{
    "url": "https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica2/sociopol_russia181.htm",
    "content": " \n \n\n\n\n \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\n\n\n\n\r\n\t\t\tby \n\n\nKerry Bolton\n\n\nAugust 13, 2016\n\n\r\n\t\t\t(republished on March 02, 2019)\n\nfrom \nRussia-Insider\nWebsite\n\n\nSpanish \r\n\t\t\tversion\n\n\n\nItalian \r\n\t\t\tversion\n\r\n\t\t\t \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\n\n\n\n\r\n\t\t\tA young civilization \n\n\r\n\t\t\tconfronts a dying one\r\n \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\n\n'Wait, \r\n\t\t\tthe time will come \n\nwhen ye shall \r\n\t\t\tlearn \n\nwhat the \r\n\t\t\torthodox Russian faith is! \n\nAlready the \r\n\t\t\tpeople scent it far and near. \n\nA Tsar shall \r\n\t\t\tarise from Russian soil, \n\nand there shall \r\n\t\t\tnot be a power in the world \n\nwhich shall not \r\n\t\t\tsubmit to him!' \n \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\n\n\nOswald Spengler \r\n\t\t\t\twas a massive celebrity in pre-WW2 Europe and \r\n\t\t\t\tAmerica, whose book, \"The \r\n\t\t\tDecline of the West\" was one of the most read ever at \r\n\t\t\t\tthat time, selling millions of copies.\n\r\n\t\t\t\tThis is a longer scholarly article, but is not at all dull, and \r\n\t\t\t\tit is absolutely fascinating. Highly recommended.\n\r\n\t\t\t\tThis paper examines Spengler's views on Russia as a distinct \r\n\t\t\t\tculture that had not yet fulfilled her destiny, while Western \r\n\t\t\t\tcivilization is about to take a final bow on the world \r\n\t\t\t\thistorical stage.\n\r\n\t\t\t\tHis views on Russia as an outsider are considered in relation to \r\n\t\t\t\tthe depiction of the Russian soul by seminal Russians such as \n\nGogol.\n \n \n \n \n\n\n \n \n \n\n\n\nOswald \r\n\t\t\tSpengler and Russia's Soul\n\nby \n\nKerry Bolton\nMay 11, 2015\n\n\nfrom \nKatehon\nWebsite\n \n \n \n\n\n \n \n\n\nRussia's \r\n\t\t\t'Soul'\n\r\n\t\t\tSpengler regarded Russians as formed by the vastness of the \r\n\t\t\tland-plain, as innately antagonistic to the Machine, as rooted in \r\n\t\t\tthe soil, irrepressibly peasant, religious, and 'primitive'. \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\nWithout a wider \r\n\t\t\tunderstanding of Spengler's philosophy it appears that he was - like\r\n\t\t\tHitler - a Slavophobe. \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\nHowever, when Spengler \r\n\t\t\twrote of these Russian characteristics he was referencing the \r\n\t\t\tRussians as a still youthful people in contrats to the senile West.\r\n\t\t\t\n\r\n\t\t\t \n\nHence the 'primitive' \r\n\t\t\tRussian is not synonymous with 'primitivity' as popularly understood \r\n\t\t\tat that time in regard to 'primitive' tribal peoples. Nor was it to \r\n\t\t\tbe confounded with the Hitlerite perception of the 'primitive Slav' \r\n\t\t\tincapable of building his own State.\n\r\n\t\t\tTo Spengler, the 'primitive peasant' is the well-spring from which a \r\n\t\t\trace draws its healthiest elements during its epochs of cultural \r\n\t\t\tvigor.\n\r\n\t\t\tAgriculture is the foundation of a High Culture, enabling stable \r\n\t\t\tcommunities to diversify labor into specialization from which \r\n\t\t\tCivilization proceeds.\n\r\n\t\t\tHowever, according to Spengler, each people has its own soul, a \r\n\t\t\tGerman conception derived from the German Idealism of Herder, Fichte \r\n\t\t\tet al. A High culture reflects that soul, whether in its \r\n\t\t\tmathematics, music, architecture; both in the arts and the physical \r\n\t\t\tsciences. \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\nThe Russian soul is not \r\n\t\t\tthe same as the Western Faustian, as Spengler called it, the 'Magian' of the Arabian civilization, or the Classical of the \r\n\t\t\tHellenes and Romans. The Western Culture that was imposed on Russia \r\n\t\t\tby Peter the Great, what Spengler called Petrinism, is \r\n\t\t\ta veneer.