A dispute on belief, culture and the meaning of life (A correspondence from two corners by Vyacheslav Ivanov and Mikhail Gershenzon)

Abstract

This article is devoted to one of the most important documents of culture from the beginning of 20th century A correspondence from two corners by Vyacheslav Ivanov and Mikhail Gershenzon. The small book consisting of mere 12 letters was published by St-Petersburg publishing house Alkonost in 1921. It tells about the crisis of humanity, the revaluation of values of European intellectual tradition, the meaning of life and morals. The twentieth century which opened with wars and revolutions put before intellectuals the goal of overcoming the gap between cultural tradition and personal creativity. Both European and Russian thinkers were giving sharp critique of classical culture which, according to them, had the World War as the logical consequence of its development. Ivanov and Gershenzon, despite their very different approaches to the problem of antinomy between personal creativity and freedom on the one hand, and cultural tradition on another hand, agreed on their vision of the problem. For both of them culture was a phenomenon that needs a moral, social, esthetic and religious justification. In the West, it had been Nietzsche who first raised this problem; in Russia, it became one of the central subjects of philosophical debates during the Russian Religious Renaissance at the turn of 19th and 20th centuries. Ivanonv's optimistic attitude towards cultural heritage was based on religious belief. Mikhail Gershenzon defended the autonomy of individual creativity against the automatic worship of centuries-old cultural tradition that falsifies life. Gershenzon argued that creative individuality alone could become the solid foundation of any authentic culture in the future. The author proceeds to discuss the nature of friendship between the poet-philosopher and the historian of Russian social thought as well as the evolution of views shared by either of them, and describes the intellectual and social atmosphere around the composition of the Correspondence. The article also provides an outline of public disputes which followed after the publication of the Correspondence.