In the capital of Lithuania, Vilnius, there is a Russian school named after the outstanding Russian philosopher, poet and medieval historian. Lev Platonovich Karsavin. This school has created a museum dedicated to the life and work of this great man, who, alas, is not well known in our time. After the October Revolution of 1917, the great Russian philosophers and thinkers who remained in Soviet Russia were either expelled from the country, were shot, or were exiled to camps. Mention of them was prohibited, and everything connected with them was to be consigned to oblivion. L.P. did not escape this fate. Karsavin. However, time is changing and thanks to enthusiasts who value the true values of the Russian people, the memory of what was lost is being restored, because without the past, there is no future.
Natalya Fedorovna Koltunova- one of the members of the group, which includes school students and teachers working in the museum. N.F. Koltunova answered questions from the editor-in-chief of the Russian News agency Yaroslav Moshkov.
Who came up with the idea to name the school after Lev Karsavin?
As far as I know, the idea was suggested by librarian Elena Georgievna Muller. At that time I did not work at this school yet, so I don’t know the intricacies. I came to work in 1999, by that time the school was already named after Lev Karsavin.
How well known is Lev Karsavin in Lithuania?
Lev Karsavin is now well known in scientific circles. On November 18, 2005, a memorial plaque was unveiled in Vilnius on the house where the Karsavin family lived. In addition, those people are still alive who remember him as a scientist, lecturer, and person. It is they who we are trying to attract to school, so that they convey precious grains of memories to children, “nourish” them, strengthen the souls of children with them, broaden their horizons, and contribute to the formation of their worldview.
How is it connected to Lithuania?The fact is that in 1927 L.P. Karsavin, having rejected the offer to teach at Oxford, chose Vytautas the Great University in Kaunas, where he was offered to head the department of general history. The main condition for teaching at Kaunas University was mastery of the Lithuanian language. Within one and a half to two years, Karsavin managed to master the language at a fairly good level, which allowed him not only to teach, but also to write scientific articles, and also, after analyzing the Lithuanian language, to introduce new scientific concepts. His five-volume work “History of European Culture” was written in Lithuanian. Attempts have been made to translate this work into Russian, but, as far as I know, this work has only just begun.
Tell us more about Lev Karsavin himself.
In general, you can talk about him as a person, as a philosopher, as a historian, as a theologian. If we start a story about him as a person, we can say the following. He was born in 1882 in St. Petersburg. Born into the family of Mariinsky Theater dancer Platon Karsavin and his wife Anna Khomyakova. The family had two children - Lev Platonovich and Tamara Platonovna.
Lev Platonovich graduated from the Fifth St. Petersburg Classical Gymnasium with a gold medal, then entered the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University, which he also graduated with a gold medal. He was named the most brilliant student of St. Petersburg University.
His fate repeats the fate of many outstanding Russian scientists. For example, his fate is somewhat similar to the fate of the philosopher Ivan Ilyin. It should be added that Lev Karsavin became the youngest professor in Russia. First, he defended his master's thesis, and then defended his doctoral dissertation and received two degrees at once - Doctor of History and Doctor of Theology. He collected materials for his master's thesis by traveling to ancient monasteries in Italy and France, since the topic of his work was the history of medieval religiosity.
In 1922, by decision of Vladimir Lenin, a group of prominent figures of science and culture were expelled on the so-called “philosophical ship” outside Russia without the right of return. One of the leaders of the Soviet era said approximately the following words: “We have no reason to shoot them, but we cannot leave them in the country, since they are very harmful to the new Soviet state.” About two hundred families were expelled. There were two steamships. At one of them, Karsavin and his family were deported. And by that time he already had three daughters in his family. They went to Germany and lived in Berlin. In our museum there is a photograph of that Berlin house. And they even say that it is Karsavin and his family who are captured in this photograph on the balcony.Search work at the school began at the end of 1999. We managed to meet Lev Platonovich’s daughter, Susanna Lvovna, who lived in Vilnius. She visited our school more than once and participated in the Karsavin Readings, which began to be held in 2000.
Susanna Lvovna told us a lot of interesting things about her parents and sisters. I never tired of repeating that “dad always worked”; he was never seen idle. He needed to support his family: his wife and three daughters. Having lost his position, and in Russia he was a professor, which meant not only a solid salary, but also excellent living conditions (they say that his apartment with fourteen windows overlooking the bay has now become the library of the Oriental Faculty of St. Petersburg University), he had to start life "from scratch". Finding themselves in a foreign land without a livelihood, a group of exiled scientists decides to create a university and teach in European languages. They teach what they can teach: history, philosophy, theology. A little later they move to France. I got the impression that they lived as such a group and then gradually began to define themselves. Something had to be done; apparently, they could not stay in Germany. Maybe they felt what processes were going on in Germany. After all, this is 1927-1928.
They move to France, to Clamart, a suburb of Paris. Susanna Lvovna said that she had a lot of family photographs, but there were also a lot of visitors, after which these photographs scattered. These photographs indicate that the Karsavins’ house was hospitable and hospitable. Very famous people came to visit them. He said that she had a photograph of Marina Tsvetaeva visiting her with her son. Their life was quite eventful, let's say. They communicated with their compatriots. Further, as I already said, he receives two offers: to head the department at Oxford and to head the department in Kaunas, at Vytautas Magnus University. Of course, the whole family was going to Oxford, but Karsavin packed his things and came to Kaunas alone. The choice of Kaunas was dictated primarily by the fact that Kaunas is closer to Russia than Great Britain. The university management set the following condition: to learn the Lithuanian language in order to gain the right to teach and head the department. He fulfills this condition and within a year and a half masters this, in his words, “very exotic” language, analyzes it and introduces new scientific concepts. The family came to him only in 1933. I had the opportunity to participate in the ceremonial events of Vilnius University in honor of the 120th anniversary of Karsavin’s birth. A person who was a student of Lev Platonovich said that he went to classes with a suitcase that contained historical books and art albums. So he tried to educate students and pass on the knowledge he possessed. He was a respectable scientist with a worldwide reputation, after all, he was invited to Lithuania precisely because the young Lithuanian state had to be built on some principles. And on which ones? It was decided to return to the roots, because Lithuania was a powerful power in the Middle Ages. Karsavin was one of the largest authorities on the Middle Ages, and on the scientific horizon of that time he was a very, very significant figure.In 1940, the university moved to Vilnius and Karsavin began teaching here. An honest scientist, in his lectures he openly talks about his attitude towards the Soviet system, says that socialism is a compilation. The NKVD begins to monitor him. An informant is introduced into the students' environment. Journalist Irina Arefieva, using archive materials, published a number of articles in which she examines the case of the “Alchemist” (that was the name of Lev Karsavin in the denunciations).
As a result, in 1949 Karsavin ended up in the dungeons of the NKVD, from where he was sent to the Abez camp for the disabled. Abez is located in the Arctic Circle, where many famous people were imprisoned. For example, there he met Anna Akhmatova’s husband, N. Punin (a monument to him was erected in the cemetery in Abezi). Previously, with a group of Lithuanians, he ends up in the internal prison of Leningrad. Karsavin is happy: he has finally returned to Russia! Let it be as a prisoner. After all, exile for him was tantamount to death. From the Leningrad internal prison they are convoyed to Abez. In Abezi, fate brings him together with a man named Anatoly Anatolyevich Vaneev, who ended up in this camp as a boy. Having met Karsavin there and realizing that he is a great scientist and a wonderful person, he asks Lev Platonovich to give him lectures on the history of religion. Vaneev emerges from the camp as a philosopher, a grateful student and follower of Karsavin.Subsequently, A. A. Vaneev wrote a book called “Two Years in Abezi.” It is also presented in the museum. Anatoly Anatolyevich Vaneev provided us with an invaluable service by writing this book. Thanks to his testimony, we know what exactly happened to Karsavin in the camp.
While still in prison, Karsavin developed tuberculosis. On July 12, 1952 he dies. On this stand we see a posthumous portrait of Karsavin, which was made by those people who surrounded him, that is, the Lithuanians. They treated him with unconditional respect and retained many memories associated with Lev Platonovich’s stay in the camp.
He is buried in Abezi. Picture this: Arctic Circle, frozen ground. The crowbar is heated over the fire and used to hammer into the ground for the grave. The camp doctor takes such an action - he places someone’s amputated leg in Karsavin’s grave. Explaining his action by saying that it is by this leg that they will determine that Lev Karsavin is buried here. He also encloses a capsule and some information about him. He has no doubt that they will look for Karsavin’s grave. Subsequently, when this became possible, an entire expedition was sent from Lithuania to search for the graves of the dead relatives. Among others, Karsavin’s grave was found. At the camp cemetery, the Lithuanians erected a monument - a flaming cross, which reminds us of those who died in Abezi.
After Lev Platonovich died, Vaneev writes a letter to Karsavin’s family - his wife and two daughters who lived in Vilnius (the middle daughter Marianna remained in Paris). Vaneev writes this: “Our friend the architect,” he does not even mention the name of the architect, “offers to make tombstones where Lev Platonovich is buried.” He encloses sketches of future tombstones. You can see copies of these sketches on the stand. The letter is dated 1954, Stalin recently died, but the “architect” cannot yet be named by name, and Karsavin’s surname cannot yet be announced. An amazing thing, Vaneev’s handwriting has become similar to Karsavin’s handwriting, compare, here is Karsavin’s handwriting.What did Lev Platonovich do in the camp?
First, he lectured. Those around him even joked: “he created a leftist Platonic academy.” Secondly, he wrote terzas and sonnets. They are all about his relationship with God. He fell ill with tuberculosis and lay in an isolation ward in terrible conditions. The imprisonment weakened his strength. Vaneev described in his book how Lev Platonovich lived his last days, how he resignedly endured all the hardships and rudeness of the orderlies of the camp infirmary, how, in his fading state, he wrote his sonnets and terzas, which have survived to this day and were published as a separate book. These poetic works were translated into Lithuanian by the poet and translator A. Bukantas. In total, more than 20 philosophical works and poetic works were written in the camp.
The school museum displays the personal belongings of Lev Platonovich, which were given to us by his daughter, Susanna Lvovna. This is his pen, glasses and even his business card. Now look - this is written in his hand, but here he writes in Lithuanian. This is his cigarette case made of Karelian birch. These are books that belong to his daughter. They were given to us by Irina Emelyanova, who was friends with Marianna Karsavina in Paris for a long time. Marianna learned to draw from these books. All her life she collaborated with Vogue magazine and was an artist-fashion designer, preparing collections for teenagers and young people. This is Professor Karsavin’s article “Byzantium”. Several articles for the Lithuanian encyclopedia: "Gaius Julius Caesar", "Gothic", "Directory". Journalist Tatyana Yasinskaya gave us photocopies of the Karsavin manuscripts. Here is literature about him.Pavel Ivanovich Ivinsky, a professor at Vilnius University, provided us with great assistance in creating the museum. This brochure, written by P.I. Ivinsky, released for the re-release of the book “History of European Culture”.
