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Heroism and Asceticism: Reflections on the Religious Nature of the Russian Intelligentsia
... Thus, the author writes about book lovers, ascetic philosophers and contrasts them with "intelligentsia" -pro-government, inert and conservative. Berdiaev (2015) and Bulgakov (2015) point to the problem of knowing the truth, its incompatibility with the service and representation of the interests of social classes, in particular, the "lower classes" of society. The philosophers emphasise that the love for people good paralysed the love for truth. ...
In the context of the socio-economic approach to determining the place and role of the intelligentsia and its interaction with authorities, often only one point is reviewed, in which the intelligentsia is defined as the most progressive layer of society and at the same time oppressed by the authorities for progressive views. Thus, a search is needed between the desire of society for progress and the search for optimal conditions for coexistence between power and the intelligentsia. The novelty of the work is determined by the fact that the historical basis of the interaction between government and the intelligentsia should be considered not only in a historical perspective but also on the basis of an economic or anthropological approach. The authors of the article determine the role economic nature of the intelligentsia in the positive development of a socio-economic nature in society. The practical significance of the study is determined by the possibility of forming social development programs on the basis of philosophical discussions and determining the place and role of the intelligentsia in social development.
... The hidden apocalyptic rhetoric of terrorism turns into a negative appraisal, or -it would be better to say -this rhetoric finally comes to the surface, and in this form it acts as an accusatory argument against the ethics of terrorism. Based on the "Underground Russia" that sacrificed the hero-revolutionary, Father Sergius Bulgakov perceived him in a completely different value perspective: "The hero is the one who most effectively realizes his idea, even if he loses his life for the sake of it; he is a man-god" (Bulgakov 1991). Thus, abrek's heroism is a religion based on the self-deification of a person whose transformative activity is aimed at the reconstruction of the world and represents, in fact, a man-made Apocalypse. ...
Since the XIX century, the concept "abrek" in the Russian language was closely associated with the Caucasian wars and romanticizing the phenomenon of "abrechestvo" in Russian culture. Nowadays this social phenomenon has controversial evaluation and an intricate history, since there is no accurate historical information indicating the period of the emergence of abrechestvo. Denoting the semantic contours of "abrek" in modern multiple discursive space, we reach a conclusion that, firstly, there is a high degree of certainty in the moral evaluation that is given to this phenomenon today; secondly, there is a high degree of uncertainty in the logic and the content of this concept. Morally, the concept "abrek" is filled with contradictory characteristics both in literature and in actual speech behavior of modern Russian speakers.
... This semiotic transformation and move of podvig from its religious roots to a political term signifying revolutionary struggle continued, and at the beginning of the twentieth century it became so complete that after the first Russian revolution (1905) Sergei Bulgakov found it necessary to explain the differences between revolutionary heroism and Christian podvizhnichestvo in order to denounce political radicalism as a non-Christian way and to advocate a reformist approach to Russian social and political problems. 34 However, Bulgakov's effort fell on deaf ears, despite more than fifty thousand copies of the publication being sold. The two continued to be correlated, and in the years during the civil war the revolution was often called podvig in speeches intended to keep up the revolutionary spirit and highlight the efforts of the Red Army. ...
This article attempts to open an alternative perspective in thinking about the role Eastern Orthodox Christianity played in the 1917 Russian revolution by challenging the prevailing paradigm that it was a conservative cultural element resisting social change. Weber claimed that Calvinism managed to turn a particular conception of the world into a corresponding practical norm that aided the development of capitalism. This article proposes a similar thesis regarding the Russian revolution, but utilizing as its theoretical framework Gramsci's ideas on cultural hegemony and Bloch's view about the role of utopian thinking. It argues that Orthodox Christianity was the source of hegemonic cultural values and as such was the familiar semantic background against which the majority of Russians interpreted, accepted, and fought for the socialist ideals of the revolution. In constructing its argument the article provides a critique and a corrective of Gramsci's understanding of cultural hegemony in Russia, analyzes the Orthodox idea of podvig as an enduring perpetual push from the immanent and the imminent of the historical toward the transcendent and the eternal of the utopian divine, and finally, discusses the implications of podvig's theological connotations as a cultural value and a “subjective force” in sustaining the revolutionary efforts.
