An Intro

My name is Sean. I was advised to start a blog, so here it is. This post is a placeholder, so it will have some substance if someone Googles my name - I'd like to bore them a little bit. Nothing juicy here. Sorry, folks. My goal for this blog is to achieve a return to constant writing, a state everyone should achieve. Write everyday, it's as good as apples.

What follows is a piece of work I had to do for a Russian Identity assignment pertaining to the works of Berdyaev, who I consider atrociously biased and Slavophilic. If you have any interest in what I said, read on.

I wrote it while in a bad mood, and I guess it shows - I didn't really hate the guy despite his almost humorous admiration of very dead and otherwise overworked Russians. Enjoy.

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Berdyaev’s argument is that since the time of Kiev’s position as the seat of power for the people of Russia, the lands of the Rus have always been torn between eastern and western influences. His statement that Russia has been a place of pain and has developed a timeline of tumultuousness throughout the ages immediately sets the tone for his description of the five different Russia’s: Kievan Rus, Mongol Russia, Muscovite Russia, Imperial Russia and Soviet Russia. Kievan Russia was a time of culture beyond those of Europe as Russia was superior in the categories of art and architecture. Under Muscovite rule, an intellectual culture never flourished; this period of Russia was bereft of “thought and speech”. Russia has a primordial disposition toward nature; it was strictly religious under Orthodoxy and under influence from the West, specifically the late Roman-Byzantine Empire. Peter himself was a supporter of western ideals, removing from power the pious Muscovites. This leads to a comparison between Peter and Lenin’s respective revolutions; while both were brutal and executed to sharply change Russia, Lenin’s revolution inspired the common man to take part in history while Peter’s revolution thickened the lines between Russia’s classes. This led to a continuing struggle between the incorporation between western ideals and eastern lifestyles.

Berdyaev’s approach to the subject of Russia’s identity being torn between East and West seems fairly slanted against what he calls the “Latin” West. The first comparison Berdyaev makes is that the near-ancient realm of Kievan Russia produced a level of culture greater than contemporary Europe. In that statement, Berdyaev shows his outright bias toward the subject of Russia’s superiority over its western neighbors and sets the stage for the rest of his piece. Berdyaev’s blanket summation that Kievan Russia’s production of iconography and architecture surpassed all of the West seems like a statement one may make in an attempt to start an argument due to how unnecessarily pretentious it seems; after all, what of even ancient Roman architecture that survives to this day? Past that, European architecture in places such as Germany with its monumental Gothic architecture certainly does not deserve a snubbing. In addition, the many historical pieces of Christian art in Italy (specifically Rome) are a notable aspect of the West’s skills with iconography. Depending on Berdyaev’s definition of the West and his possible inclusion of Al-Andalus, the architecture of southern Spain’s Moorish occupants during medieval times is still considered a landmark in architectural history as quite magnificent. Berdyaev also explains, at length, Russia’s kinship with nature being a major aspect of why it is unique from the West. While possibly not as major, why does he fail to even mention the severe historical importance of the forests to the Germanic people, who avoided being conquered by the vastly powerful Roman Empire and eventually ending the reign of the Western Roman Empire due to their reliance on the black forests of northern Europe? An appreciation and involvement with nature, while special in Russia’s case, is not a historical quality belonging solely to Russia. Finally, Berdyaev criticizes the overall major impact of the West as a blow against the common Russian citizen and an emboldening of the Russian nobility, separating the country to an extreme point. While the West may have had an impact upon the social structure of Russia with the possible influence of feudalism and serfdom (which would eventually become huge aspects of the Russian social crisis), Berdyaev already admits earlier in his piece that in order to control the mighty amount of lands under the Russian flag a despotic leader is almost a necessity. Undoubtedly, Russia would have found its social classes greatly separated despite the impact of the West due to the harsh reality of survival and superiority.

On the other hand, the duality Berdyaev employs is an interesting and nominally informative method of informing the reader about Russia’s patchwork identity. His most striking initial comparison between the East and West’s impacts upon Russia is that of religion as Berdyaev explains the “Russian spirit”. As stated, Russians are a paradoxically spiritual people; although they have the influence of pagan naturalism from the East instilling a hardy appreciation for natural life, the influence of the West in the form of Orthodox Christianity instills a strict system of faith in the Russian people. Berdyaev’s statement that the Russian people were molded by a combination of an appreciation of nature and the Orthodox Church into who the Russians are historically known to be is a striking statement. Also, Berdyaev goes on to explain another unique aspect of Russia in its territory; while the West is steeped in formulation and categories in terms of organizing a nation, Russia has a nigh-boundless landscape which would be extremely hard to manage unless under the fist of a strong, despotic leader. This factor is particularly important when one consider Berdyaev’s later quoting of Russian historian Kluchevsky who stated that as ‘the state expands, the people grow sickly.’ Berdyaev’s claim that the East and West’s unique impact on Russia’s religion instilled in its people a sense of dogmatism and the ability to put up with earthly suffering to exist in the afterlife, two factors that are certainly true after noting the material for the course; the Russian people have endured a harsh, back-breaking existence. Yet another note of importance would be the author’s claim that no matter what the professed religious views of a Russian, due to the hardships they must endure, they are “always apocalyptic or nihilist”, lending credibility to the impact of Russia’s roughness on its own people.

A portion of Berdyaev’s piece that is of particular interest is that of his commentary on Peter the Great’s own dualism between East and West. He compares Peter to the Bolsheviks, even going as far as to address him as such. Berdyaev states that Peter wanted to “destroy the old Muscovite Russia”, which had been mostly untainted by western ideals and had remained fairly alone in its practices. In his description of Peter, Berdyaev seems to infer that Peter’s attempt to modernize (and effectively westernize) his people was a savage attack upon the Russian spirit itself and a traitorous act against the Russian people. He is mentioned as executing his own son for believing in the heart and soul of Muscovy and cracking down and any Russians in positions of religious power despite their faith, comparing him to the Bolsheviks once more (more specifically, the Society of the Godless, a militant atheist organization). He compares Peter’s revolution to the October Revolution of 1917 as barbaric, violent, authoritarian and ultimately detrimental to the Russian people, making one major note of difference: while the Bolsheviks’ acts forced the involvement of the common man into the realm of history-making, Peter’s revolution drew further lines between the Russian people and benefitted only the highest in Russian society. Berdyaev makes another backhanded comparison concerning the West, calling Peter’s actions reminiscent of enlightened absolutism, as Peter had secularized the Russian Orthodox Church and empowered it as just another branch of his government.

Overall it seems that through his beliefs on the subject of Peter and his constant comparisons of the Imperial leader to the Russian communists of the 20^th century, Berdyaev seems to simply have a grudge against the West and any attempts at tweaking Russia even slightly toward western ideals. Although he admits Peter’s actions were “unavoidable”, Berdyaev seems more like an imperial apologist as opposed to a critic of the West. Despite his avoidance of many facts absolving the West of the sins it has apparently committed against the Russian spirit and people, Berdyaev’s employment of duality does do quite a job of explaining the tumultuous history of Russia and how it has come to be what it currently represents. Without a doubt, the West did indeed play quite a role in the advancement of the Russian people through the ages. Berdyaev seems to be highly negative toward Western influence, instead seeming to believe that Russia would have been better off without it. Whether or not this is true is very much up for argument, although this humble student disagrees vehemently with Berdyaev’s rhetoric.

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There'll be more here soon. Unless I abandon it immediately - which I hope to avoid doing.