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On Laughter and Vladimir Solov´ev's Three Encounters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Judith Deutsch Kornblatt
Judith Deutsch Kornblatt*
Affiliation:
Department of Slavic Languages, University of Wisconsin, Madison
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Extract

Perhaps the most consistent biographical reference to the Russian philosopher Vladimir Solov'ev (1853-1900) concerns his unusual guffaw: “When he laughed, his loud infectious laughter ‘with unexpected, outrageous, and hiccup-like high notes’ would drown out all other voices.” Scholars usually explain this laughter as a sign of Solov‘ev's otherworldly perception and his occasionally inappropriate descent into our mundane realm. Observing this “infectious laughter,” Evgenii Trubetskoi found an explanation in his friend's supposed ethereal character: “He was so nearsighted that he did not see what others saw. Squinting under his thick brows, he could make out items at close range only with difficulty. But when his glance searched into the distance, it seemed to penetrate beyond the surface accessible to our external senses and to see something otherworldly, hidden from all the rest. His eyes shone with some kind of internal light and gazed directly into the soul.” Aleksandr Blok, who claimed to have been greatly affected by a chance meeting with the strange philosopher, called him “pure spirit, as if an image instead of a living man–an outline, a symbol, a sketch.”

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 57 , Issue 3 , Fall 1998 , pp. 563 - 584
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1998

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References

I would like to thank a number of colleagues who read this article in full or in part at various stages of its development, especially James Scanlan, Caryl Emerson, Gary Rosenshield, Edith Clowes, David Bethea, and the anonymous readers at Slavic Revieiv. Their critiques proved invaluable, and where I stubbornly refused to follow their advice, the fault rests entirely with myself.

1. Trubetskoi, Evgenii, “Lichnost’ V. S. Solov'eva,” Nashe nasledie, 1988, no. 2: 70 Google Scholar. Originally inSbomik pervyi: O Vladimire Soloxfeve (Moscow, 1911), 45–77. Internal quotation from Velichko, V. L., Vladimir Solov'ev: Zhizn’ i tvoreniia (St. Petersburg, 1902), 142.Google Scholar

2. Trubetskoi, “Lichnost'V. S. Solov'eva,” 70 (emphasis in the original).

3. Aleksandr Blok, “Rytsar'–monakh,” in Sbornik pervyi, 96.

4. Mochul'skii, Konstantin, Vladimir Solov'ev: Zhizn’ i uchenie, 2d ed. (Paris, 1951), 25 Google Scholar. Internal quotations from Velichko, Solov'ev, 142, 22.

5. I suggest here a new translation of the poem's usual English title: Three Meetings. The poem itself indicates that at least the first two encounters were far from designated meetings;the first was completely unexpected, and the second more induced than assigned.Translations in this article are my own, from a new, rhymed version of Tri svidaniia: “Vladimir Solov'ev's Three Encounters: An Annotated Translation,” Silver Age, no. 2 (1999): forthcoming. The original may be found in Solov'e, V. S.v, Sobranie sochinenii, ed. Solov'ev, S. M. and Radlov, E. L., 2d ed., 10 vols. (St Petersburg, 1911–14 Google Scholar; reprintwith 2 additional volumes, Brussels, 1966–70), 12: 80–86 [henceforth SS]; and in V. S.Solov'ev, Stikhotuoreniia i shutochnye p'esy, introduction by Z. G. Mints, Biblioteka poetaseries (Leningrad, 1974), 125–32 [henceforth Stikhotvoreniia].

6. Ironically, Three Encounters apparendy did not at all appeal to certain of Solov'ev's lady friends, especially Sofiia Khitrovo (see below), who recommended he not publish it. See Solov'ev, Stikhotvoreniia, 309.

7. See Solov'ev, SS, 3: 115, 11: 288. Solov'ev was proud to show off his knowledge of Hebrew and could certainly pronounce Hokhmáh (or Hókhmah in Ashkenazi pronunciation) correcdy. At least two colleagues with whom I have shared this work, Edidi Clowes and Olga Meerson, are certain that he must have made the phonic association with the colloquial Russian term khókhma, meaning a good belly laugh. I would hope this is the case!

8. The dialogues are not included in the first or second editions of the collected works of Solov'ev. They may be found in Solov'ev, V. S., La Sophia el les autres écrits français, ed. Rouleau, François (Lausanne, 1978)Google Scholar.

9. Mochul'skii, Solov'ev, 77; see also S. M. Solov'ev, Zhizn’ i tvorcheskaia evoliutsiia Vladimira Solov'eva (Brussels, 1977), 203–13 (emphasis in the original).

