CC BY
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References
1. Sheler, M. Izbrannye proizvedeniya [Selected Works], Moscow: Gnozis, 1994, 490 p.
2. Trubetskoy, E.N. Mirosozertsanie Vl.S. Solov'eva, v 2 t. [Solovyov's Worldview, in 2 vol.], Moscow: Medium, 1995, vol. 1, 606 p., vol. 2, 624 p.
3. Solov'ev, S.M. Vladimir Solov'ev: Zhizn' i tvorcheskaya evolyutsiya [Vladimir Soloviev: Life and Creative Evolution], Moscow: Respublica, 1997, 431 p.
4. Mochul'skiy, K.V Gogol'. Solov'ev. Dostoevskiy [Gogol. Solovyov. Dostoevskiy], Moscow: Respublika, 1995, pp. 63-216.
5. Asmus, VF Vl. Solov'ev [Vladimir Solovyov], Moscow: Progress, 1994, 206 p.
6. Losev, AF Vladimir Solov'ev i ego vremya [Vladimir Solovyov and His Time], Moscow: Molodaya Gvardiya, 2000, 614 p.
7. Kalinnikov, L.A. Solov'ev i Kant: eticheskie konvergentsii i divergentsii [Soloviev and Kant: Ethical convergence and divergence], in Materialy k sravnitel'nomu izucheniyu zapadnoevropeyskoy i russkoy filosofii: Kant, Nitsshe, Solov'ev [Materials for the comparative study of Western European and Russian philosophy, Kant, Nietzsche, Soloviev], Kaliningrad: KGU, 2002, pp. 34-74.
8. Dmitrievskaya, I.V Solov'evskie issledovaniya, 2007, issue 1(14), pp. 226-260.
9. Novgorodcev, EI. Ob obshchestvennom ideale [About Social Ideal], Moscow: Pressa, 1991, pp. 526-539.
10. Lazarev, VV Eticheskaya mysl' v Germanii i Rossii: Kant-Gegel-Vl. Solov'ev [Ethical Thought in Germany and Russia: Kant- Hegel-Vl. Solov'ev], Moscow: IFRAN, 1996, 305 p.
11. Buller, A. Solov'evskie issledovaniya, 2009, issue 2(22), pp. 49-60.
12. Solov'ev, VS. Opravdanie dobra [The Justification of the Good], in Solov'ev, VS. Sochineniya v 2 t, 1.1 [Works in 2 vol., vol. 1], Moscow: Mysl, 1990, pp. 47-580.
13. Solov'ev, E.Yu. Kategoricheskiy imperativ nravstvennosti i prava [Categorical Imperative of Morals and Right], Moscow: Progress-Traditsiya, 2005, 416 p.
14. Kant, I. Osnovopolozhenie k metafizike nravov [Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals], in Kant, I. Sochineniya v 41., t. 3 [Works in 4 vol., vol. 3], Moscow: Moskovskiy filosofskiy fond, 1997, pp. 39-275.
15. Solov'ev, VS. Krizis zapadnoy filosofii [Crisis of Western Philosophy], in Solov'ev, VS. Sochineniya v 2 t., t. 2 [Works in 2 vol., vol. 2], Moscow: Mysl', 1990, pp. 3-138.
16. Kant, I. Kritika prakticheskogo razuma [Critique of Practical Reason], in Kant, I. Sochineniya v 41., t. 3 [Works in 4 vol., vol. 3], Moscow: Moskovskiy filosofskiy fond, 1997, pp. 277-733.
УДК 94:27:26(470) ББК 63.5:86.37:86.36(2)
VLADIMIR SOLOV'EV AND THE JEWS - A VIEW FROM TODAY
BRIAN HOROWITZ
Tulane University 7031 Freret St., New Orleans, LA 70118, USA E-mail: [email protected]
Professor Brian Horowitz notes that Solov'ev has been considered a close friend of the Jews by a number of groups, Russian Jews of his day—the Jews of St. Petersburg and Jewish intellectuals—and scholars of our own time (Solov'ev scholars and Jewish scholars of religion). But Horowitz questions
whether this absolutely positive attitude is justified because Solov'ev desired in the end of days to have a Universal Church that would lead to the elimination the Jews as a separate ethnic group and Judaism as a religion. Horowitz examines Solov'ev's idea of Jewish conversion and studies the origins of Solov'ev's ideas on the Jews and the relationship of these ideas with Enlightenment thought. Horowitz concludes that a full understanding of Solov'ev acknowledges aspects of his thought that portray Jews negatively.
Keywords: Vladimir Solov'ev, Solov'ev and Jews, Jews in tsarist Russia, Russian thought, Jewish history, Jews and conversion, Jews and Russian Orthodox Christianity, Jews of St. Petersburg, anti-semitism in Russia, philo-semitism in Russia.
ВЛАДИМИР СОЛОВЬЕВ И ЕВРЕИ: СОВРЕМЕННЫЙ ВЗГЛЯД
BRIAN HOROWITZ
Tulane University 7031 Freret St., New Orleans, LA 70118, USA E-mail: [email protected]
Проф. Брайан Горовиц принимает во внимание то обстоятельство, что Соловьев считался близким другом различных групп еврейства его времени: евреев Санкт-Петербурга, еврейских интеллигентов. Это же обстоятельство подтверждается и учеными нашего времени (исследователями творчества Соловьева, еврейскими религиозными учеными). И всё же Горовиц ставит под вопрос безусловно-позитивную трактовку проблемы, ибо Соловьев полагал, что на исходе земной истории Вселенская Церковь должна поглотить евреев как обособленную этническую группу и самый иудаизм как религию. Горовиц анализирует соловьевскую идею грядущего обращения евреев и ее связь с идеями Просвещения. Он приходит к выводу, что всеохватное понимание идей Соловьева должно включать в себя и моменты его негативного отношения к еврейству.
Ключевые слова: Вл. Соловьев и евреи, евреи в царской России, русская мысль, еврейская история, евреи и преобразование, евреи и русское православное христианство, евреи Санкт-Петербурга, антисемитизм в России, филосемитизм в России.
The myth of Vladimir Solov'ev-friend of the Jews, popular among scholars of the Jews of Russia, deserves a reexamination to check whether it really stands up against the evidence. One encounters the oft-heard refrain: Solov'ev should be celebrated because of his love for Judaism and defense of the Jewish people. Dmitryi Belkin, an expert on Solov'ev, sums up the position of a dozen scholars:
An absolute attitude of tolerance toward Judaism, a powerful campaign against anti-Semitism in the Russian press and politics, and most importantly, the conviction of a Christian that Christians and Christianity must think not about 'improving' the Jews, but occupy themselves with the search for their own religious, social, and cultural life corresponding to Evangelical principles - these represent that part of Solov'ev's legacy which one can 'transfer' into the twenty-first century without concern about the old-fashioned didacticism of a Russian moralist of the nineteenth century.''i Expressing the conventional attitude toward Solov'ev, Belkin lists all the traits that
1 D. Belkin. 'Evreiskii vopros' kak 'khristianskii vopros': k interpretatsii odnoj formuly VS. Solov'eva //
Solov'evskii sbornik (2001): 472-73. All translations are mine, except where noted.
numerous scholars have repeated: Solov'ev advocates tolerance, defends the Jewish people, and admonishes Christians to perfect themselves before they can think of improving the Jews. ii
In addition to a commitment to tolerance based on Christian self-perfection, Solov'ev also fosters another claim, that the enlightenment should be rejected because of its emphasis on rationalism. Critics therefore maintain that Solov'ev diverges from old Christian attitudes about Jews and also enlightenment conceptions. He is unique therefore in his attitude toward Jews because he does not despise them for denying Christ's mission and rejects the enlightenment because it cannot quell humanity's search for God. As far as the Jews are concerned, if a Jew becomes secular, he contradicts the special role Jews are supposed to play in Solov'ev's theology. Just as for other millenarians, for Solov'ev Jews have a function to set off the chain of events that will lead to the end of history.
