SAINT PETERSBURG'S HERITAGE ACROSS EUROPE AND ABROAD

Spring's Festival

Russia's Decisive Role in European Cultural Modernity

Важнейшая роль России в европейской  культурной  современности. 

Il ruolo determinante della Russia nella modernità europea.

Le role dècisif de la Russie dans la modernité européenne.

Entscheidende Rolle Russlands in Europas kulturellem Moderne

Notwithstanding its contradictions, Tsarist Russia was deeply implicated in all great cultural and political tendencies of that period in Europe (romanticism, nationalism, democracy, imperialism, industrialism, cultural avant-gardes). Its specific “flavour” rendered it still more attractive for Europeans. Writers such as Pushkin, Gogol, Checov, Dostojevsky and Tol’stoy, componists such as Chajkowsky, Rachmaninov, Rimsky-Korsakov and Stravinsky, choreographers like Diaghilev, painters like Rerih and Kandinsky, became “classical” all over the world already during their lives. Tol’stoy enjoyed worldwide an incredible fortune, not only as a writer, but, also, as a social reformer. By the way, Gandhi’s political thought was deeply influenced by Tol’stoy’s.

Especially at the moment of the Russian Revolution, it became evident that Russia contained such a cultural richess, that, even just its Diaspora (i.a. Malevich, Kandinsky, Chagall, Trubeckoy, Stravinsky, Nabokov, Trockij), constituted a sort of  “cultural great power”,together France and Germany. They were decisive in the diffusion of cultural avant-garde all over the world.

Between 1917 and 1929, three million Russians left their country, giving rise to great Russian cultural centers abroad, such as the ones in Berlin (Charlottemburg), in Paris and in New York.

In 1923, within the framework of N.E.P. (“Novaya Ekonomičeskaya Politika”), due to the Locarno Treaty, the Soviet State had eliminated controls on migrant visas for Germany, so that half a million Russians migrated towards Berlin, where life was cheap at the time, because of the terrible post-war economic crisis. Thus, the town could enjoy a rich Russian cultural life (concerts of Stravinsky, Rachmaninov, Heifej, Hovonij and Milsternčj; presence of writers such as Cvetayeva, Gorki, Bely, Pasternak, Ehzenburg, Nabokov). There were even 68 Russian publishing houses. Later on, at the end of the twenties, Paris had become the center of Russian Diaspora’s culture, where, i.a., Larionov, Bakst, Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Merežkovsky were culturally active.

The culture expressed by the Diaspora was rather conservative, due also to the anti-Bolshevik orientation of most of its members. Authors, like Stravinsky or Rachmaninov, who, during their “Russian” period, had been engaged in avant-gardes, oriented themselves towards conservative cultural expressions. This gave a contribution to the preservation of Russian National Character, also in front of the globalistic approach of Westerners, whilst such avant-garde, in Russia, was submerged by the successive waves of Modernism and of Socialist Realism.

The richess of Russian artists living in the West prompted also a re-evaluation, by the Western public itself, of the “classical” Russian style, the classical traditions of Tsars St. Petersburg, as symbolized, e.g., by Čajkovskij’s music, or by the Dornröschen of Djaghiliev. Under the characteristics of this new cultural trend, there was the rehabilitation of aristocratic values and the “art pour l’art”, which was expressed precisely in Čajkovskij’s music and in Puškin’s literature. Djaghiliev pursued, with “Les Biches” and “Train Bleu”, a more “Occidentalist” path, which was not so much palatable to the- rather  “Eurasiatist”- Russian Diaspora in Paris –. He even interrupted the tour of his “Shéhérazade”, which he found “outdated”.

Russian Diaspora has diffused her roots all over the world, and especially all over Europe, with special reference to Paris, London, Berlin. Flourishing communities of Russians exist in all European countries, with their churches, their newspapers, a.s.o.. They constituted, and still constitute, a strong and permanent link between Russia and Europe. The aristocrats, the White Guards as well as dissenting intellectuals, migrating to other countries of Europe, gave important contributions to European culture, It is sufficient to mention Kandinskij, Chagall, Nabokorov, but also Koyré, Kojève, Prince Trubeckoj.

What is interesting is that the colonies of Russian émigrés have maintained their identity throughout a century, and are still recognizable in cities like London, Paris and Berlin, where they still publish their own newspapers and magazines.

