Ivan Ilyin | |
|---|---|
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| Born | Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyin 9 April 1883 |
| Died | 21 December 1954(1954-12-21) (aged 71) |
| Education | |
| Alma mater | Moscow State University |
| Philosophical work | |
| Era | 20th-century philosophy |
| Region | Political andreligious philosophy |
| Signature | |
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Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyin (Russian:Иван Александрович Ильин,romanized: Ivan Aleksandrovich Il'in; 9 April [O.S. 28 March] 1883 – 21 December 1954) was a Russian jurist, religious andpolitical philosopher, publicist,orator, and afar-right[1][2][3] thinker.
Ilyin began his career as a political writer during the failed1905 Russian Revolution; by theFebruary Revolution of 1917, which he later saw as a "temporary disorder", he shifted towards liberalism, and by October he became a radical right opponent of democracy.October Revolution, in his view, marked a "national catastrophe". This conviction led him to oppose theBolshevik regime.[4][2] As awhite émigré journalist, he aligned himself withSlavophile beliefs and emerging as a key ideologue of theRussian All-Military Union. This organization firmly believed that force stood as the sole means through which the Soviet regime could be toppled.[5]
Ananti-communist,[6][1] he found himself admiring ofItalian fascism andBenito Mussolini and initially, sympathetic toAdolf Hitler andNazism; yet, his attitude critical oftotalitarianism, which he distinguished from his own concept of fascism,[2][1] was not embraced by the Nazi regime. In 1934, his refusal to comply with Nazi directives to spreadpropaganda led to his dismissal from theRussian Academic Institute, stripping him of employment opportunities.[7] Financial support fromSergei Rachmaninoff in 1938 allowed Ilyin to remain in Switzerland albeit barred from work or political engagement.[8] This phase of restriction led him to delve deeper into studies encompassing aesthetics, ethics, and psychology.[9]
Despite battling chronic illness, Ilyin wrote over 40 books and numerous articles in Russian and German. His works predominantly revolved around religion and Russia, although he diverged fromVladimir Solovyov's (with whom theRussian religious and philosophical Renaissance of the early 20th century is usually associated) ideology, which advocates a globaltheocracy.[4] Instead, Ilyin championed apatriarchal model of governance for Russia, rooted onOrthodoxy and faith in theautocratic tsar, distinguishing between autocracy andtyranny.[10][11][12] His writings echoed calls forheroism and moralaristocracy,[13] while cementing his role as a proponent of the proposition of existence of WesternRussophobia.[14]
Remaining true toRight Hegelianism throughout his life, Ilyin explored themes ofstatehood, law, and power inworld history.[15] He opposedfederalism and neutrality,[16] and disdained Westernanalytic philosophy. As anultranationalist, Ilyin was a critic ofWestern-style democracy, advocating instead for a government aligned with Russia's autocratic heritage.[17][18]
Ilyin's views on Russia's social structure and world history influenced somepost-Soviet intellectuals and politicians, including Soviet dissidentAleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Russian presidentVladimir Putin.[19][20][21][22]
Ivan Ilyin was born in an aristocratic family claimingRurikid descent. Ilyin's grandfather was a military man who moved to Moscow, where he became a civil engineer. His last job was as commandant of theGrand Kremlin Palace and gates. His father, Alexander Ivanovich Ilyin (1851-1921), was born and raised in the palace and a lawyer at the Moscow District Court. Ilyin's mother, Caroline Louise née Schweikert (1858-1942), was ofGerman Russian descent and confessingLutheran. To be able to marry Alexander Ilyin in 1880 she converted toRussian Orthodoxy and took the name Yekaterina Yulyevna.
Ivan Ilyin was brought up in the center of Moscow inKhamovniki District.[23] He was educated at the 1st Moscow Gymnasium in 1901 and entered the Law faculty of theMoscow State University but would rather have studied history. Ilyin wrote as well in German as in Russian and masteredChurch Slavonic. He studiedPlato's Ideal State and Kant'sThing-in-itself. Ilyin became a political radical during his student days and supported thefreedom of assembly.[13] In 1904, he took part in a student march, was arrested, and spent a month in prison.[24] The events of theFirst Russian Revolution and theOctober Manifesto were reflected in his pamphlets "Freedom of Assembly and popular Representation" (a way ofpublic participation in politics), "What is aPolitical Party", "FromRussian Antiquity: The Revolt ofStenka Razin". Ilyin produced them under the pseudonym "Nikolai Ivanov".[25]
Under influence ofPavel Novgorodtsev Ilyin became interested in thephilosophy of law.[a] In 1906, Ilyin graduated and married Natalia Nikolaevna Vokach (1882-1963) inBykovo. She was a translator, art-historian and niece ofSergei Muromtsev, a Kadet and chairman of theFirst Duma. Ilyin worked with Natalia on a translation of"Anarchism" byPaul Eltzbacher and a treatise byJean-Jacques Rousseau ("Idea of theGeneral will") which were never published. From 1909 he began working as aprivatdozent. (In the same year Lenin published hisMaterialism and Empirio-criticism under the pseudonym Vl. Ilyin).
