Dunaev Mikhail Mikhailovich (August 22, 1945, Moscow - September 4, 2008) - professor of the Moscow Theological Academy, doctor of theology, doctor philological sciences.

Graduated in 1963 high school, and in 1970 - the Faculty of Philology of Moscow state university. He entered the correspondence department of graduate school at the Institute of Russian Literature of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Also at this time he worked as a personal secretary famous writer I.S. Sokolov-Mikitova.

From 1976 to 1979, he lectured on the history of Russian literature at the preparatory courses at the Moscow Energy Institute.

In 1979, after defending his candidate's dissertation, he was awarded the academic degree of Candidate of Philological Sciences. The topic of the study was the work of the Russian writer Ivan Shmelev, which was very unconventional for Soviet times. Dunaev was one of the first philologists in the USSR who dared to write about the Christian emigrant writer.

In 1980-1981 he taught at Moscow State University. On September 1, 1990, he became a teacher at the Moscow Theological Academy.

In 1997, he graduated from the academy as an external student and defended his Ph.D. thesis. In November 1998 he defended his master's thesis, and in December he was awarded the title of associate professor.

On September 17, 1999, by the decision of the State Higher Attestation Commission of the Russian Federation, M. M. Dunaev was awarded the academic degree of Doctor of Philology.

On March 20, 2001, he was awarded the academic degree of Doctor of Theology, and on April 6 - the title of professor of the MDA.

On October 14, 2000, he was awarded the medal of St. Sergius of Radonezh, 1st degree, for hard work and in connection with his 55th anniversary.

In 2003 he was awarded the 1st All-Russian Prize “Orthodox Book of Russia” in the category “Author of the Year”.

On October 14, 2005, he was awarded the Order of St. Sergius of Radonezh, III degree, for his diligent teaching work and in connection with his 60th anniversary.

Books (4)

Faith in the crucible of doubt

The book is based on a course of lectures given by the author at the Moscow Theological Academy and approved by its Academic Council. Here, for the first time, a systematic presentation of the history of Russian literature of the 17th-20th centuries in Orthodox understanding is given.

The author consistently traces the path of religious quests of the largest and little-known writers. Using the example of the main characters best works Russian classics show the formation of their Orthodox worldview and their path to Christ through the crucible of doubt.

South of Moscow

We all love to travel, but sometimes we get tired of the monotony of all kinds of popular tours and last minute trips. Sometimes you want something special, maybe even exclusive.

The book is dedicated to interesting places in the Moscow region, located south of Moscow, towards Serpukhov.

Brief historical overview, large number photographs.

Orthodoxy and Russian literature

For the first time in literary criticism, a systematic religious understanding of the features of the development of Russian literature, starting from the 17th century, is proposed. and ending with the second half of the 20th century. The publication is published in 6 parts.

Part I is devoted to a brief overview of Russian literature of the 17th-18th centuries and the works of writers early XIX in., creativity of A.S. Pushkin.

Part II contains an understanding of the works of M.Yu. Lermontov, N.V. Gogol, as well as an overview of the literary process of the mid-19th century.

Part III is devoted to the work of I.S. Turgeneva, N.G. Chernyshevsky, N.A. Nekrasova, N.G. Pomyalovsky, I.A. Goncharova, A.N. Ostrovsky, M.E. Saltykova-Shchedrina, P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky, A.F. Pisemsky, A.N. Muravyova, F.M. Dostoevsky.

Part IV is devoted to the work of L.N. Tolstoy, N.S. Leskova, A.P. Chekhov.

Part VI(1) is devoted to the literary process in Russia during the Soviet period, the work of V.V. Mayakovsky, S.A. Yesenina, N.A. Klyueva, M.A. Bulgakova, B.L. Pasternak, A.A. Akhmatova, O.E. Mandelstam, M.A. Sholokhova, A.P. Platonova, M.M. Prishvina, I.S. Sokolova-Mikitova, K.G. Paustovsky, V.S. Grossman, A.I. Solzhenitsyn, B.A. Mozhaeva, V.G. Rasputin, V.P. Astafieva, V.I. Belova, V.M. Shukshina, V.N. Krupina, L.I. Borodina and others.

Part VI(2) is devoted to the literature of Russian emigration, as well as literary processes at the end of the 20th century, the work of D.S. Merezhkovsky, B.K. Zaitseva, V.F. Khodasevich, G.V. Ivanova, V.V. Nabokova, M.I. Tsvetaeva, P.N. Krasnova, V.E. Maksimova, N.N. Turoverova, L.M. Leonova, S.N. Tolstoy, D.L. Andreeva, V. Nikolaeva, V.V. Afanasyev, O. Nikolaeva and others.

The book is based on a lecture course given by the author at the Moscow Theological Academy.

A crime against the future. Reflections on rock culture

Rock culture (and music in it sets the basis for value orientations) is now interpreted as synonymous with the concept of youth culture. The culture of the generation that “chooses Pepsi” strives to “take everything from life”, “to live high”, that is, swallows those easy-to-digest baits that are now thrown in abundance by various kinds of crafty seducers.

The fate of the nation is in the hands of the youth - a banal truth, but true: time will pass, and the entire composition of the people will be formed by those who are now entering life. Therefore, the quality of the mental organization of these people should not be completely indifferent to us. But looking at them gives rise to anxiety.

Introduction

We are so accustomed to the affirmation of the height and uniqueness of the Russian classical literature that this truth has long become a hackneyed truth for us, requiring no proof or special reflection. And this is bad: not wanting to think, using the templates of our school years, we are poorly aware of the uniqueness of Russian literature and more often limit ourselves to an arrogant confidence in the artistic superiority of the works of Russian geniuses over all others and in their quantitative abundance in comparison with other European literatures - which is only feeding our own pride, nothing more.

For many reasons, the properties of the objective and subjective, the main originality of Russian classical literature, were little touched upon by its numerous researchers and critics. We have to agree with the conclusion of I.A. Esaulov, sadly: “Unfortunately, we must admit that the history of Russian literature as a scientific discipline, which would at least to some extent coincide in its basic axiological coordinates with the axiology of the object of its description, does not yet exist.”

The most important thing in our domestic literature is its Orthodox worldview, the religious nature of the reflection of reality. The religiosity of literature does not manifest itself in any connection with church life, nor does it manifest itself in exclusive attention to the subjects of the Holy Scriptures - not at all. But: in a special way of looking at the world. The literature of modern times belongs to secular culture; it cannot be purely ecclesiastical. However, Orthodoxy over the centuries has educated the Russian people in such a way, taught him to comprehend his existence, that even though he apparently broke with faith, he could not renounce the worldview instilled in the people.

Let’s start by trusting an outsider’s view and thinking about how non-Russian writers perceived the creations of Russian writers.

Stefan Zweig: “Open any of the fifty thousand books produced annually in Europe, What are they talking about? Oh happiness. A woman wants a husband or someone wants to get rich, become powerful, and respected. For Dickens, the goal of all aspirations will be a pretty cottage in the middle of nature with a cheerful crowd of children, for Balzac - a castle with a peerage title and millions. And, if we look around, on the streets, in shops, in low rooms and bright halls - what do people want there? - To be happy, contented, rich, powerful. Which of Dostoevsky's heroes strives for this? - Nobody. None."

Turkish translator and critic E. Güney: “The ideal of the characters created by Dickens is a good home, a happy family life. Balzac's heroes strive to acquire magnificent castles and accumulate millions. However, neither the heroes of Turgenev, nor the heroes of Dostoevsky, nor the heroes of Tolstoy are looking for anything like this.<…>Russian writers demand a lot from people. They don’t agree with people putting their interests and their selfishness first.”

Ukrainian writer Ivan Franko: “... if we liked the works of European literature, excited our aesthetic taste and our imagination, then the works of the Russians tormented us, touched our conscience, awakened the person in us...”.

The Russian writer, A.I. Solzhenitsyn, it is expressed even more clearly:

“How are Russians different? literary heroes from Western Europeans? The most beloved heroes of Western writers always achieve career, fame, and money. But don’t feed or water the Russian hero - he is looking for justice and goodness.”

Conscience was affirmed by our writers as the basic measure of all things. This is what is essential: not private questions, but the most important, universal ones - worried the consciousness and soul of the creators of Russian literature. And in this it is united throughout its history - from the great “Sermon on Law and Grace” by Metropolitan Hilarion. New literature, although we highlight it especially, and was built on the traditions of previous centuries, these traditions were consecrated by the ideals of Orthodoxy.

“Russian culture is “imprinted” by the seal of millennia: baptism in Orthodoxy. This confirmed the spiritual essence of the Russian people, their history and enlightenment, affirmed I.S. Shmelev. -<…>Our literature is also “impressed”: it is exceptionally deep, “strict”, like perhaps no other literature in the world, and chaste. It is as if she solders and knits the Earth and the Sky. It almost always contains “questions”, aspirations to “reveal the mystery”, attempts to find a solution to the world’s mysteries posed to humanity by the Unknown: about God, about Being, about the meaning of life, about truth and lies, about Evil-Sin, about what will happen there ...and is it there? there ?.. <…>Russian literature is not admiration of “beauty”, not entertainment, not serving fun, namely service, like a religious service."

It was Orthodoxy that influenced man’s close attention to his spiritual essence, the inner self-deepening reflected in literature. This is generally the basis of the Russian worldview and the Russian way of being in the world. The outstanding Russian philosopher I.V. Kireevsky wrote about it this way:

“Western man sought by the development of external means to alleviate the severity of internal shortcomings. The Russian man sought to escape the burden of external needs by internal elevation above external needs.”

And this could only be determined by the Orthodox worldview. For the very understanding of salvation underlying Orthodoxy - that is, the goal of all earthly existence - differs significantly from what we can find in Western confessions. Western man understands salvation as a reward for some good deed (Catholicism) or as something that he receives only by virtue of faith (Protestantism). A Catholic “earns” his salvation; through the work of virtue he “redeems” his own sin. For a Protestant, the problem is not revealed even this way: in his judgment, the Savior has already “paid” for him. Protestantism generally removes the question of the need for good deeds for salvation, and aims a person at external practical activity as the main content of his existence in the world.

Salvation in Orthodoxy is conceptualized as the internal rebirth of a person, his spiritual transformation, leading to deification. Venerable Isaac the Syrian wrote:

“Virtue is the mother of sorrow; from sadness comes humility; grace is given to humility. And then the reward is no longer for virtue, and not for work for its sake, but for the humility that is born from them. If it is lost, then the first will be in vain."

This is amazing: it is not virtue that is crowned with a reward and not good deeds for its sake, but humility! Without humility, virtue is in vain! Sin cannot be “worked off” by good deeds; it can only be overcome through internal rebirth, the beginning of which is humility.

“Those who say or do anything without humility,” warned St. Gregory of Sinaite, “are like someone building a temple in winter or without cement.” This is where the concentrated attention of every Orthodox, truly Orthodox, comes from - to internal work, to to the inner man.

“For according to the inner man I delight in the law of God” ().

But why is humility the basis of salvation? Because it establishes a system of true criteria for a sober assessment of the real state of a person’s inner world. The desire to correspond to the gospel understanding of virtue, to be perfect, How Heavenly Father is perfect (), - immediately allows everyone to clearly see the true sinfulness of their own soul (“virtue is the mother of sorrow”). The desire for virtue in this case becomes not a goal, but a means of self-knowledge of a person, his knowledge of the impossibility of eradicating sin and overcoming passions only through his own efforts - which in Christian asceticism is called humility (“from sadness humility is born”). Humility is the knowledge of the need for a Savior. Awareness of the impossibility of being saved by one’s own efforts alone, an appeal to God’s help, remembering: “This is impossible for people, but everything is possible for God” () - such and such humility becomes the basis of salvation (“grace is given to humility”). The transformation of virtue into an end in itself can give rise to arrogance in the soul when achieving (not only imaginary, but also real) this goal, can lead to intoxication with one’s own perfection and thereby strengthen human pride, the source of world evil. That's the way Pharisee (). That is why the holy ascetic teaches us: without humility, virtue is in vain. Without humility, a person does not realize his need for a Savior. He considers himself the executor of his own salvation. That is, he ultimately becomes an anti-Christian.

And so we see: Orthodoxy establishes the only true point of view on life - and this is what Russian literature assimilates (not always in full) as the main idea, thus becoming Orthodox in its spirit.

Orthodox literature teaches the Orthodox view of man, establishes the correct view of inner world human, defines the most important criterion for assessing a person’s inner being: humility.

So, by the way, we are once again convinced that religious dogmas, which seem to many as something far from life, scholastic-abstract, the subject of meaningless theological debates, actually have a decisive influence on a person’s worldview, his awareness of his place in existence, on his method of thinking. Moreover: religious dogmas shaped the character of the nation, the political and economic uniqueness of its history, and the fate of its peoples.

That is why new Russian literature (following ancient Russian) saw its task and meaning of existence in kindling and maintaining spiritual fire in human hearts. This is where the recognition of conscience as the measure of all life values ​​comes from. Russian writers perceived their work as a prophetic ministry (which the rest of Europe, Catholic and Protestant, did not know), the attitude towards literary figures as spirit seers, soothsayers has been preserved in the Russian consciousness to this day - albeit in a muted manner.

