chaadaev's continuity of thought

SERS2020 Julian Ratcliffe

chaadaev’s continuity of thoughtexamine the extent to which chaadaev’s views change between the ‘first philosophical letter’ and ‘apologia of a madman’Petr Chaadaev’s Apologia Of A Madman, which seemingly disavows his former eurocentrism with

the introduction of a conception of Russian exceptionalism and despite the implications of its title,

is anything but a renunciation of the scathing critique of Russian society and culture contained in

his First Philosophical Letter. Rather, the Apologia is merely a gentler reiteration of the major

themes addressed in the Letter, toning down the criticisms of Russian culture and exaggerating

those ideas approving of it. After an exposition on both the Letter and the Apologia, I will show that

Chaadaev’s views did not change much, if at all, between their respective publications in light of

the strong parallels that exist between his three major ideas: historic idealogical continuity, Russian

backwardness and Russian exceptionalism, the latter of which is indeed revealed to lie in the

Letter only upon closer inspection. I will show that these themes, to a greater or lesser degree, are

present in both the Letter and the Apologia and thereby show no change in Chaadaev’s views.

Chaadaev’s First Philosophical Letter was published in 1836 to enormous public outcry. Chaadaev

decried the “irremediable inferiority of the Russian nation” with unequivocal force and an apparent 1

disregard for the sensibilities of both the people and the state. The Letter details Chaadaev’s

conception of Russia as a kind of anomaly, a nation excluded from the progress of history and the

development of humanity due both to its own moral stuntedness and its contingently, fortuitously

determined position in relation to the external world. This is contrasted with an interwoven

discussion in praise of Western European society, specifically its particular characteristics that

make it so receptive to Christianity . As a result, Chaadaev was declared insane and placed under 2

Dale E. Peterson, Civilising The Race: Chaadaev And The Paradox Of Eurocentric Nationalism, “Russian Review, Vol. 56, No. 4”, 1

October 1997, Wiley, pg. 550 Petr Chaadaev, Philosophical Letters, tr. R. McNally, “The Major Works Of Peter Chaadaev”, 1969, Notre Dame, pg. 47-502

1,985 words �1


medical supervision, thus “becoming the first example in modern Russian history of a dissenter

officially rendered a ‘nonperson’” .3

One year later, in 1837, Chaadaev wrote his Apologia Of A Madman, partially an apology to

the public for his “thesis of the superiority of western countries” counterposed against Russia’s 4

substandard cultural significance, partially an apology to the state for offence caused, but primarily,

as I will show, a justification, that is, a reformulation, of his position in the Letter (albeit in a more

palatable tone). By merely changing the emphasis given to the specific elements of the Letter,

Chaadaev manages to transform his critique of Russia into a prophetic recognition of its coming

splendour and importance in the future world order without reneging on any of his central claims. It

is due to this disdain for Russia and admiration of Europe paired with a belief in the inevitability of

Russia’s march to the forefront of human progress that Peterson describes Chaadaev as a

paradoxical Eurocentric nationalist.

Chaadaev holds a somewhat deterministic conception of history in the sense that the present

moral, political and intellectual states of a people is, for him, governed by past history to a large

extent. Specifically, as discussed in the Letter, the present state of society is determined by the

strength of its “link with the men who preceded” it. For Chaadaev, a great contemporary society is 5

rooted in its history by a vivid chain of ideas that ties the people to their forefathers and their ideas,

acting as the foundations for cultural originality and innovation. He goes on to claim that “it is from

these ideas that the future of people unfolds and from them comes their moral development” , 6

meaning, conversely, that a corresponding lack of such a link removes the possibility of society

achieving spiritual maturity because it leaves it without a firm foundation upon which it can base

itself. In light of this last remark, it is precisely because Russia’s “early years … have not left a

trace in [the people’s] minds” that Russian social culture “resemble[s] children who have not been 7


October 1997, Wiley, pg. 556 Petr Chaadaev, The Apologia Of A Madman, tr. R. McNally, “The Major Works Of Peter Chaadaev”, 1969, Notre Dame, pg. 2164

Petr Chaadaev, Philosophical Letters, tr. R. McNally, “The Major Works Of Peter Chaadaev”, 1969, Notre Dame, pg. 315

Ibid.6

Ibid.7

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taught to think for themselves” ; it is precisely because “each preceding moment escapes [Russia] 8

irrevocably” that the country exhibits “a culture based wholly upon importation and imitation” . 9 10

Chaadaev claims that, having no attachment to its history, Russia necessarily cannot found a

culture of its own because it does not possess the preconditions necessary for its development, in

turn explaining why he thought the country backward (an issue I shall return to in due course).

