving as the first step for a higher level of knowledge.

The article “Review of the Current State of Literature” is interesting, first of all, because it is the first time that it expresses in detail those thoughts that will subsequently become dominant for the philosopher, on the development of which he will work EfCe in subsequent years. Among European philosophers, Kireyevsky gave clear preference to thinkers striving for spiritual integrity, such as Stephens and Pascal.

There was a time when, saying: literature, usually meant elegant literature; in our time, fine literature constitutes only a small part of literature. Therefore, we must warn readers that, wishing to present the current state of literature in Europe, we will inevitably have to pay more attention to works of philosophy, history, philology, political-economics, theology, etc., than to works of art themselves.

Perhaps, since the very era of the so-called revival of sciences in Europe, fine literature has never played such a pitiful role as it does now, especially in last years of our time - although, perhaps, so much has never been written in all kinds and everything that is written has never been read so greedily. Even the 18th century was predominantly literary; Even in the first quarter of the 19th century, purely literary interests were one of the springs of the mental movement of peoples; great poets aroused great sympathy; differences of literary opinion produced passionate parties; the appearance of a new book resonated in people's minds as a public matter. But now the relation of fine literature to society has changed; of the great, all-fascinating poets, not a single one remains; with many poems and, let’s say, with many wonderful talents, there is no poetry: even its needs are imperceptible; literary opinions are repeated without participation; the former, magical sympathy between the author and readers is interrupted; from the first brilliant role, graceful literature has descended into the role of confidante of other heroines of our time; we read a lot, we read more than before, we read everything we can get our hands on; but all in passing, without participation, as an official reads incoming and outgoing papers, when he reads them. When reading, we do not enjoy, much less can we forget; but we only take it into consideration, we seek to derive application and benefit; - and that lively, disinterested interest in purely literary phenomena, that abstract love for beautiful forms, that pleasure in the harmony of speech, that rapturous self-forgetfulness in the harmony of verse, which we experienced in our youth - the coming generation will know about it only from legend .

They say that one should rejoice at this; that literature was replaced by other interests because we became more productive; that if before we were chasing a verse, a phrase, a dream, now we are looking for significance, science, life. I don't know if this is fair; but I admit, I feel sorry for the old, unapplicable, useless literature. There was a lot of warmth in it for the soul; and what warms the soul may not be completely unnecessary for life.

In our time, fine literature has been replaced by magazine literature. And one should not think that the nature of journalism belongs to periodicals alone: ​​it extends to all forms of literature, with very few exceptions.

In fact, wherever we look, everywhere thought is subordinated to current circumstances, feeling is attached to the interests of the party, form is adjusted to the requirements of the moment. The novel turned into statistics of morals; – poetry in verses for the occasion; - history, being an echo of the past, tries to be at the same time a mirror of the present, or proof of some social belief, a quotation in favor of some modern view; – philosophy, with the most abstract contemplations of eternal truths, is constantly occupied with their relation to the current moment; – even theological works in the West, for the most part, are generated by some extraneous circumstance of external life. More books have been written on the occasion of one bishop of Cologne than on account of the prevailing unbelief of which the Western clergy so complains.

However, this general desire of minds for the events of reality, for the interests of the day, has its source not only in personal benefits or selfish goals, as some people think. Although private benefits are connected with public affairs, the general interest in the latter does not arise from this calculation alone. For the most part, it's just compassionate interest. The mind is awakened and directed in this direction. The thought of man has merged with the thought of humanity. This is a desire for love, not profit. He wants to know what is happening in the world, in the fate of those like him, often without the slightest regard for himself. He wants to know in order to only participate in thought in general life, to sympathize with it from within his limited circle.

Despite this, however, it seems that many people complain, not without reason, about this excessive respect for the moment, about this all-consuming interest in the events of the day, in the external, business side of life. Such a direction, they think, does not embrace life, but concerns only its outer side, its insignificant surface. The shell is, of course, necessary, but only for preserving the grain, without which it would be a waste; Perhaps this state of mind is understandable as a transitional state; but nonsense, as a state of higher development. The porch to the house is as good as a porch; but if we settle down to live on it, as if it were the whole house, then we may feel cramped and cold.

However, we note that the strictly political, governmental issues that have worried the minds of the West for so long are now beginning to fade into the background of mental movements, and although upon superficial observation it may seem as if the problems are still in their former strength, because they are still occupy the majority of heads, but this majority is already backward; it no longer constitutes the expression of the century; advanced thinkers decisively moved into another sphere, into the field of social issues, where the first place is no longer occupied by the external form, but by the inner life of society itself, in its real, essential relations.

I think it is unnecessary to stipulate that by direction towards social issues I do not mean those ugly systems that are known in the world more by the noise they make than by the meaning of their half-thought-out teachings: these phenomena are curious only as a sign, but in themselves are unimportant; no, I see interest in social issues, replacing the previous, exclusively political concern, not in this or that phenomenon, but in the whole direction of European literature.

Mental movements in the West are now carried out with less noise and brilliance, but obviously have more depth and generality. Instead of the limited sphere of daily events and external interests, thought rushes to the very source of everything external, to man as he is, and to his life as it should be. A sensible discovery in science is already more occupied by minds than a pompous speech in the Chamber. The external form of legal proceedings seems less important than the internal development of justice; the living spirit of the people is more significant than its external structures. Western writers are beginning to understand that beneath the loud rotation of social wheels lies the silent movement of the moral spring on which everything depends, and therefore, in their mental concern, they try to move from phenomenon to cause, from formal external issues they want to rise to that volume of ideas of society where the momentary The events of the day, and the eternal conditions of life, and politics, and philosophy, and science, and craft, and industry, and religion itself, and with them the literature of the people, merge into one vast task: the improvement of man and his life relations.

But it must be admitted that if particular literary phenomena are therefore more significant and, so to speak, more juice, then literature in its total volume represents a strange chaos of conflicting opinions, unconnected systems, airy scattering theories, momentary, fictitious beliefs, and at the core of all: the complete absence of any conviction that could be called not only general, but even dominant. Each new effort of thought is expressed by a new system; each new system, as soon as it is born, destroys all the previous ones, and destroying them, it itself dies at the moment of birth, so that, constantly working, the human mind cannot rest on any achieved result; constantly striving to build some great, transcendental building, he finds no support anywhere to confirm even one first stone for a foundation that does not shake.

That is why in all any remarkable works of literature, in all important and unimportant phenomena of thought in the West, starting with the newest philosophy of Schelling and ending with the long-forgotten system of Saint-Simonists, we usually find two different sides: one almost always arouses sympathy in the public , and often contains a lot of true, practical and forward-moving thought: this is the side negative, polemical, refutation of systems and opinions that preceded the stated belief; the other side, if sometimes it arouses sympathy, is almost always limited and quickly passing: this is the side positive, that is, exactly what constitutes the peculiarity of a new thought, its essence, its right to life beyond the limits of the first curiosity.

The reason for this duality in Western thought is obvious. Having completed its previous ten-century development, the new Europe has come into conflict with the old Europe and feels that to begin a new life it needs a new foundation. The basis of people's life is conviction. Not finding a ready-made one that meets its requirements, Western thought tries to create a conviction for itself by effort, to invent it, if possible, by the effort of thinking - but in this desperate work, in any case curious and instructive, until now each experience has been only a contradiction of the other.

Polyphony, the heteroglossia of seething systems and opinions, with the lack of one common conviction, not only fragments the self-consciousness of society, but must necessarily act on a private person, bifurcating every living movement of his soul. That is why, by the way, in our time there are so many talents and there is not a single true poet. For the poet is created by the power of inner thought. From the depths of his soul, he must bring out, in addition to beautiful forms, the very soul of beauty: his living, integral view of the world and man. No artificial constructs of concepts, no reasonable theories will help here. His sonorous and trembling thought must come from the very secret of his inner, so to speak, supraconscious conviction, and where this sanctuary of being is fragmented by the heteroglossia of beliefs, or empty by their absence, there can be no talk of poetry, nor of any powerful influence of man on man. .

This state of mind in Europe is quite new. It belongs to the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The eighteenth century, although it was predominantly an unbeliever, nevertheless had its ardent convictions, its dominant theories, on which thought calmed down, with which the feeling of the highest needs of the human spirit was deceived. When the rush of rapture was followed by disappointment in favorite theories, then new person could not stand a life without heartfelt goals: his dominant feeling was despair. Byron testifies to this transitional state, but the feeling of despair, in its essence, is only momentary. Coming out of it, Western self-consciousness split into two opposing aspirations. On the one hand, thought, not supported by the highest goals of the spirit, fell into the service of sensual interests and selfish views; hence the industrial direction of minds, which penetrated not only into the external social life, but also into the abstract field of science, into the content and form of literature, and even into the very depths of home life, into the sanctity of family ties, into the magical secret of the first youthful dreams. On the other hand, the absence of basic principles awakened in many the consciousness of their necessity. The very lack of conviction produced the need for faith; but the minds that sought faith did not always know how to reconcile its Western forms with the present state of European science. From this, some resolutely abandoned the latter and declared irreconcilable enmity between faith and reason; others, trying to find their agreement, either force science in order to squeeze it into Western forms of religion, or want to transform the very forms according to their science, or, finally, not finding in the West a form that corresponds to their mental needs, they invent a new religion for themselves without the church , without tradition, without revelation and without faith.

The boundaries of this article do not allow us to present in a clear picture what is remarkable and special in the modern phenomena of literature in Germany, England, France and Italy, where a new, noteworthy religious and philosophical thought is now also emerging. In subsequent issues of the Moskvitian we hope to present this image with all possible impartiality. – Now, in quick sketches, we will try to identify in foreign literature only what they represent that is most strikingly remarkable at the present moment.

In Germany, the dominant trend of minds still remains predominantly philosophical; adjacent to it, on the one hand, is the historical-theological direction, which is a consequence of one’s own, deeper development of philosophical thought, and on the other, the political direction, which, it seems, for the most part should be attributed to someone else’s influence, judging by the predilection of the most remarkable writers of this kind to France and its literature. Some of these German patriots go so far as to place Voltaire, as a philosopher, above German thinkers.