This was sensitively perceived and accurately expressed by N.A. Berdyaev: “... In Russian literature, among the great Russian writers, religious themes and religious motives were stronger than in any literature in the world.<…>All of our literature of the 19th century is wounded by the Christian theme, all of it seeks salvation, all of it seeks deliverance from evil, suffering, the horror of life for human personality, people, humanity, world. In her most significant creations she is imbued with religious thought.<…>The combination of anguish about God with anguish about man makes Russian literature Christian, even when in their consciousness Russian writers retreated from the Christian faith.”

It is important that those processes in XIX literature centuries, which developed as if outside the Orthodox tradition, are characterized not by indifference towards religion, but by active repulsion from it, opposition to Orthodoxy. This allows us to consider these processes in close connection with the general course of the entire literary work of Russian classics.

It would be incorrect to say that the most important feature of Russian literature was not at all touched upon by those who thought and wrote about it; Russian religious philosophers, from the Slavophiles to the “Vekhovites”, undoubtedly looked at literature precisely from this point of view, however literary criticism was not their primary specialty, so appeals to the work of this or that writer were sporadic. This could not be expected from professional critics of the revolutionary-democratic persuasion, as well as from the so-called “Soviet” literary criticism that inherited their traditions (let’s not talk about the impossibility of religious comprehension of literature under the dominance of ideology of a certain kind).

The situation is only beginning to improve recently. The emigrant heritage is being assimilated, in-depth studies of the works of Russian classics, carried out by Russian literary scholars, are appearing. However, we are only at the beginning of a long process of renewed historical knowledge of Russian literature. The most important task of such knowledge becomes clear: the transition from a social or purely aesthetic analysis of literature to a religious one. Our literature was (let’s use Gogol’s image) an “invisible step” to Christ; it primarily reflected the test of faith that took place in the life of the people and the individual, which, in fact, is the main test to which we are subjected in earthly life.

Recently, an essential danger has emerged that distorts the religious perception of all manifestations of existence, in particular literature: a certain worldview is being created that could be called Orthodoxy without shores, self-inflicted Orthodoxy, not recognizing any criteria of truth other than their own claims and their own ignorance. It should be noted that this is becoming a common misfortune of our literary criticism: too many, on the basis of some external coincidences, rush to draw far-reaching conclusions regarding the supposedly Christian meaning of certain artistic images. The truth becomes unimportant: the main thing is that there would be an interesting version. However, this was the case before, but now pseudo-religious guesses are also included in the sphere of literary criticism. Nowadays, those writers who in their spirit are non-Orthodox and even anti-Orthodox are now declared purely Orthodox.

This exacerbates the question of the criteria for the Orthodox worldview and creativity of any artist.

In our reflections on the most important Russian literature(as in the very understanding of life among Russian writers) - what to rely on in order to understand the essential? As Gogol wrote:

“You can’t invent anything higher than what is already in the Gospel.” Of course, every Orthodox person must look for the criterion of truth in the Gospel revelations, must believe all his reasoning, like everything generated by the human mind, by the word of the Savior.

No matter how hard someone’s pride may be, it must be recognized that there are no other criteria of Orthodoxy that would be outside the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Tradition of the Church of Christ, outside the dogmas of Orthodox dogma.

A hierarchical interpretation of any phenomenon is possible only with knowledge of the true hierarchy of values, and it is contained only in Christianity. However, in modern social thought the liberal idea of ​​​​rejecting the need for Christian criteria in assessing any manifestations of existence is actively being imposed - the same idea is spreading in the field of literary science. The argument is simple: for a long time Marxist criteria were imposed everywhere, declared absolute, which only limited freedom of thought, and as a result they turned out to be not at all blameless, and an entire area of ​​worldview collapsed, the fruits of many scientific works became meaningless, and the tragedies of many lives were revealed; now the same thing is proposed, with a slight difference: before they necessarily referred to the classics of Marxism, now to the Gospel and the Holy Fathers. And the result is the same.

Let's object. Still, let us note that there is a difference between Christ and Marx? And it is a mistake to believe that references to the Gospel are made according to the example of Marxist methodology: just the opposite. It is enough to take any patristic work to see how consistently the author relies on Scripture in every thought expressed. It cannot be otherwise: the truth of any judgment must be verified by the Truth of the highest level. This is the hierarchical principle of thinking. Marxism adopted precisely this methodology, and could not do otherwise: the devil is the monkey of God. And the monkey hierarchy was established. But is it possible to reject God’s face if the devil makes his grimaces next to him? Marxist methodology has been discarded, but in Orthodox thinking the reliance on Truth remains, as before.

Marxist thinking is normative. Christian is also normative. But their standards are too different. Rejecting some, one should remain faithful to others. Normativity is not bad in itself, but infatuation with bad norms.

Every researcher is obliged to find for himself true criteria for assessing the subject of his research. And such are the only ones in Orthodoxy.

And in literary criticism, research must be built on the basis of truths that go back to an authoritative source for every believer. This source cannot be anything other than the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Tradition of the Church.

Actually, the methodology of scientific Orthodox literary criticism is precisely defined by St. Tikhon of Zadonsk (although the meaning of his judgment, of course, is much broader):

“As a mirror is to the sons of this age, so may the Gospel and the blameless life of Christ be for us. They look in the mirror and correct their bodies and cleanse the blemishes on their faces. ... Let us also put this pure mirror before the eyes of our souls and look at it: is our life consistent with the life of Christ?” .

It’s the same in science: every thought must be verified by looking into it mirror : Are the ideas offered to us consistent with the truth of Christ?

What is the value of any proposed idea, system of ideas, how can their value be verified? O. Pavel Florensky said about this: “Proper, i.e. the only meaningful form of this value can be found only by inserting the phenomenon under study into some strict monistic system competent to evaluate this culture.”

Marxism followed this strictly, constantly holding its distorting mirror before itself. That's why everything went wrong. So is it really because that curvature distorted everything, and could not help but distort it, that we now need to neglect the straight mirror? Strange logic.

We will find support for understanding Russian literature in the Sermon on the Mount:

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal...” ().

This great commandment defines the innermost essence of two understandings of meaning human life, as well as two worldviews, two different types of thinking, two types of culture. These words of Christ indicate the meaning of the division that He brought into the world ( ). Two systems of life values ​​associated with one or another orientation of a person in the earthly world also determine the difference in the understanding of good and evil in general.

After all, without further ado, each of us understands by good that which in one way or another contributes to the achievement of the goal of existence that we recognize. Evil is that which prevents such achievement. And if someone sets himself exclusively material goals (collecting treasures on earth), then everything spiritual will only hinder him and be perceived as evil. And vice versa.

In this regard, culturologists distinguish two types of culture - soteriological(from the Greek soterio, salvation) and eudaimonic(from the Greek eudaimonia, happiness). The transition from the first to the second in European history became, as we know, the Renaissance, which revived precisely close attention to earthly treasures - and preference for them. In Rus' this happened much later. And it is completely logical that adherents of earthly treasures declared the attraction to the spiritual, the elevation of the heavenly over the earthly, as inertia and backwardness.

Preference for one or the other is a matter of conscience and freedom of everyone. You just need to clearly realize that the Western civilization that is so glorified today is nothing more than a desire for the absolute completeness of pleasure treasures on earth . And the so-called progress is the search for more and more advanced means of mastering such treasures.

The desire for earthly things is understandable and close to everyone: there is no need to explain what it is. It should only be clarified that the earthly includes not only immediate material benefits and associated sensual pleasures, but sometimes a refusal to exclusively material assets for the sake, for example, of earthly power (remember the external asceticism of many tyrants and despots), fame, the desire for self-affirmation in society, etc. Even what others see as belonging to a purely spiritual sphere can also become a purely earthly value. For example, aesthetic experiences that are turned into an end in themselves - for the sake of egoistic mental pleasure. Or love, understood as possession (not only in the physiological sense, but also in the moral sense). Even moral searches, when they are carried out for the sake of finding means for a more prosperous earthly arrangement, can turn out to be unspiritual at their core. This is what happened with Leo Tolstoy, for example, who rejected the idea of ​​salvation, and from the entire teaching of Christ, he accepted only moral postulates, which he wanted to specifically adapt for the organization of social life, but the value of which, apart from Divine Revelation, turned out to be very doubtful. The Church of Christ can also turn out to be an earthly treasure in the minds of people when it begins to be viewed, like other pragmatic politicians, only as a means suitable for use in the struggle for power.

One way or another, but the craving for earthly treasures observed at all levels of our earthly existence. And it cannot but become the subject of philosophical and aesthetic comprehension.

But where is the criterion for collecting treasures? How to determine exactly what exactly a person is collecting? After all, by force of necessity, everyone is forced to exist in the earthly world and cannot do without earthly, material things, connections, thoughts. Christ the Savior outlined this criterion clearly and simply:

“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” ().

What we are attached to in our hearts is something we fully feel if we begin to listen to the voice of conscience (which is why we so often muffle it in order to drive away the unsightly truth).

Here main topic Russian literature - the confrontation between two aspirations that tear apart our soul and heart - to heavenly treasures And earthly treasures . This is a topic, a problem not just of literature exclusively, it is a problem of life, creative search (often - throwing) and the writers themselves, whose path was by no means straight and directed only to the Mountain heights, but marked by many mistakes, falls, deviations from the Truth.

But what is Truth? The question is eternal. True, for the Orthodox consciousness there is no such problem and there cannot be: this is a question of Pontius Pilate. In Orthodoxy: Truth is the fullness of the Person of Christ the Savior. Orthodoxy is not occupied with the search for the Truth, but concerns every person with revealing It for himself, with the painful awareness of his distance from the Truth, and directs attention to to the inner man. And everyone begins to recognize within themselves (and not outside themselves) that terrible confrontation between good and evil, which determines our final fate not in time, but in eternity.

A person is doomed to choose between good and evil, but he aggravates the tragedy of his existence contained in this by also tossing between different understandings of good and evil. It was this confusion of the soul that Russian literature highlighted, making it, in fact, the main subject of its compassionate research. She managed to introduce the reader to such inner experiences, such torments of conscience, to plunge him into such abysses of the soul, of which near-European literature had very little idea.

It’s generally easier for a Westerner. The “commercial soteriology” of Catholicism, the Protestant denial of the need for any internal struggle with sin, make life outwardly clearer and joyful, in some sense more harmonious, devoid of mental torment. It is worth re-reading the thoughts of writers cited a little earlier who compared Russian and Western literature in order to easily see that the differences are determined precisely by the different directions of internal aspirations: Western writers (and readers) to treasures purely earthly - and Russians to unearthly . A Western person may, of course, suffer, but from the lack of a million, a title, a cottage, etc. And only in Russian literature is it possible for a hero to appear who suffers, possessing all such benefits in abundance:

I am young, the life in me is strong;

What should I expect? Melancholy, melancholy!..

How to relate to such suffering depends on the understanding of life by each of us. Some will consider it a manifestation of madness. But the Russian people found themselves doomed to this kind of thing (although not everyone without exception, of course), and literature accurately reflected this. And this happened because the very vector of spiritual aspirations was turned by Orthodoxy in the direction opposite to earthly goods.

Undoubtedly, desire alone does not ensure the achievement of a goal. Otherwise: why bother?

All the problems of Russian literature are many times aggravated by the fact that the harmony of possessing heavenly gifts is not subject to secular art at all. Or, let us make a concession to the vanity of artists, it is almost beyond control. Art feels free and omnipotent only in the elements of contradictions and conflicts. We must clearly recognize: the sphere artistic creativity limited to the area of ​​the soul - in the system of Christian trichotomy: body, soul, spirit. This does not insult or belittle art at all, but only precisely defines the limits of its capabilities. However, the spiritual space is so vast and boundless that art, even within strictly limited limits, is unlikely to ever be able to exhaust what is intended for it. Exactly so - a ship can only sail within the space outlined by the coastline, but the ocean is too vast. The only question is where and why to sail.

Art, and literature in particular, in the vast space of the soul can be confined to those areas where the soul comes into contact with the physical nature, but it can also rise to the spheres bordering on the presence of the spirit. Such is Russian literature in its highest achievements.

One of the most important problems that initially confronted the Russian Orthodox consciousness was, we repeat, precisely problem of choice between treasures of heaven And earthly. Kiev Metropolitan Hilarion spoke directly about this when enlightening Rus' in the “Sermon on Law and Grace” back in the 11th century. (Russian literature in general begins with this work.)

“About the law given by Moses, and about Grace and truth revealed in Jesus Christ, about how the Law departed, and Grace and truth filled the whole earth, and faith extended to all nations, and to our Russian people.<…>Just as the light of the moon departed when the sun shone, so did the Law before the Grace that appeared. Humanity is no longer cramped in the Law, but walks freely in Grace. For the Jews established themselves by the candle of the Law, but Christians built their salvation by the beneficent sun; for the Jews established themselves through the shadow and the Law, and were not saved, while Christians do not establish themselves through truth and Grace, but are saved. For among the Jews it is self-affirmation, but among the Christians it is salvation. As self-affirmation in this world, salvation is in the next century, for Jews are concerned about earthly things, while Christians are concerned about heavenly things. For Jewish self-affirmation is stingy out of envy, for it did not extend to other nations, it became only for the Jews, but for Christians, salvation is good and generously extends to all the ends of the earth.” .

Thus, from the early years of Christianity in Rus', Truth and Grace were established side by side and inseparably by the word of the Saint. Deep thought: By Law a person is confirmed in his own egoism, by Grace he is saved in generous self-giving to the entire created world. Preference for one or the other depends on the understanding of a person’s purpose. Those who want to assert themselves on earth prefer the Law, those striving for salvation in the Heavenly World prefer Grace. What is true? The question for the Orthodox consciousness is rhetorical.

