Russian Spirituality And Other Essays: Mysteries of Our Time seen through the eyes of a Russian Esotericist by Tomberg Valentin

Author:Tomberg, Valentin [Tomberg, Valentin]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: INgrooves
Published: 2010-05-23T16:00:00+00:00

THE FINNISH IMPULSE IN RUSSIAN SPIRITUAL LIFE

A SEQUENCE OF ESSAYS sketching the structure of forces in the East European spiritual life must be continually supplemented—because any point of view is of necessity one-sided—with different aspects of consideration in order to create a balance. With every presentation some subject remains which was not essential from the perspective of that particular presentation, but which can be of great importance for some other aspect. Such a remaining ‘subject’ still left after consideration of Christianity in Russia, of Mongolianism, and of Norse impulses, is the question of the significance of the Finns, of the Finnish impulse in the East European spiritual life.

It is a fact known to historical research that the greater portion of present-day European Russia, including the region around Moscow, was inhabited in the ninth and tenth centuries by Finnish tribes. This region was gradually colonized by Slavic immigrants coming from the south-west, and these immigrants mixed with the Finns. Out of this mixture arose the Greater Russian people, which at present preponderate over the Little Russians and White Russians. This outer fact—the absorption of a number of Finnish tribes into Slavism—brings up questions about the deeper significance of the Finnish influence for the growing culture of Eastern Europe.

When in the ninth century the migration of the Norsemen into Russia took place, the expansion of Slavs into the Finnish territories began simultaneously. Now the immigration of the Norsemen had the deep significance that, with it, the impulse of the ‘I’ entered into the Slavic nature. The Slavic being had naturally developed an extraordinary breadth of soul-life, but lacked the power of inner cohesion, and this power streamed into the Slavic soul through the Norse impulse.

Besides the extraordinary breadth of soul-life, the Slavic soul had still another peculiarity that one could describe approximately by the word ‘subjectivity’. As wide as the life of the soul was, still it projected only itself into the expanses. It did not go out of itself

This subjectivity of the Slavic soul, which shows itself especially clearly in the Polish element, gives on the one hand to every expression of that soul a tinge of warmth, of involvement, but on the other hand brings with it the danger of dimming the vision for realities of the outer world. This subjectivity has the tendency to surround the soul with a kind of soul-mist, which is like a constant intoxication of the soul—with itself and through itself. Sympathy and antipathy, joy and pain, live in the Slavic soul in the finest shades; noble melodies of all life’s music can come to expression through this soul. This soul is deep and wide: capable of rising to greatest heights of beauty and humaneness, and of falling into the most unspeakable wretchedness of depravity; capable of forgiving and loving without measure; and also of being possessed by the Demon of Hatred itself. And the danger that threatens this soul is that of being seduced by its own self—of succumbing to the unconscious wish to prefer its own riches to the realities that are outside the soul.

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