Russia's Plato

Plato and the Platonic Tradition in Russian Education, Science and Ideology (1840–1930)

Frances Nethercott

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781138741539
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351726306
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

This title was first published in 2000. This work identifies the differences between the Russian intellectual approach to reading Plato and that of other European countries. This study offers a complex perspective on Russian philosophical learnings up to 1930. The book contains five chapters with the first aiming to provide the general institutional context in which Russian 19th century Plato scholarship developed, caught as it were, between the rise of the historical sciences and the heavy hand of state interference in standardizing the educational system in the name of nation building and modernization. The second chapter attempts to illustrate how Plato served as a reference in Russian philosophical culture and the third deals with aspects of Russian philosophy of law. In the fourth chapter, the author shifts his approach to compare and contrast a number of reactions to a single dialogue, the "Republic" and in the final concluding chapter, addresses the question of whether it is legitimate to speak of a Russian Platonism.

Chapter 1
The Development of Plato Scholarship in Nineteenth-Century Russia

During the course of the nineteenth century, official attitudes towards Russia's educational system passed through several phases. Initially reflecting an ideology of 'Autocracy', 'Orthodoxy' and 'Nationhood' in the 1830s, state rulings later fluctuated between attempts at modernization under Alexander II in the 1860s, and staunch conservative reaction under Alexander III in the 1880s. Largely carried out in primary and parish schools situated in the non-Orthodox borderland regions of the Empire, Alexander Ill's programme of Russification, with its emphasis on the Russian language and Bible study, undid to a considerable extent the achievements of the early Reform years.

In the university, it tended to be the same few disciplines which, time and again, were targeted by the various measures taken. Deemed ideologically the most sensitive, the study of classics, philosophy and law was repeatedly the object of heated debate. Official state attitudes towards these subjects continually moved back and forth between paranoiac fear and excessive adoration. Depending on the moment, knowledge of the ancient world was said to betray sympathy for modern-day republicanism, or it was regarded as a sign of being 'well educated'. While certain philosophies were condemned as a dangerous challenge to the Orthodox faith, others were considered her most trusted auxiliary. In the wake of the revolutions that swept through Europe in the 1840s, law, and particularly constitutional law, was placed under suspicion as a potential threat to the ideology of nation building, and to the principles of autocracy.

The impact of these circumstances on Plato scholarship as a field of study combining the otherwise suspect perspectives of philosophy, philology, history and law, was, if anything, rather paradoxical. Perhaps, contrary to what one might expect, Plato studies actually profited from the various conflicts of interests between science and ideology. Plato was a chameleon-like foil to a series of scholarly and politico-ideological issues. 'Legitimized' as the precursor of Eastern Christianity, his philosophy met the requirements of an Orthodox (Russian) educational ethic. As the 'father of idealism' he was a privileged object of study for historians of philosophy. As the author of the Republic he was a source of information for historians - as well as a source of dispute among political thinkers. Additionally, one has to bear in mind the distinct objectives of education (schooling) on the one hand, and research on the other. A degree of originality in the latter (doctoral dissertations, monographs published under the auspices of the university) was offset by a striking lack of originality in the former. Granted, there were exceptions. One does occasionally come across monographs, intended for use as textbooks, in which the author gave voice to his own, sometimes rather quirky, opinions. But it remains more generally the case that the practice of familiarizing the student of philosophy with Plato's world tended to rely on models of interpretation often created by previous generations in Western scholarship, principally Hegelian inspired. By contrast, Russian Plato research properly speaking, for all its valuable insights into the 'Plato Question', as well as its critique of the more recent findings and trends in Western scholarship, was less likely to find its way into the university auditorium.