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In January 1911,KnyazEvgenii Troubetzkoy, along with a large group of professors, left Moscow University as a sign of disagreement with the government's violation of the principles of university autonomy.[24] Ilyin moved to Western Europe (Heidelberg, Freiburg, Berlin, Göttingen and Paris) studying the latest trends in European philosophy including:philosophy of life andphenomenology influenced byHusserl, who concentrated on the ideal, essential structures ofconsciousness;Scheler, who published "The Nature ofSympathy";Fichte andSchelling onAbsolute idealism. Meanwhile, Ilyin worked on his thesis"Crisis of rationalistic philosophy in Germany in the 19th century" which he never finished. In May 1912 he returned to work at the university and delivered a series of lectures called"Introduction to the Philosophy of Law". Novgorodtsev offered to have an Ilyin lecture on the theory ofpublic law at theMoscow Commercial Institute.
In 1913 it appears that the couple broke with their relatives and met withLeo Tolstoy, according toKonstantin Krylov.[24] Ilyin was known as being extremely intolerant towardsAndrei Bely, who called him "mentally insane".[26][27] For six weeks in 1914 Ilyin and his wife paid visits toSigmund Freud.
During theJuly Crisis, Ilyin was forced to leave and his writings were confiscated at the outbreak of the First World War. After returning from Vienna, Ilyin was obsessed with psychoanalysis, diagnosing everything and everyone in Freudian terms, reducing every personal problem to neurotic symptoms, and according to one observer, psychoanalyzing every little gesture of those around him.[28] The two became pioneers of the psychoanalytic movement in Russia.[29][30] He began to develop a career as a writer and public figure.[31]
After the breakout of World War I, Evgeny Trubetskoy, once a member of theParty of Peaceful Renovation, arranged a series of public lectures devoted to the "ideology of war". Ilyin contributed to this with several lectures, the first of which was called"The Spiritual Meaning of the War" (1915).[33] He believed that since Russia had already been involved in the war, the duty of every Russian was to support his country to the end. During theApril Crisis (1917) he agreed with theKadet Minister of Foreign AffairsPavel Milyukov who staunchly opposedPetrograd Soviet demands for peace at any cost. In the summer of 1917, he published the pamphlets "The Party program andmaximalism", "On the term of convocation of the Constituent Assembly", "Order or disorder?", "Demagogy and provocation", and "Why not continue the war?"[25]
At first, Ilyin perceived theFebruary Revolution as the liberation of the people. Along with many other intellectuals, he generally approved of it and supported theRussian Provisional Government. However, he was gradually disappointed and by the time theOctober Revolution had completed, viewed it as a catastrophe.[34] TheMoscow State Conference convened by Kerensky's Second Government was attended by actual and former Duma members, representatives of all major political parties, commercial and industrial organizations, the unions, army and academic institutions.[35] Ilyin warned the audience, about 2,600 people, "The revolution turned into self-interested plundering of the state". In the autumn, he wrote under the pseudonym Justus "Where is revolutionary democracy going?", "Mr. Kerensky's refusal", "What to expect?", "Nightmare", and "Who are they?"[25]
In February 1918 Ilyin gave a public lecture on patriotism: the lack among the Russian people of a maturelegal consciousness.[36] In March theTreaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed. In April Ilyin was arrested and accused of financially supporting avoluntary army in Moscow and having visitedAndrey Avinoff, supporting the Imperial Army. The case was initiated byFelix Dzerzhinsky.[37] The money he had received, Ilyin said, was destined for publishing:"The Philosophy of Hegel as a Doctrine of the Concreteness of God and Humanity".[38] He was in theButyrka prisondungeons for about a week but developed serious health problems; Ilyin seems to have developed bronchitis that needed treatment. He was released for lack of evidence and allowed to give lectures and defend his thesis.[37] For three weeks Ilyin was bedridden; Novgorodtsev's apartment was searched on the eve of the defence.
On 19 May, Ilyin received two degrees.[39] However, the publisher Lehman-Abrikosov made a generous gesture and offered to publish the two-volume book for free – so Ilyin returned the money to the sponsor Bary & Co. This two-volume dissertation (a provocative interpretation of Hegel) published in the revolutionary chaos of 1918, is considered one of the best commentaries onHegel's philosophy, also byVladimir Lenin.[4][40][b] Even in the preface, Ilyin notes that Hegel is primarily an intuitionist (and not a logician or, even more so, a rationalist), and in the future, all of Ilyin's thought is based on this idea.
He was an opponent of theRussian spelling reform of 1918 and continued to use pre-reform spelling.
Ilyin became a professor of law in Moscow University. As was customary among Russian religious thinkers, he lectured at the Moscow higher women's courses.[15] He was imprisoned between 11 and 24 August, but released with the help ofIvan Yakovlev's son. On 19 December, Ilyin received asummons to appear at a meeting of theRevolutionary Tribunal (non-recognition of Soviet power).[37] In 1919 Ilyin wrote: "In Moscow, the winter is fierce, there is no firewood, we are hungry. They have already taken me to Cheka three times – and tried in a tribunal "for preparing an armed uprising".[23]
Ilyin's ability to hate, despise, insult ideological opponents was particularly pronounced.[42] Ilyin was again imprisoned in 1919, February 1920 and September 1922 for alleged anti-communist activity. He, along with many other "irreconcilable" anti-Bolshevik intellectuals, was condemned to execution, and then forcibly exiled.[38][43] On 29 September some 160 prominent intellectuals and their families were expelled (at their own expense and not allowed to return without the permission of the Soviet authorities) on a so-called "philosophers' ship" fromPetrograd toStettin, where they arrived on 2 October.
