Pavel Fedotov is a Russian artist, academician of painting, a prominent representative of the galaxy of Russian romanticism in Russian painting, who laid the cornerstone in the creation of critical realism in Russian art.

Years of life

On June 22, 1815, another child was born into the family of retired military man Andrei Illarionovich Fedotov and Natalya Alekseevna Kalashnikova, who came from a merchant environment. At baptism he was given the name Paul.

When the boy turned 11 years old, he was sent to boarding school in the Moscow Cadet Corps. Good abilities and exemplary behavior distinguished Paul favorably among his superiors and contributed to his advancement on the military path. He graduated from the course with honors and the rank of sergeant major.

Despite his excellent academic performance, Fedotov was not attracted to a military career, and he devoted all his free time to his favorite pastime - drawing. After being sent to serve in St. Petersburg in the Life Guards of the Finnish Regiment, Fedotov had the opportunity to attend drawing classes in the evenings.

In addition to military sciences, he very diligently studied the anatomical structure of the human body and learned to work with plaster models. Pencil and watercolor drawings with scenes of military life, which were written by Fedotov, were recognizable and realistic. Quite often I came across cartoonish drawings.

After 10 years of service, Pavel Andreevich Fedotov decided to retire and devote his life entirely to painting. This decision put his already not at all luxurious life in a difficult situation. His meager pension was clearly not enough and he lived in very cramped conditions. But this did not stop him from continuing to strive for his dream - to become a serious artist.

Krylov’s advice to take up genre painting helped him decide on a genre, and it was right. Already the first serious oil painting, “Fresh Cavalier,” received praise from contemporaries, including artists. Inspired by success, Fedotov devotes himself completely to work. Soon the paintings “The Picky Bride” and “Major’s Matchmaking” appeared, which were also enthusiastically received.

These works brought not only fame, but also the title of academician of painting, which allowed him to receive financial assistance from the state. This was a great help. Our contemporaries can see all three paintings by the artist in. Ups and downs Luck is a capricious lady, as is social recognition. Fedotov did not have time to fully enjoy his triumph when he became indirectly involved in the Petrashevites’ case.

P. Fedotov heartina Major's matchmaking photo

The state machine turned its flywheels and the artist Fedotov became unreliable, and therefore his new works were not in demand. No new orders were expected either. Cheerful, optimistic by nature, sociable, Fedotov turned into a closed, bilious, pessimistic person. The moral change had a hard impact on his physical condition - Pavel Andreevich was increasingly overcome by attacks of madness.

The rather expensive treatment did not help, for which even the sovereign allocated 500 rubles from his personal funds. It was too late and on November 14, 1852, Pavel Andreevich Fedotov died at the age of only 37 years from an acute mental disorder. He was buried at the Smolensk cemetery almost secretly, because the censorship committee issued a ban on publication of his death. Already in 1936, his ashes were reburied in the necropolis of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra and a new monument was erected.

Paintings by artist Fedotov

Fedotov's paintings are genre scenes from everyday life. They are juicy, bright with a very memorable plot and characters. The reality, earthiness, and artlessness of the plot in no way detracts or makes them boring, but, on the contrary, there is a desire to look again. The artist skillfully uses the technique of center and backdrop, main and secondary. In all his paintings the main bright spot is in the center of the picture.

P. Fedotov painting The Picky Bride photo

You catch your eye on it, it attracts attention. Only then does the gaze move to the background, where each character or object is interesting and important. Not a single painting by Fedotov contains unnecessary details for decoration - everything is strictly and clearly in accordance with the plot, and, nevertheless, they are all interesting and each carries a certain semantic load.

Here, for example, is the painting “The Major’s Matchmaking.” The central place is the girl’s snow-white, airy, lace dress. Her shyness evokes sympathy and pity. Or maybe this is an ordinary pretense that a domestic cat feels, which on the sly managed to steal a tidbit of something and is now licking itself contentedly?

Place of Birth

A place of death

Beacon, New York, USA

Burial place

New York, Orthodox Cemetery

Education

Faculty of History and Philology, St. Petersburg University (1913)

Years of work at the university

University career stages

Life milestones, career outside university

F.’s first place of work can be considered the commercial school of M.A. Shidlovskaya, where he became a history teacher in 1913 after returning from a business trip abroad. Simultaneously with teaching during the years of his leaving the department of general history (1913–1916), he, like many historians of that time, took part in the compilation of the “New Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron” (published from 1911 to 1916), the department of the Middle Ages in which was headed by his scientific supervisor I.M. Graves. In particular, he wrote the articles “Gregory of Tours”, “Lives of the Saints” (part I: “Lives of Saints in the West”), “Carolingian Revival”. At the end of 1916, simultaneously with his enrollment as a private assistant professor at the university, F. was hired as a volunteer in the Historical Department of the Public Library (PB); in the spring of 1917 he began to receive remuneration for his service, and in May 1918 he was hired as an assistant to the head of the reading room. In 1919, he also managed to work in the Art Department of the PB. In addition, in the fall of 1918 he was elected by competition as a teacher at the Petrograd Polytechnic Institute (to teach in the spring semester of 1919). In the summer of 1920, having resigned from the PB (but still enrolled at the university), F. moved to Saratov, where he served as a professor at the Faculty of History and Philology (later the Faculty of Social Sciences) of Saratov University from 1920 to 1922. Upon his return to Petrograd for three years continues to be enrolled at the university, works as a translator in private publishing houses; and in 1925, under the pretext of a scientific trip (to Germany), he emigrated from Russia. F.'s first place of work during the years of emigration was the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris (Institute de théologie orthodoxe Saint-Serge, founded in 1925), where he taught courses on the history of the Western Church, hagiology and Latin during the period 1926 to 1940. Soon after the occupation of France by the Germans, F. moved to the USA, where he was first a visiting researcher at the Theological Seminary at Yale University (1941–1943; at this time he lived in New Haven), and then (from 1944 until the end of his life ) professor at Saint Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, founded in 1938, Crestwood, New York.

Social activity

F.'s interest in social and socio-political activities arose during his years of study at the 1st Voronezh Gymnasium, in the last classes of which he became interested in Marxism and became close to local Social Democratic circles. These youthful sympathies largely influenced his initial choice of life path. Realizing his own inclination towards the humanities, he, at the same time, decided to enter the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology and subsequently connect his career with industrial production - precisely in order to be closer to representatives of the working class. Having returned from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1905 (due to the cessation of studies at universities), he now behaves as an active member of the local Social Democratic organization, participates in rallies, and conducts propaganda work in workers’ circles. This activity soon leads him to his first arrest (08.1905), and then to the second arrest (07.1906), after which F. (by that time elected to the Saratov city committee of the RSDLP) was sentenced to exile to Arkhangelsk, which was later replaced by deportation to Germany. However, even there he did not stop his political activities and took an active part in illegal meetings of Social Democrats in Berlin, as a result of which he was expelled - this time from Prussia (he moved to Jena, where he eventually became interested in medieval studies). F.'s political activity did not stop with his return to Russia and admission to St. Petersburg University (1908). Until 1910, he continued to be actively involved in party work and revolutionary agitation, and maintained contact with Saratov Social Democrats. This becomes the reason for his flight to Italy (from arrest) in 1910, and later for a year-long exile in Riga (1912–1913). The gradual departure from Marxism in F.’s life began during the period of his master’s preparation and was especially clearly manifested with his entry into the service of the PB (1916), where he met the famous Church historian and theologian A.V. Kartashev and A.A. Meyer, founder of the religious and philosophical circle “Resurrection” (1917–1928). Joining this circle and participating in the publication of its official publication - the magazine "Free Voices" - marked for him the beginning of a religious search (the result of which was ultimately his churching), and in scientific terms led to a gradual reorientation of his interests from the history of the European Middle Ages to the history of Rus' and Russia. With the publication of the essay “The Face of Russia” in the magazine “Free Voices” (1918), F.’s journalistic activity began. Participation in the activities of the “Resurrection” circle (with a break during his departure to Saratov) continued until his emigration in 1925. Once in exile, F. became even more close to various religious and religious-philosophical circles and associations. While living in France, he met N.A. Berdyaev, gets closer to I.I. Fondaminsky (Bunakov) and E.Yu. Skobtsova (Mother Maria), is involved (since 1927) in the activities of the Russian Student Christian Movement (RSHD, created in 1923) and the Orthodox Cause association. In the 1930s, F. actively participated in the ecumenical movement to bring the Orthodox and Anglican churches closer together; in 1931–1939 together with I.I. Fondaminsky and F.A. Stepun publishes the Christian Democratic magazine “Novy Grad”, at the same time collaborating with the editors of the magazines “Put”, “Versty”, “Numbers”, “Bulletin of the RSHD”, “Living Tradition”, “Orthodox Thought”, “Modern Notes”, Berdyaev’s Almanac "Circle", etc. During his stay in the USA, he also continues his social activity - he publishes in the periodicals “New Journal”, “For Freedom”, and gives public lectures at the “Society of Friends of the Theological Institute in Paris”. However, during his entire life abroad, he never joined any political group operating in the circles of Russian emigrants.

Area of ​​scientific interests, significance in science

F.’s initial scientific specialization was church history of the Middle Ages, which in many ways brought him closer to I.M.’s senior students. Grevsa, O.A. Dobiash-Rozhdestvenskaya and L.P. Karsavin. However, unlike them, he focused his attention on the early Middle Ages. At the same time, of particular interest to him were manifestations of popular religiosity and the subjective perception of religious dogmas by the ordinary population of the then Europe. And this naturally pushed him to study the phenomenon of early medieval dual faith, the processes of merging traditional pagan cults and widespread Christianity. It was these aspects of the spiritual life of the Middle Ages that his master's thesis, “The Holy Bishops of the Merovingian Age,” was to be devoted to, on the basis of individual parts of which F.’s main works on medieval issues were written. In addition, such aspects of medieval history as the everyday life of the Classical Middle Ages, the Carolingian Renaissance, the Renaissance of the 12th century (before it, practically not touched upon in Russian medievalist historiography), etc. came into his field of vision. However, finding himself in exile, despite the clearly increased opportunities for mastering medieval source material, F. breaks with his previous scientific interests and plunges headlong into studying the history of Russian culture and the Russian church. Among the most famous scientific and popular science works written by him within the framework of this new problematic, it is customary to include, first of all, the books “St. Philip, Metropolitan of Moscow” (1928) and “Saints of Ancient Rus'” (1931), in which the author reveals the theme of the “tragedy of Russian holiness” and consistently builds a scientific typology of Russian saints. A special place in F.’s work also continued to be occupied by the theme of folk religiosity - explored this time not on medieval, but on Russian material. The monograph “Spiritual Poems” (1935), written on the basis of an analysis of Russian folk songs on religious subjects, is devoted to its study. Finally, F.’s main work (and his most famous work in the West) can be called the large-scale work “Russian Religious Mind” (1946, otherwise known as “Russian Religiosity”), written in English and largely summarizing for foreign readers, the results of the author’s previous scientific research. A striking feature of this book was the anthropological approach to the study of the past developed by F., his desire to describe the “subjective side of religion,” which clearly distinguished this scientific research from the background of all the historiography of Russian spiritual culture known at that time. In addition to historical works, F. also left a significant journalistic legacy, which includes about three hundred different articles and essays devoted to current issues of politics, religion and culture.

