Мария Барабанщикова. Россия о которой мы ничего не знали
What was cultural and spiritual life like in Russia in the 1870s–1880s? We get the answer to this question back in school, by reading the novels of Tolstoy, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and Chernyshevsky. The spiritual interests and aspirations of the gentry society of that time can be described in two words: “denial” and “salon.”
Denial was linked to nihilism (from Latin nihil – nothing), which was particularly popular among young people. Nihilists denied accepted norms, moral values, and cultural traditions. We encounter the figure of the nihilist in I. S. Turgenev’s novel Fathers and Children. Evgeny Bazarov very precisely expressed the essence of the new system of views: “What matters is that two times two makes four, and everything else is trifles.” From the nihilist’s point of view, nature, love, marriage, and art are not worth a broken penny: only that which brings benefit has a right to exist. Two more phenomena were closely tied to nihilism: emancipation (the character of Vera Pavlovna in N. G. Chernyshevsky’s novel What Is to Be Done?) and revolutionary terrorism (F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel Demons). However, there were not so many adherents of nihilism.
The bulk of the Russian gentry led the secular lifestyle appropriate to it, governed by all the rules of comme il faut: excellent French, long clean nails, and the ability to bow, dance, and converse. The St. Petersburg aristocracy spent its time in endless balls, dinners, and visits to fashionable salons or circles. The high-society “salon” life is superbly described in the novels of L. N. Tolstoy.
Such is the image of Russia in the second half of the nineteenth century created by Russian classical literature. But there was another image – a spiritual one, linked to the spread of the Good News and the emergence of the evangelical movement.
A spiritual awakening began in the spring of 1874, when the English missionary and preacher Lord Radstock arrived in St. Petersburg.
In L. N. Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina there is an interesting episode in which Anna Karenina tells about a certain Sir John, an English missionary who had been to India. Who is this enigmatic Sir John, and why did Tolstoy decide to mention him?
Quite unexpectedly for myself, I found the answer in David Fountain’s book Lord Radstock and the Spiritual Awakening in Russia: “In the novel Anna Karenina, Tolstoy portrayed Radstock in the character of Sir John and described the religious awakening in a caricatured fashion.” The mockery was prompted, on the one hand, by the fact that Radstock’s preaching about salvation by faith and man’s need for Jesus Christ was alien to Tolstoy’s rationalism and to the Russian “Orthodox consciousness” in general. On the other hand, in gentry society the search for truth and the meaning of life had always been a matter for men (think of Pierre Bezukhov, Andrei Bolkonsky, Konstantin Levin), while woman’s sphere was home and family (remember how Tolstoy called Natasha Rostova a “female” at the end of the novel). It is therefore no accident that in the novel Anna Karenina the followers of Sir John’s teaching are exclusively plain and unmarried women. Femininity and intelligence, and still more an independent spiritual search, are, in Tolstoy’s view, incompatible things.
Nevertheless, in David Fountain’s book one can find many curious facts indicating that it was precisely women who played a significant role in the awakening of Russia, and women from high society at that.
For instance, David Fountain mentions that Lord Radstock received the invitation to visit Russia from the Empress herself. The English missionary was also invited by Elizaveta Chertkova, the wife of the Tsar’s aide-de-camp.
After Radstock’s preaching, one of the first to turn to Christ was Princess Ekaterina Golitsyna, the granddaughter of the president of the Russian Bible Society. Among Radstock’s followers were Lady Elizaveta Chetkova, Count Modest Korf, Princess Natalia Levin and her sister Princess Gagarina, Lady Penker, Prince Vasily Pashkov, Countess Ignatieva, Count Alexei Bobrinsky, and Lady Zasetskaya, the daughter of the famous poet V. Davydov.
D. Fountain writes: “Day after day Radstock was among the magnificent, painted halls of St. Petersburg, persuading the aristocracy to see their need for Christ. In overcrowded halls evening after evening he preached through an interpreter. But among the nobility he conversed in French, which was widely known among high society.”
The most outstanding of the converts was Prince Vasily Pashkov, a colonel of the imperial guard and one of the richest men in Russia. “Like Radstock,” Fountain notes, “he did everything possible to preach about the Kingdom of God. When Radstock returned to England, Vasily Pashkov became the leader of the evangelical movement. Because of the influence of these two personalities the movement was called ‘Radstockism’ and ‘Pashkovism.’”
Gradually the evangelical movement spread and grew. And soon the official church and the authorities began a struggle against the “new heresy.” Fountain’s book includes letters from a French governess who served in Pashkov’s household. Here is what she wrote on the subject: “Already last winter much was written and said about the preaching of Colonel Pashkov and his friends. They are accused of not praying to icons and images of the saints and of not crossing themselves. They are reproached for never speaking about the saints and for asserting that only faith is necessary for salvation – this is not at all like what the priests teach.”
In 1878 Radstock was expelled from Russia, and the meetings of the “Pashkovites” were banned. In June 1884 Pashkov and Korf were banished from Russia. They spent the rest of their lives in exile. One can stop a man, but who can stop God? Fountain writes: “Despite the ban, Princess Levin continued to invite Radstock, Baedeker, and Müller to her house for preaching. This was reported to the Tsar, and he threatened to banish her if she did not stop. She answered: ‘Ask His Majesty whom I must obey, God or the Emperor.’ His reply was: ‘She is a widow, leave her in peace.’”
Russian classical literature always relied on the principles of realist art: to depict life as it is. However, spiritual awakening did not become an object of reflection and portrayal in literature, which was far too preoccupied with solving the accursed Russian questions: “Who is to blame?” and “What is to be done?”. Therefore, the image of Russia worshiping Christ as Savior remained in the shadows. But today we know that it existed.
The word of truth, sown by an English missionary, bore fruit. Despite persecution and prohibitions in Tsarist Russia, and later repressions under Stalin, the Gospel survived, and today thousands of people in Russia and other countries are devoted to it just as Lord Radstock once was.
Maria BARABANSHCHIKOVA
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