\n\r\n\t\t\tThe basis of the Russian soul is not infinite space - as in the \r\n\t\t\tWest's Faustian (Spengler, 1971, I, 183) imperative, but is,\n\n'the plain without \r\n\t\t\t\tlimit'. \n\n\r\n\t\t\t\t(Spengler, 1971, I, 201)\n\nThe Russian soul \r\n\t\t\texpresses its own type of infinity, albeit not that of the Western \r\n\t\t\twhich becomes even enslaved by its own technics at the end of its \r\n\t\t\tlife-cycle. (Spengler, 1971, II, 502). \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\n(Although it could be \r\n\t\t\targued that Sovietism enslaved man to machine, a Spenglerian would \r\n\t\t\tcite this as an example of Petrinism). \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\nHowever, Civilizations \r\n\t\t\tcannot do anything but follow their life's course, and one cannot \r\n\t\t\tsee Spengler's descriptions as moral judgments but as observations.\r\n\t\t\t\n\r\n\t\t\t \n\nThe finale for Western \r\n\t\t\tCivilization according to Spengler cannot be to create further great \r\n\t\t\tforms of art and music, which belong to the youthful or 'spring' \r\n\t\t\tepoch of a civilization, but to dominate the world under a \r\n\t\t\ttechnocratic-military dispensation, before declining into oblivion \r\n\t\t\tthat all prior world civilizations. \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\nIt is after this Western \r\n\t\t\tdecline that Spengler alluded to the next word civilization being \r\n\t\t\tthat of Russia. At that stage Spengler could only hint at the \r\n\t\t\tpossibilities.\n\r\n\t\t\tHence, according to Spengler, Russian Orthodox architecture does not \r\n\t\t\trepresent the infinity towards space that is symbolized by the \r\n\t\t\tWestern high culture's Gothic Cathedral spire, nor the enclosed \r\n\t\t\tspace of the Mosque of the Magian Culture, (Spengler, 1971, \r\n\t\t\tI, 183-216) but the impression of sitting upon a horizon. \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\nSpengler considered that \r\n\t\t\tthis Russian architecture is,\n\n'not yet a style, \r\n\t\t\t\tonly the promise of a style that will awaken when the real \r\n\t\t\t\tRussian religion awakens'.\n\n\r\n\t\t\t\t(Spengler, 1971, I, p. 201.) \n\nSpengler was writing of \r\n\t\t\tthe Russian culture as an outsider, and by his own reckoning must \r\n\t\t\thave realized the limitations of that. It is therefore useful to \r\n\t\t\tcompare his thoughts on Russia with those of Russians of note.\n\nNikolai Berdyaev in The Russian Idea affirms what \r\n\t\t\tSpengler describes:\n\nThere is that in the \r\n\t\t\t\tRussian soul which corresponds to the immensity, the vagueness, \r\n\t\t\t\tthe infinitude of the Russian land, spiritual geography \r\n\t\t\t\tcorresponds with physical. In the Russian soul there is a sort \r\n\t\t\t\tof immensity, a vagueness, a predilection for the infinite, such \r\n\t\t\t\tas is suggested by the great plain of Russia.\n\n\r\n\t\t\t\t(Berdyaev, 1). \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\n\n'Prussian \r\n\t\t\tSocialism', 'Russian Socialism'\n\r\n\t\t\tOf the Russian soul, the ego/vanity of the Western culture-man is \r\n\t\t\tmissing; the persona seeks impersonal growth in service, \n\n'in the brother-world \r\n\t\t\t\tof the plain'. \n\nOrthodox Christianity \r\n\t\t\tcondemns the 'I' as 'sin' (Spengler, 1971, I, 309). \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\nSpengler wrote of \r\n\t\t\t'Prussian Socialism', based on the Prussian ethos of duty to the \r\n\t\t\tstate, as the foundation of a new Western ethos under the return to \r\n\t\t\tFaith and Authority during the final epoch of Western civilization.\r\n\t\t\t\n\r\n\t\t\t \n\nHe contrasted this with \r\n\t\t\tthe 'socialism' of Karl Marx, which he regarded as a product \r\n\t\t\tof English economics, (Spengler, 1919) as distinct from the German \r\n\t\t\teconomics of Friedrich List for example, described as the ' \r\n\t\t\tnational system of political economy', where nation is the raison \r\n\t\t\td'etre of the economy and not class or individual.