Re: History, Sophia and the Russian Nation: A Reassessment o
Posted: Thu May 10, 2018 8:14 am
Conclusion
The purpose of this study has been to explore the attitude with respect to history of the scholar, mystic, poet, publicist and activist Vladimir Solov'ev. The tension between his instrumentalising history and positing it as the very meeting place between God and man, has led to the following questions: how did he conceptualise history, and how did he conceive his own role in it? For this purpose I have conducted the analysis on two fronts.
First, I have analysed Solov'ev's views against the philosophical and theological background of preceding theories on history. I have made a distinction between the elements that he wanted to synthesise, and accordingly divided his views into three orientations expressed in registers (theological, philosophical, and sophiological), the latter being the result of the synthesis between the former two. These three registers are often present within one and the same text and they yield inner tensions. I have identified these tensions as the expression of Solov'ev's attempt to combine tradition (theology of history) with modernity (philosophy of history), and with his prophetic ideal (sophiology of history).
Subsequently, I have highlighted his conception of history against the historical background of the Russian social, political and intellectual context (case studies). Conducting pioneering historical research on Solov'ev's interventions on five burning social and political issues has allowed me to unravel a lesser known aspect of his work and biography, namely his position against the death penalty, against the famine, and against the persecution of three significant religious minorities in Russia, namely the Old Believers, the Jews, and the Catholic Poles.
1. Main results
The joint philosophical as well as historical analysis has allowed me to come to a new understanding of Solov'ev's conception of history by unravelling its inner structure, sources of influence, translation into social commitment, and limitations. This joint analysis has led to seven main results:
1. Solov'ev conveyed a view of history that, on the one hand, emphasised the transcendence of God, the agency of the church and the role of faith [theology of history], and which, on the other, was structured by a rational universal process in which nations and cultures participate fully [philosophy of history]. By introducing sophiology of history, he sought to overcome the limitations of these views and to emphasise the participation of nature and matter in this process, as well as the force of cosmic, mystical and erotic love. However, he did not achieve a synthesis of these three registers. His main source, Sophia, remained hidden, his sophiology of history did not go beyond the level of a sketch, and his ideal of free theocracy, despite his efforts, missed a concrete translation in practical reality.
2. The role of Sophia-World Soul has been highlighted as the both fundamental and hidden source of his views of history and of his social commitment. Even though Solov'ev sought various conceptual means to express Sophia-World Soul, he did not show to what extent 'the most significant event' of his life, namely his mystical experience, was decisive for his thoughts and acts. Firstly, it founded and legitimised his role as prophet in Russia. Secondly, it provided the experiential ground for conceptualising history in terms of a growing fusion between spirit and matter involving the personal, the collective and the cosmic dimensions, and including matter, nature and sexual love. I shall propose some answers below to the question of why he neither made his source explicit nor worked out the intuition which this source provided him.
3. His commitment to the most significant issues of his time found its source and inner motivation in his views on history. In all cases, these proved decisive in the formation of his opinion on the debated issues and were central to his interventions. This related to his sense of the historical duty of a Christian enlightened tsar (the tsaricide of 1881), his ideal of the reunion of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches (the Polish question), his conviction that the 'elected people' had a role to play in Russia (the Jewish question), his wish for the return of unity in the Orthodox Church (the Old Believers), and his prophetic mission with respect to the educated class and peasantry (the famine of 1891). In most cases, Solov'ev's treatment of the issues reveals an instrumentalisation of history for the sake of his own ideals.
4. Solov'ev's views of history appear to be shaped within a dense network of relationships with texts past and present, ranging from the Old Testament to journalistic publications of his time, which I have tried to disentangle. With the exceptions of one case of full assimilation (Sergej Solov'ev), and one of full rejection (revolutionary currents), all can be understood in terms of a dynamic combination of affinity and criticism, or at least the ambition to surpass what he saw as the limitations of the authors or currents discussed. Within his dynamic relationship to various traditions, Solov'ev explicitly voiced: (a) his affinities (Origen, Maximus Confessor, Kabbalah, Gnosticism, Bohme, Schelling, Tjutcev, liberals, progressive clerical thinkers), which always implied a criticism that is not put to the foreground; (b) his criticism combined with a positive valuation (Hegel, Comte, the old Slavophiles, Dostoevskij, Old Believers, Russian Jewry); and (c) his total rejection (positivism, populism, nationalist and clerical conservatism, Polish advocates of national independence). This does not exclude cases of unacknowledged affinities (populists, Pobedonoscev, Tolstoj), and misinterpretations (most obviously Hegel).
