Вестник Екатеринбургской духовной семинарии (Feb 2022)
Materials on the History of L. P. Karsavin’s Activities in the Eurasian Organization (1924–1929)
Abstract
Before the tragic events of 1917, Lev Platonovich Karsavin had never concerned political work, and only once in a letter to I. M. Grevs, his teacher, L. Karsavin wrote about his own sympathies for the Constitutional Democratic Party. However, since 1918, he has been participating in the manifestly anti-Bolshevik church-social life of Petrograd, delivering sermons in Orthodox churches, giving lectures and hiding church valuables of Catholic churches from seizures made by the Bolsheviks in his university apartment, where he also shelters (risking the lives of all his family members) A. V. Kartashev, released from the Peter and Paul Fortress until his leaving for Finland; besides, L. Karsavin became professor at the Petrograd Theological Institute and held the post of its rector for a short time. To study the works of medieval mystics, a circle of young scientists and students regularly gathered at the apartment of L. P. Karsavin. The deportation to Germany that followed in November 1922 disrupted the newly-formed course of Karsavin’s life. A group of young people interested in the commentary reading of the Gospel started gathering around Lev Platonovich. However, Karsavin could not get a permanent place in any German institution and had to work as a teacher at the Russian Scientific Institute in Berlin, which did not provide the vital needs for the family of 5 persons. The invitation to cooperate with the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute being organized at that time in Paris, encouraged and attracted L. P. Karsavin, judging by the surviving documents, but the payment offered there was also insufficient. Under the current conditions, Lev Karsavin was forced to accept the proposal to join the work in the newly established Eurasian Organization, which guaranteed him a sufficient income, although such an agreement even more than in the previous three years distanced him from his usual and beloved sphere of professional creativity to study the Western European Middle Ages. He had to devote a significant part of his time to the “non-objective philosophizing”, as he later defined it. In a short time, Lev Platonovich, settled in Clamart, succeeded in organizing his own Eurasian circle, the direction of which differed significantly from the Prague Eurasianism. It was L. P. Karsavin who, on behalf of the Eurasian Organization, composed the first and most reasonable exposition of the new doctrine — Eurasianism. The Experience of Systematic Presentation. Most significant interest and notable controversy were caused by his writings dedicated to the place of Orthodox Church in the future Eurasian reorganization of Russian state. By the time Lev Karsavin left for the Republic of Lithuania, the activity of his Eurasian work was significantly reduced, however, having already settled in Kaunas, he continued to write for the Eurasian newspaper published in Clamart, and gave several lectures on the Eurasian movement to Russian and Lithuanian audiences in Vilnius. By the middle of 1929, his Eurasian activity was coming to an end. The obvious reduction in the Eurasian course, which did not receive sufficient recognition among the Russian diaspora, caused both by some obscurity of the new political doctrine itself and by the cessation of funding from private British philanthropists for the so-called Eurasian Party, prompted Lev Platonovich to summarize his own reflections on the content of Eurasian ideas and their place in a possible future reorganization of Russia. The below published text was sent by L. P. Karsavin to his Eurasian co-workers, but it was never issued. It is difficult to say whether the author himself intended to publish it.
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