\n\r\n\t\t\tThe Russian concept of 'we' rather than 'I', and of impersonal \r\n\t\t\tservice to the expanse of one's land implies another form socialism. \r\n\t\t\tIt is perhaps in this sense that Stalinism proceeded along lines \r\n\t\t\tdifferent and often antithetical to the Bolshevism envisaged by \r\n\t\t\tTrotsky et al. (Trotsky, 1936), and established an enduring legacy \r\n\t\t\ton Russia.\n\r\n\t\t\tA recent comment by an American visitor to Russia, Barbara J. \r\n\t\t\tBrothers, as part of a scientific delegation, states something \r\n\t\t\takin to Spengler's observation:\n\nThe Russians have a \r\n\t\t\t\tsense of connectedness to themselves and to other human beings \r\n\t\t\t\tthat is just not a part of American reality. \n \n\nIt isn't that \r\n\t\t\t\tcompetitiveness does not exist; it is just that there always \r\n\t\t\t\tseems to be more consideration and respect for others in any \r\n\t\t\t\tgiven situation.\n\nOf the Russian concept of \r\n\t\t\tproperty and of capitalism, Berdyaev wrote:\n\nThe social theme \r\n\t\t\t\toccupied a predominant place in Russian nineteenth century \r\n\t\t\t\tthought. \n \n\nIt might even be said \r\n\t\t\t\tthat Russian thought in that century was to a remarkable extent \r\n\t\t\t\tcolored by socialistic ideas. If the word socialism is not taken \r\n\t\t\t\tin its doctrinaire sense, one might say that socialism is deeply \r\n\t\t\t\trooted in the Russian nature. \n \n\nThere is already an \r\n\t\t\t\texpression of this truth in the fact that the Russian people did \r\n\t\t\t\tnot recognize the Roman conception of property.\n \n\nIt has been said of \r\n\t\t\t\tMuscovite Russia that it was innocent of the sin of ownership in \r\n\t\t\t\tland, the one and only landed proprietor being the Tsar: there \r\n\t\t\t\twas no freedom, but there was a greater sense of what was right.\r\n\t\t\t\t\n \n\nThis is of interest \r\n\t\t\t\tin the light that it throws upon the rise of communism. The \r\n\t\t\t\tSlavophils also repudiated the Western bourgeois interpretation \r\n\t\t\t\tof private property equally with the socialists of a \r\n\t\t\t\trevolutionary way of thinking. \n \n\nAlmost all of them \r\n\t\t\t\tthought that the Russian people was called upon to give actual \r\n\t\t\t\teffect to social troth and righteousness and to the brotherhood \r\n\t\t\t\tof man. \n \n\nOne and all they \r\n\t\t\t\thoped that Russia would escape the wrongness and evil of \r\n\t\t\t\tcapitalism, that it would be able to pass over to a better \r\n\t\t\t\tsocial order while avoiding the capitalist stage of economic \r\n\t\t\t\tdevelopment.\n \n\nAnd they all \r\n\t\t\t\tconsidered the backwardness of Russia as conferring upon her a \r\n\t\t\t\tgreat advantage. It was the wisdom of the Russians to be \r\n\t\t\t\tsocialists during the period of serfdom and autocracy. \n\n \n\nOf all peoples in the \r\n\t\t\t\tworld the Russians have the community spirit; in the highest \r\n\t\t\t\tdegree the Russian way of life and Russian manners, are of that \r\n\t\t\t\tkind. \n \n\nRussian hospitality \r\n\t\t\t\tis an indication of this sense of community. \n\n\r\n\t\t\t\t(Berdyaev, 97-98)\n\nHere again, we see with \r\n\t\t\tBerdyaev, as with Spengler, that there is a 'Russian Socialism' \r\n\t\t\tbased on what Spengler referred to as the Russian 'we' in contrast \r\n\t\t\tto the Late Western 'I', and of the sense of brotherhood dramatized \r\n\t\t\tby Gogol in\r\n\t\t\t\nTaras Bulba, shaped not by \r\n\t\t\tfactories and money-thinking, but by the kinship that arises from a \r\n\t\t\tpeople formed from the vastness of the plains, and forged through \r\n\t\t\tthe adversity of centuries of Muslim and Mongol invasions.\r\n \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\n\nThe Russian \r\n\t\t\tSoul - Русская душа\n\r\n\t\t\tThe connections between family, nation, birth, unity and motherland \r\n\t\t\tare reflected in the Russian language.