In what sense was Russia central to and/or peripheral to European modernity?

 

If we take two of the greatest emperors of Russia, Peter I and Catherine II, we see that Russian empire is being justified not in the name of Christ and Orthodoxy, but European enlightenment -- which is the other great motif in this budding European empire. Peter corresponded with the philosopher genius Leibniz. Leibniz and other German philosophers advised Peter to set up museums and scientifically classify the amazing discoveries, ethnic and geographic, that his conquests were bringing. Now the Russians were bringing Enlightenment reason and science to their territories. Both these emperors were hostile to the Church; it is said that Catherine confiscated more monastic lands than the Bolsheviks; Peter used to indulge in blasphemous feasts mocking the Church, and he abolished the office of patriarch, replacing it with a German-style synod. Catherine, of course, was friendly with Voltaire and saw herself as an enlightened despot, in the true Western European style. Thus the new Russia (the name is Latin-derived) embraced Enlightenment instead of Christianity; however, as with the British empire in India, the two could also mix: Christianity could still be a way to bring the natives to civilization.

3. What aspects of Russian identity did different 19^th century thinkers emphasize?

Danilevsky developed the theory of pan-Slavism. There was something organic and special about Slavic culture, especially in its Orthodox form. The Russians were thus natural allies to the Serbs, who had also had their peaceful Slavic Orthodox culture crushed by the Ottoman Turks. Thus Russia should help the Serbs against Ottoman aggression. Danilevsky also developed the idea that there were 12 world civilizations. Each of them had its own logic and was special in its own way. Each should follow its own natural development. This was a reaction against the Hegelian idea that world history was moving upwards, becoming more complex and richer, and that the Germans were at the peak of world history. Danilevsky criticized this idea of progress as a mere code for European cultural and political domination and defended the idea that separate civilizations could progress within their own terms. In this sense, he reminds us of the pan-Asianists or pan-Turks who also were looking for different ways of being modern while retaining their specific cultural identity. Actually, the idea of pan-"ism" itself started as a European idea, so in reacting against the Europeans these "nativists" were sort of copying Europeans. Also, Danilevsky's own philosophy was highly imperialistic.

Konstantin Leontiev was another thinker who thought about what Russia's role was. His solution was deeply anti-modern -- although such "radical" conservatism is, in its own way, also modern. He believed that Slavic identity was too narrow for Russia. He preferred to see Byzantium as the key to Russian identity. The Westernizers (Chaadaev and others below) saw Byzantium as the epitome of backwardness. To this day, in English and Western languages Byzantium is a symbol of needless complexity, bureaucracy and degeneration. But this is precisely what Leontiev liked. He pointed out that Byzantium was multiethnic: Greeks, Bulgarians, Russians, Armenians, Syrians, Romans etc were all part of the Byzantine empire. The Byzantines had a highly developed ritual; life was immersed in religion at every turn. This was for Leontiev a beautiful and all-encompassing way of divine being that had been lost by modernity. Modernity thought only of the individual; it was atomistic. People had lost touch with the divine; mass vulgar democracy and money ruled. Byzantine autocracy and unmoving conservatism was "the way forward". Thus Russia should be autocratic and Orthodox. However, oddly enough, unlike Danilevsky, he was not anti-Muslim or anti-Turk. He thought the Ottomans had inherited some of this conservative Byzantine spirit, and thus a Russian-Ottoman conservative cultural alliance against the decadent democratic-liberal West was a real possibility. In a way, he outlined a possible Russian identity that was possibly wide enough for non-Christian Russian subjects to be a part of -- in a very paradoxical way, of course.

Chernishevsky believed that Western ideals in Russia would take the form of communitarianism. He seems to look to the French socialist model of the phalanstere, the worker's commune. He also seems to inject into his vision the Germanic idea of Peter the Great concerning devoted service to the state. And as commentators have pointed out, his novel "What is to be done?" shows Russian socialists as displaying a distinctly monastic ideal: the hero fasts, deprives himself of sleep and works tirelessly to the "bright future" of equality and rights for the workers. Lavrov is filled with a similar spirit: he believes the masses (a sort of Western democratic approach) are the key to Russia's future. The intellectuals live off the sweat of the masses and owe a duty to enlighten them (echoes of Western liberalism). Out of his ideas comes Populsim (narodnichestvo), the idea of хождение в народ , "going out to the people" in order to bring enlightenment. Herzen also believes in socialism and revolution, absorbing the radical socialist ideas of Western thinkers of the time.

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