Dissertations

Students

• Elizabeth (Elizabeth Behr-Sigel)

Major works

Letters from Bl. Augustine. (Classis prima) // To the 25th anniversary of the scientific and pedagogical activity of Ivan Mikhailovich Grevs. 1884–1909. A collection of articles by his students. St. Petersburg, 1911, pp. 107–138.
Gregory of Tours // New encyclopedic dictionary. St. Petersburg, 1913. T. 15. Stlb. 18–19.
Lives of the Saints. I. Lives of saints in the West // New encyclopedic dictionary. St. Petersburg, 1914. T. 17. Stlb. 923–926.
Carolingian Renaissance // New encyclopedic dictionary. St. Petersburg, 1914. T. 21. Stlb. 93–96.
Underground gods. (About the cult of tombs in Merovingian Gaul) // Russia and the West. Historical collections, ed. A.I. Zaozersky. Pb., 1923. T. 1. P. 11–39.
On the history of medieval cults. (Article about the book by O.A. Dobiash-Rozhdestvenskaya “The Cult of the Archangel Michael in the Latin Middle Ages”) // Annals. 1923. No. 2.S. 273–278.
Miracle of liberation // From the distant and near past: a collection of sketches from general history in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the scientific life of N.I. Kareeva. Pg.-M., 1923. P. 72–89.
Abelard. Petersburg, 1924. 158 p.
Feudal life in the chronicle of Lambert of Ardes // Medieval life. Collection of articles dedicated to Ivan Mikhailovich Grevs on the fortieth anniversary of his scientific and pedagogical activity / Ed. O.A. Dobiash-Rozhdestvenskaya, A.I. Khomentovskaya and G.P. Fedotova. L., 1925. P. 7–29.
Saint Philip, Metropolitan of Moscow. Paris, 1928. 224 p.
Saints of Ancient Rus'. (X–XVII centuries). Paris, 1931. 261 p.
Klyuchevsky’s Russia // Modern Notes. 1932. T. L. P. 340–362.
And it is, and it will be. Reflections on Russia and the revolution. Paris, 1932. 216 p.
Social significance of Christianity. Paris, 1933. 33 p.
Spiritual poems. Russian folk faith based on spiritual verses. Paris, 1935. 151 p.
Eschatology and culture // New City. 1938. No. 13. pp. 45–56.
Russia and freedom // New Journal. 1945. No. 10. pp. 109–213.
New city Digest of articles. New York, 1952. 380 pp.
The face of Russia. Articles 1918–1930 Paris, 1967. 329 p. (2nd ed. Paris, 1988).
Complete collection of articles: In 6 vols. 2nd ed. Paris, 1988.
Fate and sins of Russia: Selected articles on the philosophy of Russian history and culture: In 2 vols. / Comp., intro. Art. and approx. V.F. Boykova. St. Petersburg, 1991.
The Russian Religious Mind: Kievan Christianity/ The tenth to the thirteenth Century. Cambridge, 1946. XVI, 438 p.
A Treasury of Russian Spirituality. New York, 1948. XVI, 501 p.

Basic biobibliography

Bibliography: Bibliography of works by G.P. Fedotova (1886–1951) / Comp. E.N. Fedotova. Paris, 1951; Bibliography of works by G.P. Fedotova // Fedotov G.P. Fate and sins of Russia: Selected articles on the philosophy of Russian history and culture: In 2 vols. / Comp., intro. Art. and approx. V.F. Boykova. St. Petersburg, 1991. T. 2. pp. 338–348.
Literature: Fedotova E.N. Georgy Petrovich Fedotov (1886–1951) // Fedotov G.P. The face of Russia: Articles 1918–1930. 2nd ed. Paris, 1988. P. I–XXXIV; Mikheeva G.V. To the biography of the Russian philosopher G.P. Fedotova // Domestic archives. 1994. No. 2. pp. 100–102; Zaitseva N.V. Logic of love: Russia in the historiosophical concept of Georgy Fedotov. Samara, 2001; Kiselev A.F. Dreamland of Georgy Fedotov (reflections on Russia and the revolution). M., 2004; Galyamicheva A.A.: 1) Georgy Petrovich Fedotov: life and creative activity in exile. Saratov, 2009; 2) Publishing activity of G.P. Fedotov during the years of emigration // News of Saratov University. New episode. Series: History. International relationships. 2008. T. 8. No. 2. pp. 61–63; 3) Freedom of speech in Russian emigration: The conflict of Professor G.P. Fedotov with the board of the Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris // Bulletin of the Saratov State Socio-Economic University. 2008. No. 5 (24). pp. 131–133; Antoshchenko A.V.: 1) The concept of ancient Russian holiness G.P. Fedotova // Antoshchenko A.V. "Eurasia" or "Holy Rus'"? Russian emigrants in search of self-awareness along the paths of history. Petrozavodsk, 2003. pp. 273–348; 2) On the religious foundations of G.P.’s historiosophy. Fedotova // Makaryevsky readings. Gorno-Altaisk, 2004. pp. 216–226; 3) Tragedy of Love (G.P. Fedotov’s Path to History) // The World of a Historian. Vol. 4. Omsk, 2004. P. 50–75; 4) Student years of G.P. Fedotova // General history and history of culture. St. Petersburg, 2008. pp. 157–168; 5) Long preparations in Saratov // Historiographic collection. Vol. 23. Saratov, 2008. pp. 72–82; 6) “When you love, then you understand everything” (preface to the publication) // Dialogue with time. Vol. 37. M., 2011. pp. 297–308; 7) The importance of materials from Russian archives and libraries for studying the biography of G.P. Fedotova // Scientific notes of Petrozavodsk State University. 2012. T. 2. No. 7. pp. 7–12; 8) Years of master's training by G.P. Fedotova // Scientific notes of Petrozavodsk State University. Social and human sciences. 2014. No. 138(1). pp. 7–11; 9) G.P. Fedotov: years of master’s training // Middle Ages. 2014. Vol. 75(1–2). pp. 310–335; 10) Georgy Petrovich Fedotov: recent years in Soviet Russia // Russian intelligentsia in the context of civilizational challenges: Collection of articles. Cheboksary, 2014. pp. 22–26; 11) Conflict between G.P. Fedotov and the board of the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris (1939) // Bulletin of the Russian Christian Humanitarian Academy. 2014. T. 15. Issue. 1. pp. 210–214; 12) G.P. Fedotov in search of an academic career in the USA // World of History. Vol. 9. Omsk, 2014. pp. 201–223; Gumerova Zh.A.: 1) The ideal of holiness in Rus' by G.P. Fedotova // Bulletin of Tomsk State University. 2005. No. 289. pp. 32–38; 2) The problem of Russian national consciousness in the works of G.P. Fedotova. Diss. for the job application uch. Art. Ph.D. Tomsk, 2008; 3) Cultural and historical views of G.P. Fedotova // Bulletin of Tomsk State University. 2013. No. 368. pp. 72–75; Wolftsun L.B. Public Library Medievalists (1920s–1940s): Historical and Biographical Studies. Diss. for the job application uch. Art. Ph.D. St. Petersburg, 2003; Sveshnikov A.V. St. Petersburg school of medievalists of the early 20th century. An attempt at an anthropological analysis of the scientific community. Omsk, 2010. pp. 155–163; Russian abroad. Golden Book of Emigration. First third of the 20th century. Encyclopedic biographical dictionary. M., 1997. pp. 647–650.

Archive, personal funds

Central State Historical Archive St. Petersburg, F. 14. Op. 1. D. 10765 (Fedotov G.P. On leaving him at the University in the Department of World History)
Central State Historical Archive St. Petersburg, F. 14. Op. 3. D. 47244 (Georgy Petrovich Fedotov)
Central State Historical Archive St. Petersburg, F. 492. Op. 2. D. 8044 (On accepting Georgy Fedotov as a 1st year student at the Institute)
Archive of the Russian National Library, F. 1. Op. 1. 1911, No. 197; 1916, No. 113; 1918, No. 129
Archive of the Russian National Library, F. 2. Op. 1. 1917, No. 1, 132; 1919, No. 17
Bakhmeteff Archive. Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Columbia University. BAR Ms Coll/Fedotov (Georgii Petrovich Fedotov Papers, ca. 1907–1957).

Compilers and editors

I.P.Potekhina

Network biographical dictionary of historians of St. Petersburg University in the 18th-20th centuries. SPb., 2012-.
Ed. board: prof. A.Yu. Dvornichenko (project manager, chief editor), prof. R.Sh. Ganelin, associate professor T.N. Zhukovskaya, associate professor E.A. Rostovtsev /responsible ed./, Assoc. I.L. Tikhonov.
Team of authors: A.A. Amosova, V.V. Andreeva, D.A. Barinov, A.Yu. Dvornichenko, T.N. Zhukovskaya, I.P. Potekhina, E.A. Rostovtsev, I.V. Sidorchuk, A.V. Sirenova, D.A. Sosnitsky, I.L. Tikhonov, A.K. Shaginyan and others.

Online biographical dictionary of professors and teachers of St. Petersburg University (1819-1917). SPb., 2012-.
Ed. Board: Prof. R.Sh. Ganelin (project manager), prof. A.Yu. Dvornichenko /rep. ed/, associate professor T.N. Zhukovskaya, associate professor E.A. Rostovtsev /responsible ed./, Assoc. I.L. Tikhonov. Team of authors: A.A. Amosova, V.V. Andreeva, D.A. Barinov, Yu.I. Basilov, A.B. Bogomolov, A.Yu. Dvornichenko, T.N. Zhukovskaya, A.L. Korzinin, E.E. Kudryavtseva, S.S. Migunov, I.A. Polyakov, I.P. Potekhina, E.A. Rostovtsev, A.A. Rubtsov, I.V. Sidorchuk, A.V. Sirenova, D.A. Sosnitsky, I.L. Tikhonov, A.K. Shaginyan, V.O. Shishov, N. A. Sheremetov and others.

St. Petersburg historical school (XVIII - early XX centuries): information resource. SPb., 2016-.
Ed. board: T.N. Zhukovskaya, A.Yu. Dvornichenko (project manager, executive editor), E.A. Rostovtsev (chief editor), I.L. Tikhonov
Team of authors: D.A. Barinov, A.Yu. Dvornichenko, T.N. Zhukovskaya, I.P. Potekhina, E.A. Rostovtsev, I.V. Sidorchuk, D.A. Sosnitsky, I.L. Tikhonov and others.