\n\nрод [rod]: \r\n\t\t\t\t\tfamily, kind, sort, genus\n \n\nродина [ródina]: \r\n\t\t\t\t\thomeland, motherland \r\n \n\nродители [rodíteli]: \r\n\t\t\t\t\tparents\r\n \n\nродить [rodít']: \r\n\t\t\t\t\tto give birth\r\n \n\nроднить [rodnít']: \r\n\t\t\t\t\tto unite, bring together\r\n \n\nродовой [rodovói]: \r\n\t\t\t\t\tancestral, tribal\r\n \n\nродство [rodstvó]: \r\n\t\t\t\t\tkinship\n\nRussian National \r\n\t\t\tLiterature starting from the 1840s began to consciously express the \r\n\t\t\tRussian soul. \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\nFirstly Nikolai \r\n\t\t\tVasilievich Gogol's Taras Bulba, which along with the poetry of\r\n\t\t\tPushkin, founded a Russian literary tradition; that is to \r\n\t\t\tsay, truly Russian, and distinct from the previous literature based \r\n\t\t\ton German, French and English. \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\nJohn Cournos \r\n\t\t\tstates of this in his introduction to Taras Bulba:\n\nThe spoken word, born \r\n\t\t\t\tof the people, gave soul and wing to literature; only by coming \r\n\t\t\t\tto earth, the native earth, was it enabled to soar. \n \n\nComing up from Little \r\n\t\t\t\tRussia, the Ukraine, with Cossack blood in his veins, Gogol \r\n\t\t\t\tinjected his own healthy virus into an effete body, blew his own \r\n\t\t\t\tvirile spirit, the spirit of his race, into its nostrils, and \r\n\t\t\t\tgave the Russian novel its direction to this very day.\n\r\n\t\t\t\tTaras Bulba is a tale on the formation of the Cossack folk. In \r\n\t\t\t\tthis folk-formation the outer enemy plays a crucial role. The \r\n\t\t\t\tRussian has been formed largely as the result of battling over \r\n\t\t\t\tcenturies with Tartars, Muslims and Mongols. \n \n\nCournos writes of the \r\n\t\t\t\tGogol myths in reference to the shaping of the Russian character \r\n\t\t\t\tthrough adversity and landscape:\n\r\n\t\t\t\tThis same Prince Guedimin freed Kieff from the Tatar yoke. This \r\n\t\t\t\tcity had been laid waste by the golden hordes of Ghengis Khan \r\n\t\t\t\tand hidden for a very long time from the Slavonic chronicler as \r\n\t\t\t\tbehind an impenetrable curtain. \n \n\nA shrewd man, \r\n\t\t\t\tGuedimin appointed a Slavonic prince to rule over the city and \r\n\t\t\t\tpermitted the inhabitants to practice their own faith, Greek \r\n\t\t\t\tChristianity. \n \n\nPrior to the Mongol \r\n\t\t\t\tinvasion, which brought conflagration and ruin, and subjected \r\n\t\t\t\tRussia to a two-century bondage, cutting her off from Europe, a \r\n\t\t\t\tstate of chaos existed and the separate tribes fought with one \r\n\t\t\t\tanother constantly and for the most petty reasons. \n \n\nMutual depredations \r\n\t\t\t\twere possible owing to the absence of mountain ranges; there \r\n\t\t\t\twere no natural barriers against sudden attack. \n \n\nThe openness of the \r\n\t\t\t\tsteppe made the people war-like. But this very openness made it \r\n\t\t\t\tpossible later for Guedimin's pagan hosts, fresh from the fir \r\n\t\t\t\tforests of what is now White Russia, to make a clean sweep of \r\n\t\t\t\tthe whole country between Lithuania and Poland, and thus give \r\n\t\t\t\tthe scattered princedoms a much-needed cohesion.\n \n\nIn this way Ukrainia \r\n\t\t\t\twas formed. \n\n(Cournos, \r\n\t\t\t\t'Introduction', ibid)\n\nTheir society and \r\n\t\t\tnationality were defined by religiosity, as was the West's by Gothic \r\n\t\t\tChristianity during its 'Spring' epoch. \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\nThe newcomer to a Setch \r\n\t\t\tor permanent village was greeted by the Chief as a Christian and as \r\n\t\t\ta warrior: \n\n'Welcome! Do you \r\n\t\t\t\tbelieve in Christ?' \n\n'I do', replied the \r\n\t\t\t\tnew-comer. \n\n'And do you believe \r\n\t\t\t\tin the Holy Trinity?'\n\n'I do'.\n\n'And do you go to \r\n\t\t\t\tchurch?'\n\n'I do.' \n\n'Now cross yourself'.