Like always, whenever two Slavs start talking, we mentioned the unavoidable topics: Russia, Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Stalin… In terms of Russia, what can we say about it after Cioran’s ingenious study in the book you recently published in your “Alef” edition? And yet, I cannot resist writing a few comments about that terrific and terrifying country. The Russians are a people inclined to a heightened devotion to a way of thinking about which I spoke earlier, and also inclined to changes in their way of behaving. Someone once said, maybe Nabokov, that he could never get over the unmotivated changes in affect among the heroes of Dostoyevsky. To be perfectly honest, the Karmazov’s home can stand shoulder to shoulder with any insane asylum. The Karamazovs, though not crazy, are less stable personalities than the western clinical cases. This has its own arguments that cannot be proclaimed good or bad, but it cannot be denied that they are efficient and important not just for Russia. Only such a people is able to overthrow an empire and establish a communist regime overnight. Western Europe, where the idea of communism was conceived, was not able to do that nor will it ever be, because it is steeped in rationalism, and all the great shocks to the world — including Christianity as well — stand on irrational foundations. Pressed by the burden of civilization’s side of doctrine, and according to the Jewish logic that we give the best of ourselves when under pressure, Russia has the greatest chance to develop into the defender of Christianity; it is absurd, but absurd, especially for the Russians, does not mean impossible. The long-range character of the goals and acts is important; thinking is unimportant. Jesus is often contradictory in the Gospels; in one place he says one thing but something else in another, but he never even momentarily thinks of avoiding the cross. He was not interested in the world or the wisdom of the world; he was focused on the final things. The Russian people have always had great and far-reaching goals but, unfortunately, never great or far-reaching enough. And before now they have always led to one single wish: conquer the world, this one instead of the other one. And it seems that it is a historical necessity for Russia to conquer the world so that its unabashed pretensions will spread into the otherworld as well, into which they will step with the aid of the immeasurable repentance necessary to cancel out an equal amount of pride.
In terms of the nation to which we both belong, on the other hand, I almost do not know what to think about it. How can we explain to ourselves, and hardly to the world, our destiny, the Slavic Jews, scattered in the Diaspora almost purely because of our non-Jewish character, our disaccord, for which it is hard to find a comparison in history. Placed like a hernia between the West and East — I tend to suppose that our role as an adhesive is also our historical mission — we have never been and never will be people of the East or people of the West. That is, naturally, my completely subjective judgment based on our equal dislike of the East and West. But this vague animosity stops me from traveling in either of the two mentioned directions — I do not consider it in any way to be a defect. On the contrary, I consider it a virtue and completely agree with Hugh of St. Victor who says: “The man who finds his homeland sweet is still a tender beginner; he to whom every soil is as his native one is already strong; but he is perfect to whom the entire world is as a foreign land.” Christianity began with precisely that kind of conception of the world, and ended up in a national fragmentation such as history has never seen. We Serbs, in order to excel in rashness, we embraced an even more narrow vision of homeland: the locality where we were born, the street, the quarter, or the village. I have to admit that I myself (and not due to my own effort but by accident) liberated myself from that inhibiting loyalty with great difficulty. At that moment when I succeeded, without an intermediary state, the whole world became a foreign land to me, now I know, to my great fortune.
We, as a nation, entered civilization via the already formed spiritual and administrative system of Byzantium. I will not compare Constantinople and Rome at this point, nor do I give favor to one or the other. But the fact remains a fact. Quite by accident, yoked with the western character of our being, we found ourselves in the situation that, in historical terms quite recently, we bear the burden of a history that does not belong to us, that was imported because of simple fashionableness or, more likely, because of megalomania. A history has been imposed on us for which the west did not have the courage, and for which we — in the depths of our souls — do not have an affinity. That history was not imposed by historical necessity, but by the self-will of certain power-hungry demagogues. Fault, I repeat, should not be sought in the west or in the doctrines of the west. Every seed requires appropriate soil and we certainly could not miss the chance to excel, to finally prove to the world that we are someone and something. While I was still keeping up with the fashion whims of public opinion, I felt an irresistible attraction toward Stalin, and that drove me in the end to buy Dzhugashvili’s portrait and hang it on the wall of my room. I say: to this day I do not approve of his actions, which testifies to the fact that I am quite a hypocrite. Like you, like the vast majority, almost everyone, I do not approve of anyone’s actions, including my own, if they are not in accord with the list of my affinities. And this is why: in the depths of our souls, we all carry a damnable desire to be omnipotent. Only Providence inhibits that desire from overwhelming us in all its force, and we thus manage to embitter the lives of only a limited number of creatures, who return that to us in excess. Joseph Vissarionovich democratized, popularized, the urge to mistreat our loved ones and thus practically negated the idea to which he referred. With how much honesty, that will remain unknown. In other words, slowly but efficiently, the masses became aware that the rod swings both ways. Occasionally, it crosses my mind that Stalin was a mystic. Certainly, he was also a monster. But, what do we know about monsters? What do we know at all? I will quote one more interesting thought about monsters from the pen of R. Bloch: “They are the lightning that strikes to shake our conscience.” A divinity, if it appears for a time in order to disturb the normal flow of the universe, does not do so just like that, without a serious reason. And those reasons could be nothing other than the rage caused by ignoring a former alliance. Undoubtedly, Stalin remained Orthodox in the depths of his silence. In 1946, did he not ban the Ukrainian Catholic Church? Perhaps I am going too far, but I will still note that the possibility is not to be excluded that Stalin worked more in the interest of God than of the Comintern. Almost all of his actions indicate that it is so. It is quite possible that someone acts in accord with God’s will, while not thinking of God, just as it is also possible to perform unimaginable crimes with your mouth full of the praises of God. Things in this world are not divided at all in the sense that good is on one side and bad on the other. How can one find one’s way in all of that? I find my way by not wishing whatsoever to find my way. To find your way means to put yourself in error, to accept a defined model of thinking, and especially of speech; that means to finally choose this world which I am not at all interested in. I do not have any concept of how the Kingdom of Heaven looks, though I believe in it, not because I have evidence, but because I was inspired by a negative revelation, leading me to lose all faith in this world where we temporarily abide.