Reformulating Russia (Russian History and Culture)

340 Pages·3.278 MB·English

by  Mjor Kare Johan.

Reformulating Russia
Russian History and Culture
VOLUME 7
Editors-in-Chief
Jeffrey P. Brooks
The Johns Hopkins University
Christina Lodder
University of Edinburgh
Reformulating Russia
The Cultural and Intellectual
Historiography of Russian First-Wave
Émigré Writers
by
Kåre Johan Mjør
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2011
On the front cover: Portraits of Georgii Fedotov (1914–15, photographer unknown),
Georgii Florovskii (1950s, photographer unknown), Nikolai Berdiaev (1938–39,
Studios Dorlys, Paris) and Vasilii Zenkovskii (1930s, probably taken by Lev Zander).
Information on photos provided by courtesy of Andrei Korliakov, Paris
(www.emigrationrusse.com).
Back cover: Photograph by Jan Kåre Wilhelmsen, University of Bergen.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mjør, Kåre Johan.
Reformulating Russia : the cultural and intellectual historiography of Russian
first-wave emigre writers / by Kare Johan Mjor.
p. cm. — (Russian history and culture, ISSN 1877-7791 ; v. 7)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-19286-7 (hbk. : acid-free paper) 1. Russia—Intellectual life—
Historiography. 2. Russia—Civilization—Historiography. 3. Christian saints—
Russia—Historiography. 4. Theology—Russia—Historiography. 5. Philosophy,
Russian—Historiography. 6. Fedotov, G. P. (Georgii Petrovich), 1886–1951. Sviatye
Drevnei Rusi. 7. Florovsky, Georges, 1893–1979. Puti russkago bogoslovia.
8. Berdiaev, Nikolai, 1874–1948. Russkaia ideia. 9. Zen’kovskii, V. V. (Vasilii
Vasil’evich), 1881–1962. Istoriia russkoi filosofii. 10. Russian literature—Foreign
countries—History and criticism. I. Title. II. Series.
DK32.7.M56 2011
947.0072—dc22
2011009240
ISSN 1877-7791
ISBN 978 90 04 19286 7
Copyright 2011 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing,
IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
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Fees are subject to change.
“Exile is strangely compelling to think about
but terrible to experience.”
Edward W. Said

CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ............................................................................. ix
Transliterations and Abbreviations ................................................. xi
Introduction ......................................................................................... 1
Texts and Contexts ........................................................................ 2
Historiography and Narrativity ................................................... 8
Research ........................................................................................... 18
PART ONE
CONTEXTS
Chapter One Russia Abroad ............................................................ 27
The Émigré Community ............................................................... 30
Exile as Mission .............................................................................. 39
Chapter Two Writing Russian History .......................................... 53
Varieties of Intellectual History ................................................... 59
Culture and Cultural History ....................................................... 65
Historiography of Imperial Russia .............................................. 72
PART TWO
READINGS
Chapter Three Georgii Fedotov and the Saints of Ancient
Russia ................................................................................................ 91
Culture, Creativity, Tragedy ......................................................... 95
Resurrecting Russian Sanctity ...................................................... 102
Configuring Russian Holiness ...................................................... 108
Fedotov’s Ancient and Holy Russia ............................................ 114
Detail and Meaning in Russian Holiness ................................... 117
The Workers in the Vineyard ...................................................... 122
From Negative to Positive Liberty .............................................. 127
viii contents
Difference and Opposition ........................................................... 133
Fedotov’s Tragedy .......................................................................... 138
Fedotov’s Historicism .................................................................... 145
Chapter Four Georgii Florovskii and the Ways of Russian
Theology ........................................................................................... 153
Emigration, Eurasianism and Orthodoxy .................................. 156
Florovskii’s Prophetic Eschatology .............................................. 165
The Pseudomorphosis of Russian Thought ............................... 174
Gradual Recovery and New Excitements ................................... 183
Florovskii’s Theology of Creativity .............................................. 189
The Ascetic Way Home ................................................................. 194
Chapter Five Nikolai Berdiaev and the Russian Idea ............... 203
Revolution and Exile ...................................................................... 207
Berdiaev’s Paradoxes and Inconsistencies .................................. 212
The Russian Idea or the Idea of Russia? .................................... 217
Chaotic Essentialism ...................................................................... 220
Russians as Schismatics ................................................................. 225
The Martyrology of the Intelligentsia ......................................... 229
Russian Ideas as Ideas of Russia .................................................. 238
Berdiaev’s Messianism ................................................................... 245
Chapter Six Vasilii Zenkovskii and the History of Russian
Philosophy ....................................................................................... 251
Russia and Europe .......................................................................... 256
The Historiography of Philosophy .............................................. 261
Reframing Russian Philosophy .................................................... 268
Philosophy and its Soil .................................................................. 272
Philosophy as a System ................................................................. 276
Vladimir Solovev as a Systematic Philosopher ......................... 282
The Systematic Design and its Content ...................................... 287
The Dialectics of History .............................................................. 290
Concluding Remarks .......................................................................... 297
Bibliography ......................................................................................... 301
Index ..................................................................................................... 319
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book is a revised version of my PhD thesis, which I defended at
the University of Bergen in April 2009. It is a pleasant duty to thank
the Faculty of Humanities, University of Bergen, for generously award-
ing me a three-year research fellowship, which made it possible for me
to write this study. Its present publication has been made possible by a
grant from the Norwegian Research Council. My thanks extend also to
Ivo Romein at the Brill publishing house and to the editorial board of
the series Russian History and Culture for their cooperation and inter-
est in my work. I am likewise indebted to the publisher’s anonymous
reviewer for several valuable suggestions.
Over the last six years my scholarly work has been constantly
enriched by my inspiring colleagues at the Department of Russian
Studies, University of Bergen, to whom I would also like to express
my appreciation. Moreover, I am very grateful to my two opponents at
the doctoral defence, Per-Arne Bodin and Pål Kolstø, for having scru-
tinised my text in such detail. Their supportive and critical responses
have no doubt improved the present version. Its publication was like-
wise prompted by Peter Ulf Møller’s encouraging review of my thesis
in Nordisk Østforum.
My most recent thanks are due to Ursula Phillips for her expert
editing of my text and translations. And finally, I wish to express my
gratitude to my supervisor, Jostein Børtnes, for his inspiring engage-
ment in my project, for our stimulating conversations, and, not least,
for his attentive and critical readings of my manuscripts. Any errors or
omissions in this text are, of course, entirely my own responsibility.
Kåre Johan Mjør
January 2011