If one reads Solov'ev's works, however, one realizes that his imperative regarding Christian self-realization contradicts the goal of tolerance. Solov'ev clearly asserts that, if Christians ever do attain self-perfection, the Jews would be obligated to convert to Christianity. He made no secret that he ultimately wished for Jewish conversion, giving this theme a central place in his teaching. Admittedly, Solov'ev did not view this act as conversion. His position was that humanity can only become Divine Humanity, if the universal church becomes truly universal, i.e. encompasses all people. Therefore, he wished for everybody's conversion. The conversion of the Jews would be a "symptom" of the fulfillment of humanity's task. Additionally, although Solov'ev defended Jews against attacks in Russia of his day, he was critical of them in the realm of theology. He was critical of their division from Christianity and viewed them as blind to the universal promise of perfected Christianity.
11 In the mountain of scholarship on Solov'ev and the Jews one finds a nearly exclusive view of Solov'ev as a philo-Semite. See D. Belkin. Vladimir Solov'ev und das Judentum: neue Fragen zu einem alten Thema. Judaica: Beitrag zum Vaständnis des jüdischen Schicksals in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, 59, 3 (2003), 204-218; 60,1 (2004): 21-36; E. Van der Zweerde, Vladimir Solov'ev and the Russian Christian Jewish Question // Journal of Eastern Christian Studies, 55, 3-4 (2003): 211-244; D. Belkin. 'Evreiskii vopros' kak 'khristianskii vopros': k interpretatsii odnoj formuly VS. Solov'eva // Solov'evskii sbornik (2001): 467-474; J. Kornblatt. Vladimir Solovyov: Confronting Dostoevsky on the Jewish and Christian Questions // Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 68,1 (2000): 69-98; Vladimir Solov'ev on Spiritual Nationhood, Russian and the Jews // Russian Review. Vol 56, No. 2, (1997): H. Mondry. Race and Stereotype: Soloviev, Rozanov and Jewish Sexuality // Jewish Affairs, 52,3 (1997): 141-145; B. Dupuy. Les Juifs, l'histoire et la fin des temps selon Vladimir Soloviev // Istina, 37 (1992): 253-283; J. Kornblatt. Solov'ev's Androgynous Sophia and the Jewish Kabbalah // Slavic Review, 50, 3 (1991): 487-511; G. Podskalsky. Wladimir Solovyov und die Juden // Una Sancta, 22 (167): 203-211. See Judith Deutsch Kornblatt. Russian Religious Thought and the Jewish Kabbala, in Bernice Glazer Rosenthal, ed., The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture. Ithaca, NY: 997, 75-95; Pamela Davidson. Vladimir Solov'ev and the Ideal of Prophecy // Soviet and East European Review 78, no 4, October (2000): 643-670; Paul Valliere. Solov'ev and Schelling's Philosophy of Revelation // Vladimir Solov'ev: Reconciler and Polemicist, ed. Wi van den Bercken, Manon de Courten and Evert van der Zweerde. Paris: Peeters, 2000, 119-129.
From the viewpoint of Jews, especially post-Holocaust, Solov'ev's plan has a different tonality. Considering that Jews have been forcibly converted by members of other religions generally and by Christians in particular (the Crusades, Spanish Inquisition), one can imagine that Jews of Solov'ev's time might fear that his perspective had similarities both with "old" Christian anti-Semitism and modern, enlightenment anti-Semitism. Both these two ideologies demanded of Jews that they renounce their differences and join the majority faith. Given the weight of history in which Jews had encountered attempts to convert them, including officially supported organizations under Tsars Alexander I and Nicholas I, and private independent groups in Solov'ev's own time, we would not be surprised if Jews viewed Solov'ev with caution. Indeed, there were voices of caution and anger (Moses Leib Lilienblum). However, the majority of Jews adored Solov'ev. In fact, several Jewish intellectuals, notably Semyon Dubnov, attributed to Solov'ev a source for thinking about Jewish nationalism.
In order to understand the absolutely positive way Solov'ev was perceived by Jews in his own day and to compare that with more negative viewpoints in some contemporary scholarship, I have set the following order. First we will describe the idea of conversion in European and Russian culture. Then we will present Solov'ev's conception of the role of Jews in his theology. After that, we will examine the way Jews in Russia described Solov'ev and I will look at Solov'ev's relations toward his followers who held more hostile positions toward Jews. Finally, I will present a few examples of strong criticism of Solov'ev in scholarship over the last century. Admittedly, this article does not treat Solov'ev's entire oeuvre, nor does it treat in detail Solov'ev's relationship with the Russian Orthodox Church.
My contribution to scholarship is not the claim to be the first to discover Solov'ev ambivalence toward Jews, but rather to reframe the context in order to consider why the Jews of Russia in Solov'ev's time adored him and why Western scholars have been loathe to criticize him. This article aims to give a fuller picture of Solov'ev and
the Jews than is often presented in scholarly literature.
* * *
The case of Solov'ev may be unique because his conceptions emerge from dieas of humanity, love, and tolerance, but in a number of ways his attitude toward Jews was shaped by a particular discourse that reigned in the early Enlightenment. So-called Enlightenment "friends of the Jews," such as Abb? Gregoire and Wilhelm Dohm, expressed as their ultimate goal the conversion of Jews to Christianity. Johann Caspar Lavater's request in 1769, that Moses Mendelsohn justify publicly why he would not convert reflected a general attitude among Christians of the time, although admittedly German "society" feigned reproaching Lavater for making it.iii In some places (for example in England) the Enlightenment project was accompanied by
111 Shmuel Feiner, The Jewish Enlightenment. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004. 116-119; A Arkush, Moses Mendelsohn and the Enlightenment. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994. 134.
demands for Jewish conversion.^ Rational principles upheld the notion that humanity was essentially good and religious difference (just as any other defect) was society's fault and therefore should not prevent Jews from joining Christian society or from being accepted by Christians/ Many leading thinkers in Western Europe of the eighteenth century maintained that punitive methods had not succeeded in bringing Jews into the Christian fold, it was believed that a kinder approach would succeed more effectively.vi
While in Western Europe proselytizers used for the most part subtle methods, the Russian government had a mixed approach using stick and carrot. Alexander I established and helped fund the Society of Israel Christians, which offered money to conversos, while Tsar Nicholas I recruited young Jewish boys into the army as a means to assimilate Jews into Russian society. Some officers and clergy viewed their role as promoting the conversion of the Jewish population into the Christian fold.vii During the reign of Alexander II, state policy entered a period of reform. Government policies aimed to integrate Jews into the public fabric. New laws even permitted a small number to live outside the Pale of Settlement and to become educated professionals, lawyers, doctors, and engineers.viii These "privileged" Jews were supposed to serve as examples to others of what they should strive to achieve.
