Open letter to Konstantin Krylov

Dear Konstantin (sorry, I don’t know his middle name)!

Being a friend of the late Sergei Sergeevich, I read your obituary article not without emotion. Of course, the view of an outsider has its own value “for history,” perhaps greater than the view of people from the inner circle. But the position of an outsider must be accompanied by awareness, you will agree.

Let's start with the fact that Averintsev was never an armchair scientist-eccentric and did not build his image in that spirit. He really was a scientist with a brilliant ability, to use Tolstoy’s phrase, to “conjugate” - moreover, he had at his disposal a huge thesaurus for amazing conjugations. But first of all, he was a rather delicate teacher of life (in particular, the opportunity that opened up to speak simple and significant words from the pulpit - and a layman is not forbidden to do this - drew him to the community of Father Georgy Kochetkov; so Revzin, apparently embarrassed by his photograph in the surplice, he even printed that Sergei took holy orders). At his lectures, especially at Moscow State University, people “stood in the aisles” (you correctly state this) - but not because they wanted to hear something “with zest” about Proclus or Augustine, but because through his thematic material (not at all exploiting him instrumentally, and allowing him to express himself), the lecturer informed about the meaning of life. Yes, yes, nothing less than that. Everyone felt this, several generations running after him from audience to audience. For this he was deeply hated by many - libertarians no less, and even more than the Soviet academic officialdom.

Further. He still “noticed” Soviet power, squeezing through its pincers, fighting together with his comrades in the Literary and Philosophical Encyclopedias for every prohibited word. There was no "royal indifference." Averintsev valued any opportunity for undisingenuous public activity even then (for example, protecting the banner of collegial decency in the academic community). And when, under Gorbachev, some prospect of civic participation in the affairs of the country opened up, he immediately seized on it, taking his brief parliamentary term with extreme seriousness and publishing journalism in the notorious “Ogonyok Library” - which may seem funny only because over time. I assure you that this was not a pose, and you have no factual grounds to think so.

"The Poetics of Early Byzantine Literature" was appreciated not for the absence of references to the classics of M.-L. and not for the exoticism of the non-ideological themes or for the ornate style (the book, by the way, is perfectly readable by non-specialists), but for something completely different. Yuri Kagramanov (who did not know Averintsev personally) recently told me that an article about Athens and Jerusalem (later included in this book, and previously published in Voprosy Literatury) influenced him no less than One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. In this, in your opinion, “innocent” book, everything was seditious - since it was a brilliant catechetical act aimed at those who wanted to become Christians. And of course, precisely because the meaning of the message was infinitely daring (I’m afraid that this is difficult for you to understand), the shell could not help but be euphemistic: “poetics of literature”, and even “ early Byzantine”. And the fact that early Byzantium was a century of patristicism was already well understood by many by that time...

What it means to “be Orthodox” in these years is a separate conversation. If you are interested, I will tell you later. Those for whom this was a form of “safe dissent” (the question of the degree of safety needs clarification) subsequently left the Church. Averintsev did not move towards Christianity quickly (not a single day of his life, however, without being a “materialist”). If my memory serves me right, he even wrote an article about Christianity for FE, either without being baptized yet, or just barely having been baptized. But when he came to him (to Him), he gave everything he had. And again, I dare to assure you, this was not a gesture or a pose. (Dima Bykov the other day naively asked me: “What, did he even fast?”)

At the same time, Averintsev was not a Christian of the “Menevsky type.” Yes, a philo-Catholic, and a Judeophile - but without the rationalism and simplification of the deservedly respected Father Alexander . And then you get completely confused in contradictions: how could Western culture be Culture in general for him, given his love for Hellenism and Byzantium? And to Russia - not only Vladimir Solovyov and Vyacheslav Ivanov, but Derzhavin and Pushkin. He was a very native Russian person, and that is why I, being a Jew, allowed myself to make fun of his Judeophilia. Mind you, he never quarreled with the church authorities of the Russian Orthodox Church, he was very careful, even more than I sometimes wanted to see. And his political democracy was Chestertonian - for all of us, Chesterton was then among the foremost authorities. And not at all “Sakharov’s” - here your situation with “discernment of spirits” is bad.

Averintsev was never an emigrant (even his wife should have received the urn with his ashes only with the participation of an employee of the Russian embassy). And words about Russia - current or not - as a “terrible, wild, shaggy country” would seem monstrous and disgusting to him - here I boldly speak on his behalf , which I have never done and will not do under any other circumstances. He went to Vienna (as he said, to Central Europe, still closer to his homeland), since otherwise he would have died from asthma and other serious diseases, for the chronic treatment of which there simply would not have been enough money here. I always tried to come - on vacation or when there was a free semester - and at home it was still in great demand.

He hated the new liberalism, but he always remembered that “the devil has two hands” (his favorite aphorism) and, of course, did not fall into anti-liberal rhetoric in the spirit of yours and the newspaper “Conservator” that died in Bose.

The title of Camus's novel is known to be translated as both "The Stranger" and "The Stranger." But in order to conscientiously fulfill the role of an “outsider”, it is not necessary to be so demonstratively “stranger”.