Pyotr Yakovlevich Chaadaev - born May 27, 1794, Moscow. Russian philosopher and publicist. Author of works - “Philosophical Letters”, “Apology of a Madman”, “A Few Words about the Polish Question”, etc. Died April 14, 1856, Moscow.

Aphorisms, quotes, statements Chaadaev Pyotr Yakovlevich

• The ways of blood are not the ways of providence.
• Its history is dark and its future uncertain.
• There is a regime for the soul, just as there is a regime for the body: you must be able to obey it.
• There are minds so deceitful that even the truth expressed by them becomes a lie.
• A powerless enemy is our best friend; an envious friend is the worst of our enemies.
• Nothing is more debilitating, nothing is more conducive to cowardice than insane hope.
• Thank God, I have always loved my fatherland in its interests, and not in my own.
• A Christian continually moves from heaven to earth: he will end up remaining in heaven.
• Woe to the people if slavery could not humiliate them; such a people were created to be slaves.
• If it weren't for my family, my wife and six children, I would show them who really is crazy.
• Trusting in God is the only way to believe in him, and therefore whoever does not pray does not believe.
• I did not learn to love my homeland with my eyes closed, my head bowed, my lips closed.
• I prefer to castigate my homeland, I prefer to upset it, I prefer to humiliate it, just not to deceive it.
• There are only three ways to be happy: think only about God, think only about your neighbor, think only about one idea.
• I believe that we came after others in order to do better than them, so as not to fall into their mistakes, into their delusions and superstitions.
• There is no more distressing spectacle in the moral world than the spectacle of a man of genius who does not understand his age and his calling.
• There are people who create their hearts with their minds, others who create their minds with their hearts: the latter succeed more than the former, because there is much more reason in feeling than in the mind of feelings.
• Russia, if only it understands its calling, must take upon itself the initiative of carrying out all generous thoughts, for it does not have the affections, passions, ideas and interests of Europe.
• I love my Fatherland, as Peter the Great taught me to love it. I admit, this blissful patriotism is alien to me, this patriotism of laziness, which manages to see everything in a rosy light and rushes around with its illusions.
• They say about Russia that it belongs neither to Europe nor to Asia, that it is a special world. So be it. But it is still necessary to prove that humanity, in addition to its two sides, defined by the words - West and East, also has a third side.
• An idea will appear from nowhere, blown by some random wind, break through all sorts of barriers, begin to seep through minds imperceptibly, and suddenly one fine day it will evaporate or hide in some dark corner of the national consciousness, never to emerge again. to the surface: such is the movement of ideas with us.
  

Pyotr Yakovlevich Chaadaev, 1794-1856 Thinker, publicist.

Disease alone is contagious, health is not contagious; it is the same with error and truth. This is why error spreads quickly and truth spreads so slowly.

There are only three ways to be happy: think only about God, think only about your neighbor, think only about one idea.

People who always speak eloquently are never eloquent.

Woe to the people if slavery could not humiliate them - such a people were created to be slaves.

The word sounds only in a responsive environment.

The true nature of man is that of all beings he alone is capable of being enlightened infinitely; this is his superiority over all creatures.

There are fools so unreceptive that even the sun of genius is unable to fertilize them.

There are minds so deceitful that even the truth expressed by them becomes a lie.

There is a regime for the soul, just as there is a regime for the body; one must be able to obey him.

Socialism will win not because it is right, but because its opponents are wrong.

The progress of human nature is by no means unlimited, as is imagined: there is a limit which it cannot cross. ...As soon as a material interest is satisfied, a person does not move forward; it is good if he does not retreat.

Nations are moral beings, just like individuals. They are raised by centuries, just as people are raised by years. The Russian people are a singing people, not a speaking people. One loud Russian song contains more Russian life than a whole pile of Russian chronicles.

The past determines the future: this is the law of life. To abandon one's past means to deprive oneself of the future.

What does it take to see clearly? Don't look through yourself.

The past is no longer under our control, but the future depends on us.

Its history is dark and its future uncertain. (About Russia.)

Thank God, I have always loved my fatherland in its interests, and not in my own.

Sometimes it seems that Russia is intended only to show the whole world how not to live and what not to do.

Without blind faith in abstract perfection, it is impossible to take a step along the path to perfection realized in practice. Only by believing in an unattainable good can we get closer to an achievable good.

A powerless enemy is our best friend; an envious friend is the worst of our enemies.

In the field of morality, movement is not based on the pleasure of moving alone; there must also be a goal: to deny the possibility of achieving perfection, that is, to reach the goal, would simply mean making movement impossible.

There are people who create their hearts with their minds, others who create their minds with their hearts: the latter succeed more than the former, because there is much more reason in feeling than in the mind of feelings.

There is nothing easier than to love those you love; but you have to love a little even those you don’t love.

Nothing is more debilitating, nothing is more conducive to cowardice than insane hope.

First of all, you owe your homeland, as well as your friends, the truth.

I prefer to castigate my homeland, I prefer to upset it, I prefer to humiliate it, just so as not to deceive it.

en.wikipedia.org

Biography

Born into an old wealthy noble family of the Chaadaevs, on his mother’s side he is the grandson of Academician M. M. Shcherbatov, the author of the 7-volume edition of “Russian History from Ancient Times.” He was left an orphan early - his father died the next year after his birth, and his mother in 1797. He and his older brother Mikhail, very young, were taken from the Nizhny Novgorod province to Moscow by his aunt, Princess Anna Mikhailovna Shcherbatova, and they lived with her in Moscow, in Serebryany Lane, next to the famous Church of St. Nicholas the Revealed on Arbat. The Chaadaevs' guardian was their uncle, Prince D.M. Shcherbatov, in whose house Chaadaev received his education.

In 1807-1811 he studied at Moscow University, was friends with A. S. Griboyedov, the future Decembrists N. I. Turgenev, I. D. Yakushkin.

War of 1812

In May 1812, the Chaadaev brothers joined the Semenovsky regiment as life ensigns, in which their guardian uncle had previously served. In 1813, he moved from the Semenovsky regiment, where his brother and friends remained, to the Akhtyrsky Hussar Regiment.

During the Patriotic War of 1812, he took part in the Battle of Borodino, went into a bayonet attack at Kulm, and was awarded the Russian Order of St. Anna and the Prussian Kulm Cross.

His biographer M. Zhikharev wrote: A brave officer, tested in three gigantic campaigns, impeccably noble, honest and amiable in private relations, he had no reason not to enjoy the deep, unconditional respect and affection of his comrades and superiors.

He took part in the battle of Tarutino, Maly Yaroslavl, Lutzen, Bautzen, Leipzig, and took Paris. He went through the entire war side by side with his university friend Yakushkin.

After World War II

In 1816 he was transferred as a cornet to the Hussar Life Guards Regiment, stationed in Tsarskoye Selo. In the house of N.M. Karamzin in Tsarskoye Selo, Chaadaev met A.S. Pushkin, on whom he had a tremendous influence. Several poems by Pushkin are dedicated to Chaadaev.

In 1817, at the age of 23, he was appointed adjutant to the commander of the Guards Corps, Adjutant General Vasilchikov. In October 1820, the 1st battalion of the Semenovsky Life Guards Regiment, where Chaadaev had previously served, rebelled. In connection with these events, Chaadaev was sent to the sovereign, who was in Troppau, whom Vasilchikov, the commander of the guards corps, chose for a detailed report to the tsar. A month and a half after this trip, at the end of December, Chaadaev resigned and was dismissed from service by order of February 21, 1821. As they indicate, Chaadaev resigned not considering it morally possible to continue serving after punishing close friends from the mutinous regiment. This resignation of the young man, who was predicted to have the most successful career, was unexpected, shocked society and gave rise to many versions and legends: that he was compromised in front of his former fellow soldiers by delivering a “denunciation” on them, or that he was late with his package because that he was too busy with his wardrobe, or that the emperor said something to him that was received with rejection.