Here are articles about Karsavin and books donated by the philosopher Andrei Konitsky.
In this place there is a stand dedicated to the Karsavina places of Vilnius, and this stand is dedicated to Tamara Karsavina, an outstanding ballerina of the 20th century. Of course, the world first learned about Tamara because she was a star. When Lev Platonovich began to manifest himself in scientific activities, they said about him: “Oh, this is that Karsavin - Tamara’s brother.” There was a tender friendship between them. They say that when they met, they walked around the city holding hands.Here is a portrait of Karsavin’s wife, Lydia Nikolaevna (nee Kuznetsova). He married in 1904 a graduate of the Bestuzhev Higher Women's Courses, and they subsequently had three daughters. The middle daughter Marianna got married in Paris and stayed there, while Irina and Susanna came to Lithuania with their mother. One cannot help but remember Milda Gutauskiene, she was friends with their family and took care of them in every possible way. When Susanna was left alone, Milda became a nurse at her bedside. Some exhibits were given to us by Milda.
Before you is a portrait of Tamara. Her life was full of events. Tamara married an English diplomat who was Irish by birth, his name was Henry Bruce. She moved to London in 1919. In England, among the few ballet figures, she created the troupe of the English Royal Ballet and for a long time was its president and vice-president. Tamara Platonovna lived to a ripe old age. To this day, she is remembered not only as a world ballet star, but also as a wonderful teacher who trained more than one generation of ballerinas.
I would also like to show you one detail. The fact is that when the NKVD began to closely monitor Karsavin and when the NKVD’s patience ran out, he was gradually expelled from everywhere where he worked. He was expelled from the university, then from the art institute. Moved to an art museum as director. People who were associated with him during that period say that his work was simply invaluable. Lev Karsavin had enormous experience and knowledge to systematize what this museum owned. When the threat of arrest hung over him, I tell this from Milda’s words, he understood that he, as the director of the museum, as an administrator, would have some requests from his subordinates, but he would not be there. Then he took the paper and put his signature on the blank sheets, thereby showing complete confidence in his employees. This signature is another touch to his portrait.
Are there any other museums dedicated to Lev Karsavin?Looks like no. In any case, Internet search engines do not give a positive answer. The only thing I can say is the fact regarding Abezi. It turns out that a fantastic person lives in Abezi. This is Viktor Ivanovich Lozhkin. He voluntarily began to look after the graves that are located on the site of this camp, created a museum, and those people who came there, visiting the graves, looking for their relatives, inevitably got to know him. I would like to say about one more person. This is Rimvydas Racenas, who is the inspector of the burial sites of Lithuanian exiles throughout the former Soviet Union. It was he who told us about Lozhkin. He mentioned that people come to Abez from different countries - Poland, Belarus, Ukraine and each delegation puts up its own cross. There is a Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Polish cross there... In memory of those who remained forever in the camp cemetery.
Was there a tombstone placed on Karsavin's grave?
As far as I know, now this grave is simply marked with a wooden Orthodox cross. We even have a photograph of the local intelligentsia visiting the grave and laying flowers. These are modest people. Several students and several teachers took pictures at his grave.
Are there any relatives of Karsavin in Lithuania now?
Not in Lithuania. There are only burials at the Euphrosyne Cemetery (Lepkalne Cemetery - editor's note).
Do you think the Lev Karsavin Museum influences the students of your school?One of the Lithuanian cultural figures said the following words: “Karsavin was a person who influenced life choices.” People who ever came into contact with Karsavin were sure to reconsider something in their lives. Therefore, when our students touch Karsavin’s legacy, studying his biography, getting acquainted with his works, I see that they change. There is no need to prove anything here. They begin to look deeper at their lives, at their education and at many other fundamental, fundamental things in life. Therefore, I believe that our small school museum performs, first of all, an educational function, and then an educational one. Karsavin's fate, perhaps, differs in some details from the fates of famous, outstanding people of the 20th century, but in it, like in a drop of water, the entire ocean is reflected. For me, this personality comes first. He did not allow himself to be broken: he was removed from one institute - he went to another, taken away from a second - he went to a third. And he ended up writing terzas and sonnets in the camp, under difficult conditions, which have survived to this day and are of great value. At the same time he died. He died and created masterpieces.
Documents on the case of L.P. Karsavina:
The page layout of this electronic article corresponds to the original.
FROM UNRELEASED
All prose and poetic works of L.P. Karsavin printed below were written by him in the concentration camp in Abez between 1949 and 1952.
L. P. KARSAVIN
TERZINS
You knew Yourself through Your death,
Himself and ending, Infinite.
So You called me out of nothing,
So that I may live in You through eternal death.
Your Destiny has been fulfilled: in me
You are all risen, and I meet life
I am burning all in the Divine fire.
Pleroma, You are always perfect.
My opportunity - I live in the grain
Mighty oak. In the invisible steep ice,
Warmth, movement, lust for life,
Sparkling in the sun, water falls...
I am powerless. But by my weakness
- You alone cannot overcome her -
I, the Almighty, am stronger than you.
You can do anything, rotting in your graves
To resurrect bodies with a single word,
And the blood will boil in their renewed veins.
In Yourself You were able to perfect me.
But my freedom is dear to You;
And I'm afraid to live an immortal death
Like a sun bat at dawn.
My absurd wish fulfilled
Without complete death, live to please yourself,
You made my vegetation yours
An oppressive host of unrealistic aspirations,
You are not death, but eternal suffering. —
Gehenna has become Eden, Your garden is blooming,
Where the phoenix sang, the unicorn roamed,
Where, hiding in the depths of the drowsy forest,
The serpent forks the rings, prophesying the fate of the earth...
But there was no earthly paradise yet.
I could not contain the Divinity within myself.
And I live without dying at all,
And in dying I don’t become everything.
Is it already, playing me mercilessly,
Blessed are you with passionless existence?
And all my prayers and penalties are in vain?
Or are you blind, or deaf, or dumb?
The sun does not see the shadow cast by it;
We see only the light of the sun in the shadows.
So, perhaps, all our torments
Not in God? - Then they don’t exist at all,
And there they are! My betrayal is burning:
An evasive response to Your call.
Your life alone is complete. And there is a change in her
Doesn't conjure up an incredible emptiness.
She's seething. And my life is like foam
Has a trait carried out by death.
This life is flawed. And not a consolation
The joys of noisy lying vanity.
We all live in the stifling embrace of Hell.
They crawl in the night, shaking the silence,
The tentacles of an alarmed reptile are approaching us.
Only Hell embodies my guilt.
It cannot exist without hellish torment.
I curse myself in them, I curse her in myself. —
The fire burns me and the hungry worm gnaws at me
Will love destroy this torment?
* * *
One is Love and eternal Death is the torment.
Loving, You shrank to a point. And she,
As exact science says -
An idea, a thought, is equal to non-existence.
An abyss of darkness opened up, which also
It couldn’t be while there was a wave of Love
Not poured out into an ugly bed,
Until I realized it
Your creative, complete light, O God.
Immensely peace, You loved me
Not yet existing - Love is omnipotent.
But you, the free one, are not nice
A lazy slave, with a tender smile,
With the soul of a traitor, crafty flatterer,
Pleased with Your abundant mercy.
You called and waited for the free one, Creator,
And equal to You in everything. Free -
This is how You thought, Divine Cunning, -
It can only appear in barren darkness,
So that in response to your creative click
You (to become like the Only Begotten Son.
You called me from the abyss. I arose
And rushed to You. Was so beautiful
Through the suffering of Love Your bright face;
And Your gaze is so solemn and clear.
But mortal horror drew me back
And - Your call sounded in vain to me.
In Your cup of suffering, a drop is Hell.
You suffer the torment of all living things.
We burn it with fire, we tear it apart on the rack,
You are in the tears of a child, in the agony of a sick person.
I saw the body crucified forever
God forsaken by His Father.
To be you? - The soul is numb
Before the agony of death. Still she persists
I strove for You... with a timid thought.
Your life-giving light barely shone upon her.
She shrank into the darkness of her original
Almost motionless, submissive to inertia,
The earth became formless and cold.
Like the eyes of God, the stars silently called
Her to her from that rootless abyss.
And, enchantingly full of sadness,
The moon attracted me. And the sun shone
The lofty distances of your paths.
And she still remembered your image
And my first impulse, languishing viscous
Longing without end and without beginning.
The clouds slowly crawled across the sky,
Ominously covering the whole eye.
Repentance pierced with burning pain;
And, gray hair fluttering,
Those clouds cried bitterly. Beneath them
Not frightened flocks of ravens,
Demons rushed about with their wings
Noisy like the wind, laughing maliciously,
When, flashing, Your Name was hidden.
But their souls listened to the mockery greedily,
In doubt, affirming his lack of will. —
Did the joyful day of creation shine
Over the meager, pitiful vale of earth?
And Your image, only illuminated for a moment.
Isn't he created by unbearable pain?
Is peace not eternal darkness desired?
Nirvana born of despondency
Is it the peace of non-existence or the unspeakable?
Isn't it the same way through the darkness of the fog?
I see the world of angels above heaven
And can you hear rejoicing hosannas?
After all, the heavenly world, bloodless, incorporeal,
Isn't he the fruit of the same self-deception,
What is Buddha, the son of Maya, Hinayana?
In doubt, I hesitate at the threshold
Non-existence (beginning and end). —
Without me there is no knowledge, there is no God:
Without the Creator there cannot be a Creator,
How can a creature not be perfect?
Without Your crown of thorns.
But there is no me without this mortal life,
Without hellish torment, without heaven and earth,
Without a universe divided by malice,
Without vile reptiles and insignificant aphids.
Your Love has perfected me
In itself. But how could you and I
Forget without having done what happened?
I didn’t want to accept freely
Everything that Your Love promised me. —
You have brought down the limit that I raised:
Having deified me, my hell
I overcame it with my being.
And, enslaving to decay, I resist decay,
And reluctantly I want to become you,
Changeable, I curse my treason.
In You, my sin is one suffering: to wait.
Wouldn't I like, Your creation,
To give all of myself in others to You.
You have also fulfilled the desires of creatures
Incompleteness. -You are loving and powerful.
My repentance is Epiphany;
My fault is Love's victorious ray.
So, reviving the dry field,
From sun-shined black clouds
The rain falls like a shining rainbow.
The past me (no longer “I”, but “he”)
I overcome the immortality of dying
The mask of darkness is an unshakable law,
So that from this life and shame
Through Death I was resurrected by You.
God's daughter, the Holy Torah, fell silent.