Schelling's new system, so long awaited, so solemnly accepted, did not seem to agree with the expectations of the Germans. His Berlin auditorium, where in the first year of his appearance it was difficult to find a place, is now said to have become spacious. His method of reconciling faith with philosophy has not yet convinced either believers or philosophizers. The first reproach him for the excessive rights of reason and for the special meaning that he puts into his concepts about the most basic dogmas of Christianity. His closest friends see him only as a thinker on the path to faith. “I hope,” says Neander (dedicating a new edition of his church history to him), “I hope that the merciful God will soon make you completely ours.” Philosophers, on the contrary, are offended by the fact that he accepts as the property of reason, faith, not developed from reason according to the laws of logical necessity. “If his system were the holy truth itself,” they say, “then even in that case it could not be an acquisition of philosophy until it was its own product.”

This, at least outward failure of a world-significant cause, with which were connected so many great expectations based on the deepest needs of the human spirit, confused many thinkers; but at the same time he was the cause of triumph for others. Both have forgotten, it seems, that the innovative thought of centuries-old geniuses should be in disagreement with their closest contemporaries. Passionate Hegelians, completely satisfied with the system of their teacher and not seeing the possibility of leading human thought beyond the boundaries shown by them, consider every attempt of the mind to develop philosophy beyond its present state as a sacrilegious attack on the truth itself. But, meanwhile, their triumph over the imaginary failure of the great Schelling, as can be judged from philosophical brochures, was not entirely thorough. If it is true that Schelling’s new system, in the particular way in which it was presented by him, found little sympathy in present-day Germany, nevertheless, his refutations of previous philosophies, and mainly Hegel’s, had a deep and increasing effect every day. Of course, it is also true that the opinions of the Hegelians are constantly spreading more widely in Germany, developing in applications to the arts, literature and all sciences (including the natural sciences); it is true that they have even become almost popular; But for that, many of the first-class thinkers have already begun to realize the insufficiency of this form of philosophy and I do not feel the needs of a new teaching based on higher principles, although they still do not clearly see from which side they can expect an answer to this unquenchable need of the aspiring spirit. Thus, according to the laws of the eternal movement of human thought, when a new system begins to descend into the lower strata of the educated world, at that very time advanced thinkers are already aware of its unsatisfactory nature and look ahead into that deep distance, into the blue infinity, where a new horizon opens up to their vigilant premonition. However, it should be noted that the word Hegelianism is not associated with any specific way of thinking, or with any permanent direction. The Hegelians agree among themselves only in the method of thinking and even more in the method of expression; but the results of their methods and the meaning of what is expressed are often completely opposite. Even during Hegel’s lifetime, between him and Hans, the most brilliant of his students, there was a complete contradiction in the applied conclusions of philosophy. The same disagreement is repeated among other Hegelians. For example, the way of thinking of Hegel and some of his followers reached extreme aristocracy; while other Hegelians preach the most desperate democratism; there were even some who derived from the same principles the doctrine of the most fanatical absolutism. In religious terms, others adhere to Protestantism in the strictest, ancient sense of the word, without deviating not only from the concept, but even from the letter of the teaching; others, on the contrary, reach the most absurd atheism. With regard to art, Hegel himself began by contradicting the newest trend, justifying the romantic and demanding the purity of artistic genera; Many Hegelians have remained with this theory even now, while others preach the latest art in the most extreme contrast to the romantic and with the most desperate uncertainty of forms and confusion of characters. Thus, oscillating between opposite directions, now aristocratic, now popular, now religious, now godless, now romantic, now new-life, now purely Prussian, now suddenly Turkish, now finally French - Hegel’s system in Germany had different characters, and not only at these opposite extremes, but also at every degree of their mutual distance, formed and left a special school of followers, who more or less incline now to the right, now to the left. Therefore, nothing can be more unfair than to attribute to one Hegelian the opinion of another, as sometimes happens in Germany, but more often in other literatures where Hegel’s system is not yet well known. As a result of this misunderstanding, most of Hegel’s followers suffer completely undeserved accusations. For it is natural that the harshest, ugliest thoughts of some of them are most likely to spread among the surprised public, as an example of excessive courage or amusing strangeness, and, not knowing all the flexibility of Hegel’s method, many unwittingly attribute to all the Hegelians what belongs, perhaps, to alone.

However, speaking about Hegel’s followers, it is necessary to distinguish those of them who are engaged in applying his methods to other sciences, from those who continue to develop his teaching in the field of philosophy. Of the first, there are some writers remarkable for the power of logical thinking; of the latter, not a single one of particular genius is still known, not a single one who would rise even to the living concept of philosophy, would penetrate beyond its external forms and would say at least one fresh thought that was not literally drawn from the writings of the teacher. Is it true, Erdman At first he promised original development, but then, however, for 14 years in a row he does not get tired of constantly turning over the same well-known formulas. The same external formality fills the essays Rosencrantz, Mishleta, Marheineke, Goto Roetscher And Gabler, although the latter also somewhat alters the direction of his teacher and even his very phraseology - either because he really understands him this way, or perhaps wants to understand him this way, sacrificing the accuracy of his expressions for the external benefit of the entire school. Werder for some time he enjoyed a reputation as a particularly gifted thinker, while he did not publish anything and was known only for his teaching to Berlin students; but having published a logic filled with commonplaces and old formulas, dressed in a worn but elaborate dress, with plump phrases, he proved that teaching talent is not a guarantee for the dignity of thinking. The true, only true and pure representative of Hegelianism remains to this day Hegel and he alone - although perhaps no one more than himself contradicted in his applications the basic principles of his philosophy.

Among Hegel's opponents it would be easy to count out many remarkable thinkers; but deeper and more devastating than others, it seems to us, after Schelling, Adolf Trendelenburi, a man who has deeply studied the ancient philosophers and attacks Hegel's method at the very source of its vitality, in the relation of pure thought to its fundamental principle. But here, as in all modern thinking, the destructive force of Trendelenburg is in clear imbalance with the creative one.

The attacks of the Herbartians have, perhaps, less logical irresistibility, but a more significant meaning, because in the place of the destroyed system they put not the emptiness of meaninglessness, from which the human mind has even more disgust than physical nature; but they offer another, ready-made, very worthy of attention, although still little appreciated Herbart’s system.

However, the less satisfactory the philosophical state of Germany is, the more religious need is revealed in it. In this respect, Germany is now a very curious phenomenon. The need for faith, so deeply felt by the highest minds, amid the general fluctuation of opinions, and, perhaps, as a result of this fluctuation, was revealed there by a new religious mood of many poets, the formation of new religious and artistic schools and, most of all, a new direction in theology. These phenomena are all the more important because they seem to be only the first beginning of a future, powerful development. I know that they usually say the opposite; I know that they see in the religious direction of some writers only an exception to the general, dominant state of mind. And indeed it is an exception, judging by the material, numerical majority of the so-called educated class; for it must be admitted that this class, more than ever, now belongs to the very left extreme of rationalism. But we must not forget that the development of popular thought does not come from the numerical majority. The majority expresses only the present moment and testifies more to the past, active force than to the advancing movement. To understand the direction, you have to look in the wrong direction. where there are more people, but where there is more inner vitality and where there is a fuller correspondence of thought to the crying needs of the age. If we take into account how noticeably the vital development of German rationalism has stopped; how mechanically he moves in unimportant formulas, going over the same worn-out positions; how every original flutter of thought apparently breaks out of these monotonous shackles and strives for another, warmer sphere of activity; - then we will be convinced that Germany has outlived its true philosophy, and that soon it will face a new, profound revolution in its beliefs.

To understand the latest direction of her Lutheran theology, one must recall the circumstances that served as the reason for its development.

At the end of the last and at the beginning of the present century, the majority of German theologians were, as we know, imbued with that popular rationalism which arose from the mixture of French opinions with German school formulas. This trend spread very quickly. Land surveyor, at the beginning of his career, was proclaimed a free-thinking new teacher; but at the end of his activity and without changing his direction, he himself suddenly found himself with the reputation of an obdurate Old Believer and a extinguisher of reason. The state of theological teaching around him changed so quickly and so completely.

In contrast to this weakening of faith, a small circle of people closed in a barely noticeable corner of German life intense believers, the so-called Pietists, who were somewhat close to the Herrnhuters and Methodists.

But the year 1812 awakened the need for higher convictions throughout Europe; Then, especially in Germany, religious feeling awoke again with renewed vigor. Napoleon, the revolution that took place throughout the entire educated world, the danger and salvation of the fatherland, the re-invention of all the foundations of life, brilliant, young hopes for the future - all this seething of great questions and enormous events could not help but touch the deepest side of human self-consciousness and awakened the highest powers of his spirit . Under such influence, a new generation of Lutheran theologians was formed, which naturally came into direct conflict with the previous one. From their mutual opposition in literature, in life and in government activities two schools arose: one, at that time new, fearing the autocracy of reason, adhered strictly to the symbolic books of its confession; the other allowed herself a reasonable interpretation. Perval, opposing the excessive, in her opinion, rights of philosophizing, joined her extreme members to the Pietists; the latter, while defending reason, sometimes bordered on pure rationalism. From the struggle of these two extremes an infinite number of middle directions have developed.

Meanwhile, the disagreement of these two parties on the most important issues, the internal disagreement of different shades of the same party, the disagreement of different representatives of the same shade, and finally, the attacks of pure rationalists, who are no longer among the believers, against all these parties and shades taken together - all this aroused in the general opinion the consciousness of the need for a more thorough study of the Holy Scriptures than as it had been done until that time, and most of all: the need for a firm definition of the boundaries between reason and faith. The new development of historical and especially philological and philosophical education in Germany coincided with this requirement and was partly strengthened by it. Instead of previously university students barely understanding Greek, now gymnasium students began to enter universities with a ready-made stock of thorough knowledge in the languages: Latin, Greek and Hebrew. Philological and historical departments were occupied by people of remarkable talents. Theological philosophy counted many famous representatives, but it was especially revived and developed by its brilliant and thoughtful teaching Schleiermacher, and another, the opposite of it, although not brilliant, but no less profound, although barely understandable, but, by some inexpressible, sympathetic connection of thoughts, the professor’s surprisingly fascinating teaching Dauba. These two systems were joined by a third, based on the philosophy of Hegel. The fourth party consisted of the remnants of the former Breitschneiderian popular rationalism. Behind them came the pure rationalists, with naked philosophizing without faith.

The more clearly the various directions were defined, the more multilaterally private issues were processed, the more difficult was their general agreement.

Meanwhile, the side of predominantly believers, strictly adhering to their symbolic books, had a great external advantage over others: only followers of the Augsburg Confession, which enjoyed state recognition as a result of the Peace of Westphalia, could have the right to patronage state power. As a result, many of them demanded the removal of those who opposed them from their places.