The heritage of “White” Armies and of Tsarism in general are not sufficienlty known by European public opinion, influenced for a long time by Western Marxists. In the past, there was a general tendency to believe that these were just remnants of a far-away period, not having any cultural interest for the past and for the future. On the contrary, the more the times of Soviet Russia goes back, the more the persistence of pre-revolutionary Russia become evident. The symbols of the new Russia, the culture expressed, for example, by cinema, is highly linked to Pre-Civil Was Russia.

Present-days’ Russian filmography, like, for instance, the works of Sakurov and of Zviagintsev, summarize at best, according to us, the heritage, for Europe, of the traditions of the Russian Empire, such as the nostalgy for the aristocratic world, as well as the deep sense of the link between generations and between men and land, also over troubled and obscure times. Today, the monuments of Tsarist Russia, such as ancient towns, churches, palaces, fortresses, are refurbished and well maintained. Their splendorrevives, both for  Russians and foreigners, the pride of that ancient State.

SLAVOPHILY; OCCIDENTALISM AND GERMAN ROMANTISM

Schelling

Russian Grand Culture: an integral part of European Romantism

Русская  великая культура:

неотделнмя часть европейского романтизма

La grande cultura russa: parte integrante del romanticismo europeo

La grande culture russe: partie intégrante du romantisme européen

Die grosse russische Literatur. ein unteilbares Bestandteil der europaeischen Romantik.

 

The Nineteenth Century constitutes, probably, the Golden Age of Russian Culture. The transformations introduced by Peter 1^st and Catherine 2^nd with the help of European intellectuals had succeeded in transforming, at least superficially, Russia into a “modern nation”, a “nation policée”, with its centralized government, its glamorous court, its stable Army and administration.

The Napoleonic Wars had raised, also in the Russian People, the sense of belonging to a sole nation, beyond class boundaries; Romanticism had stimulated the innate sense of the Russian People for emotions, religion, fabulous, communitarism and music; the influence of German philosophers (especially Shelling and Hegel) was open and formal. The circle of the “Lovers of Knowing” was devoted precisely to the study of those authors.

The great authors and musicians of the Russian culture, such as Puškin, Gogol’, Cechov, Dostojevskij and Tol'stoj, as well as Chaikowskij, Rachmaninoff and Rimskij-Korsakoff belong in the Nineteenth Century. Their production constitutes an integral part of the contemporary production of European Pre-Romanticism, Romantism, Verism and Decadentism. Finally, the “classical” historical and social Russian painting set down the bases, from one side, of the iconography of all fine arts devoted to the presentation of Russian history (such as theatre, cinema and “Socialist Realism” in general), and, from another side, constituted a precedent also for the historical painting style of other Slavonic Peoples, such as the Czechs.

As concerns culture’s history, the Nineteenth Century in Russia is characterized by the debate amongst “Slavophiles” and “Westerners”, which implies a profound debate about the identities of Russia and Europe. A debate which has no parallel, for its intensity, in other European culture, and which has not lost its actuality even today.

Consistently with the autocratic and aristocratic power structure of Tsarist Russia, neither Slavophiles, nor Occidentalists, were bourgeois, nor democratic.

Occidentalists thought that Russia, because of its geographical separateness, and/or because of the Tatar domination, had been cut out of the European Civilization (which they understood, according to the enlightenment and idealistic patterns, as well as to De Maistre’s influence, as the sole “true” civilization), so that Russia had not participated to the “true” history.In this sense, the idea that the Occidentalists had of Russia was similar to the one that Marx would have expressed later on about the small peoples of Central-Eastern Europe, “Peoples without history”.

On the contrary, the Slavophiles, who rejected the idea of the Western history as the only “true” history, stressed the riches of Russia variegated history (Vikings, Byzantines, Tatars, Orthodoxy, Enlightenment), and emphasized the role of Russia to preserve ancient values such as spiritualism, mysticism, sociality, discipline, a.s.o., in a Europe which, because of rationalism and enlightenment, was losing its souls. Because of its capability to preserve ancient values, it was called to a mission, the one to save Europe.

