Alexei Khomyakov: The Choice of Light

Formulated by Odoevsky and Venevitinov, and more broadly by the circle of Russian philosophers, the ‘mandate’ to create a Russian philosophy has been a task extending over two centuries. The Slavophiles, who also emerged from this circle, were the first to respond to it. Later, the Eurasianists, and subsequently the Neo-Eurasianists at the end of the 20th century, continued this work. Ultimately, this ‘mandate’ was perceived as an imperative in Noomakhia and other works focused on exploring the possibility of a Russian philosophy [1].

Alexei Stepanovich Khomyakov, a close friend of Vladimir Odoevsky and Venevitinov, dedicated his life to an extensive comparative study of cultures and civilisations. This work, Semiramida [2], was never published during his lifetime. Khomyakov aimed not only to provide a comprehensive description of each civilisation, which seemed inherently impossible, but also to propose a classification system where these civilisations could be logically arranged. He essentially approached a methodology based on dominant logoi, which Noomakhia builds upon, but he described these logoi in different terms and structural correspondences.

Khomyakov started from the common belief of his time that there were five races of humanity — white, yellow, black, red, and olive — corresponding more or less to the five continents. Europe was the pole of the whites, Asia of the yellows, Africa of the blacks, America of the reds, and Australia and Oceania of the olives. Gradually, Khomyakov concluded that only three fundamental races existed — white, yellow, and black — and that the other two, red and olive, were products of their mixing. This division into three races corresponded with the views of Western European anthropologists of the 19th century, particularly Lewis Morgan [3] (1818–1881), where each race usually corresponded to a type of society: civilisation for whites, barbarism for yellows, and savagery for blacks.

However, Khomyakov was not satisfied with this systematisation. He paid special attention to the history of the Slavs, who occupied lands in both Europe and Asia, and highlighted the ethnic and linguistic closeness of the Iranian and Indian peoples to the Indo-European (Indo-Germanic) community. Thus, he shifted from a racial approach to an ethno-cultural and linguistic one. This led him to identify similarities between Slavic languages and culture with the Indo-European peoples of Asia, primarily with Indian civilisation. In the first section of Semiramida, he provided a long list of cognate words in Russian and Sanskrit. While some of his etymological connections were later challenged, his main conclusion was correct: the Indo-European peoples of Asia (Iranians, Indians, Afghans, etc.) and Europe (Greeks, Latins, Celts, Germans, etc.) had a common origin and once shared a common language and culture, with the Slavs being an integral part of this Indo-European community [4].

Khomyakov then took the next step: recognising that racial division was not the main criterion for understanding history, he proposed a new criterion that deserved closer attention. More important than race was the type of religious worldview, which he saw as determinative. Khomyakov’s interpretation of the type of religious worldview aligns closely with the concept of logoi in Noomakhia. He identified two fundamental and somewhat universal principles: the Iranian and the Cushitic. These could be termed the ‘Cushitic logos’ and the ‘Iranian logos’, each discussed in corresponding volumes of Noomakhia [5]. Khomyakov asserted:

The comparison of faiths and enlightenment, which depends solely on faith and is contained within it (just as all applied science is contained within pure science), leads us to two fundamental principles: the Iranian, i.e., spiritual worship of the freely creative spirit or primordial, high monotheism, and the Cushitic — recognition of eternal organic necessity, producing effects through logical inevitable laws. Cushitism is divided into two branches: Shaivism — worship of reigning matter, and Buddhism — worship of the enslaved spirit, finding its freedom only in self-annihilation. These two principles, Iranian and Cushitic, in their constant clashes and mixtures, have produced the infinite variety of religions that disgraced humanity before Christianity, especially anthropomorphism. But despite any mixture, the fundamental basis of faith is expressed through the general character of enlightenment, i.e., verbal literacy, phonetic writing, the simplicity of communal life, spiritual prayer, and contempt for the body, expressed through burning or exposing corpses to animals in Iranian culture, and artistic literacy, symbolic writing, the conditional structure of the state, incantatory prayer, and respect for the body, expressed either through embalming or the consumption of the dead, or other similar rites, in Cushitism [6].

