Aleksey Khomyakov’s Heritage in the Light of Historiography: Milestones of Conceptual Understanding

Abstract

The article considers the milestones of the historiography of Aleksey Khomyakov’s heritage from the end of the 19th century to the present day. Priority is given to works of independent theoretical and conceptual value. The article reveals the special character of the very fi rst studies of Khomyakov’s works dating back to 1870s1880s with particular attention paid to his religious views. The article analyzes the fi rst attempts to point out the importance of the philosopher’s socio-political positions. The article considers the essential features of works by Iu. F. Samarin, A. V. Gorsky, V. S. Solovyov, P. I. Linitsky, N. P. Kolyupanov, K. N. Leontiev, V. N. Lyaskovsky and E. А. Lebedeva. Khomyakov’s early views were shown to be criticized by Solovyov, Leontiev and Linitsky as not quite Orthodox ones. At the same time, the 1890s and 1900s witnessed a wave of apologetic monographs and articles on Khomyakov, canonizing his image as “the teacher of the Church” (books by Kolyupanov, Lyaskovsky and Lebedeva). The article analyzes the fundamental works on Khomyakov dating back to the beginning of the 20th century, written by V. Z. Zavitnevich, N. A. Berdyaev, P. A. Florensky and B. Shcheglov. The three-volume work by Zavitnevich appeared to be rather a compilation of biographical details than an independent apologetic writing, and so was subjected to fruitful critical discussion by Florensky and Berdyaev. Shcheglov’s monograph, published in 1917 and left unfi nished, summed up the pre-revolutionary stage in the research of A. S. Khomyakov’s views. The article presents an essay on the history of the study of Khomyakov’s heritage in the Russian expatriate community. Estimates of Khomyakov’s apologia are given in the works by Fr. Georges Florovsky and Nicolas Zernov. The fundamental signifi cance of the work by the Polish researcher Andrzej Valitsky is shown to be a turning point in Khomyakov’s historiography. The features of monographs by Soviet historians of the 80s are also considered. Their contribution to clarifying the socioeconomic position of Khomyakov, his participation in the peasant reform, his specifi c position between the conservative autocracy and the moderate liberal opposition is also evaluated. The article demonstrates the inconsistency and vagueness of terminological defi nitions in Khomyakov’s socio-political position among Soviet researchers, which reached critical proportions in Yankovsky’s theory of “the patriarchal liberal utopia” of Slavophiles. Attention is paid to the shift of emphasis in Russian and foreign works on Khomyakov in the post-Soviet period. Based on the analysis of the articles written in 2019–2021, conclusions are drawn about the current trends in the development of the history of the study of Khomyakov’s heritage.