Personality characteristics

Chaadaev was a very famous person in society even before the publication of Philosophical Letters.

The daughter of N.N. Raevsky Sr. Ekaterina wrote about him (around 1817) that he is “indisputably (...) and without any comparison the most prominent (...) and the most brilliant of all the young people in St. Petersburg.” In addition to the fact that he was highly educated and had excellent manners, he also “raised the art of dressing (...) almost to the level of historical significance” (according to M. Zhikharev). They sought his friendship and were proud of it. In 1819, Pushkin compares Eugene Onegin with him, wanting to characterize his hero as a real dandy: “The second Chadayev, my Eugene...”. His ill-wisher Wigel called him “the first of the young men who then climbed into genius.”

His contemporary wrote about him: “he was distinguished from other people by his extraordinary moral and spiritual excitability... His conversation, and even his very presence, had an effect on others, like a spur on a noble horse. It was somehow impossible with him, it was awkward to give in to daily vulgarity. When he appeared, everyone somehow involuntarily looked around morally and mentally, tidied up and preened themselves.”

Voyage abroad

On July 6, 1823, in particular, due to deteriorating health, he left to travel around England, France, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany. Before leaving, in May 1822, Chaadaev divided property with his brother, without intending to return to Russia.

Sailing by ship from Kronstadt, he landed near Yarmouth, from where he went to London, where he stayed for 4 days, leaving it for the sea bathing of Brighton. From England he moves to Paris, and from there to Switzerland. At the end of March 1825, he finds himself in Rome, then goes to Carlsbad, where he is accompanied by Nikolai Turgenev and meets Vel. book Konstantin Pavlovich. Despite the fact that he is constantly engaged in treatment, his health only worsens. Chaadaev also visited Milan. In June 1826, Chaadaev left for his homeland.

Relations with the Freemasons and Decembrists

While still in service, in 1814 in Krakow he was admitted to the Masonic lodge, in 1819 he was admitted to the Union of Welfare, and in 1821 to the Northern Society of Decembrists. Having joined the Decembrist society, he did not take part in its affairs and treated them with restraint and skepticism. In 1822, the tsarist government closed Masonic lodges in Russia; a year before, Chaadaev left the United Brothers Masonic lodge.

In 1826, after returning to Russia, he was arrested on suspicion of involvement with the Decembrists - in July, in the border town of Brest-Litovsk. “Chaadaev, in letters to his relatives, said that he was leaving forever, and his close friend Yakushkin was so sure of this that during interrogation after the defeat of the rebels, he calmly named Chaadaev among the people he had recruited into the illegal organization.” On August 26, at the behest of Nicholas I, a detailed interrogation was removed from Chaadaev. A subscription was taken from Chaadaev not to participate in any secret societies, and he categorically denied his participation in the Northern society. After 40 days he was released.

Subsequently, he will speak negatively about the Decembrist uprising, arguing that, in his opinion, their impulse pushed the nation back half a century.

"Basmanny Philosopher"

At the beginning of September he arrives in Moscow. “On October 4, Chaadaev moved for permanent residence to his aunt’s village near Moscow in Dmitrovsky district. Chaadaev lives alone, unsociable, and reads a lot. Constant secret police surveillance is established over him here.” At this time, Avdotya Sergeevna Norova, a neighbor on the estate, fell in love with him, in whom “a cult of Chaadaev arose, close to a kind of religious exaltation.”

He lived in Moscow and on a village estate (with aunt Shcherbatova in Dmitrievsky district, then in the Levashevs’ house on Basmannaya), in 1829-1831 creating his famous “Philosophical Letters” (addressed to Mrs. E. D. Panova). Beginning in the spring of 1830, in Russian educated society their lists began to circulate from hand to hand. In May or June 1831, Chaadaev began to appear in society again.

Their publication caused a real scandal and gave the impression of “a shot that rang out on a dark night” (Herzen), aroused the anger of Nicholas I, who wrote: “Having read the article, I find that its content is a mixture of daring nonsense, worthy of a madman.”

The Telescope magazine, where the Letters were published, was closed, the editor was exiled, and the censor was dismissed from service. Chaadaev was summoned to the Moscow police chief and announced that, by order of the government, he was considered crazy. Every day a doctor came to him for an examination; he was considered under house arrest and had the right to go for a walk only once a day. The supervision of the police doctor over the “patient” was lifted only in 1837, under the condition that he “not dare to write anything.” There is a legend that the doctor who was called to observe him, at the first meeting, told him: “If it weren’t for my family, my wife and six children, I would show them who really is crazy.”

During this period, Chaadaev accepted the role (which was reinforced by the attitude of his admirers) of a prophet in his fatherland. In 1827, A.V. Yakushkina writes about him: “...he is extremely exalted and completely imbued with the spirit of holiness (...). Every minute he covers his face, straightens up, does not hear what is being said to him, and then, as if by inspiration, begins to speak.” He actively used the epistolary genre to communicate with his admirers.

Chaadaev’s next work was “Apology for a Madman” (not published during his lifetime; his nephew and archive keeper M.I. Zhikharev brought the unpublished manuscript to Chernyshevsky in 1860). Until the end of his life he remained in Moscow, taking an active part in all ideological meetings in Moscow, which brought together the most remarkable people of that time (Khomyakov, Kireevsky, Herzen, K. Aksakov, Samarin, Granovsky, etc.).

Herzen wrote about him during this period:
The sad and original figure of Chaadaev stands out sharply with some kind of sad reproach against the faded and heavy background of the Moscow nobility. I loved to look at him among this tinsel nobility, flighty senators, gray-haired rakes and honorable nonentities. No matter how dense the crowd, the eye found him immediately. Summer had not distorted his slender figure, he dressed very carefully, his pale, gentle face was completely motionless, when he was silent, as if made of wax or marble, “his forehead was like a bare skull,” his gray-blue eyes were sad and with that together they had something kind, thin lips, on the contrary, smiled ironically. For ten years he stood with folded arms somewhere near a column, near a tree on the boulevard, in halls and theaters, in a club and - with an embodied veto, in living protest, looked at the whirlwind of faces spinning senselessly around him, became capricious, became strange, alienated himself from society, could not leave him... Again he appeared capricious, dissatisfied, irritated, again he weighed down on Moscow society and again did not leave it. The old and the young felt awkward with him, uneasy, they, God knows why, were ashamed of his motionless face, his straight-looking gaze, his sad mockery, his caustic condescension... Acquaintance with him could only compromise a person in the eyes of the government police.

After the Crimean War, not seeing any improvement in Russia's situation, he thought about suicide. He died of pneumonia, leaving his financial affairs in complete disarray. He was buried at the Donskoye Cemetery in Moscow. Before his death, he wished to be buried “in the Donskoy Monastery, near the grave of Avdotya Sergeevna Norova, or in Pokrovskoye, near the grave of Ekaterina Gavrilovna Levasheva.”

Creation

To understand Chaadaev’s work, one should take into account the personality crises he experienced. “In the years before 1823, Chaadaev experienced his first spiritual crisis - in the religious direction. Chaadaev, who had read a lot until that time, became interested in mystical literature at that time; The writings of Jung Stilling had a particular influence on him. His health deteriorated due to extreme spiritual tension, and he had to go abroad to improve his health, where he remained until 1826 (which saved him from death, since he was extremely close to the most prominent Decembrists). Upon his return from abroad, Chaadaev was arrested, but was soon released and was able to return to Moscow, where he experienced a second crisis - for several years he became a complete recluse, completely absorbed in very complex mental work. During these years (until 1830) of complete solitude, Chaadaev developed his entire philosophical and religious worldview, which found (in 1829) its expression in a number of sketches written in the form of letters.”