Paradoxically, at the same time that the government provided incentives to integration, it did not interfere with anti-Semitism in society. In the 1870s journalists and others began to vilify Jews as an unredeemable enemy of the Russian state and people. By the early 1880s, anti-Semitic attitudes in society were codified in government edicts, beginning with the so-called "May Laws" of 1882, that were intended to isolate Jews from rural society and badly damaged Jewish economic interests. Racial anti-Semitism, which dominated anti-Jewish discourse in Western Europe in the last quarter of the nineteenth century was often heard in Russia too, especially in the government-subsidized newspaper, Novoe Vremiaix During the last decades of the nineteenth century, the campaign against Jews, which culminated in the trial for ritual murder of Mendel Beilis, was dominated by government officials, theologians, and religious philosophers, including, among others, Pavel Florensky and Vasily Rozanov. Solov'ev was different from his followers because of his sensitivity
lv T. M. Endelman. Radical Assimilation in English Jewish History, 1656-1945. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990, 41-44.
v Feiner, The Jewish Enlightenment, 58-67
vi Abbé Greégoire provides good example of this approach. See The Jewish in The Modern World, ed. P Mendes-Flohr & J. Reinharz, 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. 49-55.
vii M. Stanislawski. Jewish Apostasy in Russia: A Tentative Typology, Jewish Apostasy in the Modern World, ed. Todd M. Endelman. New York/London: Holmes & Meier, 1987. 190; M. Stanislawski. Tsar Nicholas I and the Jews: The Transformation of Jewish Society in Russia, 1825-1855. Philadelphia, 1983. 13-34. On proselytes in the Russian Empire, see Sh. Ginzburg, Meshumodim in Tsarishe Russland. New York, 1946.
viii B. Nathans. Beyond the Pale: The Jewish Encounter with Late Imperial Russia. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. 45-82.
ix For an in-depth discussion of Novoe Vremia, see A E. Kaufman, Druz'ia I vregi evreev, vol. 3, A S. Suvorin ('Novoe Vremia'). St. Petersburg: Pravda, 1908.
to Jews in Russia of his time, but his theology indisputably shared commonalities with their thinking.
* * *
Vladimir Solov'ev (1853-1900) was born in Moscow, the son of the historian, Sergei Solov'ev. Although early in his life Solov'ev had renounced Russian Orthodoxy, turning his energies to the study of philosophy, during his university years he regained his Christian faith. While on a fellowship abroad, he had a mystical experience, seeing the divine Sophia in the reading room of the British Library and in the Sinai desert in Egypt.x After returning to Russia in the mid-1870s, Solov'ev finished his dissertation, and during the next two decades, published his major philosophical works, The Meaning of Love (1892-1894), The Justification of the Good (1897), Russia and the Universal Church (1911), The National Question in Russia (1911-1913).
What makes Solov'ev unusual is that previously Russian Orthodox Christian leaders tended to align themselves with the political right. Some even identified with the most anti-Jewish elements in society and the state bureaucracy. The writer, Fyodor Dostoevsky, the ober-prokurur the Holy Synod, Konstantin Pobedonotsev, and the Minister of Justice under Nicholas II, I.G. Shcheglovitov, are examples. Solov'ev, however, would not countenance the use of force; he counseled that the Jews should join the Church only by their own volition and only when the Church had become the University Church.xi
Personally Solov'ev took a strong interest in Judaism as a religious doctrine and the Jews as members of an ethnic and religious group. He was so inspired that during the 1880s, he studied Hebrew with Faivel Getz, a journalist and intellectual from Vilna, in order to read the Tanach and Talmud in the original. He also socialized with the Jewish elite of the capital, attending Passover Seders at Baron Horace Gintsburg's home and participating in the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment among the Jews of Russia, an organization established in St. Petersburg to spreading secular knowledge among Russia's Jews. xii
Solov'ev became recognized as a friend of the Jews, publicly objecting to anti-Semitic attacks from the government, the press, and society. It is impossible to
xA F Losev. Vladimir Solov'ev: Zhizn' zamechatel'nykh liudei, Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 2000, 47-48.
xi Solov'ev held that Jews should refrain from joining any of the actually existing Christian churches, the Russian Orthodox Church included. A> long as Christians do not succeed in overcoming their division, they cannot make any claim with respect to others.
xii Jean Halperin writes, "My mother had a very clear memory of the fervent enthusiasm with which Soloviev participated in the Passover meal (seder) in the home of her grandfather, Baron Horace de Gunzburg. During the meal, he followed the text of the account of the redemption from slavery in Egypt in the original Hebrew" "Vladimir Soloviev Listen to Israel: the Christian Question" Imanu'el, 26-27, (1994): 200. For a discussion of the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment among the Jews of Russia at this time, see B. Horowitz, " The Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment among the Jews of Russia, and the Evolution of the St. Petersburg Russian-Jewish Intelligentsia, 1893-1905" Jews and the State: Dangerous Alliances and the Perils of Privilege, Studies in Contemporary Jewry, 19, ed. Ezra Mendelsohn, 2004, 195-213.
exaggerate the importance of this activity. One needs to remember that anti-Semitism was rampant in certain government circles - especially among the tsar and his closest ministers - and in society and therefore it was a courageous act to stand up and defend Jews. In 1890, for example, he organized a petition to protest the treatment of Jews in Russia and was able to get Leo Tolstoy to sign it.xiii In addition, he helped Faivel Gets write a book about anti-Semitism in the country, which unfortunately was never distributed because the police confiscated it in 1892.xiv It is alleged that on his deathbed Solov'ev told his wife that he had to pray for the Jews and began praying loudly in Hebrew.xv
In fact, meditations on Jews and Judaism occupied a good deal of his philosophical energies. In such writings as "The Jews and the Christian Question" (1884), "New Testament Israeli" (1885)" "The Talmud and the Newest Polemical Literature about It in Austria and Germany" (1886), "When Did the Prophets Live?" (1896), and "Jews, Their Belief and Teachings" (1891), Solov'ev gave the Jews a central place in his ideas about the world, God's plan, and Christianity.™ Regarding this intellectual legacy, Judith Deutsch Kornblatt has written, "Solov'ev's interest in the Jews goes well beyond the 'Jewish question' and anti-Semitism... and corresponds to his most central philosophical categories."xvii
In contrast to philo-Semites from the Enlightenment, Solov'ev's positive attitude toward the Jews emerges not from a vision of reordering society on rational principles, but from a theocratic ideal. Solov'ev hoped to bring about a Christian world, a theocracy that would comprise all individuals, nations and religions. The realization of a unified Christianity depended on the attainment of Christian ideals in thought and action. To articulate his ideas, Solov'ev made a distinction between Christ's appearance in the world - the visitation of God's son as a sign of the ultimate achievement of the Christian ideal, and the achievement of Christianity itself, which had to be completed by humanity. All individuals were asked to emulate Christ and take upon themselves the task of realizing the divine plan, becoming an instrument of Christian utopia-building.xviii
Although Solov'ev tells us far more about how to accomplish a theocracy than about what it would look like when it was finished, we can deduce from his writings
xiii It has appeared in several places as "Tekst Protesta protiv antisemiticheskogo dvizheniia v pechati," in Vl. Solov'ev, O evreiskom narode, 96-97. For more on it, see Walter G. Moss, "Vladimir Soloviev and the Jews in Russia," Russian Review, 29 (April 1970): 190.
