Oliver Smith Studies in Russian and Slavic Literatures, Cultures and History
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Oliver Smith Studies in Russian and Slavic Literatures, Cultures and History Series Editor: Lazar Fleishman (Stanford Universtity) Oliver Smith Boston 2011 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Smith, Oliver, Ph. D. Vladimir Soloviev and the spiritualization of matter / Oliver Smith. p. cm. -- (Studies in Russian and Slavic literatures, cultures, and history) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 978-1-936235-17-9 (hardback) 1. Solovyov, Vladimir Sergeyevich, 1853-1900. 2. Matter. 3. Spirit. I. Title. B4268.M35S65 2010 197--dc22 2010047543 Copyright © 2011 Academic Studies Press All rights reserved ISBN 978-1-936235-17-9 Book design by Ivan Grave On the cover: Th e Portrait of Vladimir Soliviev, by Ivan Kramskoy (a fragment). 1885 Published by Academic Studies Press in 2011 28 Montfern Avenue Brighton, MA 02135, USA [email protected] www.academicstudiespress.com Effective December 12th, 2017, this book will be subject to a CC-BY-NC license. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. Other than as provided by these licenses, no part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or displayed by any electronic or mechanical means without permission from the publisher or as permitted by law. The open access publication of this volume is made possible by: This open access publication is part of a project supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book initiative, which includes the open access release of several Academic Studies Press volumes. To view more titles available as free ebooks and to learn more about this project, please visit borderlinesfoundation.org/open. Published by Academic Studies Press 28 Montfern Avenue Brighton, MA 02135, USA [email protected] www.academicstudiespress.com CONTENTS Abbreviations used for Soloviev’s works . vii Acknowledgments . ix Introduction . 1 Chapter I. THE FIRST THINGS . 19 Th e Early Period, 1873-81 . 24 Th e Material World . 31 I. Th e Monad . 36 II. Th eogony . 47 III. Cosmogony . 66 IV. Th e Fourth World . 79 Chapter II. HUMANITY . 91 I. Anthropogeny and History . 96 II. Th e Task and the Kingdom of God . 105 III. Christ the God-man . 113 IV. Th e Body of Christ . 122 V. Death and Flesh . 138 Chapter III. PROPHECY . 145 I. Soloviev as Prophet, 1881-1897 . 147 II. Soloviev, Authenticity and the Antichrist . 163 III. Th e Apocalyptic Turn, 1897-1900 . 176 IV. Prophecy and the Th reefold Offi ce . 194 Excursus. THE PRIMACY OF THE THIRD: Soul, Feeling and Reverence . 207 Chapter IV. THE LAST THINGS . 237 I. Love . 240 II. Beauty . 257 Conclusion. ON SPIRITUALMATERIAL UNITY . 275 Bibliography . 283 Principal Works Cited . 296 Appendix. Glossary . 297 Index . 299 — v — ABBREVIATIONS USED FOR SOLOVIEV’S WORKS FI Filosofi ia iskusstva i literaturnaia kritika (Philosophy of Art and Literary Criticism), ed. R. Gal'tseva and I. Rodnianskaia, Moscow, 1991. PSS Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem (Collected Works and Letters), ed. by A. A. Nosov, 3 vols, Moscow, 2000-01. S1 Sochineniia (Works), ed. by A. F. Losev and A. V. Gulyga, 2 vols, Moscow, 1989. S2 Sochineniia v dvukh tomakh (Works in Two Volumes), ed. N. V. Kot- relev, 2 vols, Moscow, 1989. SS Sobranie sochinenii (Collected Works), ed. E. L. Radlov and S. M. So- lov'ev, 12 vols, Brussels, 1966-70. — vii — ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Without support from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, who funded my doctorate degree at University College London and research trips to Russia, this book would not have been written. I am in their debt for allowing me to complete research on the initial project. I am also extremely grateful to the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland for their fi nancial assistance toward this publication. Th ere are many people to whom I owe thanks in the production of this manuscript. I am particularly grateful to Robin Aizlewood, whose gentle yet fi rm supervision on more than one occasion redirected my attention from paths best left unexplored. For suggestions on additions and edits of various incarnations of this text, I thank Philip Boobbyer, Tim Beasley-Murray, Lazar Fleishman, Pamela Davidson, Geoff rey Hosking, Claire Whitehead and Emily Finer. Many people have contributed to expanding my knowledge of, and appreciation for, Vladimir Soloviev. Jonathan Sutton, who fi rst introduced me to Russian religious thought, has been an irreplaceable source of wisdom and guidance. I benefi ted greatly from conversations with Soloviev scholars in Russia, especially Nikolai Kotrelev, Aleksei Kozyrev and Sergei Khoruzhii. And I thank all those whose conversation and advice has propelled me in new directions, especially Adam Ure and Brandon Gallaher. Aleksei