Biography of Gregory the frying pan. Works in two volumes Brief biography of a frying pan

Plan
Introduction
1 Biography
2 Worldview
3 Philosophical treatises and dialogues
4 Fables
Bibliography

Introduction

Grigory Savvich Skovoroda (November 22 (December 3) 1722, Chernukha village, Kyiv province (now Chernukhinsky district, Poltava region) - October 29 (November 9), 1794, Ivanovka village, Zolochevsky district, Kharkov province) - Ukrainian and Russian philosopher, poet, teacher . Skovoroda is called “the first philosopher of the Russian Empire.”

1. Biography

Grigory Skovoroda was born on November 22 (December 3), 1722 in the village of Chernukha (now Chernukhinsky district, Poltava region of Ukraine) into a Cossack family. First he studied at the Kyiv Theological Academy, and then was sent to the court singing chapel (in St. Petersburg). In 1744, he was dismissed from his position as a chorister, with the rank of court guide, and moved to Kyiv to continue his studies at the academy. Wanting to travel around the world, he pretended to be crazy, as a result of which he was expelled from the bursa. Soon, as a clergyman under General Vishnevsky, he went abroad. Over the course of three years, he visited Poland, Hungary (he was in Tokaj), Austria (according to some sources, also in Italy and Germany), and mastered several languages, including Latin, Ancient Greek, Hebrew and German. He knew both ancient and modern European philosophy. In the early 1750s he taught poetry at the Pereyaslav Seminary and was also a home teacher. Wrote a “Guide to Poetry” for the seminary; when the Pereyaslavl bishop demanded that Skovoroda teach the subject in the old way, Skovoroda did not agree, as a result of which he was fired. In 1759-1769 he taught at the Kharkov Collegium. For unorthodox thoughts, which were also interpreted in a wrong sense, he was suspended from work twice, but returned. Having been suspended for the third time, he never returned to teaching. In subsequent years, Skovoroda mostly led the life of a wandering philosopher-theologian, wandering around Sloboda Ukraine, staying in peasant huts. He refused positions and occupations offered to him, devoting his time to teaching people morality - both in word and in his way of life. The philosopher's works were not published during his lifetime. He died on October 29 (November 9), 1794 in the village of Pan-Ivanovka, Kharkov province (now the village of Skovorodinovka, Zolochevsky district, Kharkov region).

2. Worldview

Skovoroda considered the Alexandrian school to be a model for his theology, and also especially revered Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. In his philosophy, Skovoroda was close to pantheism. He saw the universe as consisting of three worlds - macrocosm (universe), microcosm (man) and some “symbolic” reality connecting the big and small worlds, ideally reflecting them (for example, with the help of sacred texts like the Bible). Each of these worlds consists of “two natures” - visible (created) and invisible (divine). Skovoroda paid considerable attention not only to the Christian tradition in philosophy, but also to the ancient heritage, in particular the ideas of Platonism and Stoicism. Researchers find in his philosophy features of both mysticism and rationalism. G. S. Skovoroda is often called the first philosopher of the Russian Empire. For his unusual way of life, and also because Skovoroda wrote most of his philosophical works in a dialogical form, he also received the nickname “Russian Socrates.” There are several trends in the study of Skovoroda’s legacy. In particular, he was usually interpreted by Soviet scientists as an educator, anti-clerical and democrat. Russian religious philosophy of the early 20th century considered him as its founder. Meanwhile, modern researcher A.V. Malinov comes to the conclusion that Skovoroda did not have a philosophical system or philosophical teaching in the strict sense of the word: “He is a sage and a teacher of life, in whose work one finds a school syncretism of philosophical, theological, philological problems and languages."

3. Philosophical treatises and dialogues

USSR postage stamp dedicated to G. S. Skovoroda, 1972 (DFA (ITC) #4186; Scott #4034)

Frying pan on a five hundred hryvnia bill 2006

In his works, Skovoroda almost never quotes or refers to anyone.

The exception is a huge layer of quotations from the Holy Scriptures.

· Ashan (“Symphony, called the Book of Ashan about self-knowledge”)

· Narkiss (“Narkiss. Rant about: find out for yourself”)

· A conversation between two people about how it’s easy to be blessed

· Dialogue, or ranting about the ancient world

· Conversation between five travelers about true happiness in life (Friendly conversation about spiritual peace)

· Ring. Friendly conversation about spiritual peace

· A little book called Silenus Alcibiadis, that is, the Icon of Alcibiades (Israelite Serpent) (1776)

· A book about sacred reading. scriptures, named Lot's Wife (1780)

· Serpent Flood (late 1780s)

· Alphabet of the world (Conversation called the alphabet, or primer of the world; 1775)

· Archangel Michael’s battle with Satan about this: it’s easy to be good (1783)

· Straight to the devil with Varsava

· The initial door to Christian goodness (1769-1780)

· Icon of Alcibiades

· Garden of Divine Songs

· “Kharkov Fables” (1774)

· “Grateful Erody”

· "Poor lark"

· "Aesop's Fable"

Bibliography:

1. Some sources indicate the Poltava province as Skovoroda’s birthplace, but this is not true. Poltava province was formed in 1802. The Kiev province, formed in 1708, included at that time the Kiev Ruthenia, Sevsky and Belgorod categories, parts of the current Bryansk, Belgorod, Oryol, Kursk, Kaluga and Tula regions Changes in the administrative-territorial division of Russia over the past 300 years

2. Small encyclopedic dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron.

3. Losev A. G. S. Frying pan in the history of Russian culture

4. Online Encyclopedia “Around the World”

5. SKOVORODA GRIGORY SAVVICH / 1722-1794 Russian and Ukrainian philosopher, poet, teacher Born in Che

6. FRYING PAN G. Garden of Divine Songs

7. I. I. Kalnoy, Yu. A. Sandulov. Philosophy for graduate students. From the philosophy of affinity to the philosophy of common cause, from monologue to dialogue

8. Losev A. G. S. Skovoroda in the history of Russian culture

9. Malinov A.V. Philosophical views of Grigory Skovoroda. St. Petersburg, 1998. P. 122.

Skovoroda Grigory Savvich (1722-1794) - Russian and Ukrainian poet and fabulist, teacher and humanist, democrat and wandering philosopher. He made a significant contribution to East Slavic culture.

It is believed that he ended the era of Cossack Baroque and laid the foundation for Russian religious philosophy.

early years

The place where Grigory Skovoroda was born, at the beginning of the 8th century, belonged to the Russian Empire. In the Kyiv province, in the vicinity of Poltava, there was at that time a small village of Chernukhi, where Gregory was born on December 3, 1722.

His father was the land-poor Cossack Savva Skovoroda, and his mother Pelageya Stepanovna (maiden name Shangireeva) had Crimean Tatar roots in her family. Grigory was the second child; the eldest son Stepan was already growing up in the family.

