Ivan Ilyin
Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyin (Ива́н Алекса́ндрович Ильи́н, 9 April::1883 – 21 December 1954) was a Russian religious and political philosopher, white émigré journalist, and an ideologue of the Russian All-Military Union.
Initially a liberal, Ilyin embraced fascism during his exile. Ilyin's views on the social structure of Russia had a great influence on some Russian intellectuals and politicians, including Alexander Solzhenitsyn and is considered one of the ideological inspirers of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Contents
- 1 Early life
- 2 Before the revolution
- 3 Revolution and exile
- 4 Emigration
- 5 Ilyin's works about Russia
- 5.1 The concept of consciousness of law
- 5.2 At*ude towards monarchy
- 5.3 View on fascism and antisemitism
- 6 Family
- 7 Influence
- 8 Major works
- 9 See also
- 10 References
- 11 Further reading
- 12 External links
Early life
Ivan Ilyin was born in Moscow in an aristocratic family claiming Rurikid descent. His father, Alexander Ivanovich Ilyin, was born and raised in the Grand Kremlin Palace since Ilyin's grandfather had served as the commandant of the Palace. Alexander Ilyin's godfather had been emperor Alexander III of Russia. Ivan Ilyin's mother, Caroline Louise née Schweikert von Stadion, was a German Russian and confessing Lutheran. Her father, Julius Schweikert von Stadion, had been a Collegiate Councillor under the Table of Ranks. She converted to Russian Orthodoxy, took the name Yekaterina Yulyevna, and married Alexander Ilyin in 1880.
Ivan Ilyin was brought up in the centre of Moscow, not far from the Kremlin in Naryshkin Lane. In 1901, he entered the Law faculty of the Moscow State University. Ilyin generally disapproved of the Russian Revolution of 1905 and did not participate actively in student political actions. While a student Ilyin became interested in philosophy under influence of Professor Pavel Ivanovich Novgorodtsev (1866–1924), who was a Christian philosopher of jurisprudence and a political liberal. In 1906, Ilyin graduated with a law degree. From 1909 he began working there as a scholar.
Before the revolution
In 1911, Ilyin moved for a year to Western Europe to work on his thesis: "Crisis of rationalistic philosophy in Germany in the 19th century". He then returned to work in the university and delivered a series of lectures called "Introduction to the Philosophy of Law". Novgorodtsev offered to have Ilyin lecture on theory of general law at Moscow Commerce Ins*ute. In total, he lectured at various schools for 17 hours a week.
At that time, Ilyin studied the philosophy of Hegel, particularly his philosophy of state and law. He regarded this work not only as a study of Hegel but also as preparation for his own work on theory of law. His thesis on Hegel was finished in 1916 and published in 1918.
In 1914, after the breakout of World War I, Professor Prince Evgeny Trubetskoy arranged a series of public lectures devoted to the "ideology of the war". Ilyin contributed to this with several lectures, the first of which was called "The Spiritual Sense of the War". He was an utter opponent of any war in general but believed that since Russia had already been involved in the war, the duty of every Russian was to support his country. Ilyin's position was different from that of many Russian jurists, who disliked Germany and Tsarist Russia equally.
Revolution and exile
Ilyin in 1921, by Mikhail NesterovAt first, Ilyin perceived the February Revolution as the liberation of the people. Along with many other intellectuals he generally approved of it. However, with the October Revolution complete, disappointment followed. On the Second Moscow Conference of Public Figures he said, "The revolution turned into self-interested plundering of the state".
Later, he *essed the revolution as the most terrible catastrophe in the history of Russia, the collapse of the whole state. However, unlike many adherents of the old regime, Ilyin did not emigrate immediately. In 1918, Ilyin became a professor of law in Moscow University; his scholarly thesis on Hegel was published.
After April 1918, Ilyin was imprisoned several times for alleged anti-communist activity. His teacher Novgorodtsev was also briefly imprisoned. In 1922, he was eventually expelled among some 160 prominent intellectuals, on the so-called "philosophers' ship".
Emigration
From 1922 to 1938, he lived in Berlin.: 19 He had a German mother and wrote as well in German as in Russian.: 20 Between 1923 and 1934, Ilyin worked as a professor of the Russian Scientific Ins*ute in Berlin. He was offered the professorship in the Russian faculty of law in Prague under his teacher Pavel Novgorodtsev but he declined.
He became the main ideologue of the Russian White movement who had emigrated outside of Russia. Between 1927 and 1930 was a publisher and editor of the Russian-language journal (Russkiy Kolokol, Russian Bell). He lectured in Germany and other European countries. After the National Socialist German Workers' Party seizure of power in Germany, he wrote an article “National Socialism. New spirit", in which he spoke in support of the new regime. In 1938 with financial help from Sergei Rachmaninoff, he was able to leave Germany and continue his work in Geneva, Switzerland. He died in Zollikon near Zürich on 21 December 1954.
Ilyin's works about Russia
In exile, Ivan Ilyin argued that Russia should not be judged by what he called the Communist danger it represented at that time but looked forward to a future in which it would liberate itself with the help of Christian fascism.: 21 Starting from his 1918 thesis on Hegel's philosophy, he aut*d many books on political, social and spiritual topics pertaining to the historical mission of Russia. One of the problems he worked on was the question: what has eventually led Russia to the tragedy of the revolution? He answered that the reason was "the weak, damaged self-respect" of Russians.
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 a corporation in which a citizen is a member with certain rights and certain duties. Therefore, Ilyin recognized inequality of people as a necessary state of affairs in any country. But that meant that educated upper cl*es had a special duty of spiritual guidance towards uneducated lower cl*es. This did not happen in Russia.
