VII. Chapter 2. The Christian Myth and pre-Russianism.
A more or less thorough scrutiny of a comprehensive, immensely broad and complex question of the metahistorical significance of the Orthodox Church, let alone the entire Christian Myth is a topic worth of a voluminous work or even a whole series of works. But it is clear and only natural that the inner mystical life of the Russian Church was shaped by its connection with the Christian Transmyth and those hierarchies and beings, cosmic and planetary alike, that had been revered by the Russian Church: with the Logos, Holy Mary, angelic hosts, and great spiritual figures of the all-Christian and Byzantine past. The height of their standing made it possible for them to actively help those below, in the concrete historical reality of Enrof, from zatomises, Heavenly Jerusalem, and the Synclite of Humanity.
Across many centuries, the Christian Myth had been permeating and enveloping the life of the Russian society manifesting by far in all spheres of the culture – from “wordage weaving”, the art of the written word as it was seen back then, to the crockery and clothing ornaments. But the analysis would easily reveal a great many images, saturating the arts and aesthetical canons, developed in those times that would show connection neither to the ideology nor the pantheon of Christianity.
Herbal patterns on fabrics and candle holders are as far away from the Christian Myth in its pure form as the Firebird of our tales, warrior heroes of our epic poems, architectural singularities of our terems (tower houses, translator’s note) or the stylized cockerels and fabulous animals decorating stoves, spinning-wheels, and crests of izbas (wooden cabins, t/n) are. This layer of images can be most certainly traced back to the pre-Christian world outlook, to the rudimentary and hardly ever elaborated Slavic mythology. Importantly, this world outlook manifested in the seventeenth century just in the same way as it had been in the twelfth; it was no longer noticeable or, rather, changed its look altogether only in the twentieth century. It had never been overcome or assimilated by the Christian Myth. Something else happened: a parallel coexistence of two world outlooks having two separate domains of manifestation. One of them, specifically the Christian, rapidly acquired prominence as the all-state and all-people circle of ideas, having ousted its competitor from a host of life domains, primarily – from the generalizing and systemizing thought. The other one blended with folklore, the grass-roots and applied arts, folk rites and conjurations, daily rounds of life but had never risen to the level of philosophical or, more broadly, ideological generalizations.
On the other hand, its phenomenal resilience and hardiness are truly astonishing. To a metahistorian, the resilience itself should come as an indication that this worldview wasn’t rooted in the haphazard, casual components of the people’s psyche but, rather, in something intrinsically woven into it. If we are dealing with psyche components, organic and inalienable, it is always an evidence of the hierarchies’ creative manifestations, for everything in a people that bears no trace of their workings, turns out short-lived, superficial, ephemeral. Concerning that aspect of the topic in question related to procreation, everything that showed the heightened level and intensity of sexuality is evidently touched with the muddy, heated, restlessly fluttering substance of karossa Dingra. As a matter of fact, there could have been no other outlet for her manifestations in a Christian country. Yet, another layer, primarily aesthetical, clearly shows in this world outlook. The joy of creativity which those artists and masters experienced while creating their ornaments, their tales and terems come flooding straight into our souls as we come in contact with them; the love for the world, nature, and elementals that permeated them bears witness not of the karossa but, rather, of the demiurge breezing in the souls of these creators.
This world outlook (as we are talking about the Russian national past) has now to be recovered from under the layers of the Christian Myth, either through the help of a thorough scientific analysis or by means of metahistorical contemplation and reflection. I would call this world outlook “pre-Russianism”.
Essentially, pre-Russianism is nothing but the first stage of the development of the Russian suprapeople’s Myth.
Taken alone, the Transmyth of Christianity is not and cannot be at odds with the transmyths of suprapeoples; is not and cannot be in confrontation with them. Quite the opposite: the World Salvaterra, all permeated with the powers of the Logos and Virgin Mary, that is, with the uppermost reality of the Christian Transmyth, remains, at the same time, the summit of summits dimly shining through the transmyths of suprapeoples. Historical prospects for the future would have been grim and joyless had not they been illuminated with such a hope for the future worldview wherein the Christian Myth would mutually complement other suprapeoples’ myths all merging into a harmonious whole. Yet, in the historical past the already ripe Christian Transmyth had as though eclipsed the barely emerging Myth of the Russian suprapeople. Eclipse it did as, like all historical churches with their flawed narrowness, it strived to promote its own religious aspect of the world as the only and universal truth excluding the very possibility of an alternative.