On the other hand, this very benefit was perhaps the reason for their little success. Against the attack of thought, resorting to the protection of an external force - for many it seemed a sign of internal failure. Moreover, their position had another weak side: the Augsburg Confession itself was based on the right of personal interpretation. To allow this right before the 16th century and not to allow it after seemed to many to be another contradiction. However, for one reason or another, but rationalism, suspended for a while and not defeated by the efforts of legitimate believers, began to spread again, now acting with redoubled force, strengthened by all the acquisitions of science, until, finally, following the inexorable flow of syllogisms, divorced from faith, he achieved the most extreme, most disgusting results.

Thus, the results that revealed the power of rationalism also served as its denunciation. If they could bring some momentary harm to the crowd imitatively repeating other people's opinions; for this reason, people who openly sought a solid foundation separated themselves from them the more clearly and the more decisively chose the opposite direction. As a result, the previous views of many Protestant theologians have changed significantly.

There is a party belonging to the most recent times, which looks at Protestantism no longer as a contradiction to Catholicism, but, on the contrary, separates Papism and the Council of Trent from Catholicism and sees in the Augsburg Confession the most legitimate, although not yet the last, expression of the continuously developing Church. These Protestant theologians, even in the Middle Ages, no longer recognize a deviation from Christianity, as Lutheran theologians have said until now, but its gradual and necessary continuation, considering not only internal, but even external uninterrupted churchliness one of the necessary elements of Christianity. – Instead of the previous desire to justify all uprisings against the Roman Church, now they are more inclined to condemn them. They readily accuse the Waldenses and Wyclifites, with whom they previously found so much sympathy; Gregory VII and Innocent III are acquitted, and even Goose is condemned for resistance to the legitimate authority of the Church, - The goose, which Luther himself, as legend says, called the predecessor of his swan song.

In accordance with this trend, they want some changes in their worship and especially, following the example of the Episcopal Church, they want to give greater predominance to the liturgical part itself over the sermon. For this purpose, all the liturgies of the first centuries were translated, and the most complete collection of all old and new church songs was compiled. In the matter of pastoring, they require not only teachings in church, but also exhortations in homes, along with constant monitoring of the lives of parishioners. To top it all off, they want to return to custom the former church punishments, ranging from a simple admonition to a solemn eruption, and even rebel against mixed marriages. Both of these in the Old Lutheran Church are no longer desires, but dogmas introduced into actual life.

However, it goes without saying that this trend does not belong to everyone, but only to some Protestant theologians. We noticed it more because it was new than because it was strong. And one should not think that in general, lawful believing Lutheran theologians, who equally recognize their symbolic books and agree with each other in rejecting rationalism, therefore agree in dogmatics itself. On the contrary, their differences are even more significant than might seem at first glance. For example, Julius Müller, who is revered by them as one of the most legal-minded, nevertheless deviates from others in his teaching about sin; despite the fact that this question almost belongs to the most central questions of theology. " Getstenberg, the most cruel opponent of rationalism, not everyone finds sympathy for this extreme of his bitterness, and among those who sympathize with him, very many disagree with him in some particulars of his teaching, such as, for example, in the concept of Prophecy, - although a special concept of prophecy must certainly lead to a special concept of the very relationship of human nature to the Divine, that is, of the very basis of dogma. Toluca, the most warm-hearted in his beliefs and the most warm-hearted in his thinking, is usually considered by his party to be an overly liberal thinker - meanwhile, one or another attitude of thinking to faith, with consistent development, should change the entire character of the doctrine. Neander they blame his forgiving tolerance and kind-hearted sympathy with other teachings, a feature that not only determines his distinctive view of the history of the church, but also the internal movement of the human spirit in general, and therefore separates the very essence of his teaching from others. Draw And Lykke They also disagree with their party in many ways. Everyone puts into his confession the distinctiveness of his personality. Despite the fact, however, Beck, one of the most remarkable representatives of the new religious movement, demands from Protestant theologians the compilation of a general, complete, scientific dogma, pure from personal opinions and independent of temporary systems. But, having considered all that has been said, we may, it seems, have some right to doubt the feasibility of this requirement. –

About the latest status French literature we will say only very little, and that, perhaps, is superfluous, because French literature is known to Russian readers, hardly more than domestic. Let us only note the contrast between the direction of the French mind and the direction of German thought. Here every question of life turns into a question of science; there every thought of science and literature turns into a question of life. Xiu's famous novel resonated not so much in literature as in society; its results were: a transformation in the structure of prisons, the formation of humane societies, etc. His other novel, now coming out, obviously owes its success to non-literary qualities. Balzac, who had such success before 1830 because he described the then dominant society, is now almost forgotten for precisely the same reason. The dispute between the clergy and the university, which in Germany would have given rise to abstract discussions about the relationship between philosophy and faith, state and religion, like the dispute about the Bishop of Cologne, in France only aroused greater attention to the current state of public education, to the nature of the activities of the Jesuits and to the modern direction of public education . The general religious movement of Europe was expressed in Germany by new dogmatic systems, historical and philological research and scientific philosophical interpretations; in France, on the contrary, it hardly produced one or two remarkable books, but it was all the more evident in religious societies, in political parties and in the missionary action of the clergy on the people. The natural sciences, which have achieved such enormous development in France, despite the fact that they are not only exclusively based on empiricism alone, but in the very fullness of their development are alien to speculative interest, caring primarily about application to business, about the benefits and benefits of existence , - meanwhile, in Germany, every step in the study of nature is determined from the point of view of a philosophical view, included in the system and assessed not so much by its benefits to life, but in relation to its speculative principles. So in Germany theology And philosophy constitute two most important subjects of general attention in our time, and their agreement is now the dominant need of German thought. In France, on the contrary, philosophical development is not a necessity, but a luxury of thinking. The essential question of the present moment is the agreement of society. Religious writers, instead of dogmatic development, seek real application, while political thinkers, even not imbued with religious conviction, invent artificial beliefs, trying to achieve in them the unconditionality of faith and its supramental immediacy.

The modern and almost equivalent excitement of these two interests: religious and social, two opposite ends, perhaps, of one torn thought, forces us to assume that the participation of modern France in the general development of human enlightenment, its place in the field of science in general, should be determined by that special the sphere from which both emanate and where these two different directions merge into one. But what result will come from this aspiration of thought? Will a new science be born from this: science public life, - as at the end of the last century, from the combined action of the philosophical and social mood of England, was born there new science of national wealth? Or will the effect of modern French thinking be limited only to changing some principles in other sciences? Is France destined to make or only begin this change? To guess this now would be idle daydreaming. A new direction is just beginning, and even then barely noticeably, to appear in literature - still unconscious in its specificity, not yet collected even into one question. But in any case, this movement of science in France cannot but seem to us more significant than all other aspirations of its thinking, and it is especially interesting to see how it begins to express itself in contradiction to the previous principles of political economy, the science with the subject of which it is most in contact. Questions about competition and monopoly, about the relationship between the excess of luxury products and the people's satisfaction, the cheapness of products to the poverty of workers, state wealth to the wealth of capitalists, the value of work to the value of goods, the development of luxury to the suffering of poverty, violent activity to mental savagery, the healthy morality of the people to their industrial education - all these questions are presented by many in a completely new form, directly contrary to the previous views of political economy, and now arouse the concern of thinkers. We are not saying that new views should enter science. They are still too immature for this, too one-sided, too imbued with the blinding spirit of the party, too darkened by the complacency of the newborn. We see that the latest courses in political economy are still compiled according to the same principles. But at the same time, we notice that attention has been aroused to new questions, and although we do not think that they could find their final solution in France, we cannot help but admit that her literature is destined to be the first to introduce this new element into the general laboratory of the human enlightenment.

This direction of French thinking seems to stem from the natural development of the entire body of French education. The extreme poverty of the lower classes served only as an external, accidental reason for this, and was not the cause, as some people think. Evidence of this can be found in the internal incoherence of those views for which popular poverty was the only outcome, and even more so in the fact that the poverty of the lower classes is incomparably greater in England than in France, although there the dominant movement of thought took a completely different direction.

IN England Although religious questions are aroused by the social situation, they nevertheless turn into dogmatic disputes, as, for example, in Puseism and its opponents; public questions are limited to local demands, or they raise a cry (and cry, as the English say), display the banner of some conviction, the significance of which lies not in the power of thought, but in the strength of the interests that correspond to it and gather around it.

In outward form, the way of thinking of the French is often very similar to the way of thinking of the English. This similarity seems to stem from the similarity of the philosophical systems they adopted. But the internal character of the thinking of these two peoples is also different, just as both of them are different from the character of the German thinking. The German laboriously and conscientiously develops his conviction from the abstract conclusions of his mind; The Frenchman takes it without thinking, out of heartfelt sympathy for this or that opinion; The Englishman arithmetically calculates his position in society and, based on the results of his calculations, forms his way of thinking. The names: Whig, Tory, Radical, and all the countless shades of English parties express not the personal characteristics of a person, as in France, and not the system of his philosophical belief, as in Germany, but the place that he occupies in the state. The Englishman is stubborn in his opinion because it is due to his social position; The Frenchman often sacrifices his position for his heartfelt conviction; and the German, although he does not sacrifice one to the other, still cares little about their agreement. French education moves through the development of prevailing opinion, or fashion; English - through the development of government; German - through armchair thinking. That is why the Frenchman is strong in his enthusiasm, the Englishman in his character, and the German in his abstract and systematic fundamentality.

But the more, as in our time, folk literature and personalities come closer together, the more their features are erased. Among the writers of England, who enjoy the fame of literary success more than others, there are two writers, two representatives of modern literature, completely opposite in their directions, thoughts, parties, goals and views, despite the fact, however, both, in various types, discover one truth: that the hour has come when the islander separateness of England is beginning to yield to the universality of continental enlightenment and merge with it into one sympathetic whole. Besides this similarity, Carlyle And Disraeli have nothing in common with each other. The first bears deep traces of German predilections. His style, filled, as English critics say, with a hitherto unheard of Germanism, meets with deep sympathy among many. His thoughts are clothed in German dreamy uncertainty; its direction expresses the interest of thought, instead of the English interest of the party. He does not pursue the old order of things, does not resist the movement of the new; he appreciates both, he loves both, respects the organic fullness of life in both, and, himself belonging to the party of progress, by the very development of its fundamental principle he destroys the exclusive desire for innovation.  Thus here, as in all modern phenomena of thought in Europe, newest direction contradicts new, who destroyed old.