\r\n\t\t\t\t\n\n\r\n\t\t\t\t(Gogol, III)\n\nGogol depicts the scorn \r\n\t\t\tin which trade is held, and when commerce has entered among \r\n\t\t\tRussians, rather than being confined to non-Russians associated with \r\n\t\t\ttrade, it is regarded as a symptom of decadence:\n\nI know that baseness \r\n\t\t\t\thas now made its way into our land. \n \n\nMen care only to have \r\n\t\t\t\ttheir ricks of grain and hay, and their droves of horses, and \r\n\t\t\t\tthat their mead may be safe in their cellars; they adopt, the \r\n\t\t\t\tdevil only knows what Mussulman customs. They speak scornfully \r\n\t\t\t\twith their tongues. \n \n\nThey care not to \r\n\t\t\t\tspeak their real thoughts with their own countrymen. They sell \r\n\t\t\t\ttheir own things to their own comrades, like soulless creatures \r\n\t\t\t\tin the market-place. \n \n\nThe favor of a \r\n\t\t\t\tforeign king, and not even a king, but the poor favor of a \r\n\t\t\t\tPolish magnate, who beats them on the mouth with his yellow \r\n\t\t\t\tshoe, is dearer to them than all brotherhood. \n \n\nBut the very meanest \r\n\t\t\t\tof these vile men, whoever he may be, given over though he be to \r\n\t\t\t\tvileness and slavishness, even he, brothers, has some grains of \r\n\t\t\t\tRussian feeling; and they will assert themselves some day.\r\n\t\t\t\t\n \n\nAnd then the wretched \r\n\t\t\t\tman will beat his breast with his hands; and will tear his hair, \r\n\t\t\t\tcursing his vile life loudly, and ready to expiate his \r\n\t\t\t\tdisgraceful deeds with torture. \n \n\nLet them know what \r\n\t\t\t\tbrotherhood means on Russian soil!\n\n\r\n\t\t\t\t(Spengler, 1971, II, 113).\n\nHere we might see a \r\n\t\t\tRussian socialism that is, so far form being the dialectical \r\n\t\t\tmaterialism offered by Marx, the mystic we-feeling forged by the \r\n\t\t\tvastness of the plains and the imperative for brotherhood above \r\n\t\t\teconomics, imposed by that landscape. \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\nRussia's feeling of \r\n\t\t\tworld-mission has its own form of messianism whether expressed \r\n\t\t\tthrough Christian Orthodoxy or the non-Marxian form of 'world \r\n\t\t\trevolution' under Stalin, or both in combination, as suggested by \r\n\t\t\tthe later rapport between Stalinism and the Church from 1943 with \r\n\t\t\tthe creation of the Council for Russian Orthodox Church Affairs (Chumachenko, \r\n\t\t\t2002). \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\nIn both senses, and even \r\n\t\t\tin the embryonic forms taking place under Putin, Russia is conscious \r\n\t\t\tof a world-mission, expressed today as Russia's role in forging a \r\n\t\t\tmultipolar world, with Russia as being pivotal in resisting \r\n\t\t\tunipolarism.\n\r\n\t\t\tCommerce is the concern of foreigners, and the intrusions bring with \r\n\t\t\tthem the corruption of the Russian soul and culture in general:\r\n\t\t\t\n\nin speech, social \r\n\t\t\t\tinteraction, servility, undermining Russian 'brotherhood', the \r\n\t\t\t\tRussian 'we' feeling that Spengler described. \n\n\r\n\t\t\t\t(Spengler 1971, I, 309). \n\nHowever, Gogol also \r\n\t\t\tstates that this materialistic decay will eventually be purged even \r\n\t\t\tfrom the soul of the most craven Russian.\n\nAnd all the Setch \r\n\t\t\t\tprayed in one church, and were willing to defend it to their \r\n\t\t\t\tlast drop of blood, although they would not hearken to aught \r\n\t\t\t\tabout fasting or abstinence. \n \n\nJews, Armenians, and \r\n\t\t\t\tTatars, inspired by strong avarice, took the liberty of living \r\n\t\t\t\tand trading in the suburbs; for the Zaporozhtzi never cared for \r\n\t\t\t\tbargaining, and paid whatever money their hand chanced to grasp \r\n\t\t\t\tin their pocket. \n \n\nMoreover, the lot of \r\n\t\t\t\tthese gain-loving traders was pitiable in the extreme. \n\n \n\nThey resembled people \r\n\t\t\t\tsettled at the foot of Vesuvius; for when the Zaporozhtzi lacked \r\n\t\t\t\tmoney, these bold adventurers broke down their booths and took \r\n\t\t\t\teverything gratis. \n\n\r\n\t\t\t\t(Gogol, III).\n\nThe description of these \r\n\t\t\tpeople shows that they would not stoop to haggling; they decided \r\n\t\t\twhat a merchant should receive. Money-talk is repugnant to them.