WAR AS A NEGATIVNE REVELATION. THE GRAIL OF M. PRISHVIN AND S. BULGAKOV

Abstract

For the first time in Russian science the article compares Mikhail Prishvin’s philosophy of war and archpriest Sergei Bulgakov’s theology of war on the material of Prishvin’s war diaries of 1914–1941 and S. Bulgakov’s works devoted to the sophiology of suffering (“The Holy Grail” (1932), “Reflections on War” (1940), etc.). The article defines theological contexts of the military theme: the war as a negative revelation, the sophistry of war, the discovery of the truth of God-manhood in war. The mysticism of the “invisible church” of M. Prishvin and S. Bulgakov is compared. It is concluded that the sophiology of S. Bulgakov’s suffering can be regarded as one of the relevant contexts for the philosophy and theology of war in Prishvin’s diaries. Prishvin, like Bulga- kov, describes the truth of the super-personal collective, revealed in the cross sacrifice of the war Calvary (the images of the “Lay Chalice”, the sprout of the “invisible church”, “the great Conciliarity of those alive”). Along with that, defining the spiritual meaning of war, Prishvin raises the question about over- coming war as an idea born of indifferent theoretical thinking, which denies the personal whole, the intuition of the “other”.