Mikhail Osipovich Menshikov: “What is democracy.” Sculptor and artist Mikhail Osipovich Mikeshin: biography, features of creativity and interesting facts
As world history shows,
the most zealous champions of democratic utopias,
sleepless interpreters of age-old popular aspirations,
fiery denouncers of violence and dominance,
as a rule, excellent murderers and virtuoso executioners..
Laura Tsagolova
In continuation of the topic about, which in some forums has caused a lot of discussions and ambiguous positions among like-minded people, I want to remind everyone that We have already discussed. We are people, our ancestors, compatriots. The patriarch of our nationalism, Mikhail Osipovich Menshikov, more than a hundred years ago, anticipated and formulated everything that the Russian people needed. We just need to remember.
Since many in the present century do not have time to look into the past even for an hour, let alone a hundred years ago, I give a brief description of the Personality of the person whose thought I published after describing his biography. So:
Mikhail Osipovich Menshikov
Born in Novorzhevo, Pskov province, in the family of a collegiate registrar. He received his education at the Opochetsk district school, after which he entered the Technical School of the Maritime Department in Kronstadt. Participated in several sea expeditions, during which his literary talent emerged. He published essays on foreign voyages on the frigate “Prince Pozharsky” in a number of publications, which were later published as a separate book “Around the Ports of Europe” in 1879.
Menshikov continued his journalistic activities, published in the Kronstadt Bulletin, in Morskaya Gazeta and Technical Collection" In 1892, Menshikov retired with the rank of staff captain and devoted himself to literary work. He got a job as a permanent correspondent for the Nedelya newspaper, and later became its secretary and leading publicist. The young author attracted attention with his talented literary and journalistic articles.
In connection with the closure of the Week, Menshikov moved to Novoye Vremya and was the leading publicist of the newspaper from 1901 to 1917.
In his journalism, M. O. Menshikov touched upon issues of the national consciousness of the Russian nation, problems of lack of spirituality, alcoholism, the Jewish question, and state policy. He argued that Russia “introduced foreign elements into itself in much greater quantities than the structure of the state allows.” Some consider M. O. Menshikov the first ideologist of Russian ethnic nationalism. He took a patriotic position aimed at protecting the interests of Russians and the Russian state. He foresaw a national catastrophe. Corresponded with L. N. Tolstoy, N. S. Leskov, M. V. Nesterov, I. D. Sytin, D. I. Mendeleev, A. P. Chekhov.
In the article “The End of the Century,” written in December 1900, Menshikov makes a deep generalization of the results of the 19th century, embracing the future of both Russian and all European civilization.
Menshikov was one of the leading right-wing publicists and acted as an ideologist of Russian nationalism ( and I ask you not to confuse it with the current one, which has nothing in common with the healthy Russian national. not having ,Ed.). He initiated the creation of the All-Russian National Union in 1908, which brought together moderate-right politicians with nationalist beliefs.
After the revolution, Menshikov was removed from work at the newspaper, on September 14, 1918 he was arrested by members of the Cheka at his dacha in Valdai, and on September 20 he was shot on the shore of Lake Valdai in front of his six children. According to Menshikov’s wife, the judges and organizers of the execution were Jews Jacobson, Davidson, Gilfont and Commissar Guba.
Rehabilitated in 1993.
WHAT IS DEMOCRACY
I am spending these days in one of the corners of ancient Greece, which, by the will of the gods, now has Russian district administration, city government and all the signs of our culture. Sitting long sunny days at a height above the boundless sea, looking at the numerous ruins of old towers and temples, I involuntarily think about the distant youth of humanity, about the beautiful and bright - as we are accustomed to consider it - Hellenic civilization. What got her up then? What gave it its blossoming? What ruined her?
Already 2300 years ago this “Russian” town was a strong fortress. It was during the siege that the Bosphorus king with a somewhat strange name for a monarch died - Satyr I. It is clear that long before this satirical moment, perhaps since the time of the Argonauts, this blessed land became Greek. Just like in Hellas, here the mountains, groves, and waters were inhabited by oreads, dryads, and naiads; Venus also once emerged from the wonderful greenish-blue waves that beat at the foot of the dacha where I live. Under the marble columns on the hills here, too, were the altars of the Cloud-Taker Zeus and the entire choir of the eternally beautiful, blessed gods who embodied the youth of the Aryan race. Moreover, there was an amazing cult of some kind of Virgo. But this takes me off topic. I would like to think with the reader, why did the great Pan die? Why did the ancient luxurious flourishing of humanity seem to have been blown away by the wind? They say: the barbarians came and swept into one trash heap both the gods from Olympus and the heroes from the curly shores of the Mediterranean basin. For example, the Scythians, Sarmatians, Huns, Goths, Pechenegs, Cumans, and Turks passed through here. Countless hordes of humanoids fell in one wave of destruction after another, and as a result, the brilliant civilization went out.
That it really went out here and almost forever, for this it is enough to tell about my today’s walk to Mount Mithridates, where there is a tiny museum of antiquities. A steep, high mountain, against the slope of which the house where Aivazovsky was born was pressed. The poet of this coast was born almost a century ago and died long ago, but such scenes are possible at his cradle.
What about the museum? Closed again? No, the devil knows what it is! Written on the door: open from 10 am to 6 pm. It's half past 12 now. There was a padlock under the “open” sign. What does this look like?
“Let’s wait a little,” another from the crowd says meekly. - Perhaps the watchman will come.
Wait for him! “He’s sitting in the basement now,” a third notes skeptically.
What is he doing in the basement? - the high school student asks naively.
It is known that: it blows vodka. Drunkard, what should he do?
Excuse me,” someone remarks, “he can’t sit in the basement.” Mass has not yet departed. The basement must be locked!
Yes, it’s locked,” the knowledgeable guy inserts. - On holidays, you really have to knock on the basement to be let in. They'll let a group of friends in, and they'll lock you up. Do you care if you drink, the doors are locked or not? It's even better behind bars.
No, you will put yourself in my position,” worries the gentleman who arrived with a large photographic camera. “You’re newcomers, and I’m even a local resident and I come here many times, but I just can’t find the watchman.” I need to take some pictures, and so...
It ended with the gentleman putting down the device and going with his son to look for the basement where the watchman sat during office hours. I would go to the head of the museum - he’s a Frenchman here, but they say he also adores Bacchus. Complain to the authorities, you say? - an empty matter. They have already complained so many times, they even published it in the newspaper.
This is the kind of civilization now in the homeland of the muses and graces.
I asked who, in fact, should be considered the master of the local culture. The city survives by supplying bread. The ruling class in it is predominantly Karaites. Let me list the companies selling bread: Dreyfus, Tubino, Neufeld, Ratgauz, Sturler, Skia-Krym, Fleishman, Dalia-Orso, Crimea, Reiberman, Mendelevich, Mustava Mamut and, finally, the Russian Society for Export Trade. Let's say that the latter society is really Russian, but for the 10.5 million poods of grain sold over the last 8 months - do you know how much the "Russian Export Trade Society" sold? Only 116 thousand pounds. Only, therefore, about one hundredth of the grain exports belongs to the Russian people. 99 hundredths of the culture of these places lies on the conscience of the non-Russian heirs of ancient civilization. Making millions of dollars in turnover, they don’t even think of setting up a decent museum of antiquities with a sober guard. It never occurs to them to restore the theater that burned down during the 1905 revolution. The stone ruins of the latter still sadly stick out in the city center...
Who were the barbarians who destroyed ancient world? I think these were not external barbarians, but internal ones, like those who are now in abundance in Europe. It seems to me that the destroyers were not the Scythians or the Germans, but much earlier than them - gentlemen democrats. Since these days, on the occasion of by-elections to the State Duma, debates about democracy have again begun to boil throughout Russia, it would not be amiss for many statesmen to look into the textbook and find out more precisely what democracy was like in its classical era, what it was like in her fatherland, “under the blue sky” of her native gods?
About Ancient Greece in our public for the most part judged by Homer, by the Greek tragedians, by the charming mythology popularized by Ovid. But the religion and heroic epic of Greece are not a product of Hellenic democracy at all, but of an older aristocratic period. It has now been established that the ancient world - like the Christian world - had its own Middle Ages, quite similar to ours. Just as our democracy is only the heir of the feudal era, which brought the culture of the spirit to the flowering of thought, so the ancient Hellenic democracy did not itself create, but received as a gift that god-like rise of minds that marked the so-called “age of Pericles.” The great people of this century were either aristocrats or bourgeois brought up in aristocratic traditions. But how did democracy itself dispose of the inheritance of its ancestors - that is the question!
To understand what the famous Athenian demos was, you need to read not the tragedians, but Aristophanes. I remember my great amazement when I first became acquainted with his comedies. From them emerges the living, unvarnished Greek people in all their homely nature. I don't have Aristophanes here and I can't quote him. The people are free, but even in such a small mass of citizens - 20-30 thousand people - what a vulgar crowd they were! How much incredible rudeness, cynicism, greed, servility, cowardice, the darkest superstition and the most frantic depravity - and where! At the very foot of the great Parthenon and god-like statues!
Like the French Revolution, which fought Europe with the moral and physical means gathered during the feudal period, the Athenian democracy was at first aristocratic and, by the force of inertia, followed in the footsteps of heroes. But the elation of spirit, alien to her nature, quickly fell. The genius that was alien to her faded away. “Equality” was the slogan in the name of which Hellenic democracy, during the era of the Persian wars, overthrew the remnants of the oligarchy. The principle was proclaimed, as in our time, that the decision belongs to the majority. What happened? Very soon it became clear what we see in modern Europe, namely, that democracy by its very nature is non-political. In the square of Athens there was a crowd of people, chained by poverty and mediocrity from time immemorial to questions of the plow and the axe, the arshin and the scales. What could they understand in the questions? foreign policy poor people who don't know exactly what countries are hiding over the horizon? How could they sort out financial or administrative issues? Meanwhile, the proletarians gained a decisive advantage in the country. Remember how they used it.
Mob and power
No matter how much you talk about oil and water, the specific gravity will immediately indicate natural place both liquids. The mob, even having seized power, quickly finds itself at the bottom: it certainly nominates, and at that itself, certain leaders whom it considers better than itself, that is, aristocrats. A game of best begins. To please the mob, you need to make yourself pleasant to them. How? Very simple. We need to bribe her. And 24 centuries ago, wherever democracy rose, theft of the state was established. The people's leaders squandered funds to advance, and then rather cynically shared the treasury with the people. Even the noble Pericles was forced to bribe the people. In just a few decades, crude demagoguery developed. Dishonest people, in order to seize power, endlessly flattered the people. They promised unrealistic reforms and were kept in warm places only by handouts from the mob. True, at the beginning the spirit of the old aristocracy was still awake. The power of the square was checked by a magistracy chosen from the more enlightened and independent classes. Every illegal decision of the people's assembly could be challenged in court. However, the democratic legal proceedings themselves were terrible. Jury bribery has developed to an incredible extent. To make this bribery more difficult, the number of jurors had to be increased, and this was only possible by paying for their work from the treasury. As the proletarians seized the courts and power, decent people themselves moved away from these positions. In the end, the trial became common. What could the stinking crowd of several hundred people, according to Aristophanes, discuss? And how could she understand the intricacies of the law? It was then that sophists, loudmouths, and lawyers of bad taste came forward, and then the court became in their hands a blind instrument of party struggle. The death of Socrates - one of a countless number of "miscarriages of justice" - shows what the justice of a democratic court was. Such a wonderful system has been established. State finances were depleted in spending on the "disadvantaged" class. The shortage had to be covered by confiscations from the rich, and for this purpose political processes were created. The crowd of judges knew that she would be paid from the confiscated amount - how could they not find the rich man guilty? “Everyone knows,” said one speaker, “that as long as there is enough money in the coffers, the Council does not violate the law. If there is no money, the Council cannot help but use denunciations, confiscate the property of citizens and not give in to the proposals of the most unworthy loudmouths.”
