Russia and the revolution in the historiosophical interpretation of V.A. Zhukovsky and F.I. Tyutchev

This article is the first attempt to start a systematic comparative study of the historiosophical views of the two Russian poets and thinkers - V.A. Zhukovsky and F.I. Tyutchev. This study bases on the journalistic texts, the correspondence of Zhukovsky with Grand Duke Alexander Nikolayevich and Konstantin Nikolaevich, as well as Zhukovsky's and Tyutchev's poems of the 1840s. The diversity of the source base demands the diversity of research methods. Methods of historical and philosophical comparative analysis and methods of literary studies are used. The 1840s was the time of a rather intensive personal communication between Zhukovsky and Tyutchev. In the center of their reflection in this period was revolution, which both interpreted not as a political, but as a metaphysical force, anti-Christian in its essence. This understanding is reflected in the poetics of the poems "The Russian Giant" by Zhukovsky and "The Sea and the Rock" by Tyutchev. The poems can be regarded as a kind of a poetic diptych, in which the second poem written by Tyutchev is the religious-philosophic interpretation of the first one written by Zhukovsky. At the same time Tyutchev persistently emphasized Zhukovsky's barely planned motive of confrontation between Christianity and revolution as two metaphysical forces. Analysis of prose texts shows that Zhukovsky agreed with Tyutchev in his diagnosis of the current state of things (revolution is an anti-Christian power, Europe is powerless before it; Russia can resist it because it has intact Christian faith and undeterred autocracy; Russia is able to save Europe). Tyutchev believed that it was necessary to establish the Greco-Slavic Empire (a revived Byzantium) on the basis of Russia, and, consequently, to access the part of the lands of the Ottoman and Austrian empires, while Zhukovsky was against any conquest, and believed that the salvation of Europe from revolution is possible with the help of the implementation of the "Jerusalem Project" - the peaceful transition of Jerusalem under the control of Christian powers, which would have an uplifting moral effect on Europe. After the implementation of the "Jerusalem project", Zhukovsky believed, a new era would begin. It was Russia that was to open the door in this new era for, unlike Europe, it preserved intact two guardian principles: the Christian faith and monarchy. Both ideas were genetically related to the foreign projects of the Russian Empire: the idea of Tyutchev to the so-called "Greek Project" and the idea of Zhukovsky to the Holy Alliance.

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