Unlike his characters, Chaadaev lived far from human passions and died alone.
Childhood and youth
Pyotr Yakovlevich Chaadaev was born on May 27 (June 7), 1794 in Moscow. Father Yakov Petrovich served as an adviser to the Nizhny Novgorod Criminal Chamber, mother was Princess Natalya Mikhailovna, daughter of Prince Mikhail Mikhailovich Shcherbatov. The parents of Peter and Mikhail, his elder brother, died early, and in 1797 the boys were taken into the care of their mother’s elder sister Anna Shcherbatova.
In 1808, Pyotr Chaadaev, having received a decent education at home, entered Moscow University. Among his teachers were the legal historian Fyodor Bauze, a researcher of manuscripts Holy Scripture Christian Friedrich Mattei. The philosopher Johann Bule called Chaadaev his favorite student. Already during his student years, Chaadaev showed interest in fashion. Memoirist Mikhail Zhikharev described the portrait of his contemporary as follows:
“Chaadaev elevated the art of dressing to almost historical significance.”
Pyotr Yakovlevich was famous for his ability to dance and conduct small talk, which put him in a favorable light among women. Attention from the opposite sex, as well as intellectual superiority over his peers, made Chaadaev a “hard-hearted self-lover.”
Military service and social activities
The Patriotic War of 1812 found the Chaadaev brothers in the Moscow Society of Mathematicians. The young people joined the Life Guards of the Semenovsky Regiment with the rank of ensigns. For the courage shown in the Battle of Borodino, Pyotr Yakovlevich was promoted to ensign and awarded the Order of St. Anna and the Kulm Cross for a bayonet attack in the battle of Kulm. He also took part in the Tarutino maneuver and the battle of Maloyaroslavets.
In 1813, Chaadaev transferred to the Akhtyrsky Hussar Regiment. Decembrist Sergei Muravyov-Apostol explained this act of Pyotr Yakovlevich with a desire to show off in a hussar uniform. In 1816, he transferred to the Life Guards Hussar Regiment and was promoted to lieutenant. A year later, Chaadaev became the adjutant of the future General Illarion Vasilchikov.
The Hussar Regiment was stationed in Tsarskoye Selo. It was here, in the house of the historian, that Chaadaev met. The great Russian poet dedicated the poems “To the Portrait of Chaadaev” (1820), “In the Country Where I Forgot the Troubles of Previous Years” (1821), “Why Cold Doubts” (1824) to the philosopher, and Pyotr Yakovlevich, being a friend of Pushkin, “forced to think about it,” talking on literary and philosophical topics.
Vasilchikov entrusted Chaadaev with serious matters, for example, a report on a riot in the Semenovsky Life Guards Regiment. After a meeting with the emperor in 1821, the adjutant, promising a brilliant military future, resigned. The news shocked society and gave rise to many legends.
According to the official version, Chaadaev, who once served in the Semenovsky regiment, could not stand the punishment of his close comrades. For other reasons, the philosopher was disgusted by the idea of informing on his former fellow soldiers. Contemporaries also assumed that Chaadaev was late for the meeting with Alexander I because he had been choosing his wardrobe for a long time, or that the sovereign expressed an idea that contradicted the ideas of Pyotr Yakovlevich.
Having parted with military affairs, Chaadaev plunged into a protracted spiritual crisis. Due to health problems, in 1823 he went on a trip to Europe, without planning to return to Russia. During his travels, Pyotr Yakovlevich actively updated the library with religious books. He was especially attracted to works whose main idea was to interweave scientific progress and Christianity.
Chaadaev's health deteriorated, and in 1826 he decided to return to Russia. At the border he was arrested on suspicion of involvement in the Decembrist uprising, which occurred a year earlier. They took a receipt from Pyotr Yakovlevich stating that he was not a member of secret societies. However, this information was deliberately false.
Back in 1814, Chaadaev was a member of the St. Petersburg Lodge of United Friends and reached the rank of “master.” The philosopher quickly became disillusioned with the idea of secret societies, and in 1821 he completely left his associates. Then he joined the Northern Society. Later he criticized the Decembrists, believing that the armed uprising pushed Russia back half a century.
Philosophy and creativity
Returning to Russia, Chaadaev settled near Moscow. His neighbor was Ekaterina Panova. The philosopher began a correspondence with her - first business, then friendly. The young people discussed mainly religion and faith. Chaadaev’s response to Panova’s spiritual struggles was “Philosophical Letters,” created in 1829-1831.
The work, written in the epistolary genre, caused indignation among political and religious leaders. For the thoughts expressed in the work, he recognized Chaadaev and Panova as crazy. The philosopher was placed under medical supervision, and the girl was sent to a psychiatric hospital.
The Philosophical Letters aroused sharp criticism because they debunked the cult of Orthodoxy. Chaadaev wrote that the religion of the Russian people, unlike Western Christianity, does not free people from slavery, but, on the contrary, enslaves them. The publicist later called these ideas “revolutionary Catholicism.”
The Telescope magazine, in which the first of eight Philosophical Letters was published in 1836, was closed, and the editor was sent to hard labor. Until 1837, Chaadaev underwent daily medical examinations to prove his mental well-being. The supervision of the philosopher was lifted with the condition that he “does not dare to write anything.”
