“Третий Рим” Мережковского: имперские видения и христианские мечтания

Джудит Калб

1-2/2001

Публикуется на английском.

SUMMARY:

Статья Джудит Калб “Третий Рим Мережковского: имперские видения и христианские мечтания” развивает мысль статьи Маршала По (Изобретение концепции “Москва-Третий Рим” // Ab Imperio. 2000, № 2) о том, что концепция “Третьего Рима” наложилась на ранее существовавшее распространенное представление о русском мессианизме. Однако, Калб корректирует предложенную в статье По интерпретацию позиции Д. С. Мережковского как воплощения послереволюционного (1907 г.) интеллигентского увлечения доктриной “Третьего Рима”. Калб прослеживает эволюцию представлений Мережковского о России как Третьем Риме (или как универсальной теократической империи) в трилогии “Христос и Антихрист” (1895), “Воскресшие боги: Леонардо да Винчи” (1900) и “Антихрист: Петр и Алексей” (1904). Доктрина Третьего Рима в данном случае выступает как средство мифотворчества, которое Мережковский и его современники использовали для формирования новых представлений о национальном лице России.

1.D. S. Mirsky. A History of Russian Literature / Ed. Francis J. Whitfield. New York, 1973. P. 417.↩

2.D. S. Merezhkovskii. O prichinakh upadka i o novykh techeniiakh sovremennoi russkoi literatury // D. S. Merezhkovskii. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii. Vol. XVII. Moscow, 1914. P. 212.↩

3.For a discussion of Nietzsche’s ideas on Merezhkovskii’s trilogy, see Edith W. Clowes. The Integration of Nietzsche’s Ideas of History, Time, and ‘Higher Nature’ in the Early Historical Novels of Dmitry Merezhkovsky // Germano-Slavica. Fall 1981. Vol. III, No. 6. Pp. 401-16; see also Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal. Stages of Nietzscheanism: Merezhkovsky’s Intellectual Evolution // Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal (ed.). Nietzsche in Russia. Princeton, 1986. Pp. 69-93.↩

4.Merezhkovskii’s “Historic Christianity” is comparable to the “slave morality” Nietzsche discusses in his On the Genealogy of Morals (see Friedrich Nietzsche. On the Genealogy of Morals / Trans. Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale. New York, 1989. P. 34.↩

5.Iu.M. Lotman and B.A. Uspenskij. Echoes of the Notion ‘Moscow as the Third Rome’ in Peter the Great’s Ideology // Iu.M. Lotman and B.A. Uspenskij. The Semiotics of Russian Culture /Edited by Ann Shukman. Ann Arbor, 1984. P. 54.↩

6.For a wide-ranging survey of images of Julian from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, see L’Empereur Julien. De la légende au mythe (de Voltaire à nos jours). Paris, 1981. See also Heinrich A. Stammler. Julianus Apostata Redivivus. Dmitrij Merezkovskij: Predecessors and Successors // Die Welt der Slaven. 1966. XI, Nos. 1-2. S. 180-204, and G. N. Khrapovitskaia. Tri Iuliana // Filologicheskie nauki. 1996, No. 5. P. 15-24.↩

7.Merezhkovskii follows the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus in the basic outline of Julian’s life. He was also influenced by Apollon Maikov’s play Dva mira (Two Worlds, 1882), which portrayed the clash of pagan Rome and Christianity; Maikov apparently encouraged Merezhkovskii in the pursuit of the theme (see Stammler, 191).↩

8.This is a Merezhkovskiian innovation; Constantius survived his cousin’s seizure of the throne and the two ruled together briefly before Constantius’ premature death at age 44. See G. W. Bowersock. Julian the Apostate. Cambridge, Mass., 1978. P. 61.↩

9.While Merezhkovskii remained reasonably accurate in his portrayal of the major events in Julian’s life, the emperor’s deathbed conversion is part of a Christian tradition that attempted to invent a Christian Julian. Much of Julian’s dying speech in Merezhkovskii’s novel comes from the writings of Ammianus (who himself, while acquainted with Julian, was almost certainly not present at his deathbed (see Robert Browning. Julian. London, 1975. P. 213), but Julian’s final profession of faith in Christ does not. The Christianizing tradition apparently begins with Theodoret, bishop of Cyprus, who nearly a century after Julian’s death asserted the famous phrase as Julian’s dying words. Centuries later in Russia, Alexander Herzen would respond to Tsar Alexander II’s decision to free Russia’s serfs with the same words (Nicholas V. Riasanovsky. A History of Russia. New York and Oxford, 1984. P. 371; see also Irina Paperno. The Liberation of the Serfs as a Cultural Symbol // The Russian Review. October 1991. Vol. 50, No. 4. Pp. 424-5).↩

10.D.S. Merezhkovskii. Smert’ bogov (Iulian Otstupnik) // Sobranie sochinenii v chetyrekh tomakh. Vol. I. Moscow, 1990. P. 145. Further references to this work will be found within the text.↩

11.Juventinus’ story recalls that of the Russian monk Theodosius, who persisted despite his mother’s opposition in becoming abbot of the Kievan Crypt Monastery.↩