FEDOTOV Georgy Petrovich
(1886-1951), Russian historian, philosopher, publicist. Born October 1, 1886 in Saratov. In the biography and spiritual evolution of Fedotov there is a lot that is characteristic of the destinies of many Russian intellectuals at the beginning of the century. The provincial life of a poor noble family (Saratov, then Voronezh), the passion for Marxism experienced already in the gymnasium years, participation in the Social Democratic movement in 1904-1910, arrests, exile, life in exile. Later, however, Fedotov moved away from revolutionary activities. The range of his scientific interests is finally determined - medieval history (he graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University in 1912, where he was a student of the famous medievalist I.M. Grevs). In 1917-1924, Fedotov taught the history of the Middle Ages at Saratov University, worked as a translator in private publishing houses in Petrograd, and participated in the activities of a religious and philosophical circle. Since 1925 in exile (Berlin, then Paris). In 1926-1940 - professor at the Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris. In 1931-1939 he edited the magazine "Novy Grad". Soon after the occupation of France by the Nazis, he emigrated to the United States. From 1943 he was a professor at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Seminary in New York, and devoted a lot of energy to journalism (primarily in the New Journal). While still in Russia, Fedotov published a number of studies on the European Middle Ages: “Letters” of St. Augustine (1911), Gods of the Underground (1923), Abelard (1924), Feudal life in the chronicle of Lambert of Ardes (1925). The focus of Fedotov’s historical and cultural research in emigration is predominantly the spiritual culture of medieval Rus': St. Philip Metropolitan of Moscow (1928), Saints of Ancient Rus' (1931), Spiritual Poems (1935), Russian religious consciousness: Christianity in Kievan Rus, 1946). Philosophical essays (more than 300 articles) occupy a significant place in Fedotov’s creative heritage. Fedotov’s philosophy of history and culture had religious and metaphysical foundations: he strove to follow the principles of Christian historiosophy. Without accepting the extremes of anthropocentric humanism, he at the same time critically assessed radical theocentrism (in particular, he criticized the “theocentric theology” of C. Barth). In general, Fedotov positively accepted the doctrine of “God-manhood” by Vl.S. Solovyov, seeing in this concept, as in the philosophy of “common cause” by N.F. Fedorov, an experience of Christian justification of the cultural and historical creativity of man. Fedotov consistently refused to see in Christian eschatology only an indication of the inevitability of the end, which denies the tradition of the earthly, “common cause” of many generations in building the world of culture. Defending in his works the enduring, absolute significance of cultural values, he believed that this significance persists even in an eschatological perspective. In his metaphysics of history, Fedotov was a fundamental critic of the ideology of historical determinism in its various variants: rationalistic-pantheistic (“Hegelianism”), historical materialism (“absolutization of inert, material forces”) and religious-providential (“pressure of the Divine will”). Christian historiosophy, according to Fedotov, recognizes history as a tragic mystery, the only main character of which is a person, whose every action and every choice is historical. With this view of history, it cannot be reduced to a series of even the most epochal historical events and explained by a certain “logic” of historical development. For Fedotov, the idea of ​​deterministic progress - by universal laws or, in its religious version, by the will of Providence - as well as for many of his predecessors in Russian thought (from the Slavophiles to F.M. Dostoevsky and Vl.S. Solovyov), was unacceptable primarily because moral grounds, as ignoring or even excluding the importance of freedom of moral choice of the individual. Tradition, which preserves the unity of history, is constantly threatened by social catastrophes, primarily wars and revolutions. Fedotov did not share the view of J. de Maistre and N.A. Berdyaev on the revolution as “God’s judgment on the peoples.” He was not inclined to see revolutionary upheavals as a necessary condition for social progress. For him, a revolution is always a break in tradition, which results in innumerable human casualties and the danger of social and cultural degradation. “There are not so many great revolutions in modern history. In essence, the Russian revolution stands third in a row - after England and France... Every “great” revolution, that is, distinguished by the cruelty of class struggle, ends in personal tyranny.” Revolutionary “greatness” also has to be paid for through the hard work of subsequent generations, forced to continue the work of cultural construction on the revolutionary ashes. Fedotov saw the idealization of the revolution, the creation of a revolutionary myth, as a most dangerous ideological temptation. Without denying the moral content of the slogans of the French Revolution, in which, according to him, both “the forces of good and satanic forces” were at work, he was convinced that the latter prevailed in it, which resulted in incredible terror, “a century of unrest,” “a broken spirit "of the people, the decline of moral and cultural life. In his criticism of revolutionary myth-making, Fedotov did not make an exception for the more peaceful experience of the English revolution. Throughout his life, his conviction remained unchanged that the tragedy of October 1917 was not the result of random factors and had deep roots in Russian history. At the same time, Fedotov did not share the point of view that the Bolshevik revolution was the inevitable, fatal outcome of this story (in particular, he did not agree with N.A. Berdyaev on this issue). “Without sharing the doctrine of historical determinism, we admit the possibility of choosing between different options for the historical path of peoples.” In history, according to Fedotov, “freedom reigns,” this is a living, continuous process of historical creativity, in which there is no place for mechanical automatism, the fatal predetermination of events. Answering the question whether the revolution of October 1917 was inevitable, Fedotov argued: “Not everything in Russian political life was rotten and doomed. The forces of revival fought all the time with a pathogenic poison. The fate of Russia hung on the tip until the very end - like the fate of any living person.” . Fedotov reacted sharply to crisis trends in the development of European society in the 20th century; already in the 1920s he wrote about the danger of fascism and the inevitability of a military catastrophe. At the same time, in his assessments of the prospects for human development, he equally rejected both various forms of utopian projectism and historical pessimism, the idea of ​​​​the “decline” of Western civilization. In one of his last works (Christian Tragedy, 1950), he wrote about the creative role of Christianity in the history of European and Russian culture. Among truly Christian artists, he named Dostoevsky first of all. Fedotov died in Bacon (New Jersey, USA) on September 1, 1951.
LITERATURE
Fedotov G.P. And it is, and it will be. Reflections on Russia and the revolution. Paris, 1932 Karpovich M.M. G.P.Fedotov. - New Journal, 1951, No. 27 Fedotov G.P. Christianity in the Revolution. Paris, 1957 Stepun F.A. G.P.Fedotov. - New Journal, 1957, No. 49 Fedotov G.P. The face of Russia. Paris, 1967 Fedotov G.P. Russia and freedom. New York, 1981 Fedotov G.P. Litigation about Russia. Paris, 1982 Fedotov G.P. Defense of Russia. Paris, 1988 Serbinenko V.V. Justification of culture. Creative choice of G.P. Fedotov. - Questions of Philosophy, 1991, No. 8 Fedotov G.P. The fate and sins of Russia. St. Petersburg, 1991-1992

Collier's Encyclopedia. - Open Society. 2000 .

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Fedotov, Georgy Petrovich- Georgy Petrovich FEDOTOV (1886 1951), Russian religious thinker, historian and publicist. Since 1925 abroad. One of the founders of the magazine “New City” (1931-39). In studies and numerous essays, he analyzes the uniqueness of Russian culture and... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

- (1886 1951), religious thinker, historian and publicist. Since 1925 abroad, professor at the Russian Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris (until 1940), St. Vladimir's Theological Academy in New York. One of the founders of the magazine “New City”... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Philosopher, historian, publicist. Genus. in Saratov, in the family of the manager of the office of the Saratov governor. After graduating from the Saratov gymnasium, he entered St. Petersburg. technol. int, continued his education in history. Philol. f those Petersburg... Large biographical encyclopedia

Georgy Petrovich Fedotov (October 1(13), 1886, Saratov, Russian Empire September 1, 1951, Bacon (New Jersey, USA)) Russian religious thinker, historian and publicist. Born in Saratov in the family of an official who served under ... ... Wikipedia

FEDOTOV Georgy Petrovich Russian Philosophy. Encyclopedia

FEDOTOV Georgy Petrovich- (1886 1951) Russian. religious philosopher, cultural historian, publicist. He emigrated in 1925. One of the founders of the magazine. “New City” (Paris, 1931 1939), in which Christ developed the ideas of humanism. as opposed to "mechanical" progress, indifferent to man and his... ... Atheist Dictionary

FEDOTOV Georgy Petrovich- (10/13/1886, Saratov 09/1/1951, Bacon, New Jersey, USA) philosopher, historian, publicist. He studied at the Technological Institute in St. Petersburg (from which he was expelled and sent abroad for participation in the SD movement); returning to his homeland in 1908,... ... Russian philosophy: dictionary

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Books

• Saints of Ancient Rus', Georgy Petrovich Fedotov, The book offered to the reader by the Moscow Worker publishing house has never been published in the Soviet Union. This is a very serious scientific study dedicated to ancient Russian lives... Category: Art history and theory Publisher: Moskovsky Rabochiy, Manufacturer:

M. V. Pechnikov

The name of Georgy Petrovich Fedotov (1886, Saratov - 1951, Bacon, New Jersey, USA) cannot currently be called forgotten. Died in a foreign land, towards the end of the 20th century. He received recognition in his homeland as an outstanding publicist, philosopher of history and culture. Meanwhile, Fedotov was a historian by primary education, teaching activity and scientific interests (1). A professional researcher of the past is visible in all of Fedotov’s works. His journalism is characterized by a sober, deep look into the past, the balance of every word, a good knowledge of historical sources behind every thought (2). Of the actual historical works, his book “Saints of Ancient Rus'” is best known, in which, with great scientific and artistic skill, the result of the author’s work on the lives of Russian medieval saints is summarized. The purpose of this article is to determine the place of G. P. Fedotov in historiography, to identify the specific contribution of this researcher to historical science (3).

In the formation of G.P. Fedotov - a scientist and thinker - several stages can be distinguished (4). The first is associated with a passion for Marxism in his early youth, underground activities and studies at the mechanical department of the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology (realizing his inclination towards the humanities, he nevertheless decided to associate himself with industrial production in order to be closer to the working class). The second. The stage began in 1906, when, having been exiled abroad for two years for revolutionary activities, he began attending classes in history and philosophy at the universities of Berlin and Jena. Upon returning to Russia in 1908, Fedotov became a student at the Faculty of History and Philology at St. Petersburg University, where he specialized in the study of the Western Middle Ages under the guidance of prof. I. M. Grevs. The Grevs school played a significant role in the development of Russian medieval studies, cultural studies and religious studies. Among his students were such prominent scientists as L. P. Karsavin, O. A. Dobiash-Rozhdestvenskaya, S. S. Bezobrazov (future Bishop Cassian) and others. By 1917, Fedotov finally abandoned revolutionary activities (while maintaining his commitment to socialist beliefs), receives a privat-docenture at the university.

The third stage is associated with conversion to Orthodoxy and churching (1917-1920). It falls during the years of work at the Imperial Public Library (now the Russian National Library), where Fedotov experienced the influence of the outstanding Church historian A.V. Kartashev, who served there (5), which may have become decisive for his development as a Russian historian. There he met the religious philosopher A. A. Meyer and in revolutionary Petrograd began attending meetings of his “Resurrection” circle. In 1918, with the publication of the essay “The Face of Russia” in the magazine “Free Voices” published by the circle, Fedotov’s journalistic activity began.

It should also be noted that the formation of Fedotov’s personality took place during the Silver Age - the era of the great flourishing of Russian artistic culture, from which Fedotov, who was fond of the Symbolists and Acmeists, forever retained a brilliant literary style; In terms of the brightness and aphorism of his presentation, among Russian historians he can be compared, perhaps, only with V. O. Klyuchevsky. The first third of the century is also the era of the religious-philosophical renaissance. Fedotov was a contemporary of N.A. Berdyaev, S.N. Bulgakov, S.L. Frank and other outstanding thinkers, with some of whom he became close friends in subsequent years. Like many of them, Fedotov went through a complex evolution from Marxism to Orthodoxy. The originality of his spiritual and creative path was that from the 1920s. quite organically, which is so characteristic of his personality, he combined in himself a scientist-historian, an Orthodox philosopher and a journalist of the left, Christian-socialist, persuasion (unlike L.P. Karsavin, who moved from historical science first to religious philosophy and cultural studies, and then to theology and poetry).

In 1920, the young historian became a professor at Saratov University, but could not come to terms with the emerging ideological pressure on science and teaching. Returning to Petrograd, he published several articles on the Western European Middle Ages and a monograph on Abelard (1924). Fedotov was destined to write his main works - both scientific and journalistic - in exile. Forced to leave his homeland in 1925, Fedotov became a teacher of the history of the Western Church, Latin language and hagiology at the Orthodox Theological Institute of St. Sergius of Radonezh in Paris. Here he soon became known as a publicist, church and public figure. The famous Parisian publishing house YMCA-Press published his historical studies “St. Philip, Metropolitan of Moscow” (1928), “Saints of Ancient Rus'” (1931), “Spiritual Poems” (1935). In 1941, he and his family moved from Nazi-occupied Paris, first to the south of France, and then, after making a long and risky voyage across the Atlantic, to America. In the USA, he first became a school teacher at Yale University, and then a professor at New York's St. Vladimir's Theological Seminary (Academy). Until the end of his days, he continued to work on his life’s work, “The Russian Religious Mind,” which remained unfinished due to the researcher’s premature death.