Because of this, denunciations have developed horribly in the country of freedom and equality. Lawyers shamelessly blackmailed the rich. The latter, in order to protect themselves, had to hire informers themselves and respond to meanness with meanness. Lovely system!
Reading Aristophanes, you see that Hellenic democracy was concerned with the same ideas of socialism and communism as the current proletariat. Equality “in general” especially willingly passed over in the mind of the poor man to equality of property. The comrades of that time even tried in some places to carry out a “black redistribution” (for example, in Leontini in 423, in Syracuse under Dionysius, in Samos in 412, etc.). Such robbery of the upper classes by the lower classes split the nation and weakened it worse than any external enemy. The sword of Damocles was constantly hanging over the heads of the energetic, hardworking, thrifty, gifted part of the nation: they were about to inform, about to sue, about to confiscate their property. Ochlocracy surpassed the oligarchy of the 7th century in its tyranny. No wonder that the best people Greece, having actually become acquainted with what democracy is, ended up with deep contempt for it. Thucydides calls the democratic system “an obvious madness, about which sensible people should not spend two words.” Socrates laughed at the absurdity of distributing government positions by lot, while no one would want to take a feedman, an architect or a musician by lot. The greatest of the Greeks, Plato, remained completely aloof from political life. He thought that in a democratic society, useful political activity was impossible. Epicurus, etc., held the same opinion. Democracy brought with it internecine war into society: the best, that is, the most enlightened and wealthy classes, had to enter into defensive alliances with each other against the mob, like our lockouts, and even call on foreigners to their fatherland.
What Athenian democracy was is clearly evident from the fact that, like our Duma members, it established a government salary for itself. For attending the national assembly, citizens received three obols each; this fee was subsequently increased to one drachma. And for regular meetings, the more boring ones, they received up to 1.5 drachmas. The state began to pay citizens who were unable to work an obol and two obols, that is, twice what was needed to feed a person. The luxury of the aristocracy, expressed in art, did not at all ennoble the mob. This luxury aroused in democracy only envy and a taste for idleness. “The people in democratic states,” says one historian, “used their strength to feast and have fun at the public expense. Demand gradually increased. In Tarsit, more festivals were celebrated than there were days in the year. Under all sorts of pretexts, the treasury began to be distributed to the people. First of all, in "Theatrical fees benefited the people, and then various others. In the era of Philip and Alexander, this maintenance of the people, the so-called pheoricon, became the main sore of Athenian finances. It absorbed all resources and, finally, there was nothing to wage war with."
Do you think democracy has woken up from this madness, seeing the cloud coming from Macedonia? Nothing happened. Only when Philip approached Athens did Demosthenes manage to persuade the citizens to refuse the free money. But as soon as peace was restored, they immediately returned to the pheoricon, for, as Demade put it, “the pheoricon was the cement that held democracy together.”
To exhaust the treasury to feed a lazy people and prepare it for the inability to arm the fatherland - this is a somewhat familiar picture to us, which had a precedent, as they say, in ancient times. The Novgorodians, as Kostomarov noted, drank away their republic. The Athenians drank theirs. Perhaps for the same reason, the greatest of the republics, the Roman, fell. Democracy begins with the demand for freedom, equality, brotherhood, but ends with a cry: bread and circuses! And there - at least the grass won’t grow!
It was not barbarians who destroyed ancient civilization, but democracy in varying degrees of its dominance that destroyed it. While the spring of ancient states was the desire for perfection (the principle of aristocracy), while society was ruled by the best people, culture grew richer and peoples moved forward. As soon as the substitution of classes took place, as soon as the worst infiltrated the place of the best, the triumph of baseness began and, as a result, collapse. Why did Greece, this impregnable citadel among the seas and mountains, fall? Why did Russian Greece and the Bosporan kingdom, which was in almost the same conditions, fall? How did it happen that for centuries the same peoples knew how to repel barbarians, and then suddenly they forgot how to do it? All this can be explained extremely simply. Instead of an organic system that had developed over centuries, where the best people were assigned to the highest and most subtle social work, “everyone” was allowed into the latter. “Everyone” did to society the same thing that “everyone” does, for example, with a pocket watch, when “themselves” begin to fix it with whatever they can: a needle, a hairpin, a match, etc.
Mikhail Osipovich Menshikov, 1909
M.O. MENSHIKOV
ABOVE FREEDOM
Articles about Russia
FROM THE EDITOR
Back to normal
END OF THE CENTURY
END OF THE CENTURY
CENSUS OF ANOINTING
CONQUEST OF RUSSIA
ABOUT LOVE FOR THE FATHERLAND AND PEOPLE'S PRIDE
SECOND SOUL
FIRST CONCERNS
TESTAMENT OF PETER
LEV TOLSTOY, MENDELEEV, VERESHCHAGIN
ABOUT THE UNKEEPED TRUTH
THE NEED IS GREAT
IN THE VILLAGE
ANARCHY AND CYNISM
ABOVE FREEDOM
RED JESUITS
SIEGE OF POWER
WALK TO WEALTH
MORAL CEASE
A SHIP SHOULD
TEAM OF THE BRAVE
TALK ABOUT FREEDOM
WHAT IS DEMOCRACY
FOR HALF A CENTURY
THE POWER OF FAITH
THE POWER OF FAITH
LION AND SERAPHIM
MONUMENT TO ST. OLGA
HOLGIN'S DAY
TESTAMENT OF ST. OLGA
IN MEMORY OF THE HOLY SHEPHERD
TWO RUSSIA
TALENT AND RESISTANCE
DAS EWIGWEIBLICHE
ABOUT THE COFFIN AND THE cradle
AMONG THE DECADENTS
STRUGGLE OF WORLDS
GOGOL'S DRAMA
TALENT AND RESISTANCE
RUSSIA IS ALIVE
IN MEMORY OF A.S. SUVORINA
IN MEMORY OF A GREAT CITIZEN
KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING
APPLICATION
NATURAL STYLE
TO LIVE ADDRESSES
WORD M.O. MENSHIKOV AT THE END OF THE XX CENTURY
LIST OF SOURCES
In loving memory
great-grandson M.O. Menshikova,
my son
Nikita Mikhailovich Pospelov
I dedicate
Compiled by
FROM THE EDITOR
For most readers, the obscurity of the legacy of Mikhail Osipovich Menshikov (1859-1918) is not only a gap in humanitarian knowledge, but also a heavy reproach to our national memory...
From the “pulpit” of the largest newspaper of the beginning of the century, the famous “New Time”, Menshikov broadcast throughout Russia, leaving a large and deep mark. For sixteen years he ran the column “Letters to Neighbors”; about two and a half thousand “messages” reflected all the main facets of Russian existence. This critical chronicle of the Empire, which was passing into eternity, is the pinnacle of the writer’s activity, one of the enduring values of Russian culture. The latter is still not realized, as well as the fact that the master’s work is the actual end of the era of Russian classical journalism.
Menshikov, for all his universality, is first and foremost a political thinker. His living philosophy is aimed at reviving the “historical strength of the nation”, contains a unique doctrine of statehood, and amazes with courage, clarity and prophecy. Therefore, the “Russian world” is frighteningly recognizable in the articles and poems of Menshikov - certainly our contemporary. As before, “his pen burns through paper, and printed lines burn through hearts.”
Let us not accept all the ideas of a publicist. But on the whole, Menshikov, who called his people to active piety and noble freedom, is needed just now, when unbridled freedom is placed above the life of the people, when our self-confidence is wavering and Russian self-consciousness is once again undergoing a severe test.
__________________________
Menshikov considered the book to be the best monument to the writer. We are erecting this monument to the best of our ability in the year of the 80th anniversary of the Bolshevik massacre of the great publicist. A selection of works was made by his grandson, Mikhail Borisovich Pospelov, with the participation of the writer’s daughter, Olga Mikhailovna Menshikova. The introduction to the book is the reflections of Valentin Grigorievich Rasputin. The appendix contains articles about the tragic fate, aspects of creativity and the significance of the author of “Letters to Neighbors.”
Back to normal
From the recesses of Russian pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary thought, social and spiritual, the last of the most significant is now being extracted. The last of the most significant comes from Russia Abroad. And it is unlikely that in the “darkness” of old Russia, closed from the 20th century by the revolution of 1917, one can still find such bright name, like Mikhail Osipovich Menshikov, publicist of Suvorin’s “New Time”, executed in 1918. His books from the enormous creative heritage he left will rival his books in importance; what is important in them will be confirmed by even more important and necessary ones. Our time is unfair to M.O. Menshikov by the fact that he is the last to open it, and literally “rubs his eyes”, clogged with the archival dust of third-rate figures before the appearance of a powerful mind and an integral (even in its contradictions) personality, completely given to Russia. For some reason, history loves “lost” minds that have worked in other people’s fields—that’s how the biography is brighter. And history, apparently, regards workers devoted to one task, who worked without guile from dawn to dusk, braving the nights, to save life itself, who knew the truth and did not deviate from it, apparently, as insipid and clumsy creatures. Yes, the world stands by them, no one argues with this, but while it stands, it gives its hobbies to unsteady minds, which today are here, tomorrow there, today zealously defend what tomorrow they will refute with even greater zeal.
In our 90s, several small books by M.O. Menshikov, as well as (in the “Russian Archive” series) his diaries and materials for his biography. They came at a time when the fair of tastes was raging especially loudly and shamelessly, dumping shameful and sacred things on the same shelves, and for this reason they were neither properly noticed nor appreciated. The return of the great patriot and deep mind turned out to be difficult; Menshikov is known and not known. In the noisy crowd of figures of the past and present, gathered at the council for the salvation of Russia, his mighty voice has so far been given very little to say, and only with this book is the word seriously given for the first time.
And for the first time, the opportunity arises to understand how courageous and tragic a person he is. Tragic not only in death, but also in life itself, amazingly energetic, fruitful (rarely a week went without three or four large articles), had enormous popularity, extremely versatile and educated, as political as spiritual, as loud as quiet , subtle, gentle, able to touch the soul and extract from it the sounds of rare sincerity. Menshikov’s vigorous activity occurred at the turn of the century, in the last decade of the past and pre-revolutionary, but already all in revolutions, as in holes, the current era, and at the pass of history, when a catastrophe was being prepared and happened, which he tried with all his might to prevent and, of course, could not. The collapse was prepared slowly and happened, no matter where we looked for the culprits, from the bowels of Russia; outside influences aggravated the destructive force, but were not its main cause; an empty soul will always find something to cling to for painful fillings, which it takes for saving ones. And now, almost a hundred years later, Menshikov’s “return” is taking place under similar conditions: the pass of centuries, coinciding with the pass of millennia, and the pass of history, making its last and perhaps victorious attempt to end Russia’s independence.
It was, everything has already happened!.. And it even becomes creepy from this similarity and from the return circles in which history goes, which has never taught us anything. We have not learned any lessons from the beginning of the century. Russia was granted a miracle to escape, to go through devastation and poverty, to win the war, to strengthen the state, to once again reach the mark of sovereign power, but when the time came to experience the same disease of decay, we found ourselves before it in the same defenselessness as monarchical Russia had been for a hundred years back. It must be said more decisively: we ourselves caused this decomposition in ourselves by not taking protective measures.