TheTreaty of Rapallo (1922) between the German Republic and Soviet Russia opened friendly diplomatic relations. In February 1923, the Russian Scientific Institute (RSI) was founded in Berlin; funded by theYMCA.[46] Ilyin delivered a topical speech "Problems of ModernLegal Consciousness".[47] The RSI wasn't an educational institute; there were occasional lectures on Russian history, literature, law and other areas of Russian culture inSchinkel's Bauakademie.[48] In 1923 Wrangel contacted Ilyin in the hope of arranging enrolment in the Institution for "about 300 of young Russian men ...".[49] In July he lost his Russian citizenship for anti-Soviet activities abroad.[50] It was the notorious year ofhyperinflation in the Weimar Republic in October and the failedBeer Hall Putsch in November. The institute was going through a severe financial crisis. Due to invitations from the Czech government and offers from American universities, the number of employees soon thinned significantly. Ilyin briefly cooperated withNikolai Berdyaev onRussian Religious Renaissance but thephilosopher of love moved to Paris and Novgorodtsev moved to Prague.
In 1924, theRussian All-Military Union was founded; Ilyin metPyotr Wrangel atSeeon Abbey, a center of anti-Bolshevik activities.[51][52] Wrangel was told to abandon his (military) adventures.[53] Ilyin became part of Wrangel's inner circle; not every Russian was charmed by Wrangel's personality.[54]
In July 1924 Ilyin visited Italy for his health; his portrait ofBenito Mussolini was sympathetic but not uncritical.[13]
"... his policy is plastic, prominent: it consists of personal actions, bright, complete, original and often unexpected from the outside; but these personal actions are always at the same time the actions of the masses led by him, and, moreover, organized, and in the course of still being organized, actions. Mussolini has the gift of a political sculptor, the original, completing daring of the Michelangelo tradition.[55]
In his bookOn resisting evil by force (1925) Ilyin advocated the use of violence in the struggle against Bolshevism, which he regarded asdespotism or "left totalitarianism". Ilyin argued that war was sometimes necessary, but never 'just'.[56] Far from supporting holy war, Ilyin in fact wrote that "all my research proves that the sword is not 'holy' and not 'just'."[57] He criticized the anarchist ideology of Tolstoy and pacifisttolstoyism.[58][13] Ilyin called for the courage to "arrest, condemn, and shoot", whichMaxim Gorky called a "gospel of revenge" and Berdyaev compared to a "Cheka of God" and "legalism devoid of grace".[59] ForZinaida Gippius his book was "military field theology"; according to her "this is not a philosopher who writes books, not a publicist who writes feuilletons: it's a man possessedrunning amok."[60] The book divided the Russian émigrés with its dedication to veterans of theWhite movement. In 1926 he bitterly wrote about the loss of the Motherland. Ilyin became the unofficial ideologue of theWhite émigrés who gathered in Paris.
Between 1927 and 1930 Ilyin was a publisher and editor of the journalRusskiy Kolokol.[61] He actively published in right-wing conservative newspapers.[62][63]
During the1920s more than 300,000 Russians lived in Berlin. There were three daily newspapers and five weeklies. Seventeen Russian publishing houses had sprung up within a single year.[64] Ilyin lectured in Germany and other European countries and would give 200 speeches.[65] In 1930 theNational Alliance of Russian Solidarists was founded in Belgrade and became popular in France. It rejected both Bolshevism andliberal capitalism and embraced Russian patriotism.
In 1932 only about 60,000 Russian emigrants were living in Germany and in Berlin the number of émigrés was 8,320.[66] The activity of the RSI gradually slowed down due to a decrease in the number of Russian-speaking students. There were difficulties in maintaining this large institution, and it was liquidated.[67] It became impossible to be employed as either a writer or a lecturer.[68]
On 27 February, theReichstag building was set on fire. Göring blamed a communist plot. TheReichstag Fire Decree on the next day restricted the rights of personal freedom, and freedom of expression, including the freedom of the press, the freedom to organize and assemble, the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications. Shortly after the fire, a wave of arrests began about 1500 people – Communists, in particular, were affected.
Beginning on 7 April theLaw for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service required anAryan certificate from all employees and officials in the public sector, including education. According toHannah Arendt, in an interview withGünter Gaus, having Jewish people in your inner circle became a problem. On 11 April, Ilyin handed the Ministry of Internal Affairs a voluminous work entitled "Directives of the Comintern for theBolshevisation of Germany," consisting of hundreds of excerpts fromComintern documents that had been published in the press.[69][c] It looked like an attempt to bow to the authorities, according toA.F. Kiselyov. Ilyin confessed that he literally forced himself to readLenin's works, the materials of party congresses and plenums, the Comintern, and the Soviet press.[63]In April Ilyin had a short, lukewarm communication with young RussianNational Socialists. On 2 May, a committee was founded with Ilyin on its presidium, though cooperation never took off since Ilyin scorned the Russian radicals.[70] On 17 May Ilyin published in "Vozrojdénie" his infamous article"National Socialism. A New Spirit". In June, Ilyin took over the head of the Russian Scientific Institute.[71] His friendWerner von Alvensleben was reputedly involved in a putsch, which ended in theNight of the Long Knives.