12.As A. Richard Turner points out, Merezhkovskii's portrayal of Leonardo follows the nineteenth-century French tradition (A. Richard Turner. Inventing Leonardo. New York, 1993. P. 143). In the mid-nineteenth century, Jules Michelet had depicted a Leonardo who appreciated nature and paganism; during the same period, Edgar Quinet wrote of Leonardo as the precursor of modern humankind. And Arsène Houssaye injected Christianity into the heretofore un-Christian Leonardo of the French tradition when he wrote of Leonardo as, Turner writes, a “Christian-Artist-Hero,” explaining, “For Leonardo da Vinci, science illuminates the image of God with an ever brilliant light” (Turner, 105-113). Merezhkovskii, an avid researcher, may well have drawn on these sources. D. Panchenko describes the resources available to Merezhkovskii as he embarked upon the novel (D. Panchenko. Leonardo i ego vremia v izobrazhenii D.S. Merezhkovskogo // D.S. Merezhkovskii, Voskresshie bogi: Leonardo da-Vinchi. Moscow, 1990. P. 629). A Leonardo fascinated by things Russian and convinced of Russia's future messianic goal, however, appears to be a distinctly Merezhkovskiian innovation.↩

13.N. K. Gudzii. Povest' o novgorodskom belom klobuke // Khrestomatiia po drevnei russkoi literature XI-XVII vekov / Comp. N.K. Gudzii. Moscow, 1962. Pp. 241-2.↩

14.D.S. Merezhkovskii. Voskresshie bogi (Leonardo da Vinchi) // Sobranie sochinenii v chetyrekh tomakh. Vols. I-II, Vol. I, 510. Further references to this work will appear in the text.↩

15.This change was part of Merezhkovskii's new three-stage model of history, in which the pagan (i.e. pre-Christian), “fleshly” reign of “the Father” was followed by the Christian, “spiritual” reign of “the Son”. The third stage, ushered in by an Eternally Feminine Holy Ghost, was to bring the reconciliation of Father and Son, the Second Coming of Christ, and an apocalyptic theocracy. Thus a synthesis of spirit and flesh was deferred to a time beyond history (See James P. Scanlan. The New Religious Consciousness: Merezhkovskii and Berdiaev // Canadian Slavic Studies. Spring 1970. Vol. IV, No. 1. Pp. 30-31; Temira Pachmuss. D.S. Merezhkovsky in Exile. New York, Bern, Frankfurt am Main, Paris, 1990. P. 58). Some scholars have suggested that the Father-Son conflict in Merezhkovskii's philosophy, with its soothing feminine element, can be traced back to Merezhkovskii's own childhood problems with his father; Merezhkovskii's mother apparently would try to reconcile the two men. See, for example, C. Harold Bedford. The Seeker: D.S. Merezhkovskiy. Lawrence, Manhattan, Wichita, 1975. P. 4; Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal. Eschatology and the Appeal of Revolution: Merezhkovsky, Bely, Blok // California Slavic Studies, XI. Berkeley, 1990. P. 128.↩

16.For a description of the Society and its goals see Hippius’ memoirs of her husband (Z. N. Gippius-Merezhkovskaia. Dmitrii Merezhkovskii // D.S. Merezhkovskii. 14 Dekabria. Z.N. Gippius-Merezhkovskaia. Dmitrii Merezhkovskii. Moscow, 1991. P. 353 ff.; see also Avril Pyman. The Church and Intelligentsia with Special Reference to the Religious-Philosophical Meetings in St. Petersburg // Roger Bartlett (ed.).Russian Thought and Society 1800-1917: Essays in Honour of Eugene Lampert. Keele, 1984. Pp. 181-219.↩

17.Pyman explains, “If the men of the Church, cowled, long-haired, and long-skirted, with their pale faces and measured movements, seemed exotically medieval to the assembled intelligentsia, what were they to think of the gaunt revolutionaries..., the powdered and painted dandies...and Zinaida Hippius herself, clad in a black lace dress over a flesh-coloured slip which made her appear naked when she moved? This first meeting was...a head-on clash, with the clergy and the intelligentsia seated at a long, green-baize table, divided like the sheep and the goats to [the] right and left of the chairman...” (Pyman, 197).↩

18.Liah Greenfield writes, “The Act of 1721, which offered ‘the Lord Tsar Peter the title of the Emperor of All Russias,’ also asked to bestow upon him the appellation of ‘the Great and the Father of the Fatherland [Otets Otechestva].’” The petitioners cited ancient Greek and Roman precedents for their request (Liah Greenfield. Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity. Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1992. P. 196).↩

19.D.S. Merezhkovskii. Antikhrist: Petr i Aleksei // Sobranie sochinenii v chetyrekh tomakh. Vol. II. P. 453. Further references will appear in the text.↩

20.L. A. Kolobaeva argues however that Merezhkovskii presents a somewhat dualistic Peter, an Antichrist with nonetheless some positive qualities, including his desire to save people during a flood in St. Petersburg. See L. A. Kolobaeva. Merezhkovskii – Romanist // Izvestiia Akademii nauk SSSR. Seriia literatury i iazyka. 1991. Vol. 50, No. 5. P. 449. Hippius recalls in her memoirs that she urged Merezhkovskii to portray Peter less negatively (Gippius-Merezhkovskaia, 372-3). Apparently after several discussions with his wife Merezhkovskii rewrote the scenes devoted to Peter; this may account for Peter's intermittent positive qualities in the novel.↩

21.The article was published in Russkaia mysl’, Nos. 2-3 (1907). I am citing the English translation (Dmitri S. Merezhkovsky, “Revolution and Religion”) by Marian Schwartz in Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal and Martha Bohachevsky-Chomiak (eds.). A Revolution of the Spirit: Crisis of Value in Russia, 1890-1924. New York, 1990. P. 192.↩

22.Merezhkovsky. Revolution and Religion. P. 192.↩

23.Ibid. P. 213.↩

24.Nicolas Berdyaev. Dream and Reality: An Essay in Autobiography. London, 1950. Pp. 148-9.↩

25.Valerii Briusov. D. S. Merezhkovskii kak poet // Valerii Briusov. Dalekie i blizkie. Moscow, 1912. Rpt. Letchworth, 1973. P. 63.↩

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