"The Russian Way" In The Assessments Of K.D. Kavelin And N.Y. Danilevsky

Abstract

At the beginning of the XX century, in connection with the actively developing process of globalization, the aggravation of the international situation, the question of the civilizational path of Russia's development becomes very relevant again. Along with the heritage of representatives of the civilizational approach in the study of the historical and cultural experience of Russia, the heritage of historians of “westernised” directionis of great interest to the Russian humanities. This article attempts to study the legacy of the famous historian K.D. Kavelin, who tried to identify the specifics of the "Russian way". The research is carried out in the context of a comparative analysis with the ideas of a representative of the Slavophile trend, one of the founders of the civilizational approach N.Y. Danilevsky. The study and reception of the ideas of K.D. Kavelin and N.Y. Danilevsky allowed us to establish the fact of complementarity of the two approaches, since both scientists identify the specifics of the "Russian way" from different methodological bases. This circumstance makes possible the most complete disclosure of the civilizational specifics of the historical and cultural development of Russia. It is important to note that in such a methodology, even the period of Soviet existence, its collapse and impact on modernity is a natural stage in the development of the "Russian way". The article attempts to receive the ideas of K.D. Kavelin and N.Y. Danilevsky in relation to understanding the foundations of Soviet existence and its influence on modernity.

Keywords: Civilization, culture, history, heritage, "Russian way", Soviet existence

Introduction

The discussion on the way of development of Russia has gone far beyond the narrow circle of scientists, specialists of domestic and foreign humanities. In the year of the centenary of the USSR, scientists are again trying to understand the origins of the revolution and "Soviet existence" as a philosophical, anthropological and cultural phenomenon of the XX century. Since the appearance of the Westernist and Slavophile trends of public thought, the question of the "Russian way" has become part of the sociocultural specifics of society, occupying an important place in the mental foundations of the Russian nation. Attempts to understand the specifics of the historical development of our fatherland through the prism of the Western European path of development, or to look for the underlying causes of historical and cultural processes in the Asian influence, one way or another, end in failure due to the uniqueness, heterogeneity, originality of the Russian historical experience. The need to search for the specifics of the "Russian way" was also understood by representatives of the Westernist approach in the XIX century, which inevitably led to the need to identify the civilizational foundations of Russia, which was always not perceived by the Europeans themselves as part of the "Western civilization". In this regard, the legacy of Kavelin is of interest from the point of view of understanding the receptivity of Russian society to the Western system of values that constitute the foundations of Western culture. Considering the Western path of development the most acceptable for Russia in the perspective of its historical future, Kavelin nevertheless sharply raised the question of the reasons for the lack of necessary value orientations for the development of the personality of a Russian person in the context of the Western worldview, which led him to the need to search for the causes of this circumstance. It is important to analyze his scientific research from the point of view of the civilizational methodology, which was developed by Danilevsky.

Problem Statement

Understanding the features of the civilizational development of Russia at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries in the context of international crises and the era of globalism requires an appeal to the ideas of historians who tried to understand the specifics of the "Russian way". It is relevant to use the heritage of representatives of different ideological platforms – westernism and slavophilism in the context of civilizational methodology. This approach opens up new opportunities for the complementarity of sometimes polar scientific conclusions and significantly expands the understanding of the causes of the most important events and stages in the history of Russia, one of which was the period of "Soviet existence"..

Research Questions

The subject of the study is the legacy of Kavelin and Danilevsky. Based on the study of the works of scientists – representatives of different scientific schools and ideological platforms, in the context of the representation of their ideas in relation to different historical epochs, the specificity of the civilizational development of Russia is investigated.

Purpose of the Study

The aim of the work is to study the heritage of Kavelin and Danilevsky in the context of identifying the specifics of the civilizational basis of the historical and cultural development of Russia.

