Russian Messianism

Peter J. S. Duncan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• ISBN:
  9781134744763
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This is the first book in English for half a century to examine the complexities of Russian messianism, both as a whole and in its interaction with Communism. Peter Duncan considers its Orthodox roots and focuses on Russia's geopolitical experience and situation to explain the endurance of this phenomenon.

1
The origins of Russian messianism

This chapter will seek to define messianism and Russian messianism. It will briefly discuss other messianisms, before examining the development of the two main early Russian messianic doctrines: “Moscow, the Third Rome” and “Holy Russia”.

Messianism

The word “messianism” is from “Messiah”, which in turn is from the Hebrew mashiah, meaning “the anointed one”. The characteristic feature of all movements or ideas described as forms of “messianism” is the concept of the “anointed” or “chosen” individual, people, land or group. The elasticity of the term is recognized by R.J.Zwi Werblowsky:

The term messianism…denoting the Jewish religious concept of a person with a special mission from God, is used in a broad and at times very loose sense to refer to beliefs or theories regarding an eschatological (concerning the last times) improvement of the state of man or the world, and a final consummation of history.¹

Hans Kohn defined messianism as:

primarily the religious belief in the coming of a redeemer who will end the present order of things, either universally or for a single group, and institute a new order of justice and happiness.²

This is a good description of Jewish messianism, but the restriction of messianism to “religious” belief is too narrow for present purposes. Messianism will be understood here to embrace secular as well as religious beliefs, and will concern a “redeemer” or “Messiah” that may be an entity such as a particular nation, class or party, or an individual person.

Messianism is closely related to “millenarianism” or “chiliasm”, but it is not identical with them. These terms, derived from the word for “thousand” in Latin and Greek respectively, referred originally to the thousand-year Kingdom of God on Earth expected after the Second Coming of Christ. Yonina Talmon defines millenarian movements as “religious movements that expect imminent, total, ultimate, this-worldly collective salvation”.³ The majority of millenarian movements are messianic in that they expect that salvation will be brought about by a divine (as in Christianity) or divinely-chosen redeemer, but this is not always the case. Conversely, the expectation of a messiah does not always involve the expectation of total redemption which characterizes millenarianism. Nor should messianism or millenarianism be confused with utopianism, which might be defined as the description of ideal societies without the specification of the means (still less any “chosen” means) to attain them.

It would be wrong to expect the Russian word messianism to have precisely the same nuances as the English. It is worth quoting a description of messianism given by the Russian Christian philosopher, Vladimir S.Solovyov (1853–1900):

Outside the theological sphere, although in connection with religious ideas, in all peoples who have played an important role in history, on the awakening of their national consciousness there has arisen the conviction of the special advantage of the given people, as the chosen bearer and perpetrator (sovershitel’) of the historical fate of mankind.⁴

While messianism has the same wide range of attributes as the English word, in Russian it seems to be particularly associated with the concept of the chosen people, as Solovyov’s description suggests.

Father Superior Gennady Eikalovich considers Solovyov’s definition to be too wide, embracing missionism as well as messianizm.⁵ It is true that these two notions are related and sometimes confused. The difference between them was explained by the Russian Orthodox existentialist philosopher, Nikolai A.Berdiaev (1874–1948), who was himself influenced by Solovyov. Berdiaev wrote, in a passage which is cited with approval in a samizdat essay,

Messianism derives from Messiah, missionism from mission. Messianism is much more exacting than missionism. It is easy to assume that each nation has its particular mission, its calling in the world, corresponding to the uniqueness of its individuality. But the messianic consciousness claims an exclusive calling, a calling which is religious and universal in its significance, and sees in the given people the bearer of the messianic spirit. The given people are God’s chosen people, and in this lies the Messiah.⁶

Jewish messianism

Judaism told the Jewish people that they were the “chosen” people, and that the Messiah would be born among them. The understanding of the functions of the chosen people and the Messiah changed as time passed. The development of Jewish messianism brought out the tension between universalist messianism and nationalist messianism which has been common to later messianisms. The universalist interpretation of Jewish messianism was that Israel was divinely chosen to enlighten the Gentiles about the one true God and carry His salvation to the end of the earth. The nationalist interpretation, on the other hand, focused on a national warrior hero. This Messiah would fulfil God’s promise to His people and gather them together, reinstate them in Palestine in prosperity and destroy the enemies of Israel. These two interpretations have coexisted throughout Jewish history, although with differing degrees of emphasis on each. For the ancient prophets of the Old Testament, such as Hosea, Amos and Isaiah, the Messiah was a national, political figure of this world, within history, who would restore the national independence of Israel, re-establish the House of David and rule as King of Israel. The country would be glorious and there would be everlasting peace. Sometimes there appears the idea of the other nations coming under Israel’s political influence.⁷ The universalist dimension appears, for example, in Isaiah ii, 2–4, written c. 740–700 BC. Here it is prophesied that “in the last days…all nations” will turn to the God of Israel who will judge them and inaugurate peace: “out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.”

Later in the development of Judaism, messianism became more nationalistic. The Book of Daniel (c. 165 BC) has been described by Norman Cohn as nationalist propaganda for the lower strata of Jewish society, intended to counter the attempts of their foreign rulers to destroy the Jewish religion. In Daniel’s dream (ch. vii), God rewards His people for their loyalty.