xiv F Gets, Slovo podsudimomu! S pis'mami grafa L.N. Tolstogo, B.N. Chicherina, Vladimira Sergeevicha Solov'eva I VG. Korolenko. St. Petersburg, 1891. See "Pis'ma V Solov'evu k Ii Getsu" in Pis'ma Vladimira Sergeevicha Solov'eva, ed. E. Radlov, 4 vols. St. Petersburg: Obshchestvennaia pol'za, 1909. 2: 163-166. Apparently Gets was able to save one copy for himself.
xv H. Sliozberg, Baron Horace de Gunzburg: sa vie, son oeuvre (Paris, 1933), 57.
xvi "Talmud i noveishaia polemicheskaia literature o nem v Avstrii i Germanii," Russkaia mysl', 8, (1886). These works can be found in Vladimir Solov'ev's Collected Works in Ten Volumes in vol. xxx.
xvii J. Kornblatt, Vladimir Solov'ev on Spiritual Nationhood, Russian and the Jews" // Russian Review. Vol. 56. No. 2 (1997): 158.
xviii See M. Vainshtein, "Ob izbranicherstve evreiskogo naroda," in Vl. Solov'ev, O evreiskom narode. Jerusalem: Institute of Russian Jewry, 1987. 3-10.
that a state's institutions and social groups, the government, Church, clergy, farmers, city-dwellers, and intellectuals would be transformed. Their economic and social interactions would be guided by Christian ethics as opposed to secular-oriented laws. Thus, for example, the goal of economic relations would not be the accumulation of wealth, but the spiritual wellbeing of all. Similarly, egoism, materialism and aggressiveness would also cease. The Catholic Church would stop serving only Catholics, antagonism between the Russian Orthodox, Protestant and Catholic Churches would end. The majority of the Jews, the best Jews, Solov'ev insists, would join the Christian world as Christians, leaving only a small minority of hardened "nay-sayers" outside the fold. But even these few would ultimately return to Christianity, since, as Solov'ev quotes from Paul, "The word of the apostle is firm, all Israel will be saved."xix
Jewish interaction with Christianity over centuries, a cooperation Solov'ev calls a "wonderful circumstance" ("zamechatel'noe obstoiatel'stvo") is based on the two people's ideological closeness. In truth, Christ's emergence in the past serves as a precedent for Jewish conversion. Christ came from the Jews, who were already moving along a theocratic path during the period of Roman rule in Palestine. Christ's coming was not a break from Jewish development, but rather its culmination. Solov'ev writes:
The principle of religious power and useful wisdom, which the Sadducees held and abused, was not rejected by Christ, but received from Him a higher illumination and confirmation ('all power was given to me' 'be wise like snakes' etc...); in the same way the pharisaic principle of law and justice through deeds was fully confirmed in the doctrine of Christ, who came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it, and demanded real examples of true belief from his disciplines. Therefore, what was true for the Sadducees and Pharisees is similar to the Evangelical way, and what the Essences announced as the aim of the path - God's kingdom and His truth - is again the same.xx
Christ, in Solov'ev's view united in himself the three strands of Jewish thought and therefore incorporated all of Judaism into Christianity. Moreover, the emergence of Christ at that particular historical moment meant that the Jews of that time attained their ideal state of development. It follows that Solov'ev considers how Jews acted in Christ's time as a model of their future relations with Christendom. Having once converted to Christianity, under the right circumstances, Jews would do so again.xxi
xix V Solov'ev, "Evreistvo i khristianskii vopros," in Taina Izraila, ed. V Boikov, St. Petersburg: Sofiia, 1993, 79; first publication 1884. The internal reviewer of this article, Evert van der Zweerde, made many brilliant observations. Among them is this: he warns us to recall that "one can read Solov'ev as saying that these 'nay-sayers' are in a way right in being 'stubborn', because the Christian church has to be 'worth' their joining it"
xx V Solov'ev, "Talmud i polemicheskaia literatura o nem v Avstrii I Germanii," 126.
xxi "A the reader of this article for publication noted, 'The 'right circumstances' are, precisely the point: few things were farther removed from those 'right circumstances', in his view, than the tsarist regime and the Russian Orthodox church of his days" From the review of this article for Solov'evskie issledovaniia.
Solov'ev explains: "The blood-thirty crowd that collected at Golgotha consisted of Jews; but Jews also made up that three thousand and then five thousand people who became baptized according to Peter's lead and composed the original Christian Church. Anna and Caiafus were Jews, Joseph and Nikodim were too. Judas, who traitorously gave Jesus to be crucified, belonged to the same nation. And what is more important, He Himself, betrayed and killed by the Jews, the God-man Christ, He Himself, was in flesh and human spirit fully a Jew."xxil
Christ's Jewish origins are central for Solov'ev, since these underscore his view of Jews as a theocratic people. As Solov'ev conceives it, Jews have the opportunity to rectify the error of earlier days, when they rejected Christ. Of course Jews should only cross over to Christianity when Christians realize true Christianity in the world. But were that feat to be accomplished, the Jews would be morally obligated to join the theocratic utopia, just as Christians would be morally obliged to accept them. He writes, "We should be united with the Israelites, not rejecting Christianity and not in spite of Christianity, but in the name of and in the strength of Christianity. We are broken off from the Israelites because we are not fully Christians and they are divided from us because they are not fully Jews. The fullness of Christianity embraces Judaism and the fullness of Judaism is Christianity."xxiii
In "Judaism and the Christian Question" Solov'ev suggests unifying the churches as a way of strengthening Christianity. In Solov'ev's view, separate peoples, nations, and churches bring differing, but essential qualities to a theocracy. The three central functions in a truly Christian world would be government, clergy, and prophesy. These roles must be balanced. The fall of Byzantium, in Solov'ev's view, was caused by an imbalance; politics dominated over clergy and prophesy, while the victory of Protestantism was caused by too much prophesy as opposed to the power of the government and clergy. Protestantism emerged due to an unhealthy focus on rationalism, since Protestants rationalize the doctrine, creating multiple interpretations of Christ's message.
