Reformulating Russia

The Cultural and Intellectual Historiography of Russian First-Wave Émigré Writers

Series: 

Georgii Fedotov’s Saints of Ancient Russia, Georgii Florovskii’s The Ways of Russian Theology, Nikolai Berdiaev’s The Russian Idea and Vasilii Zenkovskii’s History of Russian Philosophy—these are among the most well-known and widely-read historical studies of Russian thought and culture. Having left their homeland after the Bolshevik Revolution, these four authors aimed to present their readers with a common past and thus with a common identity, and their historical works emerged out of the need for reorientation in a post-revolutionary, émigré situation. At the same time, they were to elaborate highly contrasting versions of the Russian past. By means of in-depth narrative and contextual analyses, Reformulating Russia provides a detailed examination of the visions of Russia contained in these four works.
Copyright Year:
2011
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ISBN:
978-90-04-20954-1
Publication:
06 May 2011
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Published
ISBN:
978-90-04-19286-7
Publication:
06 May 2011
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Kåre Johan Mjør (b. 1973) holds a Ph.D. from the University of Bergen, Norway. The author of Desire, Death, and Imitation: Narrative Patterns in the Late Tolstoy (Slavica Bergensia 4), he has also published articles on Russian imperial historiography and Russian post-Soviet intellectual culture.
"Reformulating Russia is designed for specialists in Russian intellectual history. The book will be of particular interest to scholars of religious studies. A well-conceived and well-researched volume."
Paul Valliere, Butler University Indianapolis, in Slavic Review 72.1, pp. 181-182

"An original feature of Mjør's work is the emphasis he places on narrative as a cognitive tool for constructing a meaningful and coherent past. Mjør contends that in order to explore how histroy is conceived, it is as important to study the narrative, the rhetoric and form, as it is to analyze teh content."
Frances Nethercott, St Andrews, in Kritika 15.2, pp 421-439

"Mjør's Reformulating Russia is a provocative, unique effort to place four unconventional voices into first-wave Russian émigré historiography. The book is a welcome invitation to reconsider whose analyses defined history in Russia Abroad and how these analyses shifted after decades of Soviet power."
Krista Sigler, Cincinnati, in East Central Europe 41.1, pp 123-126





Acknowledgements
Transliterations and Abbreviations
Introduction
Texts and Contexts
Historiography and Narrativity
Research

PART ONE - CONTEXTS

Chapter One Russia Abroad
The Émigré Community
Exile as Mission

Chapter Two Writing Russian History
Varieties of Intellectual History
Culture and Cultural History
Historiography of Imperial Russia

PART TWO - READINGS

Chapter Three Georgii Fedotov and the Saints of Ancient Russia
Culture, Creativity, Tragedy
Resurrecting Russian Sanctity
Configuring Russian Holiness
Fedotov’s Ancient and Holy Russia
Detail and Meaning in Russian Holiness
The Workers in the Vineyard
From Negative to Positive Liberty
Difference and Opposition
Fedotov’s Tragedy
Fedotov’s Historicism

Chapter Four Georgii Florovskii and the Ways of Russian Theology
Emigration, Eurasianism and Orthodoxy
Florovskii’s Prophetic Eschatology
The Pseudomorphosis of Russian Thought
Gradual Recovery and New Excitements
Florovskii’s Theology of Creativity
The Ascetic Way Home

Chapter Five Nikolai Berdiaev and the Russian Idea
Revolution and Exile
Berdiaev’s Paradoxes and Inconsistencies
The Russian Idea or the Idea of Russia?
Chaotic Essentialism
Russians as Schismatics
The Martyrology of the Intelligentsia
Russian Ideas as Ideas of Russia
Berdiaev’s Messianism

Chapter Six Vasilii Zenkovskii and the History of Russian Philosophy
Russia and Europe
The Historiography of Philosophy
Reframing Russian Philosophy
Philosophy and its Soil
Philosophy as a System
Vladimir Solovev as a Systematic Philosopher
The Systematic Design and its Content
The Dialectics of History
Concluding Remarks

Bibliography
Index
All those interested in Russian intellectual history and historiography, Russian religious philosophy, Russian nationalism and identity. Its main audience will be found among postgraduate students, scholars and professionals in the field of Russian studies
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