She still reigns solemnly
In the cold light of the starry dress
Above the world of lusts and resentments.
Submit to her crazy Nature
And all the people are beast-like in appearance.
But Freedom lifted us above them.
It was revealed later by the Son of God,
How did the movement of the sky begin?
But He is with His Father and God is one,
And in eternity, which embraces all time,
Their creative initiative is timeless.
And with Them we, the God-born tribe,
We consciously create ourselves, like the world,
The old law overthrows the burden.
I create myself. And what other
The way free could I have been created
And together with God become one Christ?
Born of You through guilt and Death,
I transform darkness into Your bright world;
And to no one in the creatures of the sleepy abyss
Not subject to You or anything.
Is the power of the laws of the world indestructible,
Or a given, incomprehensible to the mind,
The power of the idol they create for themselves?
Law - Your creatures are in harmonious harmony,
They are the only thing alive. So the strings of the lyre
They sound like one melody.
But the weakness of created knowledge
The law is compressed into a motionless sign of the law.
Isn't this the beginning of the universe? —
That invisible sign, dot, is Tao, the path
Not being, but seeking being.
It is not in the heavenly kingdom of the spirits of the world that they exist,
But it is in us, in all the manifestations of the Son,
Those who overcome Nirvana of Death are terrifying.
Man's creations are the cause of everything.
In him, the Divinity became all creation.
He distributes the created order
By time and place substance.
In him on earth as a person realized
Oneself for a moment as a single nature.
But in that moment the beginning came together with the end.
Invisible and unknown to us is the earthy Adam,
And he is not there. Just a dim mirror
The face of legends that is not the former shows us.
Heavenly Adam's thirst for life
We languish in the knowledge of each thought.
Your knowledge and thought and will
And their work is the whole world created by You.
A different share of created knowledge. —
Your bright world is irresistible to you
Attracts, hidden in everything, always desired,
Like a home for the prodigal son.
In anguish I strive for him tirelessly,
But... only a thought, a weak dream.
And he is presented with grief, foggy,
Resting with unearthly beauty.
But in the heavenly world the eyes do not find
No sacrifice of the godmother, no love. He's the one
Blessed is the imaginary life without discord,
Without change, without personal consciousness,
Which angels disembodied choirs
They reflect our hopes...
No! On earth God lives in every creature,
Through earthly things I live completely through suffering.
Guilt consciousness is God's light; and in square
God has compassion with us. In this life -
A wonderful, ever new gift from God -
Not about the fortune-telling fatherland
We think, but our soul is evil
We reject with bitter reproach,
Not the body, not Nature, every living thing
In its inexhaustible renewal.
And through thought in it, in everything that is, I live,
I participate in creation from nothing,
But - I’m just thinking, in the lightless night
Lack of will turning into doubt
* * *
Through the perfect one Death
Movement and rest, earth and firmament.
* * *
With You in You from an inconspicuous point,
An unreal point, into the darkness of oblivion
With a mighty element, selflessly,
Rejoicing and beaming, I erupted.
I in God, like the universe, arose,
And God's, and just as much mine.
It was a moment of birth in creation,
Eternity gathered itself in that moment,
Where is God me and God I comprehended
Like Life-through-Death, peace is transient
Having moved, she appeared comprehensible
Finitude is our infinity.
Swift flight of the seraphim
My rays rushed, piercing the darkness.
And everyone turned me into a scorcher
Love is a new source of creativity.
Like a Phoenix I rose from the ashes.
And there was the firmament, the earth, and every grain
And every beast; and I tore the lamb;
And my blood oozed from the wound
(In my ray the avenue is like coral)
Feeding pelican chicks.
Everything was me, I was all creatures
In the cycle of this life, drunk.
And there was at once a tree and a seed.
After all, in an instant everything happened
Moments are all the time that gives birth.
Space, dividing the world with your sword,
I'm fascinated by the cycle,
Merged into one center
And it was everywhere and nowhere.
Imperfect, in one past
It was given to me to know my creativity
He elevated me to his all-timeness.
Like the past, like death I comprehend
And what will happen is my prophetic vision.
To the wisest of the sages of China
I once dreamed that he was like a moth
Drinks the sweet juice of flowers, fluttering in the garden.
Having woken up, the sage could not decide:
Did he have a fleeting dream?
Or a sleeping moth's mind
He imagines that he
Shaggy moth, lives like a glorious one
The philosopher is also respected by the Chinese.
A moment of time is equal to everything.
In the moment of the present running
Through diversity its unity is obvious.
That moment lives in the past and the future
In their unity (not at an abstract point,
Not in a dead sign, but by punishment only in existence)
In its depths, hidden from sight
The struggle that covered her all,
The world is perfect, dissolved with God,
Combining freedom with Fate.
I am like that world, spontaneous, but free:
I don’t see boundaries anywhere in front of me;
My path is limitless, like the path of the Lord.
I'm opening up to myself
I am to every creation from below
And I live and die entirely in it.
It’s all always everywhere in me.
So I am everything, and I am everything in everything.
This becomes clear in a wayward dream,
All objects wash away the boundaries,
A river flowing from wave to wave.
In a dream I myself, and I, and the beast, and the bird,
Both the wind and the wave... Do we need examples?
How the world dreams of unity,
Covered with wings of the Chimera?
By dividing, it unites itself.
The multitude has its own order and measure,
Deceptive appearance
Laws-signs, mental grievances.
* * *
In you, united with you, without interference,
Without separating our unity
From the multitude, the law in it I am all
Phenomena as I realize myself.
But, from You, One and far away,
I became the whole world by separating myself.
In every part of it I am alone,
I don’t recognize myself in other parts,
In other creatures. Incomprehensible rock
I meet the enslaver in them,
An incomprehensible given of law,
In which the noise of traffic has died down,
Like the unified will of ineffability.
Raises the waves of all my desires
Peace of indestructible desirability.
I shrink in painful quest
Your blessed immutability,
Neither inaccessible death nor suffering.
But she's not there! And - like a world of shadows
Creatures of different turns float and glide.
In the dwelling of death dear Orpheus
Wandering, moaning, searching and calling.
For a moment alone, like a dying flame,
The shadow came to life before him, slowing down its flight,
And - he catches the darkness with cold hands.
There we are looking for the “soul”, chasing the shadow
Which is not, neither in us, nor above us.
We live by movement, but the limit is movement
Let us strive and squeeze ourselves
At a non-existent point instead of expansion.
We enjoy the “dwelling place of spirits,” paradise,
Without seeing the sun rise clearly.
But where is heaven when we lose ourselves?
Carrying its raging waters,
The flow of life consumes us all.
But that death is the birth of Freedom:
Our fate becomes freedom in it.
I overcome with my death,
Like You, God living entirely by Death,
Yourself and the world, and thousands of lights
From the darkness, from that unreal point
Dreams strive faster.
Like a bright world I resurrect Yours
Not only the old me, the guarded tenant,
Not my shadow, not a lifeless ghost.
Not only this world is mine, immutable
In its sad pattern,
In his aspirations, predatory and insignificant
I rise from darkness by Your power
Without being a slave to dream - to live entirely
And everything that will be may have been
To fulfill Your fullness.
I suffer from incompleteness and guilt.
(Otherwise there could be no peace
Defective). Clothed in a veil
Ignorance is my perfection.
But I also live a different life,
Burning in the fire of God's reception,
Like Your light, eternal torment must be
In the indescribable joy of bliss.
May Your thought be realized
In one world by my death.
In the distance Your fullness is visible to me,
That peace promised to Moses.
Creatures are akin to You only through mortal sacrifice:
Only in her was she born by You.
* * *
Murderous Discord is raging.
But, destroying life, Death sows another life
And he draws his own mysterious pattern,
Let all be in all, so that in the Son
A harmonious choir revealed the Father of creation.
But only “the world will be” like this. And “now” -
By keeping yourself by your peculiarity,
Each creature wants in its own guise
To be the whole world, destroying other creatures,
Trying to overcome her peculiarity.
Imperfect, loving your part.
Can I completely die?
* * *
Draws, threatening, Fate. That's Shiva's song
Wordless magical speech
And his dancing, and the twisting of his hands,
Similar to the movements of terrible snakes.
Everything perishes, everything lives by another death
Spinning in a ring of flickering lights.
The evil infinity of dying,
Mutual destruction of creatures in it,
Neither life nor death, but eternal suffering
(Earthly death, painful anguish,
Does not break the threads of vegetation).
This is my fate. In response to Your call
Him with my free will
I have already admitted that I have merged with Your will.
A hungry lion is torturing the lamb,
But the lamb of death has passed the line,
Total Death, supernatural sacrifice:
So that other creatures may be fed,
He gave himself to her without regret.
So take away your life with creation,
Thus Thy world is justified by the Incarnation;
This is how it becomes for everyone, although not quite
Every creation is imperfect.
You are forever languishing outside of yourself,
Descended to Hell and is unable to die,
While Your Pleroma is light in me
Didn’t shine, creating while in the grave
I did not call upon the resurrected He
And I did not fully know death.
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Lev Platonovich Karsavin
Of all the great Russian thinkers who created their own philosophical systems, Lev Platonovich Karsavin, perhaps, to this day remains the most unfamiliar figure in his homeland. For a phenomenon of such magnitude to be so unknown - even in comparison with other philosophers, whose work was also not allowed to reach us, say, Florensky or Berdyaev - requires solid reasons.
All this is true - and yet it is no longer possible to postpone the study of Karsavin’s work. Seriously and for a long time returning to the heritage of Russian thought, we must think about the intricacies of Karsavin’s path - and be able to see in them the result of the philosopher’s relationship with his time.
This work is not easy to understand, and many would probably prefer something simpler to it: reading about the life of our philosophers, about the heyday of Russian culture and its subsequent defeat, about the disasters of emigration... But this, alas, is not enough today. The spiritual revival that we hope for Russia, which this philosophical series is designed to serve, requires real deliverance from old dogmas, requires effort and work. Last but not least, we now have to revive the dangerously weakened and undermined skills of independent thinking. And it is unlikely that anything will be more useful for this purpose than a thoughtful reading of the works of Lev Platonovich Karsavin, a Russian philosopher who was born in 1882 in the city of St. Petersburg, died in 1952 from tuberculosis in the Abez subpolar camp, near Inta.
Unlike many senior comrades in Russian religious philosophy (Berdyaev, Bulgakov, Frank, etc.), Karsavin did not experience a radical change of beliefs, a deep crisis or turning point along his path. In his youth, it seems, he did not have even a short period of interest in social and political activities, although until recently among the Russian intelligentsia it was almost impossible to avoid such a period. The social atmosphere was changing. Science and culture acquired new attractiveness, where a powerful upsurge emerged in many areas at once. Karsavin’s generation included participants in the symbolic movement, creators of new painting, philosophers who from the very beginning sought not only (or even not so much) to preach certain truths, but also to master the method, to sophisticated professionalism: Florensky, Ilyin, Shpet, Stepun. And his own inclinations from an early age were directed towards the scientific field.