Therefore, today Menshikov’s articles are read with even greater drama, having received a second life and a second hopelessness. But you need to read them: perhaps, if it weren’t for people like Menshikov, who provided the Russian people with all the tools for salvation, history would not have returned to the “starting line” to offer a second attempt at salvation. And, perhaps, looking at us, who have finally understood something in the world political economy, out of compassion she will give a last attempt... Somewhere, marks must be made for each nation about its readiness to defend itself.
Menshikov Mikhail Osipovich - (September 25, 1859, Novorzhev, Russian Empire - September 20, 1918, near Lake Valdai) - Russian thinker, publicist and public figure, one of the ideologists of Russian nationalism. Mikhail Menshikov was born in the city of Novorzhev, Pskov province, in the family of a collegiate registrar. He received his education at the Opochetsk district school, after which he entered the Kronstadt naval technical school. He took part in several sea expeditions, during which his literary talent emerged. He published essays on foreign voyages on the frigate “Prince Pozharsky” in a number of publications, which were later published as a separate book “Around the Ports of Europe” in 1879.
M. O. Menshikov considered the Russian national Empire to be his political ideal. He characterized imperial statehood itself as the highest form of development of national creativity. It is the combination of nationalism and imperial patriotism that represents, perhaps, the most valuable quality of his political philosophy. After all, quite often we observe a bias in one direction. The empire, according to Menshikov, should be based on the leadership of the Russian nation. He called: “Think about the state! Think about the domination of Russia!.. To think about the state means to think about the domination of your tribe, about its master’s rights, about sovereign advantages within the Russian land.” At the same time, nationalism itself, despite the claims of some critics, did not at all have the character of chauvinism. “We,” Menshikov wrote, “do not rebel against the coming to us and even against the cohabitation of a certain percentage of foreigners, willingly giving them almost all the rights of citizenship among us. We rebel only against their massive invasion, against their infestation of our most important state and cultural positions. We protest against the ongoing conquest of Russia by non-Russian tribes, against the gradual taking away of our land, faith and power. We would like to repel the peaceful influx of alien races, concentrating for this purpose all the energy of our once victorious people...” He declared the nationalism of the Russian people to be rather defensive: “We Russians slept for a long time, lulled by our power and glory, but one heavenly thunder struck after another, and we woke up and saw ourselves under siege - both from the outside and from the inside.” According to Menshikov, the Russian nation must unite in its Empire. And she can only do this around the army and the military idea itself. It is the military spirit that unites the Russian people above all. At the same time, the army itself should be strengthened as much as possible and completely Russified, eliminating almost all foreign elements from it. Menshikov himself was aware of all the army's problems. It is characteristic that he, a staff captain who served in the navy, was the first in the world to put forward the idea of combining the navy itself and aviation. In fact, it was he who came up with the idea of creating aircraft carriers.
Menshikov was generally characterized by a brutal spirit; he viewed life as a constant struggle. “The struggle for existence is a deep philosophical requirement of nature, and it is a struggle not only for life, but for something higher life: for perfection,” Menshikov asserted. – The stronger, the more capable, the more successful survive. Victory is given to the braver, more heroic tribes, to those in whose souls the divine flame of love for the homeland and national honor burns most brightly. Cowardly, drunken, lazy, depraved peoples constitute a crime in the eyes of nature, and she mercilessly sweeps them away like stinking garbage. By the will of God, warlike peoples are the purifiers of the earth.” Some observers even consider it possible to talk about a certain Nietzscheanism of Menshikov. Indeed, some influence of the philosophy of F. Nietzsche can be traced in him. However, Menshikov was a convinced Orthodox Christian. Another thing is that his interpretation of Christianity diverges from the liberal and pacifist interpretation, imposing false humility on Christians. He paid attention to the words of Christ: “I did not bring peace, but a sword”; to the fact that Christianity requires the fight against the enemies of the country, people, and state. Menshikov highly appreciated Fr. John of Kronstadt, including for the call to fight against the revolution and the Christian justification for this call. “As you know,” the publicist recalled, “he courageously opposed our revolution and in church sermons reminded the authorities of their duty to suppress unrest. Not only to the people, but also to the authorities of Fr. John proposed for execution the famous 13th chapter of the Epistle (to the Apostle Peter - A.E.) to the Romans. “The boss does not carry the sword in vain: he is God’s servant, an avenger as punishment for those who do evil.” The Russian authorities learned with amazement that the apostle himself obliges to use the sword.”
Menshikov, like all Russian ideologists, advocated an autocratic monarchy, however, unlike the majority, he recognized the need for the existence of a State Duma and certain constitutional freedoms. But the publicist proposed admitting people with educational qualifications and experience working for the benefit of the Fatherland into the Duma itself. He saw the Duma as an Areopagus of sages, a sort of gathering of highly qualified experts. In his journalism, M. O. Menshikov touched upon issues of the national consciousness of the Russian nation, problems of lack of spirituality, alcoholism, the Jewish question, and public policy. Journalistic heritage of M.O. Menshikova is a rich treasure for everyone who loves Russia, its past and present, and whose soul aches for its future. Why was Menshikov erased from the memory of posterity? First of all, because the label of “Black Hundred” was stuck on him long ago, firmly and for a long time, i.e. “nationalist”, deliberately distorting his Orthodox-Christian, sovereign-patriotic predilections. Behind Lately we have resurrected in our spiritual memory many bright, significant names of Russian national culture - from Ivan Kireyevsky to Pavel Florensky. But if you ask today’s “educated people” (the expression of A.I. Solzhenitsyn) what they know about Mikhail Osipovich Menshikov, whether they know this name, his works, then even people with academic degrees, I assure you, will find it difficult to answer.
A “simple” journalist and a journalist-thinker, analyst are two significantly different concepts. Anyone who deals with paper and pen knows this. Menshikov thought amazingly clearly, wrote in an accessible language, and at the same time deeply penetrated into the essence of the problems raised. In addition, according to contemporaries, he was distinguished by an enviable energy with which he influenced those around him. His soul exuded a magically delightful, attractive magnetism. High professionalism is demonstrated by his famous “Letters to his neighbors,” recreating the diverse panorama of life in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century. The “Letters” contain warnings against the temptations of revolutionary disruption of centuries-old national, cultural, and spiritual traditions, a reminder of the inadmissibility of breaks in our history, national self-humiliation, blind and thoughtless copying of the notorious “Western way of life,” which has completely infected the Russian liberal intelligentsia. It is difficult to overestimate the relevance of these wise warnings in our time. More recently, demagogic formulas like: “We come from October,” “We are the children of the 20th Congress,” etc. were popular. It’s as if centuries-old Russia didn’t exist at all, our great spirituality didn’t exist. In opportunistic “textbooks” we are strenuously forced to imagine our national-state isolation, about evolution in the form of some intermittent, tangled zigzags, cave obscurantism going back centuries, gaping holes and white spots. “And this,” noted the outstanding philosopher and publicist of our time, Vadim Kozhinov, “leads to dire consequences. In particular, when there was deep disappointment in the results of the revolution and socialism, many had the impression that their country (“this country”!) had no right to exist, that it was abnormal, uncivilized, etc. Such a mood led to blind worship of the West." Journalistic heritage of M.O. Menshikov is a rich treasure of wisdom of a Russian patriot, endlessly devoted to the Fatherland. Hence his openly skeptical attitude towards liberal-Western maxims, in which hatred of Russia and the hypocritical preaching of the notorious “democratic values” are hidden. The journalist-thinker clearly and intelligibly explains the essence of democracy in its historical evolution, starting with Ancient Greece. “Who were the barbarians who destroyed the ancient world? I think these were not external barbarians, but internal ones, like those who are now in abundance in Europe. It seems to me that the destroyers were not the Scythians or the Germans, but much earlier than them - gentlemen democrats. Since these days, on the occasion of by-elections to the State Duma, debates about democracy have again begun to boil throughout Russia, it would be useful for many statesmen to look into the textbook and find out more precisely what democracy was like in its classical era, what it was like in its fatherland”, under the blue sky of “native gods?” Menshikov was one of the leading right-wing publicists and acted as an ideologist of Russian nationalism. He initiated the creation of the All-Russian National Union in 1908, which brought together moderate-right politicians with nationalist beliefs.
After the revolution, Menshikov was removed from work at the newspaper, and on September 14, 1918 he was arrested at his dacha in Valdai, and on September 20 he was shot by the Bolsheviks. Rehabilitated in 1993.
Mikhail Osipovich Menshikov
Called for self-preservation of the Russian nation
Menshikov Mikhail Osipovich (09/23/1859-09/19/1918), thinker, publicist and public figure, leading employee of the newspaper “Novoye Vremya”. In his writings he called on the Russian people to self-preserve the Russian nation, to defend the master's rights of Russians in their territories. “We Russians,” he wrote, “slept for a long time, lulled by our power and glory, but then one heavenly thunder struck after another, and we woke up and saw ourselves under siege - both from the outside and from the inside. We see numerous colonies of Jews and other foreigners, gradually seizing not only equal rights with us, but also dominance over us, and the reward for our submission is their contempt and anger against everything Russian.” Menshikov, like many others. Other prominent representatives of the Russian patriotic movement were not against the cultural self-determination of the peoples of Russia in their historical territories, but resolutely opposed the seizure of ownership rights in ethnic Russian territories by representatives of these peoples. He expressed the common position of many Russian patriots for the self-preservation of the nation - “down with the aliens.” “If they want to remain Jews, Poles, Latvians, etc. on our national body, then away with them, and the sooner the better... By allowing foreigners as foreigners... we do not at all want to be a litter for a whole kind of small nationalities who want to our body to multiply and take over us. We don’t want someone else’s, but our - Russian - land must be ours.”
According to Menshikov’s fair opinion, Russia, since the time of Peter I, has become deeply stuck in the West with its enlightened class. For this class, everything Western seems more significant than their own. “We,” writes Menshikov, “don’t take our eyes off the West, we are fascinated by it, we want to live just like that and no worse than how “decent” people live in Europe. Under the fear of the most sincere, acute suffering, under the weight of a felt urgency, we need to furnish ourselves with the same luxury that is available to Western society. We must wear the same clothes, sit on the same furniture, eat the same dishes, drink the same wines, see the same sights that Europeans see.” In order to satisfy their increased needs, the educated stratum is making ever greater demands on the Russian people. The intelligentsia and the nobility do not want to understand that high level consumption in the West is linked to its exploitation of much of the rest of the world. No matter how hard Russian people work, they will not be able to achieve the level of income that the West receives by pumping unpaid resources and labor of other countries into their favor. Even if the noble estates provide three times the income, the nobles still cry about ruin, because their needs have increased sixfold. Officials also receive a salary three times more, but still it cannot provide them with a European level of consumption. The educated stratum demands extreme effort from the people in order to ensure a European level of consumption, and when this does not work out, it is indignant at the inertia and backwardness of the Russian people.
Menshikov notes the unequal exchange that Western countries carried out with Russia. Prices for Russian raw materials, as well as for raw materials from other countries that did not belong to Western civilization, were greatly underestimated, because they underestimated the profits from the production of the final product. As a result, a significant part of the labor produced by Russian workers went abroad free of charge. The Russian people are becoming poorer not because they work little, but because they work too much and beyond their strength, while all the excess of their work goes to the benefit of European countries. “The people’s energy, invested in raw materials, is wasted in vain, like steam from a leaky boiler, and there is no longer enough of it for our own work.”
Killed by Jewish Bolsheviks on the shore of the lake. Valdai in front of your children.