Disraeli not infected by any foreign addiction. He's a representative young England, - a circle of young people expressing a special, extreme section of the Tory party. However, despite the fact that young England acts in the name of the most extreme conservation principles, but, if you believe Disraeli’s novel, the very basis of their beliefs completely destroys the interests of their party. They want to retain the old, but not in the form in which it exists in its current forms, but in its former spirit, which requires a form that is in many ways opposite to the present. For the benefit of the aristocracy, they want a living rapprochement and sympathy everyone classes; for the benefit of the Anglican Church, they want its rights to be equal with the Church of Ireland and other dissidents; to maintain agricultural superiority, they demand the abolition of the grain law, which protects it. In a word, the view of this Tory party obviously destroys the entire peculiarity of English Toryism, and at the same time the entire difference between England and other European countries.

But Disraeli is a Jew, and therefore has his own special views, which do not allow us to fully rely on the correctness of the beliefs he depicted younger generation. Only the extraordinary success of his novel, which is, however, devoid of literary merits proper, and most of all the success of the author, if you believe the magazines, in high English society, gives some credibility to his presentation.

Having thus enumerated the most remarkable movements in the literatures of Europe, we hasten to repeat what we said at the beginning of the article, that by denoting the modern, we did not mean to present a complete picture of the current state of literature. We only wanted to point out their latest trends, which are barely beginning to express themselves in new phenomena.

Meanwhile, if we collect everything that we have noticed into one result and compare it with the character of the European Enlightenment, which, although it developed earlier, continues to be dominant to this day, then from this point of view some results will be revealed to us that are very important for understanding our time. – Individual births literatures were mixed into one indefinite form.

– Individual sciences no longer remain within their former boundaries, but strive to get closer to the sciences adjacent to them, and in this expansion of their limits they adjoin their common center - philosophy.

– Philosophy in its final final development seeks such a principle, in the recognition of which it could merge with faith into one speculative unity.

– Individual Western nationalities, having reached the fullness of their development, strive to destroy the features that separate them and merge into one pan-European education.

This result is all the more remarkable because it developed from the exact opposite direction. It mainly arose from the desires of each people to study, restore and preserve their national identity. But the more deeply these aspirations developed in historical, philosophical and social conclusions, the more they reached the fundamental foundations of separate nationalities, the more clearly they encountered not special, but general European principles, equally belonging to all private nationalities. For in the general basis of European life there is one dominant principle.

- Meanwhile, this dominant principle of European life, separating from nationalities, thereby appears as outdated, as past in its meaning, although still continuing in fact. From that modern feature Western life lies in the general, more or less clear consciousness that this the beginning of European education, which developed throughout the history of the West, in our time turns out to be unsatisfactory for the highest requirements of enlightenment. Let us also note that this consciousness of the unsatisfactoriness of European life came from the consciousness that is directly opposite to it, from the conviction of the recently passed time that European enlightenment is the last and highest link of human development. One extreme turned to the other.

– But recognizing the unsatisfactory nature of European education, the general feeling thereby distinguishes it from other principles of all-human development and, designating it as special, reveals to us distinctive character fallen enlightenment in its parts and totality, as a primary desire for personal and original rationality in thoughts, in life, in society and in all the springs and forms of human existence. This character of unconditional rationality was also born from a long-past desire that preceded it, from a previous effort - not to educate, but to forcibly lock thought in one scholastic system.

– But if the general feeling of unsatisfactoriness from the very beginnings of European life is nothing more than a dark or clear consciousness the inadequacy of unconditional reason, then although it produces a desire for religiosity in general However, by its very origin from the development of reason, it cannot submit to a form of faith that would completely reject reason, nor be satisfied with one that would make faith dependent on it.

– The arts, poetry and even almost every creative dream were only possible in Europe for so long, as a living, necessary element of its education, until the dominant rationalism in its thought and life reached the last, extreme link of its development; for now they are possible only as a theatrical decoration that does not deceive the inner feelings of the viewer, who directly takes it for an artificial untruth that amuses his idleness, but without which his life will not lose anything essential. The truth for Western poetry can only be resurrected when a new beginning is accepted into the life of European enlightenment.

This alienation of art from life was preceded by a period of universal striving for artistry, which ended with the last artist of Europe - with the great Goethe, who expressed the second part of his Faust in poetry. The worries of daydreaming turned into the worries of industry. But in our time, the disagreement between poetry and life has become even more clear.

– From all that has been said, it also follows that the modern character of the European Enlightenment, in its historical, philosophical and life meaning, is completely unambiguous with the character of that era of Roman-Greek education, when, having developed to the point of contradicting itself, it, by natural necessity, had to to accept another, new beginning, stored among other tribes that did not have world-historical significance until that time.

Each time has its own dominant, its own vital question, prevailing over all, containing all others, on which alone their relative significance and limited meaning depend. If everything we have noticed about the present state of Western education is true, then one cannot help but be convinced that at the bottom of the European enlightenment, in our time, all particular questions about the movements of minds, about the directions of science, about the goals of life, about the various structures of societies, about the characters of people , family and personal relationships, about the dominant principles of the external and inner life of a person - all merge into one essential, living, great question about the attitude of the West to that hitherto unnoticed beginning of life, thinking and education, which lies at the foundation of the world of Orthodoxy. Slavyansky.

When we turn from Europe to our fatherland, from these general results derived by us from Western literatures, we move on to a review of literature in our fatherland, we will see in it a strange chaos of underdeveloped opinions, contradictory aspirations, discordant echoes of all possible movements of literatures: German, French, English, Italian, Polish, Swedish, various imitation of all possible and impossible European trends. But we hope to have the pleasure of talking about this in the next book.

In the first article of our review we said that Russian literature represents the totality of all possible influences various literatures European. It seems to us unnecessary to prove the truth of this remark: every book can serve as obvious evidence of this. We also consider it inappropriate to explain this phenomenon: its reasons lie in the history of our education. But having noticed it, realizing this all-accepting sympathy, this unconditional dependence of our literature on the various literatures of the West, we see in this very character of our literature, along with external similarities, its fundamental difference from all European literatures.

Let's expand our thought.

The history of all Western literature presents us with an inextricable connection between literary movements and the entire totality of popular education. The same inextricable connection exists between the development of education and the first elements that make up the life of the people. Certain interests are expressed in the corresponding structure of concepts; a certain way of thinking is based on certain relationships in life. What one experiences without consciousness, another seeks to comprehend with thought and expresses it in an abstract formula, or, conscious in the movement of the heart, pours it out in poetic sounds. No matter how different the incoherent, unaccountable concepts of a simple artisan or an illiterate plowman may seem, at first glance, from the captivatingly harmonious worlds of the poet’s artistic imagination, or from the deep systematic thought of an armchair thinker, upon closer examination it is obvious that between them lies the same internal gradualism , the same organic sequence that exists between the seed, flower and fruit of one tree.

How the language of a people represents the imprint of its natural logic and, if it does not fully express its way of thinking, then at least represents the foundation from which its mental life incessantly and naturally emanates; so the torn, undeveloped concepts of a people who do not yet think form the root from which the highest education of a nation grows. That is why all branches of education, being in living interpenetration, form one inextricably articulated whole.

For this reason, every movement in the literature of Western peoples flows from the internal movement of their education, which in turn is influenced by literature. Even those literatures that are subject to the influence of other peoples accept this influence only when it meets the requirements of their internal development, and assimilate it only to the extent that it is in harmony with the nature of their enlightenment. For them, the foreign is not a contradiction of their particularity, but only a step in the ladder of their own ascent. If we see that at the present moment all literatures sympathize with each other, merge, so to speak, into one pan-European literature, then this could only happen because the education of different peoples developed from the same beginning and, each passing its own path, finally achieved the same result, the same meaning of mental existence. But despite this similarity, even now the Frenchman not only does not fully accept German thought, but perhaps does not even fully understand it. In Germany, for the most part, the Jews are Frenchized, brought up in a break with popular beliefs and only later accepting the philosophical. The English are even less able to free themselves from their national characteristics. In Italy and Spain, although the influence of French literature is noticeable, this influence is more imaginary than significant, and French ready-made forms serve only as an expression of the internal state of their own education; for it is not French literature in general, but only the literature of the 18th century that still dominates in these belated lands.

This national fortress, this living integrity of the education of the European peoples, regardless of the falsity or truth of the direction, informs literature of their special meaning. It serves there not as amusement for some circles, not as a decoration for salons, not as a luxury of the mind that can be dispensed with, and not as a school task for students; but is necessary, as natural process mental breathing, as a direct expression and at the same time as an inevitable condition of any development of education. An unconscious thought, developed by history, suffered through life, darkened by its complex relationships and heterogeneous interests, rises with force literary activity along the ladder of mental development, from the lower strata of society to its highest circles, from unconscious instincts to the last stages of consciousness, and in this form it is no longer an ingenious truth, not an exercise in the art of rhetoric or dialectics, but an internal matter of more or less clear self-knowledge, more or less correct, but in any case essentially significant. Thus, she enters the sphere of general human enlightenment, as a living, inalienable element, as a person with a voice in the matter of general council; but it returns to its inner foundation, to the beginning of its origin, as the conclusion of the mind to unsolved circumstances, as the word of conscience to unconscious instincts. Of course, this mind, this conscience can be obscured, corrupted; but this corruption does not depend on the place that literature occupies in the education of the people, but on the distortion of their inner life; how in man the falsity of reason and the corruption of conscience arise not from the essence of reason and conscience, but from his personal corruption.

One state, among all our Western neighbors, presented an example of contrary development. In Poland, through the action of Catholicism, the upper classes separated very early from the rest of the people, not only by morals, as was the case in the rest of Europe, but also by the very spirit of their education, the basic principles of their mental life. This separation stopped the development of public education and, even more so, accelerated the education of the upper classes cut off from it. So the heavy carriage, laid down by the goose, will stand in place when the front lines burst, while the torn off forerunner is carried forward all the more easily. Not constrained by the peculiarities of folk life, nor by customs, nor by ancient legends, nor local relations, neither by the dominant way of thinking, nor even by the peculiarity of the language, brought up in the sphere of abstract questions, the Polish aristocracy in the 15th and 16th centuries was not only the most educated, but also the most learned, the most brilliant in all of Europe. Thorough knowledge foreign languages, in-depth study of the ancient classics, the extraordinary development of mental and social talents, surprised travelers and were the constant subject of reports of observant papal nuncios of that time. As a result of this education, literature was amazingly rich. It consisted of learned commentaries of ancient classics, successful and unsuccessful imitations, written partly in dandy Polish, partly in exemplary Latin, numerous and important translations, some of which are still considered exemplary, such as the translation of Tassa; others prove the depth of enlightenment, such as the translation of all the works of Aristotle, made back in the 16th century. During one reign of Sigismund III, 711 famous literary names shone, and printing houses worked continuously in more than 80 cities. But there was nothing in common between this artificial enlightenment and the natural elements of the mental life of the people. Because of this, a split occurred in the entire education of Poland. While the learned gentlemen wrote interpretations of Horace, translated Tassa and undeniably sympathized with all the phenomena of the European enlightenment of their time, this enlightenment was reflected only on the surface of life, without growing from the root, and thus, devoid of original development, all this abstract mental activity, this scholarship, this brilliance, these talents, these glories, these flowers plucked from foreign fields, all this rich literature disappeared almost without a trace for Polish education, and completely without a trace for the enlightenment of universal humanity, for that European education to which she was too faithful reflection True, Poland is proud of one phenomenon in the field of science, it brought one tribute to the treasury of universal human enlightenment: the great Copernicus was a Pole; but let us not forget that Copernicus left Poland in his youth and was brought up in Germany.

