Viacheslav Ivanov's concept of person underwent significant development in the course of his career. In his earliest works the person is a transient form that is to be superseded by union with the ...supra-personal, transcendent self. In works of his middle period Ivanov posits the person as an image of the transcendent self. Lastly, in the 1910s Ivanov integrated these two concepts into a hermeneutic view of the person as an agent of transcendence.
This paper aims to trace the descent of ‘enthusiasm’ in the twentieth century Russian cultural history as well as understand the Totalitarianism under the Stalinist authority and its consequences in ...the late twentieth century. In doing so, we started by categorizing the concept of ‘enthusiasm’ into the ‘earth-grounded type’ and the ‘authority-oriented type’. The mainstream symbolist movement in the early twentieth century Russian culture obtained an eschatological tendency under the influence of Sorov'yov's school. Later, Ivanov opened up a way to the Primitivist movement by recognizing the role of ‘symbol’ within the Dionysian integration. Such is an example of the ‘grounded’ type of enthusiasm. Nourishing on such enthusiasm, the Russian avant-garde art movement blossomed. After the Russian revolution, the Russian avant-garde art, through artist such as Mayakovsky and Meierhold, realised the enthusiasm in both directions. On the other hand, there were artists such as Eisenstein who attempted to integrate to the Stalinist authority by deploying an anthoropological imagination, even though tending towards the ‘earth-grounded’ enthusiasm. The era of the ‘Thaw’ was also the era in which the spirit of integration (sobornost') originated in the Russian Orthodox tradition flourished. But since Stalin's death the centripetal force of enthusiasm was lost. The process of anti-Stalinism failed to realise the regression towards world history, and caused the new era of closure called ‘the post-Utopean era’. The characteristic of ‘informal culture’ which existed between the ‘Thaw’ and the Breshnev era is understood as the movement attempting to overcome the Stalinist influence through intense sophistication of the concept of ‘distance’. Even though the Soviet socialist declined through the influence of high-tech revolution in the Western Europe, the recent Postmodernists devise Russian history with the concept of ‘emptiness (pustota) ’, identifying Russia as the state of simulation without reference. Such Postmodernists attempt to harmonize with the Totalitarianism, but at the same time seek for a way to overcome Stalinism as they skillfully attempt to secretly innovate the rigid dichotomous framework.
Russian political culture has always rejected parliamentarianism. Following the collapse of the Soviet regime, this culture is now in crisis. Is it likely to be more favourable to parliamentarianism ...after the crisis is over? The paper seeks to answer this question by analysing recent trends in the mentality of the Russian political elite. These are identified through the use of 'pseudo-agencies' as characteristic of the traditional Russian/Soviet political discourse. Special semantic methods are employed to distinguish between 'authentic political agencies' and 'pseudo-agencies' in the verbatim records of the Ninth Congress of People's Deputies (March 1993) which constitute the empirical base of the study. The findings are used to range the various political forces according to the degree of deviation from the traditional ontological patterns.
Symphonic Personality YASUOKA, Haruko
Russian and East European Studies,
2005, Letnik:
2005, Številka:
34
Journal Article
Odprti dostop
After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russians, in search of an identity to unify their still vast country, are reevaluating a movement of the 1920s, Eurasianism. Why is Eurasianism attracting ...Russian attention again today? The main reason may be that Eurasianism, in designing an idealistic State system, took into account the unique spiritual, cultural and psychological factors of Russian history. This paper aims to make clear the spiritual foundations of Eurasianist thought. Eurasianism views the Orthodox Church as a spiritual foundation able to unite the whole Eurasian world. However, could the Orthodox Church really provide a common spiritual foundation for the vast cultural range of the various Ural-Altaic ethnics? To this question Eurasianists answer: “The ideal of Orthodoxy is a symphonic, organic and sobor-like unity of various religions.” The expression sobor-like unity derives from the Russian theological term sobornost, which signifies the central concept of the Orthodox Church, whereby the individual shares corporate life and unity, while retaining personal freedom. With this concept of sobornost they insist that the aim of Orthodoxy is not to erase the individuality of each pagan religion and Russianize it, but to create a symphonic world made up of various sounds. In support for this position, they say that there exists some similarity between the spirituality of Orthodoxy and some Eurasian pagan religions, including Buddhism. This similarity could be summed up in terms of the contiguity of the pantheism of religions such as Buddhism and the panentheistic tendency of Orthodoxy. Panentheism is the belief that the Being of God includes and penetrates the entire universe. The Orthodox Church, which does not draw a sharp boundary between Nature and Grace, (a characteristic marvelously described in the words of Elder Zosima in the The Brothers Karamazov, ) is indeed panentheistic. When Eurasianists explain the peculiarity of their own culture and of the State system plan based on it, they use the key-concept symphonic personality (lichnost) . Lichnost is often translated as personality or individual, but this notion, which is obviously influenced by Orthodox ideas, is quite different from the usual Western meaning of individual. In Orthodoxy lichnost (the real personal Self) can be achieved only when it is opened to the whole, so it does not oppose the whole, rather it is enriched by it. The society of symphonic personalities is an idealistic organic united whole of plurality. However, Eurasianists also insist that it is a society where various levels of symphonic personalities are hierarchically united. This suggests that the smallest unit of lichnost, which is individual, might have the least autonomic value of itself. Berdyaev severely criticized the idea of symphonic personality, considering it a metaphysical foundation for human slavery. When we read the Eurasian project of a new State governing system named“iheocracy, ”we have to agree with Berdyaev's criticism of the“utopian etatism.”This is because“iheocracy”reminds us of theocracy on the one hand, and of the Soviet totalitarian system on the other. The idea of the symphonic personality comes from the idealism of sobornost and the tradition of philosophy of Unitotality. Eurasianists, in order to overcome the defects of both individualism and totalitarianism, eagerly searched for the symphonic unitotal community, but we have to say that the too hasty attempt to realize it“here and now”on earth, without due consideration of the moral cultivation of each individual, generates a serious danger of Utopianism.
The paper seeks to inquire into the differences between the pluralist and the populist visions of democracy and the two models of representative assemblies associated with them, namely ...parliamentarianism and sobornost'. The first section attempts to trace the latter to its historic roots, both traditional and Marxist, while the second section deals with the impact it still bears on present-day political discourse. The argument is supported by the analysis of the proceedings of the First Congress of the People's Deputies of the USSR in 1989. Treated as indicative of this type of political culture are the 'anti-procedural' philippics pivoted on insistent contraposition of 'real work' to 'idle talk' and certain patterns of deputies' social and political identification as expressed in the variety of meanings attached to pronouns we and/or our.
Two philosophers and prominent public figures explore the spiritual and cultural framework within which Russia's crisis and prospects for social renewal must be understood. Their discussion ranges ...over several main areas of concern in Russia today: the nature of the person and her capacities as social actor, the forms of sociality Russia has known as seen against the background of Orthodoxy and Communism, and Russia's tragedy during the seventy-five years of Communism. A 'third path' is envisaged for Russian renewal based on geopolitical, cultural, and spiritual constants in the history of the nation.
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