Mystical Enlightenment in Late Eighteenth-Century Russia
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Mystical Enlightenment in Late Eighteenth-century Russia Author Berg, Andreas Published 2017-06-28 Thesis Type Thesis (PhD Doctorate) School School of Hum, Lang & Soc Sc DOI https://doi.org/10.25904/1912/302 Copyright Statement The author owns the copyright in this thesis, unless stated otherwise. Downloaded from http://hdl.handle.net/10072/370747 Griffith Research Online https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au MYSTICAL ENLIGHTENMENT IN LATE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY RUSSIA Mr Andreas Berg Bachelor of Arts with Honours School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science Griffith University Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 28.06.2017 THESIS ABSTRACT This thesis will examine the thought of G.S. Skovoroda (1722-1796), M.M. Kheraskov (1733-1807) and I.V. Lopukhin (1756-1816) as constitutive of a Mystical Enlightenment in Russia. Anglophone, and to a lesser extent, Russian literature has often conceived of the Russian Enlightenment as a single project of predominantly rational orientation. However, increasing attention to the presence of multiple Enlightenments in Western Europe and of the importance of religious debates in the formation of various reform movements, necessitate a reconsideration in the role of spirituality in Eighteenth-century Russia. For this reason, this thesis contributes to the recent re-evaluation of the ways in which Russia appropriated foreign discourses, and provides thereby a more detailed account of the extent to which mysticism was able to radically redefine religious, personal and ethical organisational forms. Specifically, this thesis offers an analysis of normative arguments based on three inter-linked concepts of ecclesia, personhood and ascetic ethics. These were the constitutive elements of a sustained mystical critique of the Russian Polizeistaat. By means of a close reading of a select number of primary sources, this thesis provides an explanation of why mysticism had such a strong mobilizational capacity in comparison to more rational discourses in late Eighteenth-century Russia. By doing so, the thesis demonstrates how Eighteenth and early Nineteenth-century mystical writers were able to successfully orient the mind towards rational worldly action. From this analysis, a more complete picture emerges of how religiously-minded thinkers in Russia grappled with the imperative to rethink and rejustify their commitments to important worldly institutions, concepts and practices. I have, almost exclusively, focused on ideas rather than on their context. Because of this, broader social ramifications of mysticism have not been explored in this thesis. Future research needs to consult Russian archival material in order to remedy this. Hopefully, however, my research offers fresh perspectives on the trajectories of Enlightenment in Russia and raises a range of issues for further examination and debate. STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY This work has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself. ------------------------------------- on the ----28.06.2017----------------- Andreas Berg ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to extend my gratitude to my primary supervisor, Associate Professor Bruce Buchan, especially for his patience, diligence and generosity of spirit. I am also very grateful to my secondary supervisor, Professor Wayne Hudson who exercised such an immense influence on my intellectual development since the time when I was an undergraduate student. Griffith School of Humanities has kindly provided me with a Research Higher Degree scholarship without which, the writing of this thesis would be a very onerous task indeed. I am much indebted to the collegial spirit and encouragement of my friends, Dr Alexander Naraniecki, Dr Daniel Brennan, Dr Alison Taylor and Mr Ari Fuller. Lastly and most importantly, I will always be beholden to my father, Vincent Berg without whom, this thesis would unlikely have seen completion. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………………..1 CHAPTER ONE: RETHINKING THE RUSSIAN ENLIGHTENMENT Introduction…………………………………………………………………………...5 Conceptualisations of the Russian Enlightenment…………………..6 Russia’s Enlightenment: A new approach………………………………35 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………..50 CHAPTER TWO: RETHINKING RELIGION IN THE RUSSIAN ENLIGHTENMENT Introduction……………………………………………………………..…………..52 Approaches to religion and spirituality in the Russian Enlightenment…………………….……………………………………………....53 Alternative approach to religion and spirituality in the Enlightenment…………………………………………………………….……….79 Sources of the Mystical Enlightenment………………………….……..91 Conclusion………………..