But to know the Truth and follow the Truth - what a gulf there is sometimes between these two states. And what torment for a person from the feeling of that abyss not just somewhere, but in his very soul. The holy righteous John of Kronstadt spoke about this: “To be a spirit, to have spiritual needs and aspirations and not find satisfaction for them - what torment for the soul!”

It was such torment that became, first of all, the subject of aesthetic comprehension and reflection in Russian literature. But not as a reason for detached contemplation and cold rational analysis, but as a subject of the artist’s own mental torment.

The main reason for such torment was precisely that happy (by the highest standard) circumstance that no matter how strong the Western influence was, no matter how victoriously earthly temptation penetrated Russian life, Orthodoxy still remained uneradicated, remained with all the fullness of the Truth contained in it - and could not disappear anywhere. Souls were damaged - yes! - but no matter how the public and personal life of Russians wandered in the dark labyrinths of temptations, the arrow of the spiritual compass still stubbornly pointed in the same direction, even though the majority was moving in the exact opposite direction. For Western man, let’s say it again, it was simpler: for him there were no intact landmarks, so even if he lost his way, he sometimes might not even suspect it at all.

People from the outside marveled at the internal torments of the Russian people, they were perplexed and even mocked, but they provided lasting strength, strengthened mental strength, and spread a cleansing influence on the world around them. This is reflected primarily in our literature.

Let us limit ourselves to just one example - but an authoritative and instructive one. In the memoirs of the famous church figure of the 20th century, Metropolitan Evlogii (Georgievsky), we find evidence that is too important for understanding the merits of Russian literature. Bishop Evlogy tells how in his early youth, in the first two years of his seminary life, he was distinguished by not very worthy behavior and lifestyle. And what helped you avoid falling? Reading Russian literature. “The educational value of literature for young people is enormous,” says the memoirist based on his own experience. - It is difficult to even take into account the extent of its beneficial influence. It increased self-knowledge, saved from rudeness, promiscuity, and ugliness of actions, and nourished the youthful soul’s inclination toward idealism. I began to straighten out, study well, I began to develop mental needs and more serious interests.<…>My passion for literature<…>prepared the ground for further spiritual development..."

Additional explanations are probably not required at all.

Nowadays there are also deniers of Russian literature who, in an “excess of piety,” sometimes try to reject the very necessity of communicating with Russian classics. One of these zealots once told the author this study: “Why do we your Dostoevsky? We have our Holy Fathers! If a question is posed, it must be thought through. Why do we need worldly culture when our goal is spiritual growth?

First of all: both Dostoevsky and the Holy Fathers are not “ours” and not “yours”. They belong to everyone who wants to comprehend their spiritual experience. And if there is no desire, then no one imposes it. But no one claims that Russian writers should replace the reading of patristic literature. One does not hinder the other, but can undoubtedly help.

Behind the reluctance to join the inner experience of Russian writers lies, first of all, pride, but also simple laziness. We are already so spiritually high that we can only look down on Dostoevsky. In fact, it turns out that the Fathers are not studied too diligently.

However, one can object in this way (and they often object): it is not necessary to read the Fathers, since there is the Gospel - and we will limit ourselves to it.

In fact, it turns out that unauthorized reading and interpretation (and whoever reads inevitably interprets) the Word of God leads, as a rule, to errors and heresies. One's own understanding of the Gospel must be verified by the wisdom of those who, having achieved purity of heart , was able to understand without impurity the depth of Revelation.

The wisdom of the Holy Fathers cannot be comprehended without sufficient personal spiritual experience. And it is precisely this experience that can be immeasurably enriched by the depth of experience that is contained in the treasury of Russian literature. A person generally cannot live and comprehend his own experience without communicating with others like himself. Aren't Russian writers the best interlocutors and questioners for enriching themselves with the necessary experience? Why, in pride, reject what can become a true treasure for someone who is not lazy in mind?

Let us think about the testimony of Metropolitan Eulogius: after all, while in the seminary, he certainly read the Scriptures and the Fathers, but his own experience was so small that everything remained as if in vain. And literature helped.

The following objection may follow: not everything in the works of our classics is light and harmonious, and Dostoevsky himself depicts so many dark sides of existence - won’t reading such descriptions harm the soul? internal building a person? In addition: noting spiritual errors in the work of this or that artist, even if we do not adopt them, we inevitably fall into the sin of condemnation, and this, again, is not good for our soul.

If you read incompetently, communication with the Holy Fathers can be harmful. Literature needed learn to read. It is necessary to master the skill of understanding literature in relation to the wisdom of Orthodoxy. As for the “dark” places, they too can give us invaluable experience in our work. self-knowledge .

First of all: we are obliged to soberly comprehend all deviations from the Truth in the work and life of any writer (as well as any person), but not to condemn him, for we are commanded not to condemn (). We must realize: in the personality and work of a great artist those bad qualities of human nature that exist in a hidden form in us can be revealed in a more acute and vivid way. A person recognizes sin in another person if he has such a sin in himself. I may, due to my own weakness or fear, not realize my enslavement to this sin, but as soon as I recognized it in another, I recognized it in myself. But not everyone realizes this.

When we soberly recognize sin in the work and in the life of a great artist, not to condemn him, but to condemn ourselves, then we receive an undoubted spiritual benefit from communicating with literature: it helps us recognize what we sometimes did not even suspect. And this is always painful. That’s why many people don’t want to read about the “dark” sides of existence: it’s scary to look into themselves.

Our literature has captured in word and image the religious experience of Russian people: both light and dark, both salutary and dangerous for the soul. The experience of faith and the experience of unbelief.

Both experiences are necessary for self-knowledge And self-awareness . The truth is given in Revelation. But it is impossible to reveal It for yourself without recognizing the image of God within yourself. Just as it is impossible without knowing your own sinful damage.

“The Kingdom of God is within you” ().

But inside us- and hellish abysses. It is necessary to be aware of this. To enter into an internal invisible battle with passions.

It is precisely this self-knowledge that leads a person towards the Savior. For salvation, affirmation of oneself in the Truth, is collaboration with the Truth, synergy. And the richer a person’s spiritual experience, the more fruitful this collaboration is.

Literature is capable of enriching us with considerable experience, the experience of universal human comprehension of existence, the experience of self-knowledge, which is irreplaceable. Anyone who wants to neglect such universal experience is not his own friend.

Of course, with a superficial emotional, rather than spiritual, understanding of negative experience, the dark sides of life, it is possible to fall under the power of the spirit despondency . Uncreative reading, for example, of Dostoevsky, can plunge a person into dark abyss. But the fault lies not with the writer, but with the mediocre reader. You need to learn to read literature. And then Dostoevsky will lead the soul to bright heights, clear the way to comprehending the Truth.

This is always the case: it is necessary to understand what the vector of the artist’s aspirations is. One, depicting sin, calls upward, to the Heavenly One, the other, seducing with crafty beauty, pulls towards the darkness of the underworld.

The proposed study is devoted to the literature of modern times, the period when it became de-churched. Ancient literature Rus' - manifests itself on a qualitatively different level, like all culture in general: it does not focus its attention on the problems of a secular society (which did not exist), it has its own special range of interests, its own goals and objectives, albeit not delimited from later irresistible wall. Therefore, the conversation about it should be special, separate from the chosen topic.

Creations like the saints of our father Tikhon of Zadonsk. T.4. M., 1889. P. 145.

Almanac of a bibliophile. Vol. 26. M., 1989. S. 155, 161.

Evlogy (Georgievsky), metropolitan. The path of my life. M., 1994. P. 29.

Biography

Born in Moscow. In 1963 he graduated from high school.

In 1970, he graduated from the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University and entered the correspondence department at the graduate school of the Institute of Russian Literature of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Also currently working personal secretary famous writer Sokolov-Mikitov.

From 1976 to 1979 gave lectures on the history of Russian literature at preparatory courses.

In 1979, after defending his candidate's dissertation, he was awarded the academic degree of Candidate of Philological Sciences. The topic for the candidate's dissertation was the work of the famous Russian writer Ivan Shmelev. Choosing such a topic in Soviet times was a rather risky and dangerous step. Dunaev was one of the first who dared to write about the Christian emigrant writer.

From 1980 to 1981 he taught at Moscow State University. On September 1, 1990 he became a teacher at the Moscow Theological Academy

In 1997, he graduated from the academy as an external student and defended his Ph.D. thesis.

In November 1998 he defended his master's thesis, and in December he was awarded the title of associate professor.

On September 17, 1999, by decision of the State Higher Attestation Commission of the Russian Federation, he was awarded the academic degree of Doctor of Philological Sciences.

In 2001 he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Theology. Then he became a professor at the Moscow Theological Academy.

On September 6, a funeral service took place according to the Orthodox rite in the house church of Moscow State University in the name of the holy martyr Tatiana. The service lasted more than two hours. The funeral service was led by the rector of the Moscow Theological Academy and Seminary, Archbishop Evgeniy of Vereisky. Concelebrating with him was the representative of the Patriarch of Serbia to the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus', MDA graduate Bishop Anthony of Moravica, many members of the teaching corporation in holy orders, and clergy of the city of Moscow. At the funeral service, a message from His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus' was read.

Awards

• Medal of St. Sergius of Radonezh, 1st class (October 14, 2000)
• Order St. Sergius Radonezh III degree (October 14, 2005)

Winner of the first “Orthodox Book of Russia” award in the “Author of the Year” category in 2003.

Bibliography

Volume 5 of M.M.’s work Dunaev "Orthodoxy and Russian literature"

• Dunaev M. M. Orthodoxy and Russian literature. - Krutitsa Patriarchal Compound, 1997. - T. 2. - 473 p. - ISBN 5-87727-004-4
• Dunaev M. M. Orthodoxy and Russian literature. - Second edition, corrected and expanded. - M.: Temple of the Holy Martyr Tatiana at Moscow State University, 2002. - T. 3. - 768 p. - 5000 copies. - ISBN 5-900988-09-0
• Dunaev M. M. Orthodoxy and Russian literature. - M.: Christian literature. - T. 4. - 784 p. - ISBN 5–900988–10–4
• Dunaev M. M. Orthodoxy and Russian literature. - 2nd ed., revised, added.. - M.: Christian literature. - T. 5. - 782 p. - ISBN 5-900988-11-2
• Dunaev M. M. Orthodoxy and Russian literature. F. M. Dostoevsky. - Temple of the Holy Martyr Tatiana at Moscow State University, 2002. - 176 p. - 10000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-901836-05-7

• Dunaev M. M. Faith in the crucible of doubt: Orthodoxy and Russian literature in the 17th-20th centuries. - Prestige, 2003. - 1056 p. - 5000 copies. - ISBN 5-94625-023-X
• Dunaev M. M. A crime against the future. - Holy Mountain, 2006. - 56 p. - 3,000 copies.
• Dunaev M. M. About M. M. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita.” - Holy Mountain, 2006. - 56 p. - 3,000 copies.
• Dunaev M. M. The originality of Russian religious painting of the XII-XX centuries. - M.: Philology, 1997. - 221 p. - (Essays on Russian culture XII-XX centuries). - ISBN 5-7552-0100-5
• Dunaev M. M. On the threshold. The story of one life. - Alta-Print, 2005. - 816 p. - 3000 copies. - ISBN 5-98628-007-5
• Dunaev M. M. South of Moscow. - 2nd ed., revised, additional.. - M.: Art, 1986. - 176 p. - 100,000 copies.
• Dunaev M. M. Ivan Turgenev - Ivan Turgenev: Life and Work. - M.: Russian language, 1983. - 294 p.
• Dunaev M. M. V. E. Borisov-Musatov. - M.: Art, 1993. - 189 p.
• Dunaev M. M., Razumovsky F. V. In the middle reaches of the Oka. - M.: Art, 1982. - 184 p. - 85,000 copies.
• Dunaev M. M. On the land of the Great Battle. - M.: Art, 1976. - 152 p. - 75,000 copies.
• Dunaev M. M. The originality of Russian icon painting. - 1995. - 79 p. - ISBN 5-88541-003-9
• Vladimirov A. Archpriest, Nikolaev S. Archpriest, Dunaev M.M. You will be condemned by your words: Foul language. - Russian Publishing Council Orthodox Church, 2007. - 80 p. - 15,000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-94625-195-2
• Dunaev M. M. Postmodern scandals // Church and time. - 2003. - № 23.
• Dunaev M. M. About the literary work of P. N. Krasnov // Church and time. - 2003. - № 24.