In essence, Khomyakov identified the logos of Apollo, most closely associated with the Iranian, and the logos of Cybele, which he linked to the southern Egyptian civilisation of Kush. Both metaphors are confirmed by Noomakhia. The Iranian logos represents one of the most vivid and original (dualistic) forms of the Indo-European vertically patriarchal logos of Apollo [7], while the Cushitic horizon and territory adjacent to the Horn of Africa, likely the cradle of the entire Afro-Asiatic cultural circle (including Semites, Cushites, Egyptians, and Berbers), are indeed closely related to the logos of Cybele [8]. It is important to note Khomyakov’s insight in highlighting Iranians (rather than Greeks, Indians, Germans, Latins, or Celts) as carriers of the paradigmatic culture among the Indo-European peoples. Our research on the Iranian logos [9] confirms the immense and sometimes decisive influence of the Iranian principle on post-Babylonian Judaism and Hellenism (and consequently on Christianity, Byzantium, and Europe as a whole), as well as on vast regions of Asia — from Central Asia to Northern India, Tibet, and Mongolia — and the deep underestimation of this influence. For Khomyakov, Iran symbolises the solar Indo-European vertical.

The Cushitic principle for Khomyakov is a civilisation of fate, objective necessity, a sort of sacred materialism that places humanity on the periphery of ontology. This is a distinctive feature of the civilisation of the Great Mother, a prominent sign of the logos of Cybele. Khomyakov’s intuition about the connection of this matriarchal-materialistic worldview with Kush is confirmed by our studies of the civilisations and cultures of the peoples of North Africa [10].

In such a reconstruction, we can recognise the influence of late Schelling, who in his lectures on the Philosophy of Mythology [11] presented a grandiose picture of world history as the unfolding of divine thought, addressing the metaphysical problem of absolute significance — how the bright and rational principle A2 (in Schelling’s terminology) shapes its relationship to the preceding logical and ontological principle, the dark apophatic abyss — B. We have repeatedly referenced Schelling’s model, identifying and sometimes correcting its inconsistencies when related to various civilisations (for example, in his interpretation of Babylonian culture or early Judaism [12]), and offering our development of his ideas concerning figures and gestalts Schelling did not consider (primarily Ba’al [13] or the Trickster [14]). Khomyakov also follows Schelling, identifying the Iranian ‘fundamental principle’ with the shining logos, A2, and the culture where the principle B predominates, the ontological weight of self-referential givenness, with the Cushitic logos. Setting aside historical, ethnological, linguistic, and religious details, which in Khomyakov’s work require as much correction as in Schelling’s, the picture is as follows: world history is the sequential development of the struggle between the Iranian logos and the Cushitic, that is, A2 with B, or in the terms of Noomakhia, the logos of Apollo with the logos of Cybele. This constructs the dialectic of world history, beginning with the absolute dominance of the Iranian logos, followed by the triumph of the Cushitic logos. Thus, we see in Semiramida the first version of the Russian Noomakhia. As Khomyakov writes:

The view on the ancient scattering of families and the ancient settlement of the human race, on the orderly, meaningful, and spiritually lively structure of the primordial language, on the endless expanse of deserts traversed by the first inhabitants of the earth, on the boundlessness of the seas crossed by the founders of the first overseas colonies, on the identity of religions, rituals, and symbols from one end of the earth to the other presents undeniable evidence of a great enlightenment, a universal communion, and the intellectual activity of prehistoric times, of the later distortion of all spiritual principles, of the barbarisation of humanity, and of the sad significance of the so-called heroic ages, when the struggle of lawless and violent forces consumed all the great traditions of antiquity, all the life of thought, all the principles of communion, and all rational activity of peoples. The seed of this evil is obviously in that country, whose glory opens the series of historical ages, in the country of the Cushites, the first to forget all that is purely human and replace it with a new, conditionally logical and materially educated principle [15].

