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Христианский анархизм Л.Н.Толстого: на пути к политической теологии
The article specifies the characteristics of Christian Anarchism as applied to the religious
teaching of Lev Tolstoy. An attempt is made to overcome the political stereotype of his per
Вестник СПбГУ. Философия и конфликтология. 2023. Т. 39. Вып. 1 55
ception as an anarchist, but to consider it’s in the context of Political Theology. The article
calls into question the legitimacy of considering his religious teachings in the unambiguous
political discourse of Anarchism. If the concept of Christian Anarchism is a special kind of
theoretical and ideological oxymoron of “religious politics”, then Tolstoy’s teaching is considered as a manifestation of his subjectivism, aimed at simultaneously overcoming the personal,
animal element in man and reaching an impersonal universal spiritual principle, without any
external restrictions. Freedom, as the most important category of his worldview, is presented
rather in the form of religious monarchism — submission to the Divine will and life according to Christ, and not in the form of radical Anarchism. Political Theology is considered as a
conscious non-participation of individual in politics — that is, refusal to stay in state structures such as courts, army, police, etc., — is the religious-subjective, peaceful destruction of
the system, according to Tolstoy. On this path, he went much further than his Enlightenment
teachers with their theories of social contracts, creating a model of not struggle, not reconciliation, not an agreement, but retirement from the state in the form of non-participation in its
violence and atrocities. But all this is worth doing — not rebelling anarchically, not for the
sake of oneself or social justice, but completely obeying the Divine will, which is a religious
modification of the Kantian ethical imperative in Tolstoy’s teachings. Chertkov has named this
teaching as model of theocratic monarchism.