Fedor Stepun - Former and unfulfilled. Fedor Stepun: Keeper of Higher Meanings, or Through the Catastrophes of the 20th Century Thoughts on Russia

Stepun Fedor Avgustovich - Russian philosopher, historian, sociologist, writer. Born in the family of the director of stationery factories. After graduating from a private real school in Moscow, he entered Heidelberg University, where he studied philosophy, political economy, law, theory and art history for seven years. He defended his thesis on the philosophy of Vladimir Solovyov. Participated in organizing the publication of the international almanac on the philosophy of culture "Logos", heading, returning to Moscow in 1910, its Russian edition together with S.I. Gessen and B.V. Yakovenko. He traveled a lot around Russia, lecturing on philosophy, aesthetics, and literary theory as a member of the Bureau of Provincial Lecturers. Participated in World War I with the rank of ensign. After the February Revolution, he was the head of the political department of the military ministry. After the October Revolution, being drafted into the Red Army, he participated in the civil war and was wounded. In 1919-20 he was the literary and artistic director of the "Demonstration Theater of the Revolution" in Moscow, removed from work for ideological reasons. Exiled from Russia in 1922. From 1926 to 1937 he worked at the Department of Sociology at the University of Dresden, was fired by the Nazis with a ban on writing and speaking in public. From 1931 to 1937 he participated in the publication of the magazine "New City", published in Paris. From 1946 he lectured at the University of Munich on the sociology of the Russian revolution and the history of Russian symbolism. His lectures were held in crowded auditoriums, gathering students from all faculties. Creative communication with Stepun sometimes forced his German colleagues to wonder about the scale of Russian pre-revolutionary culture, if "not its most famous figure" seemed to them a "titan". Truth, according to Stepun, is not the "object" of knowledge, but the "atmosphere" that the thinker breathes and which he must radiate with his personality. Christianity has opened for us the world of grace-filled fellowship, the ability to see the other in the atmosphere and rays of truth. The philosopher "thinks with his eyes." He, like the poet, is a "thickener", helping people to see the sensual face of truth. The deepest essence of Bolshevism, according to Stepun, is "an attempt to extinguish the image of Christ in the soul of the people", depriving people of the ability to see the Truth directly and distinguish it from lies. But “empty-breasted” liberalism goes the same way, separating freedom from Truth and trying to implement the “Christian program” with pagan hands. Only a Christian person is able to prevent the growth of the inevitable evil in politics. Radical personalism pervades philosophy, sociology, and Stepun's artistic work.

A.V. Sobolev

New Philosophical Encyclopedia. In four volumes. / Institute of Philosophy RAS. Scientific ed. advice: V.S. Stepin, A.A. Huseynov, G.Yu. Semigin. M., Thought, 2010, vol. III, N - S, p. 637-638.

Stepun Fedor Avgustovich (1884-1965) - Russian philosopher, culturologist, historian, writer. Studied philosophy at Heidelberg University Windelbanda(1902-1910). In 1910 he defended his doctoral dissertation in historiosophy. V.S. Solovyova. One of the editors of the Logos magazine, published in Russia in 1910-1914. Worked as a literary and theater critic. During the war he was drafted into the army. After the February Revolution, he took up political and journalistic activities, worked in the Provisional Government. After October, he worked in the newspapers of the right SRs, was drafted into the Red Army. Participated in the work of the Free Academy of Spiritual Culture created by Berdyaev, worked in the theater.

In 1922 he was expelled from Russia, settled in Dresden, and taught. In 1937, a ban was imposed on his teaching and journalistic activities.

From 1931 to 1939 - member of the editorial board of the magazine "New City". One of the ideologists of "novogradstvo" - a form of Christian socialism. In 1944, as a result of the bombing of Dresden, his archive and library were destroyed. From 1946 he taught the history of Russian philosophy at the University of Munich (head of the department of Russian culture). Actively involved in the life of the second wave of Russian emigration. Published in the journals: "New Way", "Frontiers", "Bridges", "Experiments", etc. The main works - articles in "Logos": "The Tragedy of Creativity" (1910), "The Tragedy of Mystical Consciousness" (1911), etc.; "Life and Creativity" (1923, title according to the title of the article in "Logos"), "Main Problems of the Theater" (1923), "Former and Unfulfilled" (vols. 1-2, 1956), "Dostoevsky and Tolstoy: Christianity and Social Revolution" (1961), "Meetings" (1962), "Bolshevism and Christian Existence" (1962), "Mystical Worldview enenie" (1964) and others. S. is considered a representative of pure transcendentalism (together with Yakovenko).

In the mid-1920s, he experienced a serious spiritual crisis, which led to a revision of his views on the basis of religious outlook. If in the first period of creativity S. defended the religious-realistic symbolism, understanding art as a designation of the invisible world, and defended the autonomy philosophical knowledge, then now he began to comprehend Christianity in the "spirit of a religious-symbolic commemoration of the deepest destinies of the world" and came to the condemnation of "philosophizing Christianity" and to the "religious experience of God." S.'s philosophical constructions are based on a synthesis of neo-Kantianism with the ideas of phenomenology, from which he moved to the philosophy of life and religious worldview. In his initial attitude, S. saw the task of philosophy in "seeing" the Absolute, understood in the tradition of V. Solovyov as a positive all-unity. "Sight" is possible in experiencing as the primary reality of the soul-spiritual being of the individual. According to S., two types of experiences (experience) are possible: experiences of creativity, subject to the dualism of the subject-object relationship (the content of experiences in them is differentiated), defining the pole of culture; and experiences of life, subordinated to the idea of ​​positive all-unity (the content of experiences in them "curls up", becomes "opaque"), setting the pole of the Absolute. Movement into the depths of experience (to the Absolute) is manifested outside in the creation of cultural values ​​(movement to the pole of culture). Thus, according to S., the antinomianism of life and creativity, consciousness and being, the duality of man is set: he is like what he is (given as chaos), and he is like an ideal (given to himself as the cosmos). Hence the tragedy (sacrifice) of creativity as a special form of objectification, most fully realized in art.

According to S., the creative act destroys the organic integrity of the soul, its religious nature, removes the creator from God, locking him in a culture that degenerates into civilization, one-sidedly expressing a positive all-unity. However, direct comprehension of God "forbids creative gesture" - direct knowledge of God excludes culture. Throughout his life, a person is doomed to solve this dilemma: to try to maintain his integrity (unanimity) and express it in the diversity of its manifestations (polyheartedness); be aware of oneself both as a fact (a given) and as a task. Depending on the solution, S. identifies three types of souls (personalities): 1) petty-bourgeois (choice in favor of the convenience of life as a given); 2) mystical (choice in favor of direct merging with God); 3) artistic (equal affirmation of both poles of life and creativity, unanimity and polyphony). Creativity creates: a) state values ​​that organize and streamline life (personality, love, nation, family) and b) objective values ​​(the benefits of science, scientific philosophy, morality, law, art). In culture, art occupies a privileged position (due to the unity of content and form), in art - theater (due to the unity of actor and spectator). Art is symbolic, it expresses the idea not unambiguously, but ambiguously. Comprehending the symbolism, the artist in artistic images "calls out" and "illuminates" the ideas inherent in it, "returning" the concreteness of the world to God. Man needs not "points of view", but "vision of the world", embracing the world in integrity ("sympathetic vision"). Vision, from the point of view of S., gives Christianity as a spiritual experience of faith, love and freedom.

A special place in the work of S. occupies an understanding of the events of 1917 and subsequent years. He is inclined to regard Bolshevism as a "soil" and primary, and not an accidental and "alluvial" phenomenon of Russian culture. The Bolsheviks, according to S., are both "proteges of the people's element" and "imitators of the people's truth." With all his personally negative attitude towards the revolution, S. believes that revolutions (and other major upheavals), destroying the national consciousness, expose the invisible foundations of culture. Catastrophic epochs interrupt illusory existence, give rise to the "religious spirit" of catastrophic art, set impulses for movement towards the Absolute.

V.L. Abushenko

The latest philosophical dictionary. Comp. Gritsanov A.A. Minsk, 1998.

Stepun Fyodor Avgustovich (6 (18) 02.1884, Moscow - 02.23.1965, Munich) - philosopher, historian, culturologist, writer. He studied philosophy at the University of Heidelberg in Germany (1902-1910) under the guidance of W. Windelband, was a convinced neo-Kantian and at the same time "from the very beginning he was looking for ways to a religious-mystical addition to transcendental philosophy" (In memory of S. I. Gessen // New Journal. 1951. Book 25. P. 216). Stepun's doctoral dissertation is devoted to Russian historiosophy (W. Solowjew. Leipzig, 1910). In 1910, he returned to Russia, published in philosophical ("Logos", "Works and Days"), socio-political, literary ("Russian Thought", "Northern Notes") and theatrical ("Studio", "Masks") magazines, which determined the main theme of his research - the relationship of creativity to life and culture and ways to implement it. The most important among others was the article "Life and Creativity" (Logos. 1913. Books 3 and 4).

As a literary and theatrical critic, Stepun defended religious-realistic symbolism - understanding of art not as a reflection of visible world, but as a designation of the invisible world. In those same years, Stepun was active in social and cultural work (participation in the editing of the Logos magazine, leadership of an aesthetic seminar at the Musaget publishing house, lecture work at the Evening Prechistensky working courses and at the Bureau of Provincial Lecturers).

Stepun's political pro-SR sympathies were reflected with the beginning of the February Revolution. Stepun is a delegate to the All-Russian Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, editor of the newspaper of the political department of the Military Ministry of the Provisional Government "Invalid" (renamed at his suggestion to the "Army and Navy of Free Russia"), head of the cultural and educational department of the same ministry. After the October Revolution, Stepun collaborated in the newspapers of the right-wing Socialist-Revolutionaries Vozrozhdenie and Son of the Fatherland, participated in the work of the Free Academy of Spiritual Culture created by Berdyaev, published the collection Rosehip, was in charge of the literary part of the First State Demonstration Theater, and worked in the theoretical section of the TEO Narkompros.

The circle of his interests included the problems of philosophical anthropology and the philosophy of culture, which found its expression in publications in the journals Theatrical Review, The Art of the Theater, and the collection Oswald Spengler and the Decline of Europe. In 1922 Stepun was exiled to Germany. Living in Berlin, he taught at the Religious and Philosophical Academy, published in the journal Sovremennye Zapiski (a series of articles Thoughts on Russia, the novel Nikolay Pereslegin, literary-critical essays on V. I. Ivanov, A. Bely, I. A. Bunin, many reviews).

In 1923, his first books, The Basic Problems of the Theater and Life and Work, were published, compiled from articles previously published in Russian periodicals. During these years there was a change in his views on religion. If before the revolution he comprehended Christianity "in the spirit of a religious-symbolist commemoration of the deep destinies of the world", now he renounces "philosophizing Christianity" and accepts the religion of the living God. Since 1926, Stepun has been a professor of sociology at the cultural and scientific department of the Dresden Polytechnic. From 1931 to 1939 he was a member of the editorial board of the Novy Grad magazine and one of the ideologists of the Novograd movement in the Russian diaspora. "Novograd" was one of the forms of Christian socialism and considered itself the legitimate successor of the Russian tradition of the Christian community. Stepun formulates his socio-political credo as a synthesis Christian idea truth, the humanistic-enlightenment idea of ​​political freedom and the socialist idea of ​​economic justice.

During the Great Patriotic War, Stepun took a patriotic position. In 1944, during the bombing of Dresden, his library and archive were destroyed. Since 1946, Stepun lived in Munich and headed the department of the history of Russian culture specially created for him at the university. The main theme of his research is Russian history and culture as an expression of Russian spirituality (“Bolshevism and Christian Existence”, “Dostoevsky and Tolstoy: Christianity and Social Revolution”, a number of historical and cultural essays).

Stepun was actively involved in the life of the second wave of Russian emigration (leader of the Russian Student Christian Movement, one of the organizers of the "Association of Foreign Writers"), published in the journals "New Journal", "Frontiers", "Bridges", "Experiments", "Airways". Marked with the highest distinction of Germany for his contribution to the development of Russian and European culture. The main task Philosophy Stepun considered the “vision” of the Absolute, which he represented in the tradition of V. S. Solovyov as a positive unity. He assigned a large role in this process to experience as the primary reality of the soul-spiritual being of the individual. Stepun saw two trends in the experience itself. In the first case, the differences within the experience are "rolled up" to a "cognitively undifferentiated dark center." This pole of it is "marked" by the concept of positive all-unity or life (Absolute). In the second case, experience differentiates its contents, and this pole is denoted by the concept of subject-object dualism or creativity. This is where the world of culture comes from. The movement into the depths of experience manifests itself outwardly in the creation of cultural values. The relationship between life and creativity is antinomic: the creative act destroys the organic integrity of the soul, its religious nature, removes the creator from God, locking him in the "delusion and chaos" of culture, each of the forms of which one-sidedly and partially expresses a positive all-unity. But even direct comprehension of God "forbids a creative gesture", direct knowledge of God excludes culture. The anthropological aspects of S.'s creative philosophy are concretized in the work The Main Problems of the Theatre.

Throughout life, he believed, a person constantly resolves the contradiction between integrity (unanimity) and the diversity of its manifestations (polyheartedness), between self-awareness as a fact and as a task. Depending on the resolution of contradictions, Stepun singled out 3 types of soul (three types of personalities) - petty-bourgeois, mystical and artistic. The first consciously or unconsciously suppresses polyphony for the sake of a practically stable and comfortable life as a fact. The second, directly merging with God, closes the way to creativity. Only the artistic soul equally affirms unanimity and polyphony, the pole of life and creativity as a mobile balance of "crumbled wealth and building unity." Creativity creates state values ​​that organize and streamline life (personality, love, nation, family), and objective values ​​(the benefits of science, scientific philosophy, art, morality, law). Of all types of culture, only art, thanks to the perfect unity of form and content, expresses life most fully, and in art, the theater, as a unity of actor and spectator, is the least burdened by "material and cultural fixations." Art, however, is not a reflection of the visible world, but its "commemoration", symbolization. In a symbol, the idea, which combines all the existential and semantic beginnings of reality, is expressed not unambiguously (which would turn it into a hieroglyph), but many-mindedly. Comprehending the symbolism of being, the artist, through concrete images, “calls out” and “illuminates” the ideological content embedded in them and thereby “returns” the concreteness of the world to God. The consideration of reality as symbolic does not presuppose “points of view”, not ideolologisms that coarsen life, perceive it one-sidedly, but “eyes”, “vision” of the world, to which the world is embraced in its integrity. "Compassionate vision" although it does not separate the subject from the object, but does not deprive its results of objectivity. To acquire objectivity without destroying the subject allows Christianity as a spiritual experience of the unity of faith, love and freedom.

The main task of Stepun's historiosophical and culturological essays on Russia is an attempt to understand the causes of the Russian revolution of 1917 and to see possible ways of reviving the Motherland. The religiosity of the Russian people, "hostile to cultural differentiation", in combination with the geographical and socio-economic circumstances of history, was revealed as "mystical nihilism" in relation to the "creative creativity and law-abiding efficiency" of Russians. The selfishness of the ruling strata, the destructive appeals of the intelligentsia, which poisoned national life with "Western poisons of atheism, positivism and socialism", and, finally, the misfortune of World War I brought Russia to February, which ended in October.

