The ideas that Ivan Ilyin, a philosopher of God's grace, preached, are now undergoing a renaissance. The very first state people began to quote him and lay flowers on his grave. This is all the more strange because the Russian philosopher Ivan Ilyin was usually ranked among the theories of national socialism and neo-fascism. What is really going on?
Slavophilism
Ivan Ilyin is an original Russian philosopher who was expelled from Russia in 1922 on a “philosophical” ship as an absolutely unacceptable political regime established in his homeland. Neither emigration nor painful nostalgia drove out Slavophilism from him — he loved Russia with all his heart. But the revolution has always been perceived as a disease of the country, which will sooner or later pass, and then there will be a revival. Ivan Ilyin, a Russian philosopher, constantly thought about Russia, all his life he had been waiting for an hour of her recovery and, in his own way, tried to bring it closer.
Philosophical statements are equal to creativity: this is not an external skill, but the inner life of the soul. And philosophy itself always means more than life, because it ends life. However, life is the subject of philosophy and its source, therefore it is more important. Good, right questions are no less an art than right answers. Here, Ivan Ilyin, a philosopher and Slavophile, was engaged in the search and formulation of these main questions all his life.
Nationalism
Ivan Alexandrovich considered reading books, especially poetic ones, equal to clairvoyance in his artistic form, and, judging by the circle of reading, he could tell a lot about a complete stranger. The philosopher compared the reader with a bouquet of flowers collected during the reading, and believed that a person must certainly become exactly what he read from books.
To preserve one’s own “Russianness,” that is, nationality in the most direct sense of the word, is almost impossible, according to Ilyin, if one doesn’t like the poems of Russian poets, who are both national prophets and national musicians. Russian, in love with poetry, will not be able to denationalize, even if circumstances require it.
Anti-communism
Ivan Ilyin is a philosopher of Christian morality. He considered socialism as antisocial, and spoke about communism with irreconcilable malice: socialism is terrorist, totalitarian and envious, and communism comes out of it shamelessly, openly, ferociously. However, he could not know that the Russian intelligentsia always gravitated (and still gravitates) to socialism very much, he is close to her, how close are the ideas of the Paris Commune (freedom, equality, the brotherhood of socialism, and not terrorism), and not a single system stronger than socialism, the intelligentsia never desired.
Ilyin answers such questions as the classical theorist who has studied religion and culture: the intelligentsia is influenced by rational "Western" enlightenment, it has almost completely lost the Christian faith inherent in the Russian people, but it holds onto Christian morality with both hands. It is its rules that are prescribed for the social system, but not the fact that they can survive in the foundations of real life under socialism.
Fascism
Ilyin’s views on fascism truly perplex not only the colleagues in the workshop, but also ordinary sane people. He was expelled from Russia, lived in Germany, at the origins of national socialism, taught at the institute, albeit Russian, but consisting of a common League of Ober - an anti-communist organization that counteracted any diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, scared the Red Terror and promoted the activities of all anti-communist forces. Moreover, there is information everywhere that the philosopher Ilyin Ivan Alexandrovich made many efforts to create this odious organization, being one of its founders. She lasted, by the way, until 1950 - such a tenacious thing turned out.
The League of Ober included all the fascist organizations that existed at that time, even the NSDAP and the Mussolini party. Ilyin considered fascism a movement that was healthy enough, useful, and even necessary, since it arose as a result of a reaction to Bolshevism as a right-wing state-protecting force. The statement of the Russian philosopher Ilyin about the usefulness of fascism cannot but give rise to negative emotions in any person who was at least Soviet for some time. Noble rage boils, and Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya - before my eyes.
Neomonarchism
Ilyin the philosopher wrote a lot about Russia, especially lamenting that the Russian people have forgotten how to have a king. In his opinion, Russia can live only with autocracy, in any other case chaos sets in. To the republican system, he considered his homeland not adapted. The revolution for Russia, according to Ilyin, poses a mortal danger, the philosopher sees in it only dishonor. He is full of intentions to fight to the end and, in principle, by any means, judging by the cooperation with fascist organizations. He did not want to adapt to the change of system and despised those who returned to Russia.
Already in the thirties, in institute lectures, Ilyin predicted with great joy the war between Germany and the Soviet Union. His position was determined clearly and forever. Earlier, comparing Russia with a sick mother, he asked the reader: is it possible to leave her bed with the confidence that she herself is guilty of her illness? And he answers: of course, it is possible to leave. But for the medicine and the doctor. Ilyin made his choice. The White Guard doctors defeated the "sick mother" quickly while the philosophers sat at her head. And Hitler, although he turned out to be a killer doctor, was also defeated.
