Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/265

Rh exercised considerable influence upon his niece, Kirěevskii's mother, interesting her and her son in the study of German romanticist literature. Kirěevskii's father died in 1812. In 1817 his mother married Elagin, and from 1821 onwards she played a leading part in Moscow society, at first in the literary circle which gathered round Polevoi (Vjazemskii, Küchelbecker, Ševyrev. Pogodin, and others, including Puškin); and subsequently in the circle of the lyric poet Venevitinov (Puškin, Vjazemskii, Barjatynskii, etc.). In 1324 Kirěevskii became an employee in the Moscow record office, the largest Russian collection of historical documents; among his fellow employees were Petr Kirěevskii, Prince Odoevskii, the poet Venevitinov and his brother, and Ševyrev. In 1830 Kirěevskii went to Berlin, attending lectures on philosophy, theology, and history (Carl Ritter, Stuhr, Raumer, and Schleiermacher). Already well acquainted with Hegel's works, in Berlin Kirěevskii made the philosopher's personal acquaintance. He also met Gans and Michelet. After two months in Berlin he went to Munich, asociating there with Schelling and Oken. He remained less than a year in Germany, and returned home without having attained the desired philosophical satisfaction. In 1832 he founded the review "Evropeec" (The European) to which Puškin, Žukovskii, Barjatynskii, and Jasykov were to contribute, but Kirěenskii's essay The Nineteenth Century and a critical sketch of Griboedov proved the ruin of the review, and S. T. Aksakov, the censor who had passed the contributions, fell into disfavour. "The European" was suppressed after the second number. Kirěevskii married in 1834. During the forties, literary and philosophic Moscow assembled in Mme. Elagin's salon. Hither came Gogol and Jasykov, K. Aksakov, Samarin, Homjakov, D. A. Valuev, Granovskii, Herzen, Čaadaev, and many others.Kirěevskii had hoped to be appointed professor of philosophy, but failed to obtain this post. In 1843 he was entrusted by Pogodin with the editorship of "Moskvitjanin" (The Muscovite), but abandoned the position after the issue of three numbers. In 1852, in conjunction with others of the like way of thinking, he launched the "Moskovskii Sbornik" (Moscow Magazine), but his essay On the Character of European Civilisation and its Relationship to Russian Civilisation proved fatal to this literary undertaking. In the year 1856, after the author's death, in "Russkaja Besěda" (a slavophil periodical published from 1856 to 1860) appeared a sketch entitled The Need for and the Possibility at new Foundations for Philosophy. This posthumous work was a fragment, for it was uncompleted when Kirěevskii died of cholera on June 11, 1856. Petr Kiriěevskii (born February 11, 1808, and died October 25, 1856) was known as a collector of folk songs. Kirěevskii, like Čaadaev and his other friends and acquaintances, was brought up on German philosophy and literature, Schelling having above all influenced him. At an early age Kirěevskii was introduced to the ideas of Schelling by his stepfather and tutor Elagin, who translated into Russian Schelling' s Philosophical Letters Concerning Dogmatism and Criticism. In this work are to be found the leading epistemological positions that were subsequently expounded in Kirěevskii's own writings. The influence of Schelling may likewise be traced in the essay entitled The Nineteenth Century, and in the program of Kirěevskii's review "The European." In a word, the Europeanisation of Russia was Kirěevskii's program immediately after his return from Europe.