Stepun rejects the version of the non-nationality of October, considering Bolshevism "a soil and primary, and not an accidental and alluvial phenomenon", considering the Bolsheviks themselves "proteges of the people's elements." A revolution should be considered to have taken place when it destroys the national consciousness, a special style, inherent only in this culture, of “denouncing things invisible”. He connects the post-communist future of Russia with the elimination of Bolshevism by the Russian people in alliance with the creative forces of emigration. Stepun advocated spiritual freedom-loving socialism as an ideological and cultural platform for all anti-Bolshevik forces.

A. A. Ermichev

Russian philosophy. Encyclopedia. Ed. the second, modified and supplemented. Under the general editorship of M.A. Olive. Comp. P.P. Apryshko, A.P. Polyakov. - M., 2014, p. 608-610.

Compositions: Op. M., 2000; Life and art. Berlin, 1923; The main problems of the theater. Berlin, 1923; Thoughts on Russia // Sovremennye zapiski, 1923 (Book 14, 15, 17), 1924 (Book 19, 21), 1925 (Book 23), 1926 (Book 28), 1927 (Book 32, 33), 1928 (Book 35); Nikolay Pereslegin. Paris, 1929; The past and the unfulfilled. T. 1-2. New York, 1956; SPb., 2000; Portraits St. Petersburg, 1999, Russia. SPb., 1999; mystical worldview. Five images of Russian symbolism. St. Petersburg, 2012; Der Bolschewisnuis und Christliche Existenz. Mtinchen, 1959; Dostoewskij und Tolstoj: Christentums und sozial Revolution, Drei Essays. Mtinchen, 1961, Encounters; Dostoevsky - L. Tolstoy - Bunin - Zaitsev - V. Ivanov-Bely-Leonov. Munich, 1962; Mystische Weltschau: flint Gestalten des russischen Symbolismus. Mtinchen, 1964; Encounters and Reflections: Fav. articles. L., 1992.

Literature: Bely A. Beginning of the century. M., 1990; He is. Between two revolutions. M., 1990; Varshavsky V. A. The unnoticed generation. New York, 1956; Vshiyak M. V. Modern notes of the editor's Memoirs. St. Petersburg; Dusseldorf, 1993; Zander L. A. About F. A. Stepun and some of his books // Bridges 1963 T. 10. S. 318-340; Struve G.P. Russian literature in exile. New York, 1956 (Paris, 1984, Poltoratsky N.P. Philosopher-artist // Poltoratsky N.P. Russia and the Revolution: Russian Religious-Philosophical and National-Political Thought of the 20th Century: Collection of Articles. Tenatly, 1988, Stammler V.A. Poltoratsky, Pittsburgh, 1975, Fedor Avgustovich Stepun (Ser. “Philosophy of Russia in the first half of the 20th century). M., 2012.

Read further:

Philosophers, lovers of wisdom (biographical index).

Compositions:

From the letters of the warrant officer-artilleryman. M., 1918;

Life and art. Berlin, 1923;

The main problems of the theater. Berlin, 1923;

Nikolay Pereslegin. Philosophical novel in letters. Paris, 1929;

Former and unfulfilled, v. 1-2. New York, 1956 (St. Petersburg, 1994);

Meetings. Munich, 1962; supplemented ed. M., 1998.

Literature:

Chizhevsky D.I. It's about Stepun. - "New Journal" (New York), 1964, No. 75;

Stammler A. F. A. Stepun. - Ibid., 1966, No. 82;

Stammler A. F. A. Stepun. - In: Russian religious and philosophical thought of the 20th century. Pittsburgh, 1975.

Bely A. Beginning of the century. M., 1990;

Bely A. Between two revolutions. M., 1990;

Varshavsky V. A. The unnoticed generation. New York, 1956;

Vshiyak M. V. Modern notes of the editor's Memoirs. St. Petersburg; Dusseldorf, 1993;

Zander L. A. About F. A. Stepun and some of his books // Bridges 1963 T. 10. S. 318-340;

Struve G.P. Russian literature in exile. New York 1956 (Paris 1984)

Poltoratsky N.P. Philosopher-artist // Poltoratsky N.P. Russia and the Revolution: Russian religious-philosophical and national-political thought of the XX century: Sat. articles. Tenatly, 1988,

Stammler V. F. A. Stepun / / Russian religious and philosophical thought of the XX century: Sat. articles ed. N. P. Poltoratsky. Pittsburgh, 1975

Fedor Avgustovich Stepun (Ser. “Philosophy of Russia in the first half of the 20th century). M., 2012.

Preface to the book: Fedor Avgustovich Stepun / ed. VC. Cantor. M.: ROSSPEN, 2012. S. 5–34.

Let's start, perhaps, with a banality, but we will try to explain it. The value of a person, as you know, is finally formed and realized only after his death. And not always right away. There are many reasons for the delay. Say, Shakespeare was very famous during his lifetime, and then firmly forgotten for 200 years, until he was rediscovered by Goethe, from that moment, thanks to numerous interpretations, his significance grew to the real dimensions of his genius. Mikhail Bulgakov was semi-banned, and his main work was not published. Only after the release of The Master and Margarita did his image begin to take shape, to take shape. The significance of the great Russian émigré philosophers was understood by few in their homeland. As the poet Naum Korzhavin sadly wrote about foreign Russian thinkers:

Not saved - saved
A lot have been opened though.
Were the knowledge of Russia,
But Russia did not know.

But as soon as the barriers fell, this knowledge became available to a relatively wide range of intellectuals, a significant role in this was played by the series “From the History of the National philosophical thought”, published from the late 1980s to the beginning of this century by the journal Questions of Philosophy. The opening continues. For example, the figure of Gustav Shpet takes on a true contour with the release of each next volume published by T.G. Shchedrina. The names of philosophers even got into the mass media. Whether this is good or bad, we will not discuss.

Fyodor Avgustovich Stepun (1884–1965) found himself in a special position. He was a member of the circle of the literary and philosophical elite of the Russian Diaspora, who was friends with G.P. Fedotov, I.I. Bunakov-Fondaminsky, D.I. Chizhevsky, S.L. Frank, I.A. Bunin, B.K. Zaitsev, etc., nevertheless, he was, as they say, an outsider, a man of his own. His fame was great, but - in Germany. By his stay in this country, he involuntarily pushed himself away from the Parisian and American Russian emigration. In addition, he was a professor of real German educational institutions, and not self-made Russian institutions. In this sense, his fate is somewhat similar to the fate of Chizhevsky, also an emigrant, also a German professor, who also only recently begins to return to the homeland that expelled him. For the last 30 years of his life, Stepun published books of his historiosophical and cultural texts, primarily in German.

The younger generation of emigration, wondering “why the writer, philosopher and sociologist Stepun, well known not only to the older generation of Russian emigration, but also to the German cultural world, remained aloof from more or less world fame”, believed that the reason was “cultural isolation from the rest of the world of Germany, in which, after being expelled from Soviet Russia, he settled ... F.A. Stepun". Becoming in the eyes of many a famous German writer, “equal in rank to such spiritual exponents of the era as Paul Tillich, Martin Buber, Romano Guardini, Paul Hecker, etc.” , he wrote primarily about Russia, German experience was also his constant problem, albeit in the constant context of his Russian experience.

An interesting phenomenon, the more and closer we learn the heritage of a person, then two options are possible: the first - he will turn us away from himself and the second - his figure will grow to the appropriate size. The publication of Stepun's books in Russia over the past 10–12 years shows that interest in him is growing and he himself is becoming an influential figure in Russian thought (see the bibliography at the end of the volume). But we are only just beginning to realize its meaning, its level, and to master ideas. If, say, German colleagues see him on a par with Tillich, write articles about it, then in our perception he is either a Kantian, or a Slavophile, or a Westernizer. Meanwhile, the independence of his thought does not fit into our usual clichés. And it is high time to write works comparing him with Tillich, and with Guardini, and with Berdyaev, and with Fedotov, and with other figures of equal size.

Interesting feedback. Interest in Stepun in Russia brought back interest in him in Germany. Conferences are held, not so long ago his book was published - “Russische Demokratie als Projekt. Schriften im Exil 1924–1936” (Berlin: Basisdruck, 2004. 301 s.). A volume of his articles not collected in collections is being prepared in Dresden for publication. The largest German connoisseur of the work of Stepun K. Hufen, who lives in Berlin, published the only book about the thinker, so complete and deep that it still serves as a compendium for all those who write about the thinker. Perhaps the preface is not the right place to say such things, but it is high time in Russia to translate and publish this book.

The study of Stepun's work and life can also be of interest with the incredible twists and turns of his fate, which were little surprising in the era of revolutions and wars, but now seem to be deliberately invented as the plot of an adventure film. Born in Russia into a wealthy German family (his father was the director of a paper mill), he spent his childhood in the Russian outback in the Kaluga region (the city of Kondrovo), then studied philosophy at Heidelberg University (1903-1908), where he was taught by the great German philosophers of the early twentieth century - W. Windelband and G. Rickert. In 1910 he defended his dissertation on the historiosophy of Vladimir Solovyov. After graduating from the university, Stepun, together with his friends, started to publish an international journal on the philosophy of culture. And, I must say, the plan of the determined youths (with the help of Rickert) was a success. In 1910, the first issue of the journal Logos was published, where in an introductory article to the issue, and indeed to the entire publication (his co-author was Sergei Gessen, a fellow student in Heidelberg and co-publisher of the journal), he outlined his principled position, which diverged from contemporary Russian thought: “We must admit that no matter how significant and interesting individual Russian phenomena in the field of scientific philosophy may be, philosophy, which used to be Greek, is now predominantly German . This is proved not so much by modern German philosophy itself, but by the undoubted fact that all modern original and significant phenomena of the philosophical thought of other peoples bear a clear imprint of the influence of German idealism; and vice versa, all attempts at philosophical creativity that ignore this heritage can hardly be recognized as unconditionally significant and really fruitful. And therefore, only having mastered this heritage, we will be able to confidently go further. G. Simmel, G. Rickert, E. Husserl were published in the magazine. He himself wrote about German romantics - Friedrich Schlegel, Rainer Rilke. This was the period when Stepun considered his main task to be the assimilation of the German ideas of recent years by Russian philosophy, believing this to be a factor in the Europeanization of Russia. Stepun himself was a typical "Russian European", as the thinker was defined by his compatriots and German friends and colleagues (Archbishop John of San Francisco, Stepun's student - Professor A. Stammler, etc.).

Having returned from Germany, having experienced a temporary disappointment in I. Kant in Heidelberg (the beginning of the 20th century), in Russia he again returned to his philosophy, declaring in 1913 the need for the Kantian school for Russian thought: live means for the philosopher not just to live, but live by thought, that is, to think). If it is true that there is no revelation in Kantianism, then it is also true that Kant has a brilliant logical conscience. Is it possible to believe in revelation, which, in principle, denies conscience? What is conscience if not minimum revelation? Sooner or later, but the thirst for revelation, which is fundamentally at odds with conscience, must inevitably lead to frank logical lack of conscience, i.e. to the destruction of all philosophy."

It must be said that this was a clear period of rejection of Kant in Russian, especially orthodox and in the spirit Russian Marxism oriented philosophy. In The Philosophy of Freedom (1911), the former Marxist Berdyaev, who became an Orthodox thinker, is crudely unambiguous: "Kant provided a brilliant example of a purely police philosophy." V.F. Ern, in response to an editorial and program article in Logos, directly called Kant the highest exponent of "meonism" (ie, the desire for non-existence) of Western thought and culture. If for Stepun the study of Kant is a step towards Revelation, then P.A. Florensky quite theologically and academically sharply contrasted Kant with the knowledge of God: “Let us remember that “Pillar of Malice of God-opposing God”, on which the anti-religious thought of our time rests ... Of course, you can guess what Kant means. In the end, not the etatist Hegel, but Kant, who defended the self-sufficiency of the human personality, was declared by Orthodox philosophy the ideologist of German militarism (in the article by VF Ern "From Kant to Krupp"). It is no coincidence that V.I. Lenin, an open enemy of Christianity, at the beginning of the century just as categorically demanded (Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, 1909) “to dissociate ourselves in the most resolute and irrevocable manner from fideism and agnosticism, from philosophical idealism and from the sophistry of the followers of Hume and Kant. Modern followers of this line like to quote a phrase from Stepun's memoirs: "The ease of my inner departure from Kant ... is explained, of course, by the alienness of his philosophy to my entire spiritual and mental structure." But at the same time they release the middle of the phrase: “the development of which, however, I still continue to consider necessary condition serious study of philosophy. In the introduction to the collection, I consider it necessary to clarify this quote.

But then there is an unexpected turn of biography. The fate of the philosophical dispute was, in a sense, decided by history itself. The first World War(popularly referred to as "German"), and Stepun goes to the German front as an artilleryman with the rank of ensign (his wonderful book "From the Notes of an Artillery Ensign" tells about this period). Without loud words, the "neo-Western philosopher" Stepun went into the army. Love for Kant did not mean dislike for Russia. But the anti-Christian and neo-pagan Lenin advocated the defeat of Russia.

The war develops into the February Revolution, and Stepun, who was on the side of the democratic Provisional Government, who traveled, risking his life, through the trenches, agitating soldiers (most often killing such agitator officers), becomes the head of the political department of the army under the Minister of War, the famous Socialist-Revolutionary Boris Savinkov. Stepun writes journalistic articles in military newspapers: about the political education of the army, about the need for firm power, about the danger of Bolshevism.

After the October Revolution, having escaped execution, Stepun left for his wife's former estate - to become a peasant (something similar, as we remember, is described in Boris Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago). Having always had an artistic beginning in himself, he opens a theater where he acts as a director, and the peasants of the surrounding villages play in it as actors. Since 1919, under the patronage of Lunacharsky, Stepun became the head of the State Demonstration Theater, acting as director, actor and theater theorist. By the way, he documented this experience in the book Basic Problems of the Theater (Berlin, 1923). But it was clearly destined for him - to again get into some kind of political action, involuntarily, like a victim, but a victim who involuntarily provoked an attack on himself and his kind. Stepun's activities turned out to be the root cause that prompted Lenin to think about expelling the Russian spiritual elite to the West.

The reason for the leader's decision was a book about O. Spengler, written by four Russian thinkers. Spengler was brought to the Russian philosophical public by Stepun. However, let's give the floor to the documents. First, the memoirs of Stepun himself: “Rumors have reached us that a wonderful book has appeared in Germany by the philosopher Oswald Spengler, unknown to anyone before, predicting the imminent death of European culture ... Some time later, I unexpectedly received from Germany the first volume of The Decline of Europe. Berdyaev invited me to read a report about him at a public meeting of the Religious and Philosophical Academy ... The report I read gathered a lot of public and was very successful ... Spengler's book ... captured the minds of educated Moscow society with such force that it was decided to publish a special collection of articles devoted to it. The collection was attended by: Berdyaev, Frank, Bukspann and myself. In spirit, the collection turned out to be extremely solid. Appreciating the great erudition of the newly-minted German philosopher, his artistically penetrating description of cultural epochs, and his prophetic anxiety for Europe, we all agreed in rejecting his biologically statutory approach to historiosophical questions and his idea, which follows from this approach, that every culture, like a plant organism, experiences its spring, summer, autumn and winter.

The collection, Kulturtrager in its pathos, evoked a reaction from the Bolshevik leader that was unexpected for their authors: “T. Gorbunov. I wanted to talk to Unshlicht about the enclosed book. In my opinion, this looks like a "literary cover for the White Guard organization." Talk to Unshlicht not by phone and let him write to me secret(highlighted by me. - VC.) and return the book. Lenin".