Characteristic

He experienced the strong influence of German classical philosophy in the person of Schelling, whose ideas he became acquainted with during his trip to Europe in 1823-1826. During the years spent in Europe, he continued to study the works of French traditionalists (de Maistre, Bonald, Ballanche, early Lamennais).

Although Chaadaev was deprived of the opportunity to publish, his works were circulated in lists, and he remained an influential thinker who had a significant impact (especially by posing the problem of the historical fate of Russia) on representatives of various schools of thought. Chaadaev had a significant influence on the further development of Russian philosophical thought, largely initiating the polemics between Westerners and Slavophiles. According to A. Grigoriev, it “was the glove that at once separated the two hitherto, if not united, then not separated camps of thinking and writing people. In it, for the first time, the question of the meaning of our nationality, selfhood, and individuality, which until then had peacefully rested, until then not touched or raised by anyone, was raised in an abstract way.”
“The mark left by Chaadaev in the consciousness of Russian society is so deep and indelible that the question involuntarily arises: was he drawn across glass with a diamond? (...) All those properties that Russian life was deprived of, which it did not even suspect, were deliberately combined in Chaadaev’s personality: enormous internal discipline, high intellectualism, moral architectonics and the coldness of the mask, the medals with which a person surrounds himself, conscious that in the centuries he is only a form, and in advance preparing a cast for his immortality.”
-Osip Mandelstam

Philosophical letters

In 1829-1831 he created his main work - “Letters on the Philosophy of History” (in French; was translated by Ketcher), to which the name “Philosophical Letters” is assigned.

At the end of September 1836, the 15th book of the Telescope was published in Russia, where an article under the original title was published in the Science and Art department: “Philosophical letters to Mrs. ***. Letter 1." The article was not signed. Instead of a signature it read: “Necropolis. 1829, December 17." The publication was accompanied by an editorial note: “These letters were written by one of our compatriots. A number of them constitute a whole, imbued with one spirit, developing one main idea. The sublimity of the subject, the depth and breadth of views, the strict sequence of conclusions and the energetic sincerity of expression give them a special right to the attention of thoughtful readers. In the original they are written in French. The proposed translation does not have all the advantages of the original regarding external decoration. We are pleased to inform readers that we have permission to decorate our magazine with others from this series of letters.”

The publication of the first letter aroused sharp discontent among the authorities due to the bitter indignation expressed in it about Russia’s exclusion from the “worldwide education of the human race”, spiritual stagnation, impeding the fulfillment of the historical mission destined from above. The magazine was closed, and Chaadaev was declared crazy.

Chaadaev’s “Philosophical Letter” (1836), published in the Telescope magazine, gave a powerful impetus to the development of Russian philosophy. His supporters became Westerners, and his critics became Slavophiles. Chaadaev lays down two main ideas of Russian philosophy: the desire to realize utopia and the search for national identity. He identifies himself as a religious thinker, recognizing the existence of a Supreme Mind, which manifests itself in history through Providence. Chaadaev does not deny Christianity, but believes that its main idea is “the establishment of the kingdom of God on Earth,” and the Kingdom of God is a metaphor for a just society, which is already being implemented in the West (this was later the main emphasis of Westerners). As for national identity, Chaadaev only denotes the idea of ​​​​Russia's uniqueness. “We belong neither to the West nor to the East,” he writes, “we are an exceptional people.” The meaning of Russia is to be a lesson to all humanity. However, Chaadaev was far from chauvinism and belief in the exclusivity of Russia. For him, civilization is one, and all further attempts to search for identity are “national prejudices.”

Apology for a madman

“Apology for a Madman,” written by Chaadaev in response to accusations of a lack of patriotism (1837), remained unpublished during the thinker’s lifetime. In it, speaking about Russia, Chaadaev argued that “... we are called upon to solve most of the problems of the social order... to answer the most important questions that occupy humanity.”

Main ideas

Relationship to history

Chaadaev believed that “everyday” history does not provide answers. He called “everyday” history an empirical-descriptive approach without a moral orientation and an appropriate semantic outcome for human activity. He believed that such history merely lists the ceaselessly accumulating events and facts, seeing in them only “causeless and meaningless movement,” endless repetitions in the “pathetic comedy of the world.” A truly philosophically meaningful history must “recognize plan, intention and reason in the course of things,” comprehend man as a moral being, initially connected by many threads with “absolute reason,” “the supreme idea,” “God,” “and not at all an isolated and personal being.” , limited at a given moment, that is, a mayfly insect that is born and dies on the same day, connected with the totality of everything only by the law of birth and decay. Yes, we must discover what really makes the human race alive: we must show everyone the mysterious reality that is in the depths of spiritual nature and which is still discernible with some special insight.”

Chaadaev called his task “explaining the moral personality of individual peoples and all of humanity,” but in essence he was not engaged in studying the destinies of various nations, but in interpreting human history as a single coherent text. G.V. Florovsky writes that the main and only principle of Chaadaev is “a postulate of Christian philosophy of history. History for him is the creation of the Kingdom of God in the world. Only through the construction of this Kingdom can one enter or be included in history.” The meaning of history is thus determined by Providence, and the guiding and constantly revealing idea of ​​history is the idea of ​​​​the religious unity of humanity, brought into the world by the Christian religion and preserved by it. Ancient civilizations turned out to be doomed precisely because they embodied the idea of ​​“pagan disunity,” that is, they had only material, earthly interest, while true spirituality and powerful moral potential constitute the prerogative of the “mysteriously united” Christianity, and since only spiritual interest is “limitless by its very nature ", Christian nations alone "are constantly moving forward."

Attitude to Catholicism

According to Chaadaev, Western European successes in the field of culture, science, law, and material well-being are the direct and indirect fruits of Catholicism as a “political religion.”

For Chaadaev, the Catholic Church is the direct and legal heir of the Apostolic Church. It is she who is the only bearer of the conciliar, catholic principle. He treats Orthodoxy much colder.

Chaadaev’s sympathies for Catholicism as part of a thousand-year-old European civilization influenced Russian philocatholists of the 19th century. (thus, the Jesuit Prince Ivan Gagarin claimed that he converted to Catholicism under his influence) and caused a reaction from his critics and rumors about his own conversion to Catholicism (Denis Davydov called him a “little abbey”; Yazykov writes about him: “you kiss the shoe of the popes ").

At the same time, Chaadaev remained Orthodox all his life, regularly confessed and received communion, before his death he took communion from an Orthodox priest and was buried according to the Orthodox rite. Gershenzon writes that Chaadaev committed a strange inconsistency by not accepting Catholicism and not formally converting, so to speak, “to the Catholic faith,” in compliance with the established ritual.

In “Philosophical Letters” he declared himself an adherent of a number of principles of Catholicism, but Herzen called his worldview “revolutionary Catholicism”, since Chaadaev was inspired by an unrealistic idea in orthodox Catholicism - “sweet faith in the future happiness of mankind”, hoping for the fulfillment of the earthly aspirations of the people as a super-intelligent whole , overcoming egoism and individualism as incompatible with the universal purpose of man to be the engine of the Universe under the guidance of the supreme mind and world will. Chaadaev was not interested in the topics of sin, church sacraments, etc., focusing on Christianity as a speculative force. What attracted him to Catholicism was the combination of religion with politics, science, and social changes - the “movement” of this confession into history.

Russia assessment

In the 1st letter, the historical backwardness of Russia, which determined its current state, is interpreted as a negative factor.

He writes about the fate of Russia: ...a dull and gloomy existence, devoid of strength and energy, which was enlivened by nothing except atrocities, nothing softened except slavery. No captivating memories, no graceful images in the memory of the people, no powerful teachings in their tradition... We live only in the present, within its narrowest confines, without a past or future, in the midst of dead stagnation.