Chaadaev broke this promise in the same year, 1837, by writing “Apology for a Madman” (not published during his lifetime). Trud responded to accusations of “negative patriotism” and talked about the reasons for the backwardness of the Russian people.
Pyotr Yakovlevich believed that Russia is located between East and West, but in essence does not belong to either side of the world. A nation that seeks to draw the best from two cultures without becoming a follower of either of them is doomed to degradation.
The only ruler about whom Chaadaev spoke with respect was the one who returned Russia to its former greatness and power by introducing elements of the West into Russian culture. Chaadaev was a Westerner, but the Slavophiles treated him with respect. Proof of this is the words of Alexey Khomyakov, a bright representative Slavophilism:
“An enlightened mind, an artistic feeling, a noble heart - these were the qualities that attracted everyone to him; at a time when, apparently, thought was plunging into a heavy and involuntary sleep. He was especially dear because he himself was awake and encouraged others.”
Personal life
Detractors called Chaadaev a “ladies’ philosopher”: he was constantly surrounded by women and knew how to make even wives devoted to their husbands fall in love with him. At the same time, Pyotr Yakovlevich’s personal life did not work out.
There were three loves in Chaadaev’s life. Ekaterina Panova, the recipient of the Philosophical Letters, suffered most from male ambition. Even after being released from a psychiatric hospital, the girl did not blame her lover for her misfortune. She sought a meeting with the philosopher, but died without a reply letter, a lonely, legless old woman.
Chaadaev served as the prototype for Eugene Onegin from the novel of the same name by Alexander Pushin, and the role was played by Avdotya Norova. She fell madly in love with the philosopher, and when he had no money left to pay the servants, she offered to look after him for free, but he went to Moscow, to the Levashov family.
Avdotya was a sickly and weak girl, and therefore she died early - at 36 years old. Chaadaev, who left Norova’s letters unanswered for a long time, visited her in the hospital shortly before her death.
Ekaterina Levashova, although she was a married woman, sincerely loved Chaadaev. Her husband and older children did not understand why she did not take money from the philosopher for housing. Catherine’s reverent attitude towards her guest lasted 6 years, until her death.
Death
“At 5 o’clock in the afternoon, one of the Moscow old-timers, Pyotr Yakovlevich Chaadaev, known in almost all circles of our capital’s society, died after a short illness.”
He died of pneumonia, just shy of 63 years old. Memoirist Mikhail Zhikharev once asked the philosopher why he runs away from women “like the devil from incense,” and he replied:
“You will find out after my death.”
Chaadaev ordered to bury himself near his beloved women - in the Donskoy Monastery at the grave of Avdotya Norova or in the Intercession Church near Ekaterina Levashova. The philosopher found his final rest at the Donskoye Cemetery in Moscow.
Quotes
“Vanity breeds a fool, arrogance breeds malice.”
“No one considers himself entitled to receive anything without at least taking the trouble to reach out for it. There is one exception - happiness. They consider it completely natural to have happiness without doing anything to acquire it, that is, to deserve it.”
“An unbeliever, in my opinion, is like a clumsy circus performer on a tightrope, who, standing on one leg, awkwardly seeks balance with the other.”
“The past is no longer under our control, but the future depends on us.”
Bibliography
- 1829-1831 – “Philosophical Letters”
- 1837 – “Apology for a Madman”
Year of birthPetraChaadaevanot exactly known. Longinov says that he was born on May 27, 1793, Zhikharev considers the year of his birth to be 1796, Sverbeev vaguely refers it to “the first years of the last decade of the 18th century.” On his mother's side, Peter was the nephew of the Shcherbatov princes and the grandson of the famous Russian historian. In the hands of these relatives, he received an initial education, remarkable for that time, completed by listening to lectures at Moscow University
Enlisted as a cadet in the Semenovsky regiment, he participated in the War of 1812 and subsequent military operations. Then serving in the Life Hussar Regiment, Chaadaev became close friends with the then-student Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum young Pushkin. According to Longinov, “Chaadaev contributed to the development of Pushkin, more than all kinds of professors with his lectures.” The nature of conversations between friends can be judged by Pushkin’s poems “Peter Yakovlevich Chaadaev”. "To the portrait of Chaadaev" and others.
It fell to Chaadaev to save Pushkin from the threat of exile to Siberia or imprisonment in the Solovetsky Monastery. Having learned about the danger, Chaadaev, who was then the adjutant of the commander of the Guards Corps, Prince. Vasilchikov, achieved a meeting with Karamzin at an inopportune hour and convinced him to stand up for Pushkin. Pushkin repaid Chaadaev with warm friendship. Among the “most necessary items for life,” he demands that a portrait of Chaadaev be sent to him at Mikhailovskoye. Pushkin sends him the first copy of “Boris Godunov” and is passionately interested in his opinion about this work; He also sends him a whole message from Mikhailovsky, in which he expresses his passionate desire to quickly “honor, judge, scold, and revive freedom-loving hopes” in the company of Chaadaev.