In this crucial statement for understanding the essence of Slavophile teachings, there is a direct appeal to the logos of Apollo, which for Khomyakov represents the absolute truth, good, and goal. Taking the side of Iran, Khomyakov clearly positions himself in the army of the sons of Light, on the side of the patriarchal vertical and heavenly freedom. Here, on the side of Apollo, the Slavs should stand — as the last legion of the bright logos, receiving the baton from the European and Asian peoples who lost their mission under the onslaught of the logos of Cybele (the Cushitic fundamental principle). The final words of this passage leave no doubt about how Khomyakov and other Slavophiles (as well as the participants in the circle of philosophers) assess the contemporary Western European civilisation of modernity. The logos of Cybele dominates it, and the principles of ‘logical and material progress’ are elevated to the highest value and ultimate goal. Hence arises the call to oppose not just the West but the contemporary West, which has made the same choice as many ancient civilisations, rejecting the Iranian principle in favour of the Cushitic principle. The solar logos now stands to be defended by the Slavs.

Thus, Khomyakov’s appeal to ancient civilisations and his attempt to identify specific semantic patterns in world history lead him to justify Russian identity and formulate the historical mission of the Russians and, more broadly, the Slavs. Here, German thought serves as a reference point for Khomyakov — specifically, the Romantics and idealist philosophers who first approached the problem of the Radical Subject [16] — Fichte, Schelling, Hegel. The misfortune of Europe is that liberal-democratic bourgeois values — essentially Cushitic, mercantile, materialistic values — have prevailed, represented most prominently by English empiricism and French rationalism. Europe is Anglo-French, not Germanic-Slavic. Thus, Khomyakov writes:

France and England, unfortunately, are too little acquainted with the scholarly movement of Germany: they have fallen behind the great guide of Europe. … The Germanic world remains, the true centre of contemporary thought. Having prepared all the materials, it should also construct the building.

The works of Herder, Schelling, and Hegel form the foundation of such a world-historical edifice. Later, Oswald Spengler [17] (1880–1936) would set the same goal, but Russians should also contribute to the construction of this Apollonian version of world history. Khomyakov’s work is a significant contribution to this project; later, the second-generation Slavophile Nikolai Danilevsky (1822–1885) would offer an even more detailed picture of the multiplicity of cultural-historical types and their specific missions.

Thus, the Slavophiles took Venevitinov’s ‘mandate’ seriously and began preparing the ground for the emergence of an original Russian philosophy, which in the eyes of the Slavophiles could and should be a radical defence of the logos of Apollo and a battle against the Cushitic — materialistic and strictly immanent — principle.

This battle concerned not only the relations between Russia and the West, specifically Western European modernity, but also became the field of confrontation between the Iranian and Cushitic principles, that is, the logos of Apollo and the logos of Cybele. This field included the entire Russian society of the 19th century, which was divided into two camps. In one of his polemical articles against the Western historian S. M. Solovyov (1820–1879), Khomyakov remarked:

The inquiring mind turned stricter than before to our entire way of life and our entire enlightenment, seeking in them diverse streams and justifying or condemning phenomena of life and expressions of thought not only in relation to themselves but also by whether we approve or reject the stream that runs through them. Thus, two directions arose to which all writing people more or less belong. One of these directions openly recognises the Russian people’s duty of independent development and the right to self-made thinking; the other, in more or less clear expressions, defends the duty of our constant student relationship to the peoples of Western Europe and recently expressed itself ex cathedra, with extreme naivety, in the statement that learning is nothing more or less than imitation [18].

