Pavel Florenskii i simvolisty. Opyty literaturnye. Stat'i. Perepiska by E. V. s> Ivanova (review)

Abstract

740 SEER, 83, 4, 2005 Ivanova, E. V. (ed.). Pavel Florenskii i simvolisty. Opyty literaturnye. Stat'i.Perepisk:a. Sostavlenie, podgotovka tekstov i kommentarii E. V. Ivanovoi. lazyki slavianskoikul'tury,Moscow, 2004. 670 pp. Illustrations.Notes. Bibliographicalreferences .Tables. Index. Priceunknown. A treasure-chest of hitherto unpublished and partially published materials, this book affords new insights into Florenskii'spath from rebellion agairnst determinism and positivism through an exalte, lyricalphase of 'god-seeking' to the heart of the Russian Orthodox Church. Particularlyover the yeaLrs 1904-05, this path crossedand re-crosseddiverseways troddenby individual RussianSymbolistsand, as he alwaysacknowledged,could scarcelyhave been embarked upon without the impetus of the movement as whole. It was t:he Symbolists,he wrote to K. N. Kiselev in I9I9, who cleared the way for that mighty whirlwindfrom another life to which, 'in spite of differencesof detail and technique, we shouldhold fastas to the mostpreciousachievement of our time' (Sochineniia, I, p. 367). Unfortunately, this book, the declared aim of which is to assemble 'all known materials relevant to Florenskii and the symbolists' (p. I 2), is not a neutralcontributionto knowledge.Florenskiihasbecome abone ofcontention to at least three factions:those who find him too European to be Orthodox; those who maintain his exemplary and unquestioning Orthodoxy; and those who, at their most extreme, depict him as an anti-Western, reactionary Savanorola-figure,a 'neanderthal in a cowl'. These polemics should not be allowed to become self-perpetuating;under their influence the enquiring mind, free and bold in its quest for truthfor its own sake,investigativerather than didactic, is selectivelyadapted to this or that point of view;the thinkeris diminished; the man demeaned. In the 'Zapisnaia tetrad' (I904-05)', a diary of impressions,observationsand 'workin progress'publishedhere for the first time (pp. 323-429), Florenskiinotes that the peasantshe met and talkedwlith on vacation in the Volga regions 'lookat the world objectively,as a child does [... .]. Only for the child or the old hermit,the peasant or the philosopher,is it possible to go straightto the heart of the matter and not make plausibleplay with facts and theories, adapting them to preconceived desiderata of "class truth",the kindof truththatwill serveforself-justificationand thejustification of one's own existence' (p. 406). Florenskiihimself never took up pen in selfdefence and the agendabehind thebook underreviewwould have been betiter confined to polemical articles such as the editor's spirited 'Nasledie o Pavla Florenskogo:a sud'i kto?' in the Proet Contra series published by RkhGI (St Petersburg, I996, pp. 609-24). E. V. Ivanova, though equally qualified as a specialist on Florenskiiand on Russian Symbolists, appears to see it as her duty to protect the former from the latter, claiming in the introduction that, throughthe close earlyassociationso well documented in thisbook, the future priest 'acquiredimmunity from certain errorsrife among the symbolistsand the religiously inclined intelligentsia' (p. I2). To this end, in the section 'Dubia', she republishes the much discussed, judgemental 1926 article 'O Bloke' 'as a distinctive "post-scriptum"to the theme "Florenskii and the symbolists"' (p. 14). This article was first published as the work of an anonymous but deceased 'Petrogradpriest' by Berdiaev in Put' (26, 1931, REVIEWS 74I pp. 86-i o8) and then (in ignorance of the original publication, from a typescripton which someone had written Florenskii'sname and which is said to have reached Parisvia Harbin)by Nikita Struvein Vestnik RK/zD,I I4, I974, pp. I69-92 as 'by Florensky'. The attribution was questioned by P. V. Florenskii on the basis of there being no trace of it, or of any preparatory work,in his grandfather'sarchive.The authorof thisreviewexpresseddoubts on the grounds of style and content (Blokovskii sbornik,I2, Tartu, I993, pp. 54-79) and N. A. Fateevput the case for the more probable authorshipof the hard-pressed losiflianin Father Fiodor Andreev, a friend and pupil of Florenskii's who was a Petrograd priest, who did die before the 1931 publication and who had good reason at the time to combat the near-iconic status accorded to Blok by the Obnovlentsy, confusing literature, theology and politics ratherthan institutinga dialogue between cult and cultureas was the way of his teacher (see Trudy gosodarstvennogo muzeiaistoriiSankt-Peterburga, Vyp. 4, SP6, I999, pp. 269-87...