— Chaadaev’s famous letter is imbued with a deeply skeptical mood towards Russia. “For the soul,” he writes, “there is dietary content, just like for the body; the ability to subordinate it to this content is necessary. I know that I am repeating an old saying, but in our fatherland it has all the advantages of news. This is one of the most the pitiful peculiarities of our social education, that truths that have long been known in other countries and even among peoples who are in many respects less educated than us are only just being revealed to us. And this is because we have never walked together with other peoples; to one of the great families of humanity, neither to the West, nor to the East, we have no traditions of either one or the other. We exist, as it were, outside of time, and the universal education of the human race has not touched us over the centuries, this marvelous connection of human ideas. The history of human understanding, which brought it to its present position in other countries of the world, did not have any influence for us. What has long been a reality for other peoples is still only speculation and theory for us.... Look around you. Everything seems to be on the move. It's like we're all strangers. No one has a definite sphere of existence, there are no good customs for anything, not only rules, there is not even a family center; there is nothing that would bind, that would awaken our sympathies and dispositions; there is nothing permanent, indispensable: everything passes, flows, leaving no traces either in appearance or in yourself. At home we seem to be stationed, in families we are like strangers, in cities we seem to be nomadic, and even more so than the tribes wandering along our steppes, because these tribes are more attached to their deserts than we are to our cities."
Having pointed out that all peoples “have a period of strong, passionate, unconscious activity”, that such eras constitute “the time of the youth of peoples”, Chaadaev finds that “we have nothing like this”, that “at the very beginning we had wild barbarism, then crude superstition, then cruel, humiliating dominion, the traces of which in our way of life have not been completely erased to this day. This is the sad story of our youth... There are no charming memories in our memory, no strong instructive examples in folk legends.Run your gaze over all the centuries we have lived through, all the space on earth we occupy, you will not find a single memory that would stop you, not a single monument that would express to you what has passed vividly, powerfully, picturesquely... We came into the world as illegitimate children , without inheritance, without connection with the people who preceded us, have not adopted any of the instructive lessons of the past. Each of us must ourselves connect the broken thread of family, which connected us with the whole of humanity. We have to hammerdrive into our heads what has become a habit, an instinct in others... We grow, but do not mature, we move forward, but in some indirect direction that does not lead to the goal... We belong to nations that, it seems, do not They still constitute a necessary part of humanity, but exist in order to teach some great lesson to the world over time... All the peoples of Europe have developed certain ideas. These are the ideas of duty, law, truth, order. And they constitute not only the history of Europe, but its atmosphere. This is more than history, more than psychology: this is the physiology of a European. What will you replace all this with?...
The syllogism of the West is unknown to us. There is something more than flimsiness in our best heads. The best ideas, from lack of connection and consistency, become numb in our brain like barren ghosts... Even in our gaze I find something extremely vague, cold, somewhat similar to the physiognomy of peoples standing on the lower steps of the social ladder... In our opinion local position between East and West, leaning with one elbow on China, the other on Germany, we should unite in ourselves two great principles of understanding: imagination and reason, we should combine the history of the whole world in our civic education. But this is not the destiny that falls to our lot. Hermits in the world, we gave him nothing, took nothing from him, did not add a single idea to the mass of ideas of humanity, did not contribute in any way to the improvement of human understanding and distorted everything that this improvement told us... Not a single useful thought increased on our barren soil, not a single great truth has arisen among us. We did not invent anything ourselves and from everything that was invented by others, we borrowed only a deceptive appearance and useless luxury... I repeat: we lived, we live, as a great lesson for distant posterity, who will certainly use it, but in the present tense, that no matter what they say, we create a gap in the order of understanding." Having pronounced such a sentence on our past, present and partly future, Ch. carefully proceeds to his main idea and at the same time to an explanation of the phenomenon indicated by him. The root of the evil, in his opinion, is that we have adopted the “new education” from a source other than the one from which the West received it.
"Driven by evil fate, we borrowed the first seeds of moraland mental enlightenment from the corrupted Byzantium, despised by all peoples,” they borrowed, moreover, when “petty vanity had just torn Byzantium away from the world brotherhood,” and therefore “they accepted from it an idea distorted by human passion.” From here everything that followed happened .
“Despite the name Christians, we have not moved, while Western Christianity has marched majestically along the path laid out by its divine founder.” Ch. himself poses the question: “Aren’t we Christians, is education possible only according to the European model?” and answers like this: “Without a doubt we are Christians, but aren’t the Abyssinians Christians?
Aren't the Japanese educated?.. But do you really think that these pathetic deviations from divine and human truths will bring heaven to earth? " In Europe, everything was permeated with a mysterious power that reigned autocratically whole line centuries." This thought fills the entire end of the "Philosophical Letter." "Look at the picture of the complete development of the new society and you will see that Christianity transforms all human benefits into its own, replaces material needs everywhere with moral needs, arouses these great debates in the world of thought, which you will not meet in the history of other eras, other societies... You will see that everything was created by him and only by him: earthly life, social life, family, fatherland, science, poetry, mind, and imagination , and memories, and hopes, and delights, and sorrows." But all this applies to Western Christianity; other branches of Christianity are fruitless. Ch. does not draw any practical conclusions from here. It seems to us that his letter caused a storm not by his own, although undoubted, but not at all clearly expressed Catholic tendencies - he developed them much more deeply in subsequent letters - but only with harsh criticism of the past and present of Russia.