O. Platonov
Menshikov as a literary critic
Menshikov entered the history of Russian literature as a bright literary critic and polemicist, whose works are distinguished by moral and philosophical depth, keen observation and independence of judgment.
Menshikov outlined his literary and aesthetic views in a number of articles that made up the collection “Critical Essays”, in which he formulated his moral position, in many ways close to the ethics of L. Tolstoy: “To extinguish evil with evil, insult with insult, violence with violence, this is It’s the same as putting out fire with fire: what happens is not the destruction of evil, but its doubling, the piling up of insult upon insult, vengeance upon vengeance. An incomparably more subtle and more powerful means is proposed - the moral struggle against evil, resistance with love.”
Menshikov agrees with Tolstoy that “life should become simpler, its appearance poorer, its inner content richer. It’s time for a person to “come to his senses, stop,” return to himself; the spiritual capital, now thrown out with such extravagance to the development of comfort, must remain at home and do the necessary great inner work, civilize the human soul. Indeed, the human soul seems to be the last concern of modern society.”
For Menshikov, as for Tolstoy, real art should contribute to the spiritual and moral improvement of people, the improvement of life and society. Literary criticism should strive for the same thing. In the article “Lost the Road,” dedicated to the work of L. Tolstoy, Menshikov speaks with bitterness about the emptiness and idleness of modern critical thought, which has forgotten that its task is “to complete Russian culture, to bring our nationality to the limit of poetic completeness, to beauty. And in beauty there is truth, and goodness, and everything divine that is available to us.”
In his other article “Literary Illness,” Menshikov, speaking about the emergence in the late 19th century. many artistic and other movements, notes: “Decades, symbolists, mystics, pornographers, aesthetes, magicians, visionaries, pessimists appeared - many small schools, undoubtedly of a psychopathic nature... common feature all these painful shades - unnaturalness, denial of life, perversion of nature.”
Following Tolstoy, Menshikov sees the main vice of decadence in the absence of moral and religious consciousness, sincere faith in God. He considers the decadents to be charlatans who “continue to fool the public for a very long time.” “If decadent writers and futurists,” he concludes, “who have fallen into a delirious state, have a circle of their ardent admirers, then our religious decadents also attract the morbid curiosity of fairly wide layers, especially when decadence is animated by the ecstasy of animal sensuality.”
In the article “Literary Illness,” Menshikov dwells in detail on such a phenomenon as pessimism, emphasizing that on its soil “essentially all literary ailments grew, and the largest of them, which can be called the ironic, analytical, accusatory school.” Menshikov classifies pessimism as one of the varieties of decadence, which distorts not only the ideal, but also reality, its reliable image: “The accusatory school, in its pursuit of the truth of life, has lost precisely this truth.” Menshikov categorically denies such accusatory literature, the object of which is only the “ugly sides of life” and which “carefully describes all the moral warts, pimples, bumps, contortions of a person, turns out his dirty linen, hidden wounds under the linen, pushes the edges of wounds and admires wild meat in them, and if he finds worms, then so much the better.”
Reflecting on the dangers of accusatory literature, Menshikov, like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, argues that the immorality and vulgarity that are depicted in art only increase the immorality and vulgarity in life: “You need the greatness of other peoples, their health, beauty, wisdom, power - that perfection life, the mere contemplation of which constitutes a medicine and a driving impulse. Only such literature promotes progress, for only it is the literature of discoveries and revelations. Our sick and evil accusatory literature is not so much a cure as the disease itself.”
Menshikov was convinced that in true art the object of the image should be something worthy: “Only our great poets understood this:
And peace with a noble dream
Cleansed and washed before him, -
Lermontov wrote. Pushkin thought about the purification - in the fire of poetry - of Russian life when he was going to tell in his novel about the customs of antiquity, the traditions of the Russian family, captivating dreams of love... The same instinct prompted Turgenev and Leo Tolstoy to move away - as much as was in their power - from denunciation and create beautiful, attractive pictures. This is what literature should be like in order to “support and restore the people’s spirit.” The idea that art and literature can influence a person and life for the better is one of the fundamental ones in Menshikov’s aesthetics: “Just as a sample of work, a plan, a drawing is important for a craftsman, so for the human spirit a living image by which he could build himself."
The spiritual and cultural revival of society, according to Menshikov, is impossible without a moral principle, outside the work of conscience: “It seems to me that the guiding principle, this Spirit hovering over chaos, is the moral beginning of a new life... The work of conscience should not stop at the destruction of evil; its goal is the creation of good, the implementation of a moral ideal, otherwise this work is fruitless. To create good, it is necessary to take only the best, only the perfect, that can be found around in the inexhaustible materials of civilization, following the example of our classics, who absorbed only the best milk of their mother Russia and only the best air of the West.”
Again and again Menshikov repeats the idea that the basis of any activity should be the work of conscience, since “only conscience indicates the best and perfect, the most viable and happy.” In the article “The Work of Conscience,” the critic writes that in an artist of such magnitude as Tolstoy, in addition to the greatest artistic gift and a wonderful mind, there is something even more significant - this is his conscience: “It is all amazing in him, it is difficult to meet a writer more truthful and unhypocritical. Talent is a noble attitude towards things, a truthful attitude, that is, conscientious.”
The concept of “Work of Conscience” is dominant in Menshikov’s aesthetics, in his idea of the role and purpose of culture, art, literature and science. In order for the spiritual and moral revival of Russia to occur, it is necessary that the work of conscience must take place in any person in any of his activities (especially in an artist). It is necessary to “force every minute to ask your secret judge - conscience: what am I doing? is it good? - this law would doom entire areas of the noblest present-day activities - science, art, literature ... " to oblivion.
Conscience as a spiritual concept is a creative force that can resist moral chaos and entropy. This is what we should be guided by in life. ordinary person and every true artist: “... We are not only obliged, but we can also arrange our lives in accordance with our conscience, even if the entire mass of humanity rushes towards the abyss - everyone is able to stop himself. To stop oneself is the highest and, moreover, possible task of a person, the only completely possible one.”
From the position of “the work of conscience,” Menshikov approaches the consideration of Gogol’s “The Inspector General” in the article “National Comedy,” an article that is unique and unusual in form. In it, the great classic addresses his descendants from the “kingdom of shadows.” As an epigraph to the article, Menshikov took the words of Gogol: “The Inspector General has been played, and my soul is vague, so strange. I expected, I knew in advance how things would go, and despite all this, a sad and vexed feeling came over me. My consciousness seemed disgusting, wild, and as if not mine..."
In his article, Menshikov managed to convey all the “fears and horrors” of the great writer, all the tragedy of his creative life. According to the critic, Gogol treated his writing as a service, and he begins the “organization” of the world around him with himself, with “self-organization,” applying the ethical principle of “work of conscience” to himself. No difficulties of life, in which “everything is wrong and fragile,” nor the indifference or blasphemy of his contemporaries could prevent Gogol from fulfilling what he was called to: “The point is that whether we ourselves remained faithful to the beautiful until the end of our days, were we able to “Is it possible to love him so as not to be embarrassed by anything happening around us and to sing a song to him tirelessly even at that moment when the world would collapse and everything earthly would be destroyed.”
These Gogol words turned out to be extremely close to Menshikov, who, through the mouth of Gogol, reminds the reader of his “bitter” laughter, with the help of which the author of “The Inspector General” hoped to correct morals and destroy vices: “Bad critics, devoid of religion and philosophy, wrote and write that laughter corrects morals. What a sad mistake this is! Laughter actually reconciles with evil rather than being armed against it.”
The comedy “The Inspector General” interests Menshikov from the perspective of its readers’ perception. And he comes to the conclusion that comedy is perceived as a farce. Through the mouth of Gogol, Menshikov challenges the recognition of “The Inspector General” as a national comedy: “Due to its simplicity, educated Russian society does not notice how offensive this comedy is, if one generalizes it to Russia in any way.” The critic believes that a writer should depict in his works only what is worthy, which “will become Russian pride for many decades,” and everything negative and bad “constitutes a perversion of the mind and feelings.”
Continuing his thoughts about Russian literature and culture, Menshikov argues that every nation needs “its own sacred writings.” All Russian literature testifies to an attempt to create a “great book”: “Even before Christianity and before writing itself, tales, epics, legends, religious and philosophical teachings. From the “Book of Golubina,” from the ruins of the heroic epic, from “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” you feel that the Russian people needed a great book that would express the greatness of their spirit.”
Menshikov is convinced that “a poetic genius can appear only at the height of the heroic, global rise of a nation. Only at such a height can any tribe say something significant and eternal to humanity.” Highly appreciating Gogol's talent and considering him a great exponent of the national spirit, Menshikov nevertheless comes to the conclusion that The Inspector General cannot be a national comedy. ““The Inspector General” is a great exposure of small evil.” Vice cannot serve as an example for others. It is necessary not to “collect in a heap” everything bad in order to ridicule, but “to collect in a heap all the good things in Russian life in order to touch the reader, touch him, nobly excite him and make him fall in love with the invisible spirit of the tribe with its power and beauty shown with his own eyes.”
In essence, Gogol in Menshikov’s article expresses the same thoughts that he expressed in “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends.” But the article does not lose its significance and its relevance because of this, for its author was able to reveal the full depth and tragedy of Gogol’s creative fate, not only as a brilliant artist, but as a religious thinker, a prophet of Orthodox culture.
Menshikov’s concept of the “work of conscience” is closely connected with the idea of Russian righteousness. “Only true saints, whose piety is known not by their words, but by their deeds,” the critic wrote, “can support and restore the people’s spirit.” Menshikov found such holy righteous people in the works of Leskov, whose heroes have genuine love for humanity, they do good unselfishly, for the sake of good itself, their life, ultimately, fully corresponds to the highest moral requirements. Leskov’s works, Menshikov notes, “begin with the transformation of the smallest cell of this society - the person himself.”
Speaking about Leskov’s righteous people, endowed with a sense of compassion, Menshikov notes that Leskov, like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, strives to awaken good feelings in people: “In a whole series of folk stories, Leskov gives pictures of life imbued with piety, the desire for the ideal, examples of spiritual heroism...” And Leskov thinks not only about the fate of his righteous heroes, but also about the fate of the entire people: “He preaches an artistic sermon about virtue, putting forward many sweet, simple, sincere types with whom he simply seems to be in love.”
“Leskov was one of the few,” notes modern researcher V. Yu. Troitsky, “who found the courage to constantly prove and convince with many examples that the Russian people are talented and original, and recreated in his work the remarkable features of the national character from the very “bottom” human society."
According to Menshikov, Leskov, along with Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, begins to “create a moral society, starting with himself, with personal improvement and ennoblement, and continuing with the same ennoblement of his neighbors.” “Improve people,” the critic calls, “develop their consciousness, stir up their sleeping conscience, ignite their hearts with compassion and love, make people averse to evil - and evil will collapse, no matter in what complex and distant forms it occurs - in social, economic, state."
Menshikov was one of the first to talk about the national identity of Leskov’s righteous people, who do good for the sake of good itself, alien to self-interest and falsehood. “But if we looked more broadly and at the same time were more honest in our thinking about Russia, recreated in the works of Leskov,” writes Troitsky, “then it would not be difficult for us to admit that the spiritual charm of the overwhelming majority of Leskov’s characters lies in the fact that they are firmly connected with the Orthodox worldview, which was then at the same time predominantly Russian. History testifies that the Russian people not only accepted Orthodoxy, but it was through it that they gained and established their national identity. Without mastering this simple truth, it is impossible to truly understand either Leskov’s heroes, or the characteristics of their selfless love for people and Russia, or the pathos of his work.” And Leskov himself was akin to his righteous people, because the main property of his own personality, according to the testimony of his son A. N. Leskov, was the inexhaustible and tireless need for living, effective good will.”