5. The results provided by both the philosophical and the historical analysis form a basis for assessing the originality of Solov'ev's conception of history. While the theological and philosophical registers of history were widespread in the Western as well as Russian tradition, Solov'ev sought to combine them in an innovative synthesis. His combined treatment of theological, philosophical and sophiological aspects of history led him to voice challenging views on the church (historicisation of tradition), the state (collaboration with the church), and educated society (guided by a prophet). His originality does not lie in his choice of issues. Rather, he sought to find within ongoing debates a unique balance between progressive views (opposition to forced cultural assimilation and to religious persecution), and conservative views (support of autocracy with no need for representative organs; outdated perception of social groups). In other words, his aim was to combine tradition and modernity. The interpretation of current social and political affairs from the perspective of his theocratic ideal was also specific to his thought. As a result, Solov'ev's synthesis turns out to be universalist, but not modernist, as it promotes progress, but only progress through theocratic development. In addition, his approach to history was pre- modern, in so far as for him knowledge of history came down to properly understanding that truth which had been revealed. From this point of view, the epistemological issue of the conditions and methods for knowing history became totally irrelevant. We look in vain, in Solov'ev, for a philosophy of history as a science. Hereby, his treatment of history as field of revelation and prophecy was boldly anti-modernist.
6. However, Solov'ev was a child of his time in one important respect: the goal that he tried to achieve as a publicist was to foster greater unity between Russia's social groups. He considered these from the religious prism primarily and tried to convince his fellow believers to behave respectfully and act in solidarity with the Jews, the Catholic Poles, and the Old Believers. He also called for a rapprochement between the urban educated society and the peasantry. The cases of the tsaricide and the famine show an attempt to bring together the zemstvo as a whole, as a unified force including educated society and the simple people. In this respect, the case studies illustrate Florovsky's point that Solov'ev initially defined free theocracy as an 'integral society.' [1] His untiring address to educated society shows to what extent he considered it his own duty to contribute to this ideal. As a matter of fact, his interventions are an implementation of the mission that he ascribed, in his theocratic ideal, to the prophet, namely the guidance of Russian society and people. He understood this mission primarily in moral, social, and national terms, and focused on indicating paths to his fellow countrymen towards more unity and mutual respect between the communities.
7. In this connection, Solov'ev's social commitment can be assessed as follows. His exclusive concern with the ideal of a unified society made him relatively indifferent with respect to the means leading to the sophianic goal. As a matter of fact, he had a relative detachment from the practical, institutional solution to the issues and implementation of his ideals. The dogmatic and schematic, and hence reductive character of his historical considerations in each of the three registers and in his interventions on various issues testifies to this pervasive teleological perspective and the absence of concern with the richness and complexity of historical developments.
One may wonder how he reacted to the fact that his views were barely received or understood by his fellowmen. On the one hand, one can reasonably assume that he deplored it, as his disillusion with the ideal of free theocracy shows. On the other hand, the fact that the desired change of attitude did not occur immediately did not modify his own task, namely that of casting Christianity in a modern rational mould, and in a broader sense of changing the attitude of his fellowmen. There was a long way to go until his ideals could be realized. He unwaveringly and passionately translated dogmatic truth to the present, and considered it his own duty to keep exhorting educated society. But he neglected the next step, which consisted of translating the model of free theocracy into a practical agenda. His relative remoteness from the present and detachment from the hic et nunc resulted in the fact that the tension between professing the eternal truth and responding to a crisis remains intact in his work.
Why did Solov'ev not thoroughly elaborate his synthesis instead of limiting himself to drafts and broad lines? There are several hypothetical answers to this question. Firstly, the decision to keep Sophia's fundamental role hidden for fear of being criticised for being a heterodox and a pantheist thinker or even a heretic, could only lead to an incomplete system. Secondly, a sense of a lack of time, characteristic for his way of working, always hurried, probably prompted him not to work out his intuition. Thirdly, the scope of his endeavours, ranging from art, theory and practice, was undoubtedly beyond what a single human life could cover. Fourthly, a synthesis between all domains of life was impossible to achieve in late 19th century Russia, marked, despite all efforts by the government to hinder this process, by a growing differentiation and autonomisation of the social, cultural, political and professional domains. In this respect, Solov'ev inescapably embodied his time, namely by being torn between an attachment to 'Christiano-centric' religious principles and autocracy on the one hand, and a belief in individual rights, education and cultural progress for all, combined with a criticism of the powers that be, on the other.