The village of Chernukha consisted of several farms, one of which, Kharsiki, is the real birthplace of Gregory. It was here that his father received a land plot as a local village priest (in those days, clergy were supposed to be allocated land).

Grigory Skovoroda’s father’s house is still located there, where a museum is currently located.

As a child, Gregory early began to manifest an uncontrollable craving for science. He also sang very well, thanks to which he served in the church choir.

Kyiv and St. Petersburg

For education, his parents sent him first to the clerk, then to the Chernush parish school.

Exceptional abilities in learning opened the way for Gregory to the preparatory class of the Kyiv Academy. It was the first higher educational institution in Ukraine, and many dreamed of studying there.

In 1738, Skovoroda entered the Kiev-Mohyla Academy. He studied there for three years, after which, at the age of 19, following his older brother Stepan, he went to St. Petersburg. They had relatives there - the family of their maternal uncle Ignatius Kirillovich Poltavtsev. He was a large landowner and nobleman, at one time he served in the imperial army, where he reached the rank of colonel. When Elizaveta Petrovna reigned, Poltavtsev served as a chamber-fourier and had more than 600 granted souls.

The uncle's house was always open to Stepan and Grigory. It was Poltavtsev who helped Grigory get a job as a court singer for the first time in St. Petersburg, and Stepan get a primary education in Poland.

Since Gregory served as a court singer, he was entitled to a place to live, near the Winter Palace in the Court Chapel. He was also entitled to a court salary of 25 rubles (at that time this was a decent amount), and his parents were also exempt from paying taxes.

While working in this position, Grigory met and began to frequently communicate with the Empress’s favorite, Count Kirill Razumovsky. Skovoroda lived in St. Petersburg from 1741 to 1744, and during this time he visited the estates of the Razumovskys and Poltavtsevs more than once.

Kyiv Academy, trip to Europe

In 1744, Grigory Skovoroda was dismissed from the post of court singer; now, as a court charterer, he went with Empress Elizabeth and her retinue to Kyiv.

Grigory continued his interrupted studies at the academy; he soon became a soloist in the academic choir and began writing music. Here he listened to lectures by Archbishop George of Konissky.

In 1750, Grigory had the opportunity to travel to Europe with Major General Fyodor Stepanovich Vishnevsky, a close friend of Count Razumovsky. This was a Russian mission to Tokaj to purchase wines for the imperial court.

The mission lasted for three years and during this time Skovoroda, wanting to get acquainted with the cultural heritage of Europe, walked around Poland and Austria, Hungary and Italy.

Kharkov and Moscow period

Returning from a trip to Europe, Gregory tried himself in different directions. He worked at the Pereyaslavl Collegium at the Theological Seminary, taught poetry there, but was fired because of his progressive views.

From 1754 he was the home teacher of the noble boy Vasya Tamara.

However, Gregory’s relationship with the student’s parents did not go well. Vasya’s father constantly emphasized his superiority over the teacher, and his mother considered Skovoroda an unworthy teacher. They broke up before the end of the contract.

After resigning, Grigory Skovoroda went to Moscow, where he was sheltered in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, where he not only lived, but also used the richest library. During his years at the Lavra, Gregory studied many books. He was even offered to remain as a librarian, but Skovoroda was thirsty for travel.

However, he did not succeed in traveling; in 1755, he received a letter from the boy’s father Vasya Tomara, where he apologized and asked to continue his son’s education. Until 1758, Skovoroda was again in Pereyaslav.

From 1759 to 1769, Skovoroda was engaged in teaching at the Kharkov Collegium, from where he was fired three times due to his views, and was later rehired.

Wandering period

Gregory was completely tired of the persecution of secular and spiritual authorities and, having once again resigned from the collegium, he began to lead a wandering lifestyle. As a philosopher-theologian, he wandered around the Azov region, Little Russia, Voronezh, Kursk, Slobodsk and Oryol provinces. He stayed for a long time in Rostov in the Don Army Region.

The philosopher communicated with enslaved peasants, oppressed Cossacks, opposed the official religion, and increasingly turned to nature and the human mind.

They tried to “tame” him many times:

• The Belgorod bishop offered to take holy orders and become a monk;
• the monks of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra invited him to their monastery;
• the Kharkov governor offered him a certain fortune;
• even Tsarina Catherine II herself invited him to live permanently at court.

He refused everyone; he didn’t need either the “great gentlemanship” or the “unfortunate delicacy.”

Skovoroda spent all his free time in fields and groves. He slept no more than four hours. As soon as the first rays of the sun broke through, he was already on his feet. Grigory put on a simple wide shirt, took a pipe, a staff and a bag of books in his hands and walked wherever his eyes looked. He ate once a day at sunset, adhered to a non-strict vegetarianism, and consumed cheese, vegetables and milk. He was always kind and cheerful, for which people loved him and constantly sought communication with him. In the lap of nature, he especially loved to read the Bible.

Works

He created his collection of lyrical works, “The Garden of Divine Songs,” from 1757 to 1785.

The most widely known song was “Every city has its own character and rights.” It was written in a satirical spirit and ridiculed landowners, moneylenders and merchants. Later the song was set to music and performed by kobza singers.

Death and memory

Two months before his death, Gregory went to the Oryol province. He left all the manuscripts to his student for safekeeping.

Grigory felt the approach of death, he washed himself, dressed in clean clothes, lay down on a bench and died. This happened on November 9, 1794 in the village of Ivanovka, Kharkov province. The philosopher made one single will - to write on his grave “The world caught me, but did not catch me.”

The memory of the great thinker is preserved by grateful descendants. In Ukraine, many higher education and research institutions bear his name.

In the Kharkov region there is a functioning literary and memorial museum of Grigory Skovoroda.

Gregory’s portrait was depicted on postage stamps of the USSR and Ukraine, and the image of the great thinker was also on the Ukrainian 500-hryvnia banknote.

At the beginning of August 1987, scientists at the Crimean Observatory discovered a small planet and gave it the name Grigory Skovoroda.

“The world caught me, but could not catch me” - these words are carved on the gravestone of one of the first Russian philosophers - Grigory Savvich Skovoroda. Three centuries have passed. This bright personality has become a legend.

The philosopher's sayings turn into scathing quotes. Both Christian socialists and anti-church liberals count him as their teacher. Grigory Skovoroda is equally used as a symbol by supporters of Ukrainian independence and apologists for pan-Slavic unity. He is called the first Russian Neoplatonist and the Russian apostle. The epitaph turned out to be the most accurate. Because it is still so difficult for us to catch this extraordinary person.

