Vladimir Solov'ev on spiritual nationhood, Russia and the Jews

Russian Review

Volumn 56, Issue 2, 1997, Pages 157-177

  Kornblatt, Judith Deutsch ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 44849120477     PISSN: 00360341     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/131653     Document Type: Article

References (43)

1. Nikolai O. Lossky, History of Russian Philosophy (New York, 1951), 121, writes: "Alluding to his own passionate desire not only theoretically to discover divine truth, but also to contribute to its incarnation on earth, Soloviev often called himself a Jew."
2. V. S. Solov'ev, Sobranie sochinenii Vladimira Sergeevicha Solov'eva, 2d ed., 10 vols. (1911-14; reprint ed., with two additional volumes, Brussels, 1966-70), 4:141. Unless otherwise stated, all citations to Solov'ev will be from this edition and indicated by volume and page number in in-text parenthetical notes
3. See also F. B. Gets, "Ob otnoshenii Vl. S. Solov'eva k evreiskomu voprosu," Voprosy filosofii i psikhologii 56 (1901): 165-68
4. and, on mysticism, Solov'ev, Sobranie sochinenii 10:339-43
5. Paul Berline, "Russian Religious Philosophers and the Jews (Soloviev, Berdyaev, Bulgakov, Struve, Rozanov and Fedotov)," Jewish Social Studies 9 (1947): 272
6. Walter G. Moss, "Vladimir Soloviev and the Jews in Russia," Russian Review 29 (April 1970): 186
7. Sergei Trubetskoi, "Smert' V. Solov'eva. 31 iiulia 1900 g.," Vestnik Evropy, 1900, no. 9
8. Reprinted in (and cited from) B. Averin and D. Bazanova, eds., Kniga o Vladimire Solov'eve (Moscow: Sovetskii pisatel', 1991), 294
9. See also K. Mochul'skii, Vladimir Solov'ev: Zhizn' i uchenie, 2d ed. (Paris, 1951), 268
10. Emanuel Glouberman, "Feodor Dostoevsky, Vladimir Soloviev, Vasilii Rozanov and Lev Shestov on Jewish and Old Testament Themes" (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1974), 51
11. Gets, "Ob otnoshenii Vl. S. Solov'eva," 163
12. Solov'ev used the term bogochelovechestvo throughout the three decades of his career, but avoided direct discussion of theocracy after the 1880s. Despite disillusionment with Western liberalism as well as Russian nationalism as roads toward a just, spiritual society, however, he did not, as most commentators have asserted, turn away from his optimistic attitude toward the potential for truth and goodness within human institutions. For a discussion of this issue in his last great work see my "Solov'ev on Salvation: The Story of the 'Short Story of the Antichrist,'" in Russian Religious Thought, ed. Judith Deutsch Kornblatt and Richard Gustafson (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996), 68-87
13. In addition to its role in the formulation of bogochelovechestvo and theocracy, Judaism also plays a role in Solov'ev's important concept of Sophia, as I have discussed in "Solov'ev's Androgynous Sophia and the Jewish Kabbalah," Slavic Review 50 (Fall 1991): 486-96
14. See, for example, "Messianizm," Sobranie sochinenii 12:600
15. and, especially, his preface to David Gintsburg, "Kabbala, misticheskaia filosofiia evreev," Voprosy filosofii i psikhologii, 33 (1896)
16. reprinted in Solov'ev, Sobranie sochinenii 12:332-34
17. and his article on "Kabbala" for the Brokgauz-Efron encyclopedia (reprinted in Sobranie sochinenii 10:339-43). Interestingly, Solov'ev rarely mentions the Christian Cabala, although the European scholars of mysticism whom he cites in the encyclopedia article rely on it heavily
18. Solov'ev, Sobranie sochinenii 6:40-41. The expression "unmerged, yet undivided" refers to the natures of Christ. The relationship of the two natures of Christ was confirmed at the christological councils in response to the heresies of Arianism, Nestorianism, Monophysitism, and Monophelitism - Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man; His two natures are at once separate and one
19. undivided and yet unmerged. For further discussion of the so-called Definition of Chalcedon see Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church (1963; reprint ed. Harmondsworth, Eng., 1993), 34
20. The lecture in which the proposal was made was not published in either the first or second editions of Solov'ev's collected works. For the text as reconstructed by an unknown student see V. S. Solov'ev, Sochineniia v dvukh tomakh (Moscow: Pravda, 1989 [supplement to Voprosy filosofii], 1:39-42
