CHAPTER II THE SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES OF THE SLAVOPHILS AND THE RUSSOPHILS (Danilevsky, LeoNTIEV, AND SOLOVIEV) THE SLAVOPHILISM OF DANILEVSKY THE Slavophil views of Russian society were synthetized and to some extent purged of their metaphysical presuppositions by Danilevsky.1 His approach is bio-sociological. He claims to have arrived at the conclusion, both from historical study and from biological analogy, that the Russians are a distinct and a peculiar people. He does not believe that Russia has for its mission the enlightenment of all mankind, as was claimed by the older Slavophils; according to Danilevsky, there are no forms of civilization which could be advantageously adopted by all peoples; there are but historical types of culture and the Slavic people represents one of them, which, in comparison with other civilizations, should be wider in its scope and more complete. Danilevsky's theory of historical types of culture is based upon the biological proposition that there is more than a relative distinction between genera and species." He holds that the genus man or mankind is but an abstraction; real 1 Nikolai Yakovlevitch Danilevsky (1822-1885) was an all-round scholar. He specialized in natural sciences, was a statistician, translator, and wrote on psychological, economic and political subjects. His book, Russia and Europe, is regarded as classic within the wide range of Slavophil writings. 2 Cf. Russia and Europe (Russian), 2d ed., pp. 125 ff. are only the species of man which in history can be recognized readily by their historical types of culture. His biological presuppositions bring him into conflict with Darwin's theories of the origin of species and Danilevsky tries to defend his theory against the great Englishman.1 By his biological analogies Danilevsky attempts to bolster up and to corroborate his rather tractarian study of history, hoping thus to give it the appearance of something natural and inevitable. We give here an outline of the sociological aspect of his theory: There is no cast-iron rule for dividing history into various periods. The division will depend, in part, upon the views of the historian, and in part upon the character of the development itself which may be modified more or less by local changes. Only within the one type at a time is it possible to distinguish those periods of historical movement which are designated by the words: ancient, medieval and modern history. This division is but secondary; the primary classification consists in discriminating the distinct historical types of culture from each other.3 These are the independent, original planes, religious, social, and other of historical development.* We can determine the stages of development of a particular type of society whose cycle belongs to the past. We can say: 1 In a large work, Darwinism, of which but two volumes appeared. The author died before its completion. 2 Russia and Europe, p. 91. The Russian original which we translate as historical types of culture" is equivalent to the German "Kultur-Historische". This nomenclature was used by the German historian Rückert, and it is possible that Danilevsky borrowed the term from him. For the relation of Danilevsky to Rückert, see article of Bestuzhev-Rasumnik, Russky Vyestnik, October, 1894. here its infancy comes to an end, here its youth, its maturity, here we see its old age, its decay; which is to divide its history into archaic, ancient, mediaeval, and modern.1 There can then be no division of general history except into a natural system of historical types of culture or independent and original civilizations. These in their chronological order are as follows: (1) Egyptian, (2) Chinese, (3) Assyro-Babylono-Phoenician, Chaldean or Ancient Semitic, (4) Indian (Hindo), (5) Iranian, (6) Hebrew, (7) Greek, (8) Roman, (9) NewSemitic or Arabian, (10) Germano-Romanic or European. To these could be added two American types, the Mexican and the Peruvian which perished by violence thus being robbed of opportunity to complete their development. Only those peoples that produced an historical type of culture were the direct promoters of civilization. The various types are to be discriminated into isolated types of civilization, like those of India and China, and into civilizations which are built successively, one upon the ruins of the other, the decaying types serving the newly-rising types as material or as a "fertilizer". Such were the civilizations of Egypt, the Assyro-Babylono-Phoenician, the Greek, the Roman and the European.3 Analogous to the comets and to the cosmic matter which moves among the planets of the solar system, there are in the world of man, besides the directly functioning cultural types or independent civilizations, temporary phenomena which disturb the existing order. Such were the Huns, 1 Russia and Europe, p. 90. ' Ibid., p. 91. 3 Cf. ibid., p. 92. 66 the Mongols, and the Turks, who having completed their destructive task of aiding the struggling civilizations to breathe their last, and of tearing asunder their remains, disappear and are again engulfed in obscurity. Let us call them the negating agents of humanity".1 Finally there are tribes which, for various reasons, have neither a constructive nor a destructive mission to fulfill. They are largely ethnographic material, adding to the diversity and richness of those types of which they form constituents; such are the Finnic tribes of Russia. At times also decayed historical types of culture descend to this stage.2 History proves that civilizations are not transferable from one historic type to another, their rôle is merely that of stimulating, "feeding" or "fertilizing". "If civilizations are spread by way of colonization or grafted upon peoples that are making their own civilizations, then the graft does not benefit the grafted either in the physiological or in the historical sense.' It lives on it like a parasite and its own original development also is hindered. "The transition from the ethnic stage to the civil and from the civil to a civilized and cultural stage is conditioned by series of spurs or shocks which stimulate and support the activity of peoples along a certain direction." Such spurs and wars, competition of all kinds, and similar stimuli. Progress does not consist in a general movement of all peoples towards one set goal. Rather it consists in working the whole field of historical life in diverse ways. Thus 1 Russia and Europe, p. 93. "Cf. ibid., p. 93. • Ibid., p. 104. • Ibid., p. 117. "the many-sided manifestation of the human mind is progress ".1 Civilizations which have developed upon the ruins of past historical types of culture, as, e. g., those of Europe, have the appearance of exceptional progressiveness. The East and Asia are "but characteristic indications of that age, in which a nation is wherever it may live "." 66 To nations as to all other organisms" is given but a certain lease of life, and when this is exhausted they must die". Hence progress is subject to the law of diminishing returns. 'If the ethnic period is a time of ingathering, of storing for future activity, so the period of civilization is a time of expenditure . . . and no matter how great the store of energy, it must finally diminish and be exhausted". His theory of social evolution Danilevsky sums up in five generalizations or laws, which are as follows: First law. Each family of peoples, which is characterized by a separate language or group of languages, so far alike among themselves that their kinship is immediately recognizable without elaborate philological investigations, presents an original Historical Type of Culture, if in its mental capacity it is fit for historical development and has passed its stage of infancy. Second law. In order that a civilization capable of becoming an original Historical Type of Culture, may arise and develop, it is necessary that the peoples which belong to it shall enjoy political independence. Third law. The beginnings of civilization of one Historical Type of Culture are not transmitted to peoples of a different type. Each type must work these out for itself, 1 Russia and Europe, p. 92. 2 Ibid., 4 ▲ Ibid., p. 75. s Ibid., p. 77. 5Ibid., p. 113. |