Grigory Skovoroda was born on December 3, 1722 in the village of Chernukhi, Kyiv province. His father was a free but poor man, a simple Cossack. Since childhood, Grisha has become accustomed to valuing freedom, no matter what the cost. His entire philosophy was permeated with the desire for true freedom. As a matter of fact, it is difficult for us to separate Skovoroda’s teachings from his life. He is aptly compared to Socrates, whose life cannot be separated from teaching, and teaching from life.
Grisha received his initial education in the parish church, his teacher was a local deacon. Nature was another teacher. He spent all his free time reading church books. Or he walked, tirelessly studying the beautiful divine creation - the world around him.
At the age of 16 (1734) he entered the Kiev-Mohyla Academy, where he studied Greek, Latin, Hebrew and German, as well as various sciences. He reads both secular and ecclesiastical classics. After graduating from the academy, Grigory Skovoroda finds himself in St. Petersburg, at the court of Elizaveta Petrovna. But, in truth, for this he should be grateful not to his scholarship, but to his singing talent.

A few more years passed and Gregory found himself as part of the Russian mission in Tokai. For 5 years he has been traveling around Hungary, Austria, Poland, and Prussia. Everywhere he continues his education. Thus, in Vienna he repeatedly attended lectures by the philosopher Wulff, where he became acquainted with modern German philosophy and theology. In 1759, upon returning to his homeland, he began his pedagogical activity, which was never destined to take place. Twice Skovoroda was forced to leave the teaching staff of the Kharkov Collegium due to the disapproval of his superiors.

His criticism of scholastic poetry, the level and methodology of the humanities and the life of the church makes him an outcast among professors.

“The whole world is sleeping,” Skovoroda said from the pulpit, “sleeping deeply, as if bruised, and the mentors who shepherd Israel not only do not awaken them, but also stroke them, saying: sleep, don’t be afraid, the place is good, what is there to be afraid of?”
The road to Skovoroda’s life was his amazing teaching. He became the people's teacher, the most accessible and pure, in the deepest sense of the word. Skovoroda preaches at fairs, in villages, plays the flute, sings in fields and lakes. He becomes the dear guest of all who love freedom and truth. He often visits Ukrainian and Russian monasteries.

It must be said that Skovoroda criticized nothing as much as the church: for formalism in rituals, excessive wealth, trade, politicization and corruption. But this criticism was justified. This is confirmed by the fact that Skovoroda had many friends and patrons among church hierarchs, including archimandrites and bishops.

The clergy aroused respect for his churchliness, combined with literacy. So, the rector of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra offered him the position of chief librarian, just to keep such a person.

And the monks of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, where Skovoroda so often loved to visit, repeatedly persuaded him to take monastic vows and stay with them. But Skovoroda could not be restrained and he continued his wanderings. Without accepting monasticism, Skovoroda showed all his best qualities: complete poverty and homelessness, coupled with moral purity, fasting (he did not eat meat at all), perfect love for people, thirst for church purity, zeal for God, life in Christ - this is the image this philosopher.

Love for God is the basis of Skovoroda’s existence and his entire philosophical worldview. By studying and comprehending the Bible, living according to it, we thus come to God.

This connection can be achieved not only after death, but also during life; this is the only way to find happiness. “This happiness, or “peace of mind,” is the Kingdom of God.” There is no need to go somewhere for happiness - happiness is close to everyone, it is in every person. It lies in the fact that a person knows himself, his immeasurable essence, his image of God.
Skovoroda taught not only philosophy, but also prayer. He taught that it is necessary to pray secretly, being alone with the Lord. At full time, he prayed blissfully for a long time, experiencing within himself the birth of a new, Christ-like man.
Through the experience of spiritual life, he achieved a great keenness of feeling for the life of the world and human life. Skovoroda guesses people, he senses impending disasters, predicts an epidemic in Kyiv. He was well known and loved, both in Russia and Ukraine. Everyone considered it an honor to receive him and keep him longer. But he travels from place to place.

Tall, thin and stately, with one bag over his shoulder, with a Bible and a pipe, he wanders through villages and estates. He writes his treatises, stopping in forest tracts, in apiaries, always in solitude and prayer. His conversations, sayings and “winged” words were recorded, rewritten, and distributed. His poems, legends, fables went to the people and were sung by kobzars. He was a teacher of the entire people in the full meaning of the word - so a group was formed from among his admirers, led by V.N. Karazin, the future founder of Kharkov University.

Skovoroda died as purely and “humanely” as he lived. In August 1794, as a seventy-two-year-old man, he travels through the Oryol province, from where he returns to Ukraine, to his native Slobozhanshchina, and stays in the village of Pan-Ivanovka with his friend Kovalensky. Feeling the approach of his death, he talks about it; He confesses to the local priest.
The very day of his death is described by I. I. Sreznevsky. “At dinner, Skovoroda was unusually cheerful and talkative, talking about the past, about his travels, about difficult moments in life. After dinner everyone stood up, fascinated by his eloquence. Skovoroda quietly left the house. I walked for a long time on uneven roads. The day has passed; in the evening Kovalensky went to look for Skovoroda and found him under a large linden tree. The sun was setting, the last ray was breaking through the leaves. Frying pan, with a spade in his hand, was digging a grave.
Came back home. Skovoroda retired to his room, changed his linen, prayed to God and, putting the Bible and notebooks of his creations under his head, lay down with his hands crossed.” Thus ended the earthly life of G.S. Frying pans.
He was buried on a high bank, near a grove, in his favorite place, where he played his flute at sunrise.

(November 22 (December 3), 1722, Chernukha village, Kyiv province (now Chernukhinsky district, Poltava region) - October 29 (November 9), 1794, Ivanovka village, Kharkov province)

Biography

A zealot of truth, a spiritual reader of God,
And in word, and in mind, and in life, he is a sage;
A lover of simplicity and freedom from the hustle and bustle.
Without flattery, a friend is straight, always happy with everything,
Reached the top of sciences, having learned the spirit of nature,
An example worthy of hearts, Skovoroda.

With such verses he honored the memory of his elder friend and teacher M. I. Kovalensky (Kovalensky), completing “The Life of Grigory Skovoroda”, written for the edification of descendants - the most complete and reliable source of information about the Ukrainian thinker1.

Grigory Savvich Skovoroda (1722 – 1794), who remained in the people’s memory as an “old man”, a disinterested man, a beggar and a homeless wanderer, a “lover of the Holy Bible” (1722 – 1794) was one of the most educated people of his time. Persecuted by ill-wishers and slanderers, who did not want to “catch” or “serve”, he always found the opportunity to realize his “inner” freedom outside and defend his own dignity before the powerful of “this world” - a “world” that caught him in the sticky snares of passions and seductiveness. compromises. A poet whose songs were sung by his compatriots for a long time after his death; a teacher whose students, friends and acquaintances collected most of the funds for the founding of Kharkov University in 1803; a principled cosmopolitan, a “citizen of the world” who loved “Mother Little Russia and Aunt Ukraine”; a sage and mystic, tirelessly leading “spiritual warfare” into the heart, seeking the “invisible city”, “the heavenly Jerusalem”, experiencing with painful acuteness the tragic duality of existence:

This world shows a splendid appearance,
But a vigilant worm lurks within it...
Woe to you, world! You show laughter outside,
Inside, your soul secretly sobs...

