Everything about Ivan Kireevsky totally explained
Ivan Vasilievich Kireevsky (
3 April,
1806 —
23 June,
1856) was a
Russian literary critic and philosopher who, together with
Aleksey Khomyakov, co-founded the
Slavophile movement.
Early life and career
Ivan Kireevsky and his brother
Pyotr were born into a cultivated noble family of considerable means. Their father was known for hating French atheism so passionately that he'd burn heaps of
Voltaire's books, acquired specifically for the purpose; his fatal disease was contracted while healing the wounded soldiers during the
French invasion of Russia. The boy was just six at the time of his death; he was brought up by a maternal uncle,
Vasily Zhukovsky, and the mother, M-me
Avdotia Yelagina, an influential lady who held a brilliant salon in
Moscow. She professed her dislike of
Peter the Great for his treatment of his
wife Eudoxia and the Lopukhin family, to which she was related. The father's distaste for French culture and the mother's distrust of post-Petrine officialdom may have shaped Kireyevsky's views on Russia and its history.
Starting in
1821, Kireevsky attended the
Moscow University, where he became interested in contemporary German philosophy and joined the circle of "wisdom-lovers" (
Lyubomudry), led by
Dmitry Venevitinov and
Vladimir Odoevsky. He was particularly impressed by the teachings of
Schelling, whose representation of the world as a living organism was in tune with Kireevsky's own intense dislike of European rationalism and fragmentedness. Kireyevsky's original literary works don't give him a place in the history of
Russian literature, but he did gain a measure of fame by publishing the penetrating analyses of contemporary authors. His 1828 review of
Pushkin's poetry, written in
purple prose and entitled "Some Observations about the Character of Pushkin's Poetry", contained the first in-depth assessment of
Eugene Onegin. Later, Kireyevsky would exchange letters with Pushkin and publish his works in his short-lived periodical "Evropeets" (
The European).
After having been refused by his cousin, Kireevsky set out for Europe, where he attended the lectures of Schelling,
Schleiermacher,
Hegel, and
Michelet. During his travels, he perceived the rotten foundations of Western society, based on
individualism, which he'd later contrast with the integrality (
sobornost) of Russian society. Back in Moscow by 1832, he "united all the literary aristocracy" (as
Pogodin said) under the aegis of "Evropeets". The journal was banned after two issues, but not before Kireevsky published his large article
The Nineteenth Century, his first extended critique of Western philosophy and values.
The failure of "Evropeets" exacerbated Kireevsky's disappointment in Russian intellectuals and elite. He married and applied himself whole-heartedly to family life. Many critics, starting with
Herzen, tended to attribute the twelve-year hiatus in Kireevsky's literary career to his
Oblomovian inclination to indecision and inaction. Indeed, his whole literary output consists of a dozen full-length articles and may be collected within a single volume.
Later life and ideas
It wasn't until the early
1840s that Kireevsky reappeared on the intellectual scene of Moscow to take the side of Khomyakov in his controversy with Herzen,
Granovsky and other young "Westernizers". Since the reactionary reign of
Nicholas I wasn't favourable for journalistic activities, Khomyakov and Kireevsky relentlessly castigated "one-sided, superficial, analytical rationality" of the West in salons and soirées of Moscow.
In his few written works, Kireevsky contrasted the basically irrational philosophy of
Plato and Greek
Church Fathers (notably
Maximus the Confessor) with the rationalism of
Aristotle and medieval Catholic
Doctors of the Church. He blamed Aristotle "for molding the mind of the West in the iron cast of reasonableness", which he defined as timid prudence (as opposed to true wisdom), or the "striving for the better within the circle of the commonplace".
Hegel's doctrines were seen as the latest emanation of Aristotle's analytical approach, which divorced mind from soul, thoughts from (religious) feelings.
Kireevsky aspired to retrieve the lost wholeness of Man in the irrational teachings of Eastern Orthodoxy. His devout wife introduced him to the elders (
startsy) of the
Optina Monastery, which he frequented in the declining years of his life. Although he didn't share
Samarin's radical enthusiasm for all things pre-Petrine, Kireevsky did extol the spiritual treasures of medieval Russia. According to him, the monasteries of ancient Rus "radiated a uniform and harmonious light of faith and learning" to disparate Slavonic tribes and principalities. The net of churches and monasteries covered Russia so thickly, that these "bonds of spiritual community" unified the country into "a single living organism".
Ivan Kireevsky died at the age of 50 during a cholera epidemic. His brother
Pyotr outlived him by several months. They were buried side by side in the Optina Monastery, the first laymen to be honoured so.
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