Thank God: between present-day Russia and old Poland there is not the slightest similarity, and therefore, I hope no one will reproach me for an inappropriate comparison and will not interpret my words into a different meaning if we say that in our attitude to literature such a the same abstract artificiality, the same flowers without roots, plucked from other people's fields. We translate, imitate, study other people's words, follow their slightest movements,

The theologian-orators sent (from Poland) to the Basel Council took first place there after the Bonnon Tullians.

Kazimir Jagaidovich started many Latin schools and was very concerned about the spread of the Latin language in Poland; he even issued a strict decree so that everyone who is looking for any significant position should be able to speak Latin well. Since then, it became a custom that every Polish noble spoke Latin... Even women zealously studied Latin. Yanotsky says, among other things, that Elisabeth, the wife of Casimir II, herself wrote the essay: De institutione regii pueri.

As before mathematics and jurisprudence, at this time the fine sciences flourished in Poland, and the study of Latin quickly rose.

Jor. Lud. Decius(a contemporary of Sigismund I) testifies that among the Sarmatians you rarely meet a person from a good family who does not know three or four languages, and everyone knows Latin.

Queen Barbara, the wife of Sigismund, not only completely understood the Latin classics, but also wrote to the king, her husband, in Latin....

And among Latium, says Cromer, there would not be so many people who could prove their knowledge of the Latin language. Even girls, both from the nobility and from ordinary families, both in their homes and in monasteries, read and write equally well in Polish and Latin. – And in the collection of letters from 1390 to 1580. Kamusara, a modern writer, says that out of a hundred nobles it is hardly possible to find two who do not know the languages: Latin, German and Italian. They learn them in schools, and this happens by itself, because there is no poor village in Poland, or even a tavern, where there are not people who speak these three languages, and in every village, even the smallest one, there is a school (see. Mémoires de F. Choisnin). This important fact has a very deep meaning in our eyes. Meanwhile, the author continues, the folk language for the most part remained only in the mouths of common people

The thirst for European glory forced me to write in the universal Latin language; for this, Polish poets received crowns from German emperors and popes, and politicians acquired diplomatic connections

The extent to which Poland in the 15th and 16th centuries surpassed other peoples in knowledge of ancient literature is clear from many testimonies, especially foreign ones. De Thou, in his history, under the year 1573, describing the arrival of the Polish embassy in France, says that of the large crowd of Poles who entered Paris on fifty horse-drawn horses drawn by fours, there was not a single one who did not speak Latin in perfection; that the French nobles blushed with shame when they only had to wink in response to questions from guests; that in the whole court there were only two who assimilated other people's thoughts and systems, and these exercises constitute the decoration of our educated living rooms, sometimes have an influence on the very actions of our life, but, not being connected with the fundamental development of our historically given education to us, they They separate us from the internal source of national enlightenment, and at the same time they make us fruitless for the common cause of enlightenment for all mankind. The works of our literature, as reflections of European ones, cannot have any interest for other peoples, except for statistical interest, as an indication of the measure of our student success in the study of their samples. For ourselves, they are curious as an addition, as an explanation, as an assimilation of other people's phenomena; but even for ourselves, with the general spread of knowledge of foreign languages, our imitations always remain somewhat lower and weaker than their originals.

It goes without saying that I am not talking here about those extraordinary phenomena in which the personal power of genius operates. Derzhavin, Karamzin, Zhukovsky, Pushkin, Gogol, even if they followed someone else’s influence, even if they paved their own special path, will always act strongly, with the power of their personal talent, regardless of the direction they have chosen. I am not talking about exceptions, but about literature in general, in its ordinary state.

There is no doubt that there is a clear disagreement between our literary education and the fundamental elements of our mental life, which developed in our ancient history and are now preserved in our so-called uneducated people. Disagreement is happening

could answer these envoys in Latin, for which they were always put forward. – The famous Muret, comparing learned Poland with Italy, puts it this way: which of the two nations is ruder? Was he not born in the bosom of Italy? Among them you can hardly find a hundredth of those who would know Latin and Greek, and would love science. Or the Poles, who have a lot of people who speak both of these languages, and they are so attached to the sciences and arts that they spend their whole century studying them. (see M. Ant. Mureti Ep. 66 ad Paulum Sacratum, ed. Kappii, p. 536). – The famous member of the learned Triumvirate, Justus Lipsy (one of the first philologists of that time), says the same thing in a letter to one of his friends, who then lived in Poland: How can I be surprised at your knowledge? You live among those people who were once a barbarian people; and now we are barbarians before them. They received the Muses, despised and expelled from Greece and Latium, into their warm and hospitable embrace (see Epist. Cont. ad Germ, et Gail. ep. 63). not from the difference in degrees of education, but from their complete heterogeneity. Those principles of mental, social, moral and spiritual life that created the former Russia and now constitute the only sphere of its people’s life, did not develop into our literary enlightenment, but remained untouched, divorced from the successes of our mental activity, while passing them by, without our relationship to them, our literary enlightenment flows from foreign sources, completely different not only from the forms, but often even from the very beginnings of our beliefs. This is why every movement in our literature is determined not by the internal movement of our education, as in the West, but by the phenomena of foreign literature that are accidental to it.

Perhaps those who claim that we Russians are more capable of understanding Hegel and Goethe than the French and English think rightly; that we can sympathize more fully with Byron and Dickens than the French and even the Germans; that we can appreciate Beranger and Georges Sand better than the Germans and the British. And in fact, why can’t we understand, why can’t we evaluate the most opposite phenomena? If we break away from popular beliefs, then no special concepts, no definite way of thinking, no cherished passions, no interests, no ordinary rules will hinder us. We can freely share all opinions, assimilate all systems, sympathize with all interests, accept all beliefs. But submitting to the influence of foreign literature, we cannot, in turn, act on them with our pale reflections of their own phenomena; we cannot even act on our own literary education, which is directly subordinate to the strongest influence of foreign literature, and we cannot act on the education of the people; , because between her and us there is no mental connection, no sympathy, no common language.

I readily agree that, looking at our literature from this point of view, I have expressed here only one side of it, and this one-sided view, appearing in such a harsh form, not softened by its other qualities, does not give a complete, real idea of ​​​​the whole character of our literature. But this sharp or softened side nevertheless exists, and exists as a disagreement that requires resolution.

How can our literature emerge from its artificial state, acquire significance, which it still does not have, come into agreement with the entire totality of our education and appear at the same time as an expression of its life and the spring of its development?

Here two opinions are sometimes heard, both equally one-sided, equally unfounded, both equally impossible.

Some people think that the complete assimilation of foreign education can, over time, recreate the entire Russian people, just as it recreated some writing and non-writing writers, and then the entire totality of our education will come into agreement with the character of our literature. According to their concept, the development of certain basic principles should change our fundamental way of thinking, change our morals, our customs, our beliefs, erase our peculiarities and thus make us European enlightened.

Is it worth refuting this opinion?

Its falsity seems obvious without proof. It is just as impossible to destroy the peculiarity of a people’s mental life as it is impossible to destroy its history. It is as easy to replace the fundamental beliefs of a people with literary concepts as it is to change the bones of a developed organism with an abstract thought. However, even if we could admit for a moment that this assumption could actually be fulfilled, then in that case its only result would not be enlightenment, but the destruction of the people themselves. For what is a people if not a body of convictions, more or less developed in its morals, in its customs, in its language, in its concepts of the heart and mind, in its religious, social and personal relations, in a word, in the entire fullness of its life ? Moreover, the idea, instead of the beginnings of our education, to introduce among us the beginnings of European education, already destroys itself because in the final development of European enlightenment there is no dominant principle. One contradicts the other, mutually destroying. If there are still a few living truths left in Western life, more or less still surviving amid the general destruction of all special beliefs, then these truths are not European, because they are in contradiction with all the results of European education; - these are the surviving remnants of Christian principles, which, therefore, belong not to the West, but more to us, who accepted it in its purest form, although, perhaps, the existence of these principles is not assumed in our education by unconditional admirers of the West, who do not know the meaning of our enlightenment and confuse it contains the essential with the accidental, its own, the necessary with extraneous distortions of foreign influences: Tatar, Polish, German, etc.

As for the European principles themselves, as they expressed themselves in the latest results, taken separately from the previous life of Europe! and placed as the basis for the education of a new people, what will they produce, if not a pitiful caricature of enlightenment, like a poem arising from the rules of literature? , would be a caricature of poetry? The experiment has already been done. It seemed what a brilliant destiny lay ahead for the United States of America, built on such a reasonable foundation, after such a great beginning! - And what happened? Only external forms of society developed and, deprived of the internal source of life, crushed man under external mechanics. The literature of the United States, according to the reports of the most impartial judges, furnishes a clear expression of this condition. - A huge factory of mediocre poems, without the slightest shadow of poetry; official epithets that express nothing and, despite this, are constantly repeated; complete insensitivity to everything artistic; obvious contempt for any thinking that does not lead to material benefits; petty personalities with no common ground; plump phrases with the narrowest meaning, desecration of holy words: love of mankind, fatherland, public good, nationality, to the point that their use became not even hypocrisy, but a simple, generally understandable stamp of selfish calculations; outward respect for the external side of laws, even in the most blatant violation of them; a spirit of complicity for personal gain, with the unblushing infidelity of the persons united, with a clear disrespect for all moral principles, so that at the basis of all these mental movements, obviously lies the smallest life, cut off from everything that raises the heart above personal self-interest, drowned in the activity of selfishness and recognizing material comfort, with all its service forces, as its highest goal. No! If the Russian is already destined, for some unrepentant sins, to exchange his great future for the one-sided life of the West, then I would rather dream with the abstract German in his intricate theories; It’s better to be lazy to death under the warm sky, in the artistic atmosphere of Italy; It’s better to spin with the Frenchman in his impetuous, momentary aspirations; It is better to petrify with the Englishman in his stubborn, unaccountable habits than to suffocate in this prose of factory relations, in this mechanism of selfish anxiety.