The image of Skovoroda very early becomes an object of mythologization, which is noticeable already in Kovalinsky’s memoirs. Throughout the 19th – early 20th centuries. One of the most famous plots of the “myth” about Skovoroda is emerging: the first Russian philosopher, the founder of the national philosophical tradition. They say that V.S. Solovyov read “A Brief Tale of the Antichrist” to his friends, sitting under the portrait of his “spiritual ancestor” - Skovoroda. “In the person of Skovoroda, the birth of philosophical reason in Russia takes place; and in this very first babble new notes, unfamiliar to the new Europe, are sounded, a certain hostility to rationalism is declared, the foundations of a completely different self-determination of the philosophical mind are laid,” wrote V. F. Ern3 when developing his concept of Russian philosophy. Andrei Bely concludes his novel “Petersburg” with a significant mention of the Ukrainian sage.

Skovoroda was called the Kharkov Diogenes, “our” Pythagoras and Xenophanes, the steppe Lomonosov, etc. In Soviet times, he was passed off as a materialist and an atheist. Some representatives of the Ukrainian emigration wrote about Skovoroda as the creator of the “Ukrainian national idea.” Now other hotheads compare him with Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Popper and even Buddha and Mohammed. However, there were always those who flatly refused to recognize Skovorod as a philosopher, seeing in him only a wandering herald of trivial moral postulates, a half-heretic, half-sectarian.

Skovoroda himself, without a doubt, considered himself a philosopher, “Socrates in Rus',” and there were some reasons for this. He conducted Socratic “friendly conversations” with his students, the topic of which was man and his education in virtue through self-knowledge, peace of mind and happiness as a result of following his inner nature. Skillfully, with good pedagogical tact, he introduced his interlocutors into the world of centuries-old European culture, in which he felt at home. Like Socrates, Skovoroda belonged to that small number of thinkers whose life strictly corresponded to their teaching, word did not diverge from deeds (it was this integrity, so sought after by subsequent Russian thinkers, that primarily attracted Skovoroda’s admirers, including L.N. Tolstoy). Finally, being neither a great religious reformer nor a thinker of the rank of, for example, Kant, Skovoroda was, however, a real philosopher.

Skovoroda the philosopher is a peripheral phenomenon of the European intellectual process of the 18th century, and therefore serious interest in him grew as the classical “Enlightenment” paradigm of philosophizing itself moved to the periphery. The Ukrainian thinker restored and implemented in his life and teaching one of the most ancient ideas about philosophy. Love for wisdom, sophistic mastery, philosophy is not a sum of ready-made knowledge that can only be assimilated, but first of all a path, a risky search that for the first time reveals the nature of man, transforming the very mode of his existence. This is an ascetic effort as a creative act of creation, “removing” the unconditionality of the world given and allowing being to reveal, and man to hear, the voice of logos, meaning, truth. An effort that awakens self-awareness, tireless work to maintain its wakefulness, intellectual and moral-emotional-volitional “standing on guard.” It is also important that philosophy, this “fun craft and intelligent fun,” is thoroughly permeated with the element of play, it was born in this element, which Socrates and Boethius did not forget about even before their execution. Skovoroda also reminded of this, bequeathing to write his famous on the gravestone before his death: “The world caught me, but did not catch me.”

G. S. Skovoroda was born in the village. Chernukha in the Poltava region, in the family of a land-poor Cossack. In 1734 - 1753 studied, with two breaks, at the Kiev-Mohyla Academy, where he was immediately noted as one of the best students. He listened to lectures by such famous professors as M. Kozachinsky, G. Konissky, S. Todorsky, and in addition, he tirelessly engaged in self-education. He spent two years in the Russian capitals as a court chapel singer. Then, as part of the mission of General F. S. Vishnevsky (supplying Tokaj wines to the imperial court), he went to Hungary, and from there on his own - to Poland, Slovakia, Austria and, possibly, Germany and Northern Italy. The exact route of the journey - and it lasted until 1750 - is unknown, but Kovalinsky names its purpose quite specifically: Skovoroda, “being curious out of his desire, tried to get acquainted especially with people whose scholarship and knowledge were well-known at that time. He spoke Latin and German very regularly and with particular purity, and understood Hellenic quite well, which is why he helped to gain the acquaintance and friendship of scientists, and with them new knowledge, which he did not and could not have in his own country.”4

Upon his return, Skovoroda was invited to teach the theory of poetic art at the Pereyaslavl (Khmelnitsky) Collegium, from where, however, he was soon expelled for refusing to bring his course in line with established models. He worked as a home teacher, rejected the monastic rank repeatedly offered to him, and from 1759 to 1769 he intermittently taught poetics, ancient Greek and catechism at the Kharkov Collegium. His fame as a teacher, thinker and poet is growing, causing, however, an ambiguous attitude on the part of some representatives of the clergy. From 1769 until the end of his days, Skovoroda led the life of a wandering philosopher, an “old man” (a kind of “monasticism in the world”). With a stick in his hand, a bag over his shoulders containing simple belongings, a Bible, manuscripts, a flute, he wanders along the roads of Slobozhanshchina, finding temporary shelter with friends and acquaintances in villages, farmsteads, apiaries, noble estates and monasteries. During this period he wrote his main works. Skovoroda died in the village. Pan-Ivanovka near Kharkov.

Skovoroda’s works were not published during his lifetime and were distributed among his friends and admirers in handwritten copies. His pen includes: a treatise on Christian ethics “The Initial Door to Christian Good Morality”, several philosophical dialogues (“Narkissus”, “Conversation of Five Travelers about True Happiness in Life”, “Ring”, “Alphabet, or Primer of the World”, “Lot’s Wife” ", "The Battle of the Archangel Michael with Satan", "Speaking to the Demon with Barsabau", "The Flood of Zmiin", etc.), parables, fables, lyrics of various genres, translations of Greek, Latin and New Latin authors, as well as numerous ones written in excellent Latin and book Ukrainian writing language.