In May 1922, at the suggestion of Lenin, a provision on "expulsion abroad" was introduced into the Criminal Code. In 2003, the journal Otechestvennye Arkhivy (No. 1, pp. 65–96) published a selection of materials showing how carefully the Politburo and the Cheka prepared the expulsion system and selected the names of the deportees, giving a detailed description of each. So, in the “Resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) on the approval of the list of intellectuals expelled from Russia” dated August 10, 1922, Stepun, who was included in the additional list, was characterized as follows: “7. Stepun Fedor Avgustovich. Philosopher, mystically and SR-minded. In the days of Kerenskyism, he was our ardent, active enemy, working in the newspaper of the right-wing socialists-r[revolutionaries] Volya Naroda. Kerensky recognized this and made him his political secretary. Now he lives near Moscow in a working intelligentsia commune. Abroad, he would feel very well, and among our emigration he can be very harmful. Ideologically connected with Yakovenko and Gessen, who fled abroad, with whom he once published Logos. Employee of the publishing house "Bereg". The characteristic is given by the literary commission. Tov. Wednesday for deportation. Tt. Bogdanov and Semashko are against. It is remarkably well understood that in exile he may turn out to be a serious adversary. And a little later (August 23) he turned out to be number eight on the "List of those not arrested". It looks even scarier than the list of those arrested. A person lives, walks, thinks, and his days are already calculated. The situation of the tragic black humor of the totalitarian era. Like Vysotsky: “But from above - from the towers - everything is a foregone conclusion: / There, at the shooters, we twitched in the sight - / It’s just screaming, how funny” (“There was an escape on a jerk"). It is important to note that the deportees passionately did not want to leave their homeland. From the recently published archives of the Cheka, one can see their unambiguously negative attitude towards emigration.

So, from the protocol of interrogation F.A. Stepun dated September 22, 1922: “I have a negative attitude towards emigration. And a sick wife is my wife, but she is never a wife to the French doctor who treats her. The emigration, which did not survive the revolution at home, deprived itself of the possibility of effective participation in the reconstruction of spiritual Russia. The Bolsheviks seemed to be frightened at some point by alien ideas, still maintaining the illusion that they themselves won by the power of the idea, although they actually relied not on the idea, but on the primitive instincts of the masses awakened by them, on permission to “rob the loot”. Let us return, however, to the Chekists' assessment of Stepun's "ideological image". The conclusion of the SO GPU in respect of F.A. Stepun on September 30, 1922: “From the moment of the October Revolution to the present, he not only did not reconcile with the Workers 'and Peasants' power existing in Russia for 5 years, but did not stop his anti-Soviet activities for a single moment at times of external difficulties for the RSFSR. So the anti-Spengler collection, in a completely irrational way, "took" its authors, according to Stepun, from the "Scythian conflagration" to Europe.

The Bolsheviks expelled more than five hundred people from Russia - the names speak for themselves: N.A. Berdyaev, S.L. Frank, L.P. Karsavin, N.O. Lossky, P.A. Sorokin, F.A. Stepun and others. But, as the Pravda newspaper wrote: “There are almost no major scientific names among those expelled. For the most part, these are politicking elements of the professorship, who are much more famous for their belonging to the Kadet party than for their scientific merits. These names are now the pride of Russian culture. Unfortunately, "we are lazy and incurious", and the events of the recent past, about which their participants even wrote, are inaccurately conveyed by today's interpreters. Sometimes it seems that the ability to read remained in the 19th century. There is a mythological paradigm, which is replicated. Until now, researchers write that Stepun left Russia by sea. For example, in a book by a well-known historian of Russian philosophy, we can read that Stepun was expelled “from Russia with a group of prominent scientists and philosophers on the so-called “philosophical ship” in 1922.” . A beautiful image replaces reality. Meanwhile, it is worth opening the memoirs of Stepun himself to read something completely different: “The day of our departure was windy, damp and brainy. The train left in the evening. Two dim kerosene lanterns burned sadly on the wet platform. Friends and acquaintances were already standing in front of the still unlit second-class carriage. There were two train sets, one that Stepun rode was sent to Riga, the other to Berlin. There were also two steamships sailing from Petrograd to Stetin - "Oberburgomaster Haken" (among others there were N.A. Berdyaev, S.L. Frank, S.E. Trubetskoy) and "Prussia" (N.O. Lossky, L.P. Karsavin, I.I. Lapshin and others).

It is interesting that the Chekists themselves called the October Revolution the "October coup", but it is even more interesting how their indictment coincides with the denunciation of Stepun in Nazi Germany. In 1926, he took the chair of sociology at the Dresden University of Technology with the assistance of two influential friends and colleagues - Richard Kroner, professor of philosophy, and Paul Tillich, professor of theology, Edmund Husserl supported his candidacy in a letter from Freiburg. Like the Bolsheviks, the Nazis tolerated it for exactly four years, until they saw that there was no reforging in the mind of Professor Stepun. A 1937 denunciation stated that he should have changed his views “on the basis of paragraphs 4 or 6 of the well-known law of 1933 on the reorientation of professional bureaucracy. This reorientation was not carried out by him, although, first of all, one should have expected that how Professor Stepun would decide in relation to the National Socialist state and build his activity correctly. But Stepun has since made no serious effort towards a positive attitude towards National Socialism. Stepun repeatedly denied the views of National Socialism in his lectures, primarily in relation to both the integrity of the National Socialist idea and the significance of the racial question, just as in relation to the Jewish question, in particular, important for the criticism of Bolshevism.

They were expelled from Russia to Germany by agreement with the German Foreign Office, with which the Bolsheviks had secret ties. It is unlikely that the exiles thought about it, but they really wanted to pass on their spiritual experience, incredible for the beginning of the 20th century, to the country that sheltered them. It is worth citing the words with which S. Frank concluded his book “The Crash of Idols”: “The great world turmoil of our time is not happening in vain, there is not a painful trampling of humanity in one place, not a senseless heap of aimless atrocities, abominations and suffering. This is the hard path of purgatory, passed by modern humanity; and perhaps it will not be arrogance to believe that we Russians, who have already been in the depths of hell, tasted like no one else, all the bitter fruits of the worship of the abomination of Babylon, will be the first to go through this purgatory and help others find the way to spiritual resurrection.

The trouble was that no one wanted to listen to them.

Emigration divided the life and work of Stepun into almost two equal halves (from 1884 to 1922 and from 1922 to 1965): into the life of a Russian thinker who could travel abroad, travel around the world, but feel that he had his own home, and into the life of a Russian thinker, expelled from home, who no longer felt the love and warmth of his native hearth, but, in the words of Dante, then,

how mournful the lips
Someone else's chunk, how difficult it is in a foreign land
Go down and up the stairs.
("Paradise", XVII, 58-60)

The second half of his life was, in fact, devoted to comprehending what happened and what he himself and his contemporaries said and thought in the first - pre-emigre - era of his life.

If in Russia Stepun acted as an active propagandist of Western European culture, first of all German philosophy, then the thinker exiled to Germany, in the years when Russia and Russian culture were put an end to, begins preaching Russian culture, its highest achievements, explaining to the West the specifics and features of Russia. He understood that just as Russia is impossible without the West, so the West is impossible without Russia, that only together they make up that complex and contradictory whole that is called Europe. But seeing in Germany the Sovietophilism that struck him, he very soberly assessed what had happened to Russia. As one of the best German connoisseurs of his work writes, “Stepun interpreted the Russian revolution as a catastrophe of popular faith, as a religious energy that went down the wrong path. He draws on Kierkegaard, who in 1848 outlined communism as the religious movement of the future. Stepun saw the purpose of his sociology in creating the theology of the Russian revolution. As an antithesis to Bolshevism, which carries a potential threat to Europe, Stepun formulates his idea of ​​democracy as "a developing model of a civilized society." Stability modern society, in his opinion, depended to a lesser extent on the economy (this is the postulate of liberalism and Marxism), but rather on the pedagogical success of democracy.

All his activities in Europe were aimed at explaining what Russia is. In exile, Stepun is a regular author of the famous "Modern Notes", where he publishes his "Thoughts on Russia", maintains a literary section there, therefore he is in constant correspondence with almost all famous cultural figures. His gigantic correspondence with the authors of the magazine has been preserved. He is friends with Ivan Bunin, communicates with Boris Zaitsev. Bunin believed that the best articles about his work were written by Stepun. In "Modern Notes" in 1924, Stepun publishes his novel "Nikolai Pereslegin" with the subtitle "Philosophical novel in letters" (separate edition - 1929). He called the novel an artistic expression of his concept of the philosophy of love. Works with fantastic energy. In 1931, together with G.P. Fedotov and I.I. Bunakov-Fondaminsky began to publish the magazine Novy Grad, which expressed the credo of Russian Europeanism, which grew up on Christian democratic values. As V.S. Varshavsky (a Russian émigré, author of the well-known book “The Unnoticed Generation” in emigration, to which F.A. Stepun responded in a detailed article), for Novograd residents, the principle of democracy is a rule of law and an autonomous person. He assessed the position of this journal in the following way: “In this merging of all three ideas of European culture (i.e. Christianity, liberal democracy and socio-technical progress. - V.K.), Novy Grad left behind the age-old internecine dispute between the two warring camps of the Russian intelligentsia - Western, in the broadest sense, and Slavophile, in the broadest sense. This was an important step forward in the development of the Russian idea.

But in Europe, beloved by Russian Europeans, fascism attacked democracy. In the leading article of the first issue of Novy Grad (1931), Fedotov wrote: “Great performances of the destruction of cities by gas and air attacks are already being rehearsed. The peoples arm themselves to lulling speeches about the world of diplomats and philanthropists. Everyone knows that in a future war, not armies, but peoples will be exterminated. Women and children are losing their privilege to life. The destruction of material centers and cultural monuments will be the first goal of the war ... Traveling through peaceful Europe has become more difficult than in the Middle Ages. The “Concert of Europe”, the “Republic of Scientists” and “corpus christianum” seem to have been razed to the ground… In Europe there is violence, but in Russia there is bloody terror. In Europe, there is an attempt on freedom - in Russia, a hard labor prison for everyone ... Against fascism and communism, we defend the eternal truth of the individual and his freedom - above all, the freedom of the spirit.

Russian Europeans, who saw the collapse of Christian humanism that was born five centuries ago in the Renaissance, felt the impending new Middle Ages, were fully aware of the inauthenticity, the playful nature of the Silver Age, which was ambiguously called the “Russian Renaissance”, but which led to a totalitarian disruption, tried to find an ideology to re-awaken the pathos of a truly pan-European Renaissance. The task is daunting in its own way. But it had to be solved in the horror of war and the death of people, in the glow of fires from burning houses and books, in the obvious oversaturation of the intellectual space with meanings that no one believed. They got into a situation, as Stepun called it, “almost not realized by anyone metaphysical inflation"(italics by F.A. Stepun. - VC.) . In 1934, after the Nazis came to power in the year of his fiftieth birthday, he published in Switzerland the book “The Face of Russia and the Face of the Revolution”, in which he again tries to understand the reasons for the historical fall of Russia into the “hell of non-existence”, into which the European countries collapsed after it. Then there was a break of almost 15 years, when his books began to appear again. So this little treatise can be considered to some extent a summing up.

In the book, he seems to continue the conversation with his closest friend of the Dresden years, the great theologian Paul Tillich, who in his 1926 work “Demonic” wrote about the specifics of demonic elements that can lead to creativity (as in the Renaissance), and can lead to total destruction (in its satanic guise). Being a convinced rationalist, nevertheless, as a philosopher, Tillich understood that if the “rational” exists, then, according to the law of dialectics, its antinomy, the “irrational”, with which he fought, also exists. And, as he wrote, in the era of increased socio-religious ferment, “the demonic approaches the satanic so much that all its creative potential disappears.” Stepun's book is about Russia, but the theme is the same - why the demonic-satanic principle won there. He writes: “The habitual religious position was still tangible in everything, but the rejection of the traditional content was still stronger. The time was religious and anti-Christian at the same time, it was demonic in the full sense of the word. The Russian peasantry could not give birth to this demonia from itself. But from Dostoevsky it is clear that the demons involved in the Russian revolution are not alien and not anonymous forces. Tillich called one of the most dangerous demons of the twentieth century - the demon of nationalism. Demons really were their own!

In essence, Stepun's book was devoted to an analysis of how Lenin ("a contemporary of Rasputin, and by no means a saint, but an evil demon") and the Bolsheviks read Marx in the spirit of pagan nationalism, turning European theory into a purely Russian doctrine, showing the historical and philosophical prerequisites for such a reading of Western theories. Here, at least in passing, it is worth touching on the current legend that, having got to the West, Stepun abandoned his previous ideas about the need to pass Slavophilism through Kantian logic, moreover, he himself became a Slavophile. Of course, Stepun lived by Russian culture, spoke about the importance of Slavophilism for Russian thought, but this is not enough reason to attribute him to the Slavophiles, with whom Vladimir Solovyov, his spiritual predecessor, argued. In his landmark book, Stepun shows how the ideas of despotism grow out of Slavophilism. He writes about the "development of Slavophile Christianity towards pagan nationalism". And he explains: “The followers of the first Slavophiles turn out to be unfaithful to their spirit of Christian humanism and universalism, they plaster the nationalist reaction with Christianity and end up glorifying Ivan the Terrible (who villainously ordered the Moscow Metropolitan to be strangled) as the ideal of a Christian sovereign.”

Stepun and his friends in exile directed all their efforts to ensure that the fascistized Europe returned to its basic Christian values, in other words, perhaps a little solemnly, but for sure, they thought save Europe. It is no coincidence that one of the émigré writers, who knew Stepun, perceived him precisely in this register: “What made me believe that Europe, despite everything that happened, is based on stone?” And the answer is amazing: “There was F.A. Stepun. Monolith, magnet, lighthouse. Atlas, holding on his shoulders two cultures - Russian and Western European, between which he had been an intermediary all his life. As long as there is such an Atlas, Europe will not perish, it will stand.

Europe did not resist. Stepun's position became especially difficult when the mirror counterparts of the Bolsheviks came to power - the Nazis, led by the anti-Europeanist Hitler. Stepun was deprived of his professorship in 1937. Fortunately, he was not shot, he was not put in a camp - he was simply driven out into the street. Since 1926 he has had German citizenship. And even the Nazis were still extremely respectful of German professors in the 1930s. But he is forbidden to publish abroad. And he was a regular contributor to Sovremennye Zapiski and Novyi Grad. For an active person, a participant in socio-cultural and political discussions, asphyxia should have occurred.