On 13 July, all German public employees were required to use theHitler salute. On 14 July, the Nazi Party was declared the only legal political party in Germany. Russian emigrants feared that Hitler, who on various occasions had spoken out strongly against foreigners, would begin persecuting them.[citation needed]
On 5 August, Ilyin's house was searched, his letters were examined, and he himself was taken away for interrogation, where he was asked about his source of income and for details of the people abroad with whom he corresponded. After the questioning, he was released, although required to sign a declaration. In September theReichskulturkammer was created with additional sub-chambers for the fields of broadcasting, fine arts, literature, music, the press, and the theatre. The Russian institute was placed under theReich Ministry of Propaganda headed byJoseph Goebbels.[72]Adolf Ehrt who headed the organizationAnti-Komintern, recruited Ilyin,Vonsiatsky andKazembek, the leader of theMladorossi, to work with him.[73]
On the opening of the reorganized institute[74] Ilyin reported on the plans of theCommunist International to conquer the world; he held a lecture on the work ofIvan Bunin who had won theNobel Prize for Literature.[48] In an anonymous pamphlet Ilyin was accused of being a Freemason.[75] He spoke on "The World Crisis of Democracy" and lectured on the works ofRemizov andMerezhkovsky.[76] On 9 July he was fired when Ehrt demanded that the professors of the Russian Scientific Institute join inNazi propaganda. Ilyin denounced theracial policy of Nazi Germany and replied in a letter he had long wanted to retire and devote himself to science. Ilyin was paid for the work he had done but from August he was without salary.[76] Many artists and intellectuals left Germany in the pre-war years rather than work under these restrictions.
In 1935, Ilyin spent much of the summer at a largedacha in rural Latvia that the artistEvgeny Klimov had rented.[77][78] Under the (German-sounding) pseudonym Alfred Norman, he published "The Bolshevik Policy of World Domination." This is more or less Ilyin's last active political statement. He went on to publish essays in theBerliner Kurier.[76]Vasily Shulgin, a nationalist, showed him his manuscript "The Orion Belt" on an alliance between Russia and Germany but Ilyin wasn't impressed.[79] In 1936, Hitler putVasily Biskupsky in charge of theRussische Vertrauensstelle, a government body dealing with the Russian émigré community.[80][81] Ilyin actively criticized in the pressAlexander Lvovich Kazembek,[25] a fascist or self-styled neo-monarchist.[82] In his speech in Riga in February 1937, dedicated to the 100th anniversary ofPushkin's death,[83] Ilyin praised Pushkin's genius and defined his work as "the main entrance to Russian culture".[84] He applied for membership of theReich Chamber of literature but he had a problem with obtaining anAryan certificate because he did not know the identity of all his great-grandparents.[73] Ehrt interfered and Ilyin received his membership.
In his pamphlet "An attack on the Orthodox church" (December 1937) he accusedNietzsche of fuelling Bolshevism,[76] and Stalinism.[85] TheGestapoconfiscated this work and banned him from theReichskulturkammer and independent political activity.[86] In May, Ilyin decided it was the time to leave but the Berlin police forbade his departure.[87] "On June 17, 1938, [he declared] I am ready to testify under oath that I and my wife are the purest Aryans and that I have never belonged to Masonic or affiliated organizations anywhere."[76][d] In early July, he was permitted to visitKarlovy Vary for a treatment of his migraine. Instead he went to Münich with all his manuscripts. In August he asked the Swiss authorities to allow him to settle as a scientist, as a philosopher, and to promote his theory on art. (With aNansen passport he visited a congress in Locarno.[88][89]) With financial help fromSergei Rachmaninoff, he was able to pay thebail, but he was not allowed to work or to interfere in any way with Swiss politics.[76] On 17 September he wrote toIvan Shmelev that his furniture and library arrived.[90]
From 1940 Ilyin residedstateless in the village ofZollikon nearLake Zürich and corresponded with the composer and pianistNikolai Medtner. He published in local newspapers and lectured onRussian literature at folk high schools, which was not considered paid work. There was no danger from Ilyin's lectures, according to an expert opinion issued by the Swiss Army Command in 1942. They were "national in the sense that it is directed against the whole of the West".[92] In November 1943 he refused to cooperate with theRussian Liberation Army. In 1946 Ilyin stated he was never a Hegelian, as he himself expressed in the introduction to the German translation of his theses, a revised version of "Die Philosophie Hegels als kontemplative Gotteslehre".[62] In 1949 he and his wife received permanent citizenship. In his 1950 essay, "What Dismemberment of Russia Entails for the World", Ilyin predicted the fall of the Soviet Union and gave instructions on how to save Russia from the evils of the Western world.
At the end of his life, Ilyin managed to finish and publish a work on which he worked for more than 33 years,Axioms of Religious Experience, and three volumes of philosophical and literary prose, originally written in German.
He died in a hospital on 21 December 1954. In 1956, his postwar articles were compiled into a two-volume anthology calledOur Tasks. These short political essays (in a verbose and pious style) were not only very profound, but also truly prophetic.[93] It is about the future of Russia and its State, once freed of Communism.[94] He did not describe this future very clearly, it is something bright, good, but blurry, according to the literary criticAlexander N. Arkhangelsky.[95]
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The Ilyin family owned a dairy farm 260 km from Moscow in Bolshye Polyany (Ryazan Governorate), where they spent the summers.[13] Ilyin had four brothers: Alexey, Alexander, Julius, and Igor. In 1905 Alexey joined theSocialist Revolutionary Party but died in 1913.[13] Alexander was azemstvo warden but moved to America before the revolution.[96] Igor, a lawyer, was arrested on charges of "counter-revolutionary agitation" byStalin'sNKVD in the Moscow region. He was executed and buried atButovo firing range.[97][98] Ilyin's cousinMikhail Ilyin was an art historian, involved in the design ofDobryninskaya, a Moscow metro station.