Links

• Word from His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus' on the death of M.M. Dunaeva
• A word about a Russian scientist - obituary of Vladimir Melnik in the Blagovest newspaper

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• Mikhail Dyakonov

See what “Mikhail Dunaev” is in other dictionaries:

Dunaev, Mikhail

Dunaev Mikhail Mikhailovich- Mikhail Mikhailovich Dunaev Date of birth: August 22, 1945 Place of birth: Moscow, USSR ... Wikipedia

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Dunaev, Andrey- Chairman of the Right Cause party Chairman of the Right Cause party since February 2012, lawyer. From September 2011 to February 2012 he was the acting chairman of the Right Cause, from August 2011 to January 2012 the head of... ... Encyclopedia of Newsmakers

Dunaev, Mikhail Mikhailovich- Wikipedia has articles about other people with the same surname, see Dunaev. Mikhail Mikhailovich Dunaev Date of birth ... Wikipedia

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Dunaev, Ivan Vasilievich- Ivan Vasilyevich Dunaev Date of birth 1922 (1922) Place of birth in the village of Gruzdikha, Kholm district, Novgorod region Date of death ... Wikipedia

Dunaev, Mikhail Mikhailovich- (b. 22.08.1945) Born. in Moscow. Graduated from Philology. Faculty of Moscow State University and graduate school of the Institute of Literature of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Candidate of Philology Sciences, Master of Divinity (1998). Published since 1966: NM magazine. Author of the book: On the land of the great battle. M., 1976; South of Moscow. M., 1978 ... Large biographical encyclopedia

ARTSYBASHEV Mikhail Petrovich- Mikhail Petrovich (October 24, 1878, Dobroslavovka village, Akhtyrsky district, Kharkov province, March 3, 1927, Warsaw), writer, playwright. Genus. in a noble family (father was a police officer in Akhtyrka). Began publishing in 1895 in the Kharkov newspaper. "Southern Region". IN… … Orthodox Encyclopedia

Born in Moscow. In 1963 he graduated from high school.

In 1970, he graduated from the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University and entered the correspondence department at the graduate school of the Institute of Russian Literature of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Also at this time he worked as the personal secretary of the famous writer Sokolov-Mikitov.

From 1976 to 1979 gave lectures on the history of Russian literature at the preparatory courses at the Moscow Energy Institute.

In 1979, after defending his candidate's dissertation, he was awarded the academic degree of Candidate of Philological Sciences. The topic for the candidate's dissertation was the work of the Russian writer Ivan Shmelev, which was very unconventional for Soviet times. Dunaev was one of the first who dared to write about the Christian emigrant writer.

From 1980 to 1981 he taught at Moscow State University. On September 1, 1990 he became a teacher at the Moscow Theological Academy

In 1997, he graduated from the academy as an external student and defended his Ph.D. thesis.

In November 1998 he defended his master's thesis, and in December he was awarded the title of associate professor.

On September 17, 1999, by decision of the State Higher Attestation Commission of the Russian Federation, he was awarded the academic degree of Doctor of Philological Sciences.

In 2001 he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Theology. Then he became a professor at the Moscow Theological Academy.

On September 6, a funeral service took place according to the Orthodox rite in the home church of Moscow State University in the name of the holy martyr Tatiana. The service lasted more than two hours. The funeral service was led by the rector of the Moscow Theological Academy and Seminary, Archbishop Evgeniy of Vereisky. Concelebrating with him was the representative of the Patriarch of Serbia to the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus', MDA graduate Bishop Anthony of Moravica, many members of the teaching corporation in holy orders, and clergy of the city of Moscow. At the funeral service, a message from His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus' was read.

Awards

• Medal of St. Sergius of Radonezh, 1st class (October 14, 2000)
• Order of St. Sergius of Radonezh, III degree (October 14, 2005)

Winner of the first “Orthodox Book of Russia” award in the “Author of the Year” category in 2003.

Bibliography

• Dunaev M. M. Orthodoxy and Russian literature. - Krutitsa Patriarchal Compound, 1997. - T. 2. - 473 p. - ISBN 5-87727-004-4
• Dunaev M. M. Orthodoxy and Russian literature. - Second edition, corrected and expanded. - M.: Temple of the Holy Martyr Tatiana at Moscow State University, 2002. - T. 3. - 768 p. - 5000 copies. - ISBN 5-900988-09-0
• Dunaev M. M. Orthodoxy and Russian literature. - M.: Christian literature. - T. 4. - 784 p. - ISBN 5–900988–10–4
• Dunaev M. M. Orthodoxy and Russian literature. - 2nd ed., revised, added.. - M.: Christian literature. - T. 5. - 782 p. - ISBN 5-900988-11-2
• Dunaev M. M. Orthodoxy and Russian literature. F. M. Dostoevsky. - Temple of the Holy Martyr Tatiana at Moscow State University, 2002. - 176 p. - 10000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-901836-05-7

• Dunaev M. M. Faith in the crucible of doubt: Orthodoxy and Russian literature in the 17th-20th centuries. - Prestige, 2003. - 1056 p. - 5000 copies. - ISBN 5-94625-023-X
• Dunaev M. M. Crime before the future. - Holy Mountain, 2006. - 56 p. - 3,000 copies.
• Dunaev M. M. About M. M. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita.” - Holy Mountain, 2006. - 56 p. - 3,000 copies.
• Dunaev M. M. Originality of Russian religious painting XII-XX centuries. - M.: Philology, 1997. - 221 p. - (Essays on Russian culture XII-XX centuries). - ISBN 5-7552-0100-5
• Dunaev M. M. On the threshold. The story of one life. - Alta-Print, 2005. - 816 p. - 3000 copies. - ISBN 5-98628-007-5
• Dunaev M. M. South of Moscow. - 2nd ed., revised, additional.. - M.: Art, 1986. - 176 p. - (Roads to beauty). - 100,000 copies.
• Dunaev M. M. Ivan Turgenev - Ivan Turgenev: Life and Creativity. - M.: Russian language, 1983. - 294 p.
• Dunaev M. M. V. E. Borisov-Musatov. - M.: Art, 1993. - 189 p.
• Dunaev M. M., Razumovsky F. V. In the middle reaches of the Oka. - M.: Art, 1982. - 184 p. - (Roads to beauty). - 85,000 copies.
• Dunaev M. M. On the land of the Great Battle. - M.: Art, 1976. - 152 p. - (Roads to beauty). - 75,000 copies.
• Dunaev M. M. Originality of Russian icon painting. - 1995. - 79 p. - ISBN 5-88541-003-9
• Vladimirov A. Archpriest, Nikolaev S. Archpriest, Dunaev M.M. You will be condemned by your words: Foul language. - Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, 2007. - 80 p. - 15,000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-94625-195-2
• Dunaev M. M. Postmodern scandals // Church and time. - 2003. - No. 2 (23). - pp. 104-127.
• Dunaev M. M. About the literary work of P. N. Krasnov // Church and Time. - 2003. - No. 3 (24). - pp. 188-210.

Mikhail Mikhailovich DUNAEV was born in Moscow. In 1963 he graduated from high school.
In 1970, he graduated from the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University and entered the correspondence department at the graduate school of the Institute of Russian Literature of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Also at this time he worked as the personal secretary of the famous writer Sokolov-Mikitov.
From 1976 to 1979 gave lectures on the history of Russian literature at the preparatory courses at the Moscow Energy Institute.

In 1979, after defending his candidate's dissertation, he was awarded the academic degree of Candidate of Philological Sciences. The topic for the candidate's dissertation was the work of the Russian writer Ivan Shmelev, which was very unconventional for Soviet times. Dunaev was one of the first who dared to write about the Christian emigrant writer.
From 1980 to 1981 he taught at Moscow State University. On September 1, 1990, he became a teacher at the Moscow Theological Academy.

In 1997, he graduated from the academy as an external student and defended his Ph.D. thesis.
In November 1998 he defended his master's thesis, and in December he was awarded the title of associate professor.
On September 17, 1999, by decision of the State Higher Attestation Commission of the Russian Federation, he was awarded the academic degree of Doctor of Philological Sciences.
In 2001 he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Theology. Then he became a professor at the Moscow Theological Academy.

Author of more than 200 books and articles, including a major work in 6 volumes, “Orthodoxy and Russian Literature,” based on Dunaev’s course of lectures at the Theological Academy.
He died on September 4, 2008 at the age of 64 after a serious and long illness.

Mikhail Mikhailovich DUNAEV: articles

Mikhail Mikhailovich DUNAEV (1945 - 2008)- theologian, literary critic, doctor of philological sciences: .

WHAT IS THE SOURCE OF POWER?

As is known, the basis of any system of thinking is based on certain axioms that must be accepted without reasoning. Democratic thinking is based on a crafty truth: “Democracy has many shortcomings, but nothing better has yet been invented.” This is the initial lie that defines other vices of a democratic - let's even say: not a form of government, but more broadly: a style and way of existence.

However, there is no need to invent something better - it already exists: an autocracy that is Orthodox in spirit. In general, the monarchical principle of government itself is a reflection (in an imperfect form, of course) of the heavenly hierarchy. It is on this that the conviction is based that there is no other political structure higher than autocratic power. We say: King of Heaven, Kingdom of God, but no one has ever heard of heavenly presidents and republics.

Many misunderstandings in disputes about forms of government are due to the incorrect principle of determining the internal nature and essence of power. The political system is now characterized by the way the state is governed: parliamentary republic, presidential republic, dictatorship, constitutional monarchy, etc. The principle is false, because it snatches away the true essence of power. Power must be defined by its source. The source, however, is always the same: “... there is no authority except from God; but the existing authorities were established by God” (Rom. 13:1). However, both the holders of power and those who accept power do not always realize this. But one cannot demand a true understanding of the source of power from an atheistic society, as well as from a society where the Church is separated from the state.

After this necessary clarification, we will say: power should be determined by the awareness of the bearers of power of the source of their power. And upon mature reflection we have to admit that there can only be two such sources: God and man. Most political systems consider the will of a person (society, people, military group, etc.) to be the source of power. This is precisely what is enshrined in current Russian legislation: the source of power is the people. And the people are conceived, moreover, not as a spiritual community, but as a kind of union of people living on the same territory.

Awareness of the source of power is important because it is also awareness of the person to whom the bearers of power are responsible for the exercise of power. They may be aware of their responsibility to God or to certain communities of people.

Only awareness of its responsibility to the Creator brings power closer to the religious idea of ​​the highest truth and justice, for the sake of which power is exercised. Awareness of responsibility to people, and only to them, will force the authorities to serve the interests, not always disinterested, of these people, and, at the core of everything, their own interests. It is impossible to deceive God, but it is not difficult to deceive people. This is why there is so much deception in democracy.

Autocratic power is the only form of power in which the source is recognized as the providential will of God.

Of course, the ideal is not realizable in earthly existence, and therefore many things are associated with autocratic power. internal problems. Recognizing them, one can only say: even in autocracy, due to the sinful corruption of the world, its flaws may be revealed, but there is simply nothing better in this world. Associated with the autocratic way of government is the fact that at some historical stage the people may turn out to be unworthy to remain under such power. Alas, this now determines the fate of the Russian people.

By defining the forms of power by the source of power, we can come to the paradoxical but immutable conclusion that between different types There is no fundamental difference between democracy and dictatorship: the only difference is that the source of power in one and the other are groups of people different in size, that’s all. Democracy is therefore despotic in its own way and can be more cruel in its actions. The concept of liberal terror is by no means an abstraction. “The free life of horse breeders is akin to eastern despots,” another prince wrote. P.A. Vyazemsky (for which he received his share of abuse from the bearers of liberal thought).

Think about it sensibly: the very concept of democracy is a complete deception. Or self-deception? Indeed: democracy by definition is the power of the people. But the people cannot directly exercise power - only through their representatives. Therefore, democracy is government on behalf of the people. And over the people. Elected representatives, having received power from the people, often by deceiving good promises, always deceive the same people to a greater or lesser extent. Today's political life in Russia provides irrefutable confirmation of this.
Here are the well-known confirmations. When the population Soviet Union The overwhelming majority spoke in favor of preserving the Union; the democratic authorities openly neglected this. The rulers had their own interests. Or: the current Russian constitution was adopted by indiscriminate voting under obvious pressure from the ruling elite. But the constitution cannot be adopted this way: along with the indisputable articles, it also contains some that are not entirely acceptable. Even Stalin used a more democratic procedure to adopt his constitution: voting was carried out at the Congress of Soviets, article by article. They will say: it was an obvious deception; there was no democracy under Stalin. Yes, but at least external decency was observed. Yeltsin’s team didn’t even consider it necessary to do that: they too openly despised the people, whose interests everyone so enthusiastically swore to serve. Or maybe the people deserve such contempt if they swallowed the bait so easily?

They object: this is not true democracy. Let us answer: simply the mature democracy of the West has developed more perfect and not so overt forms of the same deception.
The bearers of power always care first of all about their own selfish interests, and in a godless society it cannot be otherwise.
But democracy has never been the power of the entire people, if only because they resort to numerical criteria in exercising themselves. Quite often, one or another representative comes to power with too small a majority of votes cast for him. There were witty analysts who long ago defined democracy as the dictatorship of the majority over the minority. And sometimes even minorities over the majority: percentages are calculated on the number of voters, but not on the size of the entire population. Where is the power of the people?

Democracy as a principle always turns out to be a fiction.

Sometimes they point to the experience of the Novgorod Veche Republic or to the elements of self-government that have always existed in the Russian state (the same zemstvo, for example) as true democracy. But this is a misconception. In ancient Novgorod, the head public administration There was always an archbishop (and the source of his power is beyond doubt), while the forms of self-organization of civil and military life were sanctified by church authority and through this received their fullness. That is: the source of power in Novgorod was always recognized as the will of God, therefore the Novgorod state was not a republic in the modern sense and was not a form of democracy. But: one of the experiments of autocratic power, an experience that was not entirely perfect and was abolished over time.