Chaadaev’s interpretation of Christianity in the 1st letter as a method of historically progressive social development with the absolute importance of culture and enlightenment, the power of ideas, a developed sense of justice, ideas of duty, etc. served as the basis for his sharp criticism of the current state of affairs in Russia and the course of history. who brought her to this state. He writes that the withdrawal of the Orthodox Church from the “worldwide brotherhood” during the Schism had, in his opinion, the most painful consequences for Russia, since the enormous religious experience, the “great world work” done by the minds of Europe over 18 centuries, did not affect Russia, which was excluded from the circle of “beneficent action” of Providence due to “the weakness of our faith or the imperfection of our dogmas.” Having isolated ourselves from the Catholic West, “we were mistaken about the real spirit of religion”, we did not perceive the “purely historical side”, the social-transformative principle, which is an internal property of real Christianity, and therefore we “did not collect all its fruits, although we obeyed its law” ( that is, the fruits of science, culture, civilization, comfortable life). “There is something in our blood that is hostile to all true progress,” for we stand “aside from the general movement where the social idea of ​​Christianity was developed and formulated.”

In culture

P. Ya. Chaadaev is considered one of the possible prototypes of Alexander Chatsky, the main character of A. S. Griboedov’s play “Woe from Wit.”
- 3 poetic messages of Pushkin are dedicated to Chaadaev; his features, according to one version, are embodied in the image of Onegin, about whom it is even directly stated “The Second Chadaev, my Evgeniy” (Pushkin used different spellings of his friend’s surname).
- Pushkin characterized the controversial personality of the young Chaadaev in the dedication “To the Portrait of Chaadaev.”
- The first message “To Chedayev (Pushkin)” (1818) is a famous poem: “...Comrade, believe: she will rise, / The star of captivating happiness, / Russia will rise from sleep, / And on the ruins of autocracy / They will write our names.”
- Second message “To Chaadaev (In the country where I forgot the worries of previous years)” (1821)
- Third message “To Chaadaev (Why cold doubts?)” (1824)
- When Alexander I learned about the distribution of some forbidden poems by Pushkin, he instructed Prince Vasilchikov to get these poems. Vasilchikov's adjutant was Chaadaev. Through him, Pushkin sent “The Village” to Alexander. Since during these years Alexander still encouraged all sorts of projects, even constitutional ones, then, not finding a pretext for punishment, he ordered to “thank Pushkin for the good feelings” that his work inspires.

N. M. Yazykov’s poem “To Chaadaev” with offensive lines: “...a bald idol / Of obstinate souls and weak wives!”, and criticism of Konstantin Aksakov for his friendship with Chaadaev - “To Konstantin Aksakov”
- Ridiculed by Denis Davydov in “Modern Song”.
- Decembrist poet Fyodor Glinka depicted the appearance of Chaadaev in the world
- In “A Tale within a Tale,” written by Chernyshevsky in exile, he remembers Chaadaev and puts him in line with such people as Pushkin, Lermontov, and the Decembrists.
- Vasily Vasilyevich Rozanov suggests that the prototype of the landowner Miusov in Dostoevsky’s novel “The Brothers Karamazov” is Chaadaev.
- Tynyanov, “The Death of Vazir-Mukhtar”, on the pages of the novel the author shows a meeting of Griboyedov - the main character of the novel - with Chaadaev in the Levashovs’ house on Novaya Basmannaya in Moscow.
- The song “To the Portrait of P.Ya.Chaadaev” (“In Memory of P.Ya.Chaadaev”), an improvisation based on Pushkin’s poetry, was written by the bard V. Turiyansky.

Works

Editions:
- a foreign publication of selected works by Chaadaev, undertaken in 1862 in Paris in French by Ivan Sergeevich Gagarin.
- two-volume edition of works edited by. M. Gershenzon.
- in 1935, five previously unknown and long-sought by researchers “Philosophical Letters” of Chaadaev were published in the “Literary Heritage”

hid his participation:
- Note from A.H. Benkendorf on behalf of I.V. Kireevsky
- participation in the creation of the book by I. I. Yastrebtsov “On the system of sciences that are appropriate in our time for children assigned to the most educated class of society.”

Bibliography

Tarasov B. N. Chaadaev. M.: Young Guard, 1986, 1990. - (Life of remarkable people) ISBN 5-235-01032-9
- O. E. Mandelstam “Peter Chaadaev” Collected works in four volumes edited by prof. G. P. Struve and B. A Filippova, volume II.
- Berdyaev N. A. Russian idea. St. Petersburg: Publishing house "Azbuka-classics", 2008. ISBN 978-5-91181-819-7 (Especially Chapter II).

Biography

Chaadaev (Petr Yakovlevich) is a famous Russian writer. The exact year of his birth is unknown.

Longinov says that Ch. was born on May 27, 1793, Zhikharev considers the year of his birth to be 1796, Sverbeev vaguely refers it to “the first years of the last decade of the 18th century.” On his mother's side, Ch. is the nephew of the Shcherbatov princes and the grandson of a famous Russian historian. In the hands of this relative, Ch. received an initial education, remarkable for that time, which he completed by listening to lectures at Moscow University. Enlisted as a cadet in the Semenovsky regiment, he took part in the War of 1812 and subsequent military operations.

Then serving in the Life Hussar Regiment, Ch. became close friends with the young Pushkin, who was then studying at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. According to Longinov, “Ch. contributed to the development of Pushkin, more than all kinds of professors with his lectures.” The nature of the conversations between friends can be judged from Pushkin’s poems “To Pyotr Yakovlevich Ch.”, “To the Portrait of Ch.” and others. It fell to Chaadaev to save Pushkin from the threat of exile to Siberia or imprisonment in the Solovetsky Monastery. Having learned about the danger, Ch., who was then the adjutant of the commander of the guards corps, Prince Vasilchikov, achieved an inopportune meeting with Karamzin and convinced him to stand up for Pushkin.

Pushkin paid Ch. with warm friendship. Among the “most necessary items for life,” he demands that a portrait of Ch. be sent to him at Mikhailovskoye. He sends him the first copy of “Boris Godunov” and is passionately interested in his opinion about this work; He also sends him a whole message from Mikhailovsky, in which he expresses his passionate desire to quickly “honor, judge, scold, and revive freedom-loving hopes” in Ch.’s company.

The preface to “Oeuvres choisies de Pierre Tchadaieff publiees pour la premiere fois par P. Gagarin” says the following: “in his youth, Ch. was involved in the liberal movement, which ended in disaster on December 14, 1825. He shared the liberal ideas of the people who took part in this movement, agreed with them on the question of the reality of the great evil from which Russia suffered and is suffering, but disagreed with them on the question of its causes and especially on the question of the means to eliminate it." If this is true, then Ch. could quite sincerely join the Union of Welfare and just as sincerely disagree with the direction that subsequently prevailed in Northern and especially in Southern society.

In 1820, well-known unrest occurred in the Semenovsky regiment in St. Petersburg. Emperor Alexander was then in Troppau, where Vasilchikov sent Ch. with news of the unrest.

Sverbeev, Herzen and others say in their memoirs and notes that the Austrian ambassador Count Lebzeltern, for his part, managed to send a courier to Troppau, who supposedly arrived there earlier than Ch. and told Metternich about what had happened in St. Petersburg, and the latter told the first nothing about them to the unaware emperor.

When Ch. arrived, Alexander sharply reprimanded him for the slowness of his ride, but then, as if having come to his senses, he offered him the rank of aide-de-camp.

The offended Ch. asked for one favor - resignation, and received it even without the usual reward with the next rank. This is the current story about the reasons for the resignation of Ch. Longinov resolutely refutes it, claiming that Lebzeltern did not send any courier to Troppau, that even before Ch.’s sending, at the first signs of disobedience of the soldiers, another courier was sent to Alexander and that thus the emperor By the time Ch. arrived in Troppau, he already knew about the St. Petersburg events, having received information about them from a Russian courier, and not from Metternich.