The Vladimir Solovyov Society existed in Dresden in the 1930s, headed by Prince Alexei Dmitrievich Obolensky (the author of the first Russian constitution - the Manifesto of 1905, the chief prosecutor of the Synod, the initiator of the coming to power of P.A. Stolypin, a friend of Stepun and his countryman in the Kaluga province). It is worth citing an excerpt from his already Munich letter to the daughter of Prince A.A. Obolenskaya, in which he talks about his communication with Alexei Dmitrievich: “Natasha and I often remember your unforgettable father. He often came to us on a bicycle, dined comfortably, tastefully, and was constantly on fire with spiritual questions. From him left the impression of something very his own. In his image and in all his mental and spiritual warehouse, that Russia came to us in Dresden, with which over the years you feel more and more connected. Details of life that you can't imagine. At the same time, we add that the society held its meetings in the basement of the Dresden Orthodox church St. Simeon Divnogorets, where A.D. Obolensky was the headman of the church community. Until now, there are disputes when this Society of Vladimir Solovyov was founded, whether it was a continuation of similar Russian structures. With the help of the rector, Father Georgy Davydov, I had the good fortune to read the “Resolutions of the Parish Assembly of the Dresden Church for 1930” in the Dresden Church, where in the entry dated February 2 it was decided (in the presence of members of the community S.V. Rachmaninov, F.A. Stepun and others) to merge the “student” circle and the “circle for the study of the Word of God” into the “circle of Russian culture”. The decree says: “The fate of this circle is ensured by the participation in it of such figures as Prince A.D. Obolensky (its creator), Professor F.A. Stepun, spouses G.G. and M.M. Kulman, N.D. Rock". Later, this circle (not without the influence of Stepun) became known as the Vladimir Solovyov Society. After the death of Prince Obolensky in 1933, Stepun became the chairman of the Society. The theme of the Russian European Vladimir Solovyov, his image from the first book about his historiosophy accompanied Stepun all his life. The denunciation of the thinker in 1937 pointed to his constant criticism of National Socialism and especially that “his closeness to Russianness ( Russentum) turns out from the fact that he Russified his original German name Friedrich Steppun, received Russian citizenship and, in fulfillment of relevant civil duties, fought in the Russian army against Germany, and also married a Russian. As a German official (professor. - V.K.), he further emphasized his connection with Russianness and played an outstanding role in the Dresden Russian émigré colony, mainly as chairman of the Vladimir Solovyov Society. Stepun was friends with the Obolensky family, and he was also a colleague with Dmitry Alekseevich (their correspondence has been preserved). In the early 1940s, Prince D.A. Obolensky was arrested by the Gestapo and died in a concentration camp. A small correspondence between Stepun and D.A. has been preserved. Obolensky, and with his sister, the remarkable artist Anna Alekseevna Obolenskaya von Gersdorff, at the end of his life in Munich had a long epistolary romance. The researcher of her work calls their relationship "tender friendship". I think that Stepun's posthumously published (1965) lyrical story "Jealousy" was inspired by these relationships. But back to Dresden.

Stepun was fired with a meager severance pay and a tiny pension. Since 1937, he led a relatively free life, trying, however, to constantly earn extra money with lectures. But this, due to his disgraced position, he rarely succeeded. There was no need to count on permanent earnings. It turned out that it's time to take stock of the life lived, leaving the everyday bustle. Once retired from politics, Nicolo Machiavelli wrote two of his great political and philosophical treatises in seclusion, and Francis Bacon, who ceased to be Lord Chancellor, wrote for last years life created his own philosophical system, which marked the beginning of a new European philosophy. Other examples can be cited. What is the expulsion of Pushkin to the village, where, despite the fears of his friends that the poet "will drink bitter" (Vyazemsky), he matured and grew stronger spiritually and poetically! And for writing memoirs, not only time is important, but also space, which often plays the role of time in the fate of a person. Cut off from Russia, Herzen, being, in general, still quite an old man, began to write his amazing memoirs. Everything came together with Stepun: time, space, life situation. In May 1938, Stepun wrote to his friends in Switzerland from Dresden: “We live a good and inwardly focused life. Father John Shakhovskoy, who came to us, stubbornly suggested to me the idea that it was God who sent me times of silence and silence in order to burden me with the duty to express what I had to say, and not to scatter in all directions in lectures and articles. Often I want to think that he is right and that I really need to work as much as possible now in anticipation of a new period of life. I have started a large and very complex work of a literary order and I am very happy that I now live in my past and rather in art than in science. The book turned out to be really unusual, perhaps he told what he was writing about, Fr. John, who is quite
could appreciate the idea.

It must be said that o. John Shakhovskoy (later Archbishop John of San Francisco) was at that moment the rector of the Berlin Orthodox St. Vladimir's Church, as well as the dean of all parishes in Germany. It is worth adding to this that one of the last students of the Lyceum, he was a poet himself, who published in the early 1920s the artistic and philosophical journal Blagonamerenny (with a focus on romantic irony), a very deep theologian, an outstanding publicist and a real shepherd. He did what he could only do: he supported the spiritual work of a creative person.

And already in October 1938, in a letter to the same friends, Stepun already clearly outlines his plan and involuntarily draws a clear parallel with other great Russian memoirs of the 19th century: “Autumn is standing here - not as beautiful and transparent as then in Seligny, but nevertheless “the leaves of maples, aspens and chestnuts are picturesquely reddening, turning yellow and flying around”. For me, autumn is always the most creative time. This autumn, I somehow especially joyfully sit every day at the desk of my room. I am working on the first part of my book, which is an attempt in the form of a kind of autobiography to draw the image of our Russia with you, Maria Mikhailovna. The first part of memories should be followed by the second part of thoughts and the third part of aspirations. I think I have enough work for 5-6 years. As you can see, in these words there is an obvious parallel, by design, with Herzen's gigantic memoir epic "The Past and Thoughts." Stepun's memories, thoughts, aspirations. Not to mention the obvious allusion to Pushkin's autumn: "For me, autumn is always the most creative time."

Herzen wrote "The Past and Thoughts" for about ten years, "whole years", in his own words. But the most interesting thing worth paying attention to in this comparison is, firstly, the repeated appeal of memoirists in their previous activities to confessional-autobiographical theme. These are the early stories of Herzen, these are “From the Letters of an Artillery Ensign” and the philosophical and autobiographical novel “Nikolai Pereslegin” by Stepun. Secondly, both were thinkers, philosophers and at the same time outstanding writers. Moreover, it was in memoir prose that this fusion of both properties of their talent gave the most striking result. Thirdly, their memoirs were written in exile to remind and tell the world not only about themselves, but about the fate of Russia. This fusion of two themes - private and public - is striking. And, finally, let's not forget the German origin of both, their upbringing in German philosophy, which turned into a passionate love for everything Russian. A serious difference was, perhaps, that Stepun did not write about emigre life. It is believed (Christian Hufen) that Stepun was stopped by fear for relatives who remained in Soviet Russia. But apparently it was something else. He wrote so much and harshly about the Bolsheviks and the Soviet regime that a story about emigration would not have added anything to his reputation in the eyes of the Cheka. But it seems to me that he wrote about the first third of the twentieth century, because (this is one of his main problems) he tried to understand causes that turned the 20th century, when, as he claimed, there was a victory of "ideocracy" over "interestocracy", and democratic leaders and theorists gave in to the demonic and magical appeals to the crowd of totalitarian ideologists.

Stepun really survived by a miracle. He had all the prerequisites to die from the Nazis, but did not die. On the day when the British savagely bombed Dresden, sparing no civilians, Stepun's house was completely destroyed, his archives and the library he had been collecting for years were destroyed there. But he and his wife were outside the city these days - and survived. The disaster was serious, but "Fortuna's favorite", as Stepun was sometimes called, during these years he wrote his masterpiece - memoirs, the manuscript was with him and also survived. But simultaneously with this terrible bombardment, it became clear that the war was coming to an end, and with it, Nazism.

In the late 1940s, the life of Stepun and his wife was still unstable. But who was she then established? Stepun travels a lot around the cities with lectures and reports about Russia. At the same time, he lectures and writes articles in German and Russian. He was completely bilingual. And his German was as easy and unconstrained as Russian.

His position was valued in the new Germany. He moved to Munich, having received an invitation to take the chair of the history of Russian spirituality, specially created for him. There he lives until the end of his days. By age, according to German law, he does not have the right to occupy the chair. But the university leadership gets around this obstacle by giving Stepun the position of "fee professor" - honorary professor (Hon. Prof.)- honorary professor of the university.

Within three years, three volumes of his memoirs in German "The Past and the Eternal", an authorized translation from Russian (Vergangenes und Unvergangliches. Bd. 1-3. Munchen: Verlag Josef Kosel, 1947-1950), are published. The book was published in a pocket format on rather poor paper, in small print, with small spaces between the lines. As it was said on the back of the title, the book is published under the information control of the military government (meaning the American military presence, which tightly controlled all printed matter in those years). But already the first edition had a circulation of 5000 copies. For the post-war period, this is a lot. And immediately there were additional circulations. Russia was of great interest to the Germans in those years. And these were, perhaps, the best memoirs about Russia - a thinker and writer. But he really wanted to see his book in Russian, because it was written for Russia and Russians. There were many obstacles to this. Jealous "friends" did not let him into European publishing houses, arguing that the book had already been published in German. It was possible to publish it with great difficulty in the USA in an abridged version - in two volumes (Former and unfulfilled. N.Y.: Chekhov Publishing House, 1956) . The reduction also caused a change in the name, which was also insisted on by American publishers. In my opinion, the first option is more accurate. The complete three-volume version is stored in the Beinecke Library of Yale University (USA) and is still waiting for its researcher and money so that this masterpiece of Russian philosophical and artistic memoirs can finally be published.

It would seem that Fortune smiled at him again. However, until the early 1950s, fear did not leave him. Moreover, the fear that he discusses in letters with many correspondents. It is the fear that Soviet troops will occupy West Germany as well. In this case, he would certainly be doomed, Stepun has no doubts about this. There are ideas of emigration to the USA. However, the occupying authorities do not help him, since he cannot produce a denunciation of him, which would confirm his persecution by the Nazi government. He is full of fear and despair. It is worth citing his letter of 1948 addressed to Archimandrite John (Shakhovsky), who had already naturalized in the USA: “In your last letter, you wrote to me that if I could find some paths to get over from Germany to America, then it would be right to get over. Due to my contentment with my life here, due to some kind of fatigue and thirst for the final form of life, I still somehow put aside the idea of ​​moving overseas. But the clouds are already very menacingly gathering on the horizon. Anxiety involuntarily creeps into my soul, and every day I feel more and more definitely sitting on a chair with a filed leg. So the decision has matured in me to try to move to a new world on occasion ... Forgive me for burdening you with worries about myself. I do this only because I really don’t want to fall into the clutches of my compatriots. If I had been sure that they would not take Germany, I would not have fled from it. Not death is terrible, but Soviet mockery and complete defenselessness in front of the rude modern devil. Rumors coming from the Sov. The zones are absolutely terrible, and people are fleeing from there, leaving everything and risking their lives. The worst thing that exists there is the complete defenselessness of a person from absolute arbitrariness. Tomorrow is not fraught with any certainty that it will be a repetition of yesterday.

But already from his letters of the early 1950s it is clear that he regained confidence and vitality. He wrote about this in 1952 to Boris Vysheslavtsev, on whose advice he once went to Heidelberg: “What can I say about myself? Like everyone else, we lost everything in Dresden. If anything is a pity, then only the Russian library, which I would especially need now, since I received a professorship in the history of Russian culture in Munich ( Russian Geistesgeschichte)" . The fact that he is again in demand (and this is important for any person), he informs Anna Alekseevna Obolenskaya (letter of August 22, 1952), with whom he was extremely frank: “After the war, I was offered an ordinary professorship in sociology at a new university founded by the French in Mainz. I did not want to go there, and sociology was not very attractive, I immediately decided to focus on Russia in order to combine all my interests and concentrate my work. My plan was a success, and I received a professorship in the department created for me personally, "History of Russian Culture." It turned out to be a risky business, but it succeeded. I have a lot of listeners - 200 or even 250 people, and there are interesting doctoral students: two Jesuits, one of whom is writing a work on the philosophy of freedom of Berdyaev, and the other on five new letters of Chaadaev found in Moscow. A few years ago a student from Soviet Russia finished well with me, having written a work on “Petishism as a Category of Russian Sociology” (Herzen, Konstantin Leontiev, Dostoevsky). Not a bad work was written by a Galician Ukrainian on the topic “Gogol and Jung-Schilling”. The last doctoral student submitted a paper on the philosophy of Leo the 6th. After all, from eight hundred to a thousand students pass through me every year, in whose minds the sense of the importance of the Russian theme sinks in. Except at the university, I give quite a lot of public lectures in various cultural societies And public schools. I also write quite a lot for various magazines. From this letter it is already clear that Germany has finally appreciated its great son, who gave Germany Russia. For he was just as much a German philosopher as he was a Russian. According to the recollections of his students, Stepun's popularity was indeed incredible, sometimes after a lecture he was carried home in his arms. The study of his apartment was the place where he held seminars, sitting under the portrait of Vladimir Solovyov, which he managed to save from Dresden times.

If we talk about the most, perhaps, the most popular book among Germans by Stepun (“Bolshevism and Christian Existence”), which was published in German at the end of the 1950s, but somehow summarized his previous ideas, then it seems to him that it was conceived by him as a statement of his thoughts about Russia in Germany. And his expectations were justified. German critics immediately singled out the most important theme of the thinker: “Does Russia belong to Europe or to Asia? A question to which Stepun attaches such great importance, believing that the defense of Europe from Soviet communism is possible only on the condition that Russia is seen not as an Asian outpost in Europe, but as a European outpost in Asia. The author of the book review is subdued by the very personality of Stepun, he "connects the idea of ​​a bright individuality with the name of a seventy-five-year-old author who heads the department of the history of Russian spirituality at the University of Munich" .

It is worth quoting the words about this book of a Russian religious figure and a close friend of Stepun - L.A. Zander: “A Christian, a scientist, an artist, a politician, a fighter for the truth - all these elements are F.A. Stepun are merged into one in his book on Bolshevism and Christian life. Unfortunately, it was published only in German, and only a few of its chapters were published in Russian periodical editions... At first glance, it seems that his book consists of etudes independent of each other. A more thoughtful attitude towards it shows, however, the unity of the idea and the internal connection of the issues raised by the author. This unity is largely determined by the well-being and self-consciousness of the author: 1) as a Russian European, 2) as a Christian, 3) as a scientist responsible for his words and conclusions. The book introduced the readers to a tired, wise, but true to his hard-won ideas thinker.

This book, with its ideas, once again confirmed his right to stay among the selected minds of Europe. Such chosenness is decided not by a lifetime of crazy fame (political or show-maker), but by a complex interweaving of cultural and historical needs that preserve genuine, existentially experienced ideas. And it may be enough for a thinker that he has spoken his Word.

Stepun's 80th birthday was fantastic. Hundreds of letters, congratulations, honors in various institutions in Munich, articles in newspapers. In his jubilee speech, another famous Russian thinker-exile D.I. Chizhevsky said: “Towards the end of the war, the fiery element hostile to Stepun turned his city, Dresden, into ruins. Stepun escaped almost by accident - during one trip, after a small “accident”, which turned out to be happy, he did not manage to return home to Dresden. Then there was nowhere to return! And the stream of life brought him to an art-loving city on the banks of the Isar, where we celebrate his 80th birthday.”

Shortly before his death, a book by Stepun was published in German, on which he worked almost all his life: about outstanding Russian thinkers - poets of the Silver Age (Mystische Weltschau. Funf Gestalten des russischen Symbolismus: Solowjew, Berdjajew, Iwanow, Belyi, Block. Munchen: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1964. 442 s.). It preserved the meaning and pathos of the Russian Silver Age, about which he told the world and the last representative of which he himself was.