10. In general, Mochul'skii, who refers to Solov'ev's “erotic” nature, sees romantic episodes where other biographers do not. See Mochul'skii, Solov'ev, 10, 63, 75. Although Velichko recognizes several unconsummated infatuations, he claims that Solov'ev “prevailed over passions and the cares of the world early and forever,” thus satisfying his own more ethereal view of the philosopher. Velichko, Solov'ev, 18.

11. See S. M. Solov'ev, Zhizn', 399–401, and Bulgakov, Sergei, “Vladimir Solov'ev i Anna Shmidt,” in Tikhie dumy (Moscow, 1918), 71–114.Google Scholar

12. The late poem “Das Ewig–Weibliche” and several others contain some of the elements of the earlier Sophia poems, although their tone is much more philosophical than “incantatory,” to use Sergei Bulgakov's term for the “Sophia” cycle. Bulgakov, Sergei, “Stikhotvoreniia Vladimira Solov'eva,” Russkaia mysl', 1916, no. 2: 11 Google Scholar. If they are included, then we should of course add the name “Eternal Feminine. “

13. Solov'ev, La Sophia, 6. Andrei Belyi draws directly on this mystical color symbolism for the tide of his early collection of poems, Zoloto v lazuri (1904).

14. See, among others, Allen, Paul Marshall, Vladimir Soloviev: Russian Mystic (Blauvelt, N.Y., 1978)Google Scholar; Carlson, Maria, “Gnostic Elements in the Cosmogony of Vladimir Solov'ev,” in Kornblatt, Judith Deutsch and Gustafson, Richard F., eds., Russian Religious Thought (Madison, 1996), 49–67 Google Scholar; Cioran, Samuel D., Vladimir Solov'ev and the Knighthood of the Divine Sophia (Waterloo, Ont., 1971)Google Scholar; David, Zdenek V., “The Influence of Jacob Boehme on Russian Religious Thought,” Slavic Review 21, no. 1 (March 1962): 43–64 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hoeller, Stephan A., “Vladimir Soloviev: Russian Orthodox Aposde of Gnosis and Sophia,” Gnosis Magazine 16 (Summer 1990): 29–33 Google Scholar; Kornblatt, Judith Deutsch, “Solov'ev's Androgynous Sophia and the Jewish Kabbalah,” Slavic Review 50, no. 3 (Fall 1991): 487–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Plincke, Violet E., “Vladimir Soloviev: A Seeker of Sophia 1853–1900,” in Fletcher, John, comp., Russia: Past, Present and Future, introduction by Bitdeston, Adam (London, 1968)Google Scholar; S. M. Solov'ev, Solov'ev. In addition, Kristi Groberg has been particularly successful in placing Solov'ev's Sophia in both the mystical and literary traditions of the Eternal Feminine. See Kristi A. Groberg, “The Eternal Feminine: Vladimir Solov'ev's Visions of Sophia,” Alexandria: The Journal of the Western Cosmological Traditions 1 (1991): 77–95, and “The Feminine Occult Sophia in the Russian Religious Renaissance: A Bibliographical Essay,” Canadian–American Slavic Studies 26, nos. 1–3 (1992): 197–240.

15. For the former, see Kinsley, David R., The Divine Player: A Study of Krishna Lila (Delhi, 1979)Google Scholar. I would like to thank an anonymous reader for making these suggestions and for reminding me of the many mystical meanings of the White Lily. Given his erudition, Solov'ev was likely aware of and playing widi many of them.

16. See Solov'ev, SS, 11: 289, 292–93, and 309.

17. The poetic personal speculates: ‘You surely laughed, surrounded by hot desert / I looked a fright in coat and tall top hat” and “I laugh along with you; for just like gods, / Men laugh at troubles once they are past and done. “

18. For more on the sufferings of Sophia in Gnosticism, see Jonas, Hans, The Gnostic Religion, 2d rev. ed. (Boston, 1963), 187–89.Google Scholar

19. In an interesting critique of Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of carnival, Sergei Averintsev discusses the traditional belief that Christ never laughed, concluding that laughter's purpose is to lead to freedom; Christ does not laugh, for he is already free. Averintsev, S. S., “Bakhtin, smekh, khristianskaia kul'tura,” in L. A. Gogotishvili, and Gurevich, P. S., eds., M. M. Bakhtin kak filosof (Moscow, 1992), 8–9 Google Scholar. (I would like to thank Caryl Emerson for pointing out this reference and for allowing me to see her discussion of it in manuscript form.) Perhaps, insofar as Sophia is divine, she also need not laugh. Rafher she must lead us into interaction with her divine self, which she can do through the provocation of laughter.