Be that as it may, at this moment Ch. suffered doubly: his brilliant career was ruined and at the same time he fell greatly in the opinion of his fellow officers, among whom were the entire flower of the then intelligentsia.

They said that under no circumstances should he have taken on such a delicate assignment; Knowing about the adjutant aiguilles complained to by the courier in such cases, he should have felt especially awkward in front of his former colleagues in the Semenovsky regiment, who suffered very heavy punishments. It is very possible that as a result of this, members of the secret society where he was accepted by Yakushkin distanced themselves from him, and that precisely because Ch. did not like to talk subsequently about his relationship with the Decembrists, his trip to Troppau and his conversation with Alexander.

After his resignation, he lived abroad for six whole years. All the events of 1825 - 1826 took place, therefore, in his absence. These events swept away from the historical arena almost the entire color of the generation to which Ch. belonged.

Returning to his homeland, he found a different time and different people. Since that time, the figure of Ch. stands out against the background of Russian life no longer as a public figure or one of the future reformers of Russia, not in the image about which Pushkin said that “he would have been Brutus in Rome, Pericles in Ethyns,” but in the image of a thinker, philosopher, brilliant publicist.

In Europe, Ch. moved among wonderful minds. Among his personal acquaintances were Schelling, Lamenna and others. The views of these people could not but have an influence on Ch., who by nature had a strong mind and a certain philosophical bent of thought.

Extensive reading also contributed greatly to Ch.'s development of a strong worldview.

“In my understanding,” says Zhikharev, “Ch. was the strongest, most profound and most diverse thinker ever produced by the Russian soil.”

Since the late twenties, Ch. was very close to the elder Kireyevsky. When the last published magazine "European" was banned and Kireevsky himself was placed under police supervision, Ch. wrote (in 1831) "Memoire au compte Benkendorf, redige par Tchadaeeff pour Jean Kireifsky."

In this document, Ch. sets out his views on the history of Russia, very close to those that appeared five years later in his famous “philosophical letter”, but, unlike him, he also points out the positive means by which Russia can be directed towards to a better future. This requires “first of all a serious classical education,” then “the emancipation of our slaves,” which is “a necessary condition of all further progress,” and, finally, “the awakening of religious feeling, so that religion may emerge from the kind of lethargy in which it now finds itself.” .

Whether this note was delivered to its destination or not is unknown. It was written in 1831 and already contained many “Chaadaev” thoughts. Those philosophical letters from Ch., “to Mrs. the first were written seven years before.

Pushkin mentioned them as early as July 6, 1831. The circle of people who knew about the existence of these letters was, however, very small: before the first of them appeared in print, even such a knowledgeable person in the literary and social affairs of his time as Herzen knew nothing about them .

The impression from Nadezhdin’s publication of Ch.’s “philosophical letter” in “Telescope” was extremely strong. “As soon as the letter appeared,” says Longinov, “a terrible storm arose.”

“After Woe from Wit, there was not a single literary work that made such a strong impression,” Herzen says on the same occasion.

According to Sverbeev, “Ch.’s journal article caused terrible indignation among the public and therefore could not help but turn the government’s persecution against him. Everything and everyone turned against the author with unprecedented ferocity in our rather apathetic society.”

The bitterness was truly unprecedented. “Never,” says Zhikharev, “since they began to read and write in Russia, since book activity began in it, has any literary and scientific event, not even excluding the death of Pushkin, produced such a huge influence and such extensive effect , did not spread with such speed and with such noise.

For about a month there was hardly a house in the whole of Moscow in which they did not talk about the Chaadaev story. Even people who have never been involved in any literary work, complete ignoramuses, ladies whose degree of intellectual development differed little from their cooks and henchwomen, clerks and officials drowned in embezzlement and bribery, stupid, ignorant, half-crazed saints and fanatics or bigots, gray and wild in drunkenness, debauchery and superstition, young lovers of the country and old patriots - all united in one common cry of curse and contempt for the man who dared to insult Russia.

There was not a donkey that did not consider it a sacred duty and a pleasant duty to kick the lion of historical and philosophical criticism with its hoof in the back...

Not only Russians paid attention to Chaadaev’s article: due to the fact that the article was written (initially) in French and subsequently the great fame that Ch. enjoyed among the Moscow foreign population, foreigners who live with us and usually took up this case never paying any attention to the scientific or literary affairs in Russia and only by hearing they barely know that Russian writing exists.

Not to mention several high-ranking foreigners, ignorant teachers of French grammar and German regular and irregular verbs, the personnel of the Moscow French troupe, foreign trade and craftsmen, various practicing and non-practicing doctors, musicians with with or without lessons, even German pharmacists... At that time I heard that students of Moscow University came to their superiors expressing a desire to fight for liberated Russia with arms and break a spear in honor of her, and that the count, the then trustee, calmed them down." ...

The famous Wigel then sent a denunciation to Metropolitan Seraphim of St. Petersburg; Seraphim brought this to the attention of Benckendorf - and disaster broke out. Nadezhdin was exiled to Ust-Sysolsk, and Ch. was declared crazy.

Zhikharev cites the original text of the paper in which Ch. was declared to have gone mad; “Such and such an article appeared at that time,” this paper read, “with the thoughts expressed in it, aroused in all Russians, without exception, feelings of anger, disgust and horror, which, however, soon gave way to a feeling of compassion when they learned that he was worthy of regret.” compatriot, the author of the article, suffers from disorder and insanity.Taking into account the painful state of the unfortunate man, the government, in its care and paternal care, orders him not to leave the house and provide him with free medical benefits, for which the local authorities have to appoint a special doctor under his jurisdiction ".

This order was carried out over several months. According to Herzen, doctors and police chiefs came to Ch. weekly, and they never stuttered about why they came. This testimony is contradicted by one of Ch.’s letters to his brother, which contains the following lines: “As for my situation, it now consists in the fact that I must be content with one walk and see ex-officio medical gentlemen visiting me every day .

One of them, a drunken private staff physician, swore at me in the most insolent manner for a long time, but now he has stopped his visits, probably on orders from his superiors." The presentation of both the first "philosophical letter" and subsequent ones is still not available in Russian. appeared, we consider it necessary to send two comments: 1) several Russian writers quote the following phrase from Ch.’s first letter: “Russia’s past is empty, the present is unbearable, and there is no future for it.

Russia is a gap of understanding, a terrible lesson given to peoples about what alienation and slavery can lead to." There is no such phrase in Ch.’s letter. 2) A.M. Skabichevsky claims that the translation of Ch.’s letter into Russian was made by Belinsky.

This is incorrect: the translation was made not by Belinsky, but by Ketcher. Chaadaev’s famous letter is imbued with a deeply skeptical mood towards Russia. “For the soul,” he writes, “there is dietary content, just like for the body; the ability to subordinate it to this content is necessary.

I know that I am repeating an old saying, but in our country it has all the merits of news. It is one of the most pitiful features of our public education that truths that have long been known in other countries and even among peoples in many respects less educated than we are are only just being revealed in our country.

And this is because we never walked together with other nations; we do not belong to any of the great families of humanity, neither to the West nor to the East, we have no traditions of either one or the other. We exist as if outside of time and the universal education of the human race has not touched us. This marvelous connection of human ideas over the centuries, this history of human understanding, which brought it to its present position in other countries of the world, had no influence for us.

What other nations have long ago become a reality for us is still just speculation, theory... Look around you.

Everything seems to be on the move. It's like we're all strangers. No one has a definite sphere of existence, there are no good customs for anything, not only rules, there is not even a family center; there is nothing that would bind, that would awaken our sympathies and dispositions; there is nothing permanent, indispensable: everything passes, flows, leaving no traces either in appearance or in yourself. At home we seem to be stationed, in families we are like strangers, in cities we seem to be nomadic, and even more so than the tribes wandering across our steppes, because these tribes are more attached to their deserts than we are to our cities."