In summer 1906 (just after graduating), Ilyin married Nataliia Nikolaevna Vokach (1882–1963). Her father was a Moscow attorney, and her uncle was a scholar of Roman law and an activist in the cause of constitutional government in Russia.[99] In 1938/1955 N.N. Ilyina published "The Expulsion of theNormans from Russian history".[100] The marriage was a long and happy one. Ilyin dedicated most of his principal works to Nataliia Nikolaevna. The couple had no children.[101]
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In exile, Ivan Ilyin argued that Russia should not be judged by what he called theCommunist danger it represented at that time but should look forward to a future in which it would liberate itself with the help ofChristian fascism.[21]: 19, 21 (Already according toMachiavelli: religious zeal must necessarily be combined with patriotism.[102]) Starting from his 1918 thesis on Hegel's philosophy, he authored many books on political, social and spiritual topics on the historical mission of Russia. One of the problems he worked on was the question: what eventually led Russia to the tragedy of the revolution? He answered that the reason was "the weak, damaged spiritual self-esteem" of Russians.[103] As a result, mutual distrust and suspicion between the state and the people emerged. The authorities and nobility constantly misused their power, subverting the unity of the people. Ilyin thought that any state must be established as acorporation in which a citizen is a member with certain rights and certain duties. Therefore, Ilyin recognized the inequality of people as a necessary state of affairs in any country. But that meant that educated upper classes had a special duty of spiritual guidance towards uneducated lower classes. This did not happen in Russia.
"And so fairness in no way requires equality. It requires inequality based on the subject. Children should be sheltered and treasured; this gives them a variety of fair privileges. The weak must be pardoned. The tired deserves leniency. The weak-willed need more strictness. To the honest and sincere more trust should be given. The loose-lipped call for caution. From the gifted person, it is fair to require more. Heroes are worthy of honor, to which the non-hero should not lay claim. And in the same manner, in all things and forever ..."[104]
The other point was the wrong attitude towards private property among common people in Russia. Ilyin wrote that many Russians believed that private property and large estates are gained not through hard labor but through power and maladministration of officials. Therefore, the property becomes associated with dishonest behavior.[105]
History, Ilyin believes, shows that the Russian people have always been prone to property redistribution and waited only for an opportunity to realize their aspirations. This happened in 1917, when "the war with terrible setbacks shook confidence in the military command, and then in the throne".[106] After the abdication of the Emperor the people were at the mercy of left-wing parties, which "carried the unleashed soldier, sailor and peasant the right to disorder, the right to autocracy, the right to desert, the right to seize other people's property, all those disenfranchised, destructive, imaginary rights that the Russian commoner always dreamed of in his anarchist-bourgeois instinct and which were now given to him from above."[63]
The key concept of Ilyin's legal philosophy waslegal consciousness (правосозна́ние, pravosoznanie) which he understood as an ability of an individual and of the society as a whole to respect the law and to obey it willingly, to defer to authority, and to other citizens.[107] Ilyin derived the concept of law from the Hegelianidea of the spirit and asserted that:
"Law in its original, "natural" sense is nothing other than a necessary form of the spiritual being of a human. It indicates that order of equal, free self-sufficiency of each in which alone spiritual life is possible on earth."[13]
Legal consciousness, therefore, is "already given in embryo to each person".Positive law, then, is a way to shape transcendental norms of law present in legal consciousness.[13] Ilyin distinguishes between a "correct" legal consciousness based on conservatism, morality and religion and a "formalist" legal consciousness that considers only the posited, rationalized law which, therefore, gives no clue to understanding what is law.[108] According to Ilyin, mature legal consciousness is always rooted inChristian ethics and monarchism, the monarchy being the natural realization of theDivine providence. Monarchic legal consciousness tends to perceive the state as a family and unite the citizens with family bonds, while the monarch becomes not only the legal but also the spiritual ruler. His ideal was a monarch who would rule for the good of the country, would not belong to any party, and would embody the union of all people, whatever their beliefs. To serve this monarch is not an act of submission but rather of conscious and free choice of a responsible citizen. To the contrary, the republican legal consciousness praises individual freedom, social climbing and disregard for authority and is eager for radical changes. People view the state not as a family, but rather as a danger that needs to be contained withchecks and balances. Democratic elections, according to Ilyin, tend to elevate sneaky and evasive politicians.[109] Ilyin repeatedly condemned the totalitarian state and emphasized the need to develop a form of 'legal consciousness' among the population.[110] In his 1949 article, Ilyin argued against both totalitarianism and "formal" democracy in favor of a "third way" of building a state in Russia: "Facing this creative task, appeals of foreign parties to formal democracy remain naive, light-minded and irresponsible."[111]
Ilyin left an unfinished work on monarchy, which used Hegel's concept ofworld history. In it he wrote that each nation has its own unique, organic path ofself-preservation. Ilyin praised the Russian monarchy of the 19th century which he deemed consistent with his ideas and not absolute but essentially limited by religious and moral norms, and criticizedNicholas II forhis abdication, eventually leading to the abolition of monarchy in Russia.[109]On Monarchy and Republic was supposed to consist of twelve chapters but Ilyin died having written the introduction and seven chapters which were published in 1978.