These two camps are the Slavophiles and the Westernisers. The former rely on Russian identity, justifying it within the structures of the Apollonian Indo-European logos, while the latter insist on continuing the ‘second translation’ and passively following the logic and rhythm of Western European (Anglo-French) modernity, which is equivalent to defending the logos of Cybele and the Cushitic principle. The Slavophiles’ call for ‘independent development’ and ‘self-made thinking’ is in the context of justifying an independent Russian subject. It involves constructing a Russian history and establishing a Russian philosophy, as Odoevsky urged. It is not merely about the Slavophiles calling for independent thought while the Westernisers advocate imitating foreign culture. The civilisation of ancient Rus until the end of the Muscovite period was largely based on translation, but the ‘great translation’ of Byzantinism, crowned by the theory of Moscow as the Third Rome and the coronation of Ivan IV as Tsar, was a participation in the logos of Apollo, whereas the ‘second translation’ was initiated during Peter the Great’s era, which became the main strategy of Russian Westernism, led to Russia’s fall into the abyss of materialism, individualism, empiricism, and atheism — the abyss of the Cushitic metaphysics of the Great Mother.

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[1] Дугин А.Г. Мартин Хайдеггер. Возможность русской философии; Он же. Русский Логос - русский Хаос. Социология русского общества;Он же. Абсолютная Родина; Он же. Геополитика России; Он же. Археомодерн; Он же. Русская вещь в 2т. М.: Арктогея-Центр, 2001; Он же. Этносоциология. М.: Академический проект, 2012.

[2] Хомяков А.С. Семирамида.

[3] Морган Л. Г. Древнее общество или исследование линий человеческого прогресса от дикости через варварство к цивилизации. Ленинград: Институт народов Севера ЦИК СССР, 1935.

[4] Дугин А.Г. Ноомахия. Логос Турана. Индоевропейская идеология вертикали; Он же. Ноомахия. Восточная Европа. Славянский Логос: балканская Навь и сарматский стиль.

[5] Дугин А.Г. Ноомахия. Иранский Логос. Световая война и культура ожидания; Он же. Ноомахия. Хамиты. Цивилизации африканского Норда. М.: Академический проект, 2018.

[6] Хомяков А.С. Семирамида. С. 442 – 443.

[7] Дугин А.Г. Ноомахия. Иранский Логос. Световая война и культура ожидания.

[8] Дугин А.Г. Ноомахия. Хамиты. Цивилизации африканского Норда.

[9] Дугин А.Г. Ноомахия. Иранский Логос. Световая война и культура ожидания.

[10] Дугин А.Г. Ноомахия. Хамиты. Цивилизации африканского Норда.

[11] Шеллинг Ф.В. Философия мифологии. В 2-х томах. 

[12] Дугин А.Г. Ноомахия. Семиты. Монотеизм Луны и гештальт Ва’ала.

[13] Дугин А.Г. Ноомахия. Семиты. Монотеизм Луны и гештальт Ва’ала.

[14] Дугин А.Г. Ноомахия. Цивилизации Нового Света. Прагматика грез и разложение горизонтов. М.: Академический проект, 2017; Он же. Ноомахия. Восточная Европа. Славянский Логос: балканская Навь и сарматский стиль; Он же. Ноомахия. Царство Земли. Структура русской идентичности.

[15] Хомяков А.С. Семирамида. С. 443.

[16] Дугин А. Г. Радикальный Субъект и его дубль. М.: Евразийское движение. 2009.

[17] Шпенглер О. Закат Западного мира. М: «Альфа-книга», 2014.

[18] Хомяков А.С. Замечания на статью г. Соловьева «Шлецер и антиисторическое направление»/ Хомяков А.С. Сочинения в 2 т. Т. 1. С. 519.

Fragment from the book Alexander Dugin, Noomakhia – The Russian Logos III – The Images of Russian Thought: The Solar Tsar, the Flash of Sophia, and Subterranean Rus’

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Хомяков А.С. Семирамида.

Шеллинг Ф.В. Философия мифологии. В 2-х томах.

Шпенглер О. Закат Западного мира. М: «Альфа-книга», 2014.

Translated by Constantin von Hoffmeister

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