What Was Leont’ev to Rozanov?

Abstract

Vasili Rozanov(1856-1919) and Konstantin Leont'ev (1831-1891) never met: Leont'ev died in 1891 when Rozanov, at age thirty-seven, was just embarking on his second career as a literary and cultural critic.1 They maintained, however, a heart-to-heart, confidential correspondence2 during the last year of Leont'ev's life. (Leont'ev almost begged Rozanov to visit him and he generously offered to pay Rozanov's travel expenses but Rozanov never consented to take the trip to the monastery in Optina Pustyn' where Leont'ev lived 3). Zoreslava Kushner Kaulbach remarked that in reading Leontev's correspondence with Rozanov one gets the impression of two equally egotistic and somewhat vain authors talking, complimenting each other on their mutual understanding.4 Indeed, Rozanov and Leont'ev passionately eulogized each other in their epistles and unabashedly pounded their literary acquaintances and friends. Rozanov took Leont'ev's side in his squabbles with Vladimir Solov'ev, Tolstoy, and other writers; he even favored him over Strakhov, his literary mentor and patron. 5 In his first letter to Leont'ev, Rozanov assured the old philosopher that he loved and understood him as much as Leont'ev loved and understood himself. ...But just as love and understand yourself,so also I not only respect but also love and understand you (Sochineniia, 469). This forthright declaration of affection undoubtedly made Leont'ev think of Rozanov as his disciple and even soulmate. 6 One may be somewhat surprised by Rozanov's unctuous tone in his correspondence with Leont'ev. However, even if overstated and embellished, his acclaim of the philosopher was sincere. Throughout his life, Rozanov expressed sympathy with Leont'ev as unappreciated genius who suffered and bitterly complained of a stifling lack of response to his work from the contemporaries. Rozanov explained Leont'ev's isolation by his intellectual independence and unorthodox conservatism. He contrasted Leont'ev's unhappy lot, similar, in his opinion, to that of Dostoyevskii and Strakhov, to the fortuitous fate of Vladimir Soloviev and other left-wing authors spoilt by the enthusiastic support from the public. Rozanov claimed that Leont'ev's isolation was complete because his fellow conservatives, Strakhov and Rachinskii, 7 were repulsed by his homosexuality and surreptitiously avoided him (Izgnanniki, 324). Rozanov, of course, did not just commiserate with Leont'ev. He expressed his admiration for Leont'ev's personality, he extolled Leont'ev's radical brand of conservatism (which he thought was akin to his own), and he praised the writer as a precursor of Russian modernism. Rozanov was particularly impressed with Leont'ev's style, which he described as being intriguingly detached from the reader. He wrote to Leont'ev: The reader, of course, stands somewhere nearby, in the vicinity, but do not see him-and talk to yourself, From this comes the inexpressible charm of your language, these fragmentary, dry and exact phrases, that are often (grammatically) an extended predicate or an extended definition, for instance, in your characterization of Turgenev (I mention it because I was immeasurably astonished by your syntax that I like very much although it is, of course, inimitable, 'non-transferable') (Sochineniia, 466). This characterization of Leont'ev's style is reminiscent of Rozanov's proclamation at the beginning of Uedinennoe (1911), the first part of his famous trilogy,8 that he no longer writes for the reader but for himself and some unknown friends (U, 4). Rozanov's evolution from his first speculative tract On Understanding, influenced by Kant and Hegel, to the capricious decadent style and sensibilities of the trilogy was inspired by Leont'ev. Although Rozanov avidly promoted Leont'ev as an ally, a friend and an ideological maverick like himself, he also caustically criticized the philosopher. Those critics who described Rozanov as Leont'ev's unwavering apostle (according to Stephen Lukashevich, Rozanov Worshipped Leont'ev's work unconditionally9 ) were certainly taken in by the great master of double entendre and tongue-in-cheek. …