Paul Valliere wrote that Ilyin can certainly be exonerated of the charge that he proposed to inducevirtue by force, likeTomás de Torquemada orRobespierre as Ilyin explicitly rejected this idea. He can also be exonerated of the charge of advocatingholy war, although his position bears a resemblance to holy war in certain respects.[13]
One way to characterize Ilyin's political outlook is to apply the label that Ilyin's political mentor,Petr Struve, applied to himself: "liberal conservative". One might object that Ilyin's call for an "ideologically liberal dictatorship" is a contradiction in terms because any talk of dictatorship negates liberalism. On the other hand, there is a cluster of liberal values at the core of Ilyin's political thought.[13]
Ilyin elaborated these views in writings that were eventually published posthumously. On the Essence of Legal Consciousness was written between 1916 and 1918 influenced by the writings of Novgorodtsev andBogdan Kistyakovski and was published in 1956.[77]
Drawing on historical, geographical, ethnographical, linguistic, musicological and religious studies, theEurasianists suggested that the lands of the Russian Empire, and then of the Soviet Union, formed a natural unity, making Russia a distinct civilization, neither European nor Asian butEurasian, according to Paul Robinson. A key feature of Eurasianism is the rejection of Russianethnic nationalism that seeks a purely Slavic state. Aversion to democracy is also an important characteristic of Eurasianism. Unlike many of thewhite Russians, the Eurasianists rejected all hope for a restoration of the monarchy.[112] One of the key figures wasNikolai Trubetzkoy. Another participant was Vladimir Nikolaevich Ilyin (1890-1974), a philosopher, theologian and composer fromKyiv. The latter seems not related to Ivan A. Ilyin who has been presented in the literature by various authors as belonging to the group.[113][114] The first Eurasianists were mostly pacifist émigrés, and their vision of the future had features of romanticism andutopianism. The goal of the Eurasianists was the unification of the main Christian churches under the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church.[115]
In March 1922 Lenin insisted on a final and speedy reprisal against the Russian Orthodox Church, which was considered a hotbed of internal "counter-revolution". ThePolitburo sought to removeBuddhism and other religions, as they believed that a lack of religion (State atheism) combined with urbanization would result in an increase in production.[116] In April 1925League of Militant Atheists was formed under the ideology of the communist Party.
In October 1925 the Eurasianists held a congress in Prague with the intention of creating a seminar.[113] In the late 1920s, Eurasianists polarized and became divided into two groups: the left Eurasianists, who were becoming increasingly pro-Soviet and pro-communist and the classic right Eurasianists, who remained staunchly anti-communist and anti-Soviet.[117] The Eurasianists faded quickly from the Russian émigré community; N. Trubetzkoy and V.N. Ilyin left.[15][118] For Ivan Ilyin, however, eurasianism was "mentalsubterfuge".[119]
Ilyin's chauvinistic views on Ukraine were typical of Russian White émigrés.[120][e] UnlikeAlfred Rosenberg, who was in favor of collaboration with the East Slavs against Bolshevism and offered them national independence, Ukrainian independence wasanathema to him. In 1934, Ilyin stated he was "in no way sympathetic to either conversations or plans for the separation of Ukraine".[122] He saw it as one of the reasons he lost his job at the institute.[123]
In 1938, in a short but significant article, Ilyin wrote: "Little Russia andGreat Russia are bound together by faith, tribe, historical destiny, geographical location, economy, culture and politics", and predicted: "History has not yet said its last word".[124][125]
Ilyin disputed that an individual could choose their nationality any more thancells can decide whether they are part of a body.[21]: 23
An opponent of democracy from the right, from the 1920s Ilyin manifested his commitment to fascism in his writings, such as the series of essaysLetters on Fascism. These essays were focused mainly on Italian fascism and the personality of Benito Mussolini, which Ilyin treated as heroic, and defended fascist dictatorship as a necessary bulwark to prevent a civil war in Italy. Ilyin's essays presented his own concept ofRussian fascism, which he connected to theWhite movement, described by him as a global phenomenon of resistance to the "devil" of Bolshevism and termed as much "broader and deeper" than fascism; thus, fascism was a "method" of the global "White movement", in which the "White idea" gained the utmost "quality"; according to Ilyin, "Fascism is a beginning of service and sacrifice, not of proselytism, not of running and not of acquisition." Ilyin intended the ROVS to follow the path of Russian fascism promoted by him and noted that Russian fascism should be embodied in an organization of professional military men rather than a popular party due to the inability of the latter to achieve power in Russia.[2]
His 1928 articleOn Russian Fascism is about the fascist "method" of dealing with the "Bolshevik plague".[126] Fascism is the Italian secular variation of the white movement. The Russian white movement is "more perfect" than fascism "due to its religious component".[127]
Fascism emerged as a reaction to Bolshevism, as a concentration of state-protective forces on the right. During the onset of leftist chaos and leftist totalitarianism, this was a healthy, necessary and inevitable phenomenon. This concentration will continue, even in the most democratic states: in the hour of national danger, the healthy forces of the people will always concentrate in the direction of security and dictatorship. So it was in ancient Rome, so it was in new Europe, and so it will continue to be.[128]
Ilyin looked at Mussolini and Hitler as exemplary leaders who were saving Europe by dissolving democracy.[6]
On 17 May 1933, Ilyin published in the Paris newspaper "Vozrojdénie" an infamous article titled"National Socialism. A New Spirit" in support of the takeover of Germany by Nazis,[129] in which he accusedBerliner Tageblatt, theVossische Zeitung, and theFrankfurter Zeitung of being pro-Bolshevik newspapers. (Recently theNazi book burnings had taken place.) Ilyin bitterly attacked the "Jewish bourgeois press" of Weimar Germany, which he accused of being pro-Soviet and never telling the truth about Russia.[68]