Whatever reverence a metahistorian may subjectively feel toward the Christian Myth, however highly he may value its role in the cultural history of Russia, he or she would hardly forego the feeling of grief and regret, even some unconscious resentment while studying any of the medieval Russia’s arts. He or she would feel that those sprouts of the intrinsically national world outlook that had attempted to manifest themselves, at least through arts were frost-bitten and stifled.
The overarching formula was “The world lies in wickedness”. Hence the love for it, the childlike vivacity, sunshiny mirth, and spontaneity barely dared to reveal themselves in the vivid colors of the homeware, in the fairy-talish and toy-like, I would say, laughing style of glazed tiles and engravings, in the backdrops of icons where flowers, celestial bodies, and fabulous animals create a stunning setting emanating a touchingly pure, pantheistic love for the world.
The monastic ascetism was weighing down. Hence the creative acts of Dingra were relegated to the lower crust, to the very bottom of human life. The contact between spirituality and the physical aspect of love seemed a profanity. On a wedding night, icons were thoroughly curtained, for love, even hallowed with the sacrament of marriage, was a sin.
Overlording was the Christian pantheon. Hence a soul, sensitive to whiffs coming from the hierarchies of the suprapeople and elementals dared not even to grow cognizant of their existence which had no place in the Christian pantheon, which was not sanctified by the church authorities. The precepts for the knowledge of God and the knowledge of the world were exhausted with the Old and New Testaments; any independent thought process was deemed as suspicious, if not heretical.
Art was largely seen as a “satellite” way of expressing the very truths of the Christian Myth. Therefore, secular art could not take shape, sculpture was seen as heathenry, poetry languished in the bounds of folklore, dancing was barely tolerated even as decorous khorovods (circle dances, t/n), and sprouts of drama were mercilessly uprooted.
Having crossed-checked all this, it would be interesting to take a look at an art form in the artifacts of which pre-Russianism and the Christian Myth had been able to coexist alongside as though having divided the territory between themselves and keeping nearly apart even mechanically, while, strangely enough, complementing each other. I am referring to some schools of church architecture, from tent-shaped temples to so-called “Naryshkin Baroque”. The singularity of those artifacts that is most vividly seen, perhaps, in St. Basil’s Cathedral, is particularly stunning in the contrast between the exterior and interior. Turning your soul into all smiles, the contagious vivacity of these motley onions (onion-shaped domes, t/n) and pot-bellied uprights, these walls made into fairy-tale like gardens with merry patternworks from one side… But, once inside, you enter as though into a different culture which, strikingly, remains almost as Russian: barred little windows, narrow shutters, low vaults, rigid norms, stern faces, semigloom. Ousted to the outside, the Myth of the suprapeople is juxtaposed with the Myth of Christianity – oppositional to the world, forming the inner space, self-contained, and intolerant. Pre-Russianism and Orthodoxy. Neither a synthesis, nor a blending, but an almost mechanical segregation of domains. In terms of dialectics – a thesis along with its antithesis.
One may object: having been cleansed off the layers of centuries, the frescoes and icons of our temples would reveal much brighter colors, more cheerful patterns of ornamentation than is normally thought of. True, but if the influences of pre-Russianism did reflect as cheer in some of the paintings, time was working against it dampening the brightness of colors with the soot from the candles and icon lamps, unavoidable and inalienable attributes of the cult. A uniform local color was being created that aptly corresponded to low passageways, little windows, and the overall minor scale mood of the divine service. This combination of ways reached the utmost cohesion and expressiveness precisely in the interior of St. Basil’s Cathedral with its segregation of the inner space into a great many isolated cells whence the divine service could not be seen, only heard, and the setting was best suited for solitary inner prayer. All in all, starting from the borrowed Byzantine single-domed temples to the Empire style churches of the nineteenth century, doesn’t the appearance of Russian shrines bewilder one with its contrast between the interior and exterior, between form and content? Oh, it is far, far from being a harmony! The Russian temple is harmonious, true, while we behold it from without: whether it be a snowy-white cube with a golden helmet or a multicolored, tower-like, seemingly ever mirthful flower with its twisting wooden or stone petals. Inside, it is also harmonious, though the harmony is different. But between these two harmonies lives a chasm of mutual misunderstanding and deeply seated animosity. In the church architecture, the Christian Myth (for reasons largely unbeknownst) still tolerated and calmly accepted this territorial coexistence with the Myth of suprapeople(*1). In other spheres of culture and life, as I have already pointed out, it was much worse. It should come as no surprise that, under such conditions, pre-Russianism could evolve neither into an autonomous system, nor into a teaching. It could not even grow into an awareness of its own existence. For such an awareness, there have to be some sort of pivot, axis, central image belonging exclusively to a certain myth; the pivot point was not there. The influence of the demiurge and Navna upon individuals and the people overall did not cross the threshold of the consciousness; whatever was experienced in the soul was entirely attributed to the activities of other echelons, those of the Christian Myth.
