The Original Slavophiles

The Roots of an Abiding Debate

In many ways, the upbringing of the brothers Ivan and Peter Kireyevsky was typical for children of the Russian nobility during the early 19th century, but since they were both born with exceptional abilities and grew up among people for whom poetry, philosophy and history were as essential as oxygen, the boys received a truly remarkable education.

Like most young nobles, the brothers were fluent in French, but they also spoke many other languages, both modern and ancient. They spent most of their time reading and thinking, and few saw anything unusual in this.

The brilliantly educated young men could have chosen any of a number of prestigious careers in the Foreign Ministry, where they undoubtedly would have held top positions, perhaps becoming ambassadors or ministers. But they chose another path.

Peter and Ivan Kireyevsky – who were fluent in the languages of Europe, who read the German poets and philosophers in the original, who had made Western Europe their second home – gradually began to turn their backs on the West and focus their attention on Russian culture. Peter Kireyevsky devoted many years to the study of Russian folklore. He collected, published, and researched thousands of folk songs and tales. Ivan Kireyevsky went even further and attempted a philosophical study of Russian history.

In some ways, this behavior was rather odd for an educated young noble in 19th century Russia. For many, French was their first language. Travels through Europe – sometimes lasting years – often formed the core of the privileged young Russian’s education. French novels, English poetry and German philosophy were standard fare, more familiar (and in many ways less “foreign”) than anything written in their “native” language. But, at the same time, by the middle of the 19th century, many Russian intellectuals were beginning to ask themselves questions they had not previously contemplated: Who are we? How did our country arise? What can our history tell us about ourselves?

It is worth noting that such questions were also being raised by young people in Germany, Italy, and France. It may be that the Kireyevsky brothers, like many of their friends, began to ponder Russian history and culture after reading German and French books. But, before long, their thinking began to follow an independent course. Indeed, they began to question whether the roots of Russian culture had anything to do with Western Europe.

For more than a century – since Peter the Great’s reforms – the Russian nobility had not questioned the idea that Russia was a part of Europe. They followed European fashions, ate European food, spoke French and adopted the dances of France and England. They were clothed by French tailors; French tutors educated their children. If life in their native land differed in any way from life in Paris, London, or Vienna, this was the fault of backwardness and ignorance, which were being gradually eradicated.

But the Kireyevsky brothers and their generation had a different view of the world. Ivan Kireyevsky had taken up a career in literature and social activism by launching a journal called The European. Within a few years, however, he ceased to see himself as a European. After lengthy contemplation of Russian history, he came to the conclusion that his country had followed a completely different course of development than the countries of the West. It was works by Kireyevsky that first formulated the ideas that have since permeated generations of novels, articles, poems and philosophical investigations. Some embraced these ideas with rapture and enthusiasm, others reacted with indignation and revulsion. But no one was able to ignore them.

Just what were the ideas that Ivan Kireyevsky had come up with – this former “European” who, along with many like-minded compatriots, would come to be called a “Slavophile”? His theory was that there had always been and would always be an insurmountable difference between the West and Russia. For him, Western Europe was the embodiment of rationalism. There, one found a clearly conceived and organized government; there, the principle of a division of powers held sway; there, reason reigned supreme.

Russia, on the other hand, was not reason, but soul. The well-defined criteria and laws of the West were not suitable here; Orthodoxy was a far more mystical form of Christianity than Catholicism, to say nothing of Protestantism. Just as it would be futile to compel reason and soul to understand one another, any effort to try to turn Russia into Western Europe would prove fruitless. For the Slavophiles, Peter the Great, who had been worshiped by generations of Russians, was the man who had driven a wedge between the layers of Russian society. In forcing the nobility to live, think, dress, and divert themselves in a manner that was foreign to the simple folk, in covering the culture of the landowning class with a European veneer, he had cut the nobles off from the roots of their native culture.

A former atheist who had even refused to wear a cross, Ivan Kireyevsky gradually came to embrace religion. It is interesting, however, that his return to Orthodoxy was a result of Western influences. He later recounted how he had read the works of German philosopher Friedrich Schelling with his wife. Whenever Ivan expressed delight at Schelling’s ideas, his wife would point him to similar passages in the works of Russian religious writers. In the end, Kireyevsky became deeply religious, developing close relationships with the Elders of the Optina Wilderness Monastery, one of the most revered in Russia. The one-time rationalist and skeptic, whose blasphemy had once shocked his wife, now prayed, spent long hours in discussion with monks, and wrote philosophical works in which he attempted to grasp what God had foreordained for Russia.

Ivan Kireyevsky died in June 1856. Had he lived a few more years, he would have seen the liberation of the serfs and beginnings of a sharp turn in the course of Russian history, one that brought about changes no less radical than those introduced by Peter the Great. Kireyevsky asked to be buried at the Optina Wilderness Monastery, a place that he considered central to Orthodoxy and to all of Russian life.

While they lived, Ivan Kireyevsky and his fellow Slavophiles appeared to be but a small group of intellectuals immersed in the past. However, over the ensuing 150 years, with every turn in the course of Russian history, people have been drawn back to the same questions. No one has yet found an answer to the mysteries of Russian history. And the question about the nature of Russia – whether it is part of the West or a unique civilization – remains a topic of heated debate.