To understand Fedotov’s place in historiography, one should first of all take into account the problems and methodology of Russian historical works before the 10s. XX century, when he entered science. Fedotov, like all Russian historians of the first third of the 20th century who developed problems of Russian history, was the heir (although not a direct student) of V. O. Klyuchevsky. Klyuchevsky was preceded in Russian historiography by Hegelian historians (the public school of S. M. Solovyov and others, and the historical and legal school of V. I. Sergeevich). They were interested in problems of state and law, foreign policy, the activities of outstanding state builders and the functioning of state institutions. The attention of Klyuchevsky, who worked during the heyday of positivism, was attracted primarily by social problems, the theme of the people, social groups and classes, as well as the economy and everyday way of life. He also showed interest in religious and biographical issues (a book about Russian lives, an article about St. Sergius of Radonezh, portraits of Russian historical figures, etc.). But in his generalizing work “The Course of Russian History,” Klyuchevsky, as Fedotov noted, allowed a conscious “exclusion of all spiritual culture in the pursuit of a complete explanation of the process” (6). Fedotov explained this by the “spirit of the times,” which demanded that historical science identify the laws of social development and assigned a subordinate role to spiritual culture. Even at the beginning of the 20th century. its individual problems were developed not by secular historians, but by Church historians, philologists, and art historians. “Until now,” Fedotov wrote in 1932, “no one has tried to take into account the huge accumulated material of special research to pose general problems of spiritual culture... Russian historiography remained remains, of course, the greatest “materialist” in the Clio family” (7). This opinion is not entirely fair and is a journalistic exaggeration (one can recall at least P. N. Milyukov’s “Essays on Russian Culture”), but in general, pre-revolutionary historiography developed in line with the trend that was noted by the thinker.

In Fedotov we see the construction of not only post-Hegelian, but also post-positivist history of Russia. Like L.P. Karsavin, who was a little older than him (born 1882) and began his scientific career earlier, he noted the central importance of culture for understanding the past, and considered religiosity to be system-forming in culture. Karsavin separated religiosity itself from faith; he considered the main thing for a historian to be understanding not what a person of the past believes in, but how he believes; he was interested in the subjective side of religion and its influence on social processes (8). Karsavin's innovative works on the history of Western religiosity in the 12th-13th centuries. and the methodologies of history (9), of course, were known to Fedotov and could not but influence the methodology of his own work. Karsavin and other representatives of the Grevs school opened a new research space, which the young historian entered with enthusiasm (10).

Since the 20s in France, the famous direction of “new historical science”, or “Annals School”, was taking shape, critical of positivism, declaring the interdisciplinarity of research (“total history”), an anthropological approach, the study of basic mental attitudes (mentality) as determining the social behavior of people of one or another another era (11). Fedotov was a contemporary of the older generation of the School, its founders M. Blok and L. Fevre; moreover, being in exile, he lived with them in the same city. It is difficult to imagine that Fedotov, teaching the history of Western confessions and Western hagiology in Paris, being a medieval historian by education and initial scientific interests, stopped tracking modern scientific literature on this issue and did not read the journal “Annals” published here in Paris. At the same time, it is impossible to say that the influence of the Annales School on Fedotov was decisive - in the 20s. he was already a fully established researcher. Thus, in his research he developed innovative trends in modern historical science and was “at the forefront” of updating historical knowledge.

G. P. Fedotov, as a researcher of the Russian past, is an example of a representative of the scientific school that could have appeared in Russia (at the same time, or even earlier than similar movements in the West), if Marxism had not been forcibly imposed on Russian historical science as a mandatory doctrine, and even in a peculiar interpretation of the party and state leadership. Methodologically, in historical science in the 1920s - early. 30s the vulgar sociological approach to the study of the historical process (Pokrovsky’s school) prevailed, and from the middle. 1930s There is a new transformation of the official ideology, which is reflected in historical science by the fact that a “second edition”, already outdated by the beginning of the 20th century, was added to the Marxist ideological guidelines and entered into bizarre interactions with them. “public school” (12). Many outstanding scientists and researchers of Ancient Rus' (both scientists of the old school who worked in Soviet conditions - M. D. Priselkov, S. V. Yushkov, S. B. Veselovsky, etc., and those formed after the revolution - A. N. Nasonov, L.V. Cherepnin, A.A. Zimin, Ya.S. Lurie, etc.), were forced in every possible way to bypass the ideological traps placed “from above”, focusing on source study issues. Leaning rather towards the methodology of positivism, they contributed to the accumulation of factual data related to socio-economic and political history. The spiritual life of society in the works of historians (13) received coverage only in the aspect of the history of ideological movements and journalistic polemics, while the main goal of the research was to find out the views of which social group or class this or that side expressed, and which of them were “progressive” .

The only contemporary of G. P. Fedotov who worked in the Soviet Union in the same direction as him was B. A. Romanov (1889-1957), the author of a completely atypical for Soviet science, miraculously published and persecuted monograph “People and Morals” Ancient Rus': Historical and everyday essays of the 11th-13th centuries.” (L., 1947; latest edition: M., 2002), which has not yet lost its scientific significance. Written vividly and figuratively, on many issues it intersects with the 1st volume of “Russian religiosity”, but the emphasis is on reflection legal norms in the everyday life of people of different social status. Unfortunately, Fedotov’s books published by that time could not have been known to Romanov, since his monograph was written in exile upon his return from the concentration camp; in any case, they could not have been used openly by him. Fedotov also nowhere mentions Romanov’s book published in Leningrad ( Fedotov’s work on “Kievan Christianity” was published a year before its publication).

Speaking about the methodology of G. P. Fedotov, we should highlight his programmatic article “Orthodoxy and Historical Criticism” (1932). It declares the need for a critical approach to Orthodox tradition. According to Fedotov, the problem of scientific criticism stems from the spirit of Orthodoxy. Criticism is likened to asceticism, cutting off the false, “intellectual repentance,” its task is “to liberate the pure foundation of sacred tradition from under the historical dross that has accumulated in history along with religious profit... Criticism is a sense of proportion, ascetic finding a middle path between frivolous affirmation and frivolous denial " (14). Further, the unity of the methodology of secular and church historical science, the understanding of historical criticism as source study, and the inadmissibility of fantastic constructions not based on sources, even in the name of a higher goal, are postulated. At the same time, a Christian historian must refrain from making judgments from the standpoint of common sense when assessing the events of spiritual life described in sources of supernatural phenomena (“not a single science, least of all historical, can resolve the question of the supernatural or natural character of a fact... He (historian - M.P.) does not have the right to eliminate a fact only because the fact goes beyond the boundaries of his personal or average everyday experience" (15). But declaring miracles possible does not mean recognizing legends, which the historian must be “merciless” and clear of them. church tradition. A legend has value only as a fact of the spiritual culture of a particular era. Fedotov notes historical realism and a critical approach already among ancient Russian chroniclers and hagiographers, and later among representatives of church historical science of the 19th century (E. E. Golubinsky, V. V. Bolotova, etc.), who breathed “the ascetic air of scientific criticism” (16).

By the time the article was published, Fedotov had embodied its principles in two books published abroad on Russian history. The first of them is “Saint Philip, Metropolitan of Moscow” (1928). Image of St. Philip (Kolychev) is given against the background of the era of the formation of the Muscovite kingdom and the strengthening of tyranny, the apogee of which was the oprichnina introduced by Ivan IV. The protest against the oprichnina became the cause of the violent death of the metropolitan in 1569, who became a martyr not for faith, but “for Christ’s truth, insulted by the tsar” (17). The choice of the hero of the book, of course, was not accidental. Events of the 1st third of the 20th century. in Russia and the world they dictated the perception of Russian history as a tragedy, and not as a natural and progressive movement towards a “bright future”. The book was written during the years of severe persecution of the Church in the USSR and was published the next year after the appearance in 1927 of the “Declaration” by Metropolitan. Sergius (Stragorodsky) about the Church’s loyalty to the Bolshevik government, which was ambiguously perceived by believers both within the country and abroad. This context, of course, gave Fedotov’s work a special sound that was not felt by all modern readers. Another “dimension” of the book is historiographical. Fedotov, on the one hand, takes into account all the achievements of specialists in the study of the 16th century, and on the other hand, he strongly opposes the emerging trend in post-revolutionary science (the works of R. Yu. Vipper, M. N. Pokrovsky, etc.) towards the rehabilitation of Ivan the Terrible and the justification Oprichnaya terror is a state necessity. Fedotov, relying on the authoritative and well-founded opinion of Klyuchevsky and Platonov, points out that the oprichnina did not strengthen, but ruined the state. But the main thing is that no state considerations can justify blatant immorality, cruelty and injustice: “St. Philip gave his life in the fight against this very state, in the person of the tsar, showing that it too must submit to the highest principle of life” (18). At the end of the 20s, during the era of the pan-European fashion for totalitarianism, which also embraced part of the Russian emigration, the historian’s opinion sounded “out of date,” but truly prophetic.

In the book about St. Philip Fedotov outlined the theme of the “tragedy of Russian holiness,” which was brilliantly revealed in his next, most famous work, “Saints of Ancient Rus'” (1931), which is still perceived as an exemplary study of the spiritual life of the pre-Petrine period (19). In the “Introduction” to the book, the historian notes that “the task of studying Russian holiness, as a special tradition of spiritual life, was not even set. This was prevented by the prejudice... of uniformity, the immutability of spiritual life. For some, this is a canon, a patristic norm; for others, it is a stencil that deprives the topic of holiness of scientific interest” (20).

The book about the saints was conceived and written as a popular science book, but its scientific significance is undeniable. For the first time, Fedotov applied the methods of historical anthropology to the study of Russian hagiographic literature. The researcher is interested in saints as unique personalities (as a rule, barely distinguishable behind hagiographic cliches), people who, despite the commonality of their faith, had different types of religious consciousness. Fedotov is the actual creator of the scientific typology of Russian holiness. It is also worth noting the historian’s repeated use of the comparative historical method: “knowledge of the hagiography of the entire Christian world, primarily the Orthodox, Greek and Slavic East, is necessary in order to have the right to judge the special Russian character of holiness” (21).
The researcher notes the difficulty of a historian using the material itself - Russian hagiographies: “The personal in a hagiography, as in an icon, is given in subtle features, in shades: this is the art of nuances... The law of hagiographic style... requires the subordination of the particular to the general, the dissolution of the human face in the heavenly glorified face" (22). However, life is different from life: “a writer-artist or a devoted disciple of a saint, who has taken up his work on his fresh grave, knows how to give a few personal features with a thin brush, sparingly but accurately. A late writer or a conscientious worker works according to “original originals,” abstaining from the personal, unstable, and unique” (23). Therefore, preliminary source study of certain lives plays such an important role. Fedotov abroad could not carry out such work, being cut off from handwritten material, but Russian philology by that time had accumulated a lot of special studies of lives as monuments of literature, on which the emigrant historian could rely. Unlike his predecessor, V. O. Klyuchevsky, who wrote the book “Ancient Russian Lives of Saints as a Historical Source” (Moscow, 1871) and came to the conclusion about the poverty of the historical content of hagiographic literature, Fedotov is not so pessimistic, since Klyuchevsky I did not look for facts of the history of spiritual life in the lives. Already the study by A.P. Kadlubovsky “Essays on the history of ancient Russian literature of the lives of saints” (Warsaw, 1902) showed the fruitfulness of studying the lives as sources for the study of the spiritual culture of the 15th-16th centuries, although in general the study of the Russian hagiographic tradition even at the beginning of the 20th century. remained “external, literary and historical, without sufficient attention to the problems of holiness as a category of spiritual life” (24). Fedotov saw the main task of his work in revealing this topic.