Autocracy should not be understood as the totalitarian rule of one person: one person cannot exercise full power. He shares his power, received from God through the Church, with many, but the power of these many is comprehended and sanctified by the existence of the supreme bearer of power, and ultimately by the existence of God. Got it famous hero Dostoevsky: “If there is no God, then what kind of captain am I after that?” In the Russian Empire, every holder of the smallest share of power could (and should, but not everyone had enough spiritual understanding) say this. The autocratic principle of thinking is based on the conviction: I am a man because there is God, I am a captain (titular councilor, judge, landowner, etc.) because there is a king, and above him is God. It can be argued therefore: all forms of self-government in Russia were not elements of democracy, but manifestations of the same autocratic power. The lack of awareness of this reflected the inability and unworthiness of the people to remain under the rule of autocracy.
Let us repeat: autocracy is a form of government in which God gives the autocrat full power, making him truly autocratic, and he, in turn, aware of this, shares the received sacred power with his subjects. The source of universal power always remains the will of the Creator. And the more consistently and fully such power follows Providence, the more powerful it will be, and the more prosperous the life of those entrusted to this power will become.

In democracy, the source of power always refers to the will of one or another (sometimes very small) part of people who consider themselves completely self-willed. No one in democracy even wants to think about any providential will of the Almighty.

It is flattering for a person to imagine himself as self-willed, so democracy is now becoming an idol for him. Democracy is one of the manifestations of the original corruption of human nature. This corruption, we know, covers the entire sphere of existence; in politics it turns into the deification of the principles of democracy. “Let us be like gods” also means: we ourselves will become a source of power. (True, political figures love to refer to God’s will, which brought them to power, they swear on the Bible, but this is just an empty sham, especially curious given the complete godlessness of these people).

Taking a swing at the idea of ​​democracy today is like death. The cruelty of liberal terror will fall with merciless inexorability. But let us think dispassionately and impartially into the thoughts of the philosopher: “Democracy remains indifferent to good and evil. It is tolerant because it is indifferent, because it has lost faith in the truth... Democracy is extreme relativism, the denial of everything absolute. Democracy does not know the truth, and therefore it presents the revelation of truth to the decision of the majority of votes. Recognition of the power of quantity, worship of universal suffrage is possible only with disbelief in the truth and ignorance of the truth...

Democracy loves freedom, but this love of freedom does not arise out of respect for to the human spirit and human individuality, this is the love of freedom of those indifferent to the truth... Formal, skeptical free-thinking has done a lot to destroy the uniqueness of human individuality. Democracy does not necessarily mean freedom of spirit, freedom of choice; this freedom may be greater in non-democratic societies" N.A. Berdyaev).

The fact that democracy does not know and does not want to know the truth sometimes leads to cruel results. The most blatant example confirming the defenselessness of democracy in the face of the triumph of evil: the crucifixion of Christ the Savior, Who was put to death precisely as a result of the democratic vote of the Jerusalem crowd.

Confirmation of Berdyaev’s thought - and in current attitude our emerging democracy to Orthodoxy, to the Church. Outwardly, of course, everything is decent. But the desire to subordinate everything to control, to crush Orthodoxy legally, financially, and morally is clearly felt.
Even the optional study by Russian children of their national Orthodox culture is perceived by our democrats as a violation of their constitutional rights and even as a criminal offense. In many places, teaching the basics of this culture is simply prohibited.
A lengthy analysis of the current situation, carried out at the Analytical Center of the Union of Orthodox Citizens, allowed us to draw an indisputable conclusion: “Everything has already been prepared for the persecution of the Church.” When will it start? When favorable circumstances ripen. When the forces of evil deem it necessary to begin.

No democracy is an exception in this regard. Back in the late 1920s, sharing his observations of advanced French democracy, Berdyaev wrote: “In Russia now Christians are imprisoned, executed and forced to a materialistic way of thinking. In France, where no one is imprisoned or executed for their faith and thoughts where there is external freedom, Christianity is internally persecuted... Dominant public opinion oppresses the church and faith, persecutes it with contempt and ridicule. And so, apparently, all over the world."

Democratic authorities often - either out of indifference, or with a crafty intention - create discord between believers, encouraging the schismatic practices of anyone, even provoking discord, patronizing various kinds of sects and foreign preachers. Even satanic communities tolerate it. And all under the guise of protecting democracy and pluralism of opinions. Now it has already become known: all sectarian perversions, actively instilled in the people, had their patrons at the very top, starting with Gorbachev, who publicly embraced “Reverend” Moon. At the level of the act of the highest representative of power, this was a national crime.

A good attitude towards Orthodoxy now depends, first of all, on the personal qualities or religious attitude (or on pragmatic considerations) of this or that political figure or official. The ideologists of democracy disparage Orthodoxy.

Many even feel or even realize that Orthodoxy carries within itself a danger for the stability of social life: it provides such a height of life’s principles that the weakening of faith, on which everything rests, can immediately lead to a fall, to chaos. Western thought, realizing this, has come up with many supports over the centuries that can prevent the collapse (at least for a while) when faith becomes impoverished: juridism, the sacred right of property, scientism, pluralism, positivism, rationalism, liberalism, etc. Orthodoxy, being more concerned about the economy of salvation and the acquisition of heavenly treasures, did not stimulate the development of such values. A true believer does not need a special law prohibiting murder. When faith dries up, and legal consciousness is not strengthened by centuries-old tradition, social life begins to experience upheaval. In especially dangerous cases, totalitarianism becomes a temporary support of state and social stability (no matter what quality), but its abolition can plunge life into chaos. This is the only way to understand what is happening in Russia at the turn of the millennium.

Nowadays, at every mention of the need for an Orthodox education of a person, an Orthodox state spirit, demagogic cries are heard about the violation of the rights of non-Orthodox people, atheists in general. Meanwhile, only the Orthodox state is capable of truly helping a person in overcoming his life path. M. Nazarov is entirely right when he asserts that the goal of the Orthodox state is “to create favorable conditions for its citizens for a dignified passage through earthly life and salvation to eternal life in the Kingdom of God. Unlike secular power, Orthodox power expands the scope of its task beyond the limits of concerns material world, taking as a criterion the purpose of man as an immortal being created in the image and likeness of God. And the higher the position of the figure in the system of Orthodox power, the greater his responsibility before God, the more necessary it is for him to measure his activities with the meaning of history, for the course of which he is called. influence". The meaning of history for the Orthodox consciousness is clear.

History is the struggle of the devil against God transferred to the earthly world - manifested through the struggle of those who succumbed to the demonic temptation and those who resist it. This struggle can be carried out openly or covertly. Each era puts the main content of history into specific religious, cultural, ethical, aesthetic, social, economic, political, ideological and any other forms. But they should not be misleading: the struggle of darkness against light, evil against good and justice, lies against truth - always shines through any specific historical camouflage. This struggle in the socio-historical world is a derivative of that internal invisible battle that takes place in every human soul and in which external events draw energy for their development - the energy of good, as well as the energy of evil.

History is the process of movement of man who has fallen away from God (in his pan-human unity) to a new union with the Creator through a series of repeated retreats, mistakes, falls committed due to the damage of nature by the Fall, and uprisings prompted by the desire for salvation - embodied in specific circumstances.

Orthodox autocratic power is called upon to consciously participate in this process, following Providence. No democracy can even set itself such a task due to its fundamental rejection of the single and immutable Truth.

Truth is not needed for democracy, because it is incompatible with the merchant ideals of “new thinking.” The most important principle of this “new” (and there is nothing new in it: it is as old as the hills) was openly formulated in the official response to the famous letter from N. Andreeva, who tried to defend the foundations of the outgoing ideology: “... there is nothing established once and for all, unconditional, holy.<…>and is the initial, first, most cardinal principle of new thinking."

Sometimes they try to attribute this idea only to the “holiness” of communist ideas. A dangerous misconception: it is forgotten that reason always deduces a general pattern from particular judgments, and it already applies to all phenomena.

A society that tries to base its well-being on such a blatant postulate is doomed. “Nothing is sacred” inevitably gives rise to “everything is permitted.” This cannot but respond, among other things, to rampant crime - criminal, economic, political, organized, spontaneous, deliberate and thoughtless. What will hold a person back if nothing is sacred? Dostoevsky said directly about this: “If nothing is sacred, then you can do all kinds of abomination.” Real life confirms worst fears.

“Russian people, from an adult, from a full-fledged person, at home, ended up in the youth, in the guardianship, in the schoolchildren and servants of all kinds of foreign, even spiritual masters. Mental slavery to Europeanism and the people’s own impersonality were proclaimed as the guiding principles of development,” these words were were spoken in Pushkin’s speech by I.S. Aksakov (on the same day as Dostoevsky) more than a hundred years ago - and to this day these words can be repeated and repeated.
Nowadays they are trying, not unsuccessfully, to deprive Russian people of their own worldview, their own way of thinking, their own type of behavior. And it started a long time ago. Wise Prince Vyazemsky wrote a hundred and fifty years ago:

They have a strict slogan for everything
Under their liberal brand:
Don't you dare go your own way
Don't you dare live by your own mind.

Isn’t that what we see now?
Nowadays, democracy has brought this rule to its logical conclusion, inventing and imposing globalism on the whole world, the complete depersonalization of any more or less individual principle in existence. Globalism is based on the absolute ideal of consumerism.

The internal state of a person living by such an ideal was precisely revealed by Dostoevsky - in a seemingly paradoxical, but essentially true statement of an “underground” man: “...In fact, I need, you know what: so that you fail, that’s what! I need peace of mind. Yes, I’m for so that they don’t bother me, I’ll sell the whole world right now for a penny. Should the world fail, or should I not drink tea? I’ll say that the world will fail, but that I always drink tea.” This is the state from which the struggle against Orthodoxy is directed.

Today's Westerners are trying to impose on the public consciousness precisely an “underground” value orientation and, in fact, a kind of Russian national idea in their own interpretation. For example, former deputy G. Tomchin spoke out directly: “We all want to live in a consumer society, the absolute majority puts spiritual development in second place. The country has chosen its path. And if so, then we must go through it faster than the rest of the world.” This is called: let's overtake all those running to death.

Consumerism places the pursuit of pleasure above all else. But what are the consequences of hedonism of any kind? The Marquis de Sade talked about this very correctly; it is necessary to remember his warning constantly: “... When you get tired of one pleasure, you are drawn to another, and there is no limit to this. You get bored with banal things, you want something unusual, and in Ultimately, the last refuge of voluptuousness is crime."
Many wise men are trying to find out the reasons for the increase in crime, especially among young people. The press is filled with descriptions of the wildest cases. Here's one: several "advanced teenagers" (and they found a flattering word for young imbeciles) amused themselves by forcing their victim to dance barefoot on the shards of broken bottles, and then, after other brutal tortures, they killed - and already at the trial these sadists laughed merrily , talking about it. Cause? Re-read the thought of the ideologist of this worldview and this way of behavior.
As long as life is comprehended in the categories of consumer consciousness, until the desire for pleasure ceases to be the purpose of existence for many, the growth of crime will not be restrained by anything. But what other goal can we find if: nothing is sacred?

Truth is not needed for democracy, because it is incompatible with the merchant ideals of “new thinking.” A democratic state always agrees only to use the Truth as a kind of auxiliary means to achieve its goals. “New thinking,” consumer by nature, also inculcates consumer, everyday, down-to-earth goals. “New thinking” benefits from nothing being sacred. The criteria for buying and selling are imposed on the conscience. How logically everything is connected here - a complete, perfect system! And by internal logic doomed to degradation.
The current rulers of thought, adhering to the principles of “new thinking,” resort to a simple technique in the fight against the truth. As soon as we start talking, for example, about the fact that democracy cannot become a panacea in our historical circumstances, there immediately follows an accusation of trying to revive Stalinism with its concentration camps. Suffice it to say that abundance on the shelves will not truly solve our problems and that morality is not a consequence of satiety - and the statement will immediately follow that they want to starve the people to death. And if we remember the old truth that the very desire for wealth, raised to the absolute, is detrimental to the soul, then the grave accusation will not hesitate: they want to plunge us into poverty. And there are plenty of such lies today.
Pluralism, which rejects Truth, is openly or secretly contemplating the destruction of the state unity of Russia. And he contributes as much as he can, precisely through democratic forms of public life.

The consciousness that is condemnedly called Orthodox-imperial, imperial, great-power is subject to special attacks - and is defamed with indecent excess. To discover even a share of such consciousness in oneself is considered shameful. Why?

Great-power thinking is the dignity of the Russian person, and he must recognize this without being ashamed. Russia must be a great power, otherwise it will be crushed and destroyed: there are plenty of people who want it.

V. Rasputin said precisely: “There is no need to take power in the sense of “keep and not let go,” this meaning was brought into social and political orbit all from the same installation of launching into use an oppositional, behind-the-scenes vocabulary that replaces and affects the essence of the main concepts “Power means sticking together, not tearing apart a sick organism that has grown together, not looking for the culprit of the disease in each other, not trying to escape from it by dismemberment.”

The Russian principle is rejected primarily for its Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is hated in the “civilized world,” because only it is capable of resisting universal apostasy.
In the fight against Orthodoxy, those who call themselves Christians can unite with the Muslim world, and with any atheists, and with anyone - this was shown by the events in Yugoslavia. These same events revealed that the West will not stop in its hatred even in the face of state banditry, using the NATO bloc, a vassal to America. The morality of double standards will allow one to ignore international law and one’s own laws and charters.

The struggle against Orthodoxy is the main secret driving force of world political and social processes. But as long as Russia is strong, it is difficult for the devil to defeat. Conclusion: Russia needs to be weakened - spiritually, morally, physically. It is necessary: ​​to undermine its Orthodox foundation, destroy its culture, discredit the great-power Orthodox consciousness of the people, weaken the state power. Everything is done not without success.