Skovoroda’s philosophical works are significantly different in form from the works of other Russian philosophers of the 17th – 18th centuries, in whom an extremely monological systematizing treatise dominated, and dialogue played a secondary role. Dialogical genre forms at this time were used in the so-called grassroots literature. Skovoroda’s conscious rejection of the authoritarian-systematizing style of thinking was also reflected in his choice of a dialogical form for his writings. Skovoroda’s philosophical dialogue is a rather complex genre formation. On the one hand, it genetically depends on the “Socratic” dialogue throughout its history: from the heuristic conversations of Socrates to the catechism-type dialogue. On the other hand, fundamentally rejecting many forms of Christian ritual, Skovoroda introduces into the structure of his dialogue various elements of Christian temple action, which give it the character of an “extra-church liturgy.” Liturgy is included in the philosophical and genre synthesis of dialogue, since it is constantly present in the creative thinking of the philosopher. Many quotations from the Bible, which is so characteristic of Skovoroda, find their way into his works indirectly - through the liturgical canon and in the context of dialogue, they begin to perform a special function related to the liturgy. Skovoroda built his teaching hermeneutically—the method of interpreting the sacred text—and therefore naturally included the text of the divine service in the “symbolic world” in the unity of its verbal, “gestural,” musical, and iconographic aspects. Skovoroda’s logic is “synchronous” here with the internal logic of the patristic tradition, which from the exegesis of Holy Scripture comes to the so-called mystagogy - the interpretation of worship as a means of collective deification (Cyril of Jerusalem, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Maximus the Confessor, etc.). The general exegetical attitude of the thinker, associated with the interpretation of Holy Scripture, also forms the principles of his mystagogy. Skovoroda’s understanding of the sacraments is purely symbolic. Skovoroda’s philosophical dialogue is often not just a reflection of his characters, but a “doing” that agrees (“symphony”) of hearts with each other and with God.

It would be wrong to see in Skovoroda a “philosopher without a system.” The integrity of his nature, his life as an experience of the free construction of his being, were also manifested in the integrity of his thinking - the thinking of a poet and philosopher of the late Baroque era. The central points of Skovoroda’s metaphysics and the forms of its expression (personalistically interpreted platonism, the doctrines of “beginningless truth” and Sophia the Wisdom of God, biblical hermeneutics, dialogical genre structures) represent a kind of “baroque” unity based on an original understanding of the ideas, themes and images of previous eras European culture. The following traditional aspects are quite clearly presented in Skovoroda’s teaching: theology - the doctrine of the superexistent One, the Divine in its emanation (transition to lower levels), the Neoplatonic interpretation of the Christian Trinitarian doctrine in the form of the doctrine of the “three worlds”, theodicy; ontology – the Platonized doctrine of “two natures” and “three worlds” as a paradigm of the dialectic of the super-existent, the existent and the non-existent; epistemology - finding truth on the path of “erotic” ascent to the “primary source” (arche), the hermeneutic nature of the process of cognition of the noumenal (deep) level of things, self-knowledge, ontological understanding of truth; anthropology – “inner man” as a branch of the divine Logos, the mutual reflection of the micro- and macrocosm in connection with the problem of “theosis” (deification), man as an entity that owns being-for-itself; ethics - personalistic imitation of the “idea” of man, “unequal equality for all,” “affinity,” self-sufficiency, asceticism; aesthetics – “beautiful” – “ideas” of things in the intelligible light of the One, “ugly” – non-existence (meon), the result of the loss of “ideas” (“eidos”) of their self-identity, creativity as creative work on the formation of things on the way of bringing non-existence to existence .

All these issues are closely connected with the philosophical thought of antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Baroque, represented by the names of Plato, Plotinus, Epicurus, Plutarch, Lucian, Philo of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Maximus the Confessor, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Manuel Kozachinsky , Dmitry of Rostov, Paisiy Velichkovsky and others.

The central place in Skovoroda’s philosophy is occupied by the doctrine of “three worlds” (macrocosm - “the inhabited world”, the universe; microcosm - society and man; the world of symbols) and “two natures”. “All three worlds consist of two single constituent natures, called matter and form. Plato calls these forms ideas, that is, visions, views, images. They are the primordial worlds not made by hands, secret ropes, transitory canopy, or matter, containing. In the great and small worlds, a material appearance makes it known about the forms hidden underneath it, or eternal images. It is the same in the symbolic, or biblical, world, the collection of creatures constitutes matter. But God’s nature, where creation is led by its sign, is form. For in this world there is matter and form, that is, flesh and spirit, wall and truth, death and life.”5 Both “natures” (“visible” - matter and “invisible” - form) are eternal, and the dialectic of their interaction manifests itself in the form of a constant act of “creation from nothing” - an endless process of the formation of things. In the radiance of the super-existent Good, “ideas” appear as the primordial paradigms of things, the primary generative models, partaking of which matter (non-existence) acquires existential status (so the sun, illuminating a tree, is the cause of the appearance of its shadow, which “is a monkey imitating its mistress nature in everything ").

The Superexistent One, matter as “non-existence”, a special way of their interaction and some other points indicate the Platonic nature of Skovoroda’s understanding of existence. This is all the more remarkable since the professors of the Kiev-Mohyla Academy, as a rule, gave preference to Aristotelianism, and Plato’s doctrine of “ideas” appeared as an object of criticism in their courses. Plato is interpreted by Skovoroda in the spirit of Neoplatonism, since in the Middle Ages and much later Plato’s ontology was looked at through the prism of the Neoplatonic triad “One - Mind - Soul,” which, in turn, was thought to be dependent on the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Existence arises through the deployment of the superexistent Good (the One). The Neoplatonic ladder “One - numbers - Mind - Soul - space - matter” is the result of the interaction of two substantially unequal moments, the One and matter: on the one hand, existing things are such due to their involvement in the One, and on the other hand, matter turns out to be the general principle of the formation of things , the pure potentiality of being. Thus, the steps of the unfolding of the One mirror each other, the entire ladder turns out to be a hierarchy of “mirrors”, “samples” and “images”, a “pyramid of light and darkness”. At the poles, the One is a mirror as the fulfilled source of all things, while matter is a mirror as an unreal facet, a condition for the manifestation of the One in the other. These philosophical metaphors, going back to the works of Plato, Plotinus, the Gnostics, and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, are characteristic of Skovoroda. By calling God a “mirror,” Skovoroda, like Nicholas of Cusa, means that only one mirror is flawless—God himself, by whom everything is accepted as it is, for this mirror is not another for anything that exists, but the same thing that is in everything; therefore, each stage of existence is, in turn, a “mirror” of God. Skovoroda’s metaphor of “mirror” – non-existence also appears typically platonic: “...they ordered to place a hundred mirrors around themselves as a crown. At that time you will see that your one physical idiot owns a hundred species, all dependent on him alone. And as soon as you take away the mirrors, suddenly all the copies are hidden in their originality, or original, like branches in their grain. However, our physical idiot is himself only a shadow of a true man. This creature, like a monkey, forms through its facial action the invisible and ever-present power and deity of that man, of whom all our fools are like mirror-shaped shadows, now appearing and now disappearing while the truth of the Lord stands motionless forever, having established its adamantine face, containing countless the sand of our shadows, extending endlessly from its omnipresent and inexhaustible depths.”6 Here the “mirror” as an element in constructing a philosophical model of being represents the problem of reflecting an “idea” in matter, when the first loses its own perfection and, due to the loss of self-identity, disintegrates into “countless sand” of similarities and reflections. It is significant that the whole problem of mirror image has a kind of existential super-task for Skovoroda, being transferred to the plane of the dialectic “I – ​​not-I”. The world (the totality of passions) appears in all its manifestations in the form of mirrors arranged in a “crown”, which reflect the sage himself, or rather, the struggle going on in him between reason and passions. In the consciousness of an unreasonable person, such a model of mirror reflection appears as if “overturned”: a reverse perspective, a kind of mirror inversion, dominates here, when, according to the words of Gregory of Nyssa, the sinful mind of man, instead of reflecting the eternal, reflects formless matter.