II. Perspectives
The historical recontextualisation of Solov'ev's thought in this study does not conceal, however, the striking actuality of his work for various contemporary developments in Russia and elsewhere. After the proclamation that the era of (ideological) grand narratives was finished with the end of the Cold War, there is a current resurgence of totalising discourses on history. Besides, his emphasis on World Soul, also called Mother Earth, made him an ecologist avant la lettre. In addition, Solov'ev's attempt to combine rationality and his mystical experience finds an echo in current studies on cultural history, to name only a few examples.
From an epistemological perspective, the present study provides instruments for further research on speculative views on history. The heuristic model that distinguishes between a theological, philosophical and sophiological register of history is fruitful not only for understanding the Russian sophiological tradition initiated by Solov'ev (Sergej Bulgakov, Pavel Florenskij, Semen Frank), but also for the recent and ongoing discussion on historiosophy in Russia, which can be addressed critically. The definition of Russia's place in the world within today's civilisationist discourse is an interesting field of research (A.S. Akhiezer), especially when it addresses the issue of Orthodox religion as a component of Russian identity (I.N. Ionov, I.V. Kondakov). The distinction made between theology of history and philosophy of history can be applied to Soviet thought (from Anatolij Lunacarskij to Aleksandr Zinov'ev), and to Western speculative discourse on history (Hegel, Schelling, Walter Benjamin, Alexandre Kojeve, Karl Barth, etc.). From a more pragmatic perspective, it may contribute to better understanding the components of current lay or religious messianic discourses, esp. in the conflicting relationship to Islam (Bernard Lewis, Samuel Huntington). Against the contention that speculative philosophy of history has become obsolete and has been definitively overshadowed by critical philosophy of history, recent examples show that all-embracing views of history continue to be produced. Not only speculative grand schemes (Samuel Huntington and Francis Fukuyama), but also world history and its conditions of possibility are again being explored by various historians (J.M. Roberts, Robert Bonnaud). All these discourses epistemologically presuppose a certain rationality at work in history. I hope to have shown the relevance of a critical reflection on discourses on history for better understanding the political implications that they convey.
_______________
Notes:
1. Georges Florovsky, 'Tiutchev and Vladimir Soloviev', Collected Works 7, p. 41.
The purpose of this study has been to explore the attitude with respect to history of the scholar, mystic, poet, publicist and activist Vladimir Solov'ev. The tension between his instrumentalising history and positing it as the very meeting place between God and man, has led to the following questions: how did he conceptualise history, and how did he conceive his own role in it? For this purpose I have conducted the analysis on two fronts.
First, I have analysed Solov'ev's views against the philosophical and theological background of preceding theories on history. I have made a distinction between the elements that he wanted to synthesise, and accordingly divided his views into three orientations expressed in registers (theological, philosophical, and sophiological), the latter being the result of the synthesis between the former two. These three registers are often present within one and the same text and they yield inner tensions. I have identified these tensions as the expression of Solov'ev's attempt to combine tradition (theology of history) with modernity (philosophy of history), and with his prophetic ideal (sophiology of history).
Subsequently, I have highlighted his conception of history against the historical background of the Russian social, political and intellectual context (case studies). Conducting pioneering historical research on Solov'ev's interventions on five burning social and political issues has allowed me to unravel a lesser known aspect of his work and biography, namely his position against the death penalty, against the famine, and against the persecution of three significant religious minorities in Russia, namely the Old Believers, the Jews, and the Catholic Poles.
1. Main results
The joint philosophical as well as historical analysis has allowed me to come to a new understanding of Solov'ev's conception of history by unravelling its inner structure, sources of influence, translation into social commitment, and limitations. This joint analysis has led to seven main results:
1. Solov'ev conveyed a view of history that, on the one hand, emphasised the transcendence of God, the agency of the church and the role of faith [theology of history], and which, on the other, was structured by a rational universal process in which nations and cultures participate fully [philosophy of history]. By introducing sophiology of history, he sought to overcome the limitations of these views and to emphasise the participation of nature and matter in this process, as well as the force of cosmic, mystical and erotic love. However, he did not achieve a synthesis of these three registers. His main source, Sophia, remained hidden, his sophiology of history did not go beyond the level of a sketch, and his ideal of free theocracy, despite his efforts, missed a concrete translation in practical reality.