Brzezinski openly proclaimed this, and the benefactor Soros also said the same thing. They despise us so much that they no longer hide their intentions to destroy us. We obediently give up one position after another. And all under the slogan of protecting democracy. As soon as you worry a little about your own interests, a unanimous cry is heard from all sides, both outside and inside: democracy is in danger, tyranny is coming!

One of the techniques used is the Americanization of consciousness and culture. Moreover, for a Russian person, this Americanization is associated not simply with the imposition of love for everything American, but also with the introduction of an inferiority complex into the hearts and minds. Literature, in particular, is working on this - an army of writers, humorists, satirists, scathingly portraying Russian people as stupid subhumans, lazy, always drunk, always thieving. The Russian public is happy, laughing in ecstasy.

Why are you laughing!? To your shame? Democratic.

LABYRINTHS OF PATRIOTIC THOUGHT

From time to time, very heated debates arise about patriotism - discussions and individual statements in the press, various kinds of "talk shows" (what a nasty word!) on television, even in official circles... Liberal thought is noticeably trying to persuade everyone to the conviction that patriotism is a concept bad, outdated, the last refuge of scoundrels. The ideas of globalism, no doubt, will win in the end, although they are actively opposed by some troublemakers and idlers who call themselves anti-globalists.

The trouble with our numerous debates (not only about patriotism, but in general) is that we initially do not realize the scope of concepts. First you need to agree on terms, and then discuss to your heart's content. True, when the meaning of the terms turns out to be definite, then many reasons for controversy will naturally disappear - an ancient truth.
But still: what is patriotism?

Strange question. Patriotism is love for the motherland, as evidenced by the very etymology of the word.
The answer is fair, but meaningless. Because a new question will inevitably arise in at least some minds: what is the homeland? What is the scope of this concept?

The answers begin with the banal: the homeland is the place where you were born. Someone will object: where you were born is an accident, but your homeland is where it’s good. It is useless to argue: if a person does not feel love for this very place, with which he is connected by origin, nothing can be explained to him.
"IN modern world, - wrote I.A. Ilyin, - there are many such unfortunate rootless people who cannot love their homeland because their instinct lives by personal-egoistic or egoistic-class interest, and they are deprived of a spiritual organ. And the idea of ​​a homeland says nothing to their soul. The idea of ​​a homeland presupposes a living principle of spirituality in a person. The homeland is something of the spirit and for the spirit, but in them there is no spirit: it is either silent or dead.<…>The organ of the spirit is atrophied in them, how can they find and love their homeland?<…>Spiritually dead man will not love his homeland and will be ready to betray it because he has nothing to accept it with and he cannot find it.”

Nowadays, we note, the efforts of many are aimed precisely at atrophying this spiritual organ in the Russian people.

The feeling of homeland is completely irrational: I feel good here, and not because milk rivers flow here in the banks of jelly, but simply here my life began, here I grew up, began to comprehend the beauty of the world, love, the beginnings of happiness, my root and inexpressible connection with this land, with these people, with the existence of the world in general.

“The homeland is the sacred secret of every person, just like his birth,” wrote S.N. Bulgakov. “By the same mysterious and unsearchable connections with which he is connected through the womb of his mother with his ancestors and attached to the entire human tree, he is connected through homeland and with mother earth, and with all of God’s creation, Man exists in humanity and nature, and the image in his existence is given in his birth and homeland.”

Those who do not feel this connection try to discredit patriotism, because since the time of Aesop it has been known: what is inaccessible must be slandered and rejected. It is pointless to argue with them and prove anything.

Bulgakov argued: “Love is characteristic only of the spirit, I, and love for the homeland is still the spiritual self-determination of I, and since it requires sacrifice from him, however, without turning the object of love into an idol, into an imaginary deity.”

This last remark is especially important because it reminds us of the true hierarchy of values. Dostoevsky accurately expressed this hierarchy: truth is higher than Russia. The only important thing is: for him, truth is not some true idea born of human experience and reason, but the Truth of Christ - and nothing else. Therefore, the concept of homeland is sacred only when it is comprehended through God’s wisdom.

The very concept of fatherland (synonymous with homeland) in the New Testament is revealed as sacred:
“For this purpose I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and on earth is named...” (Eph. 3:14-15).

The opposition of such an understanding of the fatherland (homeland) and truth is a denial of truth, the only criterion of which can only be the word of Holy Scripture.
“The Fatherland,” wrote S.N. Bulgakov, meaning the homeland by this word, “is only an expanded concept of fatherhood and sonship, a collection of fathers and mothers who gave birth to and continuously give birth to sonship. This idea of ​​the nation as a real, blood unity received plastic expression in the language of the Bible..."

For I.A. Ilyin, this was one of his sincere thoughts:
"...Love for the homeland is a creative act of spiritual self-determination, faithful in the face of God and therefore gracious."

However, not everyone rises so high in thought. Many associate with the concept of homeland what is directly connected in their minds with the place of birth: land, nature, people living here... A.T. Tvardovsky once proposed the concept small homeland, part of something larger, voluminous, beyond the reach of the eye and mind. Not everyone necessarily expands their thinking to this concept of a large Motherland (which must certainly be written with a capital letter), but when the expansion in consciousness occurs, it begins with native, familiar ideas, only the earth is now thought of not as a small visible patch, but as a huge space, which the person has never been to. Not only this city or village, but distant Siberia and the Kuril Islands are also my Motherland, and I don’t want to give it to anyone. And now all the people who inhabit this space are close to me, and they are the best people in the whole world. And there is nothing better than our nature. Because there is nothing better than what you love.

Inevitably, new concepts begin to manifest themselves in consciousness, without which it is no longer possible to imagine a great Motherland: country, state, culture, science, history, military glory. We can also be proud of all this: we are the largest country, we have created a great culture, we are the heirs of a glorious centuries-old history. Sometimes funny concepts are attached to the concept of the Motherland, for example: ideology, sports. There were people (and still are) who were proud that we became the world’s first country of victorious socialism and won many championships and Olympiads.

And so it turns out: there is no single patriotism, since a person can arbitrarily choose for himself any set of values ​​related to the understanding of the Motherland. You can love nature and culture, but be indifferent to the political structure of the country. Or are there a lot of people who don’t care about history or culture, but who consider themselves patriots because they fervently support the fate of the national football team? Once it was said in some TV show: the Russian national idea is the achievement of the world football championship. And who is indifferent to all sports victories - is he not a patriot?

Okay, let’s not fool ourselves and others with such nonsense, but let’s think seriously: where is the criterion of patriotism? What is the necessary set of values ​​one must embrace in order to truly be a patriot? Thinking about this, you can become confused.

Let's remember Lermontov's famous poem "Motherland". Already in the first line, the author states: “I love my fatherland...” - that is, he immediately declares himself a patriot, but immediately calls this patriotism strange. Why? But because his love is not squeezed into the existing template framework: he is indifferent to military glory, state power, history, but the appearance of his native land and the people inhabiting this land are dear to him. “A couple of white birches” and “a hut covered with straw” turn out to be more important than all military victories taken together.

For others, it is the state that is important, the most extensive and the most powerful (at least in dreams). The third, for the sake of the triumph of communism, was ready to mutilate the entire earth, “change the flow of rivers and move high mountains.” For the fourth, the state is valuable precisely because it is made up of the most gifted people in the world. Give the fifth world domination...

The entire number of combinations and connections from a different number of constituent elements (and each of them can also be interpreted in its own way) is difficult to survey. Diverse patriotic ideas create such intricate labyrinths from which you don’t know how to get out.

Everything is sometimes tragically aggravated by the fact that each of the concepts that make up the idea of ​​patriotism is turned by other daring minds into a self-sufficient value, extolled, and as a result, the ground is created for national fanaticism and other “charms” of perverted patriotism. It is from here that the haters of patriotic national identity draw their arguments.
The majority of our patriots are statists. Those for whom the idea of ​​a powerful state seems to be the highest value of the people's existence. Everything else should, according to this category of patriots, be subordinate to the state and serve it. When, for example, one of these statists, General Makashov, was asked about his attitude towards the Church, he replied: “We will support it to the extent that it will be useful to the state.” (This means: the state is higher than Truth.)

But where can we escape the question: what is the value of the state? What is it for? What is the purpose of his existence?

The most accurate answer was recently given by A.I. Solzhenitsyn (summarizing many, many predecessors): the most important thing is saving the people. The writer formulated this as a genuine national idea of ​​our time, the same one that restless minds are now so preoccupied with finding.
This statement revealed the dead end of one of the most serious areas of patriotic thought. Saving of the people is necessary, but it cannot become a national idea. (Thinkers of other nations can say this, and how then will the Russian idea differ from the Polish one, for example?) The national idea must reveal the meaning of the nation’s existence, the goal of the historical movement of the people. Saving is a means, not an end. It is a means to some other end. For which? Why does this land, this people, this state exist? Why save people? How can my Motherland be necessary for the whole world? If there is no such need, then the existence of my people has no value justification and is not secured by anything in the historical development of mankind. Nations come and go, civilizations change, powerful empires disappear - is it worth regretting? So we too will leave if we do not comprehend our own existence. Of course, we will still fight, show courage, but won’t this be meaningless convulsions of an agonizing organism?

We are always concerned about how we can make ourselves more comfortable and pleasant during this time. And we think of all concepts in a narrowly pragmatic way - that’s our problem. We forget about eternity, which alone should give us the right point of view on our existence. It has been said and repeated many times: “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33). We are all concerned about this, we are looking for him. We are looking for the kingdom of the earth, and only the earthly.

We don't want to see the ultimate goals of history. But the meaning of a people’s existence cannot be comprehended outside of historical movement. Therefore, before talking about patriotism, it is necessary to determine whether this or that patriotism has value for history. For true history, and not for historical fuss.

But what is history?
History is the process of movement of man who has fallen away from God (in his pan-human unity) to a new union with the Creator through a series of repeated retreats, mistakes, falls committed due to the damage of nature by the Fall, and uprisings prompted by the desire for salvation - embodied in specific circumstances.

This movement is hindered by the one who provoked the falling away itself, the apostasy from God, so we can say this: “History is the struggle of the devil against God transferred to the earthly world - manifested through the struggle of those who have succumbed to the demonic temptation and those who resist it. This struggle can be carried out openly and covertly. Each the era puts the main content of history into specific religious, cultural, ethical, aesthetic, social, economic, political, ethnic, ideological and any other forms. But they should not be misleading: the struggle of darkness against light, evil against good and justice, lies. against the truth - always shines through any concrete historical camouflage. This struggle in the socio-historical world is a derivative of that internal invisible battle that takes place in every human soul and from which external events draw energy for their development - the energy of good as well as the energy of evil." .

All that remains outside the scope of this process is historical vanity, curious in itself, enticing to observe, teeming with an abundance of events, each of which often seems very important and essential. But for the historical process, driven by the Providence of God, it is meaningless and only obscures the understanding of history.

And this means that true historical consciousness is the awareness of how this or that event, act, character participates in such a historical process. Resistance to Providence is an ahistorical, self-destructive act. After all, it often happens like this: some action is very beneficial for some momentary goals, but is destructive for true history. (For example, the relationship of Peter I or Catherine II with our Church.)

Nowadays there are countless disputes about the course of historical development, about the fate of this or that country, economic system, civilization. At the same time, the smallest factors that determine such destinies are taken into account, right down to the pettiness of party squabbles and the ambition of government officials. But the most important thing is forgotten: the main subject of history is the Creator Almighty. He directs the course of the historical process by His will. But man is not a passive observer; he, according to the word of the Apostle, is a co-worker with God (1 Cor. 3:9). He must comprehend the will of the Creator and follow it, for it is directed towards his highest good. But a person can also resist historical truth, assert an autocratic will for the sake of establishing his own ideas about the meaning of existence. And it depends on this whether the historical movement of mankind is proceeding properly.
Let us repeat: in the history of mankind, the providential will of God operates, as well as the will of human and national aspirations. Only then can the entire nation achieve a good result when it subordinates its will to the will of Providence and becomes a co-worker with God in the economy of salvation. To carry out the work of God on earth is the meaning of human existence and the existence of a nation in this world. In this, the fate of the people and the fate of each individual person are identical.

I.A. Ilyin gave a deep understanding of the content of our life: “Christianity taught that the Divine is higher than the human and the spiritual is higher than the material and earthly. But the Divine does not confront man at an unattainable distance; it mysteriously inhabits human soul, spiritualizes her and makes her seek true perfection on all earthly paths. Whatever a Christian does, he seeks first of all a living union with God. He seeks His perfect will, trying to implement it as his own. Therefore, the life of a Christian can be neither aimless nor passionately blind: he is turned to God in everything, placing Him above everything else, subordinating everything to Him both in himself and in his deeds. His inner orientation turned out to be religious; his religious orientation became all-pervasive."

Non-participation in the matter of one's own salvation is also resistance to the will of the Creator. Do not forget: in the historical process there is another subject who acts for his own purposes - the devil. And a person follows either the will of Providence or the crafty will of the enemy - there is no third option, no matter how much we deceive ourselves with cunning reasoning.

More than once attention has been drawn to the important thought of Vl. Solovyov: “... the idea of ​​a nation is not what it thinks about itself in time, but what God thinks about it in eternity.” This is what we need to start from. Therefore, true patriotism can be defined as awareness and adherence to the destiny that the Provider establishes for your people, your land.
(True, there are quite a few thinkers of existence who will begin to assert that we do not know what God thinks of us in eternity. It’s sad. For it is not difficult to find out: it is enough to open the Gospel. But if you don’t know, then go away, do not impose your conjectures mind as a truth worthy of everyone's attention.)

