Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/267

241 become Europeanised, for to strive after a separate nationalism was tantamount to aiming at uncivilisation.

There are numerous lacunæ inKirěevskii's philosophy of history, and in especial we have to note the lack of analysis of that Russian Christianity which was "purer and holier." Moreover, if religion was to permeate the entirety of social life, how was the new western culture, modern Europeanism, to be directly associated with the Russian church and religion? In this association, what was to be Russia's rôle?

The work is too sketchy. The individual phases of historical development are not adequately described. For example, the reformation receives no more than passing mention; we are not told why.the new culture has outstripped the older, Christian, culture; and so on. Further, the leading concepts, state, nation, humanity, civilisation, religion, etc., are not defined with sufficient precision. Nor did Kirěevskii attain to clear views regarding the true significance of his Europeanism. The Nicolaitan government, however, had no doubts about the matter, and gave Kirěevskii's "European" short shrift. Culture implies freedom; the activity of the reason signifies revolution; the "adroitly chosen middle course" leads to a constitution. Such was the minister for education's interpretation of the essay, and no one can say that he was wholly wrong.

FTER this literary mishap Kirěevskii remained in the background, publishing no more than a few literary studies, anonymously. When he married he became acquainted with Father Filaret, an ascetic monk of the Novospassian monastery in Moscow, Mme. Kirěevskii's confessor. This acquaintanceship contributed much to the clarification of Kirěevskii's religious views, and strengthened the influence exercised by his brother Petr and his friend Homjakov. Kirěevskii had hoped to bring his wife, a woman of education, over to his side; but within two years of marriage, as his friend Košelev reports, he shared the opinions of his wife. From his estate at Dolbino in the administrative district of Tula he paid frequent visits to the hermitage of Optina, entering into close relationships with some of its older occupants. After the death of Filaret in 1842, Kirěevskii's confessor, Father Makarii, influenced him greatly. His Orthodox bias was further Rh