We have not moved away from our subject. The extreme of the result, although not conscious, but logically possible, reveals the falsity of the direction.

Another opinion, opposite to this unconscious worship of the West and equally one-sided, although much less widespread, lies in the unconscious worship of the past forms of our antiquity, and in the idea that over time the newly acquired European enlightenment will again have to be erased from our mental life by the development of our special education .

Both opinions are equally false; but the latter has a more logical connection. It is based on the consciousness of the dignity of our previous education, on the disagreement between this education and the special character of European enlightenment, and finally, on the inconsistency latest results European enlightenment. It is possible to disagree with each of these points; but, once they have been admitted, one cannot blame the opinion based on them for a logical contradiction, just as, for example, one can blame the opposite opinion, which preaches Western enlightenment and cannot point out in this enlightenment any central, positive principle, but is content with some particular truths or negative formulas.

Meanwhile, logical infallibility does not save opinions from essential one-sidedness; on the contrary, it makes it even more obvious. Whatever our education may be, its past forms, which appeared in some customs, preferences, relationships and even in our language, precisely because they could not be a pure and complete expression of the internal principle of people's life, because they were its external forms, therefore, the result of two various figures: one, the expressed principle, and the other, local and temporary circumstance. Therefore, any form of life, once passed, is no longer returnable, like the feature of time that participated in its creation. restoring these forms is the same as resurrecting a dead person, reviving the earthly shell of the soul, which has already flown away from it once. A miracle is needed here; Logic is not enough; Unfortunately, even love is not enough!

Moreover, no matter what the European enlightenment may be, if we once became participants in it, then it is beyond our power to destroy its influence, even if we wished to do so. You can subordinate it to another, higher one, direct it to one or another goal; but it will always remain an essential, already inalienable element of any future development of ours. It is easier to learn everything new in the world than to forget what you have learned. However, even if we could even forget at will, if we could return to that separate feature of our education from which we came, then what benefit would we receive from this new separation? It is obvious that sooner or later, we would again come into contact with European principles, would again be subject to their influence, would again have to suffer from their disagreement with our education, before we had time to subordinate them to our principles; and thus would continually return to the same question that occupies us now.

But besides all the other incongruities of this trend, it also has that dark side that, unconditionally rejecting everything European, thereby cuts us off from any participation in the general cause of human mental existence; for we must not forget that European enlightenment inherited all the results of the education of the Greco-Roman world, which in turn absorbed all the fruits of the mental life of the entire human race. Divorced in this way from the general life of humanity, the beginning of our education, instead of being the beginning of the living, true, complete enlightenment, will necessarily become a one-sided beginning and, therefore, will lose all its universal significance.

The direction towards nationality is true among us, as the highest level of education, and not as stuffy provincialism. Therefore, guided by this thought, one can look at European enlightenment as incomplete, one-sided, not imbued with the true meaning, and therefore false; but to deny it as if it does not exist means to constrain one’s own. If the European is, in fact, false, if it really contradicts the beginning of true education, then this beginning, as true, should not leave this contradiction in the mind of a person, but, on the contrary, accept it into itself, evaluate it, put it within its boundaries and, subordinating it to such image of one’s own superiority, to convey to it its true meaning. The supposed falsity of this enlightenment does not in the least contradict the possibility of its subordination to the truth. For everything that is false, at its core, is true, only put in someone else’s place: there is no essentially false, just as there is no essentiality in a lie.

Thus, both opposing views on the relationship of our indigenous education to European enlightenment, both of these extreme opinions are equally unfounded. But we must admit that in this extreme of development, in which we have presented them here, they do not exist in reality. True, we constantly meet people who, in their way of thinking, deviate more or less to one side or the other, but they do not develop their one-sidedness to the last results. On the contrary, the only reason they can remain in their one-sidedness is that they do not bring it to the first conclusions, where the question becomes clear, because from the realm of unaccountable predilections it passes into the sphere of rational consciousness, where the contradiction is destroyed by its own expression. That is why we think that all disputes about the superiority of the West, or Russia, about the dignity of European history, or ours, and similar arguments are among the most useless, the most empty questions that the idleness of a thinking person can come up with.

And what, in fact, is the benefit for us to reject or discredit what was or is good in the life of the West? Is it not, on the contrary, an expression of our own beginning, if our beginning is true? As a result of his dominion over us, everything beautiful, noble, Christian is, of necessity, our own, even if it is European, even if it is African. The voice of truth does not weaken, but is strengthened by its consonance with everything that is true, anywhere.

On the other hand, if the admirers of the European Enlightenment, from unconscious predilections for one or another form, for one or another negative truth, wanted to rise to the very beginning of the mental life of man and people, which alone gives meaning and truth to all external forms and private truths; then, without a doubt, they would have to admit that the enlightenment of the West does not represent this highest, central, dominant principle, and, therefore, they would be convinced that introducing particular forms of this enlightenment means destroying without creating, and that if in these forms, in in these particular truths there is something essential, then this essential can only be assimilated to us when it grows from our root, will be a consequence of our own development, and not when it falls to us from the outside, in the form of a contradiction to the entire structure of our conscious and ordinary existence .

This consideration is usually overlooked even by those writers who, with a conscientious desire for truth, try to give themselves a reasonable account of the meaning and purpose of their mental activity. But what about those who act unaccountably? Those who are carried away by the Western only because it is not ours, because they know neither the character, nor the meaning, nor the dignity of the principle that lies at the foundation of our historical life, and not knowing it, do not care to find out, frivolously mixing condemnation and random shortcomings into one and the very essence of our education? What can we say about those who are effeminately seduced by the outward splendor of European education, without delving into either the basis of this education or its internal meaning, nor in that character of contradiction, inconsistency, self-destruction, which obviously lies not only in the general result of Western life, but even in each of its individual phenomena - obviously, I say, in the case when we are not content with the external concept of the phenomenon , but let’s delve into its full meaning from the main beginning to the final conclusions.

However, while saying this, we feel that our words will now find little sympathy. Zealous admirers and disseminators of Western forms and concepts are usually content with such small demands from enlightenment that they can hardly reach the awareness of this internal disagreement in European education. They think, on the contrary, that if the entire mass of humanity in the West has not yet reached the final boundaries of its possible development, then at least its highest representatives have reached them; that all essential problems have already been solved, all secrets have been laid out, all misunderstandings are clear, doubts are over; that human thought has reached the extreme limits of its growth; that now all that remains for it is to spread into general recognition, and that in the depths of the human spirit there are no longer any significant, glaring, unsilencing questions left to which it could not find a complete, satisfactory answer in the comprehensive thinking of the West; for this reason, we can only learn, imitate and assimilate other people's wealth.

It is obviously impossible to argue with this opinion. Let them be comforted by the completeness of their knowledge, proud of the truth of their direction, boast of the fruits of their external activity, and admire the harmony of their inner life. We will not break their happy charm; they earned their blissful contentment by the wise moderation of their mental and heartfelt demands. We agree that we are not able to convince them, because their opinion is strong with the sympathy of the majority, and we think that only over time it can be shaken by the force of its own development. But until then, let us not hope that these admirers of European perfection will comprehend the deep meaning that lies hidden in our education.

For two educations, two revelations of mental powers in man and peoples, are presented to us by impartial speculation, the history of all centuries, and even daily experience. Education alone is the internal structure of the spirit by the power of the truth communicated in it; the other is the formal development of the mind and external knowledge. The first depends on the principle to which a person submits and can be communicated directly; the second is the fruit of slow and difficult work. The first gives meaning and significance to the second, but the second gives it content and completeness. For the first there is no changing development, there is only direct recognition, preservation and spread in the subordinate spheres of the human spirit; the second, being the fruit of centuries-old, gradual efforts, experiments, failures, successes, observations, inventions and all the successively rich mental property of the human race, cannot be created instantly, nor guessed by the most brilliant inspiration, but must be composed little by little from the combined efforts of all individual understandings. However, it is obvious that the first only has significant significance for life, investing in it one or another meaning; for from its source flow the fundamental convictions of man and peoples; it determines the order of their internal and the direction of their external existence, the nature of their private, family and social relationships, is the initial spring of their thinking, the dominant sound of their mental movements, the color of language, the cause of conscious preferences and unconscious biases, the basis of morals and customs, the meaning of their history.

Submitting to the direction of this higher education and supplementing it with its content, the second education arranges the development of the external side of thought and external improvements in life, without itself containing any compulsory force in one direction or another. For, in its essence and in separation from extraneous influences, it is something in between good and evil, between the power of elevation and the power of distortion of man, like any external information, like a collection of experiences, like an impartial observation of nature, like development artistic technique, like the cognizing mind itself, when it acts isolated from other human abilities and develops self-propelledly, not carried away by low passions, not illuminated by higher thoughts, but silently transmitting one abstract knowledge that can be equally used for benefit and harm, for the service of truth or to reinforce the lie.

The very spinelessness of this external, logical-technical education allows it to remain in a people or a person even when they lose or change the internal basis of their being, their initial faith, their fundamental beliefs, their essential character, their life direction. The remaining education, experiencing the dominance of the higher principle that controlled it, enters the service of another, and thus passes unharmed all the various turning points of history, constantly growing in its content until the last minute of human existence.

Meanwhile, in the very times of turning points, in these epochs of decline of a person or a people, when the basic principle of life bifurcates in his mind, falls apart and thus loses all its strength, which consists primarily in the integrity of being: then this second education, rationally external, formal, is the only support of unconfirmed thought and dominates, through rational calculation and balance of interests, over the minds of internal convictions.

History presents us with several similar epochs of turning point, separated from each other by millennia, but closely connected by the inner sympathy of the spirit, similar to the sympathy that is noticed between the thinking of Hegel and the inner basis of the thinking of Aristotle.

Usually these two educations are confused. From this, in the half of the 18th century, an opinion could arise, first developed by Lessing and Condorset, and then becoming universal - the opinion of some kind of constant, natural and necessary improvement of man. It arose in contrast to another opinion, which asserted the immobility of the human race, with some periodic fluctuations up and down. Perhaps there was no thought more confusing than these two. For, if in fact the human race were perfected, then why does man not become more perfect? If nothing in man developed or grew, then how could we explain the indisputable improvement of some sciences?