2. The role of Sophia-World Soul has been highlighted as the both fundamental and hidden source of his views of history and of his social commitment. Even though Solov'ev sought various conceptual means to express Sophia-World Soul, he did not show to what extent 'the most significant event' of his life, namely his mystical experience, was decisive for his thoughts and acts. Firstly, it founded and legitimised his role as prophet in Russia. Secondly, it provided the experiential ground for conceptualising history in terms of a growing fusion between spirit and matter involving the personal, the collective and the cosmic dimensions, and including matter, nature and sexual love. I shall propose some answers below to the question of why he neither made his source explicit nor worked out the intuition which this source provided him.
3. His commitment to the most significant issues of his time found its source and inner motivation in his views on history. In all cases, these proved decisive in the formation of his opinion on the debated issues and were central to his interventions. This related to his sense of the historical duty of a Christian enlightened tsar (the tsaricide of 1881), his ideal of the reunion of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches (the Polish question), his conviction that the 'elected people' had a role to play in Russia (the Jewish question), his wish for the return of unity in the Orthodox Church (the Old Believers), and his prophetic mission with respect to the educated class and peasantry (the famine of 1891). In most cases, Solov'ev's treatment of the issues reveals an instrumentalisation of history for the sake of his own ideals.
4. Solov'ev's views of history appear to be shaped within a dense network of relationships with texts past and present, ranging from the Old Testament to journalistic publications of his time, which I have tried to disentangle. With the exceptions of one case of full assimilation (Sergej Solov'ev), and one of full rejection (revolutionary currents), all can be understood in terms of a dynamic combination of affinity and criticism, or at least the ambition to surpass what he saw as the limitations of the authors or currents discussed. Within his dynamic relationship to various traditions, Solov'ev explicitly voiced: (a) his affinities (Origen, Maximus Confessor, Kabbalah, Gnosticism, Bohme, Schelling, Tjutcev, liberals, progressive clerical thinkers), which always implied a criticism that is not put to the foreground; (b) his criticism combined with a positive valuation (Hegel, Comte, the old Slavophiles, Dostoevskij, Old Believers, Russian Jewry); and (c) his total rejection (positivism, populism, nationalist and clerical conservatism, Polish advocates of national independence). This does not exclude cases of unacknowledged affinities (populists, Pobedonoscev, Tolstoj), and misinterpretations (most obviously Hegel).
5. The results provided by both the philosophical and the historical analysis form a basis for assessing the originality of Solov'ev's conception of history. While the theological and philosophical registers of history were widespread in the Western as well as Russian tradition, Solov'ev sought to combine them in an innovative synthesis. His combined treatment of theological, philosophical and sophiological aspects of history led him to voice challenging views on the church (historicisation of tradition), the state (collaboration with the church), and educated society (guided by a prophet). His originality does not lie in his choice of issues. Rather, he sought to find within ongoing debates a unique balance between progressive views (opposition to forced cultural assimilation and to religious persecution), and conservative views (support of autocracy with no need for representative organs; outdated perception of social groups). In other words, his aim was to combine tradition and modernity. The interpretation of current social and political affairs from the perspective of his theocratic ideal was also specific to his thought. As a result, Solov'ev's synthesis turns out to be universalist, but not modernist, as it promotes progress, but only progress through theocratic development. In addition, his approach to history was pre- modern, in so far as for him knowledge of history came down to properly understanding that truth which had been revealed. From this point of view, the epistemological issue of the conditions and methods for knowing history became totally irrelevant. We look in vain, in Solov'ev, for a philosophy of history as a science. Hereby, his treatment of history as field of revelation and prophecy was boldly anti-modernist.
6. However, Solov'ev was a child of his time in one important respect: the goal that he tried to achieve as a publicist was to foster greater unity between Russia's social groups. He considered these from the religious prism primarily and tried to convince his fellow believers to behave respectfully and act in solidarity with the Jews, the Catholic Poles, and the Old Believers. He also called for a rapprochement between the urban educated society and the peasantry. The cases of the tsaricide and the famine show an attempt to bring together the zemstvo as a whole, as a unified force including educated society and the simple people. In this respect, the case studies illustrate Florovsky's point that Solov'ev initially defined free theocracy as an 'integral society.' [1] His untiring address to educated society shows to what extent he considered it his own duty to contribute to this ideal. As a matter of fact, his interventions are an implementation of the mission that he ascribed, in his theocratic ideal, to the prophet, namely the guidance of Russian society and people. He understood this mission primarily in moral, social, and national terms, and focused on indicating paths to his fellow countrymen towards more unity and mutual respect between the communities.