A year later, in 1965, he died, he died easily. They say that an easy death is given good man a person who has lived a difficult life. In a mourning notice sent by his sister to friends and colleagues of the deceased, it was said: “On February 23, 1965, unexpectedly left us forever prof. Dr. Fedor Stepun, born February 19, 1884 in Moscow. On behalf of his relatives and friends - MARGA STEPUN. Burial: Friday, February 26, 1965 at 13.00 at the Northern Cemetery ( nordfriedhof). We ask that wreaths be sent directly to the Northern Cemetery.

And again obituaries, extensive articles in newspapers and magazines. Here is a response to his death from a compatriot emigrant: “Those who will now and later write about Fyodor Avgustovich will tell a lot about him and the story of his whole life; he carried, and in his old age firmly and majestically, the creative brilliance of the Russian Silver Age. And coming out of this century, like Samson, he tossed its columns and carried them through the thickness of modern German intellectual life, revealing in Germany the last sounds of this century. His era is rich and, perhaps, too wasteful ... A social activist, sociologist, philosopher, tireless lecturer of a high style, he was more social and lyrical than a political expression of a “Russian European”, who carried both Russia and Europe in himself, to speak to Russia and Europe about the “New City”, about that society and social structure in which truth lives, and where a chicken could be boiled in a pot of any person, and through all the culture of the world and all kinds of human communication about stepped, shone through real goodness, carrying God's Light and Eternity ... He was from a galaxy of those believing Russian thinkers of the first half of this century, who were charged for life with bright faith in God and the action of this faith, the thought of Vladimir Solovyov.

And also one of the posthumous assessments of his activities by a German colleague: “Those who knew Stepun understood already at the first encounter with him that he could not indulge in either the fruitless anguish of an exile, or the bitterness of political vanity ... Because, although he loved Russia, he was at home with us. Not only because his father was a German by origin, not only because he spent the years of his studies in Heidelberg under the guidance of Windelband - this was obvious. By an act of will, he drew historiosophical conclusions from his own situation as from a certain model and went in search of a Europe in which East and West are in the same rank and in essence should be presented as homogeneous parts of Europe, where Russia was an outpost against Asia, and not an Asian wedge driven into Europe.

Stephen F.

THOUGHTS ON RUSSIA

I do not know anything about the owner of my Berlin apartment, except that shell-shocked in the war, he is, and probably until the end of his days will be in a house for the mentally ill and insane.

In this random empirical circumstance, it is quite fruitless, of course, to look for some essential meaning. I could also get into the apartment of a dead person or a consumptive; there are probably more than one such apartment for rent in Berlin... All this is true, and yet, sitting late in the evenings at the desk of a crazy man who sits behind bars "an hour's drive" from me, and considering himself quite normal, protests in front of his relatives against my being in his apartment - sometimes I feel very, very strange. Indeed, why shouldn't my crazy master sit at his desk at home? Who knows in our day a firm standard of reason? I'm sure no one! And even more. I am sure that only in cooperation with madness can the human mind unravel everything that is now happening in the soul and consciousness of mankind; only a mad mind is now truly reason, and a rational mind is blindness, emptiness, stupidity. Perhaps my unknown master, who brought from the war the habit of destroying and destroying everything around him, suffered more deeply and comprehended the essence of war than I, who retained the opportunity to think and write about it, and about the revolution, and about the mind of that madness, about which he does not write, but from which he dies. If so, then my justification before him can only consist in one thing: - in asserting for myself his madness as the norm of my mind, working from evening to evening at his orphaned desk.

I know well in myself the feeling that makes me related to my crazy master. Of course, I don’t crush any things that come my way, since I never went to hand-to-hand combat, I didn’t work with a bayonet and hand grenades, but on the other hand I often plunge the whole world around me into oblivion, as if I was lowering an artillery “smoke screen” over it. All this I, however, of course, do not so much do as I experience. Much that used to be life and reality, the soul no longer accepts either reality or life.

It's almost three months since I've been in Berlin, but the smoke screen is not dissipating. The streets and houses, the horns of cars and the bells of trams, the lights in the damp evening darkness and the crowds of people hurrying somewhere, everything - even many old acquaintances, with the sounds of their voices and the meanings of their words and looks - all this, local, is not accepted by the soul as real life, as a full-fledged being. Why? “There is only one answer for me. “Because all the 'European' life here, for all its shock, is still held together by the norm of reason. The soul, over the past five years of Russian life, has finally fused in itself the feeling of being and madness into one inseparable whole, has finally turned the dimension of madness into a dimension of depth; defined reason as two-dimensionality, rational life, as life on a plane, as flatness and vulgarity, - madness as three-dimensionality, - as a quality, essence and substance of both reason and being.

_______

All the years of Bolshevik domination I lived in the countryside. The winter of 19-20 was absolutely fantastic. We were starving in the most unambiguous sense of the word. By dinner, each of our "working" family of ten people was supposed to have a plate of "brandakhlyst" (soup from beet tops), five potatoes without salt and three oatmeal cakes in half with nettles. Nutrition improved only when misfortune happened on the farm. So once we ate a dead pig, optimistically assuming that she had died of hunger, and our horse strangled on a lasso. Of course, there was no talk of real black bread. The emaciated cows did not milk all winter. And in our hearts we all had a premonition of the Easter ringing: “on the sixth, on the passionate, God willing, they will calve!”

Gray, peasant Russia was dying of hunger, but red, proletarian Russia fought. Old men and girls, ill and missing twice a month, went south for bread. Their sons and brothers met the trains with hostility and took away the last peel from the dying of hunger.

As a military specialist, I was called up for military service; as seriously wounded in the tsarist war, he was appointed to a rear post; as a writer and former front-line soldier, who understands nothing in administrative and economic affairs, he was kindly assigned to Lunacharsky by Trotsky for the production of proletarian culture.

To produce this proletarian culture, that is, to participate in the State Demonstration Theatre, in productions of Shakespeare, Maeterlinck, Goldoni, Andreev, and in all my performances in the theater and studios to openly and successfully defend the idea of ​​a national revolution as opposed to the idea of ​​a proletarian international, I traveled from time to time from my wilderness to Moscow, dragging with me potatoes, oatmeal, cabbage, firewood, and, finally, a sledge, in order to deliver all this from the station home.

Twenty miles to the station on a hungry old horse, the only one left after the requisition, and constantly falling into snowdrifts, you ride for four, five hours. The train leaves at six in the morning. The station is not illuminated in any way; The resulting kerosene is naturally exchanged by the station authorities for bread. This is all happiness. - I'm taking a cinder with me, I give it to the cashier, helpless in the dark, and for this I demand extraordinary tickets, otherwise you won't get it.

Slowly approaching one-eyed train, my wife and I wait with fear and heartbeat; we climb into a cattle car without ladders and squeeze each time almost with a scuffle. At Okruzhnaya, seven miles from Moscow, we crawl out, and, looking around like thieves, we quickly move around so that the policemen do not take away potatoes and firewood, this minimum base for any spiritual activity.

The Moscow apartment - once filled with a young, talented, diverse life - is cold, damp, smelly, full of people who are somehow incomprehensible and alien to each other.

A lame Armenian witch lives in the former dining room, systematically stealing food from everyone and screaming all the time that she is being robbed. In the back room, in one window, which rests against the wall of the neighboring house, dirty, spattered, as if spat with tuberculosis sputum, vegetates

some lonely old German woman. In my wife’s room, the eighteen-year-old daughter of our former maid is having fun, a knotty-faced, strong-boned, powdered “sovbarka” - and in the midst of all this world, in the only still neatly tidied room, a frightened, but not surrendering representative of the “old life”, a beautiful, strict, pedantic aunt who “understands nothing and accepts nothing”, huddles.

I spend all day in the theater. The wife takes care of a sick German woman. The German woman infects her; she in turn infects her aunt. Sick herself, she takes care of both patients; calls the doctor: - both have a Spaniard, complicated by pneumonia. The temperature is 40 o, camphor is needed. There is no camphor. Friends through Kamenev get it for us in the Kremlin pharmacy. But we still need heat, we need firewood. We also do not have firewood, like camphor. My wife and I break into someone else's barn at night and steal firewood from it to save the dying.

In the morning I’m back in the theater, where everyone—actors, directors and workers came not only from the same, but often even worse life than mine—however, beautiful Shakespearean words still sound in it, Bengali, acting temperaments burn, shaved jaws tremble from the cold, novels are stamped according to old habits, and measures against stubborn delay and without that penny salary are discussed incredibly pathetically.

A delegation to Lunacharsky is selected. At ten o'clock in the evening, together with three other "delegates", I entered the Bolshevik Kremlin for the first time.

Pass check at the Borovitsky gates. A call to Lunacharsky. His return call to the commandant's office. Beyond the gate is a completely different world.

Bright electric light, pure virgin snow, healthy soldiers' faces, well-fitting overcoats - purity and good looks.

Pot-bellied columns of the Amusement Palace. A sloping, quiet staircase. An old-fashioned gray-haired footman in galloons with a charmingly obsequious back. Large front. A grand, hot Dutch oven. Next is a hall covered with a carpet and the beautiful sounds of a string orchestra.

It turns out that an error has occurred. We were to meet at Lunacharsky's apartment only the next day at ten o'clock in the morning.

When I come home, my wife greets me with the news that the rootless German woman has died.

The next few days are spent in worries about the burial. It turns out that being buried in Soviet Russia is much more difficult than being shot.

The certificate of the house committee, the right and the queue to buy a coffin, permission to dig a grave, the "criminal" production of five pounds of bread to pay the gravedigger - all this requires not only time, but also some new, "Soviet" resourcefulness.

We fuss about the deceased with the greatest tension, but more stubbornly we are fussed over the corpse by rats completely crazed with hunger. When we finally have all the passes and permits in our hands, the cheeks and feet of the unfortunate German woman are devoured.

A few days later, an open dress rehearsal of "Measure for Measure" is scheduled. The play of genius is going quite well on the whole. Angelo's main scenes with Isabella sound powerful and smart; and yet, incredibly sensitive to everything modern, for half of its composition, the young, soldier and proletarian audience most unanimously responds to the immortal scenes of the jester with the executioner.

I sit and feel that I absolutely do not understand anything, that Russia is entering some special hour of her own, perhaps into the mind of her madness.

After the violent insanity of communist Moscow - again the quiet madness of village life. In felt boots above the knees, in a helmet and wristbands, I sit and write a novel all day long: letters from Florence and Heidelberg. You sit for an hour, you sit for two, then you involuntarily get up and go to the half-frozen window. Outside the window, no time, no life, no road - nothing ... Only snow; eternal, Russian, the same, bigger - the same one that lay here two hundred years ago, when the former owner of our “former” estate, old General Kozlovsky, looked at him from my window ...

_________

All the years I lived in Bolshevik Russia, I felt very difficult. Denying the Bolsheviks and their bloody cause with all my being, not being able to point out where and in what their achievements, I nevertheless directly felt the unprecedented scope of Bolshevism. Constantly protesting to himself that the unprecedented is not yet being, the incredible is not yet worthy of faith, destruction is not yet creativity and

Quantity is not quality, yet I continued to feel the October Revolution as a most characteristic national theme.

But at the same time, from some completely different sources, a terrible longing for the departed Russia was constantly boiling up in my soul. Everything about her made me think of her. Everywhere you move, there are tormented estates: in vain cut down forests, parks and ponds that please no one, huge crumbling houses that are not suitable for anything, columns sealed with decrees, cursed, denounced churches, rickety barns, torn apart services - and all around is an indifferent peasant crowd, which for years and decades will not understand that all this is not only the enemy’s lordly wealth, but also genuine folk culture, and so far, in essence, the only one that was born and nurtured in Russia.

Together with sadness for Russia, the longing for distant Europe often rose above the soul. The international car seemed like a mystery. From time to time, cloudy memories of smells surfaced in the endless expanses of memory: Heidelberg spring - flowering chestnuts and lindens; Riviera - the sea, eucalyptus and roses; large libraries - skin, dust and eternity. All this was almost unbearable in terms of the strength of the feeling and the feeling of pain. And I wanted, passionately wanted to give up everything, everything was forgotten and ... to be in Europe.

________

Human consciousness is multidimensional and not every person wants what he wants. I often wanted to be in Europe. But with all my will and all my consciousness, fighting in myself against this “want” of mine, all the years of the Bolshevik regime I definitely “wanted” to remain in Russia and, in relation to myself, in any case, did not approve of the ideas of emigration.

Run away from suffering Russia to the well-being of Europe. Entering the quiet life of a small German town and surrendering to eternal philosophical questions seemed like a direct moral desertion. Yes, and doubts arose: - Is eternal philosophy possible on the paths of philistine flight from the hardships and sufferings of "historical" life; Is it time to engage in philosophy without presuppositions, when death is everywhere revealed as a terrible presupposition of life and meaning.

To flee to Europe not for the purpose of one's personal salvation, but for the purpose of saving Russia from Bolshevism, to flee to a volunteer camp under the white banners of the tsarist generals

fishing, this soul did not accept. From the very beginning, it was hopelessly clear that the external association of pointless, officer valor, political lack of ideology " former people”and allied self-interest will never rid Russia of Bolshevism. It cannot be saved because Bolshevism is not the Bolsheviks at all, but something much more complex and, above all, much more own than they are. It was clear that Bolshevism is the geographical boundlessness and the psychological boundlessness of Russia. These are Russian “brains on one side” and “confession of a hot heart upside down”; this is the primordial Russian “I don’t want anything and I don’t want anything”, this is the wild “hooting” of our greyhounds, but also Tolstoy’s cultural nihilism in the name of the ultimate truth and the stinking God-seeking of Dostoevsky’s heroes. It was clear that Bolshevism was one of the deepest elements of the Russian soul: not only its disease and its crime. The Bolsheviks, on the other hand, are completely different: they are just prudent exploiters and panders to Bolshevism. The armed struggle against them always seemed senseless - and aimless, because it was all the time not in them, but in that element of Russian unrestraint, which they saddled - saddled, which they spur - spurred, but which they never controlled. Imitators of Russian truth, usurpers of all holy slogans, starting with the greatest: “Down with bloodshed and war”, monkeys in jockey caps, they never held the reins of events in their hands, but always somehow only somehow held on to the flaming mane of the elements rushing under them. The historical task of Russia in the years we have outlived, in the years 1918-1921, consisted not in the fight against the Bolsheviks, but in the fight against Bolshevism: with unbridledness our restlessness. This struggle could not be waged by any machine guns, it could only be waged by internal forces of spiritual concentration and moral endurance. So, at least, it seemed to me from the very first days of the victory of the Bolsheviks. What was left to do? “To remain in Russia, to remain with Russia and not being able to help her outwardly in any way, to bear with her and in her name all the torments and all the horrors of the dashing streak of her life. People of practice, people of politics will probably answer me that this is nonsense. But firstly, I am not a practitioner or a politician, and secondly, does a son need to be a doctor in order not to leave the bed of his dying mother?

_________

Last August, the whole world of the thoughts and feelings I have described was quite suddenly simplified by the order of the G.P.U. to leave the borders of Russia. In the first minute of receiving this news, it sounded (if we ignore completely personal feelings and circumstances) with joy and liberation. The forbidden “want” in relation to Europe and all the temptations of “cultural” life suddenly became not only not forbidden, but actually obligatory and morally justified; not to go, in fact, instead of Berlin - to Siberia. Brute force (I took this experience back from the war) is the best medicine against all the torments of a complex multidimensional consciousness. Not being able to choose, not having any freedom is sometimes the greatest happiness. I definitely experienced this happiness by filling out forms in the G.P.U. for going abroad.