Research Methods

In the study, the authors rely on the approaches of representatives of the civilizational approach (Braudel, 2008; Fedotov, 2001; Huntington, 2004; Kondakov et al., 2011; Panarin, 2007; Spengler, 2017; Toynbee, 2008), etc. To understand the specifics of civilization, methodological approaches of trans- and interdisciplinarity in science were used: Bazhanov, Budanova, Kiyashenko, Ogurtsova, Porus, Scholz, etc. (Bazhanov & Scholz, 2021). The scientific apparatus of various humanities was used. It should be noted that the study was conducted in the context of a comparative analysis of various epochs of Russian history, including the Soviet one, in order to represent the ideas of Kavelin and Danilevsky in relation to specific events and facts of Russian history.

Findings

Not so much has been written about the worldview, theoretical and methodological positions, ideological origins of Kavelin in recent years, however, studies by Arslanov (2015), Vorobyeva (2009), Kochukova (2016), Nazarova and Vyalov (2016) and a number of other scientists can be noted. The thinker's worldview was formed under the influence of various circumstances – family, extremely patriarchal, religious way of life of the university environment, ideological closeness with Belinsky, and, finally, under the influence of the ideas and theoretical views of Western European positivism. Being a liberal of the moderate wing, Kavelin at the same time sought to preserve and develop in his work national and cultural traditions, the origins of which he saw in Christianity. Despite the fact that in more mature years, Kavelin became an adherent of Western European rationalism until the very last days of his life, he did not lose touch with God; He even tried to include the moral and religious values of Christian teaching in his theoretical constructions (Arslanov, 2015).

Analyzing the works of Kavelin, we can say that Kavelin clearly divided the history of Western countries and Russia. Being a Westerner, insisting that Russia is closer to Europe and they have a common path of development in the future, he still considered the "Russian way" unique, insisting that it is necessary to look for its patterns. Russian history in his writings, Kavelin (1897) has repeatedly stated that it is impossible to look at Russian history from the point of view of eastern, western, northern or southern peoples, since Russian history is unique.

Kavelin notes an important imperative of the "Russian way" – the importance of the concept of "yard" or "house". The concept of a "yard" or "house" proposed by him contains the idea that the prototype of the socio-economic existence of society is a "yard" with a boss at the head and with his subordinates. Hence, the special role of power and the state is deduced. Kavelin (1897) argued that this is the peculiarity of the socio-economic and political development of Russia, here he is looking for the origins of serfdom and the lack of expression of the personal principle in people.

Kavelin (1897) considered the community an important component of Russian existence, arguing that its demise would lead to the death of Russia, which is why he was not in favor of transferring land to private ownership to peasants, believed that private property would destroy the peasant world, offered to give land to peasants for life with the possibility of inheritance within existing communities.

Kavelin (1897) clearly recorded the advantage of ancestral ties over personal ones, as well as his idea about the destructive impact of private property for peasants lead to the idea that such a form of economic existence of the peasant economy was really not close to the peasants (recall the popularity of the Socialist-Revolutionary party at the beginning of the XX century, problems with the implementation of Stolypin's reform, support for the policy of dispossession among a large part of the peasant world, etc.), Therefore, an important civilizational imperative is the lack of significance of private property for people.

Note that this important observation is projected on all stages of the history of Russia.

The Soviet period is particularly indicative in this regard. "Soviet existence" is a kind of paradigm of existence in the XX century, which was based on the absolute non-recognition of the importance of private property, which is to a certain extent a historically rooted imperative for peasants. This feature is closely related to community values, which are based not on the importance of an individual and private property, but on the values of the collective good.

Kavelin (1897) notes the huge role of power in the history of Russia, emphasizing that autocracy played a decisive role in the preservation of society. The special role of power stems from the concept of the "yard", where life is mainly based on the principle of a vertical beginning and depends on the decision of the "main".

Note that this imperative is confirmed in the history of Russia. Indeed, the expression of strong power to the detriment of self-government and the development of civil society has been particularly evident since the XVIII century. Such a paradigm is also a given of the soviet era. Moreover, it is transformed into a model of autocracy inherent in Soviet existence and actualized in the post-soviet period.

It is important to note that a strong government is the guarantor of countering the threats that have arisen for Russia throughout its history. This observation was made in line with the ideas of civilizationists Danilevsky, Toynbee. Indeed, external danger was an important factor for Russian civilization, which strengthened its identity. This imperative developed, transforming into the paradigm of "enemy", "alien". In the soviet era – the image of the western, capitalist world, which poses a threat to Soviet existence.