\n\r\n\t\t\tThe Cossack brotherhood is portrayed by Gogol as the formative \r\n\t\t\tprocess in the building up of the Russian people. \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\nThis process is, \r\n\t\t\tsignificantly, not one of biology but of spirit, even transcending \r\n\t\t\tthe family bond. Spengler treated the matter of race as that of soul \r\n\t\t\trather than of zoology. (Spengler, 1971, II, 113-155). \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\nTo Spengler landscape was \r\n\t\t\tcrucial in determining what becomes 'race', and the duration of \r\n\t\t\tfamilies grouped in a particular landscape - including nomads who \r\n\t\t\thave a defined range of wandering - form 'a character of duration', \r\n\t\t\twhich was Spengler's definition of 'race'. (Spengler, Vol. II, 113).\r\n\t\t\t\n\r\n\t\t\t \n\nGogol describes this \r\n\t\t\t'race' forming process among the Russians. So far from being an \r\n\t\t\taggressive race nationalism it is an expanding mystic brotherhood \r\n\t\t\tunder God:\n\nThe father loves his \r\n\t\t\t\tchildren, the mother loves her children, the children love their \r\n\t\t\t\tfather and mother; but this is not like that, brothers. \n\n \n\nThe wild beast also \r\n\t\t\t\tloves its young. But a man can be related only by similarity of \r\n\t\t\t\tmind and not of blood. There have been brotherhoods in other \r\n\t\t\t\tlands, but never any such brotherhoods as on our Russian soil. \r\n\t\t\t\tIt has happened to many of you to be in foreign lands… \n\n \n\nNo, brothers, to love \r\n\t\t\t\tas the Russian soul loves, is to love not with the mind or \r\n\t\t\t\tanything else, but with all that God has given, all that is \r\n\t\t\t\twithin you. Ah!\n\n(Golgol, \r\n\t\t\t\tIX).\n\nThe Russian soul is born \r\n\t\t\tin suffering. \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\nThe Russian accepts the \r\n\t\t\tfate of life in service to God and to his Motherland. Russia and \r\n\t\t\tFaith are inseparable. \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\nWhen the elderly warrior \r\n\t\t\tBovdug is mortally struck by a Turkish bullet his final words are \r\n\t\t\texhortations on the nobility of suffering, after which his spirit \r\n\t\t\tsoars to join his ancestors:\n\n'I sorrow not to \r\n\t\t\t\t\tpart from the world. God grant every man such an end! May \r\n\t\t\t\t\tthe Russian land be forever glorious!' \n\nAnd Bovdug's spirit \r\n\t\t\t\tflew above, to tell the old men who had gone on long before that \r\n\t\t\t\tmen still knew how to fight on Russian soil, and better still, \r\n\t\t\t\tthat they knew how to die for it and the holy faith. \n\n\r\n\t\t\t\t(Gogol, IX).\n\nThe depth and duration of \r\n\t\t\tthis cult of the martyrs attached to Holy Mother Russia was revived \r\n\t\t\tunder Stalin during the Great Patriotic War. \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\nThis is today as vigorous \r\n\t\t\tas ever, as indicated by the celebration of Victory Day on 7 May \r\n\t\t\t2015, and the absence of Western representatives indicating the \r\n\t\t\tdiverging course Russia is again taking from the West.\n\r\n\t\t\tThe mystique of death and suffering for the Motherland is described \r\n\t\t\tin the death of Taras Bulba when he is captured and executed, his \r\n\t\t\tfinal words being ones of resurrection:\n\n'Wait, the time \r\n\t\t\t\t\twill come when ye shall learn what the orthodox Russian \r\n\t\t\t\t\tfaith is! \n \n\nAlready the \r\n\t\t\t\t\tpeople scent it far and near. A czar shall arise from \r\n\t\t\t\t\tRussian soil, and there shall not be a power in the world \r\n\t\t\t\t\twhich shall not submit to him!' \n\nBut fire had already \r\n\t\t\t\trisen from the fagots; it lapped his feet, and the flame spread \r\n\t\t\t\tto the tree...\n \n\nBut can any fire, \r\n\t\t\t\tflames, or power be found on earth which are capable of \r\n\t\t\t\toverpowering Russian strength?\n\n\r\n\t\t\t\t(Gogol, XII)\n\nThe characteristics of \r\n\t\t\tthe Russian soul that run through Taras Bulba are those of faith, \r\n\t\t\tfate, struggle, suffering, strength, brotherhood and resurrection.\r\n\t\t\t\n\r\n\t\t\t \n\nTaras Bulba established \r\n\t\t\tthe Russian national literature that articulated the Russian soul.