From an 'Orthodox Ethics' to the Pragmatism of Reform and Counter Reform

The immediate impact of the government-sanctioned quest for an 'Orthodox educational ethic' (usually associated with the reign of Nicholas I, though signs of this were already apparent in the latter part of Alexander I's rule) was a fairly selective endorsement of areas within the humanities deemed suitable for teaching purposes. In the university, one subject to be seriously affected by the vindication of Russian national and Orthodox values was philosophy. In the wake of the Decembrist uprising of 1825, philosophical reflection - meaning French rationalism and German idealism - was looked upon with increasing suspicion. Indeed, for certain bureaucrats, and, notably, for Nicholas I himself, it was quite simply the birthplace of potential revolutionary or terrorist action. One of two options seemed possible: either philosophy should be done away with altogether, or it should be used to promote a sense of national Orthodox pride. The curator of Kazan University, Mikhail Magnitskii, offers a telling example of an attitude that was widespread among bureaucrats and conservative-minded intellectuals during the final years of Alexander's reign:

Unlike the mad dreams of Germans with their ideas rooted in the arrogance of the Lutheran Reformation and incorrectly called 'philosophy', we possess a healthy, pure philosophy, that which fortifies the spirit, that in which our forefathers lived happily in their devotion to God, to the Tsar. It is the philosophy in which the saints of our Church, our marvellous compatriots, were nurtured.¹

It was the spirit of this kind of remark which determined the fate of philosophy as a discipline over the next few decades. During the 1820s and 1830s, university instruction in philosophy consisted of rudimentary courses in logic, psychology and the history of philosophy. In 1848 it was banned altogether on Nicholas I's orders as part of an alarmed response to the revolutionary activity sweeping throughout Europe. Such measures, it was hoped, would prevent insurrections of a similar kind occurring at home. For the next fifteen years, instruction in 'philosophy', so called, was guaranteed solely in the theological academies. Courses in 'logic' and 'psychology' were taught by professors of theology in accordance with a programme devised by the Department of Religious Affairs, and carried out under its watchful eye.² These subjects had been exonerated from the ban because of their supposed utility. Logic, it was thought, taught the pupil 'to construct judgements correctly, and to deduce from them well-grounded arguments'. Psychology was permitted because 'the examination of the characteristics of the soul, of its aptitudes, even its passions, belongs to true enlightenment'. In short, one of the main reasons for teaching philosophy at all was to forewarn the pupil of its nefarious influence, and thereby inoculate him against any damage it might do. Accordingly, 'the purpose of teaching philosophy was to show, by enquiry, the weakness and the inability of human reason to uncover truth by its own means, independently of the supreme light of the Revelation'.³

However, it was not the case that all philosophical instruction reflected a religious bias. Despite state rulings on the matter, a more secular reading of philosophical texts - both ancient and modern - was practised in ways which may best be understood as a sign of cunning on the part of the professoriate to resist the heavy hand of bureaucracy in university affairs. It was, for example, not uncommon for philosophical ideas to be expounded by occupants of chairs, the title of which had little to do with philosophy. Such was the case with Schelling, whose philosophy, before it became an object of animated discussion outside the university in the 1830s, was taught by M.G. Pavlov (1793-1840) at Moscow University from the chair of agronomy and physics, while D.M. Vellanskii of the St. Petersburg Academy of Medicine reputedly expounded on Schellingian philosophy of nature from his chair of botany.⁴ Another instance concerns the way the juridical sciences sometimes served as a channel for instruction in the history of philosophy. In 1835 a statute was issued with the aim to rid juridical science of any potentially nefarious political elements. In this spirit the course in 'encyclopaedia of law' (pravo) - originally a survey of juridical science, together with an introduction to natural law theory - was renamed the 'encyclopaedia of canons' (zakonovedenie). Henceforth, instruction was to be based exclusively on the legal canons as established by the Svod Zakonov, a codification of laws newly drafted in 1832, but which, according to the jurist and historian, Konstantin Kavelin, was flawed by the same casuistry as the early Romanov Ulozhenie of 1649. Neither codification accounted for the juridical principles according to which the mass of legislation had been collected and arranged. Yet, for all such constraints and obstacles, certain professors did manage to provide their students with a relatively sound juridical education. Between 1835 and 1848 Petr Redkin (1808-1891), Professor of Law at Moscow University, taught an essentially historical-philosophical course in what was supposed to be an introduction to the codified laws of the land.⁵ According to memoir accounts, Redkin succeeded in combining this tedious learning by rote with an Hegelian-inspired history of philosophy and a history of the philosophy of law. By doing so, he conveyed some of his personal beliefs and enthusiasms, which were sharply at odds with the police environment of the university at that time. As his former pupil and future renowned philosopher of law, Boris Chicherin, put it:

Thanks to Redkin's teaching we learnt to see in the State something more than merely an external form, a watchful guardian. We came to consider it as the supreme aim of juridical development, the realization of the principles of liberty and of justice in their highest union, one which, without absorbing the person, and while affording her sufficient space, guides her towards the common good.⁶

Like the study of law and philosophy, secondary-level schooling and university instruction in Latin and Greek were also a major source of controversy, especially during the reign of Nicholas I, but equally throughout the Reform and Counter Reform periods, being by turns promoted and discouraged. Conflicting attitudes towards a classical education were closely bound with conflicting perceptions of Hellenism itself, which by turn inspired great hostility and sympathy. On the one hand, the works of Greek and Roman authors were condemned as the bedrock of Republican ideas; on the other, they were seen as markers along the path towards the Orthodox faith. Russia's spiritual and cultural links with the Byzantine world not only patented her classical heritage, but, more importantly, made it possible to promote a self-portrait as the protector of true Christianity. The upshot was patriotism anchored in philohellenism.

This was the case in the 1830s and early 1840s during the Ministry of Count Uvarov (1786-1855), himself a classical scholar. At issue was the need to accommodate a general (classical) education to the requirements of national specificity (narodnyi byt'). To this end, Uvarov promoted the study of classical languages and ancient history, but also catechism. However, the political events of 1848 upset this vindication of classical scholarship as a source of national identity. Witnessing the social unrest across Europe, Russian conservatives noted that Latin and Greek were the languages of the Republicans, that French eighteenth-century Revolutionaries had cited Cicero and Plato. For Nicholas I, this kind of argument was sufficient to justify measures taken against what he regarded as a potential threat to his autocracy. Thus, in 1849, he ordered that instruction in Latin and Greek be reduced considerably, and between 1851 and 1854, Greek was suppressed outright. Although it was ultimately reintroduced in a handful of gymnasia scattered across the Empire, its status had radically altered to become little more than an instrument for the sake of instructing the pupil in the wisdom of the Church Fathers. Indeed, knowledge of the classics generally came to a large extent to be based on the study of Clement of Rome, St. Augustine, Tertullian, St. Irenaeus, Basil the Great, and John Chrysostom. It should be said, though, that this situation was not unique to Russia, but echoed conservative reactions throughout Europe as a whole. In France, for example, the government of Napoleon III used similar arguments so as to promote educational reforms along more conservative lines. Moreover, the literature privileged for instruction in Latin and Greek was, as in Russia, usually religious, with the Bible and the Church Fathers figuring most frequently on the reading lists.⁷

While the more liberal spirit of the new 1863 statute was to become a marker in the professoriate's subsequent attempts to secure academic freedom, juridically it was short lived. In view of the continuing student unrest which this statute had seemingly failed to curb, the Ministry of Education gradually introduced measures, during the 1870s and early 1880s, with view to excluding Seminarists, Realists, and Jews from university studies - precisely those elements which the government held responsible for social disorder. These measures, along with increased student fees and compulsory lecture attendance for those who remained, culminated in the Counter Reform of 1884. With the principle of autonomy abrogated, the university became, once again, a bureaucratically run government institution.

A direct - and at first glance surprising - consequence of the Counter Reform on university instruction in the humanities was the subordination of philosophy, along with literature and history, to the study of classical philology.⁸ This move formed part of an announced programme to increase the number of teachers of Latin and Greek in Russia's gymnasia. But, underlying this policy was an ideologized, and possibly rather naive, conception of classical scholarship itself. Because of the intellectual demands it put on the pupil, and because its content was so far removed from contemporary reality, the authors of these more conservative measures, the Education Minister, D.A. Tolstoi (1866-1880) and his successor, I.D. Delianov (1882-1898), believed it might provide the much needed panacea to social unrest. In short, they saw it as an effective measure to thwart the ambitions of young 'nihilists' whose wholesale renunciation of tradition meant, among other things, rejection of a classical and humanis...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Translation and Transliteration
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 The Development of Plato Scholarship in Nineteenth-Century Russia
• 2 Plato and Russian Idealism: The Platonic Impulse in the Construction of a Philosophical Tradition
• 3 Plato as an Impulse in Russian Philosophy of Law
• 4 Russians Reading the Republic
• 5 A Question of Russian Platonism
• Biographical Profiles
• Select Bibliography
• Index