The metaphysical sense of Russia
The Faculty of Philosophy at Moscow’s main university held a forum on current events in Russia where speakers expressed positions that were not obvious and unambiguous. Without openly criticising the country’s power structure, philosophers show that they do not want to give up on the true dimension of the Russian soul, that of openness to all variants of the spirit.
The Faculty of Philosophy at M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU), the capital’s main university, recently organised an international philosophical forum titled "Knowing the meaning of Russia" with the support of the Russian Presidential Fund for Cultural Initiatives.
The event was held at the Metropol Hotel, which is located between the Bolshoi Theatre and Red Square. Organisers said they wanted to go beyond traditional scientific dissertations to try, based on the tradition of Russian philosophy, to understand current events "in person”.
Philosophers, historians and philologists looked at metaphysical questions through the practical problems of Russia's current politics.
This was not just a “high propaganda" game, even if politicians opened the forum with statements in which they use philosophical notions to justify the most daring and aggressive choices of Putin’s militarist and imperial ideology.
Pyotr Tolstoy, deputy speaker of the Moscow Duma, proved to be the most effective speaker. A distant descendant of the great author of "War and Peace”, he is one of the main supporters of the "philosophy of the Russian world" that must bring the world back to true traditional values.
In his opinion, "only by clarifying ourselves and within ourselves will we be able to explain to the whole world what Russian civilisation consists of.”
The State must offer society a complete image of the future that awaits us, and philosophers must provide the most appropriate categories for this task.
MSU, despite being the most important state university, has tried in these years of upheaval to keep a certain balance, away from propaganda excesses, unlike other places like the Russian State University for the Humanities (RSUH) and the National Research University Higher School of Economics, which were the most open to cultural dialogue with the West until a couple of years ago, before becoming schools for ideologues of universal conflict.
In particular, MSU’s Faculty of Philosophy has kept fairly intact as it sought to maintain the link with Russia’s various philosophical currents from the present and the past, avoiding involvement in projects and initiatives directly related to politics.
However, more recently, someone from “higher up” has tried to get it to take a position in a more explicit way, but this forum still expressed views that were not obvious and unambiguous, reflecting the pluralism typical of true Russian culture.
"Russian philosophy" as such, especially in its most intense phase in the 19th century, has never focused on unilateral positions. On the contrary, it has been characterised by exchange and reworking different positions within a shared European and world heritage.
Against the background of the classical juxtaposition between Slavophiles and Westernisers, Russian philosophers began their quest by reinterpreting some of the greatest German philosophers. Slavophiles saw the need to fully develop the idea of a "religious philosophy" proposed by Friedrich Schelling, while their rivals based themselves on the rationalist theories of Georg Wilhelm Hegel, with the inevitable historical course towards the "absolute spirit" to be achieved with social revolution.
This makes Russian culture readable from different perspectives and from opposite directions, unlike what the ideologues of present-day Russia would like to impose in their abstract proclamation of "traditional values".
Thus, for leading philologist Tatiana Kasatkina, speaking about to the multifaceted spirit of the great Slavophile writer Fyodor Dostoevsky, “Russia’s current elites have not really understood the meaning of the Russian idea”.
As the history of the Empire centred on St Petersburg shows, even at the time of Peter the Great, the aristocracy was separate from the people, developing a "colonial-style ideology", since the people was despised and deemed barbaric, without real spiritual content. “Instead of serving society, they began to administer it from above,” Kasatkina argues, with obvious analogies with the current situation in Russia.
Philosopher Mikhail Bogatov noted that “Russians, while planning their future, often do not take into account the actual role of their country, its topos, in universal reality.” What has often beleaguered Russia is precisely the attempt to impose a worldview that ends up excluding Russia itself, leaving it an "unfinished world”, suspended between other powers and cultures.
Often this is justified as a "sacrifice" Russians make in favour of other peoples, effectively cancelling themselves, a statement that seems largely confirmed today.
Bogatov notes that this contradiction is evident in new compulsory school courses on the "Foundations of Russian Statehood," which, in his opinion, "seem to be written to convince foreigners of Russia's greatness” rather than properly inform students.
Another eminent scholar of history, Sergey Perevezentsev, reaches the conclusion that Russian political science today seems to be increasingly dependent on Anglo-American politics, but taking on a "defensive and conservative" form, allowing itself to be dictated by the ongoing debate in the "enemy world".
The traditional values that Russia intends to defend are not "Russian values", but "counter-values" to the West, a way to distinguish itself by winking at certain political factions in the various countries of the world, especially Europe and America, who feel attracted to Russia's sovereigntist and traditionalist ideology, feeling deep dissatisfaction with the changes taking place in contemporary society.
Sociologist Sergey Baranov spoke about “Russian civilisation as an original and sovereign variant of Eastern European civilisation, and current civilisation of axial time,” trying to bring metaphysics back to the Russian mission.
In his opinion, "philosophy today has the possibility of building something different from its Western roots", starting from the opposition of values, passing "from the sphere of Western rationalism to the philosophy of super-rational practice", an obscure definition to provoke a "spiritual revolution of the person", and through it, arrive at a "social-economic and technological order of an axial type", a way to reassert the Russian superiority in values.
In informal conversations with the many journalists in attendance, some participants began to discuss why Slavophiles focused on the religious dimension, seeing it as a marker of Russia's distinction from the West.
With respect to the great visions of the 19th century, philosophers turned to the “hierarchy of empires" that set Russia apart, a reference to the Holy Alliance, Russia proposed to Austria and Prussia, bringing together Orthodox, Catholics and Protestants, one that goes back to Europe’s religious roots but is reflected in the "special military operation".
The forum marked the 150th anniversary of the birth of one of Russia’s greatest philosophers, Nikolai Berdyaev, who, after the Bolshevik revolution and the world wars, described the situation of the world as that of a "New Middle Ages".
Other speakers sought inspiration in the philosopher of "Russian personalism" to understand Russia and the world today, juxtaposing him to another intellectual whose anniversary coincided with the meeting, namely the philosopher and historian of religion Aleksei Losev, the only "idealist thinker" allowed by Stalin in the days of official atheism.
Berdyaev stressed the importance of freedom and creativity as essential elements in the Russian idea, when it is necessary to think of a new world in which man must try to rediscover his relationship with the Creator.
Other speakers tried to reaffirm the innovative and original potential of Russian culture, while the dean of the MSU Department of Philosophy, Aleksey Kozyrev, concluded by stating that "the relationship between Russian philosophy and politics depends on the choice of each person,” suggesting that thinking must not depend on obligations and impositions, and that “philosophical evaluations of events cannot be reduced to primitive statements".
While not openly criticising the positions of the existing power structure, Russian philosophers show that they do not want to give up on the true dimension of the Russian soul, one of openness to all variants of the spirit, each speaking "in person" to the whole world.
RUSSIAN WORLD IS THE ASIANEWS NEWSLETTER DEDICATED TO RUSSIA. WOULD YOU LIKE TO RECEIVE IT EVERY SATURDAY? TO SUBSCRIBE, CLICK HERE.
.png)
09/04/2022 19:56