And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.⁸

Cohn calls this vision of the everlasting dominion of Israel over all peoples “collective megalomania”.⁹

Jewish messianism is essentially linked with catastrophe. The sufferings of the Jews promoted the messianic ideology and, later, the occurrence of particularly cruel persecution was seen as heralding redemption. This was the case from 63 BC to 72 AD, when the increasing repression under the Roman occupation promoted expectations of the imminent coming of the Messiah and the appearance of numerous false messiahs. Judaism refused to accept Jesus Christ as the Messiah, since He was not the national, political hero who was expected. Christ’s reported interpretation of the messianic prophesies of the Old Testament to refer to inward spiritual salvation, rather than to the historical world, was not regarded as legitimate.

Christian messianism

The Christianity of Jesus was pure messianism. The Greek christos (the anointed one) was a translation of the Hebrew mashiah, and the Gospels traced Jesus’ ancestry back to David, apparently trying to legitimate His messianic status. As early as the first century AD the word christos was adopted by Christians to remove the national political connotations of the Jewish Messiah, and to spiritualize and universalize the concept of salvation. The “chosen people” were now considered to be not the Jews but the followers of Christ, Jew or Gentile. The Book of Revelations, also known as the Apocalypse (c. 93 AD) prophesies the events of the “last days”, the struggles between the forces of light and the forces of darkness, and the Resurrection of the Dead. It is an expression of Jewish apocalyptic thought, combining Judaist and Christian elements. Revelations xix and xx contain the Jewish visions of a messianic figure with a sharp sword, and of a messianic kingdom lasting a thousand years. The Messiah is not a Jewish national hero, however, but an altruistic warrior, exalting the poor and smiting the rich, and rewarding the just of all nations. This is in the more universalistic spirit of the Old Testament prophets of early Judaism, rather than the nationalism of Daniel.¹⁰

Just as the Jews still waited for their Messiah, so Christ’s Apostles looked forward to their Master’s Second Coming, when Christ would rule the earth and fulfil the promises of the sermon on the mount. He had promised to return within the lifetime of some of those living then.¹¹ The sufferings of the Christians under the Roman persecution strengthened their belief that the Second Coming was imminent, just as Jewish messianic expectations were strengthened by catastrophe. But Christ failed to return and the churches moved towards an accommodation with the earthly powers. In the Eastern Church, millenarianism, with its promise of imminent salvation for the poor and punishment for the powerful, was discredited by the middle of the second century. The Book of Revelations was removed from scriptural canon. Millenarianism was the accepted orthodoxy in the Western Church for much longer, but after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century, Church doctrine was modified to sanction the political rulers. Millenarianism was denounced as a Jewish heresy at the Council of Ephesus in 431. The belief in the imminent messianic age, with the struggle of Christ and Antichrist predicted in the Apocalypse, was confined to millenarian sects. These were composed mainly of the poor, and they fought Church and State.¹²

Messianism in the West

A series of revolutionary messianic and millenarian movements, based on Christianity, affected parts of north-western Europe from the end of the eleventh century to the middle of the sixteenth. People who lacked a secure place in the rapidly-changing society turned towards individuals and movements which promised to lead them to a new society, often based on common ownership. The enemy was sometimes the Saracens, and usually the rich and the Jews. Unusual suffering again strengthened messianic expectations.

Later, the victories of the English, American and French revolutions led to the spread of universalist messianism, which frequently became nationalistic and was used to justify expansionism by military means. In 1648 a Member of Parliament named Hugh Peter expressed his belief that England was God’s “elect nation”, destined to use her military power to root out monarchism throughout Europe.¹³ These sentiments were reinforced in the nineteenth century, after Britain had acquired an empire. Rudyard Kipling wrote “The White Man’s Burden” (1898) and Cecil Rhodes proclaimed his country to be the “chosen instrument” to bring societies based on “peace, liberty and justice” into existence around the world.¹⁴ In the nineteenth century, many Americans became convinced of the “Manifest Destiny” of the United States to carry the torch of liberty throughout the world. It is impossible to divorce these ideologies of nationalist messianism from the nationalist movements that appeared in Europe after the French Revolution of 1789. Students of nationalism have long associated it with industrialization and urbanization. A prominent nineteenth-century advocate of the view that revolutionary France was “chosen to lead and enlighten the world” was Jules Michelet.¹⁵ Giuseppe Mazzini saw the Messiah in the Italian people.¹⁶

In the nationalist and messianist movements of the Slav peoples, German ideas were influential. Johann G.Herder, a German romantic, proclaimed in 1784 that the Slavs were to be the leaders of Europe. This was because of their rural occupation, their unspoilt backwardness, their peace-loving disposition and lack of ambition to rule, which at that time meant that many of them were living under a foreign yoke. He looked forward to their future emancipation. Another German, Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) claimed that God had given each people a particular mission. These ideas were taken up by the Russian Slavophils, but before them by thinkers from those Slav peoples that were more culturally oriented to the West. When Tsar Nicholas I crushed the 1831 Polish rising, the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz depicted Poland as the “Christ of the nations”¹⁷:

And they martyred the Polish people and laid it in the grave, and its soul descended into darkness.
But on the third day the soul shall return to the body and the nation shall rise from the dead and free all the peoples of Europe from slavery.¹⁸

In conclusion, it seems true to say that almost every national group in nineteenth-century Europe, as well as the Americans, found their “prophets” who informed the group that it had been chosen for a particular mission.¹⁹ It is worth remembering this before beginning the discussion of Russian messianism.

Moscow, the Third Rome

In the second half of the fifteenth century and the early sixteenth century, the idea developed that Moscow had a unique religious and political mission as the successor to Rome and Byzantium. The earliest surviving formulation of this idea is probably that in a letter by the monk Filofei (Philotheus), the elder (starets) of Eleazarov monastery in Pskov, written in...