Kavelin notes the high identity of the slavic world in ancient Russia. So in the article "A Look at the legal life of ancient Russia", published in 1847, he claims that "the Russian Slavs had an exclusively related way of life". At the same time, foreign conquerors never settled among the Slavs. The exception was the Varangians, but they "drowned in the Slavic element". As a result, "extraneous principles were never forcibly introduced into the life of the Russian Slavs"? and they lived by themselves. Under the conditions of the domination of the ancestral life of the Slavs, "the beginning of personality ... did not exist". By the time of the formation of the Old Russian state, the tribal communal life of the eastern slavic tribes was in a state of destruction, which was expressed in the disintegration of communities into families. The social difference between noble and non-noble families grew. The victory of the family principle over the generic one is an important step forward in the development of personality. However, it took considerable effort and a long period of time before the personality in russian history came into its own. According to Kavelin, this happened in the era of Peter the Great.

Summing up his review of the "legal life of ancient Russia", Kavelin comes to the conclusion that "the internal history of Russia is not an ugly pile of meaningless, unrelated facts". It is a natural process of development. The main pattern of the internal history of Russia Kavelin formulates in the following words: "We did not have the beginning of the personality, ancient Russian life created it, since the XVIII century it began to act and develop". Responding to his critic Samarin, Kavelin once again emphasized this basic idea – "the meaning of our internal history before Peter is the liberation, the birth of personality and, conversely, the decomposition, disintegration of patriarchal elements" (Kavelin, 1897).

As a liberal and a westerner, Kavelin idealized the Western path of development and the role of Peter I in the development of the personal principle in the public consciousness. Russian Russian history should be noted that the ideological basis of Kavelin could not but affect the perception of russian history, which, on the one hand, he considered unique, but on the other hand, he did not see the uniqueness of the "Russian way" of development in the future, since he did not set the task of identifying the peculiarities of the mentality of Russian society as a separate cultural reality. Nevertheless, the legacy of Kavelina is a very important asset of the humanities, as it undoubtedly opens up new directions for the study of Russian civilization.

Danilevsky analyzes the civilizational foundations from other methodological positions. For him, Russia and Europe are different cultural realities belonging to different cultural and historical types. It should be noted that the civilizational approach itself emerged later than the work of K.D. Kavelin and became a kind of result of the search for the uniqueness of the "Russian way", in which an important role belongs to Kavelin, which once again emphasizes the importance of the contribution to understanding the specifics of civilizational principles not only of slavophiles.

Russia, according to Danilevsky (2004a), belongs to the Slavic cultural and historical type. Of particular importance in his legacy is the work "Russia and Europe". Danilevsky immediately begins with the key question – why is Russia not Europe? Having determined the methodology of the answer through the characterization of various cultural and historical types, he proceeds to the analysis of the main civilizational imperatives, to which he devotes separate chapters of his work.

One of the main imperatives that Danilevsky (2004b) reveals in chapter XVI "Struggle" is the imperative of resisting the challenge of another culture. Later, Toynbee will formulate the idea of a "challenge-response" civilization, which will be a conceptual continuation of the ideas of Danilevsky (Toynbee, 2008). It should be noted that this feature was also highlighted by Kavelin in the context of the characteristics of Slavic life. In this regard, scientists from different sides define the same imperative peculiar to the Russian civilization. Danilevsky (2004b) opposes Europe, Russia, noting that the confrontation between the two cultural-historical types becomes the cause of strengthening the mobilization of the nature of Russian civilization: "the great struggle, the more or less near future the Russian people, and the innocence and Holiness of the case, which he will have to defend, and on special properties its state system, can and should take the character of a heroic".