Luckily for Europe, the Slavs still retain a deep commitment to Christian unification. In particular, Russia will play a major role in leading humanity back onto the right path, since it has preserved the appropriate governing structure, the institution of the tsar, whose power has divine legitimization. From their side, the Latin Church will supply the priests, and the Jews and Protestants will contribute prophesy. About the Jews, Solov'ev writes, "And when Jews will enter Christian theocracy, they will bring their strengths. In the past the prophets represented the best in Judaism; prophesy offered the first appearance of a free and purposeful individual"™
The role of the Jews as contributors to prophesy emerges from their experience after the fall of the Second Temple. Although they formed the first clergy, their stateless
xxii Solov'ev. Evreistvo i khristianskij vopros, 36.
xxiii Ibid., 35. Two American scholars, Judith Kornblatt and Gary Rosenschield, view Solov'ev's appeal to a Jewish-Christian pact as part of Solov'ev's polemic with Fyodor Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky held that the Jews represented a material force that threatened the very basis of European civilization and which ultimately would lead to the defeat of Christian Europe and the victory of Judaism. J. Kornblatt & G. Rosenshield, "Vladimir Solov'ev: Confronting Dostoevsky on the Jewish and Christian Question" Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 68 (1), March, (2000), 70.
xxiv Solov'ev. Evreistvo i khristianskii vopros, 79.
existence has weakened their ability to create a clergy or develop modern political institutions. As compensation, the Jews concentrated their energies on interpretation and study of their sacred texts, which resulted in the Talmud. Nevertheless, Solov'ev claims, the Talmud is a flawed venture, since it reflects an attempt "to build a fence around the laws" and has led to the creation of "a real labyrinth in which the Jews themselves find it hard to discover the path of true life"xxv
Solov'ev believed there was a reason, albeit still unknown, why at the end of the nineteenth century the majority of the world's Jews found themselves in the Russian Empire. He declared in his article on the Talmud, "Experiencing the whole of human history from its beginnings to our day, Judaism serves as the axle, as it were, of universal history (one cannot say the same for any other nation)"™ Such mystical views about the Jews are not entirely unique among Russian intellectuals of the time, since we find Boris Chicherin expressing a similar conception. In a letter to Solov'ev he writes, "From the Greeks we received secular education, but the Greeks disappeared, and the Jews, despite unheard-of persecutions and being dispersed throughout the world, have preserved their inalienable national identity and faith.
In this one feels the promise of a great mission""™™
* * *
The image of Solov'ev-friend of the Jews emerged in his own day. Among Solov'ev's Jewish friends, one can point to the richest bankers, such as Baron Horace Gintsburg and his son, David, a scholar of Near Eastern languages who amassed one of the best libraries of Judaica in Europe, the rabbi of St. Petersburg, Abraham Drabkin, the journalist Faivel Gets, and the scholar, Nikolai Bakst.xxviii Among his admirers were also such early Zionists as Shmaryahu Levin and Nahum Syrkin, and the nationalist historian, Shimon Dubnov.
The reception of Solov'ev by the Jews of his time was nearly uniformly positive. In the days after his death, two members of the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment among the Jews of Russia, a liberal organization devoted to the proliferation of secular knowledge, paid tribute to Solov'ev's memory in public speeches.™ Nikolai Bakst and Mikhail Kulisher emphasized the philosopher's moral purity. Describing Solov'ev, Bakst recalled Rabbi Eliezer Ben Zakkai, who asked five students to define the quality that best leads a person to righteousness. One student answered, "A kind attitude," another said, "A good friend," but the fifth and last, Rabbi Eliezer ben Arach, said a good heart. Rabbi Ben Zakkai noted that the
xxv Ibid. 58.
xxvi Solov'ev. Talmud, 135.
xxvii B. Chicherin to V Solov'ev, quoted in a letter from Solov'ev to F Gets, around 1891, published in F Gets, Ob otnoshenii Vl. S. Solov'eva k evreiskomu voprosu s prilozheniem, 2 ed. Moscow, 1902. 35; parts of this work was originally published in Voprsoy filosofii i psikhologii, 56, (1901).
xxviii At the time of Solov'ev's death and in his memory, Gintsburg funded four scholarships for Jewish students in Petersburg. Otchet Obshchestva dlia rasprostraneniia prosveshcheniia za 1900, St. Petersburg, 1901, 40. Dmitryi Belkin has made a diagram of all of Solov'ev's Jewish acquaintances. See "Vladimir Solov'ev und das Judentum: neue Fragen zu einem alten Thema," 217
xxix Bakst's speech was republished: N. Bakst, "Pamiati Vl. Solov'eva," Voskhod, 11, (1900), 84-93).
last was the superior answer because a good heart combines all the others. Vladimir Sergeevich [Solov'ev] possessed "the best guiding light in a man's life to a superlative degree, and his infinitely good heart could not but make him realize the abyss of evil and pain which people have created and create because of religious intolerance."xxx The journalist, Mikhail Kulisher, took note of Solov'ev's love for Christianity, insisting that the philosopher wanted Jews to feel the same toward Judaism. Kulisher interpreted Solov'ev as calling for Jews to renew their commitment to Judaism. "V S. Solov'ev was our defender not only in our struggle with our external enemies. We found support and direction from him in our struggle with our internal enemy, with indifference and the disappearance of faith in 0urselves."xxxi When referring to Solov'ev's philosophical ideas, both men focused on his expression of tolerance, emphasizing Solov'ev's imperative that Christians needed to transform themselves.™1 Faivel Gets expressed a related perspective, showing his appreciation of Solov'ev's love of Judaism.xxxiii In his book, Gets described how he and Solov'ev together "opened new horizons" with their study of the Tanach (Jewish Bible). "With his characteristic sensitivity and quick penetration, Vl[adimir] S[olov'ev] correctly grasped the central governing ideas of Judea in the last centuries of the pre-Christian era, the religious movements and ideological differences between the Sadducees, Pharisees, and Essenes. He understood the spiritual link of the three sects with the origins of Christianity and the intellectual similarity between Christianity and Judaism."xxxiv
Even in the Hebrew-language sources, which clearly address a Jewish reader, Zionist-leaning authors do not treat the issue of Jewish conversion. In his 1895 article on nationalism published in the Hebrew-language daily, Ha-Meliz, Shemaryahu Halevi-Levin lauded Solov'ev's idea that each nation should treat the other as it would want to be treated.xxxv Nonetheless, Levin noted that these ideas were already contained in Judaism, in the moral of Hillel.xxxvi In a long article from 1902, Nahum Syrkin looked to Solov'ev as a mystic who concentrated on realizing the inner life rather than changing the external world. Although he was to become the spokesman for a synthesis of Zionism and Socialism, at this time Syrkin saw the potential for the spiritual growth of the individual through a religious inward orientation.^™
Solov'ev apparently also influenced Shimon Dubnov's formulation of Jewish nationalism.xxxviii Writing in Letters on Old and New Jewry, Dubnov acknowledged his debt: "The formula of the Christian humanist Vladimir Solov'ev - 'Love all other
xxx N. Bakst, "Pamiati V S. Solov'eva," Otchet Obshchestva dlia rasprostraneniia prosveshcheniia za 1900. St. Petersburg, 1901. 44.
xxxl M. Kulisher, "Rech,' Otchet Obshchestva dlia rasprostraneniia prosveshcheniia za 1900, 52.
xxxii Ibid. 53.