Skovoroda’s sophiology, rooted in biblical, ancient and early Christian soils, developed and detailed the doctrine of “two natures” and “three worlds”. Sophia the Wisdom of God, which has its own name for each people, but is one for all things, is the mother of “all goodness” (i.e., goodness, harmony) and “harmoniousness”: this is the principle of structure, orderliness, dimension and interrelationship of the parts of the whole. She is thoughts and advice, the Divine's providence for the world, the heart of the world. Sophia includes the beginnings, forms and types of creation; it is the “plan” of the universe in general and in detail.

The fundamental thing in the relationship between the “invisible” and “visible” natures in the macrocosm is that the macrocosm, arranged according to “measure, number and weight” and governed by “common providence,” is perfect. The denial of nature characteristic of Gnosticism cannot be found in Skvoroda. “Reason about everything with a mature mind, without listening to the devil’s whispers, and you will understand that all of God’s economy throughout the Universe is correct, good and beneficial to all of us.”7 Common in the 17th – 18th centuries. Skovoroda’s likening of the world to a watch and a car is balanced by another comparison: the world is the helicity of God, planted and nurtured by Wisdom, an apple orchard where the philosopher conducts conversations with his truth-seeking friends. The splendor of the living cosmos, permeated with creative thoughts (logoi), is the other of God, more precisely, of his Wisdom, the cosmos is “sophian”, and Sophia is “cosmic”.

In the world of symbols, a certain discrepancy is already noticeable between the two natures. The creative form and the created form are discordant. Firstly, this is a natural opposition between the sensual sign side of a symbol and its semantic completeness. Secondly, this is the apparent contradiction of the heterogeneous composition of the world itself of symbolic and supposed essential unity. This discrepancy and discrepancy is overcome in the act of meditation by a philosopher, theologian, “mystagogue,” who reveals the Wisdom of the divine plan in the sacred text.

In the sphere of microcosm, the dismemberment of human spiritual life, the abundance of crafts, arts, sciences, etc., finds in Sophia the principle of conjugation and interrelation. This teaching about a diverse, multi-faceted Wisdom, based on New Testament texts and developed by early Christian authors, becomes for Skovoroda the basis of his famous concept of related (i.e., Sophian) work. Sofia also contains “models”, ideal “examples” of a state, a city, a family.

Social dynamics, the movement of a person along the social ladder to the coveted “center” becomes in Skovoroda a sign of a negative, untrue existence. Positive is the movement inward, the individual’s realization of affinity, the divine plan for himself, the “inner man.” This occurs through self-knowledge and is carried out in the form of some socially significant activity, in skill. The totality of affinities as intelligible primordial personalities, “inner humanity,” is Sophia, the “invisible nature” of the microcosm.

However, it is in the microcosm that the gap between the two “natures” reaches catastrophic proportions. And in order to clarify the reason for this gap, Skovoroda concretizes his sophiology through the “world - theater” model, thereby revealing an unexpected facet in it. The macrocosm can now be described as a “universal miraculous theater,” and Sophia becomes the script for this cosmic performance. In the world of symbols, Sophia would be the script underlying the symbolic (allegorical) presentation of Scripture. In the sphere of the microcosm, Wisdom is thought of as a model of social order, a special providence for man, his role in the “divine comedy.” Skovoroda’s “theatrical sophiology,” based on the concept of the world as theater, popular in antiquity, widespread in Baroque culture but rejected by early Christian thinkers, is an attempt to solve the problem of evil, i.e., a version of theodicy. According to Skovoroda, evil is disorder, non-structure, improper arrangement of the elements of the world that are good in themselves, “those good things created by God, brought into disorder by someone”8, this is a person’s refusal of his (inner) affinity - the role provided for by the divine script, and the playing of someone else's role, turning the world into a base masquerade, a theater of vanity and ambitious acting. The origins of evil are in the self-will of man, self-impostority, those who reject the divine will and strive to establish their own order of things. Both disorder and the restoration of order in Skovoroda are a constant process that occurs in addition to the atoning sacrifice of Christ, since the fall of the first man does not have significant significance in his teaching. That is why Sophia does not have the face of Christ; rather, it is God the poet, the rhetorician, who creates the poem of the universe from inert material and is inherent in his creation. “God to the rich is like a fountain, filling various vessels according to their capacity,” Skovoroda illustrates his “theatrical sophiology.” – Above the fountain there is this inscription: “Unequal equality for all.”9. Thus, the diverse Wisdom turns into a multifaceted Sophia.

Apparently, Skovoroda himself, with his heightened sense of evil in the world, felt a certain “lightness” of his theodicy, and this entails a parallel, so to speak, presence in his consciousness and writings of radical eschatologism, an intense aspiration for a gracious transformation at the end of time.

Skovoroda’s philosophical work most often appears in the form of interpretations of the “symbolic world”, the most important feature of which is its multi-component, “synthetic” nature (this is not only the Bible, but also ancient mythology, East Slavic folklore, thoughts of ancient authors). Skovoroda consistently pursues the idea of ​​“originless truth”: “The particles of a broken mirror represent the entire face. And the varied Wisdom of God in various robes of hundreds, thousands, in royal and rural, in ancient and modern, in rich, in poor and in the most vile and ridiculous clothes, like a crown of thorns, decorating everything by itself, is one and the same.” The need to actually reveal this identity leads Skovoroda, like Philo of Alexandria in his time, to allegorism in the interpretation of biblical texts. Skovoroda’s personalistic interpretation of the “world of symbols” is close to the ancient allegorical interpretation of the Homeric epic. At the same time, reflecting on the ancient ideal of the philosopher, the images of the Old Testament prophets, the personality of Christ, Skovoroda is inclined to consider them as historical manifestations of the “perfect man.”