Menshikov was one of the first to draw attention to the spiritual and religious orientation of Leskov’s work, which puts him on a par with Dostoevsky and Tolstoy: “Leskov’s talent is a special type of religious feeling, it is a revelation of the spirit, hidden in nature, its truth and beauty... The artist is a dreamer, passionately searching in nature and imagination for an ideal person, waiting for the kingdom of God's truth. He is always searching and waiting, and this excited anticipation infects the reader and excites him. You come out of reading Leskov’s books unentertained and distracted, as you do after most mediocre authors: his books take root in you and continue to live, continue to disturb and touch you, doing some always necessary work in the depths of your conscience.”
Considering the work of conscience as an effective form of resistance to evil, Menshikov expresses disagreement with Tolstoy’s theory of non-resistance to evil through violence. In the article “Sick Will,” devoted to the analysis of Chekhov’s story “Ward No. 6,” Menshikov emphasizes that it is a refutation of the principle of non-resistance: “Doctor Andrei Efimych speaks in the characteristic language of Tolstoy’s teaching, insists on “understanding life” as the highest goal leading to “ true good,” insists on submission to circumstances, no matter how bad they turn out, i.e. they teach “not to resist.”
The article “Sick Will” is one of Menshikov’s most interesting literary critical works. All of it is imbued with sincere pain for Russia, for the Russian people and hope for the spiritual and moral renewal of the fatherland. “Oh, if only the conscience of the Russian people would awaken! If only he, sleeping with his eyes open, saw all the moral ugliness of his life, all the lies and dirt that had accumulated over the centuries!” - the critic concludes his article with these words.
Platonov O., Sokhryakov Yu.
Orthodoxy and autocracy were derived from the concept of “nationality”
MENSHIKOV Mikhail Osipovich (09/23/1859–09/20/1918), thinker and publicist, one of the founders of the All-Russian National Union. Menshikov's father came from a priestly family, his mother from the nobility. In 1873, after graduating from the Opochetsk district school, he entered the Kronstadt Naval Technical School, after which Menshikov became a naval officer. It fell to his lot as an officer to participate in several long-distance sea voyages, the literary fruit of which was the first book of essays, “Around the Ports of Europe,” published in 1884.
At the same time, as a naval hydrographer, he compiled several hydrographic and navigational works: “A Guide to Reading Nautical Charts, Russian and Foreign” (St. Petersburg, 1891) and “Locations of the Abos and the Eastern Part of the Åland Skerries” (St. Petersburg, 1892) .
In parallel with his service in the navy, the young Menshikov began to collaborate in “Week” (from the mid-1880s), where he soon became a leading employee.
Having finally believed in his gift as a writer, Menshikov resigned in 1892 with the rank of staff captain and devoted himself entirely to journalism. Being at that time under the influence of Tolstoy’s moral ideas, Menshikov’s journalism was of a very moralistic direction. The articles he published in “Week” were published as separate books: “Thoughts on Happiness” (St. Petersburg, 1899), “On Writing” (St. Petersburg, 1899), “On Love” (St. Petersburg, 1899), “Critical Essays.” "(St. Petersburg, 1900), "People's Defenders" (St. Petersburg, 1900).
After the publication of “The Week” ceased, A.S. Suvorin invited Menshikov to collaborate in his newspaper “Novoe Vremya”. Here Menshikov’s talent was revealed with greater integrity and poignancy in his “Letters to Neighbors,” which were published (2-3 articles per week) under this general title until the closure of the newspaper in 1917.
Menshikov attached great importance to journalism, its power and its ability to influence the minds of people. Considering journalism to be an art, he argued that it was extremely important for society in the 20th century to have good journalism, the decline of which could most sadly affect the consciousness of citizens.
As a publicist, Menshikov believed that it was the nationality that was the most threatened point in the defense of the Fatherland. “It is here,” he argued, “that matter is being replaced, here the very nature of the race is falsified and non-Russian tribes are uncontrollably displacing the Russian people.”
Conservative consciousness in his journalism was manifested in the cultivation of a sense of the eternal, which in his time was suppressed by the struggle between the old and the new. Menshikov wrote a lot, and in his articles, unfortunately, one can find a lot that is controversial or hasty in overly bold generalizations. Menshikov’s most interesting discussions were always about national problems and Russian nationalism. His nationalism is not an aggressive nationalism, a nationalism not of conquest or violence, but, as he put it, a nationalism of honest differentiation of one nation from another, in which only a good relationship between nations. His nationalism was not intended to destroy anyone, as various ill-wishers have repeatedly attributed to him. He was only going to defend his nation - an action that was completely legal and morally proper.
“We,” wrote Menshikov, “do not rebel against the coming to us and even against the cohabitation of a certain percentage of foreigners, willingly giving them almost all the rights of citizenship among us. We rebel only against their massive invasion, against their infestation of our most important state and cultural positions. We protest against the ongoing conquest of Russia by non-Russian tribes, against the gradual taking away of our land, faith and power. We would like to repel the peaceful influx of alien races, concentrating for this purpose all the energy of our once victorious people...”
He took many topics by storm, which was not always theoretically and factually correct, while remaining, however, always talented in form and always energetic. He said a lot of bitter things about the Russian people and their history, but he always did it sincerely.
Writing has always been a feat for him, it cost him his life, and during his lifetime it was filled with all kinds of slander and threats against him - therefore his words must be taken seriously and with understanding. “As for abusive letters,” he wrote, “they, like vile articles in the foreign press, give me the satisfaction of a shooter who has hit the target. It is in those cases when you hit the apple that the noise begins: a hare jumps out and beats a drum or a barrel organ begins to play. By the number of anonymous letters and dirty articles, a publicist defending the interests of the Motherland can see how valid his work is. In such a serious and terrible thing, like a political struggle, paying attention to the irritated reproaches of enemies would be as strange as a soldier expecting candy instead of bullets from the enemy trenches.”
Menshikov was one of the organizers of the All-Russian National Union, which was an organization born not from the revolutionary events of 1905, like most monarchist organizations (except for the Russian Assembly), but from peaceful life, the life of the State Duma and Menshikov’s journalism. It included moderate-right elements of educated Russian society - nationally minded professors, retired military officers, officials, publicists - united by the common idea of the primacy of the nationality in the three-member Russian formula.
The Union of the Russian People was a mass, popular, numerous organization and was born as a patriotic reaction to the revolution of 1905. The All-Russian National Union appeared during the reign of Stolypin and works III The State Duma as a union of like-minded people who demanded an immediate solution to the national and, above all, the Jewish question. They formulated the traditional triad of Orthodoxy-Autocracy-Nationalism from the end. For nationalists, both Orthodoxy and autocracy stemmed from the concept of “nationality” and national characteristics. This was a serious mistake.
Therefore, Menshikov did not fully understand the position of the monarchists, did not share some of their positions, but he was honest towards them and recognized their services to the Fatherland. “It is unforgivable to forget,” he wrote in 1911, “what role was played, for example, by the late Gringmut in Moscow or Dubrovin in St. Petersburg, Dubasov in Moscow or Durnovo in St. Petersburg, the Semenovsky regiment in Moscow or the entire guard in St. Petersburg. That the main siege of power and its central assault took place in St. Petersburg and Moscow... The foreign revolution tried to strike the empire in its very heart - that’s why so many rebels and rebellion holders flocked to both capitals. We... do not belong to the Union of the Russian People, but it would be either an act of ignorance or black ingratitude to forget that our national principles were proclaimed long before the emergence of the nationalist party - precisely by such “Black Hundred” organizations in St. Petersburg, such as the Russian Assembly and Union Mr. Dubrovin and Purishkevich. If we talk seriously about the fight against the turmoil, the real fight, not to the gut, but to the death, then it was led not by Kyiv nationalists, but by St. Petersburg and Moscow monarchists.”
February Revolution 1917 closed the newspaper “Novoye Vremya” and left Menshikov without his favorite job. October did not allow him to live even a year under its rule.
He was arrested in Valdai. 19 Sep. 1918 Menshikov wrote to his wife from prison: “The members and chairman of the Extraordinary Investigative Commission are Jews and do not hide that my arrest and trial are revenge for my old accusatory articles against Jews” (M. O. Menshikov. Materials for a biography // Russian Archive. Issue IV. M., 1993).
The day before the execution, he wrote, as if in a will, to his wife and children: “Remember, I am dying as a victim of Jewish revenge not for any crimes, but only for denouncing the Jewish people, for which they exterminated their prophets. It’s a pity that I didn’t get to live and admire you more.”
20 Sep. In 1918 he was shot by security officers for his articles on the shores of Lake Valdai.
But ideas are immortal and do not lose their creative power after the death of their carriers. After Menshikov’s death, a great piece of journalism remained, the motto of which could be his words: “More than once great empire ours was approaching the brink of destruction, but it was saved not by wealth, which we did not have, not by the weapons with which we were always limping, but by the iron courage of her sons, who spared neither strength nor life, so long as Russia lived.”
Smolin M.
Site materials used Great encyclopedia Russian people - http://www.rusinst.ru
Ideologist of the All-Russian National Union
Menshikov Mikhail Osipovich (09.23.1859-09.7.1918), leading publicist of the “New Time”, one of the founders and ideologists of the All-Russian National Union (VNS) and the All-Russian National Club (VNK).
Born in the city of Novorzhev, Pskov province. in a large family of a minor official (college registrar), coming from a clergy background. In 1864, the Menshikov family acquired a peasant hut with a vegetable garden, where they settled due to financial constraints. The future publicist was given his primary education by his mother, who came from the impoverished noble family of the Shishkins. After graduating from the Opochetsk district school (1873), with the help of his uncle, young Mikhail was able to enroll in the Kronstadt Naval Technical School, after graduating from which in 1878 the young sailor took part in a number of naval expeditions, thus gaining the opportunity to get acquainted with the sights of European cities. The result of the travels was the first book of essays by the aspiring publicist, “Around the Ports of Europe,” published in 1884. At the same time, as a naval hydrographer, he compiled the hydrographic and navigational works “Guide to reading nautical charts, Russian and foreign” (1891), “Location of the Abos and the eastern part of the Åland skerries” (1894).
However, Menshikov’s literary talent manifested itself earlier. While still a student at the maritime school, he published the student magazine “Week”. In Kronstadt, he also met the famous poet S.Ya. Nadson, who, already terminally ill, admonished Menshikov in one of his letters: “I am angry with you because you do not believe in yourself, in your talent... Write - for this is your portion on earth...” Gradually, Menshikov began to become more and more involved in purely journalistic activities, collaborating in such newspapers as “Golos”, “Petersburg Vedomosti” and “Nedelya”. In 1892, he retired with the rank of staff captain, soon becoming a leading employee of the Nedelya newspaper and its supplements. Once, replacing the editor-in-chief of the Week, V.P. Gaideburov, Menshikov almost became a victim of an indignant reader. On March 20, 1896, N. N. Zhedenov, a future prominent figure in the Black Hundred movement, offended by the article “Krasnoyarsk Riot” (“Nedelya.” 1896. No. 10), which exposed him as a careless zemstvo boss, shot Menshikov point-blank, confusing him with the main editor. Fortunately, the bullet only wounded the publicist. Since 1900, Menshikov was already in fact in charge of the “Week”, managing to actively collaborate in the newspaper “Rus”, the magazine “Russian Thought”, etc. He quickly became a famous journalist, met and actively corresponded with the largest contemporary writers: N. S. Leskov, F. M. Dostoevsky, L. N. Tolstoy, A. P. Chekhov, who unanimously noted his talent as a publicist. Being at that time under the influence of the moral ideas of L.N. Tolstoy, Menshikov’s journalism was of a very moralistic nature. These articles, written by him for the Week, were also published as separate books: “Thoughts on Happiness”, “On Writing”, “On Love”, “Critical Essays”, “People’s Intercessors”.
