Biography
Peter Chaaadaeva was called the moral ideal of the era, and after the publication of philosophical labor, which goes into a section with the royal system - "state crazy." His biography was based on a number of literary images: Evgenia Onegin, Alexander Chatsky, Prince Myshkina, Pierre Probrazova. Unlike his characters, Chaadaev lived away from human passions and left lonely.Childhood and youth
Peter Yakovlevich Chaaadayev was born on May 27 (June 7) of 1794 in Moscow. Father Yakov Petrovich served as an adviser to the Nizhny Novgorod Criminal Chamber, Mother was Princess Natalia Mikhailovna, Daughter Prince Mikhail Mikhailovich Shcherbatova. Parents of Peter and Mikhail, his older brother, early death, and in 1797 the boys took the eldest sister of Mother Anna Shcherbat.
In 1808, Peter Chadaev, having received a decent home education, entered Moscow University. Among his teachers were the historian of Fedor Bauz, a researcher of manuscripts of the Holy Scriptures of Christian Friedrich Mattei. Philosopher Johann Bule called Chaadaev's favorite student. Already in the student years Chaadaev showed interest in fashion. Memoirist Mikhail Zhikharev described the portrait of a contemporary:
"The art of catching Chaadaev elevated almost the degree of historical meaning."Peter Yakovlevich was famous for the ability to dance and lead a secular conversation that he put it in a favorable world among women. ATTENTION from the opposite sex, as well as intellectual superiority over the peers made Chaadaeva "severe selflessness."
Military Service and Public Activities
The Patriotic War of 1812 caught the Chayadayev brothers in the Moscow society of mathematicians. Young people joined the Life Guard Semenov Regiment in the rank of subpenters. For the courage, manifested in Borodino battle, Peter Yakovlevich rose to the ensign, were awarded the Order of St. Anna and the Kulmist cross for the bayonet attack in the battle under Kul. He also participated in the Tarutinsky maneuver, the battle near Maloyaroslavets.
In 1813 Chayadaev translated into Akhtyrsky Gusar Regiment. Decembrist Sergey Muravyev-Apostol explained this act Peter Yakovlevich by the desire to stick in the Gusar Mundir. In 1816, he moved to the Life Guard of the Gusar Regiment, produced in Lieutenants. After a year later, Chaadaev became an adjutant of the future General Illarion Vasilchikov.
The Gusar Regiment deployed in the royal village. It was here that in the house of the historian Nikolai Karamzin, Chayadayev met Alexander Pushkin. The great Russian poet dedicated the philosopher poem "to the portrait of Chaadaeva" (1820), "in the country where I forgot the alarms of the previous years" (1821), "To what the cold doubts" (1824), and Peter Yakovlevich, being another Pushkin, "forced His think ", chatting on literary and philosophical topics.
Vasilchikov guailed Chaadaev serious affairs, for example, report Alexander I on Bunte in the Life Guard Semenovsky Regiment. After meeting with the emperor in 1821, the adjutant, which gives hope for a brilliant military future, resigned. The news shocked society and gave rise to many legends.
According to the official version, Chaadaev, once served in the Semenov regiment, did not suffer from the punishment of close comrades. For other reasons, the philosopher has failed to convey on former fellow soldiers. Contemporaries also assumed that Chaadaev was late for a meeting with Alexander I, because he picked up a wardrobe for a long time, or that the sovereign made a thought that contradicted the ideas of Peter Yakovlevich.
Posing with Military Affairs, Chaadaev plunged into a protracted spiritual crisis. Because of the health problems in 1823, he went on a trip to Europe, without planning to return to Russia. On trips, Peter Yakovlevich actively updated the library with religious books. It was especially attracted by work, the main idea of which was in the plexus of scientific progress and Christianity.
The state of health Chaadaeva worsened, and in 1826 he decided to return to Russia. At the border, he was arrested on suspicion of involvement in the uprising of the Decembrists, which happened a year earlier. From Peter Yakovlevich, they took a receipt that he did not in secret societies. However, this information was deliberately false.
Back in 1814, Chaadaev entered the St. Petersburg Falie of the United Friends, reached Sana Master. The philosopher quickly disappointed in the idea of secret societies, and in 1821 and left the associates at all. Then he joined the Northern Society. Later he criticized the Decembrists, believing that the armed uprising pushed Russia for half a century ago.