xxxm F Gets, Ob otnoshenii Vl. S. Solov'eva k evreiskomu voprosu, 42.
xxxiv Ibid. 10.
xxxv 'S. Halevi-Levin, "Me-Olam Ha-sifrut: Ha-leumiot me-ha-hashkafa ha mussarit" [From the World of Literature: Nationality from the Moral Point of View]. Ha-Melitz, 32, (Feburary 7), 1895, 5-6.
xxxvi Ibid. 6.
xxxvii n. Syrkin, "VSolov'ev ve-yihusso lisheelat ha-Yehudim" [V Solov'ev's Attitude to the Jewish Question]. Sefer Ha-shana, 3, (1902): 71-80.
xxxviii Ibid. 374-379.
nations as your own' - I modified this way: respect each person's national character as your own. In the second half of the '[First] Letter' I evaluated various movements in Jewry from an ethical viewpoint. I took note of the servile attitude of assimilators, excluding from this group only such idealists as [Gabriel] Riesser, [Abraham] Geiger and [Morris] Lazarus.''xxxix In his philosopy of nationalism Dubnov builds on the ideas of Solov'ev, attributing to the Jews the highest category, spiritual nationalism/' The only exception came from Moses Leib Lilienblum, the maskil and then Zionist, who attacked Solov'ev, connecting him with the hostility of the Christian world generally. Lilienblum noted that, although the Enlightenment gave the appearance that Christians had changed, "the wolves had only changed their skin, but not their nature"^ In Lilienblum's view modern Christians were no better than their medieval forefathers, engaging in atavistic acts, such as hunting and violence. The pogroms of 1881-1882 left a deep scar on Lilienblum who concluded that the Christian world had not learned "true civilization"^1
How are we to understand the positive attitudes toward Solov'ev among the Jews of his time? For the Israeli scholar, Hamutal Bar-Josef, the fascination with Solov'ev can be explained by several factors, including the epoch's general attraction to spiritual experimentation and curiosity about different religious practices.xliii In addition, many Jews were interested in the reevaluation of the biographical Jesus and focus on his Jewish dimension that was taking place at this time.xliv Finally, as Jews acculturated to Russian society, many encountered Christians and Christianity and inevitably looked for positive elements that they could identify with.
Solov'ev's Jewish friends doubtlessly rejoiced about the philosopher's public defense of Jewish rights. After all, in Alexander III and Nicholas II's Russia, government officials often had to show their anti-Semitic credentials in order to advance their careers.xlv In this context the number of philo-Semites was likely small, the majority of Russians were either indifferent to or supported the many restrictions on Jewish economic and social mobility. At the same time the issue of conversion probably did not give the Jews of St. Petersburg much worry since they understood that a theocratic utopia was far from imminent. In addition, among this group there were Jews who already sympathized with Christianity and these individuals may even have felt that they would join the Church if Christians really did advocate full tolerance. In any case,
xxxix S. Dubnov, Kniga zhizni: materially dlia istorii moego vremeni, vospominaniia I razmyshleniia, Jerusalem. Moscow: Gesharim, 2004. 228.
xl S. Dubnov, Pis'ma o starom I novom evreistve (1897-1907). 2nd ed. St. Petersburg, 1907. 1-15, xli Iggorot M. L. Lilienblum Le Y. L. Gordon [M. Lilienblum's Letters to L. Gordon]. Jerusalem, 1968. 200. xlii Ibid.
xliii H. Bar-Yosef, "The Jewish Reception of Vladimir Solov'ev," Vladimir Solov'ev: Reconciler and Polemicist, ed. Wi van den Bercken, Manon de Courten and Evert van der Zweerde. Paris: Peeters, 2000. 380.
xliv For a summary of these issues, see H. McLean, "Tolstoy and Jesus," Christianity and the Eastern Slavs, vol II: Russian Culture in Modern Times, ed. R. P. Hughes and I. Paperno. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994, 103-123.
xlv H. Rogger, Jewish Policies and Right Wing Politics in Imperial Russia. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1976, 56-112.
in the anti-Semitic atmosphere that reigned in late tsarist Russia, Jews were heartened by Solov'ev and acknowledged his unique heroism. Rare was the Russian who came from among the elite and did not adopt the conventional prejudices of his class, but promoted tolerance and equal rights for the national minorities.
One should note, however, that the Jews of his time interpreted Solov'ev, as a friend and an enlightener, while downplaying his Christian theology. For example, describing Solov'ev, Faivel Gets compared him with other well-known Judeophiles: "In general one can infallibly attest to the fact that since Lessing's death there had not been a Christian scholar and writer who had such honor and charm, such wide popularity and such true love among Jews as Vladimir Solov'ev. One can predict that in the future, among noble Christian defenders of Judaism, together with the names of Lessing, Abbé Gregoire, Mirabeau and Macaulay, the Jewish people will utter with reverence, love and gratitude the glorified name of Vladimir Solov'ev."xlvi
Certainly this list of philo-Semites is unremarkable - Theodore Lessing, Abbé Gregoire, Honoré Comte de Mirabeau and Thomas Macauley - and yet it is extremely revealing. Gets connects Solov'ev, a figure from the end of the nineteenth century, to a group of earlier individuals from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, individuals associated primarily with the Enlightenment. However, the comparison is not random. Modern Jews lauded those who advocated Jewish integration and equal rights. Nonetheless, one realizes that Gets was wrong to connect Solov'ev with those "liberal" heroes whom he mentions. Solov'ev was no liberal who rejoiced in national diversity for its own sake. Rather, Solov'ev saw any social, religious, or national/ ethnic division as a symptom of how far surrounding reality was from his theocratic goals.xlvii
The one dissenting voice, Moses Leib Lilienblum, offers tough criticism. Lilienblu refuses to accept the premise in all of Solov'ev's work on Jews that present-day Christians are not truly Christian because they have not become perfected. He calls Solov'ev out and asks him to take responsibility for the anti-Jewish hatred widespread in contemporary Europe. Although one can exonerate Solov'ev, one can see Lilienblum's side; it does seem facile to deny any responsibility for the actions of Christiandom of his day. Of course Solov'ev did not support anti-Jewish prejudice of any kind and distanced himself from the Christianity of his own day, maintaining
that perfection belongs only in the future and only in the end of days.
* * *
Part of Solov'ev's characterization of the Jews is connected with the distinct needs of his theocracy, but part comes from an incomplete intellectual position. For example, he lauds events that occurred before Christ's appearance, such as the patriarch Abraham's communication with God, Moses, and the exodus from Egypt, David's
xlvi Gets, Ob otnoshenii Vl. S. Solov'eva k evreiskomu voprosu, 8.
xlvii That may be one reason why he also developed a more "realistic" conception in Opravdanie dobra (The Justification of the Good) and other texts; here still offered a case of "ideal theory" but much less utopian.
strengthening of the kingdom, and Solomon's aptitude for justice, because they reflect in his mind a preparation for Christ's appearance. Not surprisingly, Solov'ev neglects those events of Jewish history that occur after Christ's death. One finds little comment about the diaspora after the fall of the Second Temple, and when Solov'ev does deal with Jewish oppression, he condemns it as an example of Christian deficiency rather than praising Jews for their fortitude.