Tkachenko-Gastev and Tanya Khramtsova were kind enough to put me up for many weeks of research in Russia, and I thank them for their continuing kindness and friendship. My parents, and my sister Victoria, have been a source of constant and unfailing support, for — ix — ---------------------------------------------------------------- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS --------------------------------------------------------------- which I thank them all. Th e love of my wife, Shelley, has lightened many dark moments in recent years, as well as expunging multiple typos and awkward phrasing from sections of this manuscript. Th e creature who has presided over the majority of the writing of this book is our cat Eva, whose ability to fi nd comfort on a small desk between tomes of Russian philosophy never fails to amaze me. I thank her, as well as past animal companions James, Tessa and Dylan. My grandparents were extremely dear to me and unfailingly attentive when I would tell them about the progress of my work. My grandfather once asked what my book would be about and, having listened carefully to the rather convoluted answer, replied: ‘No one is going to read that, Oliver.’ I dedicate this book to his memory. — x — Dedicated to my grandfather, Horace Abbott. --------------------------------------------------------------------- INTRODUCTION -------------------------------------------------------------------- INTRODUCTION Th e present study began as an investigation of subject-object relations in the work of the Russian philosopher, poet and visionary Vladimir Soloviev (1853-1900). I was interested in which metaphysical premises lay behind his positing of a substantial unity between subject and object, and what consequences these had for the conceptualization of their interaction in lived experience. It became clear very quickly, however, that approaching Soloviev’s work from the perspective of the modern Western philosophical tradition, most notably German Idealism, with its accentuation on the problematics of the subject- object divide, would lead to a disfi guration of his theory of cognition. While the Russian philosopher uses the terms subject and object, they are only very occasional visitors to his discourse, and occur mostly when he is discussing the work of other thinkers. Instead, it is the pre-modern distinction between ‘spirit’ and ‘matter,’ with roots in classical and biblical thought, which occupies central position.1 Th e distinction between subject and object of cognition is retained, but the cognitive process itself is placed within the larger context of the more fundamental interaction between spirit and matter. Having reached this point, it became further clear that it would be impossible to investigate this interaction without touching upon Soloviev’s philosophy of history. Th e interaction between spirit and 1 For a concise treatment of the main points in the spirit-matter distinction in Greek and Christian thought, see E. McMullin, ‘Introduction,’ in Th e Concept of Matter in Greek and Medieval Philosophy, ed. E. McMullin, Notre Dame, IN, 1965, pp. 1-23 (pp. 13-16). — 1 — --------------------------------------------------------------------- INTRODUCTION -------------------------------------------------------------------- matter is understood in his thought not as a temporally neutral sphere open to rational investigation but as a relationship characterized by qualitative changes in its nature over time. Th ese changes taken together amount to a kind of teleology in which the two principles act upon one another in an historical progression where the effi cacy of their mutually conditioning activity increases until an ideal interaction is reached. Th is fi nal goal Soloviev describes as the ‘spiritualization of matter’ (odukhotvorenie materii), whose end he equates with the biblical idea of the coming of the Kingdom of God — the full defi nition and penetration of the material principle by the spirit and, conversely, the full habitation of spirit in material form.2 Th e term may be compared with the Eastern Christian idea of theosis — the deifi cation of both individual believer and the created world — although Soloviev ties his concept much more closely to evolution in historical time, and to the ‘worldly’ spheres of human life, than had Christian writers before him.3 Moreover, Soloviev understands this process of transfi guration not only as a divine initiative but as the conscious ‘task’ of humanity, which is called to transfi gure both itself, as corporeal form, and the material world around it. Th e spiritualization of matter is thus an idea that feeds on an entire historical complex of philosophy, theology, and mystical experience. As well as biblical and patristic thought, it resonates strongly, as a recent work has demonstrated, with the religious humanism of the