"I categorically refuse to view the events of the last three months in Germany from the point of view of German Jews... What is happening in Germany is a huge political and social upheaval... What did Hitler do? He stopped the process of Bolshevization in Germany and rendered the greatest service to the whole of Europe ... the liberal-democratic hypnosis of non-resistance was thrown off. While Mussolini leads Italy and Hitler leads Germany, European culture is given a reprieve."[130]
In September theReich Chamber of Culture was established. When the Berlin Institute was placed underReich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda in October not only the Jews but also Ilyin lost his job as head of the institute because he refused to incorporate Nazi propaganda into his courses. Ilyin noted the Nazi government's assault on the civil rights of German Jews but did not regard those measures as a sufficient reason for calling the entire German fascist project into question.[13] When he was asked to join the anti-Jewish propaganda Ilyin refrained from following it.[122][87] In July, the Ministry of Propaganda adopted the new statutes which made impossible the teaching activities to foreigners, and Ilyin had to resign from the Institute due to his lack of German citizenship; still, the new director of the instituteAdolf Ehrt [de;ru] wrote to Ilyin that he did not reject further cooperation with Ilyin on specific occasions.[2] The initial support proved to be short-lived: he had fallen victim toÉmigré denunciations, which prompted the search of his house by police and subsequent interrogation. In a letter toIvan Shmelyov, dated 7 August 1934, Ilyin wrote: "At the beginning of July, I was dismissed along with all my other compatriots from the position I had occupied for 12 years — dismissed for being Russian patriot.[131]
On August 5, Ilyin's house was searched, his letters were looked over, and he was taken away for interrogation, where he was asked about his source of income and for details of the people abroad with whom he corresponded. Upon release, the German police required him to sign a declaration: "I am aware that if I "engage in politics", I will be sent to a concentration camp. To this I have added a distinct point, to the effect that the authorities themselves provide me with inducement through their anti-communist mission."[70]
Ilyin initially sawAdolf Hitler as a defender of civilization fromBolshevism and approved of the way Hitler had, in his view, derived hisanti-communism andantisemitism from the ideology of the RussianWhites.[21]: 20 However, when Nazi Germany declared theSlavs to be inferiorUntermenschen (subhumans), Ilyin was offended.[8] Ilyin's admiration for early fascism, his arguments for a strong state, organically connected to the people, and his assertion that "at the head of the state, there must be a single will" have inevitably produced comparisons with his German counterpartCarl Schmitt.[110][132]
In 1948, Ilyin in his work "On Fascism" gives a series of justifications for fascism and sums it up at the end of his work:
"Fascism is a complex phenomenon: it is multifaceted and historically speaking, far from exhausted. Within it, one finds elements of health and illness, old and new, protection and destruction. Therefore in an evaluation of fascism fair-mindedness and equanimity are needed. But its dangers must be considered in full.
Fascism arose as a reaction to Bolshevism, as a concentration of power guarding sovereignty against the Right. As leftist chaos and totalitarianism advanced, this was a healthy phenomenon, as well as necessary and unavoidable. And such a concentration will come about henceforth, even in the most democratic states: in an hour of national danger, the more vigorous forces of the people will always rally to the defense of sovereignty. Thus it was in ancient Rome and the new Europe, and so it shall be hereafter.
Standing against leftist totalitarianism, fascism was correct, as it sought just socio-political reform. This quest could be successful or unsuccessful: solving such problems is difficult, and first attempts might not have made any headway. But to meet the wave of socialist psychosis- through social and consequently anti-socialist measures- was imperative. These measures had long been imminent, and waiting any further was out of the question.
Finally, fascism was right since it derived from a healthy national-patriotic sensibility, without which a people can neither lay claim to its existence nor create a unique culture.[133]
He wrote in "On Fascism":
"The greatest mistake of fascism was the revival of idolatrousCaesarism. "Caesarism" is the exact opposite of monarchism.Franco andSalazar have understood this and are trying to avoid these mistakes. They don't call their regime "fascist". Let's hope that Russian patriots will think through the mistakes of fascism and national socialism to the end and not repeat them."[134][135]
A number of Ilyin's works[136][134] (including those written after the Italian and German defeats in 1945) advocatedfascism.[137] "Italian fascism expressed in its own, Roman way the things that Russia had for centuries been standing on," he wrote in 1948. A year laterRoman Gul accused Ilyin of antisemitism: "I still have among the clippings your pro-Hitler article where you recommend the Russians not to look at Hitlerism "through the eyes of Jews" and sing the praises of this movement!"[138][139] Ilyin would describe Nazis as those who had "walked the path ofAnti-Christ."[18]
According toTimothy D. Snyder, Ilyin's ideas are a hodgepodge ofGerman idealism, psychoanalysis,Italian fascism, and Christianity.[140] Some of his work has a rambling and commonsensical character, and it is easy to find tensions and contradictions.[141] Attempts to identify him as 'Putin's philosopher' by citing selective quotations from Ilyin are usually misleading.[142][143]
... in a somewhat sensationalistop-ed in the New York Times, Timothy Snyder attempts to discover the ideological foundations of the current Russian regime. In doing so, he exaggerates the influence on Putin of books by Ivan Ilyin, the ideologist of the Whites, the counterrevolutionary émigrés of the 1920s and '30s.[144]
Paul Valliere, professor of Religion, atButler University, wrote "Like Hegel, Ilyin was astatist and a monarchist, but to deny that liberal values occupied a central place in his political thought is a mistake. For the same reason, it is a mistake to call Ilyin a "fascist philosopher". Ilyin's thought never manifested such signal features of fascism as populism, totalitarianism, racism, anti-Semitism,thuggery, or the politics of hysteria. One may criticize Ilyin severely for not recognizing the catastrophic vices of fascism from the start."[13] After the attack on Milyukov andNabokov in 1922 he warnedStruve against the extremeMarkov.
