From the “Mystery” to the “Religion” of Progress (V.S. Solovyov and M.O. Gershenzon)

The article discusses V.S. Solovyov’s influence on the reflections of M.O. Gershenzon in 1910–1920s about progress, personality, crisis of culture and war. The article affirms the thematic continuity of the views of the two thinkers and the conviction of M.O. Gershenzon in the key position of personality in the development of historical processes. It is emphasized that personality is a reference point in the coordinate system that builds the idea of progress in M.O. Gershenzon’s works. It is noted that the crisis of culture and the war are stages on the path of progress that neglects the personal, namely: the progress of abstract, highly specialized scientific knowledge in which the individual is alienated. The cultural heritage, which is not claimed by the individual as a single consciousness and therefore not assimilated by modern man, has become just a value that does not meet an individual request, turns ‘mystery’ into ‘religion’, an object of personal spiritual comprehension into obligatory ritual that alienates a person from action, the meaning of which is lost. Between Solovyov’s “mystery of progress” and Gershenzon’s “religion of progress” an entire epoch passes away, in which, as it seemed, war is no longer possible, but finally the war sweeps away the achievements of civilization with a fiery whirlwind. All the consequences M.O. Gershenzon’s statement that the main reason for this process is the loss of the individual (including personal search for truth), its transformation into a value in culture, are analyzed in the article. It is concluded that the World War I undermined faith in progress as a multiplication of values in culture; it was comprehended as a consequence of the violation of the organic “complexity of a whole life”, the alienation of a value that was personal in origin.