“Already in the senior classes of the gymnasium, a future scientist was clearly visible in him,” writes his famous sister, the famous ballerina Tamara Karsavina, in her memoirs. (These memoirs, “Theater Street,” written by her in English, were published in translation in 1971, although, alas, most of the references to her brother were released at the same time). The brother and sister were the only children, and in the family there was a clear separation of the paternal and maternal lines. Tamara, Tata, was a “daddy’s girl”, the subject of her father’s special attention, following in his footsteps: Platon Konstantinovich Karsavin (1854-1922) was a famous dancer of the Mariinsky Theater, a student of the leading figure of the St. Petersburg ballet, Marius Petipa. And Lev “took after his mother”: she was prone to reflection, serious reading, kept French notebooks of her “Thoughts and Sayings,” and, more importantly, she was the cousin of A. S. Khomyakov, the famous philosopher and founder of Slavophilism. This glorious relationship meant a lot to her; she believed and hoped that Leo, through her, had inherited something of the talents of his great relative and in the future would be his successor. These expectations were justified: Karsavin’s philosophy is indeed connected with Khomyakov by many strong threads...
Having graduated from high school with a gold medal, then from the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University, Karsavin became a medievalist historian, one of a large galaxy of students of H. M. Grevs, “the most brilliant of all,” as he later said. His area of expertise is religious movements in Italy and France during the late Middle Ages. Having received a two-year business trip abroad after graduating from university, he engaged in painstaking research in the libraries and archives of these countries - on the history of Franciscan monasticism, as well as the heresies of the Waldenses and Cathars. The results of these studies were two large essays - “Essays on religious life in Italy of the 12th–13th centuries” (1912) and “Fundamentals of medieval religiosity in the 12th–13th centuries, mainly in Italy” (1915). But if the first of them fully corresponds to the usual type of major historical monograph, then the second no longer fits into this type. Today we would say that this work, as well as Karsavin’s articles adjacent to it, belong not to history, but to cultural studies. Although here we have before us an abundance of facts, living concrete material, all this now occupies the author not in itself: his problem is the reconstruction of medieval man and his world. By identifying and analyzing the structures of the medieval way of life, thinking, and psyche, he strives with their help to see the picture of the past not in a flat, factual way, but three-dimensionally, in its internal logic. And on this path, he largely anticipates both the approach and conclusions of future cultural studies, for the first time introducing into consideration those layers of material and those problems that will become the subject of keen interest of researchers around the world half a century later, in the 60s and 70s. All this pioneering activity of his is unfairly forgotten now, and the republication of his most important historical works is the clear duty of our historians.
At the same time, cultural studies is only an intermediate stage in Karsavin’s creative evolution. The further he goes, the more strongly the philosophical cast of his thoughts is reflected; and, constantly expanding the horizon of his reflections, he turns to the general problems of historical knowledge and method, to the philosophy of history - steadily approaching the field of pure metaphysics. At the same time, two more important themes appeared in his works to remain for a long time - religious and national. Their appearance is associated with both internal and external factors. There is no doubt that even earlier, without yet becoming themes of creativity, they were present in the circle of Karsavin’s thoughts: for these are constant themes of Russian thought, and first of all the themes of Slavophilism, the themes of Khomyakov, with whose memory, “in the shadow” of which Karsavin grew up since childhood. When the fateful revolutionary years began, the topic of the fate of Russia naturally came to the surface, and in its modern guise - as a topic about the meaning and prospects of the revolution - it became one of the pressing working topics. Already in the first of the works dedicated to it, “East, West and the Russian Idea” (Pg., 1922), Karsavin affirms the creative and popular nature of the revolution, caustically polemicizing with the pessimists who buried the country, among the many of whom Gorky was then: “Is it expected or not?” Does a great future await us Russians? “I, contrary to the competent opinion of the Russian writer A. M. Peshkov, believe that yes, and that it is necessary to create it.”
But, on the other hand, it was impossible for him to comprehend what was happening outside of a religious approach, religious categories. The modern theme led to the religious theme - the second of the new themes mentioned. The appeal to her was also facilitated by the fact that in the new Russia the church, from the former semi-official institution, immediately became oppressed and persecuted. Karsavin was a freedom-loving and rebellious man, ready to resist any dictate, always preferring to move against the tide. And if before, while accepting the foundations of the Christian worldview, he at the same time called himself a freethinker and seemed far from the role of a theologian and preacher, then after the revolution he became a professor at the Theological Institute and read sermons in Petrograd churches. At the same time, he published his first work not on the topic of history, giving it the deliberately pious title “Saligia or ... soulful reflection on God, the world, man, evil and the seven deadly sins” (Pg., 1919) and from the very first lines choosing style of spiritual conversation: “Dear reader, I am turning to you in the hope that you believe in God, feel His breath and hear His voice speaking in your soul. And if my hope is not deceived, let us think together about the thoughts I have written down...” There was a challenge here - and it did not go unnoticed. In the magazines “Print and Revolution”, “Under the Banner of Marxism” and others, reviews of Karsavin’s works appear that leave nothing to be desired in terms of a crushing rebuff to ideological machinations.
“Medieval fanatic”, “scientific obscurantist”, “sweet-tongued preaching of clericalism”, “nonsense”, “senseless theories”... - such assessments greet Karsavin and his work in these reviews. And in the light of this subtle criticism, we are not surprised by Karsavin’s message in one letter, which he wrote in the summer of 1922: “... I foresee the imminent inevitability of falling silent in our press.” The prediction expressed here very soon came true: already in the fall of the same year, Karsavin had to not only “shut up in our press,” but also leave the borders of his homeland. Together with a large group of 150–200 people, which included the most prominent representatives of non-Marxist thought and the non-Bolshevik public (such as Pomgol, cooperation, the independent press), he was deported to Germany.
The event of the expulsion of scientists is still awaiting its analysis. It would be very necessary today to restore its details and assess the full scale of its consequences for Russian culture and for the social atmosphere. Here we will only say that for Karsavin, as for most of those expelled, the expulsion was a heavy blow. He was a principled opponent of the act of emigration and, once in the West, he never ceased to emphasize: “... the history of Russia is made there, not here.” He also spoke about the meaninglessness and emptiness that emigrant existence brings with it; and long before the “Run” M. Bulgakov cited the organization of cockroach races in Constantinople as their symbol and the most striking example.
His life in exile followed the typical emigrant geography - Berlin, then Paris - and proceeded in no less typical emigrant ordeals (including an episode when Lev Platonovich tried to be an extra at a film studio, and the director who saw him immediately offered him the role of... a professor philosophy. In appearance, by the way, he very much resembled Vladimir Solovyov). Circumstances changed in 1928, when Kaunas University in Lithuania invited him to take the chair of general history. Lithuania firmly became his home - here he remained until his arrest in 1949.
Meanwhile, during these same stormy and tense twenties, even before relative stability was achieved in Lithuania, he completely managed to develop his philosophical system. It is important to look closely at its origins, at the soil on which it arose - this will largely explain its features to us. As we have already said, Karsavin approached philosophy from historical issues, which continuously evolved in depth and breadth for him, from the study of specific phenomena to reflection on the structure and meaning of history. Invariably and firmly, these reflections were built on him in a religious vein, on the basis of the Christian worldview. Therefore, it is completely natural that his first significant philosophical work was the experience of Christian philosophy of history. Immediately after his expulsion, he published in Berlin a large monograph, “Philosophy of History,” written in Russia.
In the system of philosophical views, the philosophy of history is one of the special sections; the central, core section is ontology, the doctrine of being and the Absolute. Nevertheless, certain ontological positions also clearly emerge from Karsavin’s book. They clearly show that his philosophical thought moves in line with the Russian metaphysics of unity, the foundations of which were laid by Khomyakov and Vladimir Solovyov.
The metaphysics of unity is the main, if not the only, original philosophical movement that arose in Russia. Following Khomyakov and Solovyov, the most prominent Russian philosophers, creators of independent philosophical systems, belonged to it; E. Trubetskoy, P. Florensky, S. Bulgakov, S. Frank, N. Lossky. Their systems are very different and do not at all form one narrow school; but what they have in common is that they all have at their core the concept or, rather, the symbol of unity. The essence of this concept is not so easy to convey in a popular article. What is unity? This is a certain ideal structure or harmonious mode of being, when it is structured as a perfect unity of a multitude: in the totality of its elements, each is identical to the whole, and hence to every other element. It is clear that this description is contradictory: how can a part be identical to the whole? That is why unity is not an ordinary concept that can be given a complete, logically correct definition. This is an inexhaustible object of philosophical reflection, into which, like other fundamental realities of philosophical experience, philosophy ponders endlessly, reveals it in new terms and fundamental aspects, but cannot fully express its antinomic nature. Starting from antiquity, when the philosophical mind wanted to convey the method of organization, the principle of the structure of perfect being, it invariably came to unity; and Russian religious philosophy is an organic continuation and creative development of this ancient tradition.
Karsavin's philosophy was created by the last of the systems of Russian metaphysics of unity. Like any great thinker, this position for him did not mean an advantage (the opportunity to move in a well-trodden channel, relying on the ideas of predecessors), but, on the contrary, a source of difficulties, because there was a danger of being secondary, dependent, unoriginal. And like any great thinker, he managed to overcome these difficulties. Karsavin’s system is distinguished by its striking independence, introducing a number of fundamentally new aspects into the tradition. From the very beginning, Karsavin, from the very beginning, took a new, in his own approach to solving the initial problem of any system of all-unity: where can we see the main prototype, so to speak, the basic model of all-unity, as a certain principle of organization of existence? Predecessors - Soloviev, Florensky and others - considered the “world in God” as such a model: nothing more than the ancient “world of ideas” of Plato’s philosophy, adapted to the concepts of the Christian era - interpreted as the totality of the Creator’s plans for all things and phenomena. Karsavin is looking for other models, more specific, closer to local reality. In addition, the very intuition about unity receives significant development and enrichment from him. The principle of unity characterizes reality in its static aspect - as a kind of existence. Karsavin, as a historian, always tended to see reality dynamically, under the sign of development, process; and these aspects of it were not sufficiently reflected in the principle of unity. Therefore, in addition to this principle, he introduces another - the universal principle of becoming, changing reality. This principle is “trinity,” or a set of three consubstantial, but mutually ordered steps, which Karsavin usually calls “primary unity - separation - reunification” and which are described as some (any) unity, having gone through self-separation, again self-reunites. The reader here will, of course, immediately remember the famous triad of Hegel’s dialectics: thesis - antithesis - synthesis. The rapprochement of the two triads is quite legitimate, but it should be clarified: Hegel’s philosophy is only the final link of an ancient chain of philosophical systems, coming from antiquity, from the Neoplatonism of Plotinus and Proclus, based on the principle of the triad as a universal principle of existential dynamics. And in this chain, Karsavin brings his concept of trinity closer not so much to the Hegelian triad (like most Russian philosophers, starting with Khomyakov, he felt the Hegelian pathos of self-sufficient abstract thinking alien to himself), but rather to the ideas of one of Hegel’s main predecessors, the famous Renaissance philosopher Nicholas of Cusa ( 1401 - 1464). But the more important point is the connection between the two principles. Karsavin subordinates all-unity to the trinity, including it in the three-stage process of separation-reunion: for him all-unity is like an “instant cross-section” of the trinity, the principle of the structure of a separating-reuniting unity at any stage, “at any moment” (although we must remember that the entire three-stage process does not necessarily flow in time).