Having pointed out that all peoples “have a period of strong, passionate, unconscious activity”, that such eras constitute “the time of the youth of peoples”, Ch. finds that “we have nothing like this”, that “at the very beginning we had wild barbarism , then crude superstition, then cruel, humiliating dominion, the traces of which in our way of life have not been completely erased to this day. This is the sad story of our youth... There are no enchanting memories in the memory, no strong instructive examples in folk legends. Run your gaze through all the centuries with us lived, the entire space of the earth that we occupy, you will not find a single memory that would stop us, not a single monument that would express to you what has passed vividly, powerfully, picturesquely... We came into the world as illegitimate children, without inheritance, without connections with the people who preceded us, have not learned any of the instructive lessons of the past.Each of us must ourselves connect the broken thread of family, which connected us with the whole of humanity

yours. We must hammer into our heads what has become a habit and an instinct in others... We grow, but do not mature, we move forward, but in some indirect direction that does not lead to the goal... We belong to the nations that, it seems that they do not yet constitute a necessary part of humanity, but exist in order to teach some great lesson to the world over time... All the peoples of Europe have developed certain ideas. These are the ideas of duty, law, truth, order, and they constitute not only the history of Europe, but its atmosphere. This is more than history, more psychology: this is the physiology of a European. What will you replace all this with?.. The syllogism of the West is unknown to us. There is something more than flimsiness in our best heads. The best ideas, from lack of connection and consistency, become numb in our brain like barren ghosts... Even in our gaze I find something extremely vague, cold, somewhat similar to the physiognomy of peoples standing on the lower steps of the social ladder... In our opinion local

position between East and West, leaning with one elbow on China, the other on Germany, we should unite in ourselves two great principles of understanding: imagination and reason, we should combine the history of the whole world in our civic education. But this is not the destiny that falls to our lot. Hermits in the world, we gave him nothing, took nothing from him, did not add a single idea to the mass of ideas of humanity, did not contribute in any way to the improvement of human understanding and distorted everything that this improvement told us... Not a single useful thought increased on our barren soil, not a single great truth has arisen among us. We did not invent anything ourselves and from everything that was invented by others, we borrowed only a deceptive appearance and useless luxury... I repeat: we lived, we live, as a great lesson for distant posterity, who will certainly use it, but in the present tense, that no matter what they say, we create a gap in the order of understanding.”

Having pronounced such a verdict on our past, present and partly future, Ch. carefully proceeds to his main thought and at the same time to the explanation of the phenomenon he indicated. The root of the evil, in his opinion, is that we have adopted the “new education” from a source other than the one from which the West received it. “Driven by an evil fate, we borrowed the first seeds of moral and mental enlightenment from the corrupted Byzantium, despised by all peoples,” we borrowed, moreover, when “petty vanity had just torn Byzantium away from world brotherhood,” and therefore “we adopted from her the idea distorted by human passion."

This is where everything that followed happened. “Despite the title of Christians, we did not move, while Western Christianity walked majestically along the path outlined by its divine founder.” Ch. himself poses the question: “Aren’t we Christians, is education possible only according to the European model?” - and answers like this: “without a doubt we are Christians, but aren’t the Abyssinians Christians? Aren’t the Japanese educated?.. But do you really think that these pathetic deviations from divine and human truths will bring heaven to earth?”

“In Europe, everything is permeated with a mysterious power that reigned autocratically for a number of centuries.” This thought fills the entire end of the “philosophical letter.” “Take a look at the picture of the complete development of the new society and you will see that Christianity transforms all human benefits into its own, replaces material needs everywhere with moral needs, arouses in the world of thought these great debates that you will not find in the history of other eras, other societies.. ". You will see that everything was created by him and only by him: earthly life, and social life, and family, and fatherland, and science, and poetry, and minds, and imagination, and memories, and hopes, and delights, and sorrows." .

But all this applies to Western Christianity; other branches of Christianity are sterile. Ch. does not draw any practical conclusions from this. It seems to us that his letter caused a storm not with its, although undoubted, but not at all clearly expressed Catholic tendencies - he developed them much more deeply in subsequent letters - but only with its harsh criticism of the past and present of Russia.

When M.F. Orlov tried to put a word in to Benckendorff in defense of Ch., but the latter answered him: “Le passe de la Russie a ete admirable, son present est que magnifique, quant a son avenir il est au dela de tout ce que l”imagination la plus hardie se peut figurer; volia le point de vue sous lequel l"histoire russe doit être concue et ecrite". This was the official point of view; any other was considered impermissible, but Chaadaev’s one denounced “disorder and insanity of the mind”...

Other letters from Ch. were published many years later, and then only in French, in Paris, in the publication of the famous Jesuit Prince I.S. Gagarin. There are three letters in all, but there is reason to think that in the interval between the first (published in the Telescope) and the so-called second, there were also letters that apparently disappeared irretrievably.

In the “second” letter (we will provide further quotes in our translation), Ch. expresses the idea that the progress of mankind is directed by the hand of Providence and moves through the medium of chosen peoples and chosen people; the source of eternal light never faded among human societies; man walked along the path determined for him only in the light of truths revealed to him by a higher mind. “Instead of obediently accepting the senseless system of mechanical improvement of our nature, so clearly refuted by the experience of all centuries, one cannot help but see that man, left to himself, has always walked, on the contrary, along the path of endless degeneration.

Even if all peoples had moments of enlightenment in the life of mankind, sublime impulses of reason, then nothing proves the continuity and constancy of such a movement. True movement forward and constant progress is noticeable only in the society of which we are members and which is not the product of human hands. We undoubtedly accepted what was developed by the ancients before us, took advantage of it and thus closed the ring of the great chain of times, but it does not at all follow from this that people would have reached the state in which they now find themselves without that historical phenomenon that is unconditionally has no antecedents, is outside any necessary connection of things and separates the ancient world from the new world."

It goes without saying that Ch. is talking here about the emergence of Christianity. Without this phenomenon, our society would inevitably perish, as all ancient societies perished.

Christianity found the world "corrupt, bloodied, starved." In ancient civilizations there was no solid, underlying principle.

"The deep wisdom of Egypt, the charming charm of Ionia, the strict virtues of Rome, the dazzling splendor of Alexandria - what have you become? A brilliant civilization, nurtured by all the powers of the earth, associated with all the glories, with all the heroes, with all the dominion, with the greatest sovereigns that ever or the earth produced, with world sovereignty - how could you be razed from the face of the earth? What was the work of centuries, the wonderful feats of the intellect, if new peoples, who came from unknown places, not in the least attached to these civilizations, had to destroy all this , overturn a magnificent building and plow up the very place on which it stood? But it was not barbarians who destroyed the ancient world. It was already “a decomposed corpse and the barbarians scattered only its ashes to the wind.”

This cannot happen to the new world, because European society constitutes a single family of Christian peoples. European society “for a number of centuries rested on the basis of a federation, which was torn apart only by the Reformation; before this sad event, the peoples of Europe looked upon themselves as nothing other than a single social organism, geographically divided into different states, but constituting a single whole in a moral sense; between these peoples there was no other public law except the decrees of the church; wars were represented by civil strife, a common interest animates everyone, the same tendency set the entire European world in motion. The history of the Middle Ages was, in the literal sense of the word, the history of one people - the Christian people.

The movement of moral consciousness formed its basis; purely political events took a back seat; all this was revealed with particular clarity in religious wars, that is, in events that the philosophy of the last century was so horrified by. Voltaire very well notes that wars over opinions occurred only among Christians; but one should not limit oneself to merely stating a fact; it was necessary to rise to the level of understanding the cause of such a one-of-a-kind phenomenon.