Paradoxically, the views of the Slavophiles, if considered attentively, were not at all alien, nor, surely, opposed, to the dominant romantic views in XIX Century’s Central Europe. The refusal, by Slavophiles, to rally with the mainstream rationalism and economicism was common to all kinds of romanticism, from Goethe to Mazzini; the search of a primeval “pure” nationhood was shared with “patriots” of all kinds, from Heine to Gioberti,from Mickiewicz to Herczeg; the reconstruction of a primitive and communitarian society can be found in the American Thoreau and in the German von Hexthausen.

In general, the struggle opposing in Russia “Slavophiles” and “Westerners” is just a more acute and blatant aspect of the Europe-wide conflict between “Modernists” and “anti-Modernists”: Condorcet and Rousseau; Hegel and Kierkegaard; Marx and Nietzsche, a.s.o..

This idea, which is, at the end, the one of the Napoleonic Wars (the first “Patriotic War”), and of De Maistre, will survive through different generation, in Dostojevski, in national mobilitation for the “Great Patriotical War” against Nazism, and, at the end, is still the greater motivation of the assertion, by Russia, of a “special” role. In fact, what has always been stressed by Russian authorities is that present-days Europe would not have arisen without the victory of the Soviet Army against the Armies of the Third Reich.The joint celebration, on the Red Square, of the “Victory Day” (“Den’ Pobiedy”) 2010, together with European Authorities, including Angela Merkel, Donald Tusk and Tayyep Erdogan, constitutes the logical conclusion of this Russian ideology.

The Svavophile Chomjakov worked out the concept of “Sobornost”, from “Sobor” (assembly, church, cathedral) - which may be translated as “communitarism”, or consistorialism” or “conviviality” - a special human attitude, which, according to Chomjakov, was specifical to Orthodoxy. “Sobornost” should have constituted the opposite of the rationalism, the economism, the individualism of the West. A “born-again Russia” could have brought “Sobornost” to the dying West. In reality, “Sobornost” echoed the ideas of the bewonderers of primitive religion and of nature, like a certain number of Protestant Sects, and the American Trascendentalists.

Also Occidentalists started from the ideas of German Idealism. Their main difference was that Occidentalists, instead of magnifying the superiority of the Russian spirit, they preached that Russia, remaining far from the progressive spirit of Western Europe, would not be able to take profit of its potential.

The Nineteenth Century constitutes, probably, the Golden Age of Russian Culture. The transformations introduced by Peter 1^st and Catherine 2^nd with the help of European intellectuals had succeeded in transforming, at least superficially, Russia into a “modern nation”, a “nation policée”, with its centralized government, its glamorous court, its stable Army and administration.

The Napoleonic Wars had raised, also in the Russian People, the sense of belonging to a sole nation, beyond class boundaries; Romanticism had stimulated the innate sense of the Russian People for emotions, religion, fabulous, communitarism and music; the influence of German philosophers (especially Shelling and Hegel) was open and formal. The circle of the “Lovers of Knowing” was devoted precisely to the study of those authors.

The great authors and musicians of the Russian culture, such as Puškin, Gogol’, Cechov, Dostojevskij and Tolstoj, as well as Ciaikowskij, Rachmaninoff and Rimskij-Korsakoff belong in the Nineteenth Century. Their production constitutes an integral part of the contemporary production of European Pre-Romanticism, Romanticism, Verism and Decadentism. Finally, the “classical” historical and social Russian painting set down the bases, from one side, of the iconography of all fine arts devoted to the presentation of Russian history (such as theatre, cinema and “Socialist Realism” in general), and, from another side, constituted a precedent also for the historical painting style of other Slavonic Peoples, such as the Czechs.

As concerns culture’s history, the Nineteenth Century in Russia is characterized by the debate amongst “Slavophiles” and “Westerners”, which implies a profound debate about the identities of Russia and Europe. A debate which has no parallel, for its intensity, in other European culture, and which has not lost its actuality even today.

Consistently with the autocratic and aristocratic power structure of Tsarist Russia, neither Slavophiles, nor Occidentalists, were bourgeois, nor democratic.

Occidentalists thought that Russia, because of its geographical separateness, and/or because of the Tatar domination, had been cut out of the European Civilization (which they understood, according to the enlightenment and idealistic patterns, as well as to De Maistre’s influence, as the sole “true” civilization), so that Russia had not participated to the “true” history.In this sense, the idea that the Occidentalists had of Russia was similar to the one that Marx would have expressed later on about the small peoples of Central-Eastern Europe, “Peoples without history”.