The other point was the wrong at*ude 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 labour but through power and maladministration of officials. Therefore, property becomes *ociated with dishonest behaviour.
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.
For Ilyin, any talk about a Ukraine separate from Russia made one a mortal enemy of Russia. He disputed that an individual could choose their nationality any more than cells can decide whether they are part of a body.: 23
The concept of consciousness of law
The two above mentioned factors led to egalitarianism and to revolution. The alternative way of Russia according to Ilyin was to develop due "consciousness of law" of an individual based on morality and religiousness. Ilyin developed his concept of the "consciousness of law" for more than 20 years until his death. He understood it as a proper understanding of law by an individual and ensuing obedience to the law.
During his life he refused to publish his major work About the Essence of Consciousness of Law and continued to rewrite it. He considered the consciousness of law as essential for the very existence of law. Without proper understanding of law and justice, the law would not be able to exist.
At*ude towards monarchy
Another major work of Ilyin, "On Monarchy", was not finished. He planned to write a book concerning the essence of monarchy in the modern world and its differences from the republic. It consisted of twelve chapters, but he died having written the introduction and seven chapters. Ilyin argued that the main difference lay not in legal matters but in the conscience of law of common people. According to Ilyin, the main distinctions were the following:
- in monarchy, the consciousness of law tends to unite the people within the state, but in a republic, the consciousness of law tends to disregard the role of the state for the society;
- monarchical consciousness of law tends to perceive the state as a family and the monarch as a pater familias, but the republican consciousness of law denies this notion. Since the republican conscience of law praises individual freedom in the republican state, people do not recognize the people of the state as a family;
- monarchical conscience of law is very conservative and prone to keeping traditions while republican consciousness of law is always eager for rapid change.
Ilyin was a monarchist. He believed that monarchical consciousness of law corresponds to such values as religious piety and family. His ideal was the monarch who would serve for the good of the country, would not belong to any party and would embody the union of all people, whatever their beliefs are.
However he was critical of the monarchy in Russia. He believed that Nicholas II was to a large degree the one responsible for the collapse of Imperial Russia in 1917. His abdication and the subsequent abdication of his brother Mikhail Alexandrovich were crucial mistakes which led to the abolition of monarchy and consequent troubles.
He was also critical of many figures of the emigration, including Kirill Vladimirovich, Grand Duke of Russia, who had proclaimed himself the new tsar in exile.
View on fascism and antisemitism
A number of Ilyin's works (including those written after the Italian and German defeats in 1945) advocated fascism. Ilyin initially saw Adolf Hitler as a defender of civilization from Bolshevism and approved of the way Hitler had, in his view, derived his antisemitism from the ideology of the Russian Whites.: 20 In 1933, he published an article *led "National Socialism. A New Spirit" in support of the takeover of Germany by National Socialist German Workers' Partys. However, when National Socialist German Workers' Party Germany declared the Slavs to be inferior Untermenschen (subhumans), Ilyin was offended and was detained by the Gestapo after his criticism. He then fled to Switzerland.
Ilyin was accused of antisemitism by Roman Gul, a fellow émigré writer. According to a letter by Gul to Ilyin, the former expressed extreme umbrage at Ilyin's suspicions that all those who disagreed with him were Jews.
Family
His brother Igor Ilyin was arrested by Stalin's NKVD in the Moscow region. He was executed and buried at Butovo firing range on 19 November 1937.
Influence
Ilyin's views influenced other 20th-century Russian authors such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Aleksandr Dugin as well as many Russian nationalists. As of 2005, 23 volumes of Ilyin's collected works have been published in Russia.
The Russian filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov, in particular, was instrumental in propagating Ilyin's ideas in post-Soviet Russia. He aut*d several articles about Ilyin and came up with the idea of transferring his remains from Switzerland to the Donskoy Monastery in Moscow, where the philosopher had dreamed to find his last retreat. The ceremony of reburial was held in October 2005.
Following the death of Ilyin's wife in 1963, Ilyin scholar Nikolai Poltoratzky had Ilyin's m*cripts and papers brought from Zurich to Michigan State University, where he was a professor of Russian. In May 2006, MSU transferred Ilyin's papers to the Russian Culture Fund, affiliated with the Russian Ministry of Culture.
Ilyin has been quoted by Russian President Vladimir Putin, and is considered by some observers to be a major ideological inspiration for Putin. Putin was personally involved in moving Ilyin's remains back to Russia, and in 2009 consecrated his grave.
Major works
- Hegel's philosophy as a doctrine of the concreteness of God and man (Философия Гегеля как учение о конкретности Бога и человека, 2 vols., 1918; German: Die Philosophie Hegels als kontemplative Gotteslehre, 1946)
- Resistance to Evil By Force (О сопротивлениии злу силою, 1925).
- The Way of Spiritual Revival (1935).
- Foundations of Struggle for the National Russia (1938).
- The Basis of Christian Culture (Основы христианской культуры, 1938).
- About the Future Russia (1948).
- On the Essence of Conscience of Law (О сущности правосознания, 1956).
- The Way to Insight (Путь к очевидности, 1957).
- Axioms of Religious Experience (Аксиомы религиозного опыта, 2 volumes, 1953).
- On Monarchy and Republic (О монархии и республики, 1978).
See also
- Russian philosophy
- Rashism
- Putinism
- Eurasianism
References
Further reading
- History of Russian Philosophy «История российской Философии» (1951) by N. O. Lossky. Publisher: Allen & Unwin, London ASIN: B000H45QTY International Universities Press, Inc. New York, New York, USA. ISBN:978-0-8236-8074-0 sponsored by Saint Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary.
External links
- Ilyin's online shrine
- New York Times on Ilyin's reburial