After the publication of “The Week” ceased, in 1901 A. S. Suvorin invited Menshikov to join the staff of his newspaper “Novoe Vremya”. In it, he began to maintain the column “Letters to his neighbors,” and soon, with the assistance of lawyer A.F. Koni, he received permission to publish a monthly publication under the same name. He received a lot of correspondence from the localities addressed to him and received numerous visits home from people of all ranks and classes, from workers and peasants to generals and ministers. Among them were the heads of two Russian governments - S.Yu. Witte and P. A. Stolypin. The first asked to draw up one of the draft versions of the future Manifesto of October 17, 1905, and the second “almost begged to take the money and head the publication of an all-Russian national newspaper.” Menshikov refused the last proposal in favor of “Letters to his neighbors.” It was in these “Letters,” published until the newspaper’s closure in 1917, that the crystallization of Menshikov’s worldview took place over the course of 16 years.
In 1908, Menshikov became one of the initiators of the creation of the VNS. He gave the name to the Union, developed its program and charter. “The idea of creating such a party,” he himself emphasized without false equivocation, “is attributed to me.” It was under the influence of Menshikov’s national journalism, according to Prince. A.P. Urusova, a national group was formed in the State. Duma, which fell away from the right-wing faction. Indeed, throughout 1906-1908, Menshikov published a series of articles in which he consistently substantiated the thesis “about the need to create a Russian national party”, which is not similar to both the “foreign cadetism” and the Black Hundreds. “Russian so-called “Black Hundred” organizations<...>only a rough draft of a new movement,” wrote Menshikov. The goal of the VNS, as Menshikov believed, was to create a “national aristocracy” and a “patriotic middle class.” Since 1908, Menshikov was a member of the Main Council of the All-Russian People's Commissariat, and in 1909, together with P. N. Krupensky, he initiated the creation of the All-Russian People's Commissariat. During the struggle for leadership in the VNS between the book. A.P. Urusov and P.N. Balashev, supported the former, however, when Balashev’s line to transform the VNS from an elite party into a mass one prevailed, Menshikov “gave up his principles” and remained in the Union.
Being an active figure in the All-Russian National Assembly and the All-Russian People's Commissariat, Menshikov paid most attention to developing the concept of “Russian nationalism,” however, it is hardly legitimate to reduce his journalistic activity only to this problem. His socio-political ideal, which emerged in the late 19th century, was a strong monarchical government with parliamentary representation and certain constitutional freedoms, capable of protecting the traditional values of Russia and improving the health of people's lives. Rejecting the activities of revolutionary organizations as parties of the “Russian Troubles,” Menshikov at the same time acted as an opponent of the Black Hundred, considering the Black Hundreds to be the same revolutionaries, only on the right. However, not fully understanding the position of the Black Hundreds and not sharing some of their positions, Menshikov was honest in relation to the right-wing monarchists and did not deny them their services to the Fatherland. “It is unforgivable to forget,” he wrote in 1911, “what role they played, for example, the late Gringmut in Moscow or Dubrovin in St. Petersburg<...>would<...>It is black ingratitude to forget that our national principles were proclaimed long before the emergence of the nationalist party - precisely by such “Black Hundred” organizations in St. Petersburg, such as the Russian Assembly and the Union of Messrs. Dubrovin and Purishkevich. If we talk seriously about the fight against the turmoil, a real fight, not to the gut, but to the death, then it was led not by Kyiv nationalists, but by St. Petersburg and Moscow monarchists.”
Menshikov was never a politician in the strict sense of the word, but was only a journalist who wanted to be read as widely as possible larger number of people. In this regard, he was characterized by frequent changes of views. In 1906, during the revolutionary upsurge, Menshikov argued that only the liberal Cadet Party would bring salvation to Russia, and a year later he became its ardent opponent. At times he showed such left-wing ideas that he even had to resign from the Russian Assembly. He expressed sympathy to I State. Duma, but, as the situation in the country calmed down, he began to vilify Messrs. “liberators and revolutionaries.” In 1909, Menshikov advocated for a curial election system for Western Rus', and in 1911 he again moved to the camp of Stolypin’s opponents and began to criticize both the idea of the Western zemstvo and his comrades in the Supreme National Assembly, who supported the prime minister. Not wanting to see in such actions a betrayal of the national cause, A.I. Savenko explained them by the fact that “in this case, motivated by malicious people,” Menshikov “simply did not realize what he was talking about.” Menshikov's political changeability was noted by Witte both on the issue of the Russo-Japanese War and regarding government reforms. B.M. Yuzefovich and Savenko wrote about the inconstancy of Menshikov’s political preferences. The latter generally believed that Menshikov was “more of a poet than a publicist,” and, moreover, “an armchair man, withdrawn in his Tsarskoe Selo semi-solitude.” In his characterization of Menshikov, Savenko cited a characteristic review of him by one of the political figures: “...If today he crucifies himself for some idea, this does not prove that in a week he will not challenge it with the same passion... " Therefore, Menshikov cannot be fully called an orthodox nationalist, and his views cannot be considered the views of the Supreme National Assembly. Menshikov himself stated this: “I never speak on behalf of the national party, but express my personal opinion.” Nevertheless, in the eyes of the public, Menshikov and the nationalists were associated as something single, which forced the latter to make statements that most of them “are burdened by Menshikov’s ferula and do not want to tolerate his claims to leadership of the national union and the national faction.” This situation became especially aggravated after the unification of the Duma faction of nationalists with the moderate right.
Menshikov was one of the first publicists to talk about the need to study “nationalism” as a concept and as a phenomenon at a scientific level. Reflecting on what a nation is, he proceeded from the conviction that neither religion, nor political structure, nor language are decisive in this matter. In his definition of a nation, Menshikov proceeded not from external descriptive factors, but from a person’s sense of self: “A nation is when people feel like the owners of the country, its masters... Whatever group unites to protect and preserve basic human rights,” he argued, “It becomes a nation.” Nationalism, from Menshikov’s point of view, was a natural manifestation of the nation’s instinct for self-preservation. Of course, Menshikov also had his own clear ideas about what “Russian nationalism” should be: Firstly, from Menshikov’s point of view, this nationalism is not fundamentally aggressive: “Our Russian nationalism, as I understand it, is not militant at all, but only defensive, and this should not be confused in any way.” Secondly, they assumed the possibility of organic and inorganic solutions national question for certain multinational, interacting environments: “I personally have always been disgusted by the oppression of foreigners, their forced Russification, the suppression of their nationality... I have already written many times that I consider it quite fair that every well-defined people<...>had all the rights he wanted in his historical territories, up to at least complete separation.” But it’s a completely different matter, Menshikov believed, when one or another “small people” seizes “master’s rights on our historical territory”: “We do not at all want to be a litter for a whole series of small nationalities who want to settle down on our body and seize power over us. We don’t want someone else’s, but ours - the Russian Land - must be ours.” Thirdly, Menshikov was firmly convinced and never tired of repeating that the main thing for the life and self-awareness of the people is not political nationalism (platforms and programs of parties), but cultural - the revival of folk art in viable traditional forms.
In 1916, in the article “What is nationalism?” Menshikov made an attempt to sum up his thoughts in the field of national philosophy: “Since in recent decades I have had to write about nationalism more than other publicists and since my name is associated with the establishment of the so-called National Party in Russia, I find it forced,” Menshikov declares, - to isolate ourselves from the extremes of nationalism, which some Russian people bring to the point of absurdity... I insist that both the individual and the entire nation should consider their pride not the preservation of the status quo, but continuous progress within the limits of their nature.” And in his diaries of 1918, in the last months before his arrest and death, Menshikov wrote the following: “We are still in the grip of ignorant superstitions, and the German still boasts that he is a German, and the Hindu wants to be a Hindu. But it goes away quickly. The superstition of nationality will pass when everyone learns that they are a mixture, an amalgam of different breeds, and when they are convinced that nationalism is a transitional stage for the world human type - the cultural one. All flowers are flowers, but the highest pride and the highest charm is that the cornflower does not pretend to be a rose, but achieves its completeness. Flowers do not fight each other, but peacefully complement each other, serving the harmony of shapes and colors.” This was the end of the many years of evolution of the publicist’s views.
However, the problems of nationalism were not the only issue that worried Menshikov. He addressed a wide range of spiritual, moral, cultural, social, political, economic, everyday and other issues. Menshikov foresaw the ambiguity of scientific and technological progress and warned about its dangerous sides. “Man entered his native nature like an executioner,” he noted bitterly, “and, dying, she breathed death on him. The nineteenth century created many artificial, most often superfluous, means of life, but ruined a number of natural and necessary ones.” Menshikov saw the main problem in the development of science and production in the fact that “human attention” is intensely drawn “to thousands of things outside of man and too little inside him.” At the very beginning of the 20th century. Menshikov stated as a fact that “having squeezed himself into the conditions of artificial culture that are disastrous for the body and spirit, man has doomed the most precious object in nature - himself - to distortion, to regression.” Menshikov’s perspicacity in criticizing socialism is also amazing. He recognized that socialist ideals are “lofty and holy, but only so far achieved voluntarily,” and if holiness is forced by force, “it will be the worst of slavery.” Menshikov explained the “successes of socialism” by the “decline of personality.” “For exhausted, discolored, crumpled souls, the most suitable of all conditions is slavery, and the 20th century will probably fulfill this hope for many countries.” Menshikov also perfectly described the mechanism of turning a person into a “cog” of a totalitarian society: “When a person loses concern for himself, when earthly providence is established in the form of an elective or other Olympus of earthly gods, then a person will finally turn into a machine. For a certain amount of work, this machine will be cleaned, lubricated, given fuel, etc. But the slightest deviation of the machine from its assigned role will meet with insurmountable obstacles. “I personally,” he concluded, “are not attracted to this utopia.” Considering the problem of the relationship between power and people, Menshikov wrote: “The idea of struggle is extremely attractive in times of unrest: first the power fights the people, then the people fight the power, and, in the end, both sides lie in ruins.” Four years before 1917, Menshikov warned that “both the powerless government and the powerless society with all the baggage of speeches, declarations, programs, political articles risk finally being washed away by the dirty anarchy rising from below. If now there is “no power”, then it is necessary to make sure that there is some... If a tipsy coachman, say, fell off the box, it is ridiculous to philosophize about giving the initiative to the horses. .. I think power by its nature is irreplaceable. Like everything necessary, it must certainly be in its place, otherwise it’s a disaster!”
After the revolutionary events of 1917, Menshikov became disillusioned with the Royal Dynasty. He wrote about himself that he “recoiled both from the old decaying power and from the proletarian claim to its inheritance.” He was ready to come to terms even with the German conquest, because all the same, the independence of Russia, in his opinion, “was a fiction,” since the Russians were “in the slavery of the German dynasty, moreover, degenerate and mediocre.” In March 1917, he published a number of articles in Novoye Vremya (“Should we regret the past?”, “Who cheated on whom?”, etc.), in which Menshikov placed all the blame for the outbreak of the revolution on Emperor Nicholas II Alexandrovich and his entourage. “There was treason, but on the part of the monarchy, on the part of the autocracy, which criminally deceived the people,” Menshikov wrote at that time. After Menshikov was removed from work at Novoye Vremya and the newspaper was closed, he and his family moved to a dacha in Valdai, almost completely losing their livelihood. In search of income, he had to get a job as a clerk.