On the contrary, the Slavophiles, who rejected the idea of the Western history as the only “true” history, stressed the riches of Russia variegated history (Vikings, Byzantines, Tatars, Orthodoxy, Enlightenment), and emphasized the role of Russia to preserve ancient values such as spiritualism, mysticism, sociality, discipline, a.s.o., in a Europe which, because of rationalism and enlightenment, was losing its souls. Because of its capability to preserve ancient values, it was called to a mission, the one to save Europe.

Paradoxically, the views of the Slavophiles, if considered attentively, were not at all alien, nor, surely, opposed, to the dominant romantic views in XIX Century’s Central Europe. The refusal, by Slavophiles, to rally with the mainstream rationalism and economicism was common to all kinds of romanticism, from Goethe to Mazzini; the search of a primeval “pure” nationhood was shared with “patriots” of all kinds, from Heine to Gioberti, to Herczeg; the reconstruction of a primitive and communitarian society can be found in the American Thoreau and in the German von Hexthausen.

In general, the struggle opposing in Russia “Slavophiles” and “Westerners” is just a more acute and blatant aspect of the Europe-wide conflict between “Modernists” and “anti-Modernists”: Condorcet and Rousseau; Hegel and Kierkegaard; Marx and Nietzsche, a.s.o..

This idea, which is, at the end, the one of the Napoleonic Wars (the first “Patriotic War”), and of De Maistre, will survive through different generation, in Dostojevski, in national mobilitation for the “Great Patriotical War” against Nazism, and, at the end, is still the greater motivation of the assertion, by Russia, of a “special” role. In fact, what has always been stressed by Russian authorities is that present-days Europe would not have arisen without the victory of the Soviet Army against the Armies of the Third Reich.The joint celebration, on the Red Square, of the “Victory Day” (“Den’ Pobiedy”) 2010, together with European Authorities, including Angela Merkel, Donald Tusk and Tayyep Erdogan, constitutes the logical conclusion of this Russian ideology.

The Svavophile Chomjakov worked out the concept of “Sobornost”, from “Sobor” (assembly, church, cathedral) - which may be translated as “communitarism”, or consistorialism” or “conviviality” - a special human attitude, which, according to Chomjakov, was specifical to Orthodoxy. “Sobornost” should have constituted the opposite of the rationalism, the economism, the individualism of the West. A “born-again Russia” could have brought “Sobornost” to the dying West. In reality, “Sobornost” echoed the ideas of the bewonderers of primitive religion and of nature, like a certain number of Protestant Sects, and the American Trascendentalists.

Also Occidentalists started from the ideas of German Idealism. Their main difference was that Occidentalists, instead of magnifying the superiority of the Russian spirit, they preached that Russia, remaining far from the progressive spirit of Western Europe, would not be able to take profit of its potential.

At the end of their evolution, many occidentalists, such as Herzen, Bakunin and Čaadayev, arrived at a positive concept of the traditional Russian communities exalted by “Slavophiles” (“mir” and “obščina”) as the only solid basis for the renewal of Russia.

Idealism was the source of the view that, of cultural history, had both Slavophiles and Occidentalists, but positivism and, in particular, comparative economics, became the basis for political debate.

The “Occidentalist” Čenyševsky accepted to confer a special role to the Russian land community (“obščina”), but considered it with a relativistic approach, seeing, in it, a social institution common to other countries, like Germany. According to him, the origins of obščina were not traditional, but fiscal, depending on tax obligations of the XVI Century.

Herzen, which had studied at length the revolutionary experiences in America, arrived at the conclusion that the American society was an intolerant one, as already Tocqueville had foreseen. It is worth considering to what extent this conclusion is similar to the one of many other disillusioned European revolutionaries, such as Heine and Carlyle.

Like the idea of “Sobornost”, also the concept of “Obščina” had not been discovered by Russians, but, on the contrary, by Germans. Von Haxthausen, a German aristocrat specialized in agriculture, had studied the Russian rural communities, had discussed of them with Herzen and was arrived at the end at a positive conclusion, since it found them consistent with his Christian and monarchic ideas.