Having established Chaadaev’s conception of history as presented in the Letter, I will now

detail it as presented in the Apologia and highlight the similarities between them. The first point to

draw attention to in the Apologia is the call “to glance lucidly over [Russia’s] past” . Here, 11

Chaadaev proposes that Russia investigates its own past as a solution to the backwardness he so

detests, but such a solution would only succeed if knowledge of a people’s history has some

impact on the state of contemporary society. It thus makes sense to include such a proposition only

if one conceives of contemporary society as determined by its knowledge of and link to its past.

Furthermore, Chaadaev claims that Russia, in the days of Peter The Great, was “only a blank

sheet of paper” , mirroring his claim in the Letter that Russia’s ‘early years’ left no impression on 12

the psyche of the people. Both of these similarities exhibit clear parallels between the Letter and

the Apologia, showing that Chaadaev’s view of history and its implications for contemporary society

had not changed in the time between them.

As mentioned above, Chaadaev thought that because Russia lacked an establishment in its past it

was culturally and socially backward, especially when compared to Western Europe. Russia,

lacking the historical basis upon which to found itself, lags behind Europe’s moral development so

that, as claimed in the Letter, for instance, “even the upper classes are not … exempt from vices

which belong only to the very lowest classes in other places” . This same sentiment extends to 13

other areas of Russian life with Chaadaev claiming that Russia “do[es] not amount to a thing in the

Ibid., pg. 328

Ibid.9

Ibid.10

Petr Chaadaev, The Apologia Of A Madman, tr. R. McNally, “The Major Works Of Peter Chaadaev”, 1969, Notre Dame, pg. 21211

Ibid., pg. 20512


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intellectual order” . On the other hand, Europe “contains the principle of indefinite progress and 14

possesses … all that is needed for God’s reign to become established definitely upon earth” , a 15

clear endorsement of western civilisation in opposition to “the weakness of [Russian] beliefs …

[which have] placed [Russia] outside the universal movement in which the social idea of

Christianity was developed” .16

This praise of Europe’s intellectual maturity and condemnation of Russian immaturity is

mirrored in the Apologia. Regarding the former, Chaadaev devotes a good portion of the Apologia

commending Peter The Great’s westernising reforms upon which Russia “nourish[ed]” itself. It 17

would not make sense, however, to approve of such reforms if he did not consider them superior to

those aspects of Russian culture and the institutions they replaced, revealing that he both held

those imported features of Europe in high esteem and that the Russian features they superseded

were not worthy of retaining. This mirrors both his acclaim and contempt for Europe and Russia

respectively as detailed in the Letter. This particular example of Chaadaev’s contempt for Russia is

only implicit, however, in his approval of the implementation of European ideals in Russia. More

explicit disdain can be found in the Apologia when Chaadaev asks “what can history say about” 18

Russia’s seemingly accidental geographical expansion. The fact that Russia was not “seized by an

idea entrusted to it” when it established “itself as a powerful people” means that Russia’s 19 20

establishment does not, for Chaadaev, have content worthy of note in the eyes of the historical

development. The “emptiness in [the people’s] souls” , the lack of a guiding principle to even “form 21

the necessary framework of life” , corresponds to the vacuous backwardness of Russian culture. 22

Chaadaev justifies this abstraction from individual backwardness to cultural backwardness by

saying that the latter is merely the sum of individual spirits, that is, “just as a certain plastic and

perpetual work of the material elements or atoms … constitutes material nature, so also then a

Ibid., pg. 3914

Ibid., pg. 4715

Ibid., pg. 4416


Ibid., pg. 20718

Ibid.19

Ibid.20

Ibid., pg. 20621


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similar work of intellectual elements or ideas … constitutes spiritual nature” . Thus, while 23

Chaadaev seemingly only deals with the backwardness of Russian individuals in the Apologia, he

does indeed think that this is what constitutes the backwardness of Russia as a whole.

