Pyotr Chaadaev

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This article is about the philosopher. For the ski jumper, see Petr Chaadaev (ski jumper).

Pyotr Chaadaev

Pyotr or Petr Yakovlevich Chaadaev (Russian: Пётр Яковлевич Чаадаев, Pëtr Jakovlevič Čaadaev) (1794-1856) was a Russian philosopher, who published eight^[1] "Philosophical letters" about Russia in French in 1829, which circulated in Russia as manuscript for many years. The works could not be published in Russia because of its highly critical nature of Russia's significance in world history and politics. They included criticism of Russia's intellectual isolation and social backwardness.^[1] When in 1836 the first (and only one published during his life)^[1] of the philosophical letters was published in the Russian magazine Telescope, its editor was exiled to the Far North of Russia. The first one has been labeled the "opening shot" of the Westerner-Slavophil controversy which was dominant in Russian social thought of the nineteenth century.^[1] After the publishing, Chaadaev was declared a madman. His ideas influenced both the Westerners (who supported bringing Russian into accord with developments in Europe by way of various degrees of liberal reform) and Slavophils (who supported Russian Orthodoxy and national culture.)^[1] During the 1840s Chaadaev was an active participant in the Moscow literary circles. He befriended Alexander Pushkin and was a model for Chatsky, the chief protagonist of Alexander Griboyedov's play Woe from Wit (1824).

[edit] New International Encyclopedia biography

Petr (Piotr) Yakovlevitch Tchaadaev (1794-1856) was a Russian writer, born in Moscow. After leaving Moscow University without completing his course in 1812, he entered the army and served in the Napoleonic Wars. The main thesis of his famous Philosophical Letters, the first of which appeared in 1836 in the Moscow Telescope, was that Russia had lagged behind Western countries and had contributed nothing to the world's progress. He therefore concluded that Russia must start de novo. These strikingly uncomplimentary views caused their author to be adjudged insane, and his next work was entitled, fittingly, The Vindication of a Madman (1837). In this brilliant but uncompleted work he maintained that Russia must follow her inner lines of development if she was to be true to her historical mission. The Slavophiles at first mistook Tchaadaev for one of them, but later, on realizing their mistake, bitterly denounced and disclaimed him. Tchaadaev really fought Slavophilism all of his life. Most of his works have been edited by his biographer, M. Gershenzon (two volumes, Moscow, 1913-14), whose excellent little study of the philosopher was published at St. Petersburg in 1908. ^[2]

[edit] References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Pevear, Richard & Volokhonsky, Larissa, eds. (1975), written at Leningrad, “Commentaries on Demons by Fyodor Dostoevsky”, Soviet Academy of Sciences (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.) 12: 715 (published 1994), ISBN 0-679-42314-1
^ New International Encyclopedia