One thought denies in man the universality of reason, progress logical conclusions, memory power, the ability to verbally interact, etc.; the other kills his freedom of moral dignity.

But the opinion about the immobility of the human race had to give way in general recognition to the opinion about the necessary development of man, for the latter was the consequence of another error belonging exclusively to the rational direction of recent centuries. This misconception lies in the assumption that it is the living understanding of the spirit, the inner structure of man, which is the source of his guiding thoughts, strong deeds, reckless aspirations, sincere poetry, strong life and higher vision of the mind, as if it can be composed artificially, so to speak mechanically, from one development of logical formulas. This opinion was dominant for a long time, until, finally, in our time it began to be destroyed by the successes of higher thinking. For the logical mind, cut off from other sources of knowledge and not yet fully experiencing the extent of its power, although it first promises to create for man internal image thoughts, to convey a non-formal, living view of the world and oneself; but, having developed to the final boundaries of its scope, it itself recognizes the incompleteness of its negative knowledge and, as a result of its own conclusion, demands for itself another higher principle, unattainable by its abstract mechanism.

This is now the state of European thinking - a state that determines the attitude of European enlightenment to the fundamental principles of our education. For if the former, exclusively rational character of the West could act destructively on our life and mind, now, on the contrary, the new demands of the European mind and our fundamental beliefs have the same meaning. And if it is true that the main principle of our Orthodox-Slavic education is true (which, however, I consider neither necessary nor appropriate to prove here), - if it is true, I say, that this supreme, living principle of our enlightenment is true: then it is obvious that just as it was once the source of our ancient education, so now it should serve as a necessary complement to European education, separating it from its special directions, clearing it of the character of exclusive rationality and imbuing it with a new meaning; while European education, like the ripe fruit of human development, torn from the old tree, should serve as food for new life, be a new stimulating means for the development of our mental activity.

Therefore, the love for European education, as well as the love for ours, both coincide at the last point of their development into one love, into one desire for a living, complete, all-human and truly Christian enlightenment.

On the contrary, in their underdeveloped state they are both false: for one does not know how to accept someone else’s without betraying his own; the other, in her close embrace, strangles what she wants to preserve. One limitation comes from belated thinking and ignorance of the depth of teaching that underlies our education; the other, aware of the shortcomings of the first, is too passionately in a hurry to become in direct contradiction to it. But despite all their one-sidedness, one cannot help but admit that both can be based on equally noble motives, the same strength of love for enlightenment and even for the fatherland, despite the outward opposition.

This is our concept of the right attitude our national education to the European one, and it was necessary for us to express two extreme views before we begin to consider the particular phenomena of our literature.

Having been a reflection of foreign literature, our literary phenomena, like Western ones, are predominantly concentrated in journalism.

But what is the nature of our periodicals? It is difficult for a magazine to express its opinion about other magazines. Praise may seem partial; blame may have the appearance of self-praise. But how can we talk about our literature without understanding what constitutes its essential character? How to determine the real meaning of literature, not to mention magazines? Let us try not to worry about the appearance that our judgments may have.

Now remains older than all other literary magazines Reading Library. Its dominant character is the complete absence of any definite way of thinking. She praises today what she condemned yesterday; today he puts forward one opinion and now he preaches another; for the same subject has several opposing views; expresses no special rules, no theories, no system, no direction, no color, no conviction, no definite basis for his judgments; and, despite this, he constantly pronounces his judgment on everything that appears in literature or science. She does this in such a way that for each special phenomenon she composes special laws, from which her condemnatory or approving verdict randomly comes and falls - on the happy one. For this reason, the effect that every expression of her opinion produces is the same as if she had not uttered any opinion at all. The reader understands the judge's thought separately, and the object to which the judgment relates also lies separately in his mind: for he feels that there is no other relationship between the thought and the object, except that they met by chance and for a short time, and having met again not get to know each other.

It goes without saying that this special kind of impartiality deprives Library for Reading every opportunity to have an influence on literature as a magazine, but does not prevent it from acting as a collection of articles, often very interesting. In her editor, in addition to her extraordinary, multifaceted and often amazing scholarship, she also has a special, rare and precious gift: to present the most difficult questions of science in the clearest and most understandable form, and to enliven this presentation with her own, always original, often witty remarks. This quality alone could make any periodical publication famous, not only here, but even in foreign lands.

But the most lively part of B. d. Ch. lies in the bibliography. her reviews are full of wit, fun and originality. You can't help but laugh while reading them. We have happened to see authors whose works were dismantled, and who themselves could not resist good-natured laughter while reading the verdicts on their works. For in the judgments of the Library such a complete absence of any serious opinion is noticeable that its most outwardly evil attacks take on a fantastically innocent character, so to speak, good-naturedly angry. It is clear that she laughs not because the subject is actually funny, but only because she wants to laugh. She alters the words of the author according to her intention, connects those separated by meaning, separates those connected, inserts or releases entire speeches to change the meaning of others, sometimes composes phrases completely unprecedented in the book from which she is copying, and she herself laughs at her composition. The reader sees this and laughs with her, because her jokes are almost always witty and cheerful, because they are innocent, because they are not embarrassed by any serious opinion, and because, finally, the magazine, joking in front of him, does not announce any claims What other success than the honor of making the audience laugh and amuse them?

Meanwhile, although we sometimes look through these reviews with great pleasure, although we know that this playfulness is probably the main reason for the success of the magazine, however, when we consider at what price this success is bought, how sometimes, for the pleasure of amusing, loyalty is sold words, the reader's trust, respect for truth, etc. - then the thought involuntarily comes to us: what if words were combined with such brilliant qualities, with such wit, with such learning, with such versatility of mind, with such originality Still other virtues, for example, sublime thought, a firm and unchanging conviction, or even impartiality, or even his outward appearance? - What effect could B.D.Ch. have then, not on our literature, but on the entire totality of our education? How easily could she, through her rare qualities, take possession of the minds of readers, develop her conviction strongly, spread it widely, attract the sympathy of the majority, become a judge of opinions, perhaps penetrate from literature into life itself, bind it various phenomena into one thought and, thus dominating the minds, form a tightly knit and highly developed opinion that can be a useful engine of our education? Of course, then she would be less funny.

The character of the Library for Reading is completely opposite to that of Mayak and Otechestvennye Zapiski. Meanwhile, the Library as a whole is more a collection of heterogeneous articles than a journal; and in its criticism its sole purpose is to amuse the reader, without expressing any definite way of thinking: on the contrary, Otechestvennye Zapiski and Mayak are each imbued with their own sharply defined opinion and each express their own, equally decisive, although directly opposite direction to one another.

Domestic Notes strive to guess and appropriate to themselves that view of things, which, in their opinion, constitutes the newest expression of European enlightenment, and therefore, often changing their way of thinking, they constantly remain faithful to one concern: to express the most fashionable thought, the newest feeling from Western literature.

Mayak, on the contrary, notices only that side of Western enlightenment that seems to him harmful or immoral, and, in order to more accurately avoid sympathy with it, rejects all European enlightenment completely, without entering into dubious proceedings. That is why one person praises what another scolds; one admires what arouses indignation in another; even the same expressions that in the dictionary of one magazine mean the highest degree of dignity, for example. Europeanism, last moment development, human wisdom, etc., - in the language of another they have the meaning of extreme censure. Therefore, without reading one magazine, you can know his opinion from another, understanding only all his words in the opposite sense.

Thus, in the general movement of our literature, the one-sidedness of one of these periodicals is usefully balanced by the opposite one-sidedness of the other. Mutually destroying each other, each of them, without knowing it, complements the shortcomings of the other, so that the meaning and meaning, even the way of thinking and content of one, are based on the possibility of the existence of the other. The very polemics between them serve as the reason for their inextricable connection and constitute, so to speak, a necessary condition for their mental movement. However, the nature of this controversy is completely different in both journals. Mayak attacks Otechestvennye Zapiski directly, openly and with heroic tirelessness, noticing their misconceptions, errors, reservations and even typos. Domestic Notes care little about Mayak as a journal, and even rarely talk about it; but for this they constantly keep in mind its direction, against the extreme of which they try to set up the opposite, no less passionate extreme. This struggle maintains the possibility of life for both and constitutes their main significance in literature.

This is the confrontation between Mayak and Fatherland. We consider notes to be a useful phenomenon in our literature because, expressing two extreme trends, they, by their exaggeration of these extremes, necessarily present them somewhat in caricature, and thus involuntarily lead the reader’s thoughts onto the path of prudent moderation in errors. In addition, each magazine of its kind reports many interesting, practical and useful articles for the dissemination of our education. For we think that our education should contain the fruits of both directions; We only do not think that these directions should remain in their exclusive one-sidedness.

However, when we talk about two directions, we mean more the ideals of the two journals than the journals themselves in question. For, unfortunately, neither the Lighthouse nor Otechestvennye Zapiski far achieve the goal that they envisage.

To reject everything Western and recognize only that side of our education that is directly opposite to the European one is, of course, a one-sided direction; however, it could have some subordinate meaning if the magazine expressed it in all the purity of its one-sidedness; but, taking it as its goal, the Lighthouse mixes with it some heterogeneous, random and clearly arbitrary principles, which sometimes destroy its main meaning. So, for example, putting the holy truths of our Orthodox faith as the basis for all his judgments, he at the same time takes other truths as his basis: the provisions of his self-created psychology, and judges things according to three criteria, four categories and ten elements. Thus, mixing his personal opinions with general truths, he demands that his system be accepted as the cornerstone of national thinking. As a result of this same confusion of concepts, he thinks to render a great service to literature by destroying, along with the Fatherland Notes, that which constitutes the glory of our literature. Thus, he proves, among other things, that Pushkin’s poetry is not only terrible and immoral, but that there is also no beauty, no art, no good poetry, or even correct rhymes. So, taking care of improving the Russian language and trying to give it softness, sweetness, sonorous charm who would do his common language throughout Europe, he himself, at the same time, instead of speaking in Russian, uses the language of his own invention.

That is why, despite the many great truths expressed here and there by the Lighthouse, and which, if presented in their pure form, should have gained him the living sympathy of many; It is difficult, however, to sympathize with him because the truths in him are mixed with concepts, at least strange ones.