It is clear that Chaadaev’s views regarding Russian backwardness and European spiritual

maturity did not change between the publication of the Letter and the Apologia. Nevertheless, it

may be objected that the significance he attributes to this backwardness indeed does differ

between the texts. For instance, there is a noticeable feeling of hopelessness in the Letter when

Chaadaev claims that Russia “exists only to provide some great lesson for the world” – that 24

Russia is merely an example of how not to develop – while, in the Apologia, he casts the same

conception of Russian backwardness in a more optimistic light – namely by arguing for

backwardness’ utility . However, it is difficult to judge the sincerity of this optimism precisely 25

because the Apologia was published to apologise (at least superficially) to an outraged public,

meaning that he could not maintain his position in the Letter without at least some embellishment. I

think it reasonable to assume that the optimistic light cast on Russia’s backwardness in the

Apologia may have been added simply to make his argument more palatable and thus that, if

removed, the arguments remain essentially unchanged between the texts.

Russia’s backwardness, however, places the country in the best position “to resolve most of the

problems in the social order” . Backwardness gives way to a form of exceptionalism for Chaadaev 26

because, as noted above, Russia finds itself “outside the universal movement” , meaning that it 27

can “judge the world from the heights of a thought free from unbridled passions” . Russia, having 28

no history, can now “march forward with the awareness of the route … to travel, … obeying only

the voice of enlightened reason and a deliberate will” . Chaadaev is claiming here that it is 29

precisely because Russia does not have a history (in turn meaning that it is backward) that it is not

http://sarahjyoung.com/site/2012/10/10/russian-thought-lecture-1-petr-chaadaev-and-the-russian-question/23



Ibid., pg. 21426



Ibid., pg. 21529

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http://sarahjyoung.com/site/2012/10/10/russian-thought-lecture-1-petr-chaadaev-and-the-russian-question/


chained by anything. Instead, Russia can learn from the history of Europe and found itself better

than and in reference to it.

While this sentiment of an exceptional Russia, at first glance, appears to hold exclusively in

the Apologia, the Letter indeed contains hints of it and lays its foundation for the Apologia. For

instance, regarding the “surprising solitude of [Russia’s] social existence” , even though “man is 30

… responsible for it” , “an unfathomable destiny is [also] partly responsible” for it. For Chaadaev, 31 32

Russia has been chosen for some great purpose the likes of which he nor anyone else has

knowledge of. While “Providence does not seem to have been interested in [Russia’s] destiny at

all” , this is the precise characteristic that distinguishes Russia from the rest of the world because 33

it is Russia alone that has been so shunned. This lack of involvement is, as Peterson notes, a

“marked absence, an erasure so notable as to suggest a veiled meaning or prophetic sign” . It 34

thus seems that Chaadaev’s exceptionalism can indeed be found buried in the Letter, a difficult

task only because his exceptionalism regards those unexceptional features of Russia. This shows,

then, that his thought did not change between the Letter and the Apologia because Chaadaev’s

exceptionalism evident in the Apologia was also in the Letter all along.

In conclusion, the Apologia Of A Madman may be seen as a simple reformulation of Chaadaev’s

ideas as originally laid out in his First Philosophical Letter. The three major themes in the Letter –

historical ideological continuity, backwardness, exceptionalism – are all present in the Apologia, as

shown above, and any other divergences, such as the different spins Russian backwardness may

appear to have been given, are mere ornamentations that do not affect his core beliefs. These

adornments and changes in tone in the Apologia may also be attributed to the duress he was

under when writing. Thus, Chaadaev’s views did not change between his First Philosophical Letter

and the Apologia Of A Madman.


Ibid.31

Ibid.32

Ibid., pg. 3733


October 1997, Wiley, pg. 5521,985 words �6

chaadaev's continuity of thought

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