The paradigm of confrontation, according to the scientist, is peculiar to Russia. It is an important phenomenon of Russian civilization. This is connected with another important phenomenon of Russian culture – the special importance of power, which is identified with the defender of the people. In power, the people find their unity. This feature, in turn, explains the mobilization nature of society, the willingness to protect state interests rooted in moral, psychological and religious grounds (Danilevsky, 2004a). The unity of the government and the people, based on the legitimacy of the tsarist government, which is the guarantor of integrity and self-preservation, are important civilizational imperatives that Danilevsky (2004a ) highlights: "This is the internal, moral and political unity and integrity of the Russian people, enc. ompassing the entire state side of its existence, and constitute the reason that the Russian people can be brought into a state of tension of all its moral and material forces, into a state that we call disciplined enthusiasm, by the will of its sovereign".

These conclusions of Danilevsky correlate with the conclusions of Kavelin about the importance of autocratic power for Russia. This imperative is an important determinant of the special role of rulers throughout the "Russian way", including during the formation of the cult of personality and the formation of a totalitarian regime. It remains relevant in post-Soviet Russia. Scientists identify an imperative that becomes an important component of Soviet existence.

It should be emphasized that Danilevsky (2004c) identifies the features of Russian civilization, starting from the current situation, i.e. he analyzes, first of all, modernity, trying to understand the causes of certain phenomena, and then turns to the historical past, connecting it with the present, which gives him the opportunity to assume cultural and historical dynamics in the future. Kavelin analyzes historical experience from the same positions. We believe that such an approach in modern, first of all, historical research is relevant and significant. Trying to answer the questions of modernity, the researcher is looking for the causes of the phenomena occurring in the past, thereby setting himself an important task to determine the patterns of transformation of cultural experience, which is possible, in our opinion, only in an interdisciplinary cultural paradigm.

In chapter VII, Danilevsky notes that Western civilization is withering, falling into decline. Here we can observe a fundamental difference in the methodology of Kavelina. If Kavelin believes that Russia and Europe have a common future, then Danilevsky believes that Europe has already achieved all the best, Russia has a chance to get ahead (Danilevsky, 2000). However, the West will try to maintain its viability at the expense of young cultures. It should be noted that similar ideas were further developed by Spengler (2017) in his work "The Decline of Europe", putting forward the idea of psephdomarphosis.

Kavelin (1897), analyzing the most important aspect of human personality development, notes the low level of the spiritual and moral state of people in Europe, thereby calling this circumstance "the root evil of European societies". The moral side of man is the basis for all other spheres of human activity. Here Kavelin acts as a civilizationist who puts the spiritual sphere above the rest. It is this methodological approach that representatives of the civilizational approach consider to be the main one. O. Spengler analyzed the "Decline of Europe" most vividly in line with this approach.

It is important to note that the works of Kavelin trace the idea of the relationship of traditions and the current state of Russian society with Christianity. Here Kavelin does not delve into the mechanisms of this influence, identifying the common roots of the West and Russia as Christian civilizations.

Danilevsky (2020), on the contrary, based on the methodology of various cultural and historical types, believes that it is religion that lays the foundations of civilizations. In this regard, Orthodoxy is the basis of the civilizational specifics of Russia.

Conclusion

Thus, the identification and study of Kavelin's ideas about the "Russian way" in the context of comparison with the heritage of Danilevsky makes it possible to obtain interesting and important conclusions about the civilizational specifics of Russian society.

Kavelin and Danilevsky are representatives of various socio-political trends and scientific schools. However, in their scientific research, they complement each other due to the fact that they are united by the desire to understand the specifics of Russian civilization. They begin their research path with an attempt to comprehend the processes that are modern to them, linking the present with the past and predicting the future. In such a methodology, it is important to set the task – the desire to understand the uniqueness of Russia, it unites at first glance completely different people on ideological grounds. It becomes possible to combine the scientific aspirations of a Westerner and a Slavophile. The scientific agenda becomes a single context within which two great scientists who have left behind a rich scientific heritage work. It should be noted that the civilizational specifics revealed by them are confirmed by a comparative analysis of different epochs that are inextricably linked with each other. In this regard, an example is the Soviet era, which was an organic continuation of the "Russian way".

Acknowledgments

The article was prepared as part of the implementation of the project of the Russian Science Foundation No. 20-68-46013 “Philosophical and anthropological analysis of Soviet being. Prerequisites, dynamics, influence on modernity"..

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