As a result, Karsavin’s philosophy is no longer just another of the “systems of unity.” It is based on a richer, tightly knit ontological structure of two interrelated principles: the principle of trinity, which describes the dynamics of reality, and the principle of unity, which describes its statics. It is for this integral structure that he searches for the “basic model” that we spoke about above; and it is not surprising that it turns out to be different from the “peace in God” of previous systems. The final solution was not found immediately. Karsavin’s three main philosophical works - “Philosophy of History” (1923), “On Principles” (1925), “On Personality” (1929) - reflect the three stages of his search.
Naturally, in “Philosophy of History” he tries on his philosophical intuitions against historical reality and finds here that the historical process, and along with it the mental process, the element of life of consciousness, is subject to the principles of trinity and unity. Then the scope of application of the principles expands: in “On Principles”, both fundamental subjects of metaphysics, the Absolute (God) and the created world, are already described on their basis. Space. In this book, Karsavin for the first time presents his views as a new integral system of religious philosophy. But the application of the principle of unity, as well as the principle of the triad, to the doctrine of God and the world in itself was not something new and did not provide any original “basic model” of the ontological structure. Such a model was put forward by Karsavin only at the next stage, in the book “On Personality.” This is his main work, the final synthesis of his philosophical thought. The book is based on a key idea: the ontological structure of the trinity-all-unity is realized in the individual, describes the structure and life of the individual. Thanks to this idea, the metaphysics of all-unity perceived and prioritized the concept of personality; and this transformation of it into a philosophy of personality is the most important thing that Karsavin contributed to our old tradition of unity.
Of course, here we have before us the Christian philosophy of personality. In accordance with the tenets of Christianity, Karsavin’s concept of personality is applied primarily not to man, but to God. Man is a personality only imperfectly, embryonically; but the goal and meaning of his life is to become familiar with the fullness of divine existence, and therefore, to become a true personality, “personification,” as Karsavin writes. It is easy to perceive the consonance of these ideas with our usual ideas about personality. Karsavin astutely notes that according to these ideas, personality for a person is an object of aspiration rather than. possession: something that I and everyone else would like to be, but, alas, we may not be. Thus, our modern concepts betray their religious origin: the desire of a secularized person to be a person is the fading light of the Christian ideal of deification, the desire and duty of man to become God. And this entire circle of Karsavin’s thoughts and constructions, without a doubt, still retains value and interest, constituting a relevant, even topical part, of his philosophical heritage. The problem of personality today is one of our key spiritual problems.
Let us return in conclusion to the personality and fate of the philosopher. In 1940, he moved from Kaunas to Vilnius following the university and, after the end of the war, resumed teaching there. However, he did not have long to remain a professor. In 1945–1946, he was allowed to teach a single course, aesthetics, and then he was completely removed from teaching. For two years he still worked as the director of the Art Museum in Vilnius - and an arrest followed. After the investigation and trial, in the fall of 1950, he was transferred to Abez, a disabled camp near the vast complex of Inta camps: in the investigative prison he developed a tuberculosis process.
Looking at the fate of a real thinker, one always gets the impression that its features bear the imprint of his spirit, the external is subordinate to the internal. Karsavin was a paradoxical thinker. He was attracted to paradoxes, and he generously equipped both his philosophical constructions and his conversation with them. This was clearly conveyed to his biography - it is full of paradoxes no less than his masterly “spirals of thought” (his favorite expression). The last, tragic period is no exception. Imprisonment in the camp brought a spark, a rise in his creativity - isn’t this a paradox?! In less than two years in the Abezi barracks, he created no less than ten works, including a statement of the essence, the quintessence of his philosophy in the form of... a wreath of sonnets and a cycle of terzas. Of course, these works are not large in volume, but the depth and sharpness of thought in them do not betray him at all. And one more thing, no less surprising. The camp also became the period in his life about which we know in more detail and most of all. The main reason for this is this: in the camp he met the Apprentice.
A. A. Vaneev (1922–1985) was far from an ordinary person. A talented engineer who came to the camp very young and became a believing Christian there, he passionately devoted himself to spiritual teaching and, having found it with Karsavin, forever remained faithful to the teacher and his system. “I have never met a person who was so immersed in the world of his teacher’s ideas,” a former fellow prisoner, an Austrian philosopher, writes about him. - Karsavin was his mentor in history, philosophy, religion, Latin and Greek... and Plato’s Academy itself could not have had a more grateful student... He could recite Karsavin’s camp works by heart for hours. But at the same time he was not only full of his words, read or heard; after Karsavin’s death, he continued to develop his thoughts and complete his metaphysical system.” A. A, Vaneev left his camp memories “Two years in Abezi”. However, only a few meager phrases speak about the author himself, about his life. In the center of the memories is Lev Platonovich Karsavin. So - word to the Student.
“... Having rested, Karsavin found time when he could work. After breakfast he sat half-sitting in bed. His legs bent at the knees and a piece of plywood on them served him as a music stand. He sharpened his pencil with a piece of glass, slowly drew lines on a sheet of paper and wrote in a straight, thin handwriting that slightly showed trembling in his hand. He wrote almost without correction, interrupting his work only to sharpen his pencil or line another sheet. First of all, a Wreath of Sonnets was written down, composed as a keepsake in a remand prison... Having finished working on the Sonnets, Karsavin continued the poetic expression of his ideas in Terzin, after which he wrote a Commentary on his poems... The time favorable for work was short-lived. At about 11 o'clock the medical rounds began. Then Karsavin put everything that related to written work into the nightstand, read if there was anything to read, talked... and in general spent the rest of the day the same way as everyone else did. The people around him saw him as an eccentric old man who wrote out of idleness or out of habit.”
“In everything that Karsavin said, I was attracted by a certain special, previously unknown, essentiality of understanding. Karsavin knew how to speak without imposing himself at all. He spoke about things that were most serious to him as if he treated them somewhat jokingly. And while he was speaking, the restrained, affectionate half-smile on his face and the diamond reflection in the warm blackness of his eyes seemed to remove the distance between him and his interlocutor. When he went deeper into himself, his gaze acquired concentration, did not withdraw into himself, but passed right through the surroundings, as if beyond the limits of the visible. It’s the same in what he wrote... Our “here” became transparent for him, but never illusory. This is precisely Karsavin’s method of spiritual work. In his speculations, the world remains itself and does not lose anything, but is subject to new understanding.”
But the philosopher's days were already numbered. His tuberculosis is rapidly progressing, and the names of the parts in the Memoirs are the stages of his descent through the steps of the camp medical system: Hospital - Semi-hospital - Isolation facility for the hopeless. The last hours were approaching.
“When I came the next day, Karsavin told me in a cheerful voice:
A priest, a Lithuanian, came to see me. I confessed to him in Lithuanian. You see how God decided to arrange it through you.
Karsavin lay on his back, his hands on top of the blanket. In the cut of his unbuttoned shirt, I saw that on his chest lay two crosses - one was mine, lead, and the second was black, glittering with a miniature crucifix. I was surprised and asked:
Why are there two crosses on you?
He looked at me a little guiltily.
It was Sventonis, he said, who came after confession. He congratulated me and wanted to give me a cross. I didn't mind so as not to upset him. Let there be two.
With regard to Karsavin, East and West seemed ready to put aside their differences.”
Karsavin died on July 20, 1952. In his last days, he had two relatives with him: in addition to A. A. Vaneev, Vladas Shimkunas, a Lithuanian doctor who worked as a pathologist in the camp hospital. This last detail is connected with a striking episode with which we will end our story.
“Šimkunas came because he had something in mind and wanted me to help him. Here's the thing. As Šimkūnas said, those who died in the camp are buried in unmarked graves, each with only a peg with a conventional number. Such identification marks are short-lived, and it is impossible to subsequently determine who is buried where. And sooner or later the time will come when they will remember Karsavin and, perhaps, want to find his remains. There is a simple way for Karsavin’s ashes to be identified. When they perform an autopsy on Karsavin’s body, they need to put a hermetically sealed bottle with a note inside the insides, which would say who Karsavin is. Šimkūnas wanted me to write this note.”
“I did not immediately answer Shimkunas, because my feelings seemed to be split in two from his words. There was something monstrous in his proposal, in all this thoughtfulness. On the other hand, there was something touching about the same thing. The situation did not allow for a monument with a proper inscription to be erected on Karsavin’s grave, as we would have liked. Instead of a monument, Šimkūnas proposed that a secret epitaph be written, intended to lie buried with the person to whom it was dedicated... I accepted Šimkūnas’ idea and agreed to his proposal.
“I’ll write,” I said, “but I need to collect my thoughts.” Whether this note is ever found or not, I am forever responsible for every word.”
“With my mental vision and hearing, I recalled meetings with Karsavin, and his voice, and his words, and our walks along the gorge between the coal embankment and the wall of the hospital barracks. And finally, the last farewell to him this morning in the morgue... What should I write? Words were needed that would express the significance of Karsavin’s personality and that would be words of farewell to him. This is what the secret epitaph came out like, as far as I remember. “Lev Platonovich Karsavin, historian and religious thinker. In 1882 he was born in St. Petersburg. In 1952, while imprisoned in a regime camp, he died of milliary tuberculosis. L.P. Karsavin spoke and wrote about the Triple-One God, Who in His incomprehensibility reveals Himself to us, so that through Christ we might know in the Creator the Father who gives birth to us. And that God, overcoming Himself with love, suffers our sufferings with us and in us, so that we too may be in Him and in the unity of the Son of God we may possess the fullness of love and freedom. And that we must recognize our very imperfection and the burden of our fate as an absolute goal. By comprehending this, we already have a part in the victory over death through death. Farewell, dear teacher. The grief of separation from you cannot be expressed in words. But we also await our time in the hope of being where sorrow is transformed into eternal joy.”
“A little later after I finished writing, Šimkunas came. I handed him a sheet of text. Shimkunas read slowly and, apparently, mentally weighing every word. Finally he said that, in his opinion, what was written was, in general, what was needed.
