The Life and Thought of Lev Karsavin : Strength Made Perfect in Weakness...

491 Pages·2013·6.955 MB·English

by  Dominic Rubin

The Life and Thought of Lev Karsavin
“Strength made perfect in weakness…”
On the Boundary of Two Worlds:
Identity, Freedom, and Moral Imagination
in the Baltics
33
Founding and Executive Editor
Leonidas Donskis, Member of the European Parliament, and previously
Professor and Dean of Vytautas Magnus University School of Political
Science and Diplomacy in Kaunas, Lithuania.
Editorial and Advisory Board
Timo Airaksinen, University of Helsinki, Finland
Egidijus Aleksandravicius, Lithuanian Emigration Institute,
Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania
Aukse Balcytiene, Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania
Stefano Bianchini, University of Bologna, Forlì Campus, Italy
Endre Bojtar, Institute of Literary Studies, Budapest, Hungary
Ineta Dabasinskiene, Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania
Pietro U. Dini, University of Pisa, Italy
Robert Ginsberg, Pennsylvania State University, USA
Martyn Housden, University of Bradford, UK
Andres Kasekamp, University of Tartu, Estonia
Andreas Lawaty, Nordost-Institute, Lüneburg, Germany
Olli Loukola, University of Helsinki, Finland
Bernard Marchadier, Institut d’études slaves, Paris, France
Silviu Miloiu, Valahia University, Targoviste, Romania
Valdis Muktupavels, University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia
Hannu Niemi, University of Helsinki, Finland
Irina Novikova, University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia
Yves Plasseraud, Paris, France
Rein Raud, Tallinn University, Estonia
Alfred Erich Senn, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, and Vytautas
Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania
André Skogström-Filler, University Paris VIII-Saint-Denis, France
David Smith, University of Glasgow, UK
Saulius Suziedelis, Millersville University, USA
Joachim Tauber, Nordost-Institut, Lüneburg, Germany
Tomas Venclova, Yale University, USA
Tonu Viik, Tallinn University, Estonia
The Life and Thought of Lev Karsavin
“Strength made perfect in weakness…”
Dominic Rubin
Amsterdam - New York, NY 2013
Cover photo
Lev Karsavin (Wikipedia)
The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of
“ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for
documents - Requirements for permanence”.
ISBN: 978-90-420-3646-8
E-Book ISBN: 978-94-012-0914-4
© Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2013
Printed in the Netherlands
Contents

List of Diagrams ix
Preface xi

ONE: The Making of a Metaphysical Historian 1

1. Prelude: Who was Lev Karsavin? 1
2. Early life (1882–1901) 5
3. Scholarly beginnings and first crisis (1902–1915) 10
4. The Foundations of Medieval Religiosity (1915–1916) 21
A. The main theses 21
B. Symbolist and Jamesian elements in FMR 34
C. The academic reaction and the philosophical
constructs underlying FMR 38
5. Karsavin, historical Christianity and FMR 45

TWO: A Theology Unfolds 49

1. The Petrograd years (1917–1922): “I have singed my
wings . . .” 49
2. The roots of all-unity (1): Catholicism and Revelation
of the Blessed Angela 56
A. Catholicism (1918) 58
B. The mystical system of the Blessed Angela 64
3. The roots of all-unity (2): Nicholas of Cusa 73
A. Karsavin’s conception of Cusa’s place in medieval
philosophy 73
B. Cusa’s system in Karsavin’s interpretation 77
C. Karsavin’s defense of Cusanism: beyond pantheism
and theism 83
4. The early essays (1919–1922) 88
A. “Saligia” 88
B. “On Freedom” and “On Good and Evil” 94
5. Conclusion 99