From viewpoint of a Jew today, such as this writer, events that occurred after Christ's death have singular importance for internal Jewish life and need not be viewed in terms of goals outside of Judaism. Jews established communities with their own autonomous political institutions, displayed a commitment to the study of religious texts, and in many cases tenaciously defended their right to religious difference. However, Solov'ev viewed post-Second-Temple Jewish culture as flawed, in particular contemning the Talmud as a flaw caused by an overzealous attachment to legality and absence of revelation.xlviii
It should be noted that Solov'ev's utopia is absolutely modern, connected with modern ideas of freedom and individuality, despite its ancient character. The modern aspect of Solov'ev's perspective can be seen in the common elements that he shares with such secular utopian thinkers as Saint Simon, August Comte and Nikolai Chernyshevsky.xlix Like them, Solov'ev emphasized the role of human volition in the "divine process!' In addition, like these thinkers, Solov'ev held that Jews, and other relics of corporate and religious entities, were supposed to disintegrate with the formation of a Christian theocracy. In a word, for Solov'ev, as for these thinkers, there was no Jewish problem at all, the Jews were supposed to disappear as a separate group.
Since the realization of Solov'ev's unity of the churches depended on the essential cooperation of the Jews, it is worthwhile to raise the hypothetical question of how he would react if he discovered that Jews, despite the best and irresistibly compelling reasons in the world, refused to surrender their religion and become Christians. In that case, it is inevitable that Jews would become, what they were before, the nay-sayers, the enemies of Christ and Christianity, with whom Christians are obligated to struggle.
As was mentioned, Solov'ev himself did not believe in physical coercion, but some of his followers took a more hostile position vis-a-vis Jews and their intransigence. The negative attitudes of Vasilii Rozanov and Pavel Florensky are legendary. The question of Solov'ev's responsibility (if one can put it that way) for the philosophical positions of his ideological children is complicated. The negative genetic transfer from Solov'ev to his followers (philo-Semitism to anti-Semitism) is explained well by Evert van de Zweede who notes that the problem is connected with '^se^ialism" He writes that the "common ground of philo-Semitism and anti-Semitism is the idea that there is something like a 'Jewish idea' similar to a 'Russian idea'. It is "not that which Russian think about themselves in time, but what God thinks about Russia in eternity" For a
xlviii It is of course a conventional attitude to condemn the Talmud among individuals one might characterize as anti-Semitic.
xlix This is Andrzej Walicki's viewpoint. See Legal Philosophies of Russian Liberalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. 158.
l Evert van de Zweede from his review of this article for Solov'evskie Issledovaniia.
number of Solov'ev's followers the Jewish idea or mission interferes with the Russian idea. Since one cannot turn to empiricism to disprove this argument, one merely has to acknowledge its existence. In this case, Solov'ev bears no guilt.
However, in terms of the general idea of Jewish incompleteness, flawed Jewry, Solov'ev's thinking resembles the viewpoint of some philosophers who are very antagonistic toward Jews. In this context, a number of scholars have detected a Solov'ev who is decidedly negative about Jews. For example, in his article, "Vladimir Solov'ev and Sergej Nilus: Apocalypticism and Judeophobia," Michael Hagemeister describes the influence of anti-Semitic thinkers on Solov'ev's last work, "The Short Tale of the Antichrist," which the philosopher included in his book, Three Conversations^ Sergei Nilus, who first published the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, was deeply impressed by Solov'ev's last work.lii "In Nilus' understanding Solov'ev's depiction of the Antichrist, who gains world power with the help of the 'mighty brotherhood of the Freemasons' and the Comité permanent universel, - which in Judeophobic reading would stand for the Alliance israélite universelle - was a visionary revelation of the satanic 'Judeo-masonic world conspiracy' and its goals."liU According to Hagemeister, these ideas gained full currency in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which were likely written with Nilus' involvement. Although not directly responsible for Nilus' treatment, Solov'ev himself is not entirely innocent of anti-Jewish sentiment. Hagemeister judiciously, and I would say, generously, evaluates Solov'ev: "[...] In his depiction of the Antichrist as a freemason and one who would complete the erection of a socialist society, he shared the political reactionary fears stirred by Russia's autocratic government among his contemporaries. [...] The question whether Solov'ev -who himself, as should be emphasized, was by no means a Judeophobe - was nonetheless inspired in his depiction of the Antichrist by the anti-Jewish and anti-masonic pamphlets of the likes of Gougenot des Mousseaux, would merit a thorough investigation of its own."liv
Hagemeister is not a lonely voice. Earlier scholars have also noticed similar issues in Solov'ev's theology. In 1947, Paul Berline offered this insight, "In Solov'ev's opinion, the Jewish people constitute an example of national fallacy and blind men. They stopped short before the most important step in their history; they did not understand the voice of God, and thus they laid open the way to their tragedy. Christianity came to complete the great task of Judaism and was thus its crowning point."lv Berline also noted that, "Solov'ev wrote many harsh words about the Jews of his time and about some of their unsympathetic qualities."lvi Similarly in 1981,
li Evert van de Zweede reminds us that "we should also beware of a literal reading of the Kratkaia povest' because is an extremely complex text that can also be read in a more ironical way.
lii Hagemeister, 287.
liii Ibid., 289-90. The Alliance israelite universelle was a target of Russian anti-Semites and especially Jacob Brafman, the author of the Book of the Kahal (1867).
liv Ibid., 294. Henri-Roger Gougenot des Mousseaux was a French writer who propagated the idea of a Jewish conspiracy in France.
lv Paul Berline, "Russian Religious Philosophers and the Jews" // Jewish Social Studies, 9 (1947): 281. lvi Ibid., 272.
Walter Moss asserted: "Solov'ev could not ...be considered a blind Judeophile. In the first place, he shared the belief of many. that the mission of the Jews had been to prepare the way for Christianity and that once Christ appeared, their refusal to follow Him was a betrayal of this mission."lvii Moss, too, saw Jews entering into a new, reformed, revitalized Christianity as the end goal of Solov'ev's theological
formulations.lviii
It is a fact that Solov'ev's end goal, the ultimate disappearance of Judaism, had already been highlighted in English-language scholarship sixty years ago. In the light of these studies it is impossible to claim that critical reception of Solov'ev has refused to acknowledge his blemishes. At the same time, it would be wrong not to note that the majority of studies on Solov'ev and the Jews emphasize the positive interactions of Judaism and Solov'ev's Christian theology.lix
One has to conclude that, although Solov'ev rejected most of the elements of enlightened secularism, he adopted at least one aspect of Enlightenment thinking regarding Jews, the emancipation exchange. A central part of the Enlightenment paradigm was the idea of "transformation." Jews were asked to reject traditional life and modify their dress, language, forms of education, and religious rituals, and these changes were set as conditions. But this conditional principle brought unintended consequences. By accepting Jews conditionally, modern European society, however, set a dangerous paradigm. Others, not Jews themselves, had the right to judge whether Jews had become transformed and were now worthy of emancipation. Just as the answer could be positive, so too, it could be negative, i.e., Jews had not made sufficient strides and could not be given equality.'* This is important concerning Solov'ev. Despite all his love for Jews and Judaism, he ultimately envisioned Jews as transforming themselves into something other than they were and fulfilling a role that he assigned to them.