Domestic Notes, for their part, also destroy their own power in a different way. Instead of conveying to us the results of European education, they are constantly carried away by some particular phenomena of this education and, without fully embracing it, think to be new, being in fact always belated. For the passionate pursuit of fashionable opinion, the passionate desire to assume the appearance of a lion in the circle of thinking, in itself already proves a distance from the center of fashion. This desire gives to our thoughts, our language, our entire appearance, that character of self-doubting sharpness, that cut of bright exaggeration, which serve as a sign of our alienation from precisely the circle to which we want to belong.

Arrivé de province à Paris, says one thoughtful and respectable magazine (I think l’Illustration or Guêpes), arrivé a Paris il voulut s’habiller à la mode du lendemain; U eut exprimer les émotions de son âme par les noeuds de sa cravatte et il abusa de l"épingle.

Of course, O.Z. take their opinions from the newest books of the West; but they accept these books separately from the entirety of Western education, and therefore the meaning that they have there appears to them in a completely different meaning; that thought that was new there, as an answer to the totality of questions surrounding it, having been torn away from these questions, is no longer new with us, but just an exaggerated antiquity.

Thus, in the sphere of philosophy, without presenting the slightest trace of those tasks that constitute the subject of modern thinking in the West, 0. 3. they preach systems that are already outdated, but add to them some new results that do not fit with them. Thus, in the sphere of history, they accepted some of the opinions of the West, which appeared there as a result of the desire for nationality; but having understood them separately from their source, they deduce from them the denial of our nationality, because it does not agree with the nationalities of the West, just as the Germans once rejected their nationality because it is unlike the French. Thus, in the field of literature, the Fatherland was noticed. Notes that in the West, not without benefit for the successful movement of education, some undeserved authorities were destroyed, and as a result of this remark, they seek to humiliate all our fame, trying to reduce the literary reputation of Derzhavin, Karamzin, Zhukovsky, Baratynsky, Yazykov, Khomyakov, and in their place extol I. Turgenev and F. Maykov, thus placing them in the same category with Lermontov, who probably would not have chosen this place for himself in our literature. Following the same beginning, O.Z. are trying to update our language with their special words and forms.

That is why we dare to think that both O.Z. and Mayak express a direction that is somewhat one-sided and not always true. The Northern Bee is more a political newspaper than a literary magazine. But in its non-political part it expresses the same desire for morality, improvement and decency that O.Z. displays for European education. She judges things according to her moral concepts, conveys in quite a variety of ways everything that seems wonderful to her, communicates everything that she likes, reports everything that is not to her heart’s content, very zealously, but perhaps not always fairly.

We have some reason to think that this is not always fair.

In the Literary Newspaper we were not able to open any special direction. This reading is mostly light - dessert reading, a little sweet, a little spicy, literary sweets, sometimes a little greasy, but all the more pleasant for some undemanding organisms.

Along with these periodicals, we must also mention Sovremennik, because it is also a literary magazine, although we admit that we would not like to confuse its name with other names. It belongs to a completely different circle of readers, has a goal completely different from other publications, and especially does not mix with them in the tone and method of its literary action. Constantly maintaining the dignity of his calm independence, the Contemporary does not engage in heated polemics, does not allow himself to lure readers with exaggerated promises, does not amuse their idleness with his playfulness, does not seek to show off the tinsel of alien, misunderstood systems, does not anxiously chase news of opinions and does not base his convictions on fashion authority; but freely and firmly goes his own way, without bending before outward success. That is why, from the time of Pushkin until now, it remains a constant repository of the most famous names of our literature; Therefore, for lesser-known writers, publishing articles in Sovremennik already has some right to respect from the public.

Meanwhile, the direction of the Contemporary is not predominantly, but exclusively literary. Articles by scientists aimed at the development of science, and not words, are not included in its composition. That is why his way of looking at things is in some contradiction with his name. For in our time, purely literary dignity is no longer an essential aspect of literary phenomena. Therefore, when, analyzing some work of literature, a Contemporary bases his judgments on the rules of rhetoric or literature, we involuntarily regret that the power of his moral purity is exhausted in the worries of his literary purity.

The Finnish Herald is just beginning, and therefore we cannot yet judge its direction; Let’s just say that the idea of ​​bringing Russian literature closer to Scandinavian literatures, in our opinion, is not only one of the useful, but also one of the most interesting and significant innovations. Of course, an individual work of some Swedish or Danish writer cannot be fully appreciated in our country if we do not compare it not only with the general state of the literature of his people, but, more importantly, with the state of everything private and general, internal and external life these little-known lands among us. If, as we hope, the Finnish Herald will introduce us to the most interesting aspects of the internal life of Sweden, Norway and Denmark; if he presents to us in a clear form the significant questions that occupy them at the present moment; if he reveals to us the full importance of those little-known mental and vital movements in Europe that are now filling these states; if he presents to us in a clear picture the amazing, almost incredible, prosperity of the lower class, especially in some areas of these states; if he satisfactorily explains to us the reasons for this happy phenomenon; if he explains the reasons for another, no less important circumstance, the amazing development of certain aspects of folk morality, especially in Sweden and Norway; if he presents a clear picture of the relations between different classes, relations completely different from other states; if, finally, all these important questions will connect with literary phenomena into one living picture: in this case, without a doubt, this magazine will be one of the most remarkable phenomena in our literature. Our other journals are primarily of a special nature, and therefore we cannot talk about them here.

Meanwhile, the spread of periodicals to all corners of the state and to all circles of literate society, the role they obviously play in our literature, the interest they arouse in all classes of readers - all this indisputably proves to us that the very character of our literary education is mostly magazine.

However, the meaning of this expression requires some explanation.

A literary magazine is not a literary work. He only informs about modern literary phenomena, analyzes them, indicates their place among others, and pronounces his judgment about them. A journal is to literature what a preface is to a book. Consequently, the predominance of journalism in literature proves that in modern education the need enjoy And know, gives in to needs judge, – bring your pleasures and knowledge under one review, be aware of it, have an opinion. The dominance of journalism in the field of literature is the same as the dominance of philosophical writings in the field of science.

But if the development of journalism in our country is based on the desire of our very education for a reasonable report, for an expressed, formulated opinion on the subjects of science and literature, then, on the other hand, the vague, confusing, one-sided and at the same time contradictory nature of our magazines proves that literary We have not yet formed our opinions; that in the movements of our education there is more need opinions than opinions themselves; more sense of need for them at all than a certain inclination towards one direction or another.

However, could it have been otherwise? Considering the general nature of our literature, it seems that in our literary education there are no elements for forming a general definite opinion, there are no forces for the formation of an integral, consciously developed direction, and there cannot be any as long as the dominant color of our thoughts is a random shade of foreign beliefs. Without a doubt, it is possible, and in fact, people constantly meet, who present some private thought, fragmentarily understood by them, as their own definite opinion, – people who call their book concepts by the name of beliefs; but these thoughts, these concepts, are more like a school exercise in logic and philosophy; – this opinion is imaginary; one outer garment of thoughts; a fashionable dress in which some smart people dress up their minds when they take it to salons, or youthful dreams that fly apart at the first pressure of real life. This is not what we mean by persuasion.

There was a time, and not very long ago, when it was possible for a thinking person to form for himself a firm and definite way of thinking, embracing together life, and mind, and taste, and habits of life, and literary preferences - it was possible to form a definite opinion for himself only from sympathy with the phenomena of foreign literature: there were complete, whole, complete systems. Now they are gone; at least there are no generally accepted, unconditionally dominant ones. In order to build your complete view from contradictory thoughts, you need to choose, compose yourself, search, doubt, ascend to the very source from which conviction flows, that is, either remain forever with wavering thoughts, or bring with you something already prepared, not from literature. learned belief. Compose persuasion from different systems is impossible, as in general it is impossible draw up nothing alive. Living things are born only from life.

Now there can no longer be Voltaireans, Jean-Jacqueists, Jean-Paulists, Schellingians, Bayronibtes, Goethists, Doctrinaires, or exceptional Hegelians (excluding perhaps those who, sometimes without having read Hegel, pass off as his named after your personal guesses); Now everyone must form his own way of thinking, and therefore, if he does not take it from the entire totality of life, he will always remain with only book phrases.

For this reason, our literature could have complete meaning until the end of Pushkin’s life, and now has no specific meaning.

We think, however, that this state of affairs cannot continue. Due to the natural, necessary laws of the human mind, the emptiness of meaninglessness must someday be filled with meaning.

And in fact, for some time, in one corner of our literature, an important change has already begun, although still barely noticeable in some special shades of literature - a change that is not so much expressed in the works of literature, but is revealed in the state of our education itself in general, and promising to transform the character of our imitative subordination into a peculiar development of the inner principles of our own life. Readers will guess, of course, that I am talking about that Slavic-Christian movement, which, on the one hand, is subject to some, perhaps exaggerated biases, and on the other, is persecuted by strange, desperate attacks, ridicule, slander; but in any case, it is worthy of attention as an event that, in all likelihood, is destined to occupy not the last place in the fate of our enlightenment.

We will try to identify it with all possible impartiality, collecting into one whole its individual signs, scattered here and there, and even more noticeable in the thinking public than in book literature.

Goethe had already foreseen this direction; at the end of my life I argued that true poetry is poetry of chance (Gelegenheits-Gedicht). - However, Goethe understood this in his own way. In the last era of his life, most of the poetic occasions that aroused his inspiration were a court ball, an honorary masquerade, or someone's birthday. Napoleon and the Europe he turned upside down barely left traces in the entire collection of his creations. Goethe was the all-encompassing, greatest and probably the last poet individual life, which has not yet penetrated into one consciousness with universal human life.

Old Lutheran Church there is a new phenomenon. It arose from the resistance of some part of the Lutherans against their union with the Reformed. The present King of Prussia has allowed them to profess their doctrine openly and separately; As a result, a new one was formed, called Old Lutheran. It had its full Council in 1841, issued its own special decrees, established for its governance its Supreme Church Council, independent of any authorities, sitting in Breslau, on which alone the lower councils and all the churches of their confession depend. According to their decrees, mixed marriages are strictly prohibited for all those taking part in church administration or education. Others, if not directly prohibited, are at least advised against as reprehensible. They call mixed marriages not only the union of Lutherans with Catholics, but also Old Lutherans with Lutherans of the united, so-called Evangelical Church.

Rosmini's thoughtful writings, which promise the development of new, original thinking in Italy, are familiar to us only from magazine reviews. But as far as one can judge from these torn extracts, it seems that the 18th century will soon end for Italy, and that a new era of mental renaissance now awaits it, emanating from a new beginning of thinking, based on the three elements of Italian life: religion, history and art.