\r\n \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\n\n\r\n\t\t\tPseudomorphosis\n\r\n\t\t\tA significant element of Spengler's culture morphology is 'Historic \r\n\t\t\tPseudomorphosis'. \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\nSpengler drew an analogy \r\n\t\t\tfrom geology, when crystals of a mineral are embedded in a \r\n\t\t\trock-stratum: \n\nwhere 'clefts and cracks occur, water filters in, and \r\n\t\t\tthe crystals are gradually washed out so that in due course only \r\n\t\t\ttheir hollow mould remains'. \n\n(Spengler, II, 89)\n \n \n\nThen comes volcanic outbursts which explode the mountain; molten \r\n\t\t\tmasses pour in, stiffen and crystallize out in their turn. But these \r\n\t\t\tare not free to do so in their own special forms. They must fill out \r\n\t\t\tthe spaces that they find available. \n \n\nThus there arise distorted \r\n\t\t\tforms, crystals whose inner structure contradicts their external \r\n\t\t\tshape, stones of one kind presenting the appearance of stones of \r\n\t\t\tanother kind. \n \n\nThe mineralogists call this phenomenon Pseudomorphosis.\n\n(Ibid.)\n\nSpengler explained:\n\nBy the term 'historical pseudomorphosis' I propose to designate \r\n\t\t\tthose cases in which an older alien Culture lies so massively over \r\n\t\t\tthe land that a young Culture, born in this land, cannot get its \r\n\t\t\tbreath and fails not only to achieve pure and specific \r\n\t\t\texpression-forms, but even to develop its own fully \r\n\t\t\tself-consciousness. \n \n\nAll that wells up from the depths of the young \r\n\t\t\tsoul is cast in the old moulds, young feelings stiffen in senile \r\n\t\t\tworks, and instead of rearing itself up in its own creative power, \r\n\t\t\tit can only hate the distant power with a hate that grows to be monstrous.\n\n(Ibid.)\n\nRussia is the example of 'Historic Pseudomorphosis' given by \r\n\t\t\tSpengler as being 'presented to our eyes to-day'. \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\nA dichotomy has \r\n\t\t\texisted for centuries, starting with Peter the Great, of attempts to \r\n\t\t\timpose a Western veneer over Russia. This is called Petrinism. The \r\n\t\t\tresistance of those attempts is what Spengler called 'Old Russia'. \r\n\t\t\tSpengler, 1971, II, 192). \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\nSpengler described this dichotomy:\n\n…This Muscovite period of the great Boyar families and Patriarchs, \r\n\t\t\tin which a constant element is the resistance of an Old Russia party \r\n\t\t\tto the friends of Western Culture, is followed, from the founding of \r\n\t\t\tPetersburg in 1703, by the pseudomorphosis which forced the \r\n\t\t\tprimitive Russian soul into an alien mould, first of full Baroque, \r\n\t\t\tthen of the Enlightenment, and then of the nineteenth century.\n\n(Ibid., II, p. 192)\n\nSpengler's view is again in accord with what is spoken of Russia by \r\n\t\t\tRussians. Nikolai Berdyaev wrote in terms similar to Spengler's:\n\nThe inconsistency and complexity of the Russian soul may be due to \r\n\t\t\tthe fact that in Russia two streams of world history East and West \r\n\t\t\tjostle and influence one another. \n \n\nThe Russian people is not purely \r\n\t\t\tEuropean and it is not purely Asiatic. Russia is a complete section \r\n\t\t\tof the world a colossal East-West. \n \n\nIt unites two worlds, and within \r\n\t\t\tthe Russian soul two principles are always engaged in strife - the \r\n\t\t\tEastern and the Western.\n\n(Berdyaev, 1)\n\nWith the orientation of Russian policy towards the West, 'Old \r\n\t\t\tRussia' was,\n\n'forced into a false and artificial history'. \r\n\t\t\t\t\n\n(Spengler, \r\n\t\t\tII, 193)\n\nSpengler wrote that Russia had become dominated by Western \r\n\t\t\tculture from its 'Late' epoch:\n\nLate-period arts and sciences, enlightenment, social ethics, the \r\n\t\t\tmaterialism of world-cities, were introduced, although in this \r\n\t\t\tpre-cultural time religion was the only language in which man \r\n\t\t\tunderstood himself and the world. \n \n\nIn the townless land with its \r\n\t\t\tprimitive peasantry, cities of alien type fixed themselves like \r\n\t\t\tulcers - false, unnatural, unconvincing. 