20. Bogochelovechestvo is usually translated “Godmanhood.” Because of an ongoing debate regarding this clearly awkward and inaccurate translation, I have chosen to retain the original. See Paul Valliere, “Sophiology as the Dialogue of Orthodoxy with Modern Civilization,” in Kornblatt and Gustafson, eds., Russian Religious Thought, 191 nl; and Kornblatt, Judith Deutsch, “Vladimir Solov'ev on Spiritual Nationhood, Russia and the Jews,” Russian Review 56, no. 2 (April 1997): 157n8 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The lectures were an immediate success, attended by virtually all intellectuals in St. Petersburg, including Fedor Dostoevskii, Lev Tolstoi, and even Konstantin Pobedonostsev, lay head of the Orthodox Church.

21. Solov'ev, SS, 3: 121, 140, 141, 146.

22. Ibid., 3: 140.

23. Ibid., 11: 288.

24. Ibid., 11: 310. In his analysis of Sophia icons, Solov'ev's follower Pavel Florenskii makes a direct connection between Sophia and the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as between Sophia and Mary. Solov'ev here is not as exact in his association.

25. Solov'ev, SS, 11: 299; see Kornblatt, “Androgynous Sophia,” 494.

26. Solov'ev, SS, 11: 298.

27. Cioran, Vladimir Solov'ev, 6.

28. See Chulkov, Georgii, “O sofianstve,” in O misticheskom anarkhizme (St. Petersburg, 1906; reprint, Yorks, Eng., 1971), 33.Google Scholar

29. Solov'ev, SS, 7: 27.

30. Ibid., 3: 115.

31. On Hobbes, see Monro, D. H., Argument of Laughter (South Bend, 1963), 83.Google Scholar

32. Solov'ev, “Lektsiia ot 14 ianvaria 1875 g.,” SS, 12: 526 (emphasis in the original). The editors of the Brussels reprint, quoting from M. Filippov's study of Solov'ev, point to an error in Solov'ev's interpretation of Aristotle, who spoke of man not as a “social” but as a “political animal.” See M. Filippov, “Sud'ba russkoi filosofii,” Nauchnoe obozrenie, 1898, no. 8–10: 1351–68, 1548–71, 1793–1812, 1797–98.

33. E.g., Solov'ev, SS, 3: 19, 25, 32.

34. Ibid., 3: 32, 26, 121, 36, 12 (emphasis in the original).

35. Solov'ev's nephew, S. M. Solov'ev was the first to discuss it in print. See S. M. Solov'ev, Zhizn', 130—46. His explanation of the structure of the work differs slighdy from the published version in V. S. Solov'ev, La Sophia.

36. Solov'ev, La Sophia, 27.

37. Here, Solov'ev contradicts himself by claiming that man is by essence a metaphysical being, but at the same time insisting that the essence of humanity is to be both physical and metaphysical. His love of paradox, of course, is no more logical than his love of Sophia.

38. Solov'ev, SS, 3: 127.

39. Freud, Sigmund, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, trans, and ed. Strachey, James (New York, 1960), 100–101.Google Scholar

40. Nietzsche, Friedrich, The Portable Nietzsche, trans. Kaufmann, Walter (New York, 1968), 406, 407–8Google Scholar.

41. Nietzsche, Friedrich, Joyful Wisdom, trans. Common, Thomas (New York, 1960), 32 (emphasis in the original).Google Scholar

42. Solov'ev, SS, 9: 266.

43. The editors of the Brussels reprint cite Bergson's statement that man is “un animal qui sait rire” (an animal who knows how to laugh) in their notes to Solov'ev's lecture on laughter and metaphysics, discussed above. Solov'ev, SS, 12: 526«2. For an interesting study of Bergson in Russia, including some discussion of similarities with Solov'ev, see Fink, Hilary, Bergson and Russian Modernism, 1900–1930 (Evanston, 1998).Google Scholar

44. Henri Bergson, “Laughter,” in Comedy: “An Essay on Comedy” by George Meredith and “Laughter” by Henri Bergson, introduction and appendix, “The Meanings of Comedy,” by Wylie Sypher (Garden City, N.Y., 1956), 65, 73 (emphasis in the original).