But here everything was settled. The passports were in my pocket. There was a week left before departure. Every day my wife and I went to someone to say goodbye. We walked all over Moscow from the Smolensky market to Solyanka, from Myasnitskaya to the Savelovsky railway station, and a strange, hard to convey feeling strengthened more and more in our soul every day: the feeling of returning to us our Moscow, Moscow, which we had not seen for a long time, as if we had completely lost and suddenly found again. In this new feeling of our Moscow, the eternal dialectic of the human heart triumphed once again, which finally takes possession of the object of its love always only when it loses it.

The day of departure was windy, slushy and gloomy. On the dark platform of the Vindava railway station, in front of the unlit windows of the diplomatic carriage, stood relatives, friends, and acquaintances who had come to see us off on a long journey, and it was still completely unknown where it was going.

The whistle blew; the train moved slowly; the platform was over, the wagons were stretched; the wagons ran out, the houses and streets ran; then fields, dachas, forests, and finally villages: one after another, close, distant, black, yellow-eyed, but all orphans and miserable in indifferent, snowy fields.

A barrier flashes under the window. Somewhere in the distance, under a dark, forest strip, a highway, black on white snow, runs back, rotated by the movement of the train. And suddenly in my heart — oh, a terrible memory of 1919 — an incomprehensible dream ignites not to stand at the window of a train rushing to Europe, but to drag like a coward in a sledge along this running, dirty highway, no one knows where.

While, standing at the window, I am mentally driving along a highway unknown to me for some reason to my home, in my memory, one after another, pictures of the life lived, pictures at one time somehow insufficiently appreciated in their great and positive meaning.

I recall a group of village youth, with whom our "labour economy" all the most hungry years was engaged in subjects, philosophy and theater, preparing them for admission to the "Rabfak", lecturing on Tolstoy and Solovyov and staging Ostrovsky and Chekhov with them. I recall their amazing energy, incomprehensible efficiency, absolutely monstrous memory, for which it is a trifle in 3-4 days amid hard peasant work to learn a huge role and read a thick, difficult book; — their ardent enthusiasm for knowledge, their quick, spiritual growth, their passionate thirst to understand the surrounding life and all this in some new proud feeling of the called and legitimate masters of life. At the same time, however, not a shadow of arrogance, on the contrary, the greatest modesty and most touching gratitude. At the hottest time, they came on holidays to “reply” us for the geometry, algebra and German taught to them. To call these youth Bolsheviks would, of course, be completely wrong, but all the same: whether they would have appeared in the countryside without the Bolshevik upheaval is still a very, very big question.

I also remember something else. Low, dark hot tea. On the walls are obligatory portraits of Lenin and Trotsky. The tart smell of shag and sheepskin. Everything is full of people. Many gray, curly heads and beards. A young, cheeky, but obviously stupid district agitator is bitingly and provocatively conducting anti-church agitation. “There can be no immortality of the soul, comrades, except for the exchange of circulation. A person will rot, fertilize the earth and grow on the grave, for example, say - a lilac bush.

“Fool,” the hoarse voice of the old blacksmith interrupts the orator, “tell me, for mercy, what difference can it make for your soul, whether it be manure or be a bush ... A bush, but such immortality will carry away a magpie on its tail.” The whole tea room laughs loudly and clearly approves of the blacksmith. But the young speaker is not embarrassed. Quickly changing the subject, he continues in the same cheeky way:

“I say again, church; what kind of a holy church can it be when every third priest is known to be a drunkard in the Russian state.

“But at least that’s all,” the blacksmith intervenes again, squeezing, obviously for persuasiveness, closer to the speaker. - “You look into what, - who drinks in the ass. If a person drinks, this sin will always be forgiven him, but in the priest we do not honor a person, but dignity. What does it matter to me if the priests' trousers get drunk, if the cassock were sober, so cute!

The visiting speaker is finally killed. The teahouse is delighted. The blacksmith victoriously returns to his table and voices are heard everywhere: “well, Uncle Ivan, in gloss ... By God, in gloss.”

There is no doubt that the Bolshevik is in the cold, but a big and controversial topic: is it not in disputes with Bolshevik life that the home-grown mind of the blacksmith Ivan got stronger ...

A small writer's apartment, an iron stove smokes, it's cold. Some in a drape coat, some in a sweatshirt, many in felt boots. On the tea table is a rye symbol of past pies and biscuits and the invention of the revolution, a kerosene candle. In the room, almost all of philosophizing and writing Moscow. Sometimes up to 30-40 people. Life is terrible for everyone, but the mood is cheerful and, at least, creative, in many respects, perhaps more essential and genuine than it was before in the peaceful, loose, pre-war years.

The whole car has been sleeping for a long time, only my wife and I are standing at the window. I stare into the black night and page after page of my memories of five crazy years. And it is strange, the further I leaf through them, the further the reasonable Europe approaching me moves away from the soul, the more significantly the insane Russia moving away from me emerges in my memory.

F. Stepun.

The pagination of this electronic article corresponds to the original.

Stephen F.

THOUGHTS ON RUSSIA

II*)

Riga in three hours. I drive up to her with terrible excitement and very complex feelings. During the years of the war, this prudent city of slow, creaky-brained Latvians, Germanized Jewish merchants and Frenchized German barons somehow strangely merged with the soul during the years of the war.

Completely defeated by Mackensen, after ten months of the most difficult Carpathian battles, in the summer of the fifteenth year we were sent to Riga for rest and replenishment. "Mir": - ordinary, daily, familiar from childhood - for the first time appeared to us here as incredible, unprecedented, impossible, like miracles, a miracle, a mystery. Clean hotel rooms, and huge, white, cloudy beds, dizzying, relaxing baths, hairdressers' mented fingers, disturbing sounds of string orchestras in restaurants, luxurious, fragrant flowers in gardens and everywhere, everywhere and above everything, incomprehensible, mysterious female gazes - all this was revealed to us in Riga not as a realm of things, but as a realm of ideas.

After a six-week rest, we were again thrown into battle: we defended Riga near Mitava (a strange, creepy, fantastic, dead town), defended it on the Ekkau River, stubbornly defended at Olai, desperately at the accursed Garrozen Tavern. Under it, our brigade surrendered its sixth battery, under it, our third, lost two valiant officers, two wonderful, unforgettable people. All through the long autumn of 1915 we stood

*) “Modern. Notes, book. XIV V (I).

Eighteen versts before Riga, ghostly existing on the sharp edge of underground, trench life and urban, elegant life, night attacks and symphonic concerts, mortal wounds and fleeting novels, daily shed blood and daily wine brought from Riga, intoxication with the secret of life and shudder before the secret of death.

“A feast during the plague” I first understood near Riga. Is it strange that, approaching the prudent Latvian capital and hearing how my heart again excitedly taps out Pushkin’s already forgotten rhythms: “There is rapture in battle and a gloomy abyss on the edge”, I felt with all my being that Riga was my native city and native land.

But now the train quietly enters under the roof of the station and, slowing down, stops. My wife and I go out onto the platform: all around the Latvian language, everywhere Latvian and in some places German inscriptions. The porter, who picked up the things, asks about Moscow, as about some kind of Beijing. The man in the buffet only speaks Russian from the second word, although at first glance he sees perfectly well that we are from Moscow. In shops here and there, as if in some kind of Berlin, there are kind inscriptions "Here they speak Russian." Everywhere in the atmosphere, in the manner of address (in some elusive features of everyday life), there is a pointedly emphasized sense of one's newborn independence and a desire for originality.

In essence, everything seems to be in the order of things: “Cultural self-determination of national minorities”, the implementation of the cherished thesis of all Russian democracy, both liberal and socialist, and all this “self-determination” offends and angers me. I understand, of course, that the reason for this anger and insult of mine is that the “self-determination of Latvia” has been achieved like a waste of the Baltic from states Russian - not as a statement of political relics Russia, but how the result of her weakness and fall. But looking at myself, I also understand that this not everything has been said yet. I understand that the defeat of the Russian Empire has significantly rebuilt something in my soul, that I am no longer the same as I was in the fifteenth year without slightest remorse conscience retreated from Svidnik to Ravva Russkaya, feeling that the defeat of the tsarist army was not yet the defeat of Russia. The biggest mistake. In the Latvian capital, I understood with indisputable clarity that in the cause of the defeat of Russia, all Russian people are bound to each other by a mutual guarantee of guilt and responsibility, and that in the terrible fate of Russia, everyone

An individual Russian person and each social stratum made their own bloody contribution, their unrelenting guilt. And how do you know whose fault is heavier, whose is lighter? In any case, the fault of democracy is not small. For decades, listening to the music of the coming revolution, she listened to the only music of Pushkin's bequeathed lines:

"Neva sovereign current,

“Coastal granite.

Wandering with nine in the morning until late at night along the alienated streets of Riga, perhaps for the first time in the years of the war and revolution, I felt a completely new feeling of sharp, patriotic resentment for me, not for the Russian people, not for the idea and not for the soul of Russia, but for her desecrated sovereign statehood.

In the light of these new feelings, the first days of the revolution were somehow remembered in a new way. I recalled how delegates of free Russia, members of the State Duma, Cadets I.P. D-v and P. P. G-y, came to our front, how every day, inspired and hoarse, they told us several times both in the trenches and in officer meetings how easily, how painlessly the building of monarchist Russia tilted and collapsed, how no one stood up to defend it, and no one regretted it! True, P.P. all the time for some reason dragged on: “Something is missing, something is a pity, somewhere the heart rushes into the distance” .. But this “something is missing, something is a pity”, he dragged on in an undertone and about himself, dragged on just like that - because "you can’t throw out a word from a song." The song, according to the unanimous mood in those days and the general opinion, was all contained in the second line, which everyone picked up after him loudly and cheerfully:

"Somewhere the heart rushes into the distance."

I hope that I will not misunderstand if I confess that in Riga our “front-line” performance of two lines of a popular romance suddenly seemed to me both very characteristic, but also very shameful.

No, my heart did not yearn for the fallen monarchy in Riga, and it did not renounce the revolution, but simply suddenly realized that in the first revolutionary days there was too much easy feeling in Russian souls and too much frivolity in Russian minds. For all of us, without exception, it was generally too easy on the soul, but it should have been, first of all, very responsible and very scary.

The provisional government took over the reins of government with incredible ease, the old, gray-haired generals, followed by truly combat officers, renounced the monarchy with incredible ease, the entire army with incredible ease switched to new forms of life, crowds of Siberian peasants and hundreds of regular officers signed up with incredible ease in the party with.-p., the Bolsheviks preached "fraternization" with incredible ease; the delegates of the Sov. worker, cr. and soldier. deputies with incredible ease delivered the most heated, patriotic speeches against them, the rear - kitchens, carts, parks, sanitary detachments swore with incredible ease to defend the revolution with blood, regiments with incredible ease left their positions, the best, valiant officers died with incredible ease in volunteer, shock units, and government commissars with incredible ease allowed them to die, in a word, everyone with incredible ease rushed their hearts into an unknown distance, only in a whisper singing along;

“Something is missing, something is a pity” ...

In a whisper, to myself, but it was not necessary so; it was necessary for everyone connected with the past, from the bottom of their hearts and in public, to loudly regret his death, remember him with kindness, courageously confess their love for him.

But such sentiments did not exist in those days, and the fact that they did not exist was by no means only a unanimous acceptance of a bloodless revolution, as it seemed to many then, but something completely different; - false shame, lack of civic courage, of one's own thought, and terrible, hereditary herding.

Everyone, as one, fussed around the newborn baby in many voices, preparing for the christening, vied with each other offering names; socialist! — federal! democratic! - and no one remembered that the mother died from childbirth, and no one felt that any death, both the righteous and the criminal, obliges to silence, responsibility And concentration ... From headquarters to headquarters, red-flagged cars rushed, red-maned troikas galloped, red banners waved everywhere, orchestras rang red everywhere, eloquent toasts rose and magic words: "for land and freedom", "without annexations and indemnities", "for the self-determination of peoples".

I remember how I jumped, how I made speeches, how I myself shouted to the soldiers"suicide bombers"marching to take positions “for land and freedom”, “without annexations and indemnities”!,.. All this I, like everyone else, did with absolute sincerity, with disdain for any danger and with readiness for any sacrifice. It seemed so important to us to shout this “for a free Russia”, “for land and freedom”, “for the end of the last war”, that we shouted about it under the fire of German rifles from the parapets of the forward trenches and in the rear from the oratory stands, at which the Bolsheviks were shooting.

There was plenty of courage for all this, but he wasn’t enough to take it publicly and sing: “Something is missing, something is a pity,” he was not enough for this. They did not have the courage to say loudly to themselves and others that it is blasphemous to call to die for the social self-interest of land and freedom, when a person needs only a sazhen of earth to be buried, that it is immoral for officer valor to bend their backs before soldiers' selfishness and arrogance, that not suffering, only verbal preaching, in the midst of a war, of self-determination of peoples and minorities is harmful, since the concept motherland, its power and glory is not at all humane, but sacred, and therefore is built not only by correct and just points of view, but by righteous, albeit unjust passions and predilections.

I remember how all these thoughts restlessly toiled in my heart when the staff cars carried me, a delegate of the Central I.K. from headquarters to headquarters, from one position to another, from rally to rally ... However, to whom among those who were really with the revolution, I did not express them, no one in any way understood my doubts. For those who immediately began to nod their heads sympathetically, I stopped saying them in a half-word, it turned out completely, not at all ... After all, I have never been against the earth, or against the will, or against self-determination.

One person, however, understood everything. In his brilliant conscience, in a fair one, multidimensional In his mind, throughout the years of war and revolution, he carried a lively protest against the one-sidedness of any dominant force.

Being an implacable and principled opponent of the war, he, as a lower rank, volunteered to the front and fought with exemplary courage. Being a Democrat and a Republican, he spent all the years of the tsarist war

Passionately dreamed of a revolution. When it flared up, he enthusiastically gave himself over to it and plunged headlong into revolutionary work - the work went on with incredible success, his influence on the soldiers and officers grew from day to day. But the deeper he entered into revolutionary life, the more spiritually he turned away from it. At the headquarters of the commissar, he was already gloomier than the night. He felt that "everything is not the same," that "everyone is not the same," that "nothing has changed." He was overwhelmed with pangs of conscience for everyone and everything—for the soldier's selfishness, for the officer's betrayal itself, for the general's careerism. He already wanted some kind of new revolution in favor of all those unjustly disadvantaged by this revolution - all his sympathies were on the side of the generals who did not surrender, the officers who continued to say “you” to the soldiers, and the soldiers who wanted to finish off the German at all costs.

After the Bolshevik coup, of course, he followed Kornilov. All moral qualities merged for him into one thing - into courage; all moral concepts into the concept of national honor. From his appearance, the Russian intellectual and Moscow student finally disappeared. He was an officer from head to toe, who fought not only valiantly, as against the Germans, but fiercely and fiercely. Wounded, he was taken prisoner. Sentenced to death, he fled: not from death, but only from the Bolsheviks. Walking away from their death, he went to meet his . Exhausted by the search for the whole integral human truth, despairing of the possibility of finding it, he himself ended his life...

No, he did not come to his last, tragic moments because he was on the wrong path, but only because he was hopelessly lonely all the time along the paths of his truth. A born revolutionary of the spirit, he could not bear the psychological ossification that bound our political revolution with incredible speed, could not bear the hypocritical acceptance of it by its yesterday's enemies, could not bear its untransformed internal man, could not bear the fact that, prepared by martyrs and heroes, expected as a miracle and unexpectedly appeared, she quickly adapted to the topicality, arrogantly adorned herself with kumachs and irresponsibly spilled thousands of rallies.