He had a dark glass bottle in advance. Having rolled the sheet with the secret epitaph into a tight roll, Šimkūnas put this roll into the bottle and, in front of me, tightly closed the bottle with a screw cap.”
“In the act of autopsy, in this act of medical necromania, the bottle... was inserted into the cut up corpse. From this moment and forever, Karsavin’s ashes contain a monument, the glass shell of which is able to resist rotting and decomposition, preserving the words written - not in gold letters on stone, but in ordinary ink on paper - of a certificate about a person whose remains are buried in the ground of an unmarked grave.”
Let us think about this story: through the gloomy grotesqueness of camp life, something else shines through here. Among Russian philosophers we will more than once encounter a mystical intuition that the fate of the body after death is not indifferent to the fate of a person and carries a mysterious meaning. Both Fedorov and Florensky spoke about this, but perhaps most decisively - Karsavin. He taught that there is no separate “soul” at all, that the personality appears as an indivisible wholeness in its entire destiny, both temporary and eternal. But what does “secret epitaph” mean? The condensed formula of the philosopher's thought remained merged with his ashes; and spiritual-physical unity in a certain sense is not broken by death. In a truly inscrutable way, Karsavin’s death confirms his teaching: the true death of a philosopher.
“The cemetery where Karsavin is buried is located away from the village. It consists of many mounds on which no one's name is written. Around the cemetery there is flat, monotonous tundra, featureless land. Most of all there is sky here. Clear blue, with transparent white clouds, covers you from all sides with the beauty of heaven, making up for the poverty of the earth.”
S. S. Khoruzhy
From the book Faith in the Crucible of Doubt. Orthodoxy and Russian literature in the 17th-20th centuries. author Dunaev Mikhail MikhailovichAndrei Platonovich Platonov Andrei Platonovich Platonov (Klimentov; 1899–1951) entered literature, balancing on the edge of socialist realism. Revolutionary romance, in any case, was very attractive to him. But a writer with such a unique vision of the world could never
From the book Saligia. Noctes Petropolitanae (collection) author Karsavin Lev PlatonovichLev Karsavin Saligia
From the book Theology of Personality author Team of authorsLev Karsavin. Personality as the fullness of being and Orthodox thought 1. All-unity and personalism: Karsavin, in comparison with his contemporaries, Karsavin can be called a philosopher of personalism and all-unity. In this article I want to show the uniqueness of Karsavin's philosophy with
From the author's book1. All-unity and personalism: Karsavin, in comparison with Karsavin’s contemporaries, can be called a philosopher of personalism and all-unity. In this article I want to show the uniqueness of Karsavin’s philosophy from a historical point of view - in comparison with his contemporaries, as well as with
B. B. Vaneev
Essay on the life and ideas of L. P. Karsavin
Anatoly Anatolyevich Vaneev was born on March 7, 1922 in Nizhny Novgorod. In 1924, he and his parents moved to Leningrad. After graduating from high school in 1939, he entered the Faculty of Chemistry of Leningrad State University. In 1940, he was drafted into the army in September 1941, wounded, demobilized in 1943. After that, until 1945, he worked as a physics teacher at school No. 33 in Leningrad. At the same time he attended the Beginning Author's Studio at the Leningrad branch of the Writers' Union. In March 1945, he was arrested and sentenced by the Military Tribunal of the NKVD troops to 10 years in prison (Articles 58-10 and 58-11). First I was in a camp in the Arkhangelsk region, then in Molotovsk, Abezi and Inta (Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic). After his release in the fall of 1954, he worked for some time as an electrician at Inta. After the review (1955), the case was rehabilitated and reinstated in his previous job, he taught physics at school No. 33. Then at school No. 30 in Leningrad. Since 1968, he was the head of the physics classroom at the Leningrad City Institute for Advanced Training for Teachers. In January 1976 he fell ill and was forced to retire due to disability. Died November 5, 1985
In the Abez camp, Vaneev met Lev Platonovich Karsavin, who was brought there in the spring of 1950 and died there in July 1952 from miliary tuberculosis. “Two Years in Abezi,” Vaneev’s memoirs about Lev Platonovich, are dedicated to this time. They have been created intermittently since the early 70s. The final edition dates back to 1983. These are not exactly memoirs. Vaneev defined the genre of this work as “multiple ideological dialogue.” “All the characters in my book are real people. But, characterizing them, especially through conversations, I sought to ideologically manifest each one. In the literature that came to us from the last century, the task was set to ethically manifest the characters. I saw my task in ideological manifestation.<...>Ideology is not multi-volume essays. Ideology are those words that, with their meaning, are capable of switching us to that register where truth appears in direct immediacy." This is an excerpt from a fictitious interview in which the author gave an explanation for reading "Two Years in Abezi" so that they are not perceived in the stereotype of a memoir literature.
In the camp, Karsavin recorded “Wreath of Sonnets,” composed while still in prison, and wrote “Terzins.” Commentaries on the "Wreath" and "Terzina" and several works of a metaphysical nature ("On the immortality of the soul", "On the Lord's Prayer", "On the Apogee of Humanity", etc.). He gave what he wrote to Vaneev and his friends for reading and correspondence. It is likely that a number of copies of them exist, although it is known that not all survived. Vaneev rewrote the works several times, partly this was done simply for better preservation. In Leningrad, he retyped the camp works of Karsavin, which he had in originals or copies - for himself, for his friends
The article “Essay on the life and ideas of L.P. Karsavin” was written in 1979. It seems to be divided into two unequal parts. The first presents Karsavin's biography, the second - his ideas. Very little was known about Karsavin’s life at that time, and there was even less material available to Vaneev: some reference books, some letters from Karsavin, stories about Karsavin. Therefore, the biographical part is short, it probably contains inaccuracies, “legends,” exaggerations and, of course, not enough information about Karsavin himself. But the article is interesting - this is its main meaning and value - in its second part, where Karsavin is presented ideologically, as a Russian religious thinker, without faking understanding, without fitting into schemes, essentially and freely.
E.V.
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Among the undertakings, one way or another connected with the renewal of the Moscow Patriarchate, the publication of the Library of Mystics was undertaken. The first issue of this series in 1918 was the book “Revelations of Blessed Angela”, the translation of which from Italian was carried out by the professor of general history of Petrograd University L.P. Karsavin. “Modest,” he writes in the preface, “but responsible is the task of the translator and editor, who sees in his work the fulfillment of a religious and patriotic duty, which obliges him to meet difficulties and dangers.” The Preface to "Revelation" itself requires attention. Considering the spiritual problems of the Franciscan spirituals, the author is essentially occupied with problems addressed to the religiosity of our day.
This opens a series of subsequent works by L.P. Karsavin on issues of a religious and philosophical nature. Previously known for his works on the history of medieval religiosity, he now publishes articles and books in which religious and educational tasks quickly give way to the task of revealing and deepening religious and philosophical ideas or, in his own words, to the task of individual disclosure of Christianity.
The religious and philosophical thought of L.P. Karsavin is almost impossible to retell, since it is not reducible to a system, concept or doctrine, but represents, as it were, a very broad angle of view, addressed to the Christian understanding of history, life and the relationship between God and man. His thought is free and independent, but he finds the source of his inspiration in Christian dogma, discovering in it the vitality, strength and meaningfulness necessary to restore religious balance to modern man. He writes: “The times of criticism, one hopes, have already passed, and it is time to proclaim a new motto: back to Christian dogma” (PERI ARCHON, 1928). However, free dogmatic thought turned out to be such an unexpected phenomenon that neither traditional piety nor criticism brought up on secularized philosophy takes it completely seriously.
L.P. Karsavin is still one of the relatively little-known authors. Not a single significant study has been devoted to his work. At best, his early works are known. However, one of the reasons for this can be seen in the extreme scattering of his works in random or little-known and small-circulation publications.
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Lev Platonovich Karsavin was born on December 1 (Old Style) 1882 in St. Petersburg. His sister, the famous ballerina Tamara Karsavina, writes about their family in her book “Theater Street,” which was published here in 1971. Father - Platon Konstantinovich Karsavin - ballet dancer at the Mariinsky Theater, later a dance teacher at the Theater School and in some gymnasiums. Mother - Anna Iosifovna, nee Khomyakova, daughter of a cousin of a famous Slavophile. In appearance, Lev Platonovich is very similar to his mother, who, by the way, believed that her son inherited his intellectual abilities from her, and hoped that he would be just like his great-uncle A. Khomyakov.
The Karsavins rented an apartment in Kolomna, that is, in an area of St. Petersburg populated mainly by poor people. The limited wealth of the family is also evidenced by the fact that the school student Karsavin’s place of study was the kitchen table. In this family, which lived by the interests of the theatrical environment, everyone was sharp-tongued, everyone was impractical, and easily went from one extreme to another. “Grandfather and grandmother,” writes Irina Lvovna, the eldest daughter of L.P. Karsavin, often quarreled. In these quarrels, grandfather could be theatrical.” Such an artistic atmosphere, at least subsequently, became unpleasant for L.P. Karsavin. The man is very gentle in character; he categorically opposed his eldest daughter’s intention to enter a ballet school.
Having entered the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University, K. P. Karsavin specialized in medieval studies in the group of prof. I. M. Grevs. After graduating from the university, he taught in gymnasiums: in the gymnasium of the Imperial Humane Society (on the Kryukov Canal) and in the private Prokofieva women's gymnasium (on Gorokhovaya Street). He married in 1904 while still a student. His printed works of this period are devoted to the history of the end of the Roman Empire.
Throughout 1912, he lived with his wife and two daughters in Italy, where he was sent from St. Petersburg University in connection with work on his master’s thesis. After this, he continued to work a lot, partly prompted to this by material necessity, which can be seen from the list of positions he occupied at one time in 1913: privat-docent Imp. St. Petersburg University, teacher at the Higher (Bestuzhev) Women's Courses, at the Higher Lesgaft Courses, at the Psychoneuralgic Institute, history teacher at the IChO gymnasium, treasurer of the Historical Society at St. Petersburg University. At the same time, he publishes articles in many magazines ("Bulletin of Europe", "Voice of the Past", "Scientific-Historical Journal", "Church Bulletin", "Historical Bulletin", "Historical Review"), writes articles in the New Encyclopedic Dictionary ( only 39 articles) and, finally, writes his doctoral dissertation “Fundamentals of Medieval Religiosity.” This is a solid work, permeated with sharp and bold generalizations, published in 1915, but due to the conditions of the time, it did not receive the proper resonance in the scientific world. Since 1915, L.P. Karsavin has been an ordinary professor at the Historical and Philological Institute. He lives at home in a university apartment on the second floor of the building on the Neva where the Faculty of Oriental Studies is now located. His scientific activity provided him (but not for long!) with a confident existence. His office, in addition to a desk with a large soft chair and a shelf with books, was furnished with beautiful Empire-style furniture. On a wall free of books hung a reproduction of The Birth of Venus, brought from Italy.