Menshikov became one of the first victims of the Red Terror. 14 Sep. In 1918, he was arrested by the Novgorod Cheka and accused of participating in a “monarchist conspiracy,” of which he was allegedly the head. “The accusation is completely false,” Menshikov noted, “but they are not looking for the truth, but revenge.” “The members and the chairman of the Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry are Jews.” and they do not hide that my arrest and trial are revenge for my old accusatory articles against the Jews,” he wrote on September 19. Menshikov from prison to his wife. And the day before the execution, he wrote the following lines to his family: “Remember, I am dying as a victim of Jewish revenge not for any crimes, but only for denouncing the Jewish people, for which they exterminated their prophets.” 20 Sep. 1918, as a “Black Hundred publicist,” Menshikov was shot on the shores of Lake Valdai in front of his wife and six children (the eldest of whom was 10 years old). He was buried in the cemetery near the Church of St. Apostles Peter and Paul, Valdai, Novgorod province. Posthumously rehabilitated in 1993.
A. Ivanov, S. Sankova
Materials used from the book: The Black Hundred. Historical encyclopedia 1900-1917. Rep. editor O.A. Platonov. M., Kraft+, Institute of Russian Civilization, 2008.
Prominent representative of biological determinism
If the national liberals, in their understanding of nationality, proceeded from the unconditional priority of “soil,” then representatives of another position expressed the principle of “blood,” which was revolutionary for the Russia of that time. Although, strange as it may seem at first glance, this radical point of view was by no means alien to some liberal connotations. Thus, the most prominent representative of biological determinism, the talented and influential pre-revolutionary publicist Mikhail Menshikov wrote: “A nation is when people feel like the owners of the country, its masters. But only citizens, people guaranteed freedom of opinion and the right to some legitimate participation in the affairs of the country, can recognize themselves as masters. If there are no these basic conditions for citizenship, there is no nationality" ( Menshikov M. O. Above freedom. M., 1998. P. 89.). The statement is quite liberal. It is worth remembering that at one time Menshikov called for the establishment of “a Russian imperial club - both national and liberal” ( Quote by: Sergeev S.M. Russian nationalism and imperialism of the early 20th century // Nation and Empire in Russian thought of the early 20th century. M., 2003. P. 15).
But the similarity with national liberalism was external. The fundamental differences concerned two basic points: understanding the nature of the national and assessing the place of the Russian people in the empire. In turn, these differences stemmed from general philosophical and ideological premises. Sergei Sergeev writes about this with exhaustive completeness: “Struve, having abandoned Marxism and positivism, moved to “ethical idealism”, based on the legacy of Kant and Fichte; Menshikov was a biological determinist and social Darwinist with a strong admixture of Nietzscheanism. This is where all the other contradictions between them flow: for Struve, the main value is the good of the individual, for Menshikov, the good of the ethnos as a biological organism; to the first, the liberal system is important as the implementation of the highest moral principle of the equality of all people, to the second - as a means of “selecting” a new aristocracy, establishing laws for the “lazy, dreamy, stupid, simple people”; from the point of view of the spiritual leader of the national liberals, nationality is determined by belonging to one or another culture, in the opinion of the leading publicist of "New Time" - to one or another "race", "blood", "breed"; if the leader of the right-wing cadets called for the establishment of legal equality of all peoples Russian Empire, then the ideological mouthpiece of the All-Russian National Union considered foreigners to be enemies of Russia and therefore protested against their presence in the Duma... In short, Menshikov’s “liberalism” had a pronounced anti-democratic and ethnocratic character...” ( )
To the two long-standing lines of Russian nationalist discourse - populist and statist - Menshikov added a third - biological, elitist, emphatically nationalistic. He “repeatedly emphasized... that for him the highest value in the Uvarov triad is its third element - nationality” ( Sergeev S. M. Russian nationalism and imperialism of the early 20th century // Nation and Empire in Russian thought of the early 20th century. M., 2003. P. 15). The circle of supporters of such ideas was grouped around the newspaper “Novoye Vremya”; they also found some reflection in the ideology of the All-Russian National Union.
In general, biological metaphors and political projections of racial discourse enjoyed increasing popularity in the then Western world. Russian intellectuals also drew their inspiration from there. In particular, Menshikov copiously quoted the works of the famous H.S. Chamberlain . There is a peculiar irony in the fact that Russian nationalists sought intellectual models in the West, which they largely regarded with distrust and contempt. In turn, Western racial discourse was characterized by a disdainful attitude towards the Slavs, who were classified as an inferior race.
But for the traditionalist Russian Empire, such projections were something extraordinary and were rejected by the overwhelming majority of educated Russian society. Their ability to mobilize in relation to the masses of ordinary people is even less likely: the complex of ideas developed by Menshikov did not fit into the framework of the traditional Russian worldview. Although it was not as Orthodox-monarchical as the conservative guardians had hoped, it could hardly have become as racist as, say, the worldview of ordinary Englishmen or Spaniards, who showed the Western world examples of egalitarian, popular racism. “The self-awareness of the Spanish commoner, his sense of self-worth, ideas of honor and dishonor were based on the idea of \u200b\u200b“purity of blood”” ( Yurchik E. E. The idea of the nation and national consciousness in Spain. XVI - early XIX century. // National idea in Western Europe in modern times. Essays on history / Rep. ed. V. S. Bondarchuk. M., 2005. P. 238.).
In any case, openly expressed ideas of racial and ethnic exclusivity, and even more so their propaganda or attempt to implement them, posed an unambiguous threat to the foundations of the continental imperial polity.
Despite all the differences in the understanding of Russianness, the main currents of Russian nationalism converged in recognizing the need for the ethnicization of the polity. The national liberals were not alien to this demand either. Moreover, in a sense, it was they who proposed the most radical and least realistic option for the ethnicization of the imperial polity. Insisting on the legal equality of all ethnic groups inhabiting the empire, they “at the same time... never abandoned the national-Russian character of Russian statehood, generally not recognizing multi-ethnic states lacking a leading national core as empires” ( Sergeev S. M. Russian nationalism and imperialism of the early 20th century // Nation and Empire in Russian thought of the early 20th century. M., 2003. P. 16). For the overwhelming majority of the Russian educated stratum, including liberals, the Russian Empire was a Russian national state. The task was to bring reality into line with the normative vision.
Although liberals intended to solve it through the development of civil institutions and democratic reforms, assimilation into Russianness would still remain on the agenda. After all, there were absolutely no guarantees that the peoples who received civil liberties would not demand their own statehood. Even Poland and Finland, the liberals were not going to let go of the tenacious embrace of the future Russian democracy - territorial unity remained a sacred principle for them. Therefore, to formalize Russia as a national state, not only legal equality was required, but also cultural homogenization in the French manner, carried out using very harsh methods. Meanwhile, large-scale Russification was unfeasible in any socio-political context - no matter whether traditional imperial or democratic - due to the declining share of Russians in the total population of the empire and the inevitable resistance to assimilation on the part of a number of ethnic groups. Let us remember that the autocracy never managed to assimilate even the Ukrainians who were very close to the Russians.
With magnificent indifference to this - critically important - side of the matter, the liberals insisted on further expansion of Russia's borders, which doomed it to even greater racial and ethnic confusion, to a further reduction in the share of the Russian people, which the liberals themselves considered the leading national core. The greatest imperialists among Russian nationalists of the pre-Soviet era were liberals. Like their Western associates, they proceeded from the presumption of the civilizing role of the empire, bringing progress and knowledge to the peoples within its sphere of influence.
The position of conservative nationalists and radicals regarding Russification was much more sober. While they supported it in every possible way, they at the same time understood its limitations. Menshikov even proposed abandoning those foreign outskirts that could not be Russified. True, realism in terms of Russification was combined with the utopianism of another fundamental principle of these directions of Russian nationalist discourse, namely, emphasized ethnocratism. The leadership role of the Russian people was supposed to be consolidated and ensured by providing them with political and economic advantages. In other words, we were talking about a genuine revolution: the transformation of Russians in the true sense of the word into a metropolitan people and the transformation of the continental Russian Empire into a de facto colonial one. And here the same question inevitably arises as with regard to the liberal project of transforming Russia into a national state: was this possible in principle?
The answer here can only be negative. The point is not even that Russian ethnic preferences would inevitably provoke resistance from non-Russian peoples. The main thing is that this idea undermined such imperial foundations as the multi-ethnic nature of the elite and the exploitation of Russian ethnic resources. Russian inequality constituted a fundamental prerequisite for the existence and development of the continental polity - not only in the imperial-tsarist, but also in the Soviet-communist historical forms.
T. Solovey, V. Solovey. A failed revolution. Historical meanings of Russian nationalism. M., 2009. pp. 100-104.
Read further:
Essays:
By ports of Europe. 1878-1879. Sketches of foreign voyages on the frigate “Prince Pozharsky”. Kronstadt, 1884;
Thoughts about happiness. St. Petersburg, 1898;
Children. St. Petersburg, 1899;
About writing. St. Petersburg, 1899; Critical Essays. T. 1-2 M., 1899-1902;
People's intercessors. St. Petersburg, 1900; The beginning of life. Moral and philosophical essays. St. Petersburg, 1901;
Electoral fraud. Ekaterinodar; Red flag. B.M., 1906;
The nation is us. Ekaterinoslav, ;
Letters to neighbors. St. Petersburg, 1906-1916;
New and old nationalism. St. Petersburg, 1907;
Ancient documents on the Jewish question. Kharkov, 1908;
The successes of nationalism. St. Petersburg, 1909;
From letters to neighbors. M., 1991;
Above freedom: Articles about Russia. M., 1998;
About love. Stavropol, 1994; D
minds about happiness. Stavropol, 1995;
Letters to the Russian nation. M., 1999; National Empire. M., 2004;
Reaction to the assassination of Nicholas II. Pages from the diary (Why this blood?) // Russian Bulletin. 1991. No. 20;
The righteous and the empty saints; National comedy // Moscow magazine. 1993. No. 7;
Orphans of Vereshchagin // Ibid. 1993. No. 8;
From the article “Officials and Heroes” // Ibid. 1993. No. 9;
Should Russia be great // Ibid. 1993. No. 11;
In Moscow // Our contemporary. 1997. No. 9;
Above freedom. M., 1998;
End of the century. M., 2000;
Eternal Resurrection: Sat. Art. about the Church and faith. M., 2003;
National Empire: struggle of worlds; civilization is in danger; Russia first. M., 2004, etc.
Literature:
Memoirs of Olga Mikhailovna Menshikova // Moscow Journal. 1999. No. 6-7;
Gumerov A.A., with the participation of Pospelov M.B. Menshikov M. O. // Russian writers. 1800-1917. Biographical Dictionary. T. 4. M., 1999;
Kotsyubinsky D.A. Russian nationalism at the beginning of the 20th century. The birth and death of the ideology of the All-Russian National Union. M., 2001;
Lukoyanov I.V. Menshikov M.O. //National history from ancient times to 1917. Encyclopedia. T. 3. M., 1994;
Rasputin V. Back to square one // Above freedom: Articles about Russia. M., 1998;
Repnikov A.V.M.O. Menshikov - returned name // International collection of scientific works 1999. Moscow - Smolensk - Lugansk, 1999;
Repnikov A.V. Menshikov Mikhail Osipovich (1859-1918) // http://www.pravaya.ru/ ludi/ 450/348 ;
Russian Archive: History of the Fatherland in testimonies and documents of the 18th-20th centuries. Vol. 4: M. O. Menshikov. Materials for biogr. M., 1993;
Sankova SM. All-Russian National Union: education and activities. Diss... cand. ist. Sci. Orel, 2001;
Smolin M.B. Apology of Russian imperialism // National Empire. M., 2004;
Smolin M.B. Menshikov Mikhail Osipovich // Holy Rus'. Great Encyclopedia of the Russian People. Russian patriotism. M., 2003;
Sokhryakov Yu. I. National idea in domestic journalism of the 19th - early 20th centuries. M., 2000;
Shlemin P.I.M.O. Menshikov: thoughts about Russia. M., 1997;
Yuzefovich B. Menshikov about gr. Witte. B.g, b.m.
