The Way: Religious Thinkers of the Russian Emigration in Paris and Their Journal, 1925-1940

Conclusion: The Two “Bodies” of the Review

Conclusion: The Two “B o dies” of the Re v iew The Way was not merely a publication, a body of work that for more than fifteen years brought together the most eminent representatives of Russian religious thought. As we have been able to see throughout this account , it was also a “spiritual body,” a community of Russian intellectuals who were in the process of discovering their roles as spiritual figures. Although its publication may be ended, a journal lives on for some time via other modes of communication. This was the case for The Way until after the Second World War, when a number of deaths, the rise of other intellectual figures throughout the world, and, especially, the emerging spirit of a new generation ultimately brought its history to a close. THE END OF THE REVIEW’S HISTORY (1940–1948) The Review’s Ethical Commitment Between June 1940—when he left Paris to spend three months at Pyla-surMer , near Arcachon—and January 1945, after the last German soldier had 519 left France, Berdyaev did not publish a single article, either in The Way, whose publication came to an end in March 1940, or in any other review. As early as September 1940, Berdyaev, as an opponent of the Hitler movement , felt threatened. Intent on remaining thoroughly independent of the occupying forces, he decided, together with Paul Anderson, to end the activities of the Academy of Religious Philosophy as well as the publication of The Way. Thus, the review remained faithful to the ethical tradition of the Russian intelligentsia to the last. Beginning in 1940 and throughout the war, the Sunday afternoon gatherings at Berdyaev’s residence in Clamart became the émigrés’“center of Russian patriotism,”according to oneAmerican observer.1 Among the most assiduous members of the inner circle of the journal we find Mother Maria, Pianov, Mochulsky, Zhaba, Adamovich, the poet Piotrovsky, the writer Stavrov and his wife, Ms. Kliiachkin, and Maria Kurdiumov. In 1943, Berdyaev began writing The Russian Idea. In November 1944 he gave a lecture on the theme“The Russian Ideal and the German Ideal”and then,through Jean Schlumberger,sent the“Manifesto of Russian Authors”to the review Combat.2 In response to criticism for compromising with the communist government, Berdyaev reiterated his position after the war in his Spiritual Autobiography, a position considered intolerable by the right-wing emigration ever since his arrival from Berlin: “Nothing has changed, essentially, in my attitude toward Soviet Russia. I consider the Soviet government to be the sole national Russian government. . . . This does not mean that I approve of it entirely.”3 Nevertheless,among the French intellectuals most devoted to the group in Clamart during the war, we find R. Le Senne and P. Leyris. In his memoirs, Maurice de Gandillac recalls the “prophet of A New Middle Ages [published in English as The End of Our Time]—fully heir to knowledge and wisdom, unsatisfied with Pontigny, both disturbing and stimulating for Maritain, Mounier, and Moré—at the time of the siege of Stalingrad, assessing in his Clamart villa his contrasting relationships with Marx and Schelling.”4 This intellectual, patriotic, and ethical resistance to the invading forces ended tragically for some of the authors of the review. In Germany, I. Stratonov’s allegiance to the patriarchate of Moscow cost him his life. Arrested by the Gestapo in 1941, he died in a concentration camp in 1942. Lagovsky came to the same tragic end, although at the hands of the Soviet invaders. He was arrested by the Red Army in Tallinn in 1940 and, on April 25, 1941, was condemned to death as an anti-Soviet agent by the Leningrad tribunal (article 58-4). He was killed by a firing squad on July 3, 1941.5 520 CONCLUSION In France, because they were in charge of the Russian Student Christian Movement, Zenkovsky and Zander were the first authors of The Way to be arrested, in September 1939, by the French police, who were wary of members of the Russian immigration following the German-Soviet alliance . They were released in November 1940 and supported Paul Anderson and the YMCA in their efforts on behalf of prisoners of war. In 1942, Zenkovsky was ordained a priest by Metropolitan Evlogy. Zander was sent once again to Compiègne in June 1941. The group known as Résistance— also the title of the journal whose name bore the legacy we all know— which was founded by Boris Vildé (1908...