Winter 1918-1919 The university's classrooms were not heated and the participants of the seminar, which was led by prof. Karsavin, gathered in his home office, sat on an empire-style sofa in front of an oval table, and the professor himself sat at the same table opposite.
This is a time of exceptionally intense work by L.P. Karsavin. His articles and books are published one after another. From 1918 to 1923 the following articles were published: “On Freedom”, “On Good and Evil”, “The Depths of Satan”, “Earthly and Mountain Sophia”, “Dostoevsky and Catholicism”, the following books were published in separate editions: “Catholicism”, "Saligia", "Introduction to History", "East, West and the Russian Idea" and also - a magnificent book, worthy of taking a place among the best historical and philosophical works, "Giordano Bruno" and a very special, personal book, not at all inclined to reveal itself to the first person you meet "Noctes petropolitanae", which by its name indicates that the author had only night time to work at his desk.
The days are busy with teaching work and much more: conversations, meetings, evenings, debates, meetings. Almost every day there are meetings of either the Religious and Philosophical Society, or the Free Philosophical Association, or the St. Petersburg Philosophical Society, or evenings at the House of Writers. L.P. Karsavin is present, participates in the discussion, and himself gives reports and lectures. Collaborates in the editorial office of the publishing house "Science and School", in the magazine "Mysl", in the collections "Phoenix" and "Sagittarius". It was a very intense life. In the House of Writers alone, 207 evenings took place during the year (from January 1920 to January 1921), filled with literary lectures, lectures on philosophy, history and sociology, “Almanacs,” etc. Speakers: A. Blok, A. Remizov, A. Koni, L. Karsavin, E. Tarle, I. Grevs and many others.
After 1922, L.P. Karsavin, expelled from Soviet Russia, was forced to live abroad. At first he lived in Berlin (in Steglitz), then in Paris (in Clamart). As he himself says about this time, he did not enter into communication with foreign scientific circles. He still writes a lot; along with works in Russian, he publishes articles in German, Italian, and Czech. These foreign-language works mainly introduce foreign readers to the content and problems of Russian religious life, which is easy to see from the titles of the articles ("The Spirit of Russian Christianity", "Faith in Christ in Russian Orthodoxy", "Eldership in the Russian Church", etc.). To some extent he is getting closer to Russian church circles. Meets with Metropolitan Evlogii. He writes the book “Holy Fathers and Teachers of the Church,” intended as a textbook for the Russian seminary. Several times he himself, dressed in a surplice, gave sermons in Orthodox churches. Together with N. Berdyaev, N. Lossky and S. Frank, he participates in the collection “Problems of Russian Religious Consciousness” (article “On the Essence of Orthodoxy”). A number of works in Russian during this period, in addition to “The Holy Fathers,” the most notable are the books “Philosophy of History” and the article “Apologetic Study.”
According to P. R. Suvchinsky, in 1927 L. P. Karsavin received an invitation to Oxford, but, to the chagrin of his family, did not accept this invitation. Perhaps because going to Oxford would mean staying there forever. But when in the same year he was offered a chair at the University of Lithuania, he immediately agreed and left for Kaunas. The family remained in Paris, which one cannot help but sense resistance on the part of the family, for whom, in comparison with Paris, Lithuania seemed to be a cultural periphery. Meanwhile, L.P. Karsavin himself perceived his move to Kaunas with elation, evident at least from the energy with which he took up the study of the Lithuanian language. Already in 1929, that is, a little over a year later, his works written in Lithuanian began to be published. From this time and, at least, until the beginning of the Second World War, a period of relatively secure and settled existence began in the life of L.P. Karsavin, a period of calm, which made it possible to devote himself to his work with the greatest efficiency. He spends the summer in Paris with his family, and the rest of the year in Lithuania. The Lithuanian scientific community receives him very friendly and, moreover, is proud to have him in their midst. On the scale of a small country, the publication of the “History of European Culture” written in the national language in six volumes, on the creation of which L.P. Karsavin has been working for about ten years, is a fairly noticeable cultural event. But even before taking on this historiographical work, and partly in parallel with it, L.P. Karsavin with unprecedented enthusiasm surrenders to the elements of religious and philosophical thought. In 1928, he published the book "PERI ARCHON" (with the subtitle: "Ideas of Christian Metaphysics"), in 1929 - "On Personality" and, finally, in 1932 - "Poem about Death". If you compare these books with what was written earlier, you can see the evolution of the author’s thoughts. His thought is now reaching some final certainty, and his ideas are reaching their final scale, which is hardly possible for his contemporaries to judge. These books are written in an intense and dense text, the thought is multifaceted to the point of feeling voluminous, the content is conveyed in a concentrated manner, without much explanation or detail, in some places the working train of thought is left open, as if, concentrating on identifying the essence, the author did not care too much about literary finishing. Hence the well-known difficulties in reading. At the same time, these three books quite fully represent the author; they should not hesitate to be called central in his religious and philosophical heritage. After the release of “Poem,” Lithuanian friends of L.P. Karsavin say about him: “This is our Plato.” But these books were published in a small print run by a university publishing house, almost immediately sold out to home libraries and, thanks to such generally understandable jealousy on the part of admirers or simply local book lovers, they were practically removed from the circulation of European thought.
In this regard, it is significant that in the articles about L.P. Karsavin in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (vol. 11, pp. 459-460, 3rd ed. M., 1973) and in the Philosophical Encyclopedia (vol. 2, p. 466. M., 1962) “Poem about Death” is not mentioned, which the author himself considered his main work (see below for more on this). However, the bibliography given in these articles is generally very incomplete; in one article some books are missing, in another - others, in both there is no mention of the book “Holy Fathers and Teachers of the Church” and the six-volume “History of European Culture”, not not to mention the articles, among which there are some that are very important for characterizing the author, for example, “On Freedom.” The TSB makes an attempt to characterize the metaphysical “system” of L.P. Karsavin, and speaks of the influence on him of Russian philosophy, “especially V. Solovyov,” and early Christian teachings, designated in general: patristics, Origen. “A certain similarity with the scheme of the dialectical process in Hegel is seen.” In this regard, we see the need to express some thoughts.
As already mentioned, Karsavin did not and does not have a “system” in the proper sense. As for influences, this is a highly controversial issue. There must be a basis for claiming influence, but proving the absence of influence is perhaps even more difficult. In any case, one can hardly talk about a “special” influence on the part of V. Solovyov. L.P. Karsavin treated the latter without much sympathy, and on occasion would shoot back at him: “Good, there’s nothing to say, motionless Love” (about the poetic line “Only the Sun of Love is motionless”) or: “It’s not good that needs to be justified” ( regarding "The Justification of Good"). From the fact that both Soloviev and Karsavin talk about the All-Unity, and they say by no means the same thing, it does not at all follow that there is a significant connection between them; in favor of such an assumption one can hardly find anything other than very external considerations. Of the Russian philosophers, L. P. Karsavin valued A. S. Khomyakov, Ts. M. Dostoevsky and S. L. Frank. With regard to early Christian teachings, we must speak not about influence, but about conscious reliance on the patristic tradition, and not on patristics in general, but specifically on the works of St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Maximus the Confessor. It is unlikely that one can find at least any traces of Origen’s “influence” in L.P. Karsavin, except for the title of the book “RESY BSChPN”. It is not entirely clear what is meant by the remark about “a certain similarity” with Hegel’s dialectical scheme, since “a certain similarity” is an extremely flexible concept. If L.P. Karsavin’s dialectics goes back to anyone, it is not to Hegel, but to Nicholas of Cusa, whom Karsavin greatly appreciated. On this, see his book "J. Bruno".
Let's return to the biography. After the establishment of Soviet power in Lithuania, the capital of the republic was moved to Vilnius and the Lithuanian State University was soon transferred there. Even before this, L.P. Karsavin moved his family from France to Lithuania and now settles in Vilnius with the whole house, with the exception of the middle daughter, Marianna Lvovna, who married P.P. Suvchinsky and remained in Paris.
About the time of the German occupation, L. P. Karsavin later writes in a letter to E. Ch. Skrzhinskaya: “... he did not succeed under the Germans, since he was against them. From the very first days, he was confident in the triumph of Russia and wanted to reunite with it.” . After the liberation of Lithuania in 1944, L.P. Karsavin was appointed director of the Vilnius Art Museum. After leaving the university, he lectures at the Art Institute on the history of Western European art and the history of everyday life.
All these years and subsequent ones, L.P. Karsavin has been busy with work, the concept of which, without exaggeration, could be called grandiose. He set himself the task of writing a World History, understood in the light of Christian metaphysics. “Historical science,” he writes, “in comprehending the development of mankind, comprehends the world. But it must do this consciously and can achieve its goal only by presenting a truly universal concrete history. My task is to give a general (meaning abstract) overview of this concrete process.” However, this work remained unfinished.
In the very last years of L.P. Karsavin’s life, changing circumstances gave rise to a new and somewhat unexpected rise in his religious and philosophical thought: he wrote the poems “Wreath of Sonnets” and “Terzina”. In terms of content, this is a poetic monologue addressed to God. He uses this form to convey his ideas without dispersing thought into argumentation and reasoning, in order to express the ontological content of reality through direct naming. To explain the verses, a “Commentary” was written, and then articles were written: “On the Lord’s Prayer”, “On the immortality of the soul”, “The apogee of humanity”, “On art”, “On reflexology” and also in Lithuanian: “ Spirit and Body" and "About Perfection".
Like many St. Petersburg residents, L.P. Karsavin was predisposed to tuberculosis. Living in the north contributed to the development of this disease. L.P. Karsavin died on July 20, 1952.
In addition to the original works, his legacy includes several translations. In addition to the already mentioned “Revelation of Blessed Angela,” he translated the main works of the Venerable Bede, John Scott Eriugena and Nicholas of Cusa. But the uniqueness of L.P. Karsavin’s authorial destiny, which leaves only a small and not the most significant part of his works visible, was also reflected in the translations. Philosophical translations remained in manuscripts, while the previously made translation of Conrad Ferdinand Mayer’s short story “Plautus in the Nunnery” was published in Moscow in 1957 (State Publishing House of Fiction).