Of course, revolutionaries of the spirit are not the kind of people who are called to build an external life, but if the social and political

Life cannot be built by them, then it cannot be built without them. If only all that so ardently began to build new Russia after the February days, they would have taken up this matter not as slaves of the revolution, but as revolutionaries to the end, that is, people who are always ready for a revolution against the revolution (because she carried With templates and stamps), their construction would have been infinitely slower, but infinitely freer, more truthful and stronger for that.

I want to say that if our generals had not renounced the monarchy that had brought them up, with the unworthy ease with which they renounced it, they would not have betrayed the Kerensky government just eight months later, so thoughtlessly and so unanimously, as he had betrayed him, and would not have singled out from his midst the number of people that he, after all, all the same singled out for the defense of Soviet communism; if the entire Russian officer corps had not accepted the revolution as unconditionally as it actually accepted it, but how they had not had sufficient grounds to accept it in the past, it would, perhaps, have saved Russia both from the terrible collapse of the tsarist army and from the formation of a volunteer one; if the deputies of the State Duma had not rejoiced in their time that the monarchy had fallen "so completely without a struggle," Russia, perhaps, would not need to prepare again now for a struggle against the black monarchy; if we all hadn’t suppressed natural patriotism in ourselves and hadn’t shouted in those days “without annexations and indemnities”, “for the self-determination of peoples”, then these peoples would long ago have been truly free in the bowels of a united Russia; Russia would, perhaps, have been married long ago to the genius of its power and glory, and would not now be sitting like that provincial bride who, dreaming of marrying “an intelligent man,” decided to fall ill at all costs with a “delicate cold - consumption.”

I understand, of course, all the doubtfulness and all the airiness of my reflections. I understand that, for all their inner seriousness, they are somehow very reminiscent of the well-known reflections that “if only beans grew in the mouth, then it would not be a mouth, but a whole garden!”. But what am I to do, if such unproductive considerations relentlessly swirled in my head when I walked the streets of Riga, fondly remembering the war that I hated so much, and with shame the revolution that I welcomed ...

And, by the way, are reflections on the past in the subjunctive mood really so meaningless, are they not connected in any way with reflections on the future - in the imperative? For me, in this connection, their whole meaning and all their value. In the future, for any practical purposes, I will never extinguish the multidimensionality of my consciousness.

As for the past, I don't know if I would dare to wish it to turn out otherwise than it actually did. If all the “if only” of my belated reproaches had come true, Russia would never, of course, have sunk to the monstrous social and political nonsense of its current existence, but on the other hand, it would not have gone through that revelation of madness through which its fate led it ...

* * *

At eleven o'clock in the evening we boarded the train for Eidkunen. Landing was a wild mess. The first-class car turned out to be a disgusting summer cottage, one of those that, in the days of our rule, circulated along the seaside between Riga and Tukkum. Against us, a puffed up turkey snorted some disgustingly lymphatic, whitish Baltian with shifty eyes and wet eczema on his neck. He voluptuously courted a lean, tearful woman in mourning, with whom he was returning to Germany, apparently from some kind of funeral. In both, everything was extremely annoying, to the point that both were traveling with second-class tickets in the first, believing for some reason that this was not an old Russian scam, but post-war European morality. Both breathed sharp hatred for Russia, not at all considering it necessary to hide it at least partially. Our conversation, which had begun, was cut short by the cynical admission of my interlocutor that he, a Russian subject, spent the whole time of the war in England as a spy for Germany, which he loves very much and which he is now happily returning with his brother's wife, who buried her mother in Riga.

After all, fate will put a sort of Andreevsky plot in the same compartment with you, and even after a whole series of bitter reflections on the principle of self-determination of national minorities.

Sleep was out of the question, of course. You’ll just doze off under the monotonous sound of wheels: beza ... nexium, con-

Three... bucios... and half asleep, terrible memories of how we hanged spies in Galicia will be confused... how you are already being woken up with some particularly annoying lanterns by ultra-uniform representatives of eligible republics, checking passports, luggage, and - a lantern to your nose - the resemblance of your face to your photograph. And after all, control over control and each one in several armed men, less than three, four, neither in Lithuania nor in Latvia do not go. As if not peaceful controllers, but reconnaissance posts... As soon as you doze off again, only the wheels will sing again: demon.... nexium... counter... butius... and in a tired brain the varnished boots of a spy snoring on his lady’s chest dangle, as it’s already cold again, lanterns in the nose, passports, luggage, our sovereignty is your worldview...

And so all night, all night, until a dull, pale cloudy dawn ...

No, I did not like the Latvian capital Riga!

It's still ten hours to the border; not to sit all day in a spy company and look at their lascivious grumbling under craps. I got up and went to look for some other shelter. In the next car, there was a compartment occupied by only one person, who seemed to me very nice. Big, young, very well-dressed, fresh, ruddy, clean, as if the nanny had just washed everything with a sponge, very thoroughbred and yet somewhat rustic, not at all a dude from the capital, but rather a rewarded Simmental calf ...

I to him: - are the seats free? Seats are free, but he is entitled to a separate compartment. His surname ... I was not mistaken: the surname turned out to be really very ancient, very loud and very feudal.

A conversation begins, and fifteen minutes later my wife and I are already sitting in his compartment and talking about Russia. This was the first conversation that, after many years of war and revolution, I had to have with a German, and even an officer of one of the very old German regiments.

Although I had already heard in Moscow about the change in views on Russia that had taken place in Germany, I was still very surprised. In Germany, there have always been philosophers and artists who have looked attentively and lovingly at incomprehensible Russia. I remember how a well-known professor of philosophy told me that when he deals with Russian students in a seminar, he always feels uncomfortable.

Confident, because I am sure in advance that sooner or later a public interrogation about the absolute will begin. I also remember the saying of a lesser-known Privatdozent that the first impression of Russian people is an impression of genius, the second of poor quality, and the last of incomprehensibility.

While studying in Germany, I read Russian works many times to friendly Germans. I read the scene in Wet, I read a lot from the Silver Dove, and they always listened to me with great tension and unconditional understanding. Once, after a lecture by my friend, a typically Russian pre-revolutionary student and later a communist Levine shot in Hungary, I was reading on behalf of the German “Society for Moral Culture” in Catholic Augsburg, on Sunday, during mass in some grandiose “Variete”, in which walrus training was simultaneously taking place, with a top hat and white gloves of Maxim Gorky’s “Druzhka”. Who could possibly need all this, I still do not understand. But obviously there were some collectors of Russian impressions in Augsburg. In any case, some Germans sat and listened, and then asked me a lot:"von dem augenscheinlich ganz sonderbaren Land". All this was, was, even before the war, some feeble knowledge of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, the pathetic symphony of Tchaikovsky and the Moscow Art Theater. But all this was in very few circles, but businesslike and official Germany still respected us just as little as we loved her little. The officers, with whom I encountered a lot, after the Japanese war simply simply despised us. I remember how in 1907 I was also traveling with a very educated general staff officer in the direction of Berlin. God, with what self-confidence he talked about the inevitability of a collision with Russia and how he foresaw the victory of the German, whole, organizing principle over the mystical, formless, feminine elements of Russia. My interlocutor of the 23rd year was an officer of a completely different formation. If only one could hear in his speeches interest to Russia, only a high appreciation of her originality, this would be quite understandable. The Russian events of recent years will certainly forever remain one of the most interesting chapters in the history of the 20th century. Is it any wonder that this interest is already keenly felt by all those who look at her from the outside. After all, if it is difficult for us to feel the significance of ongoing events, because they are our endless ones.

torment, then there is no such obstacle for foreigners; they are already in the happy position of our descendants, who, of course, will live much deeper than we do all the significance of our days, days that for them will not be our hard everyday life, but will be their festive, creative hours, their books of genius.

But my interlocutor, not a philosopher or a poet, but an officer and a novice diplomat, felt Russia not only as an interesting and original folk soul, but as a great actual force, a great power, a factor in European life, with which all other countries of Europe, if not today, then tomorrow, will have to be very, very reckoned with.

After the gloomy sensations in Riga, after the feelings of shame and guilt I had just experienced, I could not understand the mood of my interlocutor, which by no means sounded only as his personal and random opinion ..,

What kind of power can we be in European eyes when we lost the war and signed the most disgraceful Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, when in a few years we squandered our country to the last thread, when we endure the Bolsheviks’ mockery of all national shrines, when we all indiscriminately cry out for foreign help and do not know how to help ourselves?..

However, the longer our conversation went on, the clearer and clearer it became.

Yes, we lost the war, but we had brilliant victories. "If you had our organization, my interlocutor told me, you would be much stronger than us." The Germans captured our soldiers in “herds”, but in captivity they nevertheless considered that the bearded Russian men were not at all a simple beast, that they were “very quick-witted, very cunning, sing well, and in a cheerful hour Asian-like dexterity to work.”

Despite all the respect for Tolstoy, Europe had no idea of ​​these Russian peasants before the war and before the revolution. The Russian people were still for hernot inhumanit merged with the boundlessness of the Russian plain, with the impenetrability of Russian forests, with the swamp of Russian swamps ... it was some kind of incomprehensible, faceless ethnographic base of "the brilliant European Petersburg" and "the Asian curiosity of Moscow." But now the soldier's revolution broke out, incredible in scope, dizzying in pace; the events of recent years rushed, discovering in each new stage new and new aspects of Russian folk life. From lane

In the same days of the revolution, the question of Russia became the axis of European life. Before the fall of the Provisional Government, the question of the combat readiness of the Russian army was at the center of European interest; after its fall, the question of the infectiousness of communism was at the center of European interest. But both in the first period and in the second, Russia was the hope of some and the horror of others. Hopes grew, fears grew. Russia, on the other hand, grew in the European consciousness both with growing hopes and with growing horror. She grew and grew. Faced after a ten-year break with the first European, I clearly felt it. I felt not only an increased interest in myself as a Russian person, which I, together with the walruses, aroused in Augsburg, but also respect, as a Russian citizen; the effect is completely unexpected for me,

Germany now, perhaps, is not quite Europe; its fate has much in common with the fate of Russia. But with this reservation, I still must say that my six-month stay in Europe, the impression that I got from talking with the first European, only strengthened.

* * *

My interlocutor belonged to those strata of Germany who in the first period of the Russian revolution hoped very much that the Russian army would lose its combat effectiveness, and in the second period they hoped for the bourgeois nature of the Russian peasantry, which Bolshevik communism would never cope with. The conversation turned to the muzhik and ran into a very important question not only for my interlocutor, but for the whole of Russia: is the muzhik a bourgeois in his psychology or not. I confess that it was very difficult for me to give a clear and unanimous answer to this question. Russian populist socialism has always protested against landed property, among other things, because it has always felt it to be the basis of spiritual philistinism. There is nothing to say about Marxism. In his view, the peasant is always a tradesman, and the proletarian is an aristocrat of the spirit. All this is completely wrong. The Russian muzhik is not yet a petty bourgeois at all, and, God willing, he will not soon become one. The main category of the petty-bourgeois mental structure is self-confidence and complacency; the tradesman always feels himself the master of his life. In his mental structure he is always a positivist, in his views he is a rationalist, therefore he always believes in progress, and if he believes

In God, then as in an improved monkey. Most of all, he loves the solid guarantee of his future: the insurance company and the savings bank are institutions dear to his heart. A German developed worker, a conscious Social Democrat, without any doubt a much more typical tradesman than a Russian peasant.

The Russian peasant never feels himself the master of his life, he always knows that there is a real Master over his life - God. This feeling of his human weakness in him constantly nourishes his daily peasant labor. In the peasantry, no matter how hard you work, it is still impossible for a person to complete anything himself. Bread can be sown, but it cannot be grown. Meadows, beautiful in spring, can always burn down before mowing, and over-mow under the rains. No matter how you look after the cattle, the cattle is still not a machine: whether the heifer walks during the time of the heifer, how many piglets the pig farrows, whether the rooster asks, all this is in no way predictable in the Russian peasant economy, and hence the peasant’s basic religious feeling, the feeling of real daily cooperation With God, with living soul land, with brownies and forests. Last year, a heifer disappeared from our farm. For three days, all of mine climbed bushes and ravines from morning until late evening - no and no .., They were already completely desperate, but then the girls advised: “and you, Fyodor Avgustovich, take a crust of bread, sprinkle with salt, go to the foam at the crossroads, put the crust and say:

"Father of the forest,

"Bring her home

"Take her out there

“Where did she come from!

Be sure to go to her." Everything turned out as written. Loudly uttering the memorized words (it was not as embarrassing to pronounce it as to listen to myself) and putting the crust on the stump, I moved to the ravine, which already in the morning went far and wide, and not having gone even three fathoms, I stumbled upon my black and piebald heifer! It was clear to the whole village that the woodsman had brought them out. This faith in benevolent brownies and forest people, as well as faith in the living soul of the earth, is anything but philistinism. Philistinism is completely different and inter-

Do other things and in the feeling of this peasant faith as stupidity and superstition. Much is clear to the tradesman, which is not clear to either the peasant, or the poet, or the philosopher.

The peasant feeling for the land is a very complex feeling. Living all the last years in the countryside, I looked closely at him and clarified a lot of things that I had not understood before. The peasant loves his land, but he does not feel the aesthetic image of his piece of land. For him, the earth is only subsoil and in no way a landscape. One can imagine a migrant who would take with him a bag native land, but one cannot imagine anyone who would want to take with him a photograph of a field, a mowing, or even his estate. Of all Russian writers, Dostoevsky, perhaps, felt the earth most strongly, but in all his novels there is absolutely no landscape at all. Turgenev was the greatest Russian landscape painter, but he does not have a feeling for the earth, its bowels, its fruitful bosom, its divine flesh and its living soul. The peasant feeling of the land is very close to the feeling of Dostoevsky, the landowner's feeling is much closer to Turgenev's. In Dostoevsky and in the muzhik the sense of the earth is ontological, in Turgenev and in the landowner it is aesthetic. But this ontologically essential peasant feeling of the land is by no means explicable by the simple worldly dependence of the entire peasant existence on a strip of land. Land for the peasant is not at all an instrument of production, not at all the same as a tool for a craftsman or a machine for a worker. The machine is in the power of the worker, and the peasant himself is in the power of the land. And because he is in her power, she is a living soul for him. Every labor on earth is a question posed by man to the earth, and every sprout on earth is the answer of the earth to man. Every labor with a machine is a monologue with a predetermined effect, every labor on earth is a dialogue with an end never known. In factory work there is something that mortifies the soul, in peasant work there is something life-giving. Therefore, the factory leads to the petty-bourgeois faith in man, and the earth to religious faith into God. In life, these straight lines are very complicated. Many workers do not believe in man, but in God. But these are almost always peasants working in a factory. And many peasants do not believe in God in any way, but they are no longer people, but animals, and animals, first of all, when they try to become people, to exercise law, law and justice. A typical story: a horse thief was caught in our village. At first they wanted to "finish off", but then changed their minds. Decided to take to the county

New city, to court. The city is 30 miles away, there are many villages along the way. We decided to stop in every village, collect gatherings and "teach" the thief. "Taught" to the conscience, methodically and without much malice; but they didn’t take him to court, they threw the dead man into the police station and ended up in the water. Who brought it, on whose horse, who beat, who killed? So, they didn't know anything. And everyone was very pleased, they did it cleanly, in good conscience. All this is atrocity, but not philistinism. Philistinism is always mediocre, and the Russian muzhik, the underground root of Russia, is all, like her, in irreconcilable contradictions.