There are three letters in all, but there is reason to think that in the interval between the first (published in the Telescope) and the so-called second, there were also letters that apparently disappeared irretrievably. In the “second” letter (we will provide further quotes in our translation), Chaadaev expresses the idea that the progress of mankind is directed by the hand of Providence and moves through the medium of chosen peoples and chosen people; the source of eternal light has never faded among human societies; man walked to the path determined for him only in the light of truths revealed to him by a higher mind. “Instead of obediently accepting the senseless system of mechanical improvement of our nature, so clearly refuted by the experience of all centuries, one cannot help but see that man, left to himself, always walked, on the contrary, along the path of endless degeneration. If there were from time to time eras progress among all peoples, moments of enlightenment in the life of mankind, sublime impulses of reason, then nothing proves the continuity and constancy of such movement. True movement forward and the constant presence of progress are noticeable only in the society of which we are members and which is not the product of human hands. We undoubtedly accepted what was developed by the ancients before us, took advantage of it and thus closed the ring of the great chain of times, but it does not at all follow from this that people would have reached the state in which they now find themselves without that historical phenomenon that is unconditionally has no antecedents, is beyond any dependence on human ideas, beyond any necessary connection of things, and separates the ancient world from the new world.” It goes without saying that Ch. is talking here about the emergence of Christianity. Without this phenomenon, our society would inevitably perish, as all ancient societies perished. Christianity found the world “depraved, bloodied, deceived.” In ancient civilizations there was no solid, underlying principle. "The deep wisdom of Egypt, the charming charm of Ionia, the strict virtues of Rome, the dazzling splendor of Alexandria - what have you become? Brilliant civilizations, nurtured by all the powers of the earth, associated with all the glories, with all the heroes, with all the dominion over the universe, with the greatest sovereigns whom ever produced by the earth, with world sovereignty - how could you be razed from the face of the earth? What was the work of centuries, the wonderful works of the intellect, if new peoples, who came from unknown places, not in the least connected to these civilizations, had to do everything? is it to destroy, overturn a magnificent building and plow under the very place on which it stood? "But it was not the barbarians who destroyed ancient world. It was already “a decomposed corpse and the barbarians scattered only its ashes to the wind.” This cannot happen to the new world, because European society constitutes a single family of Christian peoples. European society "for a number of centuries rested on the basis of a federation, which was torn apart only by the Reformation; before this sad event, the peoples of Europe looked upon themselves as nothing other than a single social organism, geographically divided into different states, but constituting a single whole in a moral sense; between these peoples there was no other public law except the decrees of the church; wars were represented as civil strife, a common interest animated everyone, the same tendency set the entire European world in motion.
The history of the Middle Ages was literally the history of one people - the Christian people. The movement of moral consciousness formed its basis; purely political events took a back seat; all this was revealed with particular clarity in religious wars, that is, in events that the philosophy of the last century was so horrified by. Voltaire very aptly notes that wars over opinions occurred only among Christians; but one should not confine oneself to merely stating a fact; it was necessary to rise to the level of understanding the cause of such a one-of-a-kind phenomenon. It is clear that the kingdom of thought could not establish itself in the world otherwise than by giving the very principle of thought full reality. And if the state of things has now changed, it was the result of a schism, which, having destroyed the unity of thought, thereby destroyed the unity of society. But the foundation remains and is still the same, and Europe is still a Christian country, no matter what it does, no matter what it says... In order for real civilization to be destroyed, the entire globe would have to be turned upside down, so that a revolution similar to the one that gave the earth its present form will be repeated. To extinguish all the sources of our enlightenment, at least a second global flood would be required. If, for example, one of the hemispheres were absorbed, then what remained on the other would be enough to renew the human spirit. The thought that is supposed to conquer the universe will never stop, will never die, or at least will not die until there is a command from the One who put this thought into the human soul. The world was coming to unity, but this great cause was prevented by the Reformation, returning it to the state of disunity (desunité) of paganism." At the end of the second letter, Chaadaev directly expresses the thought that only indirectly made its way in the first letter. "That the papacy was a human institution, that the incoming its elements were created by human hands - I readily admit this, but the essence of the papacy comes from the very spirit of Christianity... Who would not be amazed at the extraordinary destinies of the papacy? Deprived of its human shine, it only became stronger, and the indifferentism shown towards it only further strengthens and ensures its existence... It centralizes the thought of Christian peoples, attracts them to each other, reminds them of the supreme principle of their beliefs and , being imprinted with the seal of a heavenly character, soars above the world of material interests." In the third letter, Ch. develops the same thoughts, illustrating them with his views on Moses, Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, Epicurus, Homer, etc. Returning to Russia and to his looking at the Russians, who “do not belong, in essence, to any of the systems of the moral world, but with their social surface they adjoin the West,” Ch. recommends “doing everything possible to prepare the way for future generations.” We cannot leave them what we ourselves did not have: beliefs, a mind educated by time, a clearly defined personality, developed over the course of a long, animated, active, rich in results, intellectual life, opinions, then let us leave them at least a few ideas which, although we did not find them ourselves, being passed on from generation to generation, will have more of a traditional element and, therefore, more power, more fruitfulness than our own thoughts. In this way we will earn the gratitude of posterity and will not walk the earth in vain." Chaadaev's short fourth letter is dedicated to architecture.