The undoubted achievements of G. P. Fedotov’s work include: the identification of two spiritual directions in Kiev-Pechersk monasticism - ascetic-heroic, reclusive and humble-obedient, aimed at serving society; characterization of the cult-princes-passion-bearers Boris and Gleb as a typically Russian veneration of innocent voluntary death as following the path of Christ; identifying categories of princely holiness; study of Russian foolishness as a form of prophetic service combined with extreme asceticism.

Fedotov shows that starting from St. Theodosius of Pechersk (“the father of Russian monasticism”), a feature of Russian holiness was relatively moderate asceticism (through fasting, physical labor, wakefulness) and social, public service - cenotism, which was understood as selfless following of Christ. In the Russian saints, for the historian, as nowhere else in history, “the image of the humiliated Christ” is visible (25). And vice versa - there is a contrast between the life of the saints and the life of the people, their denial of the sinful world, which was not “Holy Russia” at all (“the idealization of Russian life would be a perverted conclusion from the radiance of its holiness” (26)). An important clarification of this concept is associated with Fedotov, making its scientific use possible: Holy Rus' is not a people, much less a state, it is people outstanding in their religious qualities, the saints of Rus'.

Fedotov notes a certain dynamics of ancient Russian holiness: he views this phenomenon as a spiritual process that has an ascending stage, flourishing (the 15th century, called by Fedotov the “golden age of Russian holiness”) and decline (accounting mainly for the 17th-18th centuries). At the origins of the 15th century, which “passes under the sign of mystical life,” stands St. Sergius of Radonezh. A new type of monasticism is associated with his name - saints leave suburban monasteries and go into the forests. Trans-Volga elders of the XV-XVI centuries. preserved in their pristine purity the covenants of Sergius - non-covetousness (renunciation of not only personal, but also monastic property), humble meekness, love, solitude, and contemplation of God.

Fedotov attached the most important significance for the history of Russian spiritual culture to the “tragedy of Russian holiness,” as he defined the victory of the trans-Volga non-violence of the Josephite trend in monasticism. Comparing in accordance with the tradition of science the 2nd floor. XIX - early XX century spiritual directions of the monks Nil of Sorsky and Joseph of Volotsky, the historian notes that in their relationship “the principles of spiritual freedom and mystical life are opposed to social organization and statutory piety” (27). Fedotov made an interesting observation that the triumph of Josephiteness was predetermined by the commonality of his ideal of external spiritual discipline with the cause of nation-state building led by Moscow, which required tension and subordination to the supreme power of all social forces, including the Church. The victory of the Josephites ultimately led not only to the consolidation of the dependence of the Church on the state, but also to the “ossification of spiritual life.” In the religious life of Rus', the “religion of sacred matter”, ritualism, was established, which largely determined the nature of the spiritual culture of the 17th century. and the Old Believer schism. The drying up of the non-acquisitive flow of Russian religiosity led to the “shallowing” of holiness. “The great thread leading from St. Sergius,” according to Fedotov, was torn. The historian considers the mid-16th century to be the fatal point. (the defeat of the Trans-Volga monasteries): “Vasily III and even Ivan the Terrible had the opportunity to talk with the saints. For the pious Alexei Mikhailovich, all that remained was to pilgrimage to their tombs” (28). The revival of this spiritual direction in the form of “eldership” (St. Seraphim of Sarov, Optina elders) occurred only in the 19th century.

A special theme in the scientific work of G. P. Fedotov is folk religiosity. The monograph “Spiritual Poems” (1935), articles written on its basis and the corresponding sections in “Russian Religiosity” are devoted to its study. Fedotov can rightfully be called one of the pioneers of the topic of religiosity of the lower strata of medieval society in our science and one of the first to touch upon this issue in world science (29).

Starting to study spiritual poems (songs on religious subjects), as one of the most important sources for the study of this issue, the historian wrote: “Until now, no one has yet approached the study of Russian spiritual poems from the point of view that interests us. Three quarters of a century of research work have been devoted almost exclusively to elucidating the plot material of poems and their book sources. Their religious content... remained outside the field of view of the Russian historical and literary school” (30).

Fedotov is well aware of the limitations of his material and warns against regarding spiritual poetry as sources for the reconstruction of folk faith; their study “leads us not to the very depths of the mass of the people, not to the darkest environment close to paganism, but to those higher layers where it is in close contact with the church world” (31), to the environment of spiritual singers, “folk semi-church intelligentsia.” Among the broad masses, Fedotov admits, the level of religious knowledge was even lower; but since the creators of spiritual poems come from the people and appeal to them, strive to satisfy their spiritual needs, in these works, nevertheless, one can look for “expressions of the deepest subconscious elements of the religious soul of the Russian people” (32).

Fedotov considers spiritual poems as cultural phenomena of the pre-Petrine era, “a surviving fragment of Moscow culture in the civilization of modern times that was corrupting it” (33). Among the people, in his opinion, the Middle Ages survived until the middle. XIX century (this idea echoes the idea of ​​the “long Middle Ages” expressed later by J. Le Goff). The author examines the popular faith using the main categories of Christian theology: Christology, cosmology, anthropology, ecclesiology and eschatology. The sources of spiritual poems are the lives of saints, the apocrypha accepted in the church environment, liturgy, iconographic images, much less often - St. Scripture, however, as the researcher shows, the interpretation of certain plots descending from book culture into folklore culture does not always correspond to their orthodox understanding.

At the same time, the researcher shows that the version of the “folk faith” reflected in spiritual poems is not “dual faith”, as it seemed to the ancient Russian scribes, as well as many scientists of the 19th-20th centuries, but a holistic, structurally unified system of worldview ( This view is shared by many researchers of our time - N.I. Tolstoy, V.M. Zhivov, A.L. Toporkov and others, who studied the problem on a broader material). Despite the exposed clearly pagan layers and distortions of Christian doctrine, Fedotov, nevertheless, characterizes the worldview of the creators, performers and listeners of spiritual poems as Christian. Pagan elements are transformed and subordinated to Christian ones. This is the author’s fundamental position, which differs from the direction of both the majority of pre-revolutionary and Soviet studies, the authors of which sought primarily to identify traces of archaic thinking and mythology and emphasize their predominance. In Fedotov we see a conscious shift in emphasis towards how people perceive Christianity, how the teachings of the church are reflected in their consciousness. This approach has only recently gained recognition in Russian science (34).

In folk religion, the researcher identifies three elements, which correspond to their own types of sins - 1) ritualistic (religion of law and fear), associated with Christ, Who is seen by the people, first of all, as a formidable Heavenly King and Judge, and whose earthly life before the passions is little known; 2) caritative or kenotic (religion of compassion, pity and sacrificial love), associated with the Mother of God, as well as with the saints, through whose images, Fedotov notes, the Gospel Christ shines for the people; and 3) naturalistic-generic, associated with Mother Earth, sinless and with difficulty enduring human lawlessness. “Mother of the damp earth” takes on the image of the “valley reflection” of the Mother of God, and the ethics of tribal life are associated with her. Rejecting, following the majority of researchers, the idea of ​​Bogomil influence on spiritual poetry, Fedotov sees in them the exact opposite of Manichaean dualism - “sophia,” a sense of the ontological divinity of nature, the idea of ​​an inextricable connection between the natural and the supernatural (here the researcher sees a certain kinship with the works of Dostoevsky, Solovyov, Florensky, Bulgakov).

In spiritual poems, the author highlights such dominant themes as the glorification of beggary (verses about Lazarus and the Ascension), a description of the suffering of the hero (Christ, Adam, Lazarus, saints), cosmology (a verse about the Dove Book) and eschatology (verses about the Last Judgment, demonstrating gloomy, tragically hopeless perception of this topic, which is associated with the darkening of the image of Christ the Savior and the understanding of Him as a harsh Judge). The researcher presumably traces the legalistic elements of spiritual verses back to the 16th century. and considers the result of the victory over the mystical and caritative non-covetousness of Josephiteness, the spiritual character of which he sees in “the great severity of moral and ritual prescriptions, supported by an eschatological threat,” as well as in “the rapprochement of the power of God with the power of the tsar in the era of the growth of the Moscow autocracy and the barbarization of its forms” ( 35). The semantic analysis of basic concepts, the systematic approach, and the research results used by Fedotov are highly appreciated by modern scientists (36).

The main work of Fedotov’s life was to be the series of monographs he conceived, “The Russian Religious Mind”; another translation option is “Russian Religious Consciousness”. It was written in the USA in English and was intended for the Western scientific community. The researcher planned to bring the presentation to the 20th century. inclusive, but during the author’s lifetime, in 1946, only a volume dedicated to the period of Kievan Rus was published (37); the second volume, left unfinished and published posthumously under the editorship of Fr. I. F. Meyendorff in 1966, covers the period until the end. XV century (38).

In the Introduction to Volume 1, the researcher again declares his anthropological approach to the study of the past: “I intended to describe the subjective side of religion... My interest is focused on the consciousness of man: a religious person in his relationship to God, the world, and fellow humans; this attitude is not purely emotional, but also rational and volitional, that is, a manifestation of the entire human being.” The historian's focus is on “religious experience and religious behavior, in relation to which theology, liturgy and canons can be considered as their external expression and form” (39). This is the fundamental novelty of Fedotov’s research in comparison with the works available at that time on the history of ancient Russian spiritual culture (works on the history of literature, art, and the Church). Famous book about. G. Florovsky’s “Ways of Russian Theology” (Paris, 1937), also innovative in its own way, dealt only with the history of religious thought, that is, a narrower sphere than the one that interested Fedotov.

While declaring a commitment to the methods of Western science (40), Fedotov in reality rather follows the methodology developed by Karsavin. In particular, this applies to the identification of religious types: “Every collective life is the unity of diversity; it manifests itself only through individual personalities, each of which reflects only some features of common existence. The individual cannot be examined as a representative of the whole,” so one must “choose such types as are representative of the various spiritual groups and which in their totality, if properly chosen, can reflect the collective being” (41).

In his last work, Fedotov undertook what Western science called a “dense study” of culture. Similar to the gradual discovery by scientists of ancient Russian icon painting in the second half of the 19th - early. XX century, Fedotov made the “discovery” of ancient Russian religiosity as a scientific problem. From “speculation in colors” (E.N. Trubetskoy) he moved on to studying the words of Ancient Rus', searching for reflections of religious consciousness in chronicles, lives, teachings and other sources (42). At the same time, he tried to be unbiased, to exclude pre-developed concepts: “I gave Russian sources the opportunity to speak for themselves, and received unexpected and exciting results. The living image of the past contradicted the established opinions of historians at every step” (43).

In two volumes, the material published in the historian’s previous books written in Russian was presented anew, this time for a Western reader. However, the content of “Russian Religiosity” is far from exhausted by this. Without being able to dwell on all the problems raised by the historian and note all his observations on the sources, we will highlight the main themes and results of the study (except for those mentioned above in the analysis of earlier works).

This is, firstly, the theological and scientific “silence” of ancient Russian culture. According to Fedotov, it was associated with the translation of literature into the Old Church Slavonic language, while in the West the language of the church remained the language of Roman antiquity - Latin, which predetermined the perception of the scientific and philosophical tradition of classical antiquity. In Rus', there was a “break away from classical culture,” with certain advantages in the Christianization of the population, which were provided by worship and literature in the close and understandable Old Church Slavonic language (44). The intellectual influence of Byzantium is reduced by Fedotov to theological allegorism, reflected in the few surviving works of Hilarion, Kliment Smolyatich, Cyril of Turov (“Russian Byzantinists”).

At the same time, Fedotov is far from a nihilistic assessment of the spiritual culture of the “Kyiv period.” On the contrary, for Russian religiosity he has “the same meaning as Pushkin for Russian artistic consciousness: the meaning of a model, a golden measure, a royal path” (45). The historian notes the significance of the first Christian generation in Rus', which gave already in the 11th century. high examples of Christian literature (Hilarion), “kenotic” holiness (Boris and Gleb, Theodosius) and art. The great influence on the spiritual life of Russian people is emphasized by the beauty of nature, which in Ancient Rus' had a high religious appreciation (“The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”, “The Teachings of Vladimir Monomakh”) and beauty in culture (temples, icons, worship).