My interlocutor listened to all these lengthy arguments with very great attention and interest, but in the most important points they still did not seem to satisfy him. The concept of bourgeois psychology, the concept of philistinism, obviously did not have for him that meaning and taste, which is so understandable and familiar to both the Russian consciousness and the Russian language. He clearly associated philistinism not with the psychological categories of mediocrity, arrogance, and lack of religiosity, but almost exclusively with a sense of "sacred" property. Whether the Russian muzhik was a proprietor in the European sense of the word, that was obviously what interested him in the first place. How was the European to answer this question? Of course, the Russian muzhik is in a certain sense an owner to the marrow of his bones. When a village shares a public mowing, then not only strangers, but also siblings are ready to gnaw through each other's throats because of half a scythe, but after all, even when a family slurps from a common bowl, then each spoon falls into the bowl in turn and catches only one piece of meat. In all this, the concept of property strangely merges with the concept of justice. The same goes on. What land does the man consider his? In essence, only the one that he processes. When the revolution handed over our arable land to the countryside, which cultivated it incessantly under all the landlords, it accepted it in the depths of its heart as its own. Theirs, approximately, in the sense in which the nurses of rich, secular houses consider their fosterlings to be their children. True, she hesitated for a long time whether to plow, and certainly wanted to pay at least something for her uniform, but this was only out of distrust of our conscience, and not out of a lack of faith in her right. Yes, the Russian peasant is, of course, the owner of the land, but only with the proviso that property for him is not a legal category, but a religious and moral one. The right to land gives only

It is labor on earth, labor in which an ontological sense of the earth and a religious transformation of labor are found. It is natural for every muzhik who rides out into the fields at sunrise to feel and say: “what a grace,” but how to say “what a grace” when sitting down to chin up a boot or starting a car ...

This is how the peasant soul is intertwined with the affirmation of labor as the basis of landed property, and the feeling of cultivated land as the religious basis of life.

Everything is much more complicated than in European philistinism, for which property is sacred because money was paid for it and it is protected by laws, or in European socialism, which generally denies any spiritual meaning of property ...

***

It is difficult to say whether my interlocutor understood everything that I tried to tell him about the Russian peasant who interested him, or not. In any case, he was satisfied and calmed down, optimistically deciding that if I was right, then the Bolsheviks could not hold out for a long time in Russia, being, in their entire world outlook, detractors and deniers not only of its economic, but also of its religious foundations. Happy European!

F . Stepun

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] Compilation, introductory article, notes and bibliography by V.K. Cantor.
(Moscow: "Russian Political Encyclopedia" (ROSSPEN), 2000. - Supplement to the journal "Questions of Philosophy". Series "From the History of Russian Philosophical Thought")
Scan, processing, Djv format: Dark_Ambient, 2011

• SUMMARY:
  VC. Cantor. F. Stepun: Russian Philosopher in the Age of Madness of Reason (3).
  LIFE AND ART
  Preface (37).
  German Romanticism and Russian Slavophilism (38).
  The tragedy of creativity (58).
  The tragedy of mystical consciousness (73).
  Life and work (89).
  Oswald Spengler and "The Decline of Europe" (127).
  MAIN PROBLEMS OF THE THEATER
  The nature of the acting soul (150).
  The main types of acting creativity (171).
  Theater of the Future (186).
  THOUGHTS ON RUSSIA
  Essay I (201).
  Essay II (208).
  Essay III (219).
  Essay IV (234).
  Essay V (258).
  Essay VI (275).
  Essay VII (295).
  Essay VIII (315).
  Essay IX (336).
  Essay X (352).
  The Religious Meaning of the Revolution (377).
  Christianity and Politics (399).
  NOVOGRAD CYCLE
  The path of the creative revolution (425).
  Problems of emigration (434).
  About the man of the "New City" (443).
  More about the "man of the New City" (453).
  Ideas and Life (460).
  Love according to Marx (471).
  Germany "woke up" (482).
  The idea of ​​Russia and the forms of its disclosure (496).
  Post-Revolutionary Consciousness and the Task of Emigrant Literature (504).
  Hopeful Russia (515).
  On freedom (534).
  BOLSHEVISM AND CHRISTIAN EXISTENCE
  The struggle of liberal and totalitarian democracy around the concept of truth (557).
  Russia between Europe and Asia (565).
  Spirit, face and style of Russian culture (583).
  Moscow is the third Rome (596).
  Proletarian Revolution and the Revolutionary Order of the Russian Intelligentsia (612).
  "Demons" and the Bolshevik Revolution (627).
  MEETINGS
  Dostoevsky's world outlook (643).
  Religious tragedy of Leo Tolstoy (661).
  Ivan Bunin (680).
  Concerning "Mitya's Love" (691).
  In memory of Andrei Bely (704).
  Vyacheslav Ivanov (722).
  Boris Konstantinovich Zaitsev - on his eightieth birthday (735).
  G.P. Fedotov (747).
  B.L. Pasternak (762).
  Artist of free Russia (776).
  For the last time (780).
  Faith and knowledge in the philosophy of S.L. Frank (786).
  APPLICATION
  1. Early papers (791).
  Editorial (791).
  "Logos" (800).
  Toward a Phenomenology of Landscape (804).
  An open letter to Andrei Bely concerning the article "Circular Movement" (807).
  On Some Negative Aspects of Modern Literature (816).
  Past and future of Slavophilism (825).
  About "Demons" by Dostoevsky and letters of Maxim Gorky (837).
  2. Articles of the 20-30s (849).
  Concerning the letter of N.A. Berdyaev (849).
  On the socio-political paths of the "Way" (860).
  Germany (865).
  Letter from Germany (Forms of German Sovietophilism) (874).
  Letters from Germany (National Socialists) (885).
  Letters from Germany (Around the Election of the President of the Republic) (903).
  3. Latest texts (920).
  Art and Modernity (920).
  In memory of Pasternak (926).
  Jealousy (930).
  About the future revival of Russia (939).
  Nation and nationalism (940).
  Notes (947).
  Bibliography of Fyodor Stepun (975).
  Name index (986).

Publisher's note: The collection contains philosophical, cultural-historical and journalistic works of the outstanding Russian philosopher who worked (in his own words) in the era of "madness of the mind" - Fyodor Avgustovich Stepun (1884-1965). F. Stepun is one of the founders of the famous Logos magazine, who spent the second half of his life in exile. The neo-Kantian philosopher, by the will of history, found himself in the center of philosophical and political cataclysms. Understanding the Russian catastrophe as part of a pan-European one, he tried to understand ways out of this global crisis. Bolshevism and fascism he interpreted as the victory of irrationalism. His main problem in the 20-30s was the search for the metaphysical foundations of democracy. He saw these foundations in the Divine affirmation of a free man as the religious meaning of history, in Christianity, understood by him in the spirit of rationalism. Contemporaries put him on a par with such Western philosophers as Paul Tillich, Martin Buber, Romano Guardini and others. The book of selected philosophical and journalistic writings of the thinker in his homeland is published for the first time in such a volume.

Fyodor Avgustovich Stepun (1884 - 1965) was born in Moscow. His father - the owner of stationery factories - was a native of East Prussia. From 1902 to 1910 Stepun studied philosophy at the University of Heidelberg with Windelband. But the neo-Kantianism of his mentor was supplemented in Stepun by the influence of German romanticism and the philosophy of Vl. Solovyov. Stepun's doctoral dissertation was devoted to the philosophy of Solovyov's history. He soon lost interest in the rationalistic side of the system of the Russian philosopher, and the large study he had conceived on Solovyov was limited to his doctoral work.
Stepun, as one of the initiators of the Logos magazine, returned to Russia and took an active part in its publication. In "Logos" he published his philosophical articles: "The Tragedy of Creativity (Friedrich Schlegel)" (1910), "The Tragedy of Mystical Consciousness (Experience of Phenomenological Characterization)" (1911-1912), "Life and Creativity" (1913).
Stepun himself considered the last article as "the first draft of a philosophical system that, on the basis of Kantian criticism, is trying to scientifically defend and justify the religious ideal clearly inspired by the Romantics and Slavophiles." He also published in other journals, publishing articles on philosophy, public life, literature, theater.
Having met with a hostile attitude towards neo-Kantianism from the academic circles of Moscow, Stepun came to the conclusion that "in Russia, it may be more correct to study philosophy outside the university walls." He organizes his course of lectures "Introduction to Philosophy", which he reads in a rented apartment. Twice he made presentations at meetings of the St. Petersburg Religious and Philosophical Society. Stepun conducts lecture activities in Moscow and provincial cities of Russia.
During the First World War, Stepun was an ensign of an artillery regiment. February Revolution of 1917 found him at the front in Galicia. He arrived in Petrograd at the head of the delegation of the Southwestern Front and then was elected a deputy of the All-Russian Council of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies, from May to June 1917 he headed the cultural and educational department at the Political Directorate of the Military Ministry of the Provisional Government, and then became the head of the Political Directorate, editor of the Journal of the Army and Navy of Free Russia.
After the October Revolution, Stepun became the ideological leader of the State Demonstration Theater, and then a director. But Stepun's practical theatrical activity did not last long: he was suspended from work in the theater after the director V. E. Meyerhold's accusatory revolutionary speech. However, the passion for the theater continued already at a theoretical level. Stepun taught "philosophy of the theatre" at various theater schools and studios, including the Studio of Young Actors, where K.S. Stanislavsky gave lessons. A few years later, already in exile, Stepun would publish his book The Main Problems of the Theater (Berlin, 1923). Stepun's literary work is not interrupted either. He collaborates in the cultural-philosophical department of the Socialist-Revolutionary newspaper Vozrozhdeniye, not sharing the Socialist-Revolutionary ideology, but being a supporter of the "cultivation of Russian democratic socialism." In 1918 his book of memoirs about the war "From the Letters of an Artillery Ensign" is published. In 1922, under his editorship and with his article, the first and only issue of the Rosehip magazine was published, in which the work of Berdyaev, the works of Leonid Leonov and Boris Pasternak were published. In the same year, a collection of articles by Berdyaev, Frank, Stepun and Bukshpann was published, dedicated to O. Spengler's book "The Decline of Europe". Stepun, objecting to Spengler, argued that “genuine, that is, Christian-humanitarian culture” would not perish, just as Europeanized Russia, which gave the world Pushkin, would not perish. But Stepun fully agreed with the author of The Decline of Europe in his sharply negative assessment of Marxist socialism.
Not surprisingly, Stepun was included in the list of philosophers and scientists expelled from Russia by the Bolshevik government. He emigrates to Germany, where he collaborates in Russian and German magazines, publishes a number of books, including his main philosophical work, Life and Work (Berlin, 1922). Since 1926, Stepun has been working at the Department of Sociology of the Higher Technical School in Dresden, but in 1927 the Nazis fired him for ideological unreliability. His apartment was searched. Stepun is a determined opponent of National Socialism. Having a German ethnic origin, Stepun was a patriot of Russia during the Second World War. After the war, since 1946, he lectured with great success on Russian spiritual culture, heading the department on the history of Russian culture specially created for him at the University of Munich. In 1956, his book Bolshevism and Christian Existence was published in German, and in 1962, Mystical Worldview. In 1947, Stepun's memoirs were printed in German, which in 1956 were published in Russian under the title "Former and Unfulfilled." In 1992, the collection of his articles about Russian writers "Meetings" was published, in 1999 - "Wishing Russia". In 2000, his "Works" were published in the series "From the History of Russian Philosophical Thought".
Stepun's philosophical views are a kind of synthesis of neo-Kantianism and the romanticized "philosophy of life" with religious philosophy in the spirit of Vl. Solovyov. This synthesis did not seem organic to many contemporaries, but it is indicative of the mindset of a certain current of Russian philosophical thought. Let's try to understand the logic of such a heterogeneous philosophical construction of the author of the essay "Life and Creativity" - the main conceptual work of Stepun.

According to him, "the only true task of philosophy" is "the vision of the absolute." This task of philosophy was also solved by Kant, but in a different way than the previous philosophy, which, according to the figurative definition of Stepun, sought to “see the absolute in the image of the sun standing high above the earth.” Kant, on the other hand, “actually shifted the horizon of philosophy in such a way that the sun of the absolute remained behind its horizon” (140). That is why modern Kantian criticism “does not look for the sun in the sky, but only its traces and reflections on the fading earth” (141). For Stepun, Kantian criticism characterizes the modern level of scientific philosophy, although not all of Kant's propositions seem acceptable to him.
Stepun begins his discussions about life and work from the “fading earth”. He takes the concept of “experience” as a basis, meaning not a specific subjective-psychic experience, but some kind of “experience” in general. For him, both life and creativity are the two poles of this "experience". At the same time, experience-life is a "mystical experience" (157). The point is that “the concept that signifies life is the concept of “positive all-unity” (160). So Stepun is trying to combine the "philosophy of life" with the teachings of Vl. Solovyov. He also seeks to “cross” Solovyov with Kant, noting that for him the positive all-unity is not “the absolute itself”, but only “the logical symbol of this absolute, and even then not the absolute, as it actually is and in itself, but as it is given in experience” (179). But this very "experience of life" is postulated "as a religious experience, as a religious experience of God." Thus "knowledge of Life" is equated with knowledge of "the living God" (180).
Creativity is also considered by Stepun as an experience, but such an experience that opposes the experience of life. If the experience of life is characterized as “positive all-unity”, then there is no unity in the experience of creativity. It is split into subject and object and breaks up into diverse forms of cultural creativity: into science and philosophy, into art and religion. In relation to creativity, Stepun uses, following the example of his neo-Kantian teachers Windelband and Rickert, an axiological, i.e., value-theoretical approach, which he develops in a peculiar way.
He subdivides the values ​​themselves into “values ​​of the state” and “values ​​of the subject position”. “State values” are the values ​​“in which each person is organized (with the value of personality at the head)”, and the values ​​“in which humanity is organized (with the basic value of destiny)” (171). "Values ​​of the subject position" - the second layer of the values ​​of creativity. These include “scientific-philosophical” and “aesthetic-gnostic” values. "Scientific and philosophical values ​​are those that build the cultural benefits of exact science and philosophy." "... Aesthetic-gnostic values ​​are those that build the cultural goods of art and the symbolic-metaphysical systems of philosophy" (171).
The relationship between life and creativity, according to Stepun, is contradictory. He asserts "equal recognition of both poles" - "both the pole of Life and the pole of creativity" (182). At the same time, he believes "that Life is God, and creativity is a falling away from Him" ​​(181). At the same time, creativity “can in no way be comprehended and rejected as a sinful and theomachic self-affirmation of man. When creating, a person obediently accomplishes his truly human, that is, the work indicated to him by God himself” (182). But this ambivalent relationship of creativity to Life-God constitutes the “tragedy of creativity,” which Stepun characterizes in his article “The Tragedy of Creativity” as the desire to solve an impossible task: “To contain life, as such, in creativity.”
Stepun was a creative person, which was expressed both in his own philosophical and artistic work (in 1923 he published his philosophical novel "Nikolai Pereslegin"; his memoirs "Former and Unfulfilled" have not only documentary, but also artistic value), and in a deep interest in literary and theatrical creativity.