Imperialism
I.A. Ilyin, a Russian philosopher, considered Russia as a single whole, and he was absolutely right in this. This country cannot be divided unmistakably and painlessly for the rest of the world. In the article “What the dismemberment of Russia promises the world”, he confidently says that it is not a simple heap of vast territories and diverse tribes. Russia is a living organism. To those who lamented about the freedom of nations and political independence, Ilyin replied that the precedent for the coincidence of the state division of peoples and tribal had never happened anywhere. In history, one can observe convincing evidence of this statement: in the world there are many small nations that are not capable of self-determination and state independence.
According to the philosopher, Russia was not engaged in forced baptism and general Russification, nevertheless, it existed for many centuries as a mighty empire. At the same time, Ilyin calls communist internationalism denationalization and communist egalitarianism, without raising the question of the reasons for the emergence of a revolution in the midst of a "beautiful existence." It is also interesting that the world backstage dreams of dismembering Russia, it turns out, a very, very long time ago.
National socialism
And here it did not grow together. Either Ilyin, a philosopher who is not too accommodating, recoiled from the slightly disguised face of fascism (although this is unlikely, judging by his further activities, his views have not changed in any way), or German National Socialism, which had in its main program many points regarding non-Germans , I did not see in Ilyin a sufficiently zealous supporter of fascist views, but in 1938 the Gestapo became closely interested in the Russian philosopher and politician.
In addition to lectures at the Russian Institute on Russian writers, on the basics of justice and Russian culture again, on the future revival of Russia without the Soviet regime, on religion in general and on the Russian church in particular, Ilyin was involved in organizing the Wrangel ROVS (Russian General Military Union) ) from the beginning of the twenties of the last century and until the end was his ideological inspirer. Ilyin also knew quite well the leaders of the NTS - the People's Labor Union of Russian Solidarists (also that company!) - and worked quite closely with them, although he did not join any of the parties until the end of his life. Nevertheless, all his activities were completely directed against the Soviet Union.
Partisanship
Philosophy and politics usually do not seem to people close enough and all the more closely related activities, however, at Ilyin they occupied a central place both in creativity and in social activity. With lectures on political topics, he traveled all over Europe: he was in Austria, Yugoslavia, the Czech Republic, Belgium, Switzerland, Latvia, Germany - more than two hundred speeches during the ten years until 1938.
It was published in the entire emigrant press: "Renaissance", "Russian invalid", "New time", "New way", "Russia and Slavism", "Russia" - all publications and not to list. "Russian bell" he published himself. And always against the Third International. Nevertheless, active in the political life of pre-fascist and already mighty Hitler Europe, Ilyin treasured his non-partisanship. Perhaps that is why the Gestapo found him insufficiently loyal to National Socialism. His publications were arrested, teaching is forbidden, like any speech in public places.
Underground
Germany managed to leave, although the Ilyin family was banned from leaving by the Nazi authorities. The source of earnings was completely blocked in connection with the prohibition of any type of activity that Ilyin owned. Switzerland, a wealthy country that did not enter the war, was chosen as the new residence. Visas were obtained with the help of friends and acquaintances, and in 1938 the philosopher settled on the outskirts of Zurich, in Zollikon. Ivan Ilyin did not stop publishing his anti-communist works, they just came out without a signature, anonymously.
Two hundred and fifteen publications have thus reached the White Guard ROVS alone. Subsequently, the book Our Tasks was compiled from these articles, but Ilyin no longer published it. The philosopher, whose books suddenly returned to Russia and are being studied quite tightly, did not wait for many publications. His main works, including the popular “Singing Heart”, were published in 1956-1958, after his death. At the very end of his life, in 1953, a work was published, which he wrote for more than thirty years, “Axioms of Religious Experience”.
The memory is back
Recently, the bodies of Ilyin, Shmelev and Denikin were transported and reburied in Russia. All tombstones were installed on the personal money of President V.V. Putin. The tombstone solemn speech about Denikin was made for the first time, but the main people of the country have recently quoted the philosopher Ilyin very often. Even the Addresses to the Presidential Federal Assembly contain rather lengthy quotes. References to Ilyin were heard from the lips of Prosecutor General Ustinov and Deputy Head of the Kremlin Administration Surkov. And, of course, as a fighter for Orthodoxy, Ilyin respects the Russian Orthodox Church very much.