Finally, the first and several lines from the second chapter of Chaadaev’s “Apology of a Madman” are also known. Here the author makes some concessions, agrees to recognize some of his previous opinions as exaggerations, but laughs evilly and caustically at what was attacked him for his first philosophical letter out of “love for to the fatherland" society. “There are different kinds of love for the fatherland: a Samoyed, for example, who loves his native snow, which weakens his vision, the smoky yurt in which he spends half his life crouched, the rancid fat of his reindeer, which surrounds him with a sickening atmosphere - this Samoyed, without a doubt, loves his homeland differently than an English citizen who is proud of the institutions and high civilization of his glorious island loves it... Love of the fatherland is a very good thing, but there is something higher than it: love of truth.” Next, Chaadaev expresses his opinions on the history of Russia. Briefly, this story is expressed as follows: “Peter the Great found only a sheet of paper and with his powerful hand wrote on it: Europe and the West.”
AND great person did a great job. "But behold, she appeared new school(Slavophiles). The West is no longer recognized, the cause of Peter the Great is denied, and it is considered desirable to return to the desert again. Having forgotten everything that the West has done for us, being ungrateful to the great man who civilized us, to Europe, which formed us, they renounce both Europe and the great man. In its ardent zeal, the latest patriotism declares us the most beloved children of the East. Why on earth, says this patriotism, will we seek light from the Western peoples? Do we not have at home all the germs of a social order infinitely better than the social order of Europe? Left to ourselves, to our bright mind, to the fruitful principle hidden in the depths of our powerful nature and especially our holy faith, we would soon leave behind all these peoples, ossified in delusions and lies. And what should we envy in the West? His religious wars, his pope, his chivalry, his Inquisition? These are all good things, nothing to say! And is the West really the birthplace of science and deep wisdom?
Everyone knows that the birthplace of all this is the East. Let us return to this East, with which we come into contact everywhere, from where we once received our beliefs, our laws, our virtues, in a word, everything that made us the most powerful people on earth. The Old East is passing into eternity, and aren’t we its rightful heirs? His wonderful traditions must live among us forever, all his great and mysterious truths must be realized, the preservation of which was bequeathed to him from the beginning of centuries... You now understand the origin of the storm that recently broke out over me and see that a real revolution is taking place among us, a passionate reaction against enlightenment, against Western ideas, against that enlightenment and those ideas that made us what we are, and the fruit of which was even the present movement itself, the reaction itself." The idea that there was nothing creative in our past, Chaadaev apparently wanted to develop in the second chapter of the Apology, but it contains only a few lines: “There is a fact that has supreme dominion over our historical movement in all its centuries, running through our entire history, containing in a sense all philosophy, manifesting itself in all eras. our social life, defining its character, constituting at the same time an essential element of our political greatness, and the real reason our intellectual impotence: this fact is a geographical fact." The publisher of Chaadaev's works, Prince Gagarin, says the following in a note: "Here the manuscript ends and there is no sign that it will ever be continued." After the incident with Chaadaev's "Philosophical Letter" lived almost continuously in Moscow for 20 years. Although during all these years he did not show himself to be anything special, but - Herzen testifies - if Chaadaev was in the company, then “no matter how dense the crowd was, the eye found him immediately. Chaadaev died.” Moscow April 14, 1856
On my estate there is a big, big park, in that park there’s a big, big house, and in that house there’s a Cabinet of Reflections on the Fates of the Fatherland. And it doesn’t matter that the estate, park, house and office exist only in the imagination; on the contrary, it is the imagination that gives them brilliance, scope and invulnerability to all kinds of storms and shocks. And you don't need to pay taxes.
And in the Office of Reflections on the Fates of the Fatherland there is a favorite sofa. There are two portraits above the sofa. On the right is a portrait of Alexander Khristoforovich Benkendorf by George Dow, on the left is a portrait of Pyotr Yakovlevich Chaadaev by Seliverstov. Not originals, but good copies.
Under the portrait of Benckendorff there is a framed saying: “ Russia's past was amazing, its present is more than magnificent, as for its future, it is above everything that the wildest imagination can imagine; this is the point of view from which Russian history should be viewed and written.”
And under the portrait of Chaadaev there is also a saying in a frame “A dull and gloomy existence, devoid of strength and energy, which was enlivened by nothing except atrocities, nothing softened except slavery. No captivating memories, no graceful images in the memory of the people, no powerful teachings in their tradition... We live alone in the present, within its narrowest confines, without a past or future, in the midst of dead stagnation.”
Depending on my mood, I sit either under the portrait of Chaadaev or under the portrait of Benckendorff.
Frankly, I feel calmer under Benckendorf. And I have sublime, pleasant dreams, filling with pride and patriotism: then I’m fishing from a boat in the Bosphorus Strait, admiring between bites Russian flags over Constantinople, then I’m driving along the Chinese-East railway in a luxurious saloon carriage, and a Chinese steward in a snow-white tunic serves me green tea and says “Your Excellency” without the slightest accent, then I open a dispensary in the sultry Mikluhomaklandia, and the blessed population moistens the black cheeks with tears of tenderness and gratitude... And even if sleep is abandoned me to a remote Indian village, whose inhabitants are groaning under the yoke of English colonialism, as soon as I say “I’m Russian,” they start throwing flowers at me, smearing me with incense and carrying me in their arms to the joyful cries of “Hindi, Rus - phai-phai!”