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1 The Church’s struggle against the pre-Russianism Myth could be seen, for example, in the prohibition of tent-shaped temples in the eighteenth century so as to force a return to the canonical Byzantine style.
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Across many centuries, the Christian Myth had been permeating and enveloping the life of the Russian society manifesting by far in all spheres of the culture – from “wordage weaving”, the art of the written word as it was seen back then, to the crockery and clothing ornaments. But the analysis would easily reveal a great many images, saturating the arts and aesthetical canons, developed in those times that would show connection neither to the ideology nor the pantheon of Christianity.
Herbal patterns on fabrics and candle holders are as far away from the Christian Myth in its pure form as the Firebird of our tales, warrior heroes of our epic poems, architectural singularities of our terems (tower houses, translator’s note) or the stylized cockerels and fabulous animals decorating stoves, spinning-wheels, and crests of izbas (wooden cabins, t/n) are. This layer of images can be most certainly traced back to the pre-Christian world outlook, to the rudimentary and hardly ever elaborated Slavic mythology. Importantly, this world outlook manifested in the seventeenth century just in the same way as it had been in the twelfth; it was no longer noticeable or, rather, changed its look altogether only in the twentieth century. It had never been overcome or assimilated by the Christian Myth. Something else happened: a parallel coexistence of two world outlooks having two separate domains of manifestation. One of them, specifically the Christian, rapidly acquired prominence as the all-state and all-people circle of ideas, having ousted its competitor from a host of life domains, primarily – from the generalizing and systemizing thought. The other one blended with folklore, the grass-roots and applied arts, folk rites and conjurations, daily rounds of life but had never risen to the level of philosophical or, more broadly, ideological generalizations.
On the other hand, its phenomenal resilience and hardiness are truly astonishing. To a metahistorian, the resilience itself should come as an indication that this worldview wasn’t rooted in the haphazard, casual components of the people’s psyche but, rather, in something intrinsically woven into it. If we are dealing with psyche components, organic and inalienable, it is always an evidence of the hierarchies’ creative manifestations, for everything in a people that bears no trace of their workings, turns out short-lived, superficial, ephemeral. Concerning that aspect of the topic in question related to procreation, everything that showed the heightened level and intensity of sexuality is evidently touched with the muddy, heated, restlessly fluttering substance of karossa Dingra. As a matter of fact, there could have been no other outlet for her manifestations in a Christian country. Yet, another layer, primarily aesthetical, clearly shows in this world outlook. The joy of creativity which those artists and masters experienced while creating their ornaments, their tales and terems come flooding straight into our souls as we come in contact with them; the love for the world, nature, and elementals that permeated them bears witness not of the karossa but, rather, of the demiurge breezing in the souls of these creators.
This world outlook (as we are talking about the Russian national past) has now to be recovered from under the layers of the Christian Myth, either through the help of a thorough scientific analysis or by means of metahistorical contemplation and reflection. I would call this world outlook “pre-Russianism”.
Essentially, pre-Russianism is nothing but the first stage of the development of the Russian suprapeople’s Myth.
Taken alone, the Transmyth of Christianity is not and cannot be at odds with the transmyths of suprapeoples; is not and cannot be in confrontation with them. Quite the opposite: the World Salvaterra, all permeated with the powers of the Logos and Virgin Mary, that is, with the uppermost reality of the Christian Transmyth, remains, at the same time, the summit of summits dimly shining through the transmyths of suprapeoples. Historical prospects for the future would have been grim and joyless had not they been illuminated with such a hope for the future worldview wherein the Christian Myth would mutually complement other suprapeoples’ myths all merging into a harmonious whole. Yet, in the historical past the already ripe Christian Transmyth had as though eclipsed the barely emerging Myth of the Russian suprapeople. Eclipse it did as, like all historical churches with their flawed narrowness, it strived to promote its own religious aspect of the world as the only and universal truth excluding the very possibility of an alternative.
Whatever reverence a metahistorian may subjectively feel toward the Christian Myth, however highly he may value its role in the cultural history of Russia, he or she would hardly forego the feeling of grief and regret, even some unconscious resentment while studying any of the medieval Russia’s arts. He or she would feel that those sprouts of the intrinsically national world outlook that had attempted to manifest themselves, at least through arts were frost-bitten and stifled.
