Vladimir Soloviev on Nationalism

Abstract

The name of Vladimir Soloviev, insofar as it is familiar to the Western world, is known as that of a philosopher and religious thinker. 1 This was, of course, the field in which he was particularly prominent. Russia can boast only a few formal philosophers (as distinguished from philosophizing novelists, poets or historians), and among those Soloviev is probably the most outstanding. Moreover, in the history of modern Russian religious thought, he occupies a central position, serving as a connecting link between the mid-nineteenth century Slavophils and such contemporary writers as Berdiaev and Bulgakov.But Soloviev's was a versatile and many-sided nature, and many other aspects of his life and activity deserve attention and study. He wrote interpretive essays on Russian poetry, some of which were landmarks in Russian literary criticism, and he was a poet himself-not a great poet, perhaps, but one with a strongly marked individual character. His poetry as well as his unusual personality exercised a strong influence upon the Russian symbolists of the early twentieth century. He was a mystic and had apocalyptic visions of the impending coming of the Antichrist, and yet he was deeply concerned with various political and social problems of his age, including such "earthly" subjects as the progressive deforestation of European Russia.There was a period in his life when he seemed even to be primarily concerned with the "evil of the day." This was during the reign of Alexander III (1881-1894). Two problems of Russian life engaged Soloviev's attention at that time. One was the revolutionary movement in the country, particularly in its radical terrorist phase (Soloviev was deeply shocked by the assassination of Alexander II in March of 1881), and the other was the growth of nationalism in Russian public 1 The following general works on Soloviev are available in Western languages: Michel d'Herbigny, Un Nertman russe: Vladimir Soloviev (Paris, 1911); Georg Sacke, W. S. SolomjeTDS Ceschichtsphilosophie (Berlin, 1929); D . Stremooukhoff, Vladimir Soloviev ef son oeuvre messianique (Paris, 1935); Nicholas Zernov, Three Russian Prophets: Khomialiov, Dostoevj^ij, Soloviev (London, 1944); Peter P. Zouboff, Vladimir Solovyev on Codmanhood (New York, 1944). None of these deals specifically with the subject of the present article.183