Skovoroda calls the most important thing in the appearance of a “perfect person” self-sufficiency (autarky), which is achieved through “imitation of God” in the spirit of the ideas of Socrates, Democritus, Cynics, Stoics, Epicureans, Neoplatonists. In Skovoroda, this model takes on the following form: “schole” – leisure and at the same time learning, work on oneself, fundamentally free philosophizing, opposed to any socially regulated activity. It also presupposes eudaimonism, an understanding of happiness as peace of mind resulting from freedom from suffering. The wise man is similar to Homer's Olympians with their unquenchable laughter, impassivity and blissful completeness. In addition, the sage is a Gnostic who realizes himself in the practice of self-knowledge (a way of comprehending the Absolute), meditation on the sacred text, fulfillment of the commandments and the pedagogical role of educating people in virtue. The ideal Gnostic is the laughing Christ (in whose understanding Skovoroda significantly weakens his saving mission).

Skovoroda recognizes the “supreme science” as theology, considered as the science of self-knowledge and the achievement of happiness by a person (this interpretation is characteristic of Ukrainian metaphysics of that time - for example, in Kasian Sakovich, Anthony Radivilovsky, Dmitry Rostovsky, etc.). However, Skovoroda’s self-knowledge differs significantly from the practice of penitential “torment of conscience”: Skovoroda turns Plato’s knowledge of the eidos of things into self-knowledge. Thus, philosophical Love (“the eternal union between God and man”), that is, the force that connects the “external”, empirical man with his eternal idea, appears as a kind of processing of Plato’s doctrine of Eros in the spirit of biblical anthropology. “Skovoroda transfers the metaphysical properties of Plato’s idea - eternity, divinity, noumenality, beauty and goodness - to the unique personality of man, taken in its intelligible depth, and the Platonic phenomenon of Eros and philosophical love becomes for him, first of all, an internal fact of spiritual life.” Therefore, Skovoroda’s ethics does not have a normative, “impersonal” character; it is “autonomous,” individual and specific. The object of love and attraction to which the soul of a sage strives is not outside him, as in Plato, but inside. This is how Skovoroda achieves the unity of Platonic Eros with Christian compassionate love (agape) in the phenomenon of “wise narcissism.”

In self-knowledge, a person discovers that his essence is not limited to one intellectualistic side. The essence of a person is in his heart, in his will. Hence Skovoroda’s rather critical attitude towards abstract knowledge that leads away from self-knowledge and changes in one’s existential status. “... We are too curious, zealous and insightful in extraneous surroundings: we measured the sea, earth, air and heaven and disturbed the belly of the earth for the sake of metals, demarcated the planets, searched for mountains, rivers and cities in the Moon, found an innumerable number of hidden worlds, we are building incomprehensible machines, We fill up the abysses, return and attract watery aspirations, that day by day new experiences and wild inventions. My God, what we can’t do, what we can’t! But the grief is that despite all this, it seems that something great is missing.” Science divorced from the life of the spirit has no meaning. A person cognizes not in order to know abstractly, but in order to truly be, to grow in truth, to change the usual parameters of his existence in the direction of its divine fullness.

Skovoroda did not have seriously philosophizing students and did not create a school. However, many of his ideas and images - directly or indirectly - were developed in the works of later Russian thinkers and writers (P. D. Yurkevich, N. V. Gogol, A. Bely, V. F. Ern, P. A. Florensky and etc.).

Biography

Born in the village of Chernukhi, Lokhvitsky district, Poltava province, in the family of a Cossack with little land. At the age of six, he discovered an attraction to science and music. His first teacher, a clerk, connected him with the Church. In September 1738 he entered the famous Kiev-Mohyla Academy. Without completing the full course, in 1741/1742 he was accepted as a singer in the imperial court chapel. Two years of court service could not kill Skovoroda’s inclination towards academic pursuits, and during Empress Elizaveta Petrovna’s trip to Little Russia as a court guide, he remained in Kyiv to continue his studies. While taking a philosophy class, Skovoroda listened to lectures by G. Konissky, M. Kozachinsky, S. Todorsky, mastered several languages ​​(Latin, German, Greek, Hebrew), and knew both ancient and modern European philosophy.

In 1750, Skovoroda’s three-year journey abroad began: as part of a special mission, under the command of Colonel Gabriel Vishnevsky, he went to Hungary, to the Tokaj Gardens. Among biographers, there is an opinion that the thinker also visited Germany as a pilgrim (where he became acquainted with the then German philosophy and theology from the philosopher Wolf), Italy, Poland, Austria, where he also attended university courses.

The first dated poem by Skovoroda dates back to 1753, written on the occasion of the assumption of office by the new Pereyaslavl bishop, John Kozlovich.

The practical consequence of the poetic offering was an invitation to read a course in poetry at the Pereyaslav Seminary in 1751. Skovoroda’s first treatise, “Discourse on Poetry and a Guide to the Art of It,” has not survived, but it is known that John Kozlovich gave a negative review of the manuscript and demanded an explanation from the seminary teacher. Skovoroda’s proud and independent answer, ending with the Latin proverb that the shepherd’s staff is another thing, and the shepherd’s pipe is another, provoked the anger of the bishop (“Do not live in the midst of my house, create pride!”) and the dismissal of the obstinate teacher.

Left completely without a livelihood, Skovoroda accepts an invitation to become a home teacher for the son of a wealthy landowner Stepan Tomara. It was during his teaching at the Kavray estate that the philosopher’s poetic gift was revealed and the “Garden of Divine Songs” was created. It can be argued that it was in the depths of Skovoroda’s poetic revelations that the conclusions of his future philosophical insights and the forms of his life behavior were contained: “I will not go to the rich city. I will live in the fields, // I will while away my century, where time passes quietly...”

But before realizing his ideal of life among green fields, Skovoroda made one more attempt at teaching in a big city. In 1759, he accepted an invitation from Bishop Joasav Mitkevich to the post of poetry teacher at the Kharkov Collegium. For about ten years (1759-1769) Skovoroda taught in Kharkov, writing a special course “The Initial Door to Christian Goodwill.”

The most important event in Skovoroda’s life during this period was his acquaintance with Mikhail Kovalensky. The tender friendship between teacher and student resulted in the famous correspondence in Latin, which in itself can be perceived as a cross-section of the spiritual culture of the 18th century, as well as in the biographical essay written by Kovalensky: “The Life of Grigory Skovoroda.”

Skovoroda wrote his works in the Little Russian dialect of the Russian language. His work simultaneously belongs to both Russian and Ukrainian culture.

While teaching at the Kharkov Collegium, he wrote only two philosophical works - the dialogues “Narkiss” and “Askhan”.

The philosopher constantly polemicized with official religious doctrines, preached the teachings of Copernicus, and developed approaches to creating a new religion of “virtue and love.” He formulated a brilliant guess about the relativity and absurdity of any idea of ​​equality in property, the idea of ​​“unequal equality for all”: “God to the rich is like a fountain that fills different vessels according to their capacity. Different streams flow from different tubes into different vessels standing around the fountain. A smaller vessel is less has, but in that it is equal to the greater, which is equal to the complete."