It is clear that the kingdom of thought could not establish itself in the world otherwise than by giving the very principle of thought complete reality. And if now the state of things has changed, it was the result of a schism, which, having destroyed the unity of thought, thereby destroyed the unity of society. But the foundation remains and is still the same, and Europe is still a Christian country, no matter what it does, no matter what it says... In order for real civilization to be destroyed, the entire globe would have to be turned upside down, so that a revolution similar to the one that gave the earth its present form would be repeated.

To extinguish all the sources of our enlightenment, at least a second global flood would be required. If, for example, one of the hemispheres were absorbed, then what remained on the other would be enough to renew the human spirit. The thought that is supposed to conquer the universe will never stop, will never die, or at least will not die until there is a command from the One who put this thought into the human soul. The world was coming to unity, but this great cause was prevented by the Reformation, returning it to the state of ruin (desunite) of paganism."

At the end of the second letter, Ch. directly expresses the thought that only indirectly made its way in the first letter. “That the papacy was a human institution, that the elements included in it were created by human hands - I readily admit this, but the essence of the papacy comes from the very spirit of Christianity... Who would not be amazed at the extraordinary destinies of the papacy? Deprived of its human splendor, it only became stronger because of it , and the indifference shown towards it only further strengthens and ensures its existence... It centralizes the thought of Christian peoples, attracts them to each other, reminds them of the supreme principle of their beliefs and, being imprinted with the seal of a heavenly character, soars above the world of material interests."

In the third letter, Ch. develops the same thoughts, illustrating them with his views on Moses, Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, Epicurus, Homer, etc. Returning to Russia and to his view of the Russians, who “do not belong, in essence, to any which of the systems of the moral world, but their social surface is adjacent to the West,” Ch. recommends “doing everything possible to prepare the way for future generations.”

“Since we cannot leave to them what we ourselves did not have: beliefs, reason nurtured by time, a clearly defined personality, developed over the course of a long, animated, active, rich in results, intellectual life, opinions, then we will leave them at least at least a few ideas which, although we ourselves have not found them, will, being handed down from generation to generation, have more of a traditional element and therefore more power, more fruitfulness than our own thoughts, thus earning the gratitude of posterity, and We will not walk the earth in vain."

Ch.'s short fourth letter is dedicated to architecture. Finally, the first and several lines from the second chapter of Ch.’s “Apology for a Madman” are also known. Here the author makes some concessions, agrees to recognize some of his previous opinions as exaggerated, but laughs evilly and caustically at those who attacked him for his first philosophical letter from “love.” to the fatherland" by society.

“There are different kinds of love for the fatherland: a Samoyed, for example, who loves his native snow, which weakens his vision, the smoky yurt in which he spends half his life crouched, the rancid fat of his reindeer, which surrounds him with a sickening atmosphere - this Samoyed, without a doubt, loves his homeland differently than the English citizen, proud of the institutions and high civilization of his glorious island, loves her...

Love for the fatherland is a very good thing, but there is something higher than it: love for truth." Then Ch. sets out his opinions on the history of Russia.

Briefly, this story is expressed as follows: “Peter the Great found only a piece of paper and with his powerful hand wrote on it: Europe and the West.” And the great man did a great job. "But now a new school (Slavophiles) has appeared. The West is no longer recognized, the work of Peter the Great is denied, it is considered desirable to return to the desert again. Having forgotten everything that the West has done for us, being ungrateful to the great man who civilized us, to Europe, which formed us, they renounce both Europe and the great man.

In its ardent zeal, the latest patriotism declares us the most beloved children of the East. Why on earth, says this patriotism, will we seek light from the Western peoples? Do we not have at home all the germs of a social order infinitely better than the social order of Europe? Left to ourselves, to our bright mind, to the fruitful principle hidden in the depths of our powerful nature and especially our holy faith, we would soon leave behind all these peoples, ossified in delusions and lies. And what should we envy in the West?

His religious wars, his pope, his chivalry, his Inquisition? These are all good things - nothing to say! And is the West really the birthplace of science and deep wisdom? Everyone knows that the birthplace of all this is the East. Let us return to this East, with which we are in contact everywhere, from where we once adopted our beliefs, our laws, our virtues, in a word, everything that made us the most powerful people on earth. The Old East is passing into eternity, and aren’t we its rightful heirs? His wonderful traditions must always live among us, all his great and mysterious truths, the preservation of which was bequeathed to him from the beginning of time, should be realized...

You now understand the origin of the storm that recently broke out over me and see that a real revolution is taking place among us, a passionate reaction against enlightenment, against Western ideas, against that enlightenment and those ideas that made us what we are, and the fruit of which was even the real movement, the reaction itself." The idea that there was nothing creative in our past, Ch. apparently wanted to develop in the second chapter of the Apology, but it contains only a few lines. "There is a fact that has supreme dominion over our historical movement in all its centuries, running through our entire history, containing in a sense all philosophy, manifesting itself in all epochs of our social life, determining its character, constituting at once an essential element of our political greatness and the true cause of our intellectual impotence: this fact - a geographical fact."

The publisher of Ch.'s works, Prince Gagarin, says in a note the following: “here the manuscript ends and there is no sign that it will ever be continued.” After the incident with the “philosophical letter,” Ch. lived almost continuously in Moscow for 20 years.

Although during all these years he did not show himself to be anything special, but, Herzen testifies, if Ch. was in the company, then “no matter how thick the crowd was, the eye found him immediately.” Ch. died in Moscow on April 14, 1856.

Literature.

- "Telescope" (vol. 34, no. 15, pp. 275 - 310) and "Polar Star" (1861, book VI, pp. 141 - 162);
- Pypin “Characteristics of literary opinions from the 20s to the 50s” (“Bulletin of Europe”, 1871, December);
- Miliukov “The Main Currents of Russian Historical Thought”, Zhikharev “P.Ya. Chaadaev” (“Bulletin of Europe”, 1871, July and September);
- Longinov “Memories of P.Ya. Chaadaev” (Russian Bulletin, 1862, November);
- Sverbeev “Memories of P.Ya. Chaadaev” (Russian Archive, 1868, No. 6);
- Yakushkin “Notes”;
- Herzen “The Past and Thoughts”;
- Nikitenko “Notes and Diary” (volume I, pp. 374 - 375). Vigel's denunciation and letter from Metropolitan Seraphim to gr. Benckendorff - in "Russian Antiquity" (1870, No. 2);
- “Unpublished manuscripts of P.Ya. Chaadaev” - in “Bulletin of Europe” (1871, November). Two letters from Ch. to Schelling - in the Russian Messenger (1862, November);
- Wed. also Skabichevsky “Forty Years of Russian Criticism”;
- Skabichevsky “Essays on the history of Russian censorship”;
- Koshelev “Notes”;
- Smirnova “Notes” (part 1, p. 211);
- "Oenvres choisies de Pierre Tchadaieff, publiees pour la premiere fois par le P. Gagarin";
- Herzen "Du developpement des idees revolutionnaires en Russie";
- Custine "La Russie en 1839";
- Shchebalsky “Chapter from the history of our literature” (Russian Bulletin, 1884, November);
- A.I. Koshelev "Notes";
- Kirpichnikov "P.Ya. Chaadaev according to new documents" ("Russian Thought", 1896, April);
- Veselovsky “Sketches and Characteristics” (1903). V. Bogucharsky.