My goal here has not been to raise unfounded suspicions about Solov'ev, but rather to show that his attitude toward the Jews is far more complicated than previously thought. Although I am not prepared to treat in-depth the question of why, with a small number of exceptions, scholars in our own day have refrained from treating Solov'ev's attitude toward Jewish conversion, it may be worth noting that, while there are numerous cases of anti-Semitism in the history of Russian culture, the examples of philo-Semitism are few. Therefore, scholars have understandably mined the possibilities to depict Christian-Jewish synthesis in Solov'ev. Additionally, Solov'ev's public defense of Jews is real and worthy of enormous esteem (scholarship has dutifully acknowledged Solov'ev's service in this area). However painful it may be, it behooves us to see the whole picture, including those aspects of Solov'ev's theology that may invite objections, such as aspects of his treatment of Jews in his theology.
lvii Walter Moss, "Vladimir Soloviev and the Jews in Russia" // Russian Review. V. 29, 2 (1970): 186. lviii I have taken this entire paragraph from an anonymous reviewer of this article for another journal in 2007. lix See note ii.
lx Russian officials in the nineteenth century used such arguments to deny Jews civic rights. J. Klier, Imperial Russia's Jewish Question, 1855-1881. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. P. 46-57.
Abstract
Professor Brian Horowitz presents a study of Solov'ev and the Jews from the viewpoint of Jewish deficiency and conversion to Christianity. Although Horowitz understands well that Solov'ev wanted Jews to convert to Christianity only when the Christian Church became truly a Universal Church encompassing all people everywhere, nonetheless Solov'ev appears to ask of Jews what all Christian missionaries demand: conversion to Christianity. Professor Horowitz describes the positive stimulus for Jewish conversion among such Enlightenment thinkers as Abbé Gregoire and Christian Wilhelm Dohm and among missionaries in Russia.
Horowitz then describes Solov'ev's writings on Jews, especially in such works as "Evreistvo i khistianskii vopros" and "Talmud i polemicheskaia literature o nem v Avstrii i Germanii" Professor Horowitz shows how Jews are asked to change in order to fit into Solov'ev's theocracy.
In the next section Professor Horowitz describes the attitudes toward Solov'ev by Russian Jews, especially the wealthy St. Petersburg Jewish elite and Jewish intellectuals associated with Jewish nationalism. Neither group was critical of Solov'ev nor paid attention to the fact that his philosophy had negative aspects in religion to Jews. The wealthy conservatives lauded Solov'ev for his public condemnation of tsarist anti-Jewish policies and the hostility toward Jews by some representatives of the government and Russian Orthodox Church. Semyon Dubnov viewed Solov'ev as an intellectual inspiration for Jewish nationalism! The one exception was Moses Leib Lilienblum who wondered aloud how Solov'ev could dream about a perfected Christianity when the perpetrators of the pogroms of 1881-82 acted in Christianity's name and the Church's very leaders encouraged violence.
Professor Horowitz then provides his own critique of Solov'ev's ideas regarding Jews and presents examples of critics in scholarship over the last century. He also analyses the relationship between Solov'ev and some of his followers regarding anti-Semitism. Horowitz's point is not to blacken the great philosopher's reputation, but to reassert caution. Solov'ev was not the simple philo-Semitic thinker that some have claimed. He was complicated, had many sides, and the needs of his thinking clash with conceptions of Jewish national and religious separatism.
Реферат
В статье проф. Брайан Горовиц анализирует отношение Соловьева к иудаизму и к евреям.
Соловьев известен как один из искренних защитников российского еврейства. Его мужество тем более очевидно, что он диагностировал высокий уровень антисемитизма в русском обществе и, в особенности, в правящих его кругах. Выступая в защиту еврейского народа, Соловьев едва ли добивался серьезных личных преимуществ: скорее, несомненен был личный ущерб. Да и воззрения представителей еврейства на миссию Соловьева были неоднозначны. В России отношение к Соловьеву и его миссии также различно: среди зажиточных людей и столичной элиты (например, барон Гораций Гинцбург) Соловьева
ценили за его вклад в еврейскую филантропию; среди еврейской национально ориентированной интеллигенции (сионистов и др.) Соловьев воспринимался как вдохновитель или как некая путеводная звезда в решении национальных и космополитических проблем; была и резко критическая точка зрения (например, Мозес Лейб Лилиенблюм, который позволял себе открытое недоумение: можно ли было провозглашать облагороженное христианство, когда как раз во имя христианства и с одобрения церковных властей осуществлялись погромы 1881-1882 гг.?).
Касаясь вопроса об отношении Соловьева к иудаизму, Горовиц настаивает, что среди целей соловьевского замысла Вселенской Церкви было и обращение евреев в христианство. Вполне понимая, что Соловьев желал христианского обращения лишь в том случае, если Христианская Церковь сможет стать Церковью воистину Вселенской, т. е. повсеместно объемлющей все народы, проф. Горовиц всё же отмечает, что, в конечном счете, Соловьев добивался от евреев того же самого, что и христианские миссионеры. В этом плане проф. Горовиц сравнивает Соловьева с мыслителями Просвещения, настаивавшими именно на позитивных стимулах для христианского обращения евреев. Такова была позиция аббата Грегуара, Христиана Вильгельма фон Доома (Dohm), а также и ряда российских миссионеров.
В понимании позиций Соловьева в отношении иудаизма Горовиц исходит из таких трудов русского философа, как «Еврейство и христианский вопрос» и «Талмуд и полемическая литература о нем в Австрии и Германии». Проф. Горо-виц развивает свою собственную критическую концепцию в вопросе отношения Соловьева к еврейскому народу, во многом опираясь на труды мыслителей прошлого столетия.
В России были мыслители, немало заимствовавшие из утопических идей Соловьева о способности Церкви к духовному преображению мира. Таковы были, например, о. Сергий Булгаков, Николай Бердяев или Алексей Лосев. Но были и другие, такие как Василий Розанов или Павел Флоренский, во многом отталкивавшиеся от соловьевских воззрений в отношении еврейства: их взгляды на сей предмет были куда более негативными, нежели у Соловьева. Кроме того, не следует забывать и о влиянии на Соловьева (включая и поздние его писания) традиций западноевропейского антисемитизма.
Проф. Горовиц обнаруживает, по крайней мере, двух исследователей, высказывавших на протяжении последних пятидесяти-шестидесяти лет аналогичные воззрения. Кроме того, в его задачу не входило очернение наследия великого философа, он лишь указывает на неоднозначность отношения Соловьева к еврейской проблематике и на сложность его трудов. Во всяком случае, проф. Горовиц настаивает, что Соловьев - мыслитель сложный, многосторонний, что его философия находится в конфликте с принципом еврейского национально-религиозного обособления. Кроме того, Горовиц настаивает и на важности понимания той интеллектуальной среды (и прежде всего общего круга ее понятий о евреях и иудаизме), в контексте которой Соловьеву выпало дышать и трудиться.
