One Page from the Diaries of Alexandra Schmemann: about (not)the Possibility of a Golden Age

Abstract

The subject of the study is the reflections of prot. Alexander Schmeman on the fate of Russia and the Church in exile. The image of pre-revolutionary Russia, having survived the processes of recommoration, takes on the features of the golden age, becoming an ideal space in memory, the story of which is based on "memory points" - oral and written speech, traditions, a narrative about the lost homeland. It is impossible to ignore the image of the Russian Church, which is also being idealized, becoming a universal Church from a strictly national Church, which leads to the substitution of the foundations of Christianity and Orthodoxy. With the beginning of emigration, there is a transfer of space (translatio imperii) – and this is accompanied by a decrease in the amount of space and a rupture of history, which just provokes the priority of the national, since the national becomes borders, a house with its walls, a promise of inviolability, an appeal to history, in particular to the history of the Church, can be understood as a work that results in the liberation of a person from incessant looking back at the past as the only true and lasting "place". With the help of the work of understanding, one can achieve the removal of time and, having passed this path, go out to the timeless, infinite, in order to see the true Church. The problem of understanding the concept of the lost Homeland in the historical consciousness of the first wave of Russian emigration is extremely important, since the choice of a certain mode creates a particular narrative in which the paths leading from the "transcendent" golden age to the fate of the real space - Russia today are revealed.