to have acted as a catalyst to Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost (openness) and per-estroika (restructuring).
Gorbachev’s efforts to persuade Soviet workers and managers to take responsibility for the quality of their work, in return for enhanced rewards, met first with apathy, then with hostility and resistance. Gradually he adopted more radical measures, culminating in his efforts to strip the communist party of its monopoly on power. In attacking the party, however, Gorbachev was attacking the mainspring of the Soviet system. The result was the collapse of the USSR itself. See also: GORBACHEV, MIKHAIL SERGEYEVICH; LABOR; POLAND; TRADE UNIONS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Andrew, Christopher, and Mitrokhin, Vasili. (1999). The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West London. London: Allen Lane/The Penguin Press. Teague, Elizabeth. (1988). Solidarity and the Soviet Worker: The Impact of the Polish Events of 1980 on Soviet Internal Politics. London: Croom Helm.
(1853-1900), philosopher, theologian, journalist, poet, literary critic.
At the end of the nineteenth century, Vladimir Soloviev sought to counter the secular trend in Russian thought by articulating a world view grounded in Christianity. As a young man, Soloviev seemed destined to become the foremost academic philosopher of the Slavophile school, and his early works, such as The Crisis of Western Philosophy: Against the Positivists (1874), reflected Slavophile themes, but in time he gravitated from Slavophilism to Westernism, much like his father, the renowned historian Sergei Mikhailovich Soloviev. When Alexander II was assassinated in 1881, Soloviev called upon the new tsar to set an example of Christian forgiveness by sparing the lives of the terrorists. The ensuing scandal led to his exile from Russia’s government-controlled universities, a lifelong career as an independent writer, and eventually an association with the liberal journal Vest-nik Evropy (European Messenger). Soloviev led an unconventional life as a kind of secular monk dedicated to intense intellectual work; the result was a remarkable output of philosophy, theology, poetry, literary criticism, and social commentary.
Soloviev’s philosophical approach was a synthesis of Western philosophy (particularly German idealist thought) and the Orthodox faith in which he had been raised. His philosophical system emphasized the integration of science, philosophy, and religion. At the center of his philosophical outlook was the concept of the unity of all-the idea that the world was an Absolute in the process of becoming. On this basis, he developed a unique Christian metaphysics in his Lectures on God-Manhood (1877-1881). He argued that reality had been fractured by the Fall, and that history, the center of which was the Incarnation of Christ (the “God-man”), was a process leading to renewal of the unity of all. In this work, he also introduced the elusive concept of Sophia, which at various times he referred to as the “world soul,” the ideal of a perfect humanity, and the “eternal feminine” principle in the Divine.
Soloviev’s fascination with Sophia was reflected in personal mystical experience. His reputation as a mystic derived from his poetry, most famously the poem “Three Meetings,” in which he described three encounters with Sophia, first as a young boy, then during his studies in the British Museum, and finally in the Egyptian desert.
Meanwhile Soloviev was developing a liberal theology similar to the Social Gospel movement in the West. He criticized conservative intellectuals for compromising the moral claims of the Gospels, and
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY
advocated unification of the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches. Soloviev’s enthusiastic ecumenism provoked a nationalist backlash, which in turn led to his Christian critique of nationalism (The National Question in Russia, 2 vols., 1888, 1891). Soloviev went on to produce a wide-ranging ethical treatise, The Justification of the Good (1897), in which he provided an overall theory as well as practical discussion of such issues as nationalism, capitalism, and war. He also contributed to the development of a liberal philosophy of law in Russia.
In the year of his untimely death at age forty-seven, Soloviev published Three Conversations on War, Progress, and the End of History, a controversial work of fiction that questioned the efficacy of human action in an evil world. The work concluded with “The Short Tale of the Anti-Christ,” a futuristic story about the end of the world. Some scholars argue that Soloviev here rejected his liberal theology, but others contend that the central meaning of the story is consistent with his earlier work, because a unified, truly ecumenical humanity triumphs.
A uniquely independent thinker during his life, Soloviev had great influence after his death. His theology inspired social activism among some Orthodox clergy, a trend cut short by the Bolshevik Revolution. His philosophy paved the way for Orthodox thinkers like Sergei Bulgakov and Pavel Flo-rensky. His mystical poetry inspired symbolists like Alexander Blok and Andrei Bely. And after the Soviet Union came to an end, many Russians returned to Soloviev as a guidepost for creating a new Russian philosophy. See also: BELY, ANDREI; BLOK, ALEXANDER ALEXAN-DROVICH; BULGAKOV, SERGEI NIKOLAYEVICH; ORTHODOXY; SILVER AGE
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Copleston, Frederic C. (1986). Philosophy in Russia: From Herzen to Berdyaev. Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press. Gaut, Greg. (1998). “Can a Christian Be a Nationalist? Vladimir Soloviev’s Critique of Nationalism.” Slavic Review 57:77-94. Groberg, Kristi A. (1992). “The Feminine Occult Sophia in the Russian Religious Renaissance: A Bibliographic Essay.” Canadian-American Slavic Studies 26:197-240. Kline, George L. (1985). “Russian Religious Thought.” In Nineteenth Century Religious Thought in the West Vol.
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2, ed. Ninian Smart. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Kornblatt, Judith, and Gustafson, Richard, eds. (1996). Russian Religious Thought. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Sutton, Jonathan. (1988). The Religious Philosophy of Vladimir Soloviev: Towards a Reassessment New York: St. Martin’s Press. Walicki, Andrzej. (1987). Legal Philosophies of Russian Liberalism. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
SOLOVKI ISLAND See GULAG.
Located on the Solovki Archipelago in the White Sea, the Solovki (Solovetsk) monastery was founded between 1429 and 1436 by the hermits Savaty and German, followed by the monk and future abbot Zosima. By the early sixteenth century, Savaty and Zosima had become the patron saints of the White Sea region. Solovki, also a garrison, was one of Russia’s most important cloisters with extensive territories, earning income from trade, salt, fishing, and rents. Metropolitan Phillip II of Moscow contributed significantly to Solovki’s architectural development while serving as abbot (1546-1566). Its monastic rule, formulated in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century, became a template for later communities.
Tsar Alexei Mkhailovich’s troops besieged Solovki from 1668 to 1676 in a conflict traditionally linked to Old Belief. Solovki’s leaders and a large part of the brotherhood first accepted, then rejected, Patriarch Nikon’s liturgical reforms. However, rebellion against central authority combined religious concerns with anti-Moscow sentiment fostered by political exiles imprisoned at Solovki. After their defeat, many monks left, ultimately to swell the number of trans-Volga elders-hermits who served as spiritual fathers to disaffected Orthodox communities.
Solovki remained an active monastery and popular pilgrimage site until the October Revolution, after which the Soviet government transformed it into a military training camp. It became a labor camp in the 1920s and 1930s for political prison1424 ers. Abandoned soon afterward, Solovki was reopened as a museum in the 1970s, then closed again until the end of Soviet rule, when it was reopened to the public. See also: KIRILL-BELOOZERO MONASTERY; MONASTICISM; OLD BELIEVERS; SIMONOV MONASTERY; TRINITY ST. SERGIUS MONASTERY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Mchels, Georg. (1992). “The Solovki Uprising: Religion and Revolt in Northern Russia.” Russian Review 51:1-