45. Solov'ev, SS, 11: 318 (emphasis in the original).

46. Bergson, “Laughter,” 67–69.

47. The italicized line juxtaposes Solov'ev's childish infatuation with the liturgy he was overhearing. Velichko identifies the girl as Iulinlca S., who captivated the nine–year–old Vladimir only to “prefer another.” See Velichko, Solov'ev, 12. Solov'ev included the following note: “'She’ in this stanza is a simple young girl and has nothing in common with the ‘you’ to whom the preamble is addressed.” The latter “you” is presumably Sophia, called here “Eternal friend. “

48. Bergson, “Laughter,” 117, 148.

49. Ibid., 190.

50. Solov'ev, SS, 6: 287–92; 6: 394–98. Also V. S. Solov'ev, Pis'ma, ed. E. L. Radlov, 4 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1908; reprint with additions, Brussels, 1970), 4: 289–93.

51. These latter words describe Solov'ev's view of Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled. Solov'ev, SS, 6: 291. If Solov'ev's intention was indeed to steer his readers away from false mysticism and occultism, he was far from successful, as the widespread interest in theosophy among the creative intelligentsia of the time testifies. See Carlson, Maria, “No Religion Higher Than Truth “: A History of the Theosophical Movement in Russia, 1875–1922 (Princeton, 1993).Google Scholar

52. Solov'ev, 55, 7: 165.

53. See Solov'ev, “Russkie simvolisty,” 55, 7: 159–70.

54. Chulkov, “O sofianstve,” 29.

55. Bergson, “Laughter,” 92–94.

56. Cf. Solov'ev, SS, 3: 172, 180.

57. Solov'ev, La Sophia, 27.

58. Bergson, “Laughter,” 170.

59. Solov'ev, “Obshchii smysl iskusstva,” SS, 6: 75.

60. Ibid., 6: 76 (emphasis in the original).

61. Solov'ev, SS, 11: 238.

62. See, for example, this one about Solov'ev's good friend, A. A. Fet: “Zhil–byl poet, / Nam vsem znakom, / Pod starost’ let / Stal durakom” (Once lived a poet, / Whom we all know, / Who, growing old, / Became an oaf). Solov'ev, Stikhotvoreniia, 149.

63. See the comments of the editors in Solov'ev, SS, 12: 171–73.

64. Solov'ev, SS, 12: 83. Solov'ev nods in Three Encounters to other classic writers of nineteenth–century Russian literature as well, including Mikhail Lermontov, Nikolai Nekrasov, and A. A. Fet. Analysis of diis intertextuality will unfortunately have to wait for later study.

65. A thorough analysis of Dostoevskii's humor is clearly needed; such a work might pave the way for a broader comparison with the humor of Solov'ev.

66. Solov'ev, &S, 10: 168.

67. Most likely, Solov'ev here refers to Tolstoi—Lev rather than Aleksei—for the Count was Solov'ev's polemical target in Three Conversations. Solov'ev directly pokes fun at Dostoevskii (as well, clearly, as Nietzsche) later in Three Conversations, when the melodramatic Superman of the “Short Story of the Antichrist” promises comfort in exchange for freedom in a broadly drawn parody of the Grand Inquisitor. See Judith Deutsch Kornblatt, “Solov'ev on Salvation: The Story of the ‘Short Story of the Antichrist, '” in Kornblatt and Gustafson, eds., Russian Religious Thought, 77.

68. Wladimir Solowjew, Deutsche Gesamtausgabe der Werke von Wladimir Sotowjew, ed. Wladimir Szytkarski, Wilhelm Lettenbauer, and Ludolf Müller, 8 vols. (Munich, 1979), 8: 582. For the reference to the Daniil Monastery, see Solov'ev, SS, 10: 218.

69. Kornblatt, “Solov'ev on Salvation,” 76.

70. Solov'ev has the governess speak ungrammatical Russian here, using a feminine ending as the predicate to “he.” I have suggested the error through inappropriate word order in English.

71. Nikolai Gogol', Mertvye dushi, in Meshcheriakov, N. L., ed., Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 14 vols. (Moscow, 1937–52), 6: 166–67.Google Scholar

72. Ibid., 6: 167.

73. Ibid., 6: 92

74. F. M. Dostoevskii, Brat'ia Karamazovy, in Grossman, L. P., ed., Sobranie sochinenii v desiati tomakh (Moscow, 1958), 9: 449 Google Scholar. A number of scholars have suggested that Solov'ev provided the prototype for Alesha, others that he was the inspiration for Ivan Karamazov. See Solov'ev, Stikhotvoreniia, 10.

75. Bergson, “Laughter,” 69.

76. Solov'ev, La Sophia, 27.

77. Velichko, Solov'ev, 2.

78. Solov'ev, Pis'ma, 2: 18 and 19.