But if you have nightmares, something like: for a ruble they give half a penny, “the fields are strewn with the bodies of dead crabs, which are lying around, upside down in good health,” the nobles, having driven the smerds into the roadside mud, are racing on runaway carts of German work, shooting from an excess of feelings who into the air, and some to the sides, which means I fell asleep with my head towards Chaadaev. Serves me right! You need to choose a side if you decide to take a nap after lunch!
Almost one hundred and eighty years have passed since the publication of the first “philosophical letter.” It will be smooth in September. I thought about remembering Chaadaev in September, but the story about Nasreddin, the caliph and the donkey (in this trio I modestly choose the role of the donkey) does not allow me to postpone it “for later.” We don't have twenty years left. We may not even have a year.
In less than two centuries, it would seem that one can decide who is right, Benckendorff or Chaadaev? Has a future arrived that is beyond the wildest imagination, or are we again living within the narrowest confines of the present and among dead stagnation?
But we live differently. Or rather, we perceive it differently. What for one is dead stagnation, for another is complete delight of feelings, name day of the heart and triumph of covenants. Some, down-to-earth materialists, consider the proportion of milk in the palm mixture to be white, while others, inspired by spirituality, rush to the sky and see in today's adversity the guarantee of future achievements. Actually, they don’t see adversity either. What kind of troubles are these? Man does not live by bread alone. Not by bread alone and dead.
My colleague believes the country's well-being lies in cows. Why in cows, he himself will not say: he is a third-generation city dweller, he has never kept cows. And his parents didn’t keep him. And even the grandfather and grandmother did not keep them, except that they saw the collective farm workers. The great-grandfather, however, said that among the collective farm workers there were a couple of his own, those who were taken away were the great-grandfather. And in the sixties you could keep your own people. You hand over what is due, and drink the rest yourself, or sell it, no one will reproach you. But no, they moved to the city and became turners, engineers and doctors.
So, my colleague even has a graph hanging over the sofa, indicating the size of the cow population. I have Benckendorff with Chaadaev, and he has a schedule. Tied him to significant dates. So, in the year ninety, twenty million cows mooed in Russia (in round numbers, Russia is a generous soul), in the year two thousand - twelve million, and now eight. Cows are not the source of happiness, I try to explain to my friend. And what, he asks. Maybe in tractors?
In our attitude to reality, I answer. We are not cows, we are people. But I answer somehow uncertainly.
No, there is no doubt that it is necessary to change the attitude towards reality. Don't get stuck in the past. The past is a waste. It would seem that all one has to worry about is to take a portrait of the philosopher, remaining in an unbreakable alliance with the gendarme, and life will immediately improve. There’s no need to even tear up the portrait, and I probably wouldn’t be able to tear up the image of a man whose friendship was valued by Pushkin and Griboyedov. Not yet ripe - tear it up. But to put it in a gray space, between a cabinet with German philosophers (one hundred and eighty solid volumes) and a shelf of Smenovekhites would be quite in the spirit of the times. Both popular and profitable.
Although... No matter how big the feeding vat is, it won’t be crowded. The first row is occupied by seasoned cleavers, and both the second and third rows have long been filled with more insightful members of society. Skinny piglets are running around them, and if a drop of booty suddenly flies out of the vat as a result of an accidental collision of heavyweights, then immediately half a dozen piglets will immediately squeal wildly, “This is mine!” They jump up, trying to catch this drop while still in the air. One person receives boots in scanty quantities, while the rest sometimes have valuables disappear from their pockets. In the crowd of piglets you come across such prestidigitators that you are amazed.
Well, no one is stopping you from admiring the prospects for the future without botvinya, that is, disinterestedly. Sit and repeat the mantra “the past is amazing, the present is great, the future is beyond all expectations.” And bring every incident to this mantra. Rejoice when cake is thrown at a spiteful critic. But why always cake? Are there really no cheaper items? And you can eat the cake yourself.
It’s interesting, I think near Benckendorf, how the wheel of history would have turned if Grinevitsky had thrown not a bomb, but a cake at Alexander the Liberator? The most natural cake, made with natural butter, soaked in natural cognac? And even better, Grinevitsky would have eaten this cake himself, eaten it, licked his lips and gone to sign up for the street patrol. He already knew the bombers personally, and would have recognized their secret signals immediately, again passwords, appearances... Alexander the Liberator that evening, remaining alive and unharmed, would have granted the Constitution to his subjects. Let me skimp, but who would moo...
In general, revolutions in consciousness do bad things to a person. Just take the generations who studied in Soviet schools. For them, Benckendorff is the chief of the gendarmes, and the gendarmes are the same devils with horns. And the bombers are definitely heroes. Grinevitsky, Khalturin, Kalyaev. In our city there is both Kalyaev Street and Khalturin Street. And Grinevitsky Street is in Anadyr. Your will, and this is a mine. It may be rusty, but if it explodes... In our city, old shells are constantly found. As soon as they start digging a foundation pit for a new building, or even planting a tree in the hole, they find it. Well, how will they detonate? Isn't it time to give the streets glorious names, names the sound of which would warm the heart, and the gaze would perceive the surroundings without disgusting distortions? Benckendorf Avenue, Uvarov Street, Pobedonostsev Square? And then Prince Caesar Romodanovsky should be remembered with a kind word, because he did the right thing, eradicated treason?