21. For a cogent account of the importance of the lecture to Solov'ev's career see Gregory Arthur Gaut, "A Christian Westernizer: Vladimir Solovyov and Russian Conservative Nationalism" (Ph.D. diss., University of Minnesota, 1992)
22. and idem, "Christian Politics: Vladimir Solovyov's Social Gospel Theory," Modern Greek Studies Yearbook 10/11 (1994/95): 653-74
23. Solov'ev, Sobranie sochinenii 4:139. Solov'ev here cites the words of Bishop Nikanor, published in the issues of Pravoslavnoe obozrenie that preceded the publication of Jewry and the Christian Question in that same journal. Nikanor wrote about the unity of the Old and New Testaments: "We, Christians and Israelites, are brothers not only in flesh, but in spirit, and, conversely, not only in spirit, but in flesh."
24. See Nikanor, Bishop of Kherson and Odessa, "Pouchenie preosviashchennago Nikanora, episkopa khersonskago i odesskago, pri osviashchenii tserkvi Odesskago kommercheskago uchilishcha, v chetvertok shestoi nedeli velikago posta," Pravoslavnoe obozrenie 2 (May-June 1884): 4
25. That Solov'ev ultimately desired that the Jews be Christian is confirmed in his praise of I. D. Rabinovich, a nineteenth-century "Jew for Jesus," whom Solov'ev compares to the apostles of the first century (see Solov'ev, Sobranie sochinenii 9:422-23, and 4:207-21)
26. Although not stated, this reference is clearly to Genesis 32:24-30, when Jacob wrestles with a messenger of God and prevails, at which time his name is changed to Israel, or He-Who-Wrestles-with-God
27. Genesis, Ibid., 149
28. Later in the essay, Solov'ev finds the origin of this maxim in the Talmud, although it is in fact from Leviticus 19:18 ("You shall love your neighbor as yourself")
29. Leviticus, Ibid., 11-15
30. Solov'ev finds the requirement of Israel to respect non-Jews in the Bible as well. See The History and Future of Theocracy (ibid., 4:495-96)
31. Solov'ev repeated many of his attacks against detractors of Judaic texts with more biting satire in 1891 and 1896. See "'Evrei, ikh verouchenie i nravouchenie': Issledovanie S. Ia. Diminskogo" (ibid., 6:374-80)
32. and "Kogda zhili evreiskie proroki?" (ibid., 7:180-200)
33. Genesis 28:12-16
34. Divine light is also an important model in Neoplatonism and enters into Orthodox theology through the writings of the early Greek Fathers. For a discussion of light as a means of union with God in Orthodoxy see Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY, 1976), 217-35. That Solov'ev finds the source in Hebrew Scriptures rather than patristics is, of course, significant in his development of the Jews as a model
35. Solov'ev, "L'Idée russe/Russkaia ideia," in Sobranie sochinenii 11:89-118
36. For more on this lecture, as well as a defense of its ideas against those who accused Solov'ev of betraying Russia and Russian Orthodoxy, see Sergei Trubetskoi, "V zashchitu 'Russkoi idei' Vladimira Solov'eva: Neopublikovannoe pis'mo v redaktsiiu 'Moskovskikh vedomostei'," Novaia Evropa, 1994, no. 4:57-64
37. In Russia and the Universal Church, Solov'ev introduces many of the metaphors and themes that will preoccupy him later in the 1890s, especially those of the body and erotic love. Although not the first to notice that the Latin version of "Eros" - "Amor" - is the reverse of "Roma," Solov'ev uses the coincidence to imply that the arrival of the Bogochelovek in the midst of the Roman Empire radically transformed, but did not eliminate, the previously pagan "body." Actually, Solov'ev claims, the "body politic" of the people of Israel, whose history both preceded and succeeded Rome, is the transition point (Sobranie sochinenii 11:242)
38. Sobranie sochinenii, Ibid., 1:227-39
39. Solov'ev uses narodnost' and natsional'nost' synonymously. He explains their difference from natsionalizm by the analogy, "narodnost': natsionalizm::lichnost':egoizm" (see ibid., 5:352)
40. Published as "O narodnosti i narodnykh delakh Rossii," in the same year as Jewry and the Christian Question
41. Glouberman, "Feodor Dostoevsky, Vladimir Soloviev," 10
42. See also Mikhail Agurskii and Margarita Shklovskaia, Iz literaturnogo naslediia: Gor'kii i evreiskii vopros (Jerusalem, 1986), 6
43. See, for example, Z. A. Krakhmal'nikova, ed., Russkaia ideia i evrei: Sbornik statei (Moscow: Nauka, 1994)