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Pochvennichestvo (/ˈpɒtʃvɛnɪtʃɛstvoʊ/; Russian: почвенничество, IPA: [ˈpot͡ɕvʲɪnnʲɪt͡ɕɪstvə], roughly "return to the native soil", from почва "soil") was a late 19th-century movement in Russia that tied in closely with its contemporary ideology, Slavophilia.
History
editThe Slavophiles and the Pochvennichestvo supported the complete emancipation of serfs, stressed a strong desire to return to the idealised past of Russian history, and opposed Europeanization. They also advocated a complete rejection of the nihilist, classical liberal and Marxist movements of the time. They laid a primary focus on changing Russian society by the humbling of the self and on social reform through the Russian Orthodox Church, rather than through the radical programs of (for example) the Westernizer intelligentsia.
The Slavophiles and the Pochvennichestvo differed in that the former detested the Westernisation policies of Emperor Peter the Great (r. 1682–1725), but the latter praised what they saw as the benefits of the notorious ruler who maintained a strong patriotic mentality for what became sloganised under Emperor Nicholas I (r. 1825–1855) as "Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality". Another major difference was that many of the leaders of Pochvennichestvo and their supporters adopted a militant anti-Protestant, anti-Catholic and antisemitic stance.
The movement had its roots in the works of the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803), who focused primarily on emphasising the differences between peoples and regional cultures.[1][need quotation to verify][2] In addition, it rejected the universalism of the Enlightenment period. Pochvennichestvo originated in the early 1850s with the "young editors" working at the journal Moskvityanin.[3] The most prominent[according to whom?] Russian intellectuals who founded the movement were Apollon Grigoryev (1822-1864),[4] Nikolay Strakhov (1828-1896), Nikolay Danilevsky (1822-1885) and Konstantin Leontyev (1831-1891).[citation needed]
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) also came to support such views, as expressed in his 1873 novel Demons. The ideology was later adopted by Emperors Alexander III (r. 1881–1894) and Nicholas II (r. 1894–1917).[citation needed]
See also
edit- Ivan Ilyin
- Narodism
- Westernizer, advocacy of Westernisation in Russia
- Völkisch movement
- Going to the People
Notes
edit- ^ The Dostoevsky Encyclopaedia
- ^ Dostoevsky the Thinker: "Students of Russian pochvennichestvo have described it as [...] reflecting the European romantic reaction, heralded by Johann Gottfried von Herder, against Enlightenment beliefs in a universal human nature and a common social ideal. Apollon Grigoryev, Herder's principal Russian disciple [...], shared Herder's convictions that the concept 'man' is a mere abstraction with no real content, that every individual is an organic product of a particular culture at a particular time, and that all national cultures are equally valid historically."
- ^
Dowler, Wayne (15 December 1982). Dostoevsky, Grigor'ev, and Native Soil Conservatism. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9781442638396. Retrieved 17 September 2024.
The origins of the movement go back to the beginning of the 1850s when a group of young aesthetes - the so-called 'young editors' - took control of the literature and literary criticism sections of the Moscow journal Moskvitianin.
- ^
Dowler, Wayne (15 December 1982). Dostoevsky, Grigor'ev, and Native Soil Conservatism. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9781442638396. Retrieved 17 September 2024.
As the founder of the movement, [Grigor'ev] had also served as the guardian of its purity.