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Rethinking 'Historical Mysticism' in the Age Of RETHINKING ‘HISTORICAL MYSTICISM’ IN THE AGE OF RUSSIAN REALISM by Olha Tytarenko A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures University of Toronto © Copyright by Olha Tytarenko 2016 Abstract Rethinking “Historical Mysticism” in the Age of Russian Realism Doctor of Philosophy 2016 Olha Tytarenko Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures University of Toronto The events of the 1850s and the early 1860s, including the Emancipation of the serfs (1861) and the Millennium celebration of Russia (1862), became a turning point in the cultural relationship between educated society and the narod. Following a wave of disturbances in the Russian countryside at that time, some Russian intellectuals came to perceive the narod as a protagonist in the political, social and cultural life of the Empire. These disturbances also revealed the narod’s tendency to interpret historical developments through a certain mythological framework. This dissertation argues that the public attention to the narod in the aftermath of these events raised educated society’s awareness of the political attitudes and historical thinking of the narod expressed though its mythology. I discuss how historians, writers and journalists such as Sergei Solovyov, Daniil Mordovtsev, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, Mikhail Pogodin, and Lev Tolstoy reimagined and redefined the narod through its penchant for mysticism. For these thinkers, understanding the narod, its beliefs and ideals, and how it conceptualized history became a prerequisite for shaping the image of the national and ideological nucleus of the Russian Empire. Chapter I of this dissertation examines how, under which historical circumstances, and why the interest in popular mythology among educated society emerged in the two reform decades (the 1850s-1860s); what it revealed about the political views of the narod, and how politics shaped it; which specific aspects of it were frequently utilized ii and discussed in the print media and to what end; and how a new debate with the concept of the narod and folk mysticism as its center of gravity evolved in Russia. Chapter II discusses Lev Tolstoy’s approach to folk mysticism in his novel War and Peace. I argue that the novelist makes a commune of peasants, whose actions and choices are driven by profound mythological beliefs, an agent of a single collective will. Chapter III demonstrates how in his A History of a Town, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin problematizes mythological beliefs that inform collective behaviour of the narod, considering them to be a stumbling block for the narod’s own historical development and that of the country. Chapter IV discusses how the mythological framework of the narrative of The Possessed by Fyodor Dostoevsky absorbs a popular eschatological vision and becomes instrumental for the writer to express his social critique of modernity. This study demonstrates how in their literary works, the three authors show the existence of the narod not on the cultural periphery of the Russian Empire, but within the socio-political landscape, linking the narod’s moral image to its sacred beliefs and ideals. At the same time I argue that each of them utilizes popular mythology as an allegorical language to communicate his social and political ideas. iii Acknowledgements I would like to thank my advisor Donna Orwin for her continuous support, the intellectual challenges she presented to me, and her guidance throughout my work on this dissertation. I am grateful to other members of my committee, Kate Holland and Leonid Livak, for their valuable feedback and advice on early drafts. I extend special thanks to Edyta Bojanowska, my external examiner, for her perceptive reading and useful comments and suggestions for the project as it may enter further stages. I also want to thank my dear friend Michael Naydan for all his help, editing work, numerous valuable ideas and suggestions, and reassurance every step of the way. My debt to my family in Ukraine for their continuous faith in me. And finally, I couldn’t have done it without my husband Orest Shestak, my true source of strength and inspiration. iv Table of Contents ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................................ II ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................................................... IV INTRODUCTION: HISTORICAL MYSTICISM AND THE NAROD ................................................. 1 CHAPTER 1: A SUPERSTITIOUS PROTAGONIST OF HISTORY ............................................... 20 I. THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM AND THE NAROD ........................................................................................ 20 II. SYMBOLIC NARRATIVE IN BEZDNA ............................................................................................................ 34 III. BEZDNA’S VERSION OF THE KONSTANTIN LEGEND ........................................................................... 39 CHAPTER 2: APPROACHING POPULAR MYSTICISM IN TOLSTOY’S WAR AND PEACE .... 53 I. FROM PSYCHOLOGY TO MYSTICISM ........................................................................................................... 57 II. THE BOGUCHAROVIANS WITHIN THE SOCIAL NARRATIVE OF “VOL’NOST’” ...................................... 65 III. THE BOGUCHAROVO REBELLION WITHIN THE TRADITION OF PORTRAYING “BUNTY NA RUSI” 74 IV. A NON-SINGLE NARRATIVE AS TOLSTOY’S ARTISTIC TECHNIQUE ................................................ 90 CHAPTER 3: POLITICAL MYTHOLOGY IN SALTYKOV’S A HISTORY OF A TOWN ........... 101 I. THE “MYTH OF THE TSAR” AND THE ECONOMY OF SALVATION ........................................................ 108 II. UGRIUM BURCHEEV: THE RULE OF THE BEAST .................................................................................... 119 III. THE APOCALYPSE AND SALTYKOV’S SOCIAL CRITIQUE .................................................................. 133 CHAPTER 4: DOSTOEVSKY’S ESCHATOLOGICAL NATIONALISM IN THE POSSESSED .. 148 I. VERKHOVENSKY’S REVOLUTIONARY MYTHOLOGY ............................................................................... 150 II. DOSTOEVSKY’S APPROPRIATION OF APOCALYPTIC LORE ................................................................... 164 III. DOSTOEVSKY’S ESCHATOLOGICAL NATIONALISM ........................................................................... 183 CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................................................... 194 BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................................. 202 v Introduction: Historical Mysticism and the Narod The narod, a key concept in this dissertation, is among the words most frequently used in Russian journalism of the second half of the nineteenth century. The concept was crucial in nineteenth-century intellectual movements of Westernism (zapadnichestvo, an ideology stressing the importance of European values in Russian cultural development), Slavophilism (slavianofil’stvo in contrast emphasised the role of Russian exceptionality retained in traditional culture, religion, and values), and its later form of Pochvennichestvo (return to the soil movement). These intellectual camps assigned a special role to the narod in their nation-building agendas and had their own visions of the narod’s historical development. The frequent circulation in the press and Russian intellectual thought notwithstanding, there is hardly any other word in Russian language more elusive and obscure than the word “narod.” The emotional appeal investing the English, French and German counterparts of the word (“the people,” “le people,” “das Volk” respectively) also imbued the Russian concept particularly in romantic thought.1 This linked the “narod” with the idea of the nation, propagating a feeling of national superiority of Russian culture along with the sense of the country’s universal mission.2 Post-romantic discourse needed to reconcile the abstract ideal with the concrete realities of Russian life and redefine the concept within social terms. As Derek Offord has observed, the social scope of the narod presented a challenge due to the lack of unanimity on which classes the narod included and which it excluded. I agree with Offord that it is easier to define the narod by what it is not rather than what it is. Therefore, the category 1 Derek Offord, “The People,” A History of Russian Thought, Ed. William Leatherbarrow and Derek Offord (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) 242. 2 The term was often used with the descriptor “Russian” (russkii narod) that would embrace various nationalities within the Empire. See Chapter 2 for the brief discussion of how Tolstoy used the phrase “Russkii narod” in War and Peace. 1 of the narod, as it is used throughout this dissertation, excludes nobility, raznochintsy (non-gentry intellectuals), clergy, intelligentsia, or any other professional or commercial elite or semi-elite.3 At the outset of modernisation prompted by Alexander II’s reforms and with public discussions of the Emancipation of the serfs and its importance in the life of the country, the term narod grew more and more to designate the peasantry. This identification grew even stronger with the rise of interest in peasant rebellions
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