With an almost complete absence of independent scientific thought, even in the field of theology, Ancient Rus', according to Fedotov, was in no way inferior to the West in the field of historiography. The historian places Russian chronicles and chronographs very highly and notes great interest in translated works on world history. Russian chronicles are marked by “realistic historical flair, a wealth of detail and an artistic presentation of events,” while they gravitate towards a religious philosophy of history. Original Russian theology also manifested itself only in the historical sphere, and not in the rational or logical, as in the West or in Byzantium. Even the lives of the “Kievan” period “clearly prefer historical facts to legendary embellishment.” With this penchant for historical realism, “Rus in its understanding of history is closer to medieval Europe than Byzantium” (46).

An important place in Fedotov’s work is occupied by the problem of religious ethics of the laity (studied based on Russian articles in collections of teachings, penitential canons, chronicles and other sources). It highlights mercy as the main category, and this is one of the differences between Old Russian religiosity and Byzantine, where, as in the later “Moscow” religiosity of the 16th-17th centuries, the “fear of God” was in first place (47). The historian notes that Christianity in Rus' descended from above, “from princely chambers and boyar houses,” down to the masses, and written sources reflect mainly the religiosity of representatives of the upper stratum of society, the most literate and Christianized. The phenomenon of monastic spiritual mentoring of the laity, in general the influence of monastic religious practice on the religious norms of Ancient Rus', and the ritualistic understanding of Christian life by most of the clergy are noted.

In the second volume of the study dedicated to Russian Christianity of the XIII-XV centuries. (48), the central place is occupied by the theme of Russian holiness. In addition, it provides a deep analysis of such problems as the Christian ethics of the laity in the post-Mongol period (based on the collection “Izmaragd”), the first Russian sect of the Novgorod-Pskov Strigolniks, the appearance of which is explained by the success of the Christianization of the masses, the feudal world in the religious assessment of chroniclers, religious art as a silent, but no less high theology of Rus', “the Republic of St. Sophia” - Veliky Novgorod as an alternative, not monarchical, but republican path of development of the Russian Orthodox society.

The 1st volume of “Russian Religiosity”, dedicated to the Christianity of Kievan Rus of the X-XIII centuries, already by the middle. 60s became a “generally recognized classic” (49) (naturally, for Western scientists). The influence of the second was no less. It can be said that G. P. Fedotov, along with the specialist in the ancient world M. I. Rostovtsev, medievalist P. G. Vinogradov, Russian historian G. V. Vernadsky, Byzantinist A. A. Vasiliev, was among the Russian emigrant historians “first wave”, which received unconditional recognition and scientific authority in the West, primarily in the Anglo-Saxon world. Starting from the late 80s, when G. P. Fedotov’s books and articles began to be published in his homeland, they received high praise from historians, philologists, and religious scholars such as D. S. Likhachev, Fr. A. Men, A. Ya. Gurevich, Ya. S. Lurie, A. I. Klibanov, N. I. Tolstoy, V. N. Toporov, Ya. N. Shchapov, I. N. Danilevsky and others, and also Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy II.

Both in his historical works and in his journalism, G. P. Fedotov did a lot to understand Russia, to cultivate a spiritually sober view of it, devoid, on the one hand, of flattering self-deception and national pride, on the other, of national self-abasement and disbelief in the future of the country. Often, as it seemed to the nationalists, he attacked Russia and the Russian people too harshly. But, according to the fair remark of Fedotov’s friend, the poet Yu. P. Ivask, “these philippics of his are jeremiads. Jeremiah and other Old Testament prophets harshly rebuked Israel out of love for Israel. So Fedotov denounced Russia, loving her” (50). It seems that the definition of a historian as “a prophet turned to the past” (F. Schlegel) is fully applicable to him. The historicism of thinking preached by G. P. Fedotov throughout his creativity was reflected in his favorite thought that “the face of Russia cannot be revealed in one generation, contemporary with us. It is in the living connection of all obsolete genera, like a musical melody in the alternation of dying sounds” (51). To pick up this “melody” of Russian culture, to develop, harmonize, enrich, while maintaining the main theme, is the task of the current and future generations, and Fedotov’s works will undoubtedly contribute to this.

Notes

1. It was as a historian that the Russian Abroad perceived him. It is noteworthy that Fedotov’s philosophical views were not reflected in any way in the two fundamental emigrant “History of Russian Philosophy” - Fr. V.V. Zenkovsky (1948-1950) and N.O. Lossky (1951).
2. An example of the opposite is the works on Ancient Rus' by L. N. Gumilyov, who openly called source study “minor studies”; It is not surprising that a number of “facts” that he cites in his now so popular books do not correlate with the sources in any way.
3. This topic received some coverage in the works: Raev M. Russia abroad: the history of the culture of Russian emigration 1919-1939. M., 1994. S. 165-166, 228-232; Yumasheva O. G. Traditions of Russian historical science of the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries. in the legacy of Georgy Petrovich Fedotov. Author's abstract. dis…. Ph.D. ist. Sci. M., 1995; Volodikhin D. M., Grudina E. A. Christian methodology of history by G. P. Fedotov // Russian Middle Ages. 1999. M., 1999. pp. 124-126.
4. For more information about his life path, see: Fedotova E. N. Georgiy Petrovich Fedotov (1886-1951) // Fedotov G. P. Face of Russia: Articles 1918-1930. Paris, 1988. P. I-XXXI; Bychkov S. S. G. P. Fedotov (biographical sketch) // Fedotov G. P. Collection. Op. in 12 volumes. M., 1996. T. 1. P. 5-50.
5. In the summer of 1917, he became the last chief prosecutor of the Synod and minister of religions of the Provisional Government.
6. Fedotov G. P. Russia of Klyuchevsky // Fedotov G. P. Fate and sins of Russia: Selected articles on the philosophy of Russian history and culture. St. Petersburg, 1991. T. 1. P. 339.
7. Ibid. P. 348. Already in 1918, Fedotov noted that “the difficult social process has occupied the attention of our historians too exclusively, obscuring its deep spiritual content” (Fedotov G.P. Face of Russia // Collected works. M., 1996. T. 1. P. 107).
8. See in more detail: Yastrebitskaya A.L. Lev Platonovich Karsavin: his experience of the “new” history of religiosity of the Western European Middle Ages as a cultural and historical phenomenon // Religions of the world: History and modernity. Yearbook, 1999. M., 1999. pp. 121-133.
9. Karsavin L.P. Essays on religious life in Italy in the 12th-13th centuries. St. Petersburg, 1912; aka. Fundamentals of medieval religiosity in the XII-XIII centuries, mainly in Italy. Pg., 1915; aka. Culture of the Middle Ages. Pg., 1918; aka. Introduction to history: theory of history. Pg., 1920.
10. See his works devoted to the religious life of the Western Middle Ages (mainly Merovingian hagiography, on which he prepared a dissertation), published in 1911 - 1928: Fedotov G.P. Collection. Op. M., 1996. T. 1; M., 1998. T. 2.
11. See: Gurevich A. Ya. Historical synthesis and the Annales School. M., 1993.
12. In fact, the Soviet state was declared to be the highest value as the pinnacle of progress (just as for Hegel it was the Prussian state). Accordingly, the previous nation-state building and imperialism of pre-revolutionary Russia, which prepared the creation of the Soviet state, were also declared progressive phenomena. A direct consequence of this was the “canonization” under the “Marxist” Stalin of Peter I and Ivan the Terrible. It should be noted by the way that G. P. Fedotov had a hierarchy of values ​​that was different from the Soviet patriot: as for an eschatologically minded Orthodox Christian, the “heavenly fatherland” meant more to him than the earthly, albeit ardently, to the point of pain in the heart (the cause of the thinker’s death), beloved. Back in the late 1940s. he predicted the inevitability of the unification of Europe and the collapse of the Soviet system (“Genghis Khan’s Empire,” as he, in defiance of the Eurasians, called the post-war Stalinist USSR). Higher than the state transient in time, for him stood the eternal, in his deep conviction, culture (see. articles “The Fate of Empires”, “Eschatology and Culture”).
13. It was believed that spiritual culture was dealt with by philologists and art historians who studied individual problems of ancient Russian literature and art. They were responsible for many outstanding studies, but they were also under ideological control.
14. Fedotov G. P. Orthodoxy and historical criticism // Fedotov G. P. Collection. Op. T. 2. M., 1998. S. 220, 221.
15. Ibid. P. 223.
16. Ibid. P. 229.
17. Fedotov G.P. Saint Philip, Metropolitan of Moscow. M., 1991. P. 5.
18. Ibid.
19. Thus, many of Fedotov’s ideas were accepted and developed in the study of V. N. Toporov: Toporov V. N. Holiness and saints in Russian spiritual culture. M., 1995. T.1; M., 1998. T. 2; See also: Toporov V.N. About the Russian thinker Georgy Fedotov and his book // Our heritage. 1988. No. 4. P. 45, 50 – 53.
20. Fedotov G.P. Saints of Ancient Rus'. M., 1990. P. 28.
21. Ibid. P. 29.
22. Ibid. pp. 28, 30.
23. Ibid. P. 30.
24. Ibid. P. 32.
25. Ibid. P. 236.
26. Ibid. P. 237.
27. Ibid. P. 186. Not all modern scientists are inclined to give the relationship between Nile and Joseph the character of direct confrontation (see: Lurie Ya. S. Ideological confrontation in Russian journalism of the late 15th – 1st half of the 16th century, Moscow; Leningrad, 1960; Romanenko E.V. Nil Sorsky and the traditions of Russian monasticism. M., 2003), however, this is quite applicable to their students and followers (see, for example: Pliguzov A.I. Polemics in the Russian Church of the 1st third of the 16th century. M., 2002).
28. FedotovG. P. Saints of Ancient Rus'. P. 196. Attempt by the abbot. Andronik (Trubachev) to revise Fedotov’s conclusions on the basis of statistical data, taking into account non-canonized devotees of piety (Andronik (Trubachev), abbot. Canonization of saints in the Russian Orthodox Church // Orthodox Encyclopedia: Russian Orthodox Church. M., 2000. pp. 367-370) does not cancel Fedotov’s main position - the extinction of the mystical trend in monasticism, which, without any doubt, is revived only in the synodal era. This is indirectly confirmed by the steady weakening of the artistic power of religious art, which has been evident since approximately the middle of the 16th century.
29. Based on the material of the Western Middle Ages, the theme of “alternative” religiosity of the broad masses of the people who did not leave written sources (“the silent majority,” in the words of A. Ya. Gurevich) began to be developed deeply and fruitfully only in the 1970s. See, for example: Gurevich A. Ya. Problems of medieval folk culture. M., 1981; aka. The Medieval World: The Culture of the Silent Majority. M., 1990; Le GoffJ. Another Middle Ages: Time, labor and culture of the West. Ekaterinburg, 2000 (1st ed. – Paris, 1977); Le Roy Ladurie E. Montaillou, Occitan village (1294-1324). Ekaterinburg, 2001 (1st ed. – Paris, 1975).
30. Fedotov G.P. Spiritual verses: Russian folk faith based on spiritual verses. M., 1991. S. 16-17.
31. Ibid. P. 15.
32. Ibid. P. 16.
33. Ibid. P. 13. Modern research does not confirm, although at the same time does not refute this point of view.
34. See, for example: Panchenko A. A. Research in the field of folk Orthodoxy: Village shrines of the North-West of Russia. St. Petersburg, 1998: Musin A.E. Christianization of the Novgorod land in the 9th-14th centuries: Funeral rites and Christian antiquities. St. Petersburg, 2002.
35. Fedotov G.P. Spiritual poems. P. 121.
36. Tolstoy N.I. A few words about the new series and book by G.P. Fedotov “Spiritual Poems” // Fedotov G.P. Spiritual Poems. pp. 5 – 9; Nikitina S. E. “Spiritual Poems” by G. Fedotov and Russian Spiritual Poems // Ibid. pp. 137-153.
37. Fedotov G. P. The Russian Religious Mind. Cambridge, Mass., 1946.Vol. 1: Kievan Christianity: The Tenth to the Thirteenth centuries.
38. Fedotov G. P. The Russian Religious Mind. Cambridge, Mass., 1966.Vol. 2: The Middle Ages. The Thirteenth to the Fifteenth centuries. The approximate content of the unwritten volumes is reflected in the anthology compiled by Fedotov, “Treasure of Russian Spirituality,” published in New York in 1948.
39. Fedotov G. P. Collection. Op. M., 2001. T. 10. P. 8-9.
40. In particular, Fedotov refers to the book of Abbot A. Bremond as an influence on him (Bremond H. Histoire Litteraire du Sentiment Religieux en France. Vol. 1-2. Paris, 1916-1933).
Fedotov G. P. Collection. Op. T. 10. P. 13. Compare: Karsavin L.P. Fundamentals of medieval religiosity in the XII-XIII centuries. St. Petersburg, 1997. pp. 29-30.
41. It remains to be regretted that Fedotov was not aware of the birch bark letters discovered in Novgorod literally a little over a month before his death. The topic of reflecting the religious consciousness of ancient Russian people in them has only recently begun to be developed by historians.
42. Fedotov G. P. Collection. Op. T. 10. P. 12.
43. This thesis, put forward in articles of the 30s, was challenged by G.V. Florovsky: Florovsky G., prot. Paths of Russian theology. Paris, 1937. P. 5-7; Wed: Meyendorff I.F., prot. History of the Church and Eastern Christian mysticism. M., 2000. pp. 352-353.
44. Fedotov G. P. Collection. Op. T. 10. P. 367.
45. Ibid. pp. 340, 341, 343.
46. ​​Hence the difference in the perception of Christ: “The harsh or Byzantine type is rooted in the religion of Christ the Almighty, the Heavenly King and Judge. Moderate or purely Russian ethics is based on the religion of the humiliated or “kenotic” Christ” (Ibid. pp. 348-349). Both types of religious interpretation of the image of Christ, as Fedotov notes, coexisted in Rus'.
47. Fedotov G. P. Collection. Op. M., 2004. T. 11.
48. Fedotov G. P. Collection. Op. T. 10. P. 5 (“From the publisher”).
49. Ivask Yu. Eschatology and culture: In memory of Georgy Petrovich Fedotov (1886-1951) // Fedotov G. P. St. Philip. P. 125.
50. Fedotov G. P. Face of Russia // Collection. Op. M., 1996. T. 1. P. 107.

