Russian philosopher (1794?1856)
Pyotr
or
Petr Yakovlevich Chaadayev
(
Russian
:
Пётр Я?ковлевич Чаада?ев
; also spelled
Chaadaev
, or
?aadajev
; 7 June [27 May
O.S.
] 1794 ? 26 April [14 April O.S.] 1856) was a Russian
philosopher
. He was one of the
Russian Schellingians
.
[1]
Chaadayev wrote eight "Philosophical Letters"
[2]
about Russia in French between 1826 and 1831, which circulated among intellectuals in Russia in manuscript form for many years. They comprise an indictment of Russian culture for its laggard role far behind the leaders of
Western civilization
. He cast doubt on the greatness of the Russian past, and ridiculed Orthodoxy for failing to provide a sound spiritual basis for the Russian mind. He extolled the achievements of Europe, especially in rational and logical thought, its progressive spirit, its leadership in science, and indeed its leadership on the path to freedom. The Russian government saw his ideas as dangerous and unsound. After some were published, they were all banned by the censorship process. Because there was nothing to charge him with, Chaadayev was declared legally insane and put under constant medical supervision, though this was a formality rather than a real administrative abuse.
[3]
Biography
[
edit
]
Chaadayev was born and died in
Moscow
. The familty name of the
Chaadayevs
[
ru
]
probably derives from the Turkic word
Cha?adai
,
[4]
[5]
[6]
with the name deriving from
Chagatay
, the second son of
Genghis Khan
.
[7]
(The Mongol name
Chagatay
means "bold", "honourable" or "true".
[8]
)
After leaving
Moscow University
without completing his course in 1812, he entered the army and fought against the 1812
French invasion of Russia
.
Chaadaev's first-hand observation of Emperor
Alexander
's reaction to the
Semyonovsky revolt
[
ru
]
in the
Semenovsky regiment
(in which Chaadayev had previously served) in October 1820 may
[
original research?
]
have led to his resignation from service in December 1820. From 1823 to 1826 he travelled in Europe, so he was out of Russia during the 1825
Decembrist
insurrection, though he was questioned on his return about his connections with many of the Decembrists. These connections may have contributed to his failure to find a position in the new administration of Emperor
Nicholas I
(
r.
1825?1855
).
Chaadayev befriended
Alexander Pushkin
(1799?1837) and became a model for
Chatsky
, the chief protagonist of
Alexander Griboyedov
's play
Woe from Wit
(1824). During the 1840s Chaadayev was an active participant in Moscow literary circles.
Philosophy
[
edit
]
The main thesis of his famous
Philosophical Letters
was that Russia had lagged behind Western countries and had contributed nothing to the world's progress and concluded that Russia must start de novo. As a result, they included criticism of Russia's intellectual isolation and social backwardness.
[2]
When in 1836 the first edition (and only one published during his life)
[2]
of the philosophical letters was published in the Russian magazine Telescope, its editor was exiled to the Far North of Russia. The
Slavophiles
at first mistook Chaadayev for one of them, but later, on realizing their mistake, bitterly denounced and disclaimed him. Chaadayev fought Slavophilism all of his life. His first Philosophical Letter has been labeled the "opening shot" of the
Westernizer-Slavophile
controversy which was dominant in Russian social thought of the nineteenth century.
[2]
He wrote in his "first letter":
We are an exception among people. We belong to those who are not an integral part of humanity but exist only to teach the world some type of great lesson.
The strikingly uncomplimentary views of Russia in the first philosophical letter caused their author to be declared "clinically insane" because he criticized the regime of Tsar Nicholas I. The 1836 case of Pyotr is believed to be the first recorded incident where psychiatry was used in Russia to suppress dissent.
[9]
Living under house arrest following his declaration of insanity, Chaadayev's next work was entitled, fittingly, "Apologie d'un Fou" [which has been translated as "
Apology
of a Madman" but may better be translated as "
Apologia
of a Madman"] (1837). It opens with a quote from
Samuel Coleridge
stating "O my brethren! I have told/ Most bitter truth, but without bitterness."
[10]
In this brilliant but uncompleted work he maintained that Russia must follow her inner lines of development if she was to be true to her historical mission.
His ideas influenced both the Westernizers (who supported bringing Russia into accord with developments in Europe by way of various degrees of liberal reform) and Slavophiles (who supported Russian Orthodoxy and national culture.)
[2]
Most of his works have been edited by his biographer,
Mikhail Gershenzon
(two volumes, Moscow, 1913?14), whose study of the
philosopher
was published at
St. Petersburg
in 1908.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(1998):
"Schellingianism, Russian"
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
Pevear, Richard; Volokhonsky, Larissa, eds. (1975), written at Leningrad,
"Commentaries on Demons by Fyodor Dostoevsky"
,
Soviet Academy of Sciences
,
12
, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. (published 1994):
715
,
ISBN
0-679-42314-1
- ^
Yuri Glazov, "Chaadaev and Russia's destiny." Studies in East European Thought 32.4 (1986): 281-301.
- ^
J. J. Saunders (2001).
The History of the Mongol Conquests
. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 247.
ISBN
978-0-8122-1766-7
.
- ^
Charles J. Halperin,
Russia and the Golden Horde: The Mongol Impact on Medieval Russian History
, Indiana University Press (1987), p. 112
- ^
Stefan Berger & Alexei Miller,
Nationalizing Empires
, Central European University Press (2015), p. 312
- ^
Thomas Riha,
Readings in Russian Civilization, Volume 1: Russia Before Peter the Great, 900-1700
, University of Chicago Press (2009), p. 191
- ^
Baskakov, Nikolai Aleksandrovich
(1993) [1979].
Russkie familii tyurskogo proizkhzhdeniya
Русские фамилии тюрского происхождениия
[
Russian surnames of Turkic origin
] (in Russian) (2 ed.). Мишель. pp. 223?224.
ISBN
9785020177574
. Retrieved
1 February
2023
.
- ^
Gordon Thomas
,
Journey Into Madness: Medical Torture and the Mind Controllers
(1988)
- ^
Peter Iakovlevich Chaadaev, Sochineniia i pis'ma, ed M. Gershenzon, Moscow, 1913
Sources
[
edit
]
- This article incorporates text from the
New International Encyclopedia
, a work which is now in the public domain.
- lazov, Yuri. "Chaadaev and Russia's destiny."
Studies in East European Thought
32.4 (1986): 281-301.
- McNally, Raymond T. "The Significance of Chaadayev's Weltanschauung."
Russian Review
23.4 (1964): 352-361.
online
- M.A. Mendosa,
Uno scrittore russo del primo ’800: Petr Jakovlevi? ?aadaev
, Mantova: Universitas Studiorum, 2014,
ISBN
978-88-97683-50-6
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