…………………………………………………………119 CHAPTER THREE: GRIGORII SAVVYCH SKOVORODA Introduction…………………………………………………………………..……..121 Ecclesiastical structures…………………………………………………………121 Structures of personhood………………………………………………….150 Ascetic ethic………………………………………………………………………177 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………….197 CHAPTER FOUR: MIKHAIL MATVEYEVICH KHERASKOV Introduction…………………………………………………………………….…199 Ecclesiastical structures……………………………………………………...200 Structures of personhood…………………………………………………..228 Ascetic ethic…………………………………………………………………….…245 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….…267 CHAPTER FIVE: IVAN VLADIMIROVICH LOPUKHIN Introduction………………………………………………………………………….268 Ecclesiastical structures…………………………………………………………268 Structures of personhood……………………………………………………..296 Ascetic ethic……………………………………………………………………….…319 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….……346 CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………………………...348 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………………………353 A worm! a god! — I tremble at myself, And in myself am lost! At home a stranger, Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast, And wondering at her own. How reason reels! O what a miracle to man is man, Triumphantly distress'd! what joy! what dread! Alternately transported and alarm'd! What can preserve my life? or what destroy? Edward Young, Night Thoughts 1 INTRODUCTION This thesis will analyse the mystical thought of Grigorii Savvych Skovoroda (1722-1794), Mikhail Matveyevich Kheraskov (1733-1807) and Ivan Vladimirovich Lopukhin (1756-1816) as constitutive of a Mystical Enlightenment. Two crucial historiographical developments stand behind the need for such a reinterpretation of the role and the function of mysticism in Russian intellectual history. Firstly, over the past two decades, Russian and Western scholars have increasingly drawn attention to Enlightened aspects of spirituality in Russia, especially of its mystical variety. Secondly, approaches to the study of what has once been ‘The Enlightenment’ have undergone such a radical historiographical shift that presently, most scholars agree that Enlightenment was neither singular nor necessarily anti-religious. In fact, enough evidence has been gathered from many different contexts to suggest that religious concerns were often at the heart of Eighteenth-century reforms of knowledges and practices. The problem however, is that both of these advances have not yet been applied together to Russia’s complex Eighteenth-century. Whilst outstanding work has been done in terms of detailing the importance of Masonic and in particular, Rosicrucian coteries in the formation of Enlightened attitudes and institutions in Russia, the mystical aspirations which have sustained the former, has not yet been subjected to sustained inquiry. In response to this gap in existing literature, this thesis will prioritise mysticism rather than esoteric communities in which it has inhered. To that end, no major qualitative distinction has been made between those Russian intellectuals that were participants in Masonic societies and those that were not. This does not mean that all instances of Eighteenth-century Russian mysticism are the same irrespective of the contexts in which they have occurred. However, the consistency with which some Russian mystics foregrounded a metaphysically anchored defence of the autonomy of the person, rethought the relevancy of ecclesiastical structures and promoted ascetic ethics, suggest a shared commitment to speculative reasoning. An examination of how, personal, ecclesial 2 and ethical organisational forms were rethought from a mystical standpoint goes some way towards applying some of the more contemporary approaches to the study of religion and the Enlightenment to Eighteenth-century Russia. The central argument of this thesis is that in Eighteenth-century Russia, mysticism fulfilled an emancipatory function in regards to ideas and practises that were deemed to be of outmost importance to individuals and society as a whole. The issue of what was personhood, what stance it ought to take towards organised religion and how it ought to live to remain authentic with itself became normative questions in Russian thought following their consistent foregrounding by the Mystical Enlightenment. This strongly humanistic orientation is what distinguished the content and the application of mysticism in Russia from other contemporaneous modes of thought. One key reason for this was that mysticism took on some of the duties of philosophy at a time when the latter had not yet taken a firm root in Russia. Distanced from its confessional affiliations and bolstered by assimilation of Western European and especially German speculative thought, mysticism became an intellectual space in which