This is how you indulge in benign dreams, and then you accidentally see Chaadaev - and it’s like you get burned.
No, let them hang over the sofa. Behind the back. So as not to look into the eyes. Both heroes, cavalrymen, showed miracles of heroism during the Patriotic War. But peace came and life took a turn.
Who is right? Both are right. It happens. Sometimes you think – that’s the only way it happens.
Chaadaev Petr Yakovlevich (27.05 (7.06).1794, Moscow, - 14 (26).04.1856, ibid.) - Russian thinker, philosopher and publicist, born into a noble family (mother - daughter of the historian Prince M. M. Shcherbatov).
Chaadaev’s maternal grandfather was the famous historian and publicist Prince M.M. Shcherbatov. After the early death of his parents, Chaadaev was raised by his aunt and uncle. In 1808 he entered Moscow University, where he became close to the writer A.S. Griboyedov, the future Decembrists I.D. Yakushkin and N.I. Turgenev and other prominent figures of their time. In 1811 he left the university and joined the guard. Participated in Patriotic War 1812, in foreign trip Russian army. In 1814 in Krakow he was admitted to the Masonic lodge.
Without blind faith in abstract perfection, it is impossible to take a step along the path to perfection realized in practice. Only by believing in an unattainable good can we get closer to an achievable good.
Chaadaev Pyotr Yakovlevich
Returning to Russia, Chaadaev continued military service as a cornet of the Life Guards Hussar Regiment. His biographer M. Zhikharev wrote: “A brave officer, tested in three gigantic campaigns, impeccably noble, honest and amiable in private relations, he had no reason not to enjoy the deep, unconditional respect and affection of his comrades and superiors.” In 1816, in Tsarskoe Selo, Chaadaev met lyceum student A.S. Pushkin and soon became a beloved friend and teacher young poet, whom he called “a graceful genius” and “our Dante.” Three poetic messages of Pushkin are dedicated to Chaadaev, his features are embodied in the image of Onegin. Pushkin characterized the personality of Chaadaev with his famous verses To the portrait of Chaadaev: “He was born by the highest will of heaven / Born in the shackles of the royal service; / He would be Brutus in Rome, Pericles in Athens, / But here he is a hussar officer.” Constant communication between Pushkin and Chaadaev was interrupted in 1820 due to Pushkin’s southern exile.
However, correspondence and meetings continued throughout his life. On October 19, 1836, Pushkin wrote a famous letter to Chaadaev, in which he argued with the views on the destiny of Russia expressed by Chaadaev in his Philosophical Letter.
In 1821, Chaadaev unexpectedly abandoned his brilliant military and court career, retired and joined the secret society of the Decembrists. Not finding satisfaction in his spiritual needs in this activity, in 1823 he went on a trip to Europe. In Germany, Chaadaev met the philosopher F. Schelling, with representatives of various religious movements, including adherents of Catholic socialism. At this time, he was experiencing a spiritual crisis, which he tried to resolve by assimilating the ideas of Western theologians, philosophers, scientists and writers, as well as becoming familiar with the social and cultural structure of England, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy.
In 1826, Chaadaev returned to Russia and, settling in Moscow, lived as a hermit for several years, reflecting on what he had seen and experienced during his years of wandering. Started to be active social life, appearing in secular salons and speaking out on current issues of history and modernity. Chaadaev's enlightened mind, artistic sense and noble heart, noted by his contemporaries, earned him indisputable authority. P. Vyazemsky called him “a teacher from a moving pulpit.”
One of the ways Chaadaev disseminated his ideas was through private letters: some of them were passed around, read and discussed as journalistic works. In 1836, he published his first Philosophical Letter in the Telescope magazine, work on which (the original was written in French in the form of a response to E. Panova) began back in 1828. This was Chaadaev’s only lifetime publication.
In total, he wrote eight Philosophical Letters (the last in 1831). Chaadaev outlined his historiosophical views in them. Feature historical fate He considered Russia “a dull and gloomy existence, devoid of strength and energy, which was enlivened by nothing except atrocities, nothing softened except slavery. No captivating memories, no graceful images in the memory of the people, no powerful teachings in their tradition... We live only in the present, within its narrowest confines, without a past or future, in the midst of dead stagnation.”
Coming from the family of the author of the 7-volume “Russian History from Ancient Times” Mikhail Shcherbatov, Pyotr Yakovlevich Chaadaev was born for a brilliant government career. Before the War of 1812, he attended lectures at Moscow University for 4 years, where he managed to become friends with several representatives of the growing secret societies, future participants in the Decembrist movement - Nikolai Turgenev and Ivan Yakushkin. Chaadaev actively participated in hostilities against Napoleon, fought at Borodino, Tarutino and Maloyaroslavets (for which he was awarded the order Saint Anne), took part in the capture of Paris. After the war, this “brave officer, tested in three gigantic campaigns, impeccably noble, honest and amiable in private relationships” (as a contemporary described him) met 17-year-old Alexander Pushkin, on whose views he had a significant influence.