Among those included in the lists of being sent out in 1922 as part of the “Philosophers’ Steamboat,” there was Sergei Nikolayevich (Father Sergius) Bulgakov (1871–1944). Prior to his deportation, Bulgakov, after many years of struggle, reunited his philosophical and theological journeys. This is reflected in his dialogues and essays, in particular, in At the Feast of the Gods and At the Walls of Chersonesus, and Tragedy of Philosophy. In exile, Bulgakov continued to reflect on the tragedy of a thinker facing a spiritual catastrophe, the tragedy of Russia torn by wars and revolutions, and his personal tragedies. Having regained his firm foundation and a way to overcome his uprootedness, Bulgakov makes an outstanding contribution to preserving Russian culture. This paper focuses on Bulgakov as a person, and his philosophy of religion is considered from the vantage point of how it reflects his personal struggles and humanistic worldview. The Philosophers’ Steamboat, an act of ideological repressions that followed the turbulent years of the Bolshevik Revolution and the Civil War, bears a lesson for today when Russia is at war again, and many prominent cultural figures sever ties with their country. Sergei Bulgakov’s fate and work set an example of living and creating through tragedy.
Introduction. 2021 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of S. N. Bulgakov, an outstanding Russian scientist, economist and philosopher. The aim of the study is to assess the scientific contribution of S. N. Bulgakov to the development of Russian socio-economic thought. Materials and Methods. The work was written on the basis of the economic writings of S. N. Bulgakov, documents and materials of that era, as well as contemporary Russian and foreign publications. The article uses a dialectical approach, methods of induction and deduction, analysis and synthesis, structural-functional and program-targeted research methods. Results. The article reveals the scientific contribution of S. N. Bulgakov to the formulation and solution of urgent problems of the humanities and economics. The place and role of S. N. Bulgakov in the history of Russian and world science are revealed. The problems of the fundamental work of S. N. Bulgakov “Capitalism and Agriculture” (1900) and his other economic studies are considered in detail. An assessment is given to the ideas of the formation of a humanistic political economy, the doctrine of “Christian socialism”, the relationship between the principles of spiritual, moral and rationalistic approaches in the study of the national economy. The specific views of the scientist on the agrarian economy are shown: agrarian overpopulation, the nature of agricultural labor, the operation of the law of diminishing land fertility, the peculiarities of domestic agriculture, the nature of land rent. The idea of the legitimacy of the ideas and conclusions of S. N. Bulgakov about the nature and prospects of the development of capitalism in Russia, the spread of small and medium-sized forms of organization of agrarian production, understanding of the agrarian economy in the “broad” and “narrow” sense is substantiated. Discussion and Conclusion. A comparative analysis of the views of S. N. Bulgakov, N. I. Bukharin, K. Marx, V. I. Lenin, A. Smith, A. V. Chayanov on the general theoretical aspects of the development of agricultural production is carried out. Shown are modern studies devoted to the ideas of S. N. Bulgakov in the field of socio-economic analysis.
Cambridge Core - Russian and East European History - Liberal Ideas in Tsarist Russia - by Vanessa Rampton
Of all the past efforts to reconcile Marxism and religiosity, the “god-building” episode within the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) is especially fascinating. Situating god building in its historical context, amidst the reaction that followed the revolutionary defeat of 1905, this essay reconstructs the intellectual drama which subsequently ensued. Maksim Gorkii and Anatolii Lunacharskii emerge as the progenitors and main protagonists of the god-building current, in debate with more orthodox Marxists like Plekhanov and Lenin. God building was articulated in a number of different literary forms, from poems and letters to novels, articles, and even philosophical treatises. Ultimately, the objections raised by Lenin and others are found to be more in line with the views of Marx and Engels, though god building does pose important questions about the redeemable content of religious belief.
