UDC

94(47).08:261.7+172.3

Authors

Dmitriy A. Golovushkin
The Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia; nab. r. Moyki 48, korp. 20, St. Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation;
e-mail: golovushkinda@mail.ru

Abstract

This article reveals the content of the debate between ecclesiastical and nondenominational reformers of the early 20th century concerning the religious-historical meaning of the Russian Revolution. Representatives of the “new religious mentality” (D.S. Merezhkovsky, Z.N. Gippius, D.V. Filisofov, and others) considered the social revolution both as a threshold of the religious revolution and a “competitive religious discourse” able to oust and defeat the predominant religion: autocracy (“the sacred against the sacred”). Adherents of the reformation and “Christian community” (S.N. Bulgakov, A.V. Kartashev, V.F. Ern, V.P. Sventsitsky, and others) did not endue the revolution with religious sense, but considered it to be an integral stage of the “theanthropic process” and a tool for the achievement of the highest religious goals, namely the separation of Church and State, religious revival and creation of “free theocracy” (V.S. Solovyov). Although this discussion came to a dead-end by 1910–1911 (neither of the parties could answer the questions of how to Christianize this social power and carry out this religious and social upheaval), it had an enormous influence on the ideological development of Russian Orthodox Renovationism in the first quarter of the 20th century as well as on the subsequent estimation of the revolutionary movement by Russian religious and philosophical figures. As early as before the events of 1917, religious and philosophical thinkers had realized the imminence of a “new religion”, accompanying the social revolution, which would be a new projection / legitimation of the sociocultural changes taking place.

Keywords

Russian Revolution, “new religious mentality”, “Christian community”, Russian spiritual renaissance

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