The overarching formula was “The world lies in wickedness”. Hence the love for it, the childlike vivacity, sunshiny mirth, and spontaneity barely dared to reveal themselves in the vivid colors of the homeware, in the fairy-talish and toy-like, I would say, laughing style of glazed tiles and engravings, in the backdrops of icons where flowers, celestial bodies, and fabulous animals create a stunning setting emanating a touchingly pure, pantheistic love for the world.
The monastic ascetism was weighing down. Hence the creative acts of Dingra were relegated to the lower crust, to the very bottom of human life. The contact between spirituality and the physical aspect of love seemed a profanity. On a wedding night, icons were thoroughly curtained, for love, even hallowed with the sacrament of marriage, was a sin.
Overlording was the Christian pantheon. Hence a soul, sensitive to whiffs coming from the hierarchies of the suprapeople and elementals dared not even to grow cognizant of their existence which had no place in the Christian pantheon, which was not sanctified by the church authorities. The precepts for the knowledge of God and the knowledge of the world were exhausted with the Old and New Testaments; any independent thought process was deemed as suspicious, if not heretical.
Art was largely seen as a “satellite” way of expressing the very truths of the Christian Myth. Therefore, secular art could not take shape, sculpture was seen as heathenry, poetry languished in the bounds of folklore, dancing was barely tolerated even as decorous khorovods (circle dances, t/n), and sprouts of drama were mercilessly uprooted.
Having crossed-checked all this, it would be interesting to take a look at an art form in the artifacts of which pre-Russianism and the Christian Myth had been able to coexist alongside as though having divided the territory between themselves and keeping nearly apart even mechanically, while, strangely enough, complementing each other. I am referring to some schools of church architecture, from tent-shaped temples to so-called “Naryshkin Baroque”. The singularity of those artifacts that is most vividly seen, perhaps, in St. Basil’s Cathedral, is particularly stunning in the contrast between the exterior and interior. Turning your soul into all smiles, the contagious vivacity of these motley onions (onion-shaped domes, t/n) and pot-bellied uprights, these walls made into fairy-tale like gardens with merry patternworks from one side… But, once inside, you enter as though into a different culture which, strikingly, remains almost as Russian: barred little windows, narrow shutters, low vaults, rigid norms, stern faces, semigloom. Ousted to the outside, the Myth of the suprapeople is juxtaposed with the Myth of Christianity – oppositional to the world, forming the inner space, self-contained, and intolerant. Pre-Russianism and Orthodoxy. Neither a synthesis, nor a blending, but an almost mechanical segregation of domains. In terms of dialectics – a thesis along with its antithesis.
One may object: having been cleansed off the layers of centuries, the frescoes and icons of our temples would reveal much brighter colors, more cheerful patterns of ornamentation than is normally thought of. True, but if the influences of pre-Russianism did reflect as cheer in some of the paintings, time was working against it dampening the brightness of colors with the soot from the candles and icon lamps, unavoidable and inalienable attributes of the cult. A uniform local color was being created that aptly corresponded to low passageways, little windows, and the overall minor scale mood of the divine service. This combination of ways reached the utmost cohesion and expressiveness precisely in the interior of St. Basil’s Cathedral with its segregation of the inner space into a great many isolated cells whence the divine service could not be seen, only heard, and the setting was best suited for solitary inner prayer. All in all, starting from the borrowed Byzantine single-domed temples to the Empire style churches of the nineteenth century, doesn’t the appearance of Russian shrines bewilder one with its contrast between the interior and exterior, between form and content? Oh, it is far, far from being a harmony! The Russian temple is harmonious, true, while we behold it from without: whether it be a snowy-white cube with a golden helmet or a multicolored, tower-like, seemingly ever mirthful flower with its twisting wooden or stone petals. Inside, it is also harmonious, though the harmony is different. But between these two harmonies lives a chasm of mutual misunderstanding and deeply seated animosity. In the church architecture, the Christian Myth (for reasons largely unbeknownst) still tolerated and calmly accepted this territorial coexistence with the Myth of suprapeople(*1). In other spheres of culture and life, as I have already pointed out, it was much worse. It should come as no surprise that, under such conditions, pre-Russianism could evolve neither into an autonomous system, nor into a teaching. It could not even grow into an awareness of its own existence. For such an awareness, there have to be some sort of pivot, axis, central image belonging exclusively to a certain myth; the pivot point was not there. The influence of the demiurge and Navna upon individuals and the people overall did not cross the threshold of the consciousness; whatever was experienced in the soul was entirely attributed to the activities of other echelons, those of the Christian Myth.
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1 The Church’s struggle against the pre-Russianism Myth could be seen, for example, in the prohibition of tent-shaped temples in the eighteenth century so as to force a return to the canonical Byzantine style.
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