Philosophy and creativity
Returning to Russia, Chaadaev settled under Moscow. His neighbor was Catherine Panova. With her, the philosopher has a correspondence - first business, then friendly. Young people discussed mostly religion, faith. Chaadaev's response to the spiritual throwing of Panova steel "Philosophical Letters", created in 1829-1831.
Written in the epistolary genre The work caused the resentment of political and religious figures. For those expressed in the work of Thoughts, Nikolai I recognized Chaadaeva and Panov's crazy. The philosopher was established by medical supervision, and the girl was extended to a psychiatric hospital.
The sharp criticism of "philosophical letters" was caused because the cult of Orthodoxy was discharged. Chaadaev wrote that the religion of the Russian people, unlike Western Christianity, does not relieve people from slavery, but by contrast, enslaves. These ideas publicist Alexander Herzen later called "revolutionary Catholicism."
The magazine "Telescope", in which in 1836 the first of eight "philosophical letters" was published, was closed, the editor was exiled to Katorga. Until 1837, Chayadayev passed a medical examination daily to prove his mental well-being. Supervision from the philosopher was removed with the condition that he "does not dare to write anything."
The promise of Chaadaev violated in the same 1837, writing "the apology of the crazy" (not published during life). Labor answered the charges of "negative patriotism", told about the reasons for the backwardness of the Russian people.
Peter Yakovlevich believed that Russia is located between East and West, but in its essence does not apply to any of the parties of the world. A nation that seeks to learn the best of two cultures and at the same time not to become a follower of none of them is doomed to degradation.
The only ruler about which Chayadaev said with respect, - Peter I, who returned Russia to be the most and power by introducing into the Russian culture of elements of the West. Chaadaev was a Western, but Slavophiles treated him with respect. Proof of this - the words of Alexey Homyakova, a bright representative of Slavophilism:
"An enlightened mind, an artistic feeling, noble heart - those are the qualities that everyone attracted to him; At such a time when, apparently, thought immersed in a grave and unwitting dream. He was especially expensive by the fact that he himself was awake and encouraged others. "Personal life
In-successors called Chaadaeva "Lady philosopher": he was constantly surrounded by women, he knew how to fall in love even devotees wives. At the same time, Petra Yakovlevich's personal life did not work out.
In the life of Chaadayev there were three love. Catherine Panova, the addressee of "Philosophical Letters", suffered the strongest from male ambition. Even after the liberation of the psychiatric hospital, the girl did not blame the beloved in his misfortune. She was looking for meetings with a philosopher, but she died without a return letter, a lonely gloomy old woman.
Chaadayev served as a prototype for Evgenia Onegin from the novel of Alexander Pushin of the same name, and in the role of Tatyana Larina was performed by Avdota Norova. She fell in love with a philosopher without a memory, and when he did not have money for payment of his servants, he suggested free to look after him, but he went to Moscow to the family of Levashov.
Avdota was a girlfriend painful and weak, and therefore it died early - at 36 years old. Chaadaev, who has led the normally unanswered letters for a long time, visited her in the hospital shortly before his death.
Ekaterina Levashova, although there was a married woman, sincerely loved Chaadaev. The spouse and older children did not understand why she does not take money from the philosopher for housing. The reverent attitude of Catherine to the guest lasts 6 years, up to her death.
Death
On April 14, 1856, a short obitologist appeared in the Moscow Vedomosti newspaper:
"At 5 o'clock, the afternoon passed away after a short disease, one of the Moscow Stamel Peter Yakovlevich Chaaadayev, known in almost all the circles of our metropolitan society."
He died of inflammation of the lungs, a little without surviving up to 63 years. Memoist Mikhail Zhikharev once asked the philosopher, why he runs from women, "like the hell from Ladan," and he answered:
"Find out after my death."Chaadaev ordered himself to bury himself near the beloved women - in the Don Monastery at the grave of Avdoti Norova or in the Pokrovsky temple near Ekaterina Levashova. The philosopher found the last peace at the Don Cemetery in Moscow.
Quotes
"The vanity gives rise to a fool, the arrogance is anger". "No one considers himself to receive anything, without leaving for a little labor at least stretch behind this hand. One is an exception - happiness. They consider to be completely natural to have happiness without making anything to buy it, that is, to earn it. "" Unbelieving, in my opinion, is likened to the clumsy circistering on a rope, which, standing on one leg, is awkward looking for an equilibrium of another. " The past is no longer subject to us, but the future depends on us. "Bibliography
- 1829-1831 - "Philosophical Letters"
- 1837 - "apology of crazy"