Life path

The cultural views of figures from the Russian diaspora are presented in a wide range of works: philosophical works and journalistic essays, responses to events and biographical portraits, experiences of self-knowledge and polemics with colleagues. But they all have one thing in common - love for Russia, thoughts about its future, sympathy and compassion, and the desire to provide moral support to their compatriots. Almost everyone wrote about cultural problems, because it was the spiritual side of life that was under threat.

G. P. Fedotov wrote sharply and passionately about Russian culture and the national character of the people. He was almost unknown in Russia until the 90s. XX century, although its authority abroad was established a long time ago.

Recently the 110th anniversary of the birth of the Russian philosopher and cultural scientist Georgiy Petrovich Fedotov (1886-1951) was celebrated, but the development of his legacy is just beginning in Russia. His works were published in two volumes, united under the general title “The Fate and Sins of Russia” 1; various materials, documents, letters, and memoirs were also published. But this is only a very small part of his philosophical, journalistic and religious works.

His life was torn into two unequal parts: in Russia - until 1925 and then - for many years (until his death in 1951) in exile. All of his work is imbued with pain for Russia and love for it, hope for its revival, and prophetic predictions of the tragic fate of the Russian intelligentsia.

His articles on Russian culture in the past, present and future are especially interesting. By turning to the study of his legacy, one can find those saving forces and “underground” sources that, as Fedotov believed, would lead Russia to prosperity.

Fedotov G. P. Fate and sins of Russia: In 2 vols. M„ 1991-1992.

But first, let’s turn to his biography, try to go through the main stages of his life’s journey with him, and imagine the difficulties he faced.

Georgy Petrovich Fedotov was born on October 1, 1886 in Saratov, in the family of a nobleman (ruler of the affairs of the provincial chancellery) and a music teacher. Soon after moving to Voronezh, the father died, and the family was left almost without funds. He returns with his mother to Saratov, graduates from high school and in 1904 enters the St. Petersburg Technological Institute.

By this time, he became interested in politics and joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. For participation in revolutionary activities he was arrested and soon left abroad. This significantly changes his moods, beliefs and life calling. He studies history at the Universities of Berlin and Jena. He is interested in the ideas of anthroposophy and symbolism.

In 1908, having returned to Russia, Fedotov entered the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University, studying the history of the Middle Ages under the guidance of the famous historian I. M. Grevs. It was during this period that his religious worldview began to take shape. After graduating from the university in 1914, he worked at the department of medieval studies. At the same time, he is an employee of the Public Library in the arts department.

During these years, Fedotov met the Russian religious figure A.V. Kartashev (1875-1960), philosophers A.A. Meyer (1875-1936) and S.L. Frank (1877-1950), who captivated him with the spiritual ideas of Christianity and Orthodox Church. He is engaged in translations; his brochure about the medieval French thinker P. Abelard is published in the “Images of Humanity” series.

But in Soviet Russia his views turn out to be unpopular, and his religious and philosophical activities are recognized as dangerous. He has the intention of leaving Russia, and in 1925 he leaves forever: first to Berlin, and then to Paris. Life in exile was very difficult. Without a means of livelihood, without acquaintances and connections, he had to start all over again so as not to die. Fedotov's journalistic talent created Fedotov's name; he began to publish in Russian emigrant magazines, and since 1928 in English, French and German publications. Soon the sharpness of his performances

Lenii, with his critical analysis of “Stalinocracy” he gained fame as the “new Herzen”.

Fedotov is fascinated by the ideas of Christian socialism; in Orthodoxy he sees the possibility of spiritual cleansing and revival. He accepts the offer of Metropolitan Eulogius, rector of the Russian Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris, and becomes a teacher. There he works closely with Fr. S. Bulgakov, philosophers G. Florovsky, I. Ilyin, N. Lossky, V. Vysheslavtsev, V. Zenkovsky. Gives lectures on church history, hagiography (lives of saints), teaches Latin. During these years, Fedotov became especially close to N.A. Berdyaev and often visited his house. I. I. Fondaminsky and E. Yu. Skobtsova (Kuzmina-Karavaeva), who during the Second World War actively participated in the Resistance in France and became known as “Mother Mary,” became true friends.

The board of the Theological Institute condemned his journalistic activities, and disagreements arose on this basis. In 1941, Fedotov left France and went to the USA, where his last, “American” period of life began.

He teaches at a school at Yale University and receives a scholarship from the Bakhmetyev Foundation. From 1943 until the end of his life, he worked at the Russian St. Vladimir Orthodox Seminary in New York, writing works on Russian culture.

Such is the fate of this original Russian thinker, whose life was “cut” by the sword of revolution.

The main core of the intellectual and spiritual life of G. P. Fedotov is in his views on culture as the basis of the spiritual existence of humanity.

Russian national character

Fedotov’s programmatic work is named in accordance with the Russian philosophical tradition of address, dialogue with the reader: “Letters about Russian culture.” They combine three topics:

About the Russian person, his traditions and national character;

About the future of Russian culture, its tomorrow;

About the spiritual elite as a source of Russia's revival. These articles were written in exile in the 1930s.

Fedotov does not pin his hopes on political restoration, but believes in the idea of ​​continuity in the development of spiritual culture:

No matter how sharp the historical breaks of revolutionary eras are, they are not able to destroy continuity 1 .

Culture is strong with its powerful “subsoil” layers - the older it is, the harder it is. This antiquity, painfully compressed, breaks through the thickness of centuries and forms the basis of national culture.

The first prerequisite for culture is man himself. Therefore, it is so important to look closely at his features, to understand his character, moral, intellectual and social strengths and weaknesses. Each nation, going through revolutionary catastrophes, changes its face, creating a new cultural type, unlike its ancestors. The Russian people also changed during the years of revolutionary reconstruction.

Instead of Russian sincerity, kindness, openness and patience, other properties were cultivated: “pity” became a dirty word, and anger became a valuable quality, subtle emotional experiences were declared an archaic relic.

But does this “new face” mean that the features of the national character have been lost forever, that the “Russianness” that distinguishes this people from other peoples has disappeared? This issue is widely discussed in our time.

Let's follow Fedotov's reasoning.

Is it possible to “look” into the Russian soul in the depths of history? By removing layer by layer of cultural and historical layers, is it possible to discover a basic, indecomposable core in the Russian person?

Or is this question posed completely incorrectly, because the national soul is not given in history, does not initially contain any idea, and takes a special form in each era?

Fedotov tries to combine and reconcile these polar points of view.

He suggests taking a closer look at the mysterious depths of Slavic paganism:

We, better than all cultural peoples, have preserved the natural, pre-Christian foundations of the people's soul 2.

The primitive matter of Russian paganism reveals itself in the highest works of F. Tyutchev, L. Tolstoy, V. Rozanov; they reveal something in common with the primitiveness of folklore.

1 Fedotov G. P. The fate and sins of Russia. T.I.S. 163.

2 Ibid. P. 164.

Fedotov calls these ancient layers of “Russianness” the “underground gallery” of the Russian soul. Russian people are deeply connected with the natural elements of Mother Earth. Nature for him is not a landscape, not a living environment, not an object of conquest. He is immersed in it, feels it with his whole being, without it he dries up, cannot live.

Natural elements influence morality, creating an ethic of peace and harmony, allowing mysticism and intuition in knowledge, and creating distrust in the plan and organization in work and public life. “Slavic psyche” brings us closer to the East.

On top of this first historical layer of “Russianness” is superimposed a second layer associated with the Christian tradition and Orthodoxy. But it is not internally homogeneous, for each cultural layer of the people has its own religious shades. It is difficult to express in one formula the religiosity of St. Sergius of Radonezh or Archpriest Avvakum, Metropolitan Philaret or F. Dostoevsky.

In each case these are special types of religious worldview. Among the people, the Russian Middle Ages survived until the middle of the 19th century, but its collapse was particularly violent.

The share of “specific veche” Russia also accounts for many features of Russian nature. These include its breadth, freedom, rebellion, tendency to revelry and revelry, burning through life and generosity, fun and careless artistry of the Russian soul.

Along with this, in the image of a Russian person, Fedotov notes calmness and silence, an organic aversion to everything elevated, exalted, to “nerves.” Hence humor as a grin at the ever-bustling, ever-preoccupied mind, a touch of fatalism. Restraint and self-confidence complete this portrait.

It seems to me that we should abandon too specific moral characteristics of national types 1 .

Good and evil, vicious and pure are found everywhere. Probably even in the same proportion. It's all about shades of kindness, about the "how" and not the "what."

Sometimes a Russian person is the very embodiment of kindness, which, combined with calm wisdom, creates the image of a worthy Person.

Right there. WITH.

