Towards the Spiritual Convergence of America and Russia: American Mind and Russian Soul, American Individuality and Russian Community, and the Potent Alchemy of National Characteristics

Thoughts

East Needs West Needs East?

One a Saturday morning in May, of 1989, [78] there was broadcast throughout the United States of America, on the independent “National Public Radio” program, an interview with a contemporary Russian writer who lives in Siberia — that region of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union most immediately associated in Western minds with Czarist and Soviet tyranny, oppression and cruelty.

From Siberia (Irkutsk), where sincere if naive Western imagination would tend easily to picture frigid, snow-bound vastnesses, with a harsh, difficult existence, and scattered villages peopled with the exiled, banished, imprisoned, suffering Russians; came the solid voice of Valentin Rasputin, himself one of a long line of creative spirits, who, by order of the state; or choice; or fate of birth, lived some of the most dear, deep and meaningful time of their lives, in this climatically harsh, unrelenting, beautiful region of the earth. He stated, unambiguously, his view, that the people and character of the West woe far more competently inclined towards a capable engagement with the material, practical matters of life and world, than the Russians would ever be. Such ‘practical reason’, science and so forth — required for material mastery, technological excellence and achievement — were not, he held, immediately or naturally inherent in the character of the Russian people; whom, he stated, were much more inclined towards a deep, soulful inner life. They would never quite ‘get it right’, with the practical, material life; whether they live in a time of perestroika and glasnost, or not.

So spoke Rasputin from Siberia.

The interviewer categorized his thought, in her heartfully sympathetic summary, as sign of a rebirth of “Russian nationalism”, “patriotism”, and the like. And while both she and Rasputin criticized any arrogant, racist, “chauvinistic” attitude and interpretation of such ideas as he expressed; the concepts she used, in attempting to describe, to her Western audience, the thought of Rasputin, could as readily deaden as enliven them. For what Valentine Rasputin and others — both in contemporary and nineteenth century Russia — have meant — by whichever expressions or ideas essentially similar in content and meaning to “Russian Soul” — is a special, soul-filled inwardness of the human being, which is especially full in presence in the those people of Russia who bear it [80]. The interpretive concepts of the interviewer were much too secular, too aseptically intellectual; too political and sociological; too “horizontal” — in a word, too “Western”. As George Kennan wrote, in a 1968 article, “Understanding the Russians”:

If, indeed, the Russian Soul, like Russia, can be understood, as well as “believed in”; it is more likely rather to be embraced by such thoughts and words, feelings and literature, as could best be named religious, philosophical — spiritual. But so the Western interviewer did not speak…(or understand?, or see?)

Broadly, but truthfully — and painfully — speaking, the successful West is spiritually lost in the “horizontal” world; that world of matter and predictability, of comfort, pleasure, worry and concern, related almost exclusively to existence, experience, achievement and success in and of the mundane world. However otherworldly some ideas and ideals in the West may be — and in places, e.g. California, they can be quite fantastic-, they are seldom held with sufficient depth, integrity, strength and maturity of soul, as might allow them to truly lead a person, clearly, up and out of the “horizontal” into the “vertical”.

Contrariwise, though only briefly considered, the Russian Soul — evident in the eyes of an inspired countenance; noticeable in the enthusiasm of a voice; sensible in a person’s special presence; or in a deep, pure, human intimacy, in a conversation [82]; in an almost religious reverence towards a great symphony, от in an uncanny intuitive sense of life — is somewhat more rather like a doorway into an inner “Vertical” world. As an Italian man once remarked to me, in a conversation on this theme (in 1987) beside the pond next to Novodevichy Convent in Moscow; “I have never seen such meaningful looks in my life.” It is a soul that is, initially perhaps, uncanny to the perceptive Westerner, as if having entered a strange new world, full of novelty and mystery. Strongly manifest, it calls the Westerner to deep self-examination and self-recognition — not always of favorable sight It can, in its fullness, help bring one uncommonly near to a real, alive questioning of oneself, human relationships, and the sense, meaning and purpose of life; the enigma of suffering, die reality of death; the question of God, and similar, often secreted questions of ultimacy to the human soul. Herein, in the un western, “vertical” inwardness of the Russian Soul, are gifts and presences of the inner life, which might be offered to the needy soul and spiritual existence of the West The below, by Walter Schubart, written in his 1938 work Russia and Western Man, can be safely applied, in general, to Americans, as well as to “Europeans”:

Such thoughts as these will be of no surprise, to those who possess a clear sense and understanding of the deeper currents of Russian and Western spiritual and intellectual history. But in the West, alas, especially here on this far Western Pacific Coast of America, the realities of such contrasting psychologies, if they are known at all, are rarely recognized with any more than some vague inarticulate sense, or, perhaps rather, “intellectually”, using that aspect of the human psyche which the westward-journeyed members of the nineteenth century Russian intelligentsia found to be so characteristic — and incomplete — of Western Man.

Certainly in America, the general intellectual and cultural life of the “melting pot”, is far from being conducive to the clarity, subtlety and sensitivity of soul, required to readily recognize the inner uniqueness of the Russian Soul. Such recognition seems, preponderantly, to depend on the degree, depth and awakeness of an individual’s world and self-awareness; their subtlety, consciousness and knowledge. As George Kennan described it:

However this may be, it is certain that spiritually suffered, and otherwise, deep-souled individuals in America, and throughout the West, can surely see, and enter into the Russian soul; though the “clarity” of the experience depends on the individual.

“…to sway the destinies of half the globe.”