'Petersburg', says \r\n\t\t\tDostoyevski,\n\n'it is the most abstract and artificial city in the \r\n\t\t\tworld'.\n\nAfter this everything that arose around it was felt by the true \r\n\t\t\tRussdom as lies and poison. \n \n\nA truly apocalyptic hatred was directed \r\n\t\t\ton Europe, and 'Europe' was all that was not Russia… \n\n'The first \r\n\t\t\tcondition of emancipation for the Russian soul', wrote Aksakov \r\n\t\t\tin 1863 to Dostoyevski, 'is that it should hate Petersburg with all \r\n\t\t\tthis might and all its soul'. \n\nMoscow is holy, Petersburg Satanic. \r\n\t\t\t\t\n \n\nA \r\n\t\t\twidespread popular legend presents Peter the Great as Antichrist.\r\n\t\t\t\t\n\n(Spengler, 1971, II, 193)\n\nBerdyaev also discusses the introduction of Enlightenment doctrines \r\n\t\t\tfrom France into Russia:\n\nThe Western culture of Russia in the eighteenth century was a \r\n\t\t\tsuperficial aristocratic borrowing and imitation. Independent \r\n\t\t\tthought had not yet awakened. \n \n\nAt first it was French influences \r\n\t\t\twhich prevailed among us and a superficial philosophy of \r\n\t\t\tenlightenment was assimilated. The Russian aristocrats of the \r\n\t\t\teighteenth century absorbed Western culture in the form of a \r\n\t\t\tmiserable rehash of Voltaire. \n\n(Berdyaev, 16)\n\n\nContinue reading...\n\r\n\t\t\t \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\n\nNotes\n\nIvan Sergyeyevich \r\n\t\t\t\t\tAksakov (1823-1886) a Pan-Slavic leader, established the \r\n\t\t\t\t\t'Slavophil' group at Moscow to restore Russia to its pre-Petrine \r\n\t\t\t\t\tculture.\n\nOrthodox service \r\n\t\t\t\t\tfor the sick.\n\nMary.\n\r\n\t\t\t \n\r\n\t\t\t \n\n\nReferences\n\nBerdyaev, \r\n\t\t\t\t\tNikolai. The Russian Idea, MacMillan Co., New York, 1948\n\nBrandenberger, D. \r\n\t\t\t\t\tNational Bolshevism: Stalinist culture and the Formation of \r\n\t\t\t\t\tModern Russian National Identity 1931-1956. Harvard \r\n\t\t\t\t\tUniversity Press, Massachusetts, 2002.\n\nBrothers, Barbara \r\n\t\t\t\t\tJ. Psychiatry Today, 1 January 1993,\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\nhttp://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199301/russia-soul\n\nChumachenko, T.A. \r\n\t\t\t\t\tChurch and State in Soviet Russia, M. E. Sharpe Inc., New \r\n\t\t\t\t\tYork, 2002.\n\nCournos, H. \r\n\t\t\t\t\t'Introduction', N V Gogol, Taras Bulba & Other Tales, 1842,\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\nhttp://www.gutenberg.org/files/1197/1197-h/1197-h.htm\n\nDostoevsky, \r\n\t\t\t\t\tFyodor. The Brothers Karamazov, 1880\n\nDostoevsky, \r\n\t\t\t\t\tFyodor. The Possessed, Oxford University Press, 1992.\n\nKernback, S. \r\n\t\t\t\t\t'Unconventional research in USSR and Russia: short overview, \r\n\t\t\t\t\t2013,http://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.1148.pdf\n\nRussia before the \r\n\t\t\t\t\tSecond Coming, Svyato-Troitskaya Sergiyeva Lavra Monastery, \r\n\t\t\t\t\tp. 239; Archbishop Alypy, 'My thoughts about the Declaration \r\n\t\t\t\t\tof 1927', 2 February 2005,\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\nhttp://www.stjamesok.org/ArbpAlypyBIO.htm\n\nSpengler, Oswald. \r\n\t\t\t\t\tPrussian and Socialism, 1919.\n\nSpengler, Oswald \r\n\t\t\t\t\t'The Two Faces of Russia and Germany's Eastern Problems', \r\n\t\t\t\t\tPolitische Schriften, Munich, 14 February, 1922.\n\nSpengler, Oswald. \r\n\t\t\t\t\tThe Hour of Decision, Alfred A Knopf, New York, 1963.\n\nSpengler, Oswald. \r\n\t\t\t\t\tThe Decline of The West, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1971.\n\nTrotsky, Leon. \r\n\t\t\t\t\tThe Revolution Betrayed: what is the Soviet Union and where \r\n\t\t\t\t\tis it going?, 1936. \n\nVoices from \r\n\t\t\t\t\tRussia, 15 January 2008,\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\nhttp://02varvara.wordpress.com/2008/01/15/the-wonderworking-icon-of-kaza...\n\r\n\t\t\t \n\n\n\n\nReturn to Russia and The EU\n\n\n\n\nReturn to Prophecies, Predictions and The \r\n\t\t\tFuture\n \n "
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