God's providence is directed precisely towards the salvation and deification of man, that is, towards our highest good in eternity. Therefore, we will correctly comprehend our national idea, the meaning of patriotism, only if we realize our place in history, intended for us by Providence.
The Creator gave humanity the gift of love for the homeland, in order to comprehend the meaning of history through this love (and the majority managed to reject such a gift). It was not without reason that Ilyin asserted:
“The homeland is something from the Spirit of God: a gift of the Holy Spirit nationally perceived, nurtured and worked into earthly affairs.”

Globalism will win because the peoples of Europe no longer have a truly patriotic national idea. And the anti-globalists are doomed, because they also have no real basis for opposing the globalist depersonalization of humanity. They all, both of them, imagine that they are already living in a post-Christian society, and have already renounced their Christian foundations. They do not think of God as the decisive force of history, but rely only on their own efforts and claims. The most a Westerner can do is to realize patriotism through the admiration of sports victories or through the veneration of the national flag, like the Americans. (For comparison: the Arabs, this unique religious nation, live by their own historical idea, a false, fatal self-deception - but they are fanatically devoted to it and therefore hold the entire “post-Christian world” in awe.)

What if there is no God? Then, in general, everything is meaningless and discussions can only have two purposes: to pass time and to exalt oneself. (Which, by the way, is what we are seeing today, especially in television debates.)
The Creator Almighty chooses and calls to serve Himself both individuals, communicating to them His will, and nations that must follow this will, preserving in the depths of people's life ideas and values, without which humanity will inevitably get lost on earthly paths and will not find the paths of Heaven.

In the course of history different peoples The Provider has prepared different shares of participation in it, different degrees of responsibility for it.

Let's repeat what is known. The Fall, the falling away of man from the Creator, led to the general fragmentation of the universe, the nature of man, his composition, his consciousness, and led to the disunity of all creation. During this period, it was necessary from the very beginning, in order to prevent universal destruction, to preserve at least in the existence of one people the idea of ​​the One God, without which the appearance into the world of the Son of God, the Savior, could not be realized. The Jewish people were chosen to preserve this truth. This was his great national idea at the pre-Christian stage of world history. Were the Jews always faithful to this idea? No. Like any person, people can be seduced by temporary or false goals, misunderstanding their very chosenness. The entire Old Testament history is full of references to the deviations of the Messianic people from the straight path, attempts to rethink their national destiny (well, for example, in serving the golden calf), full of stories about how the Provider, through the people's leaders and prophets, guided His chosen ones on the path to the true goal.

With the coming of Christ the Savior into the world, this chosenness exhausted itself. But the Jews themselves did not agree with this. Seduced even earlier (which is partly characteristic of the weak human nature) by the understanding of their chosenness as ethnic isolation for the sake of domination over all other peoples, the Jews established this in their national self-consciousness and remain in such seduction to this day. By rejecting the Savior and waiting for their own Messiah, who should, according to their conviction, bring them final power over the world, the Jews thus showed the extreme degree of apostasy, for the people who had previously been chosen by God committed such treason. This people created their own faith, which only outwardly coincided with the Old Testament, a faith that can be called Talmudic. However, that is a different problem.

In the Christian era, the most important necessity for humanity was the preservation and universal affirmation of the fullness of Christ's Truth. No longer a separate ethnic group, but the people of God, the New Israel, the Church, in which both the former pagan (Hellenic) and the former Jew are united before the face of God - this is who was now called to serve this idea. However, in the course of history, a part of the seduced church people separated from such unity, and responsibility for the Truth was concentrated in the Eastern Church. Byzantium bore this burden for about four centuries, but it too fell, weakened from within and crushed by external hostile forces.

And then it turned out that the main burden of responsibility for the fate of Orthodoxy, that is, for preserving the fullness of the Truth of Christ, should be taken upon itself by that land, which was not without reason called Holy Rus'. Let us say once again that this name does not mean the universal holiness of the Russian people, but their awareness of the ideal of holiness as the highest value that man and the entire people are called upon to serve. (It has long been noted that this is a unique phenomenon in world history, because the idea of ​​neither Saint France, nor, say, Saint China, nor, let alone, Saint America - but there was Holy Rus', could have ever occurred to anyone.) The nation felt itself chosen, and she understood this chosenness of hers not as a guarantee of future world domination or the most advantageous place near the sweet pie, but - we repeat and repeat - as a barely lifting weight of deep responsibility for the cause of Christ. The national destiny for this was soon imprinted in the idea of ​​Moscow - the third Rome. This idea is not a product of national arrogance, as the crafty opponents of Orthodoxy interpret, but a reflection of the tragic awareness that the ultimate fate of the world has crossed with the fate of Rus', and there will be no one to shift responsibility to, for “there will be no fourth Rome.”
It is in conjunction with this idea that one can comprehend that passage from the Apostolic Epistle, which so attracts many minds today: “For the mystery of iniquity is already at work, only it will not be completed until the one who now restrains is taken out of the way, and then the lawless one will be revealed , whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the spirit of His mouth and destroy by the manifestation of His coming, the one whose coming, according to the work of Satan, will be with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception of those who are perishing, because they did not receive the love of the truth for their salvation. "(2 Thess. 2:7-10).

These words contain the quintessence of the Christian historical concept. Two forces determine world development - the Truth of God and apostasy, apostasy. The action of apostasy lawless forces is too clearly felt today. The one who holds is undoubtedly Orthodoxy, the fullness of Christ’s Truth, and the power that is associated with the preservation of this life-giving beginning of human history. Such a force in different eras could be the Emperor of Byzantium or the Russian Sovereign (not just as a specific person, but as the personification of the one holding it), now it is the Russian Church, the people of God that constitute it.

Reviewing our history, we can name many cases when the Russian people, at least in part, betrayed their destiny and forgot their own national idea. By the providence of God we have been guided more than once on the true path - both by the manifestation of great miracles, and by the words and deeds of our great saints, and by difficult trials. And it is important: then the people emerged victoriously from the calamities sent down to them, when, neglecting all vain aspirations, they raised above them all the treasure of the faith given to them, Orthodoxy. It is not for nothing that Dostoevsky called the Russian solution to the problem the need and opportunity to put the truth above one’s own self-interest. Truth is higher than Russia, that is: God is higher than Caesar.

This is what is too much for most of our current patriotic statesmen. For them, everything in history is primarily a matter of irrepressible pride and a reason for exalting the Russian principle over all the values ​​of existence. For them, Russia is above all.

This problem was comprehended a century and a half ago by the great patriot A.S. Khomyakov.
The contrast between the concepts of humility and pride is perhaps the most important theme of Khomyakov’s philosophy and his spiritual lyrics. He poses the problem especially acutely in connection with the fate of Russia, God's chosen people. The poet opposed the imperial swagger, the pride of the statists, for which he could not help but incur the hostility of those flatterers who, in self-delusion, according to the conviction of the Orthodox thinker, bring destruction to the true strength of the people's life:

Be proud! - the flatterers told you. -
Earth with a crowned brow,
Land of indestructible steel,
Taking half the world with a sword!
There are no limits to your possessions,
And, according to the whims of your slave,
Heeds proud commands
Your fate is submissive.
Red are your attires of the steppes,
And the mountains reached into the sky,
And like your seas are your lakes...

And to this ascension of proud self-satisfaction (so familiar to people at the turn of the 20th-21st centuries), Khomyakov answers firmly:

Don't believe, don't listen, don't be proud!
…………………………………………
With all this power, this glory,
Don't be proud of all this ashes!
Many glorious empires have fallen, because:
Every spirit of pride is fruitless,
Wrong gold, steel is fragile...
But what is true and incorruptible?
But the clear world of the shrine is strong,
The hand of the praying is strong!

God does not choose the proud, but the humble (1 Pet. 5:5):

And because you are humble,
That, in a feeling of childish simplicity,
In the silence of the heart is hidden,
You have accepted the Creator's verb, -
He gave you His calling,
He gave you a bright destiny:
Preserve the property for the world
High sacrifices and pure deeds;
To preserve the holy brotherhood of the tribes,
Life-giving vessel of love,
And the wealth of fiery faith,
Both truth and bloodless trial.
Everything with which the spirit is sanctified is yours,
Where the heart hears the voice of heaven,
What is the life of future affairs hidden in,
The beginning of glory and miracles!..

Khomyakov definitely raises the question of the internal correspondence of the contemporary state of Russia to him - its chosenness of God, which for him is undeniable:

I called you to holy battle,
Our Lord loved you,
He gave you fatal power,
May you crush the evil will
Blind, mad, violent forces.

But which of the haters of Rus' can find such harsh denunciations of Russian untruths and vices? Such denunciations are such that even today’s patriots are unable to accept. Being chosen by God presupposes a particularly strict judgment against oneself:

But remember: to be an instrument of God
It’s hard for earthly creatures.
He judges His servants strictly,
And for you, alas! so much
There are a lot of terrible sins!

The courts are black with black untruths
And branded with the yoke of slavery;
Godless flattery, pernicious lies,
And dead and shameful laziness,
And full of all kinds of abomination!

I.A. Ilyin wrote about the same:
“To take one’s people as the embodiment of complete and highest perfection on earth would be sheer vanity, sick with nationalistic conceit. A true patriot sees not only the spiritual paths of his people, but also their temptations, weaknesses and imperfections. Spiritual love does not in general indulge in baseless idealization, but contemplates soberly and sees with objective acuteness. Loving your people does not mean flattering them or hiding their weaknesses from them, but honestly and courageously reprimanding them and tirelessly fighting them. It is clear that vigilance, truthfulness and civic courage are one of the temptations. nationalism is the desire to justify one’s people in everything and always, exaggerating their merits and shifting all responsibility for what they have done to other, “eternally evil” and “treacherously hostile” forces. No study of hostile forces can and should not extinguish among the people. a sense of responsibility and guilt... National pride should not degenerate into dull conceit and flat complacency, it should not instill delusions of grandeur in the people.”
What can be opposed to everything bad that cannot be overlooked in our current national life? How can we atone for this “all sorts of abomination” that Khomyakov wrote about? An Orthodox person cannot say anything other than: repentance.

O unworthy of election,
You are chosen! Wash it quickly
Yourself with the water of repentance,
Yes thunder of double punishment
It will not thunder over your head!

With a kneeling soul,
With the head lying in the dust,
Pray the humble prayer
And the wounds of a corrupted conscience
The oil of weeping heal!

To follow the will of Providence, you need to get rid of your own vices - in repentance. And in order to get rid of them, you need to recognize them - in humility. Nowadays we don’t want to admit our vices. We reject both humility and repentance, the most important spiritual values ​​of Orthodoxy. The free will, but then one should not call oneself an Orthodox people.

A kind of test for Orthodoxy can be the perception of the Orthodox answer to the question “who is to blame?”, which was given by St. Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow, answering Pushkin to the confused doubt about the meaning of existence that gripped the poet when he realized the dark evil principle in his own soul. The saint said harshly and unequivocally: “I myself, with capricious power, called out evil from the dark abysses...”

It’s more pleasant for us to blame everything on external forces. They are enemies, but we will not be able to resist them as we should if we do not get rid of our own weaknesses and vices, exposing them in ourselves. There is noticeable resistance to this in the current patriotic environment. Truly, many of our patriots today are true allies of our enemies.

Serving Orthodoxy, preserving its fullness, humility before the Truth - this is the Russian national idea. For nothing else connects a person with eternity. Understanding the historical destiny of the Russian people, Dostoevsky expressed this perfectly succinctly and accurately:
“Isn’t it only in Orthodoxy that the Divine face of Christ has been preserved in all its purity? And perhaps the most important pre-elected purpose of the Russian people in the destinies of all mankind consists only in preserving this Divine image of Christ in all its purity, and when the time comes, show this image to a world that has lost its ways!”

This is the national idea of ​​the Russian people. And it is necessary to preserve this people if they are to do so. But it shouldn’t - save, don’t save - it will still leave the paths of history into the pathlessness of historical vanity, where it will wander, shepherded by the mystery of lawlessness, blindly serving its desires. Yes, this is no longer abstract fortune-telling, but partly a living practice recent years Russian life.

The purpose of Russia is to carry within itself a restraining principle and resist the mystery of lawlessness. For in this the fate of the world is decided.

At the same time, genuine patriotism does not at all exclude love for the land, the people, and the state. It collectively includes all the constituent concepts as necessary value components of love for the Motherland. But let us repeat: the meaning and justification of national existence can only be service to Orthodoxy as the cause of Christ.

This becomes a stumbling block for the nationalist pride of some ideologists of national self-determination. Vl. Solovyov astutely pointed out the path of degeneration of any national idea: from the awareness of the people as the bearer of universal truth - through the worship of the people as the bearer of some elemental force, regardless of universal truth - to the worship of those national one-sidedness and anomalies that separate a given people from humanity.

This is exactly how the Russian idea degenerated. When Orthodoxy is placed below the people, national identity becomes meaningless.

In our country, faith is understood by some patriots only as an attribute of the nationality, religion - as a part of culture. If this is only part of the culture, then it does not matter what exactly this part will be. That is why some people are so actively trying today to revive the pagan beliefs of the ancient Slavs, seeing in them the “primordial” Russian origin. Such a movement from God to demonism is nothing more than a complete spiritual degradation of the Russian principle.