Mikhail Osipovich Menshikov was born on September 25 (October 7), 1859 in the city of Novorzhev, Pskov province, not far from Valdai.
His father, Osip Semenovich Menshikov, had the lowest civil rank of collegiate registrar, and came from the family of a rural priest. Mother, Olga Andreevna, nee Shishkina, was the daughter of a hereditary but impoverished nobleman, the owner of the small village of Yushkovo, Opochetsky district. The Menshikovs lived poorly, often lacking the bare necessities. However, thanks to Olga Andreevna’s thriftiness and remarkable intelligence, they somehow made ends meet. Whether from an excess of worries or by her character, she was a somewhat unsociable woman, but not without sensitivity and poetic taste. The parents were religious and loved nature.
In his sixth year, Misha began studying. Olga Andreevna taught him herself. Later he was sent to the Opochetsk district school, which he graduated in 1873. In the same year, with the help of a distant relative, he entered the Kronstadt Naval Technical School.
After graduating from the naval school, a young naval officer writes a letter to his patron: “I consider it my duty to inform you that I completed a course at the Technical School and on April 18 (1878) was promoted to the 1st naval rank in our corps (to conductor of the corps of naval navigators) . I passed the exams fairly well: I received 12 points in 10 subjects. On the 30th I was assigned to the armored frigate “Prince Pozharsky”, and on May 2 the frigate said goodbye to Kronstadt and went to an unknown destination and for an unknown amount of time. Secret. We've been to Denmark, Norway and now France. I receive 108 rubles 50 kopecks. gold per month. This gives me the opportunity, in addition to my direct obligations, to spend some money on exploring other people's cities and attractions. So now I'm in Paris, visiting the World's Fair. So, I apparently entered a new path..."
Menshikov showed a penchant for literature very early. Back in the mid-seventies, on his initiative, the student magazine “Week” was published in Kronstadt. In 1883, after returning to Kronstadt, Menshikov met and became friends with the poet S. Ya. Nadson, who highly appreciated the talent of the young officer, a newcomer to literature. Already hopelessly ill, Nadson helped Menshikov with friendly words and kind recommendations. Here is an excerpt from his letter dated 1885: “I am angry with you because you do not believe in yourself, in your talent. Even your letter is artistic. Write - for this is your share on earth. I’m waiting for volumes from you...”
After participating in several long-distance sea expeditions, Menshikov received the title of hydrographic engineer. In those years, he wrote and published essays “Around the Ports of Europe” (1884), special works “Guide to reading sea charts, Russian foreign” (1891), “Locations of Aboski and the eastern part of the Åland skerries” (1898), etc.
In those same years, he began publishing in the Kronstadt Bulletin, Golos, Petersburg Vedomosti, and, finally, in the Nedelya newspaper. In 1886, Nadson wrote to the owner of the newspaper P. A. Gaideburov: “Menshikov is working very well and smartly with you. Help him get out onto a smooth road."
In 1892, having finally realized his literary vocation, Menshikov retired with the rank of staff captain and became a permanent correspondent, then secretary and leading critic and publicist of “The Week” and its supplements, and from September 1900 he actually managed the newspaper, at the same time actively collaborating in the magazine “Russian Thought”, the newspaper “Rus” and other publications.
At the turn of the century, “Week” ceased to exist. After some hesitation, Menshikov cast his lot with A. S. Suvorin’s newspaper “Novoye Vremya”, where A. P. Chekhov, his brother Alexander, V. P. Burenin, V. V. Rozanov and many others were published famous journalists and writers.
Menshikov was the leading publicist of Novoye Vremya from 1901 to 1917. He ran the “Letters to Neighbors” column in the newspaper, publishing two or three articles weekly, not counting the large Sunday feuilletons (this was the name then for especially sharp, serious materials on the topics of the day ). Mikhail Osipovich published his articles and feuilletons from this section in separate monthly journal and diary books, which he later bound into annual volumes.
In “Letters to Neighbors,” Menshikov addressed a wide range of spiritual, moral, cultural, social, political, everyday and other issues. The nature of his speeches was determined by his socio-political ideal, which finally took shape in the early 90s: a strong government with parliamentary representation and certain constitutional freedoms, capable of protecting the traditional values of Russia and improving people's life.
Being one of the founders of the “All-Russian National Union” (not to be confused with the “Union of the Russian People”, as incompetent historians do. - M.P.), Menshikov formulated its goals as follows: “... the restoration of Russian nationality not only as the dominant one, but also state-creative." Rejecting the activities of revolutionary organizations as parties of the “Russian Troubles,” Menshikov wrote on a wide variety of topics: about the political-economic movement, about the “yellow” press, about the increasing influence of the revolutionary movement on society and about the obvious tragic consequences of the “internal conquest” of Russia. Menshikov's journalistic speeches in Novoye Vremya had a great public response. He had a wide circle of like-minded people, but he also had more than enough opponents.
After Mikhail Osipovich was removed from work at Novoye Vremya, the Menshikovs first stayed in Valdai for the winter of 1917/18. Menshikov loved Valdai, Lake Valdai, the marvelous Iversky Monastery, found peace and happiness in his selflessly beloved children, the joy of communicating with his family, his neighbors, with friends who visited him in Valdai. In the revolutionary days of 1917, Prince Lvov, the head of the Provisional Government, invited Menshikov to go abroad, but he did not want to, could not leave Russia.
On September 20, 1918, on the shores of Lake Valdai, in broad daylight, in front of the frightened “Valdashi” and six young children, M. O. Menshikov was shot by the verdict of the Cheka. According to eyewitnesses, before his death, Mikhail Osipovich prayed at the Iversky Monastery, clearly visible from the scene of the execution...
The fate of the family of M. O. Menshikov was difficult. Through incredible efforts, with the help of family and friends, the children and widow, Maria Vladimirovna Menshikova, managed to survive during the years of the Red Terror, famine and the devastation of the most difficult wars - the civil war, then the Great Patriotic War. Only younger son Misha died of starvation meningitis four years after the death of his father, and was buried next to him.
Miraculously, the archives of Mikhail Osipovich were preserved, albeit not completely. Despite the eviction of all big family from their own house to the outbuilding, a search during the arrest of the head of the family, hungry years, the Menshikovs kept papers, photographs, documents.
In the 30s, after all the Menshikovs left Valdai for Leningrad, Maria Vladimirovna began to hand over the archive to the children in parts.
In 1934, after the murder of Kirov, troubles began for Grigory Mikhailovich, the eldest son of M. O. Menshikov. He, his wife and young son were facing a difficult, long-distance exile. However, he was acquitted then.
A year later, the Literary Museum in Moscow became interested in Menshikov’s archives. Olga Mikhailovna, one of Mikhail Osipovich’s daughters, talked about it this way: “In November 1935, my Mother, Maria Vladimirovna Menshikova, received a letter from the director of the Literary Museum in Moscow, V.D. Bonch-Bruevich. The letter was
it was written very kindly and contained a proposal to transfer it to the Literary Museum of the late M. O. Menshikov or sell it. Vladimir Dmitrievich learned that such an archive existed from “mutual friends.” I read this letter and remember mostly its contents.
My Mother lived in Leningrad with her sister Zinaida Vladimirovna Pol. All my sisters and brother were in the same city. I was one of the children of M. O. Menshikov who lived in Moscow, and so Mom wrote to me and forwarded the letter for me to read. She also wrote to me that the Pope's main correspondence with famous writers had long been sold (in Leningrad). This was done with the help of Professor Nestor Aleksandrovich Kotlyarevsky, a close acquaintance of Olga Aleksandrovna Fribes, who was a good friend of the Menshikov family.
Mom asked me to go to an appointment with Bonch-Bruevich and find out how my father’s archive would be used if it was transferred to the museum’s funds. The time was difficult, difficult, and we did not want once again a name dear to us ended up in print with insulting comments. Mom also asked me to sell six letters from N. S. Leskov to the museum. I remember that these letters were no longer addressed to the Pope (the correspondence between the Pope and Leskov had been sold earlier), but to Lydia Ivanovna Veselitskaya-Mikulich, a great friend of our family, and were given by her for sale, as if to help my mother, who was raising a big girl after the death of her father. family.
I went to the Literary Museum on December 31, 1936, but did not find Vladimir Dm[itrievich]. His very kind secretary made an appointment for me on January 2 at 4:30 am. It's already the 37th day. On January 2, Bonch-Bruevich received me. It was twilight, and the table lamp was already burning in his darkened office. A gray-haired, respectable-looking man greeted me rather dryly and offered to sit down. He asked what I had to tell him about his proposal. I immediately answered him quite frankly that we, the Menshikovs, are interested in the fate of the archive after the transfer to the museum, if such takes place, the possibility negative reviews when using materials and that we want to avoid this.
Then Vladimir Dmitrievich asked me even more dryly: “Let me ask you, how do you now feel about your father, as a historical figure or as a parent?..” I simply and immediately answered: “Of course, as a father !
He turned sharply in his chair and answered me with the following phrase: “Then you will not escape many troubles, I cannot promise you the use of materials without appropriate feedback.” I said that in this case our family does not consider it possible to transfer the small archive that we have to the museum and offered Bonch-Bruevich Leskov’s letters. This ended my visit. Vlad[imir] Dmitrievich said that regarding the price for the letters, I would go to his secretary after familiarizing myself with their contents.
I didn’t go to the director of the museum again and didn’t see him. His attentive and friendly secretary told me a few days later that the letters were valued at one hundred rubles. I wrote to Mom and soon received and sent her the money. I was left with an unpleasant impression from the contrast between the kind letter to Mom and the dry reception when I visited Bonch-Bruevich. I was young - I was 25 years old - and I always loved and pitied Dad.
In 1937, the eldest son of M. O. Menshikov, Grigory Mikhailovich, was arrested. He spent a long time in “Kresty”, as before in Moscow’s Lubyanka, and was released only in 1939.
When the arrests began, Mikhail Osipovich’s papers were hidden as best they could, and many materials disappeared, since they were not always confiscated from hiding places later.
Later, scattered archives flocked to Olga Mikhailovna Menshikova, who in 1927 married Boris Sergeevich Pospelov, the son of a village priest from the Moscow region, and left Leningrad.
During the Great Patriotic War Olga Mikhailovna and Boris Sergeevich with the institute where he worked went to evacuation. Before leaving, they carefully hid the most valuable papers and photographs. But the Germans came to the house where Boris Sergeevich’s parents, Sergei Dmitrievich and Olga Sergeevna Pospelov, were staying and where the archives were kept. Again there was destruction, scattered books, papers, broken furniture, the roof riddled with shell fragments, the neighboring house burned down. It’s good that the old people remained alive, it’s good that again, miraculously, the archives of M. O. Menshikov remained intact.
