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Transactions of the Association of Russian-American Scholars in the U.S.A. Vol. XXV. Ed. Nadja Jernakoff. New York, 1992-1993. vi, 351 pp.

This volume of Transactions is devoted to Russian religious-philosophical thought and to A.A. Fet (1821-1892) on the occasion of the centennial of his death. The essays and articles are in Russian and English; some are reprints, others are original contributions. The lead article is Nikolai Berdiaev's brilliant "Russkii dukhovnyi renessans nachala XX v.," a reprint from Put', no. 49 (1935). It perceives Russian religious thought of the early twentieth century as a "modernist" phenomenon in line with a general "increase in cultural complexity" (kul'turnoe uslozhnenie) and marked by a renewed influence of German idealist philosophy, a new "pneumocentric" mysticism (meaning that religion was seen in terms of an effusion of the Spirit), the emergence of a new, modernist aesthetic and, last but not least, by the appearance of a group of sophisticated inarxists, at whose hands marxism, very much a theology, became the point of departure for a new Russian idealism. All of these tendencies, along with V.V. Rozanov's concern with the individual's personal happiness and sexuality, challenged the one-sided and simplistic socialite of populist ideology. Traditional Orthodoxy was also left behind, as religious thinkers developed the prophetic and sacerdotal aspects of religion independently from traditional dogma. In fact, pagan elements entered the religious thought of such thinkers as D.S. Merezhkovskii, V.I. Ivanov and even Father Pavel Florenskii. The subtlety of the Russian religious renaissance alienated the intelligentsia involved in it not only from the Church but also from the masses of the Russian people as the rift between popular religion and that of the educated became irreparable. Eventually, Berdiaev wryly observes, Chernyshevskii won over Vladimir Solov'ev in the minds of the Russian people. Robert Slesinski's essay "Russian Philosophical Thought as a Search for Integral Knowledge" covers the same subject from a different perspective. Slesinski emphasizes the intuitivism of Russian idealist philosophy, its penchant for mystical cognition and "living," socially anchored knowledge. Like Berdiaev, Slesinski concludes that, even though the Russian idealists all pursued integral knowledge, they had their differences in the realm of metaphysics. Two articles are occasioned by the bicentenary of the death of G.S. Skovoroda (1722-1794). Aleksei Losev gives a brief biographic sketch. Dmitrii Chizhevskii's "Filosofiia G.S. Skovorody," reprinted from Put', no. 19 (1929), remains an authoritative assessment of Skovoroda's thought. Chizhevskii sees him as belonging to the "theosophic line" in the history of philosophy and is able to point out that virtually every element of Skovoroda's philosophy had an equivalent in eighteenth-century anti-Enlightenment thought in the west. Sergei Davydov's "Pushkin i khristianstvo" presents a judiciously balanced summary of his topic without introducing any substantially new evidence. "Blazhenstvo strazhdushchei liubvi," an essay "from the archive of Father G. Florovskii," dated 1921, credits Dostoevskii with having initiated the Christian tragedy of freedom—as against the classical tragedy of fate. But it also points out what is perceived as Dostoevskii's failures: his ill-advised belief in an earthly Utopia and his futile attempts to create a "perfectly beautiful character" here on earth. Why so, Father F'lorovskii asks, and answers: "Because he loved this sinful Earth too much." George Krugovoy's article "Kant's Critiques and Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground" convincingly demonstrates that the anti-hero's argumentation in Notes falls in line with Kant's reasoning on several key issues, such as when Kant's categories of the intellect and the laws of nature are presented as "the unsurmountable wall which the intellect builds around the individual." George Pahomov's observations in "Religious Motifs in Chekhov's 'Muzhiki' " acquire meaning and importance in that they relate to an aspect of Russian life perceived as a matter of course when the story first appeared but which today stands out as a precious relic of Russia's past. Pahomov judiciously makes it clear that the rich resonance of Orthodox motifs in Chekhov's story does not necessarily imply that Chekhov meant to deliver a positive religious message.