CHADAEV Petr

Without communication with other creatures, we would peacefully browse the grass. - Petr Chaadaev

A powerless enemy is our best friend; an envious friend is the worst of our enemies. - Petr Chaadaev

The Bible is the most precious treasure of mankind; it is the source of all moral truth; she shed streams of light on the world, she established the human mind and founded society. - Petr Chaadaev

Blessed would man be if he could go back. This is impossible! The established order requires that he keep moving forward and moving forward, not a single step back, forward incessantly, and that he accumulate (on his own head) sin after sin. But after death, then - yes, exactly then - divine mercy - one must trust in it - will allow him to stop for a moment, reconsider the past time, maybe even step back a little. - Petr Chaadaev

God can speak to man only in man's language; We should not be surprised that he wants a person to understand him when he condescends and addresses him. - Petr Chaadaev

God created beauty to help us understand him. - Petr Chaadaev

Disease alone is contagious, health is not; it is the same with error and truth. This is why error spreads quickly and truth spreads so slowly. - Petr Chaadaev

More than any of you, believe me, I love my country [Russia], I wish it glory, I know how to appreciate the high qualities of my people; but it is also true that the patriotic feeling that animates me is not quite similar to the one whose cries disrupted my calm existence and again threw my boat, which was moored at the foot of the cross, into the ocean of human unrest. I did not learn to love my homeland with my eyes closed, my head bowed, my lips closed. I find that a man can only be useful to his country if he sees it clearly; I think that the time of blind love has passed, that now we first of all owe the truth to our homeland. I love my fatherland... - Petr Chaadaev

We [Russians] have something in our blood that rejects any real progress. - Petr Chaadaev

In Moscow, every foreigner is taken to see a large cannon that cannot be fired, and a bell that fell down before it could ring. – Petr Chaadaev

In science there are two different things: content or achievements, on the one hand, and techniques or methods, on the other; therefore, when it comes to defining its relationship to nature, it should be clearly indicated whether one wants to talk about the very essence of science or about its method; but this is precisely what they don’t do. - Petr Chaadaev

In our time, barbarism will not overthrow enlightenment. - Petr Chaadaev

In the field of morality, movement is not based on the pleasure of moving alone; there must also be a goal: to deny the possibility of achieving perfection, that is, to reach the goal, would simply mean making movement impossible. - Petr Chaadaev

It is in nature for a person to get lost when he does not find a way to connect with what came before him and what will happen after him; he then loses all firmness, all confidence; not guided by a sense of continuous duration, he feels lost in the world. Such confused creatures are found in all countries; We [Russia] have this common property... In our heads there is absolutely nothing in common, everything there is isolated and everything there is shaky and incomplete. I even find that in our view there is something strangely vague, cold, uncertain, reminiscent of the difference between peoples standing on the lowest rungs of the social ladder. - Petr Chaadaev

In contrast to all the laws of human society, Russia moves only in the direction of its own enslavement and the enslavement of all neighboring peoples. - Petr Chaadaev

In a rational being, everything betrays his hidden thought. - Petr Chaadaev

In Russia, everything bears the stamp of slavery - morals, aspirations, education, and even freedom itself, if only the latter can exist in this environment. - Petr Chaadaev

There is some strange uncertainty in the Russian gaze... In foreign countries, especially in the south, where faces are so expressive and so animated, more than once, comparing the faces of my compatriots with the faces of the natives, I was amazed at the muteness of our faces. - Petr Chaadaev

There is something inescapably immovable, hopelessly indestructible in the Russian people, namely, their complete indifference to the nature of the power that governs them. Not a single people in the world understood better than us the famous text of Scripture: “there is no power except from God.” Established power is always sacred to us. - Petr Chaadaev

Great minds who will show the people the way will themselves emerge from the ranks of the people. Then there will be a turn away from the power of incompetent leaders... - Petr Chaadaev

Faith is nothing more than a moment or period of human knowledge, nothing more. - Petr Chaadaev

Take a look around. Does anything stand strong? We can say that the whole world is on the move. No one has a specific sphere of activity, there are no good habits, there are no rules for anything, there is not even a home, nothing that binds, that awakens your sympathies, your love; nothing stable, nothing permanent; everything flows, everything disappears, leaving no traces either outside or in you. In our houses we seem to be assigned to stay; in families we look like strangers; in the cities we are like nomads, we are worse than the nomads grazing their herds in our steppes, for they are more attached to their deserts than we are to our cities. And don’t think that this is nothing. Our poor souls! - Petr Chaadaev

Take a look around. Does anything stand strong? – Petr Chaadaev

In France, what is thought needed for? To express it. - In England? - To bring it to fruition. - In Germany? - To think it over. - Here in Russia]? - No matter what! - Petr Chaadaev

The East is the destiny of those who dominate the seas, this is obvious. - Petr Chaadaev

Time and space are the limits of human life as it is now. - Petr Chaadaev

We create all times for ourselves, there is no doubt about that; God did not create time; he allowed man to create it. - Petr Chaadaev

Everyone here [in Russia] is talking about direction these days: we don’t need direction, but government. There is no literacy without teachers. - Petr Chaadaev

Every sovereign of Russia, no matter what he may be, is a father for us. - Petr Chaadaev

You want to be happy, right? So think as little as possible about your own well-being; take care of someone else's; you can bet, a thousand to one, that you will reach the highest limits of happiness that are possible. - Petr Chaadaev

You are telling me about the persecution you are experiencing. Domestic dispute, that's all. - Petr Chaadaev

You claim to be representatives of an idea; try to have ideas, it will be better. - Petr Chaadaev

You have often heard that sleep is a semblance of death; this is completely false. I find that sleep is more likely to be real death, and that what is called death, perhaps, is life? In sleep the life of my Self is interrupted, in death this is not the case; for if at the same time my Self ceased to exist, annihilation would occur. There is no return from the grave, but after sleep we return to our Self. But tell me, is this life when there is no thought that you are living, at least for a given moment?
The fact is that, in essence, real death is contained in life itself. We are dead, completely dead, for half of our lives, without exaggeration, without allegory, but in the literal, true sense of the word, dead. A thousand times a day, if you look closely at yourself, you will see that a moment before there was no more life in you than before you were born; that you had not the slightest consciousness of your actions, or even a sense of your existence. Where was life here? The life of a tree, at best the life of a zoophyte, is not even the life of an animate being and certainly not the life of a rational being.
Life slips away from us every now and then, then it returns, but it would be wrong to say that we live continuously. Reasonable life is interrupted whenever consciousness is lost. The more such minutes of oblivion, the less conscious life, and if there is nothing but such minutes, this is death. To die in this way, you do not need to leave this life, and, of course, there is no other death. Death in life is only death.
Petr Chaadaev

The main means of forming souls is, without a doubt, the word: without it it is impossible to imagine either the origin of consciousness in an individual person or its development in the human race. But the word alone is not enough to cause a great phenomenon of world consciousness; the word is far from being the only means of communication between people; therefore, it does not at all embrace all the spiritual work taking place in the world. Thousands of hidden threads connect the thoughts of one intelligent being with the thoughts of another; our innermost thoughts find all sorts of means to pour out; spreading, crossing each other, they merge together, combine, move from one consciousness to another, sprout, bear fruit - and, in the end, give rise to a common mind. Sometimes it happens that a manifested thought does not seem to produce any effect on the environment; and meanwhile - the movement was transmitted, the push occurred; in due time, a thought will find another, related one, which it will shake when it touches it, and then you will see its revival and amazing action in the spiritual world. - Petr Chaadaev

They say about Russia that it belongs neither to Europe nor to Asia, that it is a special world. So be it. But it is still necessary to prove that humanity, in addition to its two sides, defined by the words - West and East, also has a third side. - Petr Chaadaev

Woe to the people if slavery could not humiliate them; such a people were created to be slaves. - Petr Chaadaev

Woe to the people whom slavery could not humiliate - they were created to be a slave. - Petr Chaadaev

There is no literacy without teachers. - Petr Chaadaev

There is no space for thought, and this endless chain of like-minded people, pursuing the same goal with all the strength of their souls and their minds, keeps pace and envelops the entire universe in a ring. – Petr Chaadaev

For a Christian, the entire movement of the human spirit is nothing more than a reflection of God’s continuous action on the world. - Petr Chaadaev