7. In this connection, Solov'ev's social commitment can be assessed as follows. His exclusive concern with the ideal of a unified society made him relatively indifferent with respect to the means leading to the sophianic goal. As a matter of fact, he had a relative detachment from the practical, institutional solution to the issues and implementation of his ideals. The dogmatic and schematic, and hence reductive character of his historical considerations in each of the three registers and in his interventions on various issues testifies to this pervasive teleological perspective and the absence of concern with the richness and complexity of historical developments.
One may wonder how he reacted to the fact that his views were barely received or understood by his fellowmen. On the one hand, one can reasonably assume that he deplored it, as his disillusion with the ideal of free theocracy shows. On the other hand, the fact that the desired change of attitude did not occur immediately did not modify his own task, namely that of casting Christianity in a modern rational mould, and in a broader sense of changing the attitude of his fellowmen. There was a long way to go until his ideals could be realized. He unwaveringly and passionately translated dogmatic truth to the present, and considered it his own duty to keep exhorting educated society. But he neglected the next step, which consisted of translating the model of free theocracy into a practical agenda. His relative remoteness from the present and detachment from the hic et nunc resulted in the fact that the tension between professing the eternal truth and responding to a crisis remains intact in his work.
Why did Solov'ev not thoroughly elaborate his synthesis instead of limiting himself to drafts and broad lines? There are several hypothetical answers to this question. Firstly, the decision to keep Sophia's fundamental role hidden for fear of being criticised for being a heterodox and a pantheist thinker or even a heretic, could only lead to an incomplete system. Secondly, a sense of a lack of time, characteristic for his way of working, always hurried, probably prompted him not to work out his intuition. Thirdly, the scope of his endeavours, ranging from art, theory and practice, was undoubtedly beyond what a single human life could cover. Fourthly, a synthesis between all domains of life was impossible to achieve in late 19th century Russia, marked, despite all efforts by the government to hinder this process, by a growing differentiation and autonomisation of the social, cultural, political and professional domains. In this respect, Solov'ev inescapably embodied his time, namely by being torn between an attachment to 'Christiano-centric' religious principles and autocracy on the one hand, and a belief in individual rights, education and cultural progress for all, combined with a criticism of the powers that be, on the other.
II. Perspectives
The historical recontextualisation of Solov'ev's thought in this study does not conceal, however, the striking actuality of his work for various contemporary developments in Russia and elsewhere. After the proclamation that the era of (ideological) grand narratives was finished with the end of the Cold War, there is a current resurgence of totalising discourses on history. Besides, his emphasis on World Soul, also called Mother Earth, made him an ecologist avant la lettre. In addition, Solov'ev's attempt to combine rationality and his mystical experience finds an echo in current studies on cultural history, to name only a few examples.
From an epistemological perspective, the present study provides instruments for further research on speculative views on history. The heuristic model that distinguishes between a theological, philosophical and sophiological register of history is fruitful not only for understanding the Russian sophiological tradition initiated by Solov'ev (Sergej Bulgakov, Pavel Florenskij, Semen Frank), but also for the recent and ongoing discussion on historiosophy in Russia, which can be addressed critically. The definition of Russia's place in the world within today's civilisationist discourse is an interesting field of research (A.S. Akhiezer), especially when it addresses the issue of Orthodox religion as a component of Russian identity (I.N. Ionov, I.V. Kondakov). The distinction made between theology of history and philosophy of history can be applied to Soviet thought (from Anatolij Lunacarskij to Aleksandr Zinov'ev), and to Western speculative discourse on history (Hegel, Schelling, Walter Benjamin, Alexandre Kojeve, Karl Barth, etc.). From a more pragmatic perspective, it may contribute to better understanding the components of current lay or religious messianic discourses, esp. in the conflicting relationship to Islam (Bernard Lewis, Samuel Huntington). Against the contention that speculative philosophy of history has become obsolete and has been definitively overshadowed by critical philosophy of history, recent examples show that all-embracing views of history continue to be produced. Not only speculative grand schemes (Samuel Huntington and Francis Fukuyama), but also world history and its conditions of possibility are again being explored by various historians (J.M. Roberts, Robert Bonnaud). All these discourses epistemologically presuppose a certain rationality at work in history. I hope to have shown the relevance of a critical reflection on discourses on history for better understanding the political implications that they convey.
_______________
Notes:
1. Georges Florovsky, 'Tiutchev and Vladimir Soloviev', Collected Works 7, p. 41.