THREE: The Flames of Love and Knowledge 101

1. Noctes Petropolitanae: love and temptation 101
A. “The love that moves the sun and other stars . . .” 101
B. Being in Love: to die the death of God and rise again
together 107
C. Solar Eros versus lunar Agape: the unresolved struggle 111
vi Dominic Rubin
2. Expulsion 116
A. Anticipating the death of love 116
B. Imprisonment and condemnation 119
C. First years in exile (1922–1925) 125
3. On First Principles (1921–1925) 130
A. Plotinus, the Cappadocians, and Descartes:
rediscovering the “religious paradox” 131
B. God as the differentiated Non-different Who
re-undifferentiates 137
C. The Logos as the finite infinity of refracted Tri-unity 144
D. Being and hypostasis in man and God 147
E. Natural and supernatural theandrification: creation
and Incarnation 151
F. The inclusion of imperfection in perfection: the first
and second Adams 160
4. Conclusion 167

FOUR: The Symphonic Face of Lev Karsavin: From History to Politics 171

1. Bread, butter and—metaphysics in exile (1924–1926) 171
2. The Philosophy of History (1921–1923) 178
A. Human history: an evolving hierarchical-and-equal
tree of personhood 180
B. History as reality and redemptive science 183
C. The uniqueness of civilizations: early “Euro-skepticism” 185
D. Against progressivist and determinist theories of history 190
E. Stages in the development of the historical person 192
F. Giordano Bruno: the advantages of individualism 197
G. De Maistre: between conservation and revolution 204
H. History as a narrative about individuals 206
I. The logical and moral relationship between individual
and collective 207
3. Karsavin and the Eurasian movement (1926–1930) 210
A. The Eurasian movement 210
B. Karsavin’s path from the Russian idea to Eurasianism 219
C. Karsavin’s Eurasian political theory 225
4. Conclusion 237

FIVE: Personhood as the True Countenance of Being 239

1. The move to Lithuania 239
2. On Personhood (1928) 246
A. The general context 246
Contents vii
B. Basic concepts 250
C. Individual personhood 253
D. Symphonic personhood 264
E. Perfect and imperfect personhood 271
3. The correspondence with Wetter (1940) 276
A. The arguments of the correspondence 276
B. Thoughts on the correspondence 286

SIX: “Strength made perfect in weakness . . .” 291
1. From occupation to deportation (1940–1949) 291
2. Karsavin’s Lithuanian and camp works 297
A. The History of European Culture (1930–1937) 297
B. “On Time” 316
C. “On the Immortality of the Soul” 326
D. “On Perfection” 329
E. “On the Lord’s Prayer” and “On Reflexology” 335
3. Coda: Karsavin’s years in Abez and Anatoly
Vaneev (1950–1952) 342
A. The heritage of “Vaneevan Karsavinism” 342
B. Karsavin in Abez 345

SEVEN: Epilogue: Karsavin Today 359

1. Prelude 359
2. Eastern and Western theology yesterday and today 362
A. The Russian church and the East/West schism 362
B. Bradshaw’s analysis of the Eastern consensus 366
C. Karsavin and the Eastern consensus 367
D. Karsavin and sophiology 373
E. Karsavin and G. Florovsky on creation 374
F. Karsavin and V. Lossky 377
3. Conclusion 383

Bibliography 385

1. Works by Lev Karsavin 385
2. Works by Other Authors 389

Abbreviations for Selected Works by Karsavin 407
Appendix: Karsavin’s Poem on Death (1931) 409
Index 473

List of Diagrams

Diagram 1. The Cusan model of contracted versus full
(interpenetrating) Being 78

Diagram 2. The Cusan union of opposites: contracted-and-full Being 79

Diagram 3a. Early Karsavin: a three-tiered model of Being 83

Diagram 3b. Early Karsavin: a four-tiered model of Being 100

Diagram 4. Trinity and perfect-imperfect creation in
On First Principles 169

Diagram 5a. Part of X’-tree showing collective person individuation 181

Diagram 5b. The origin of the tree 182

Diagram 6. Karsavin’s model of historical development 188

Diagram 7. Karsavin’s analogy between the divine and created
“I AM” 255

Diagram 8. The Karsavinian myth of creation as reversible
kenosis-and-participation 256

Diagram 9. The Karsavinian myth of creation: the doctrine
of the insubstantiality or nihility of creation 284

Diagram 10. Linear-causative (imperfect) model 318

Diagram 11a. The “exglomeration” model 319

Diagram 11b. Beginning and end in exglomeration 320