Panhumanity

Recently, Foreign Minister Lavrov said the following in his speech: “Tolstoy said that the answer to the challenge of Peter’s modernization was the genius of Pushkin.” It sounded so modernized (the words challenge, modernization) that I thought: the minister must have taken this fragment from a speech that was originally written in English some time ago, so that the Russian quote itself had already been forgotten. It’s like in my favorite story about Brezhnev and Indira Gandhi: Indira Gandhi, at a meeting with Brezhnev, uttered words that the translator translated as follows: “As your poet Tyutchev said, happy is the one who comes into this world when his fate is decided.” Naturally, they meant the lines from Tyutchev’s poem “Cicero”: “Blessed is he who visited this world / In its fatal moments! - remember, further on: He was called by the all-good / As an interlocutor to a feast” (Tyutchev, however, also has the option “Happy is he who visited...”, but in our story happy looks better). From this plot a whole linguistic game has grown, in which well-known lines are given as if in reverse translation and the original must be restored: well, for example There is no need to provoke me unnecessarily (Baratynsky, “Do not tempt me unnecessarily”).

So what quote did Lavrov refer to? I have a scientific hypothesis. I would venture to suggest that this refers to Dostoevsky’s famous Pushkin speech, delivered in 1880 on the occasion of the opening of a monument to Pushkin in Moscow: “Pushkin comes precisely at the very beginning of our correct self-awareness, which has barely begun and emerged in our society after a whole century from Peter the Great.” reforms, and his appearance greatly contributes to illuminating our dark road with a new guiding light.” The fact that it is Dostoevsky and not Tolstoy does not matter. As you know, in Russian culture, which is generally prone to various kinds of dualities, some writers go in pairs: Tolstoy-Dostoevsky, Akhmatova-Tsvetaeva, Pasternak-Mandelshtam. Well, Pushkin, however, is in a special position: everything written by Russian poets is often attributed to him. In particular, about fatal moments - especially since he published Tyutchev’s “Cicero” in his “Contemporary”.

“Pushkin's Speech” is one of the most important, or, as they now say, cult, texts of Russian culture. But such a fundamental significance of this text is not connected with the definition of Pushkin’s place in literature in it, but with the proclamation of “worldwide responsiveness” as a constitutive feature of the Russian person: “No, I will say positively, there was no poet with such worldwide responsiveness as Pushkin <...>. For what is the strength of the spirit of the Russian people if not its desire, in its ultimate goals, for universality and pan-humanity? <…> To become a real Russian, to become completely Russian, perhaps, means only (in the end, emphasize this) to become the brother of all people, an all-man, if you want.” In general, as Blok would later write, “We love everything - the heat of cold numbers, / And the gift of divine visions, / We understand everything - the sharp Gallic meaning, / And the gloomy German genius... / We remember everything - the hell of the Parisian streets, / And the Venetian coolness, / The distant aroma of lemon groves, / And the smoky masses of Cologne...” Blok’s “Scythians,” however, is more a greeting to Vladimir Solovyov than to Dostoevsky.

By talking about worldwide responsiveness, Dostoevsky entered into a dialogue that began more than a hundred years earlier. In the second half of the 18th century, the minds of Europeans were dominated by the idea that peoples have characters. Nations began to be thought of as collective entities. Rousseau, in his “Social Contract” (1762), wrote that Russians would never become a truly civilized people, linking this with the fact that despotism suppresses the national spirit. Other Western authors were also of the opinion that Russians have no national character and can only borrow. For Catherine II, who proclaimed that “Russia is a European power” and not an eastern despotism, the affirmation of national identity thus turned out to be fundamental. As properties of the Russian national character, Catherine highlighted “living intelligence,” “a keen and quick understanding of everything,” “exemplary obedience,” rooted Christian virtues and the ability to learn. She believed that national character must be cultivated through the spread of education and the establishment of correct and uniform laws throughout the Empire. The formation of a national character was for her inseparable from the education of a loyal subject and the inculcation of European norms. However, in parallel with the universal concept of national character, the idea of ​​the “Russian soul” also developed as something immanent and unchangeable, which is best preserved in the common people, not Europeanized strata and is reflected in the folklore and language of the people. This concept in the spirit of Herder can be traced, for example, from Catherine II’s opponent Radishchev: “Whoever knows the voices of Russian folk songs admits that there is something in them that signifies spiritual sorrow. <…> In them you will find the formation of the soul of our people” (“Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow”, 1790). Radishchev already noted those properties of the “Russian soul” that will soon turn into a cultural stereotype that continues to this day: irrationality, emotionality, craving for extremes. As Pushkin writes, now reckless revelry, now heartfelt melancholy. Yes, by the way, Dostoevsky also had a hand in this: let’s remember Rogozhin or Mitya Karamazov. As we see, this is a completely different image of the Russian person than the one that Catherine sought to form.

And now, a century later, Dostoevsky in “Pushkin’s Speech” returns to the idea that our identity is intimately connected with re-ownership: “Indeed, what is Peter’s reform for us, and not only in the future, but even in what has already happened, happened, what has already appeared with your own eyes? What did this reform mean for us? After all, it was not just for us the assimilation of European costumes, customs, inventions and European science. <...> We did not hostilely (as it seemed that should have happened), but friendly, with complete love, we accepted into our souls the genius of foreign nations, all together, without making preferential tribal distinctions, being able to instinctively distinguish, almost from the very first step, remove contradictions, excuse and reconcile differences, and thus have already demonstrated our readiness and inclination, which has just appeared and been expressed to us, for a universal universal reunification with all the tribes of the great Aryan family. Yes, the purpose of the Russian person is undoubtedly pan-European and worldwide.” As we see, however, a century of sublimation of “Russianness” did not pass without a trace: where Catherine saw only opportunities for the civilization of her subjects, Dostoevsky envisioned a worldwide mission.