Paul Robinson (University of Ottawa Faculty of Social Sciences), the author of the book "Russian Conservatism", points out if you want to find a fascist Ilyin, you can. But if you want to find a liberal one, you can do that too.[145] Ilyin considered that fascism had some positive characteristics, as well as some negative ones, but to be a Western European ideology and as such inappropriate for Russia.
Nevertheless, there are some problems with the approach used in the research on Il'in in "The Road to Unfreedom". Snyder uses quotes from the philosopher's work to show how Il'in's ideas fit into, or more accurately, provide a frame for Putin's regime. To accomplish this, he mixes Il'in's earliest works with very late ones. This is a very problematic choice, for Il'in, as Snyder has himself stated, drastically shifted his political opinions during his life. At the same time, serving the task of his book, Snyder in most cases gives no historical context to the quotes he provides and gives no explanation of where Il'in stands compared to other Russian-emigre thinkers of his time. This approach, I believe, causes misinterpretation in the worst case, or incomplete understanding of the legacy of Ivan Il'in in the best case.[146]
David G. Lewis argues against such view:
Nevertheless, it is difficult to agree with Paul Robinson's characterisation of Ivan Ilyin as a 'liberal conservative'. Ilyin viewed early fascism as a 'concentration of state-guarding forces from the right, which was a necessary response to the threat of Bolshevism and 'leftist totalitarianism'. This kind of dictatorship, he argued, was needed to guard against enemies, because 'in the hour of national danger healthy forces will always concentrate in the direction of a preservative dictatorship'. Ilyin's admiration for early fascism, his arguments for a strong state, organically connected to the people, and his assertion that 'at the head of the state there must be a single will' have inevitably produced comparisons with his German counterpart Carl Schmitt.[147]
According to Wolfgang Eilenberger, the author of "Time of the Magicians: The Great Decade of Philosophy, 1919-1929" at least three contemporary philosophers didn't believe inparliamentary democracy during theWeimar Republic[relevant?]:
The Ilyins had no children and in 1954 Ilyin expressed the hope that his books would be saved from destruction.[131] Having been taught a severe personal lesson by having his Hegel dissertation manuscript, notes, and materials confiscated in Austria at the outbreak of the First World War (July Crisis), which then had to be rewritten or reconstructed, all the evidence suggests that Ilyin took care to retain and preserve his papers and his books for posterity.[77] Following the death of Ilyin's wife in 1963, Ilyin scholar Nikolai Poltoratzky had Ilyin's manuscripts and papers brought from Zurich toMichigan State University, where he was a professor of the Russian language.[152]
In theUSSR, Ilyin was hardly mentioned openly, but his works began to be published in 1988 duringglasnost. Sometimes his name is surprisingly absent from descriptions of events in which Ilyin was an active participant, or his role is not considered in enough detail.[87]
In Russia's political culture today, Ilyin enjoys popularity among nationalists and authoritarians who admire his emphatic patriotism and his calls for strong state power in Russia.[13] Ilyin's views influencedAleksandr Solzhenitsyn andAleksandr Dugin, before and after thedissolution of the Soviet Union. The accuracy of Ilyin's historical forecasts made some Russian scholars think that it would be necessary to research the methodological basis of Ilyin's analysis. As of 2005, 23 volumes of Ilyin's collected works have been published in Russia.[153]
The Russian filmmakerNikita Mikhalkov, in particular, was instrumental in propagating Ilyin's ideas inpost-Soviet Russia. He authored several articles about Ilyin and came up with the idea of transferring his remains from Switzerland to theDonskoy Monastery in Moscow, where the philosopher had hoped to find his resting place. The ceremony of reburial, also ofAnton Denikin, a general whose slogan wasRussia, One and Indivisible, was held on 3 October 2005.[154] The Russian Cultural Foundation, founded byRaisa Gorbacheva and affiliated with theRussian Ministry of Culture, formally requested that the papers be returned to Russia.[155] In May 2006, and with the financial help ofViktor Vekselberg the MSU transferred Ilyin's papers and books to the Science Library of theLomonosov Moscow State University.[156] In 2007 theCIA published a treatise on him.[157] In April 2008, Ilyin's memorial plaque was installed on the oldest building of the Moscow State University atMokhovaya Street. In June 2012, his monument - cast frommeteorite iron - was unveiled in Yekaterinburg.[158]
Ilyin has been quoted by Russian presidentVladimir Putin in his speeches on various occasions, and is considered by some observers to be a major ideological inspiration for Putin.[20][159][160][161][21][162][163][164] Putin decreed moving Ilyin's remains back to Russia, and in 2009 consecrated his grave.[165] AtRussian New Year 2014, all high-ranking bureaucrats and local government officials were sent a copy of "Our Tasks", a posthumous collection of Ilyin's 1948-54 articles.[166] He was quoted or mentioned byDmitry Medvedev,Sergey Lavrov,Patriarch Kirill of Moscow,Vladislav Surkov, andVladimir Ustinov.[6] On 30 September 2022, Putin gave a speech on theRussian annexation of four territories in Ukraine, where he quoted Ilyin.[167]