But a Russian person can be cruel, not only in a momentary outburst of rage, but also in calm insensibility, in the cruelty of egoism. Indifference to fate and suffering can be combined with softness and superficial pity. The same can be said about the strong-willed qualities of a Russian person.

Is he lazy or active? It's difficult to answer definitively. Working under pressure, he is most often lazy. But he has an amazing ability, “shaking himself up at the last hour,” not to spare himself and in a few days to make up for months of idleness. Everyone can recognize themselves in these descriptions.

It is infinitely difficult to fit the living diversity of personality into a conceptual scheme. It is also difficult to do this in relation to the collective type of national character.

The historical era, class affiliation, and political sympathies give special features of “Russianness”. Petrine reforms, as Fedotov notes, created “a breed of Russian Europeans.” These are people of action, creative work, freedom and breadth of spirit. The “Russian European” freely acclimatizes in a foreign environment.

Each type reflects the face of Russia. One can also imagine a portrait of an eternal seeker, an enthusiast, passionate about ideas and ready to make sacrifices, a maximalist in relation to himself and others. He does not recognize moderation and accuracy, prudence and planning. For him, creativity is more important than creation, quest is more important than truth. He is generally cold towards culture as a kingdom of finished forms. He is irreconcilable to compromise and is always ready for an argument. Such characters are often found in life.

The nationally special features of “Russianness” are extremely diverse and cannot be reduced to a few features. The historical approach allows us to see many cultural layers in the appearance of the Russian people, which changed its national features, although at the same time the core, the basis of Russian spirituality was preserved.

Clarifying the features of the national character is important for Fedotov in order to answer the question that he considers the main one: which historical layers in the Russian people were destroyed by the revolution, which ones will survive it?

The revolution does not pass without a trace. She is revolutionizing the national consciousness. An entire historical era with its experience, tradition, culture is crossed out, values ​​and idols change.

Fedotov names three sources of change.

1. Conscious extermination of the old cultural layer and its replacement with a new intelligentsia that has risen from the bottom. In this catastrophe, the two upper layers were destroyed: the “imperial” man and the “intellectual” died along with the bourgeoisie.

2. The second source of change lies in the extremely rapid process of bringing the masses into civilization. He calls this the “rationalization of Russian consciousness,” the spread of basic literacy, and teaching technology. The psychological consequences of the pace were soon reflected in the cultural appearance of new generations. As a result, a new intelligentsia arose, but it was not at all similar to the pre-revolutionary one. He calls it “Euro-American,” but it is not the heir to the great wealth of European culture. The new type of educated person is deprived of previously significant knowledge of foreign languages, the history of Russian and world culture, broad outlook and erudition. The technical and athletic man of our time is a product of the collapse of very old cultures and at the same time the introduction to civilization of new barbarians - this is the new image of the intellectual.

3. The third source of change: a totalitarian state, which relies on the monopoly of education and propaganda, suppressing all foreign influences. Censorship and the ban on free travel increased the state of isolation. Revolutions in any country create the same psychological type: military-sportsmanlike, strong-willed, unspiritual, technically oriented, building a hierarchy of values ​​on the primacy of power.

But the outcome of this dramatic process cannot be predicted definitively. Will the Russian national type survive this degeneration? The answer to this question will be given in the future:

Now it is only clear that the struggle for the Russian soul is not over. Perhaps it is just beginning. The danger is undeniable and formidable. But the living thing that reaches us from Russia does not give us the right to bury it 1 .

The letters “Tomorrow” and “The Creation of an Elite” are devoted to the prospects for the development of Russian culture. Fedotov quite objectively assesses the romance and idealism of the first years of the revolution. During these years, spiritual life was literally on fire; writers, poets, artists merged in a joyful feeling of life. Life seemed wonderful, promising. The masses were eager for enlightenment, filled lecture halls

1 Fedotov G. P. The fate and sins of Russia. P. 186.

auditoriums, lecture halls of workers' faculties. The storm of events captured them like a “Dionysian” intoxication.

“Life was unsightly, hungry and wild, violence triumphed everywhere, but looking at these honest, excited faces of young and old people who had grasped culture for the first time, I wanted to believe in the future,” concludes Fedotov 1.

But soon a different stage of the revolution began. He pushed aside romantic unselfishness, initially switching his enthusiasm to technical construction, “parachuting,” the polar myth, and a passion for military affairs.

And then came mass terror and fear. Such a result, according to Fedotov, is inevitable in any totalitarian-tyrannical state, whatever the idea underlying it.

Prospects for the development of Russian culture

What kind of future awaits Russia? In response to this, the most important question of the fate of Russia, Fedotov expresses only an assumption. Let me remind you that these articles were written in 1938 in Paris, when the threat of World War II was already looming on the political horizon of Europe, and fascism dominated in Germany.

Fedotov was not blinded by hatred of socialism; his position was imbued with concern for “tomorrow,” the “new” Russia. He foresees three possible paths of development: war, uprising or regime evolution.

Rejecting the first two as disastrous for the Russian people, he considers it possible to imagine the first day of Russia “after the Bolsheviks,” after the terrible revolutionary night. It will be

that foggy “gray morning” that the dying Blok prophesied. The morning of reckoning, melancholy, first remorse... After a dream of world hegemony, of the conquest of planetary worlds, of physiological immortality, of an earthly paradise, one finds oneself at the trough of poverty, backwardness, slavery, perhaps, national humiliation 2 .

But, having made such a forecast, he calls for people to look at the positive, and not just negative, changes that have taken place in Russia. They are the ones who inspire hope for the future of Russia.

Among the achievements he lists almost universal literacy, the education of workers and peasants at universities, the emergence of intellectual

1 Fedotov G. II. The fate and sins of Russia. P. 170.

2 Ibid. P. 190.

ligence, publishing books in huge editions. All this amounts to a huge expansion of the cultural basis.

However, the extensive development of culture occurs at the expense of a decrease in its level. Few people speak Russian purely and correctly; ignorance in the fields of history, religion, and spiritual culture is rampant. But these difficulties are completely surmountable.

The false system of power will gradually be eliminated, the “bunglers” will go away, and the road to albeit slow but constant growth will open. The area of ​​scientific and educational culture is in all respects similar to economic and technical culture: what is measured in quantity can be acquired through energy and labor.

“Slowly, very slowly, the flooded waters will reach their limit and levels will begin to rise. If the grassroots desire for knowledge, even if only technical, is strong enough, and there is no reason to doubt this yet, this promises a grandiose rise of civilization in the future,” Fedotov is sure 1.

Fedotov opposes such a pragmatic, utilitarian understanding of the goals of culture. In his opinion, civilization and the satisfaction of needs for comfort constitute only the lower floor of culture. This is the elemental element of culture. Of course, thoughts about high spirituality are not very productive in conditions of poverty, hunger, wars, and defenselessness.

But culture must triumph, for the meaning of human existence lies in the creativity embodied in its creations. This highest goal of culture requires energy and work, faith and asceticism. But it is she who deserves to live up to Russia’s calling. The question of the relationship between culture and civilization has not so much a theoretical as a practical meaning: Which path will Russia prefer? Technocratic industrialism or humanistic spirituality?

The process of democratization of culture has begun in Russia. With the help of strong school discipline, you can achieve passable literacy and even force you to memorize notes on Greek mythology.

Right there. P. 198.

But does this mean that the miracle of the revival of genuine culture will happen?

Will the workshop become a temple? This is the main question of cultural policy. It is important to recreate the spiritual environment, or “air of culture,” without which the school loses its influence and the book ceases to be completely understandable. “Culture as an organizing form of consciousness falls apart into many incoherent elements, of which not one in itself, nor their sum is culture” 1, emphasizes Fedotov.

This is a very important statement. It means that culture is holistic and only in this sense does it resist vandalism. Fedotov writes:

The main enemy of culture in Russia is not fanaticism, but darkness, and not even just darkness, but darkness that imagines itself as enlightenment, the superstition of civilization that has raised its hand against culture 2 .

These words sound like a prophetic warning.

Culture differs from civilization in a different focus of interests and the primacy of quality over quantity.

The prospects for the development of Russian culture are not simply connected with the increase in schools and universities, but must recreate a cultural layer that would be able to shift the center of interest to issues of the spirit.

But this is also the main problem. It is much easier to teach science to everyone, but this will not guarantee high culture. Enlightenment presupposes a given truth; it is only necessary to involve the dark masses in it.

In Russia, the populist concept of education dominated for a long time. It was to raise the level of folk culture and popularize it for the masses.

It was considered an axiom, writes Fedotov, that culture grows from below, not from above. The populist strives to be understandable to the masses, to destroy not only social inequality, which is quite legitimate, but also cultural. The authorities can be proud of public education, but at the same time despise the Academy of Sciences, which seems superfluous.

The existence of an educated elite in an illiterate country was considered an anomaly. The Bolsheviks supported and carried out the people-

1 Fedotov G. P. The fate and sins of Russia. P. 200.

2 Ibid. P. 210. "

nic understanding of education, when the people and their lower strata create their own intelligentsia, which, rising higher and higher on the social ladder, does not break away from its roots. This approach was considered the only fair one.

But contradictions soon emerged. Enlightenment supports culture, but is not capable of creativity. It is this that gives impetus to the development of culture.

Enlightenment and education are not enough to move forward. We need enzymes, “yeast”, catalysts for the spiritual revival of Russia. This role should rightfully belong to the spiritual elite. Peter I began by organizing the Academy of Sciences, universities that were supposed to provide training for scientists and teachers. The whole world followed this path, and then enlightenment spreads like water, filling ever lower reservoirs.

The meaning of this approach can be expressed as follows: from the academy to the public school, and not vice versa.

Culture is always hierarchical, not one-dimensional. It has high and low floors, because there is always a distance between the teacher and the student, between the writer and the reader, between the thinker and the popularizer. If there is no such distance, there will be nothing to teach. This determines the intensity of the upward movement in culture.

The reconstruction of the spiritual elite is especially important when demagogy triumphs in half of Europe, which wants to decapitate the elite, drown it in red, black, brown, but always gray national monotony, Fedotov concludes.

The only meaning of a nation's existence is in its creativity: in the truth it discovers, in the beauty it creates, in the justice it realizes 1 .

The creation of a spiritual elite in Russia can become the life and calling of an entire generation. These thoughts of Fedotov are especially relevant for our time.

The concept of elite has long been a dirty word in politics. Contributing to its development was considered not only unnecessary, but also undignified. The main task was to equalize socio-cultural layers, to create one-dimensionality and unanimity, the same standards of lifestyle and way of thinking. It was believed that spiritual production should be in all respects consistent with material production, subject to its rhythms, schedule and financing. This was the goal of the social policy

1 Ibid. P. 216.

affinity of society, erasing the differences between mental and physical labor. The social “leveling” of the personality removed even the most insignificant “bumps” that “protruded” beyond the established limits. The model of official monotony was encouraged in every possible way. It was important not to stand out, to be like everyone else, and initiatives had to fit into initiatives and regulations.

Everyone knows what this led to.

The leveling of culture reduced creative possibilities and contributed to maintaining aggressiveness towards new discoveries, unfamiliar and experimental productions in theaters, and new styles in the visual arts. Distrust of science and its recommendations, contempt for the “too smart,” and support for the spiritual primitivism of tastes and interests spread in public opinion.

It should be remembered that the spiritual elite is not at all created on the basis of class or property privileges. It includes the most talented people, “idea generators”, possessing an energetic impulse and special passion, capable of original, alternative solutions, breaking through inertia. Society is always strong in its spiritual elite, capable of becoming the ruler of the thoughts of its time. It is she who accepts the Challenge of history. The spiritual elite is able to foresee developments in society and rally it around new humanistic ideas and values. Therefore, the intellectual potential of Russia is so important, capable of carrying out the revival and development of spiritual culture.