The suspicion that a theological framework informs the leftist revolutionary projects was used to denounce them as crypto religious movements with otherworldly objectives. Evidence from the protocols recorded by Swetlana Alexijewitsch suggests that the post-soviet experience is indeed characterized by a feeling of lost faith in some transcendent goal. I argue that the Russian revolution inherited theological conceptions from the Hegelian concept of history. Contrary to widespread diagnosis, however, such a heritage draws more on the political expertise present in the theological tradition than establishing a transcendent knowledge about the course of history. Hegel and the Marxists knew rather well that an historical project such as a revolution presupposes a goal that is present in the actual world but aims at the profound transformation of this very actuality. Ideas as freedom and equality evoke the vision of a world that is delivered from domination and exploitation. As the religious movements before them, the revolutionaries had to create a community that was devoted to their historical aim in order to reach deliverance from the actual ills. The communist party was the failed attempt to create a militant organization with such universal pretensions.
In Serge Bulgakov’s thought “Chaadaev’s despair” is concerned with Russia’s search for a proper mission. Bulgakov’s “national turn” after the first Russian Revolution was based on “cultural patriotism” and intended to provide a progressive alternative to the “militant nationalism” of the time. A return to Orthodox Christianity is, according to Bulgakov, both the right medicine for his sick country and the Russian people’s mission in world history. The article critically explores the changes in Bulgakov’s thoughts about the concept of “the nation” against the background of the historical context of his time.
This article presents a discussion of the economic ethics of contemporary Russian Orthodoxy, manifested in the practices of economic actors, and Orthodox economic ideology, drawing on the approach formulated by Max Weber in The Protestant Ethic. Orthodox ideology and economic ethics are analyzed using popular Orthodox literature (1990-2004), doctrinal texts on social and economic issues, as well as materials gathered in ethnographic expeditions between 1999-2004 to eight monasteries in various regions of the Russian Federation. Key aspects of the economic ideology include love for one's neighbor and work as a means for self-sufficiency; the result of work is considered to be the gift of God. Key categories of economic ethics are obedience and humility. This article concludes in the framework of Weber's approach, that such ethics of obedience and humility determine the attitude towards economic activities, which the Russian Orthodox Church generates among its followers.
Jean-Luc Nancy notes that the community, since it is no absolute subject (self, will, spirit), is by its nature not inscribed in any logic metaphysics. In spite of this, or indeed because of this, Western philosophy has persistently tried to interpret the community through precisely these metaphysical terms (Nancy, 1986, page 18, La Commonaute; desoevree, Christian Bourgeois, Paris). Some thoughts about Russian and Japanese notions of community and space will show that characteristics pointed out by Nancy and Kant are binding only for societies that function within a Western intellectual framework. I want to introduce and compare the thought of Nishida Kitaro (1870-1945) and Semen L Frank (1877-1950), who develop the notions of basho and sobornost' as alternative philosophical concepts of space. Both Nishida and Frank attempt to overcome what they consider a typically 'Western' idea of individual 'I's as materialized 'objects'. Procedures like Einfuhlung or intuition are inefficient because all they do is to transform the other, from the point of view of the T, into an object. Finally, for the Eurasianist, the state organization had at its center a personal god, and the 'symphonic personality' of Russia-Eurasia represented a nonegoistic, communal consciousness.
This article examines the role of terrorism in the decline and fall of Imperial Russia. It analyzes the struggle between terrorists and the Tsarist government during three stages: (1) 1861–66, amidst the ‘Great Reforms’ and radicalization of students; (2) 1877–81, a confrontation between populist terrorists and government; and (3) the crisis of 1904–7, which witnessed open battles between terrorists on the one side and police and military on the other. These periods resemble one another in a number of ways. Government efforts to reform were repudiated by radicals as insufficient and grounds for renewed terrorist attacks. The terrorist response was then used by government officials in order to resist or abrogate the reforms earlier thought so necessary. Liberals initially sympathized with the radicals and offered them moral and financial support. But as terrorism became increasingly bloody and the government increasingly repressive, they withdrew from the confrontation. All three periods ended with a perceptible shudder of fear and a desperate longing for normality.
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