In 1817, he entered military service in the Semenovsky regiment, and a year later he retired. The reason for such a hasty decision was the harsh suppression of the uprising of the 1st battalion of the Life Guards, the participants of which Chaadaev greatly sympathized with. The sudden decision of the promising young 23-year-old officer caused a considerable scandal in high society: his action was explained either by being late to the emperor with a report on the riot that had occurred, or by the content of the conversation with the tsar, which caused an angry rebuke from Chaadaev. However, the biographer of the philosopher M. O. Gershenzon, citing reliable written sources, gives the following explanation in the first person: “I found it more amusing to neglect this mercy than to seek it. It was pleasant for me to show disdain for people who disdain everyone... It is even more pleasant for me in this case to see the anger of an arrogant fool.”
Be that as it may, Chaadaev leaves service in the status of one of the most famous characters of the era, an eligible bachelor and the main social dandy. One of the philosopher’s contemporaries recalled that “in his presence it was somehow impossible, it was awkward to give in to daily vulgarity. When he appeared, everyone somehow involuntarily looked around morally and mentally, tidied up and preened themselves.” The most authoritative historian of Russian culture, Yu. M. Lotman, characterizing the features of Chaadaev’s public dandyism, noted: “The area of extravagance of his clothes lay in the daring absence of extravagance.” Moreover, unlike another famous English dandy - Lord Byron, the Russian philosopher preferred appearance discreet minimalism and even purism. Such a deliberate disregard for fashion trends distinguished him very favorably from other contemporaries, in particular, Slavophiles, who associated their costume with ideological guidelines (wearing a beard for show, recommending that ladies wear sundresses). However, the general attitude towards the title of a kind of “trend setter”, an example of a public image, made Chaadaev’s image similar to his foreign dandy colleagues.
In 1823, Chaadaev went abroad for treatment, and even before leaving, he drew up a deed of gift for his property to two brothers, clearly intending not to return to his homeland. He will spend the next two years in London, then in Paris, then in Rome or Milan. It was probably during this journey through Europe that Chaadaev became acquainted with the works of French and German philosophers. As the historian of Russian literature M. Velizhev writes, “the formation of Chaadaev’s “anti-Russian” views in the mid-1820s took place in a political context associated with the transformation of structure and content Holy Alliance European monarchs." Following the results of the Napoleonic wars, Russia undoubtedly thought of itself as a European hegemon - “the Russian tsar, the head of tsars” according to Pushkin. However, the geopolitical situation in Europe almost a decade after the end of the war was rather disappointing, and Alexander I himself had already moved away from previous constitutional ideas and, in general, had somewhat cooled down to the possibility of spiritual unity with the Prussian and Austrian monarchs. Probably, the joint prayer of the victorious emperors during the Aachen Congress in 1818 was finally consigned to oblivion.
Upon returning to Russia in 1826, Chaadaev was immediately arrested on charges of belonging to secret societies Decembrists. These suspicions are aggravated by the fact that back in 1814 Chaadaev became a member of the Masonic lodge in Krakow, and in 1819 he was accepted into one of the first Decembrist organizations - the Union of Welfare. Three years later, by an imperious decree, all secret organizations - both Freemasons and Decembrists - were banned without regard to their ideology and goals. The story with Chaadaev ended happily: having signed a document stating that he had no relationship with freethinkers, the philosopher was released. Chaadaev settled in Moscow, in the house of E. G. Levasheva on Novaya Basmannaya and began work on his main work, “Philosophical Letters.” This work instantly returned Chaadaev to the glory of the main oppositionist of the era, although in one of his letters to A.I. Turgenev the philosopher himself complains: “What have I done, what have I said so that I can be counted among the opposition? I don’t say or do anything else, I just repeat that everything strives towards one goal and that this goal is the kingdom of God.”
Even before publication, this work was actively circulated among the most progressive part of society, but the appearance of “Philosophical Letters” in the Telescope magazine in 1836 caused a serious scandal. Both the editor of the publication and the censor paid for the publication of Chaadaev’s work, and the author himself, by order of the government, was declared crazy. It is interesting that many legends and controversies arose around this first known case in Russian history of the use of punitive psychiatry: the doctor, who was supposed to conduct a regular official examination of the “patient,” at the first meeting told Chaadaev: “If it weren’t for my family, my wife and six children, I would show them who is really crazy.”
In his most important work, Chaadaev significantly rethought the ideology of the Decembrists, which he, being a “Decembrist without December,” largely shared. After a careful study of the main intellectual ideas of the era (in addition to the French religious philosophy of de Maistre, also Schelling’s work on natural philosophy), the conviction arose that the future prosperity of Russia was possible on the basis of global enlightenment, the spiritual and ethical transformation of humanity in search of divine unity. In fact, it was this work by Chaadaev that became the impetus for the development of the national Russian philosophical school. A little later his supporters would call themselves Westerners, and his opponents - Slavophiles. Those first “damned questions” that were formulated in “ Philosophical letters”, interested domestic thinkers in the future: how to bring to life a global utopia for all mankind and the search for one’s own national identity, a special Russian path, directly related to this problem.
It is curious that Chaadaev himself called himself a religious philosopher, although further reflection of his heritage formed into a unique Russian historiosophy. Chaadaev believed in the existence of a metaphysical absolute Demiurge, who reveals himself in his own creation through the games of chance and the will of fate. Without denying the Christian faith as a whole, he believes that the main goal of humanity is “the establishment of the kingdom of God on Earth,” and it was in Chaadaev’s work that such a metaphor for a just society, a society of prosperity and equality first appeared.