It is not surprising that precisely the manifestation of such degradation was the attraction to an alliance with the communists, who were reaching for power (albeit, fortunately, too sluggishly). Communists, after all, are also a kind of statists (and pagans); we just must not forget that their ideal is a socialist internationalist (cosmopolitan) fatherland, and not a national Russian state. The Powers, without thinking about the true purpose of the Power, are ready to extol even the figures of Lenin and Stalin for their supposed concern for the state power of Russia. Somehow it is forgotten that Lenin, an outspoken Russophobe, confidently eradicated the Russian people, their best forces, that he needed the state itself as an auxiliary means for fanning the fire of the world revolution, in which he was ready to burn down all Russian life. Enormous funds were spent on this, pumped from Russia, plundered by the Bolsheviks, into the bottomless abyss of the revolutionary underworld.

A powerful state for Stalin is a means of self-affirmation and the triumph of personal power, and not at all the benefit of the Russian people, which he never tired of plundering and ruining for the sake of this very power. He had a sovereign mindset, clearly realizing that his own greatness would only become undoubted when he relied on the power of the country in which he exercised his omnipotence. For him, the Russian people were again nothing more than a means, and Stalin did not hesitate to spend it when it seemed necessary to achieve personal goals. And the fact that Stalin nevertheless began to flirt with both patriotism and the Church was only because he realized that without such support his power would not survive - and power for him was more important than all the revolutions combined (phraseology, as we know, cannot be taken seriously costs). We should not forget that even after all the government’s curtseys towards the Church, repressions against the clergy and believers did not stop during Stalin’s lifetime.

Everything here is so transparent for understanding that you are amazed: how can our guardians of the state idea in the name of the people not see this? But they don’t see! The very connection of the patriotic idea with the cosmopolitan communist ideology, now asserted by some, is an ordinary nonsense.

The nutritious soil for a self-sufficient state-nationalist idea is the psychology of the disadvantaged and the feeling of being disadvantaged." little man". Even Dostoevsky (in "Notes from the Underground") noted that this little man internally feels like a "pin" and suffers as a result. And he takes revenge, at least in his thoughts: let the world fail, but so that I can drink tea every day. In the middle of the last century, this little man was again reminded: he is a cog. with her and a small screw: get out of the way, otherwise I’ll crush it! Banal self-affirmation.
However, no one will get the impression that the idea of ​​an Empire should be rejected by us. Imperial thinking is one of the advantages of Russian national identity. (And that the Westerners blame us for it - let them. Why turn around at every shout?) Just don’t put the cart before the horse. We need a great power for the sake of realizing what God thinks about the Russian nation in eternity, and not for the sake of what we imagine about ourselves in time.
The confrontation (if not a split) within the patriotic movement comes down, as has been noted more than once, to the confrontation of two ideas: Holy Rus' and Great Russia. Only Holy Rus' corresponds to the Plan, but the ideal of Great Russia, divorced from the providential movement of history, is doomed. Such a contradiction can be removed only by recognizing the purpose of Great Russia in the service of Holy Rus' (though higher than Russia).

This is the criterion for evaluating any historical figure. Even those who see themselves as Orthodox do not realize this today. Otherwise, they would not have exalted, for example, such figures as Ivan the Terrible, or Peter I, or the same Stalin. After all, it was John who dealt the first crushing blows to Holy Rus', while Peter almost had the goal of eradicating from national life everything that connected the people with their past. What should we say to Olenin and Stalin? Such historical misconceptions only distort our national identity.

We must not be passive witnesses to the historical process, but its leading force. This process is providentially directed by the Almighty, and our destiny is to recognize the will of Providence and collaborate with it.

Let's think about it: those who reject the will of the Creator liken themselves to those Jews who rejected Christ. And even worse than that: since the Jews, despite all their apostasies, nevertheless fulfilled the Testament and finally departed from God only after the implementation of their national idea in Old Testament history. Other Russians change their destiny at the most critical moment, when it comes to the fate of the world, because there is no one to shift responsibility for the one holding back.
In general, when true national self-awareness is suppressed, its surrogate is always declared - extreme nationalism and chauvinism. We see this even today. “It turns out,” Ilyin wrote, “that what lives in a person’s heart is not love for the homeland, but a strange and dangerous mixture of militant chauvinism and stupid national conceit, or of a blind addiction to everyday trifles and hypocritical “great power” pathos, behind which personal or class self-interest."

And this is all the more dangerous because when evil manifestations of Russian chauvinism are discovered, opponents of the Orthodox national idea begin to indiscriminately accuse every Russian word of “Black Hundreds”, equating it with the so-called. "Russian" fascism. The nationalists, in despair, defend themselves, scold, say a lot of true things, but so ineptly that, looking at them, you think how right Grandfather Krylov was: a helpful fool is more dangerous than an enemy. The whipping up of hysteria, the often descent into depressing hysteria, the inability and unwillingness to recognize the historical guilt of the people only aggravate the already sad feeling of the times.

True, this cannot be done without many provocations - that is certain. For example, it is difficult to say with certainty where the current skinheads, declared the embodiment of “Russian fascism,” are coming from. And the fact that they chose a sign too similar to a swastika as their emblem is the result of their own thoughtlessness or a crafty hint from the outside?

The most important question: have those forces remained that are capable of preserving the Truth and showing the image of Christ to the world? Let us repeat: this is a fateful question for all humanity. And it is closely connected with the problem of true faith.

We must admit: there is a degradation of patriotic consciousness, its replacement with cheap surrogates. For: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8)
And yet this does not mean that one should delight the enemy with despondency and despair: that is what he is waiting for. But it is necessary to look at everything soberly. Start by admitting your own weakness.
We must first understand the meaning of true patriotism and live by its ideal. Let us remember once again: Holy Rus' was holy not because the majority were saints, but because it lived by the ideal of holiness.

The meaning of current history is that at least in someone, at least in a few, the ideal that corresponds to the Creator’s Plan for the world is preserved.

That's enough for a start. And this can give hope.
But what to do? Rush in search of enemies? There is no need to look for them especially: they are already in plain sight. But that’s not the main thing. Vl. Solovyov, comprehending Dostoevsky, was able to give an answer to the questions tormenting us: “While the dark basis of our nature, evil in its exclusive egoism and insane in its desire to realize this egoism, to attribute everything to itself and determine everything by itself, - while this dark basis we have it - it has not been converted and this original sin has not been crushed, until then no real work is possible for us, and the question of what to do does not make any reasonable sense. Imagine a crowd of people, blind, deaf, crippled, possessed, and suddenly from this? the crowd is asked: what to do? The only reasonable answer here is: seek healing until you are healed; but as long as you pretend to be healthy, there is no healing for you.”

This is what you need to understand: humanism (original sin, egoistic gravitation to “attribute everything to oneself and determine everything by oneself”) is a disease that brings all the troubles to our suffering egoism. But in order to strive for true healing, it is necessary to understand that we are sick. And to understand this, you need a correct criterion of health. This criterion can only be found in the Revelation of God, and not in human distortions of this Revelation, but in the fullness of Christ’s Truth, that is, in Orthodoxy. Rejection of Orthodoxy will inevitably lead to the progression of the disease and death. It (but not abstract, but realized in a church-going consciousness and type of behavior) is restraining. The focus of this restraining principle is now Russia. It was on Russia that God's Providence entrusted responsibility for the fate of Orthodoxy, which Russian thought realized quite fully.

Now this idea is being vehemently ridiculed by the liberal purveyors of evil.
In one of his interviews with A. Tertsa (February 1990), he stated: “Well, as for the national idea, this does not seem truly serious to me; all this talk about the Russians or the French, the Italians, the Americans, and so on They believe that they are better, that they have a real God. Firstly, this is offensive to God, and secondly, to these nations themselves. For me, Russian nationalism among believers is a profanation of religion, it is a humiliation of religion.”

There is so much confusion here that it is difficult to untangle. Let's try. Nationalism is really bad. National identity is necessary. Let's be precise in our words, if we are philologists. Truly Orthodox can never believe that they are the best. The worst. And a Russian Orthodox person will not say that he has a real God. For there is one God and there are no real or false gods. But there is a right and wrong understanding of God - in different religions. The fullness of Christ's Truth is in Orthodoxy. But it is impossible to base any national arrogance on this: Orthodoxy existed when the Russian people still had a thousand years to wait for their historical existence. Orthodoxy is a gift to us from God, even though we are unworthy of it. Here one should not be arrogant, but grieve over unworthiness and try to overcome it at least a little. How can the consciousness of one’s service to Orthodoxy offend God and the nation? It is the refusal of such service that truly offends us. “God is not mocked” (Gal. 6:7).

This is what we see: the Orthodox type of worldview will always be alien and hateful to humanistic thinking, because it forces us to reject its basic principles.
We are obliged to repeat and repeat: the purpose of Russia is to carry within itself a restraining principle and resist the mystery of lawlessness. For in this the fate of the world is decided.

This is how God's providence is carried out. It is carried out through the collaboration of man with God, through the union of the will of man, who has learned the meaning of his existence, with the will of the Creator - in the matter of salvation. Christ the Savior restored in Himself, as in the New Adam, the broken unity of human existence. But a person must consciously make a volitional movement towards union with Christ. If he refuses, the one holding him will be taken. To be united with Christ, it is necessary to remain in the Orthodox Church.

Many people who have taken a kind of monopoly on Russian patriotism now do not want to acknowledge this. They are ready to defend anything, just to confirm their ambitious claims to the highest value of the self-sufficient Russian principle, in which they see absolute self-sufficiency. Actually, this is a national (and nationalist) variety of humanism, in which the place of man is now taken by an ethnic plurality. The ideologists of this thinking are the historian O. Platonov, the writer A. Prokhanov, the sculptor V. Klykov, the publicist M. Antonov, and others. Their credo is “Russia above all.” Moreover, even when some of these “patriots” declare their Orthodoxy, their faith vacillates on the precarious line between abstract Christianity and paganism. Such is the work of V. Lichutin, for example, who never truly understood not only Orthodoxy, but also the meaning of faith in general. There are writers - the brightest among them is S. Alekseev - who combine the patriotic idea with pagan occultism.

Russia is extolled by these people as a powerful state, as an all-powerful empire. And this is thought of as the self-sufficiency of Russian existence.

Dostoevsky truly expressed the Russian idea: “Truth is higher than Russia.”
The truth of Christ is what matters.

The great meaning of the existence of the Russian principle is in serving this Truth. Otherwise, our entire history will become meaningless, the Russians will isolate themselves in nationalistic arrogance and perish along with the whole world, which they are called upon to save.

World evil is falling on Russia precisely because the Orthodox faith has not yet died out in it. Not just against Russia, but the enmity of world evil is directed against Orthodoxy in Russia.
“It was precisely the restraining aspect of Russian civilization that explained the hatred of us from the anti-Christian “world behind the scenes”: this financial oligarchy saw in Russia the main obstacle to its world domination,” writes M. Nazarov.

The Western world now clearly recognizes itself as having gone beyond the boundaries of Christianity (formal aspects do not count; it is important that the self-conscious beginning in the West is precisely this). Even a special concept has been developed - post-Christianity. This term causes internal rejection among many: Christianity cannot be destroyed, redundant, the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church (Matthew 16:18). But the term itself is existential in nature: it reflects the internal self-awareness of the person who accepts it: the feeling of “overcoming” Christian truths in personal and public life. Whether such a feeling is true or false is a different question, but it exists, and therefore the term “post-Christianity” fully characterizes the processes taking place in American-European life at the turn of the millennium. The main question: will the Russian consciousness be included in these processes? The art of postmodernism directly reflects the beginning of Russia's entry into the post-Christian world.
Prophetically warned I.A. Ilyin: “...All seductive and corrupting propaganda of godlessness and anti-spirituality is nothing more than systematic work to gouge out the spiritual eyes of naive and gullible people.”

This is done successfully: the spiritually blind are easier to manipulate.
It cannot be argued that the crisis, catastrophic state of life on Earth is not recognized by many of those who have not lost the ability to think soberly. But the measures proposed to prevent the final catastrophe are conceived as a consequence of humanity’s own rational efforts. It’s as if a person lives in a godless space and must rely only on himself. Rejecting God the Savior, man continues to console himself with the illusion that he himself can become like the gods and save himself. Thus, humanity dooms itself to certain death. For in a godless world, everything is meaningless.

Many “patriots”, who blame all sorts of external forces for all troubles, draw a simple conclusion: eliminate foreign influences - and life will work itself out. It is forgotten: the devil is strong only where a person moves away from God. Without overcoming internal guilt, nothing will be corrected: instead of some enemies, even if they can be overcome, others will come - and everything will start all over again. This is what the enemy is counting on, forcing the Russians to play by his rules. And since “patriots” reject Orthodoxy and are seduced by paganism, they are simply unable to understand such a simple truth.

You can turn away from this only through repentance. But we must truly understand the meaning of this repentance. We must agree with M. Nazarov: “...The Russian people need to repent not to other peoples and not to “imperialism” or “Russian communism”, which the “world behind the scenes” forces us to do, thereby trying to gloss over their crimes before humanity. We should repent before God in betrayal of our Orthodox calling, which is important for all humanity. From this guilt of ours flow all possible sins against the world around us, which were inflicted on it by our enslavers in our name.”

Through such repentance and strengthening in Orthodoxy, only the Russian people can influence their destiny and the destiny of the world.