It seems almost as if in fact insightful individuals [85] of the nineteenth century, both in Russia and in Europe, were somehow very near to truth when, in their “philosophies of history”, they speculated on how the nations and peoples of the West and Russia, seem almost to have been providentially separated and developed, to realize differing inner and outer lives. Differing, that they might, in some future time, meet and join each other, as contrasting compliments, necessary completions to each other; both portions needed to complete the whole Man, the entire humanity of Man.

Considering the conditions of world power which existed after World War II, it is remarkable to consider the thought, from 1835, of Alexis de Tocqueville, who, in regard to America, the United States of America — perhaps following Crèvecoeur’s Letter XI in his important 1782 publication: Letters from an American Farmer [86] — concluded volume I of his famous Democracy in America with a brief consideration of the destinies of America and Russia:

Later in the century Alexander I. Herzen held a similar understanding, developing it even more fully. The future power and conjunction of the United States of America and Russia required, he stated, no uncanny prophetic sense to recognize, [88] for it was apparent in the facts and realities of the world and history. As he wrote in 1865:

Beneath, however, the contrasts and complements of the American and Russian people — as well as those of other nations — as to their history, practical life, civilization and order, e.g. social organization, customs and mores, economic patterns and directions, political powers and structures and so on, lies the deeper, subtler psychological contrast, and potential relation…

Spiritual Mathematics: “American” + “Russian” =?

This work attempts to give some orientation, clarification, and solicitation, for an independent renewal of the spiritual life of Man, in both America and Russia. In the materially-prosperous, but soulfully-lacking and spiritually-impoverished West (the USA and elsewhere included), and in the materially impoverished, but soulfully-rich and spiritually-potent Russian (and European) East, a new spiritual life is deeply needed by the human and inhuman conditions of our civilization, nations, cultures and time. In the United States of America, the “American Dream” requires, at its spiritual core, a free, independent activity in pursuit of the realization of “greatness” in the individual soul. In Russia, a vital spiritual presence and orientation, in the Russian Soul and culture, must lead Russia into her future — the spiritual core of the idea of the “Third Rome”, still calls her upward!

A recognition, reverence and realization of the spiritual, the “vertical”, in each society is needed. And though there is much more than enough, in each nation alone, to be accomplished in this direction; what if each nation’s unique characteristics, are indispensable for a complete spiritual development of the other?

National identity in our time, for the individual and collective, is so strong and pervasive a presence — in our psychologies, societies, cultures and intellectual lives — that we have lost much sight and sense of our common humanity. [90] It is much more immediate in our time, to be a citizen of this or that nation, than to truly identify, inwardly, with Man, or Mankind as a whole. So it seems basic and fundamental, to our cramped, secular visions, conceptions and understandings of our civilization and historical time, to be an “American”, a “Russian”, a “German”; or a “Japanese”, “Australian” or whatever; and to think of, and understand other portions of humanity, with such identifications. This manifests, for example, now, in America; in an unconscious presumption, that there could be nothing we might learn from the Russians, whose political and economic (“horizontal”) system is such an obvious failure. But if one looks at humanity as a whole, then it might be asked whether an “American”, a “Russian”, or other, is not a certain, unique development of a portion of humanity; and that one part of Mankind, or other, might well have developed a unique, vital element in its own humanity, which is essential to Mankind as a whole.

In regard to America and Russia, what I am suggesting here, is that, while each nation has its own spiritual characteristics, tasks and burdens; there is present between them, a potential alchemical blending of the best of “Russian” and the best of “American” — not at all meaning thereby to exclude “mixtures” of Russian and American with the characteristic outer lives and inner psychologies of other nations [91] — which could help to bring about a more complete human being, in regard to individual psychology and social community, and thence, possibly as well, affecting the broader cultural and intellectual life of human civilization. [92] (Recognizing that such ideals can not be expected to be realized, easily, in any broader scale of humanity.)

Before it will be possible to try to say what such an alchemical mixture of American and Russian might mean, or how it might be effected; it is necessary that we attempt to gain some deeper insight and understanding of the contrasting psychologies, the differing “national characteristics”, of America and Russia. By selecting and examining certain fundamental portions of the intellectual and spiritual histories of both peoples; deep insight can be gained into these questions. By looking into the thought of clear, characteristic, “representative voices” of each country, we shall come to find intellectual foundation to better recognize, understand and articulate certain contrasting, yet complementary aspects of their national psychologies.

For America, the United States of America, we shall have Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) speak. (At the Washington Summit in December of 1987, Emerson was cited in the speeches of both [93] then President Reagan and by then General-Secretary (now President) Mikhael Gorbachof.) For Russia we shall listen to the thought of the (so-called) “Slavophiles”: Ivan Vasilevich Kireyevsky (1806-1856) and Alexsei Stepanovich Khomyakov (1804-1860). By comparing their ideal conceptions of Man, we shall be able to gain insight into one deep and essential area of the contrasting, yet complementary national characteristics of “American” and “Russian”. If my efforts in this work are adequate to the task, I wish to make substantial intellectual contributions towards a clear description of how essential and profound a spiritual, philosophical and psychological relation exists, between characteristic highest (“vertical”) conceptions and aspirations — and tasks — of Man in America and Russia. The hope is that such understanding could contribute, essentially, towards a clearer, creative, and mutually-bentficial, spiritual orientation — in thoughtful and heartful individuals of both nationalities-which might lead to a more conscious spiritual meeting of “Russian” and “American”; and thereby, possibly, promote an alchemical blending of American Mind and Russian Soul, American Individuality and Russian Community. Such a greater clarity and consciousness, in both countries, could thus possibly contribute towards a greater spiritual realization, and more complete wholeness, in some men and women in each country, and thereby, perhaps, in portions of Mankind as a whole.