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“Poem about Death” and “Noctes”, written ten years earlier, stand somewhat apart from all other works of L.P. Karsavin, despite the fact that they are both completely organically included in his creative biography. The philosophical idea of dual unity in them is embodied in the literary dual unity of the lyrical and personal, on the one hand, and the universal, religious and spiritual, on the other. This is precisely what is important to understand before moving on to any characteristics of these books. In them, the Christian idea finds itself in the concrete and, conversely, the living concrete is internally tense to such an extent that it resolves into an idea. This is generally the key to the religious and philosophical creativity of L.P. Karsavin. He does not create doctrines, for him the ideal is not a world into which one can soar with thought in order to move away from the real, for him the ideal and the real are incomprehensibly combined, thanks to which the real is meaningful, and the ideal is vital. Outwardly, this is expressed in impulses to overcome the doctrinal nature of speech, which we will find in other works - in "Saligia", in "Earthly and Above Sophia", while "Poem" and "Noctes" in this regard represent two maximums, in whose impulse turns into a breakthrough.
The dual unity that internally determines the structure of these books is by no means imaginary or speculative; it is, first of all, a real dual unity of the work and the specific biography of the author, his intellectual and creative life, on the one hand, and his real fate, on the other.
Both books - both "Poem" and "Noctes" - are addressed to the same person without any special dedication. Their unnamed heroine and at the same time their direct addressee is Elena Cheslavovna Skrzhinskaya, whose name is conveyed in the “Poem”, but is immediately encrypted with the Lithuanian diminutive Elenite. The metaphysical thought of L.P. Karsavin has its root not in abstractions, but in living and concrete love - pure, clear, beautiful and at the same time painful, not realized, but unchanged until the threshold of old age. In a letter to E. Ch. Skrzhinskaya (dated January 1, 1948) he writes: “It was you who connected metaphysics in me with my biography and life in general,” and further regarding the “Poem”: “For me, this little book is the most the complete expression of my metaphysics, which coincided with my life, which coincided with my love." Anyone who is inclined to be skeptical about abstract thought must be told: abstractions are the hidden formulas of reality. The abstract thought of L.P. Karsavin always lives with its roots in the bosom of concrete reality, his ideas are the result - not the right word - they are the fruit of an active religious and philosophical understanding of one’s own life and human history.
There are sufficient grounds to see in the “Poem” the rebirth of a theme that was first revealed in “Noctes”, but despite the fact that the “Poem” is in its own way an antithesis in relation to “Noctes”. In "Noctes" the personal is taken from a psychological angle, with an attempt to express delight and excitement, for which the author himself subsequently gave a negative assessment of this book. In the “Poem” the personal aspect is conveyed in the form of memories, not too detailed and characterized by a kind of watercolor transparency, as they say. The philosophical line of "Noctes" is aimed at coverage and systematization, in the "Poem" thoughts are expressed as if in a random sequence, the thoughtfulness of which is felt only by the steady increase in their internal tension, in "Noctes" the text is excited, a hidden rhythm is heard more than once in the speech, in The “poem” is dominated by colloquial speech, the author continually falls into dialogue, either with himself or with someone else, the intonation sounds like irony directed at himself. It should be noted that L.P. Karsavin always appears ironic about himself when he talks about something that is absolutely important to him personally.
The genre of these two books has no precedent in world literature. When reading, they are perceived as something literary and unusual and cause resistance due to their unusualness. The author's handwriting of L.P. Karsavin is very individual. In an effort to express himself as fully as possible, he immediately creates a fence around himself, through which passage is open only to those who at least want to find him.
Karsavin's religious and philosophical works, or at least some of them, cannot be viewed from the angle of ideas about the nature of academic or even poetic work. It is precisely in speech deviations and intonation breaks that one can discern the barriers of self-control with which the author’s consciousness protects itself from detection of the extraordinary nature of the revelations that appear to his mind. And the point here is not only in the individual characteristics of the author, but in the objective dual unity of thought and the object cognized by it. The thought of an object somehow takes its object into itself, otherwise there would be no knowledge. A thought that has the empirical as its subject is itself thereby empirical. The thought of the Absolute reveals its absolute character in itself. This, perhaps, cannot be said better than what Karsavin himself said in his words about “cognitive communion.”
Of all the great Russian thinkers who created their own philosophical systems, Lev Platonovich Karsavin, perhaps, to this day remains the most unfamiliar figure in his homeland. For a phenomenon of such magnitude to be so unknown - even in comparison with other philosophers, whose work was also not allowed to reach us, say, Florensky or Berdyaev - requires solid reasons.
All this is true - and yet it is no longer possible to postpone the study of Karsavin’s work. Seriously and for a long time returning to the heritage of Russian thought, we must think about the intricacies of Karsavin’s path - and be able to see in them the result of the philosopher’s relationship with his time.
This work is not easy to understand, and many would probably prefer something simpler to it: reading about the life of our philosophers, about the heyday of Russian culture and its subsequent defeat, about the disasters of emigration... But this, alas, is not enough today. The spiritual revival that we hope for Russia, which this philosophical series is designed to serve, requires real deliverance from old dogmas, requires effort and work. Last but not least, we now have to revive the dangerously weakened and undermined skills of independent thinking. And it is unlikely that anything will be more useful for this purpose than a thoughtful reading of the works of Lev Platonovich Karsavin, a Russian philosopher who was born in 1882 in the city of St. Petersburg, died in 1952 from tuberculosis in the Abez subpolar camp, near Inta.
Unlike many senior comrades in Russian religious philosophy (Berdyaev, Bulgakov, Frank, etc.), Karsavin did not experience a radical change of beliefs, a deep crisis or turning point along his path. In his youth, it seems, he did not have even a short period of interest in social and political activities, although until recently among the Russian intelligentsia it was almost impossible to avoid such a period. The social atmosphere was changing. Science and culture acquired new attractiveness, where a powerful upsurge emerged in many areas at once. Karsavin’s generation included participants in the symbolic movement, creators of new painting, philosophers who from the very beginning sought not only (or even not so much) to preach certain truths, but also to master the method, to sophisticated professionalism: Florensky, Ilyin, Shpet, Stepun. And his own inclinations from an early age were directed towards the scientific field.
“Already in the senior classes of the gymnasium, a future scientist was clearly visible in him,” writes his famous sister, the famous ballerina Tamara Karsavina, in her memoirs. (These memoirs, “Theater Street,” written by her in English, were published in translation in 1971, although, alas, most of the references to her brother were released at the same time). The brother and sister were the only children, and in the family there was a clear separation of the paternal and maternal lines. Tamara, Tata, was a “daddy’s girl”, the subject of her father’s special attention, following in his footsteps: Platon Konstantinovich Karsavin (1854-1922) was a famous dancer of the Mariinsky Theater, a student of the leading figure of the St. Petersburg ballet, Marius Petipa. And Lev “took after his mother”: she was prone to reflection, serious reading, kept French notebooks of her “Thoughts and Sayings,” and, more importantly, she was the cousin of A. S. Khomyakov, the famous philosopher and founder of Slavophilism. This glorious relationship meant a lot to her; she believed and hoped that Leo, through her, had inherited something of the talents of his great relative and in the future would be his successor. These expectations were justified: Karsavin’s philosophy is indeed connected with Khomyakov by many strong threads...
Having graduated from high school with a gold medal, then from the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University, Karsavin became a medievalist historian, one of a large galaxy of students of H. M. Grevs, “the most brilliant of all,” as he later said. His area of expertise is religious movements in Italy and France during the late Middle Ages. Having received a two-year business trip abroad after graduating from university, he engaged in painstaking research in the libraries and archives of these countries - on the history of Franciscan monasticism, as well as the heresies of the Waldenses and Cathars. The results of these studies were two large essays - “Essays on religious life in Italy of the 12th–13th centuries” (1912) and “Fundamentals of medieval religiosity in the 12th–13th centuries, mainly in Italy” (1915). But if the first of them fully corresponds to the usual type of major historical monograph, then the second no longer fits into this type. Today we would say that this work, as well as Karsavin’s articles adjacent to it, belong not to history, but to cultural studies. Although here we have before us an abundance of facts, living concrete material, all this now occupies the author not in itself: his problem is the reconstruction of medieval man and his world. By identifying and analyzing the structures of the medieval way of life, thinking, and psyche, he strives with their help to see the picture of the past not in a flat, factual way, but three-dimensionally, in its internal logic. And on this path, he largely anticipates both the approach and conclusions of future cultural studies, for the first time introducing into consideration those layers of material and those problems that will become the subject of keen interest of researchers around the world half a century later, in the 60s and 70s. All this pioneering activity of his is unfairly forgotten now, and the republication of his most important historical works is the clear duty of our historians.
At the same time, cultural studies is only an intermediate stage in Karsavin’s creative evolution. The further he goes, the more strongly the philosophical cast of his thoughts is reflected; and, constantly expanding the horizon of his reflections, he turns to the general problems of historical knowledge and method, to the philosophy of history - steadily approaching the field of pure metaphysics. At the same time, two more important themes appeared in his works to remain for a long time - religious and national. Their appearance is associated with both internal and external factors. There is no doubt that even earlier, without yet becoming themes of creativity, they were present in the circle of Karsavin’s thoughts: for these are constant themes of Russian thought, and first of all the themes of Slavophilism, the themes of Khomyakov, with whose memory, “in the shadow” of which Karsavin grew up since childhood. When the fateful revolutionary years began, the topic of the fate of Russia naturally came to the surface, and in its modern guise - as a topic about the meaning and prospects of the revolution - it became one of the pressing working topics. Already in the first of the works dedicated to it, “East, West and the Russian Idea” (Pg., 1922), Karsavin affirms the creative and popular nature of the revolution, caustically polemicizing with the pessimists who buried the country, among the many of whom Gorky was then: “Is it expected or not?” Does a great future await us Russians? “I, contrary to the competent opinion of the Russian writer A. M. Peshkov, believe that yes, and that it is necessary to create it.”
But, on the other hand, it was impossible for him to comprehend what was happening outside of a religious approach, religious categories. The modern theme led to the religious theme - the second of the new themes mentioned. The appeal to her was also facilitated by the fact that in the new Russia the church, from the former semi-official institution, immediately became oppressed and persecuted. Karsavin was a freedom-loving and rebellious man, ready to resist any dictate, always preferring to move against the tide. And if before, while accepting the foundations of the Christian worldview, he at the same time called himself a freethinker and seemed far from the role of a theologian and preacher, then after the revolution he became a professor at the Theological Institute and read sermons in Petrograd churches. At the same time, he published his first work not on the topic of history, giving it the deliberately pious title “Saligia or ... soulful reflection on God, the world, man, evil and the seven deadly sins” (Pg., 1919) and from the very first lines choosing style of spiritual conversation: “Dear reader, I am turning to you in the hope that you believe in God, feel His breath and hear His voice speaking in your soul. And if my hope is not deceived, let us think together about the thoughts I have written down...” There was a challenge here - and it did not go unnoticed. In the magazines “Print and Revolution”, “Under the Banner of Marxism” and others, reviews of Karsavin’s works appear that leave nothing to be desired in terms of a crushing rebuff to ideological machinations.
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