Philosopher Whom the World Failed to Catch

What arouses special interest now, when the spiritual foundations of the Ukrainian national idea are under discussion, is Hryhory Skovoroda’s philosophical homily, his indefatigable search for the truth of life, human identity, and the ideals of a crystal-clear conscience.

Skovoroda’s work is of tremendous importance difficult to overestimate in the history of Ukrainian spirituality and European mentality as such. He was one of the first in modern European civilization to assert the phenomenon of wisdom, which after Ancient Greece and Rome had been effaced by the all- embracing idea of a rational and mechanistic interpretation of all things extant and of regarding truth as something separate from good and evil. In his lecture, the philosopher put forward the idea that existence itself is filled with sense, that is, life is originally full of wisdom, enlightenment, hope, and harmony, which the Ukrainian mentality used as an ideational basis to counter chaos, “the external darkness” of the hostile forces of evil, foreign oppression, and invasions.

Following Socrates, Skovoroda maintained that true wisdom consists not so much in understanding as in living within truth. This explains the surprising fact in his life story that the philosopher forbade the publication of his books, although he called them his children. Skovoroda considered his real philosophical result the book of his own life, in which every action is interpreted as a line of real-life activity, with handmade texts being only the symbols, the signs, of this life creation. “Behold this world,” he wrote, “look at the human genus: it is a book indeed...” (p. 522; translated from the Ukrainian (Ruthenian) original as quoted in the scholarly two volume collection of his works, Vol. 1, Kyiv, 1961). This is why he wrote, “...the sources of wisdom are the sources of life” (p. 140).

From this point of view, Skovoroda regarded the book of Exodus not as literature but as a prescription for breaking free from the captivity of flesh into the realm of free spirit. This perspective also made it possible to avoid interpreting Genesis literally, for such literalness begets, he believed, “decay, dust, and deceit.” We see here, to use modern language, the symbolization of the creativity of one who must discover his own sky and earth, find the foundations of his being, identify the elements of his fate, reach his soul, and fill the “pauses” of meditating the resurrection.

Skovoroda’s works should also be interpreted this way. For example, his dialogue, Askhan, makes it possible for us to compare the philosopher’s texts with “the message borne by the dove” coming through the “snake-like flood” to the “waters of holy reason.” He said that in the tidings of Noah’s dove bringing news of the flood’s end, “the truth took me to mercy, and peace brought me to the truth” (p. 156).

Hryhory Skovoroda’s other philosophical texts also contain certain real-life equivalents. “Our lifetime,” the philosopher writes, “is a journey” (p. 362). In this way he traced his wanderings across the lands of central and eastern Ukraine, becoming a wandering sage bringing to people the poetry of the “divine songs,” philosophical wisdom, and holy morals.

He developed his philosophical view of life, comparing it to a show of “this universal miracle- working theater” (p. 552) and accordingly tested his theoretical postulates in real life, acting in various life roles.

It is the multitude of such roles that prevented the world, to quote the philosopher, from “catching” him in his entirety. Among the roles Skovoroda played were those of the New Testament missionary Barsabas, the Christian preacher Meinhard, a pilgrim to northeast Ukrainian monasteries, conductor of the Petersburg Choir, composer, poet, teacher, and village educator. His was a true experiment in life, one which refutes the idea that this Ukrainian thinker professed scholasticism. The imperative of his philosophy was active, empirical intervention in his own existence and destiny, rather than abstract theorizing. And this means that this philosopher’s world of the mind was not confined to the ideas of Platonic philosophy.

Indeed, his doctrine of the visible and invisible natures of being does contain some Platonic motifs, but he linked the visible with life’s mortal essence and the invisible with things eternal and spiritual. As a result, the philosophical dilemma of spirit and matter is reduced to the problem that he attempted to solve through the practice of his being: “Does only death reign supreme? And there is no life” (pp. 69-70), i.e., to the problem of the ephemeral and the eternal.

It is difficult to find a world philosopher who experienced such a boundless thirst for the eternal. He believed that a spiritual person, who nurtures the truth in his heart, forms an infinite inner personality capable of fusing with God and resting on “the hills of the eternal” (p. 170).

There is no abstract God-seeking here. No matter how unusual Skovoroda’s search for the eternal looks in comparison to our down- to-earth interpretation of life, it also contains a challenge for our own day. Our pragmatic time also needs a prospect of eternity.

No doubt, we should not distract ourselves from the most urgent practical requirements of today. But simultaneously it would be bitter to ignore the ideals of that which is not ephemeral, not transitory, but eternal. In stormy seas, one can only find one’s way by the stable positions of the stars. Moreover, the ideals of eternity impart stability to our lives, instilling in them the faraway horizons of human existence, without which our life is easily transformed into a farce of details, discord, and the absurd.

It is no accident that the centuries-old spiritual tradition has kept intact a paradoxical formula that rudeness comes from the oblivion of eternity. In our struggle against this rudeness which depreciates the understanding of life with the petty and with discord, Hryhory Skovoroda’s philosophy was and still is our spiritual guarantee of remaining undaunted in the present and of our undiminished hope for the future.

THE DAY’S REFERENCE

Hryhory Skovoroda (1722-1794)

Was born December 3, 1722, into a poor Cossack family in the village of Chornukhy, Poltava guberniya. In 1738-1741 and 1744-1750 he studied at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and in 1742-1744 lived in St. Petersburg, where he sang in the imperial court choir and observed capital life. His studies at the Mohyla Academy made Skovoroda one of the most educated people of his time. He had a perfect command of the Latin, Old Church Slavonic, German, and Polish. He thoroughly studied the works of ancient and contemporary philosophers.

There is evidence of Skovoroda’s having toured Western Europe (1750 - 1753) as part of a Polish mission, after which he taught poetry at the Poltava College. But the top clergy’s enmity forced Skovoroda to earn a living as a domestic tutor. In 1759 he was invited to teach at the Kharkiv College, but in 1769 he finally became a roving teacher, for this allowed him to preserve the freedom of spirit he needed.

Until his death on November 9, 1794, Skovoroda traversed eastern Ukraine, writing dialogues, reading and presenting them to his friends and all those interested in the meaning of life. He willed that the following words be inscribed on his tombstone: “ The world tried but failed to catch me.” Dubbed the Ukrainian Socrates, he appealed to the people: “Know yourself!,” “Look within yourself!” He laid the foundations of Ukrainian classical philosophy. The interest in Hryhory Skovoroda’s philosophical heritage has not only diminished but even risen in the twentieth century (Dmytro Chyzhevsky and Nikolai Berdiayev); the influence of Skovoroda’s teaching is also seen in Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel, The Master and Margarita.