Skovoroda spent 10 years in the Collegium. Twice they got rid of him, twice he returned. He didn't make it through the third time. In 1769, the philosopher’s teaching activity in Kharkov ended and a period of active philosophical work, as well as wanderings and wanderings, began. Skovoroda left the service forever and in 1769 began his wanderings as a traveling preacher-philosopher (“old man”). He wanders, settles down, becomes a hermit:
(“If I cannot serve my kind fatherland in anything, then at least I will try with all my might not to be harmful to anyone in any way.”)

Skovoroda spent the last twenty-five years of his life wandering around Slobozhana Ukraine, from village to village, from city to city, singing spiritual songs and playing melancholic improvisations on the flute, filled with soul-penetrating simple harmony. Grigory Savvich preaches at fairs and in villages, singing spiritual songs in the fields and playing melancholic improvisations on a flute near lakes, filled with simple, soul-penetrating harmony; he becomes a dear guest of all those who love poetry and truth, he loves to spend a long time in Ukrainian monasteries, with his friends - the archimandrites, and among them he has his admirers. During this period, he wrote the main philosophical works: treatises, dialogues, parables.

Skovoroda repeatedly received invitations to enter the field of church and monastic life, he was tempted by the opportunity to achieve high positions in the church hierarchy, but the ideals of Russian non-acquisitiveness and freedom-loving character forced him to choose the staff of wanderings and the lot of a beggar philosopher.

His extraordinary life and original way of thinking created a certain aura of fame around the name of Skovoroda. His wanderings were not something painful for him. The wandering philosopher lived for a long time with his acquaintances, students and admirers of his talent.

Among the most famous addresses where the wandering philosopher stayed are Izyum, Burluk, Babai, Gusinka, Diskovka, Kupyansk, Manachinovka, Chuguev, Liptsy, Dolzhok, Ivanovka. In the village of Babai, Skovoroda completed his “Kharkov Fables” and wrote the dialogues “The Ring” and “The Alphabet, or the Primer of the World.” These works were already mature philosophical works, fully representing the basic structure of the thinker’s philosophical worldview.

All the then living minds and hearts rushed to him. They wrote about him in letters to each other, interpreted, argued: sometimes they spoke very laudably, sometimes they slandered him.

Two months before his death, Skovoroda went to the Oryol province to meet M.I. Kovalensky (future curator of Moscow University) and give him all his manuscripts for safekeeping. The philosopher’s last dialogue, “The Flood of Zmiin,” was also dedicated to his beloved student.

Skovoroda died on October 29 (November 9), 1794 in the village of Ivanivka in the Kharkov region. “The world caught me, but did not catch me,” he bequeathed to inscribe on his tombstone.

During the philosopher's lifetime, his works were known only in copies. He was the author of philosophical dialogues: Ashan, Narcissus, A Conversation Named Two, A Rant about the Ancient World, A Conversation of Five Travelers about True Happiness in Life, The Ring, etc., as well as treatises and various poetic works, translations of Greek and Latin texts (including including the works of Plutarch, Terence, Cicero).

In contrast to the scholastic Aristotelianism of the Kyiv professors, Skovoroda’s philosophy is a personalistically interpreted Platonism. At its center is the doctrine of three “worlds” (“macrocosm” - the Universe, “microcosm” - man and society, “world of symbols” - the Bible, mythology, folklore, philosophical maxims) and two eternal “natures”. The task of man is through the visible “nature” (matter, flesh, letter) to see the invisible “nature” - the “beginningless one-beginning”, the sophic basis of each of the three “worlds”, the hierarchy of forms-eidos-archetypes, the paradigm of social order (the totality of “affinities”), spiritual meaning sacred text Path - self-knowledge, comprehension and realization of one’s “inner man”, “kinship” (sophia’s predisposition to a certain form of socially significant work, mastery) The result is happiness, understood as self-sufficiency (autarky), peace of mind and dispassion Specificity of “kinship labor” philosopher - free reflection on the principles, allegorical (in the spirit of Philo, Clement of Alexandria and Origen) interpretation of the world of symbols, fulfillment of the commandments and the pedagogical (“Socratic”) function of educating people in virtue. Ideas and images of Skovoroda were developed by P. D. Yurkevich, N. V. Gogol, V. F. Ern, P. A. Florensky, A. Bely, etc.

Skovoroda entered the history of Ukraine and Russia in the 18th century as a philosopher, writer and teacher, as their “Wandering University”. His ideas and images were subsequently developed by P. D. Yurkevich, N. V. Gogol, V. F. Ern, P. A. Florensky, A. Bely and others.

On August 8, 1987, at the Crimean Observatory, Soviet scientists discovered minor planet No. 2431. It was named after G.S. Skovoroda.

About the personality of G. S. Skovoroda.

He was knowledgeable in all the highest sciences at that time. He studied many secular classics, as well as church classics - Augustine, Athanasius the Great (293 - 373), Basil the Great (329 - 378), Cyril of Alexandria (c. 315 - c. 386).

Skovoroda said about himself without any equivocation or circumlocution that he “planned with his mind and wished by his will to be Socrates in Rus'.”

He quoted virtually no one or referred to anyone, brilliantly combining the intellectual style of Socratic dialogues and the insights of a true prophet.

The harshness and directness of his judgments, his conflicted nature, his independence of mind turned him into someone persecuted from everywhere and slandered by everyone.

G. S. Skovoroda’s lifelong path was his amazing teaching. He became a people's teacher in the purest and deepest sense of the word.

Kharkov Governor-General E. A. Shcherbinin once asked Skovoroda: “Good man! Why don’t you get busy with something?” To which he replied: “Deeply respected sir! The world is like a theater. And in order to perform any action on stage successfully and with praise, actors must take roles according to their abilities: after all, they are valued not for the nobility of the image they embody, but only for their skill and skill. I pondered this subject for a long time and after numerous tests of myself in various applications I saw that I could not play on the stage of the stage of the world any other role, if we talk about a successful result, than that of a low, simple, careless, solitary person: I chose this role, I took it and so far I don’t regret it.”

Shcherbinin looked carefully at Skovoroda and, turning to the people present at that moment, said: “Here is a really smart man! He deserves to be called happy. And if everyone thought like him, there would be fewer losers and dissatisfied people in the world.”

Beggary and asceticism smoothed out his rebellious restlessness and equalized the paradoxical nature of his mind with the eternal ambiguity of the world. The stage of most fruitful creativity in the life of G. S. Skovoroda began, for which fate allocated him a long quarter of a century:
“Don’t touch me, you’ll kill me right away. Don’t find me from the outside, you will find me immediately.
You will find what you need within yourself. Look inside you, perhaps: you will find a friend within yourself.
I despise the Croesovs, I do not envy the Julians, I am indifferent to the Demosthenes, I feel sorry for the rich: let them get for themselves what they want! But if I have friends, I feel not only happy, but also the happiest.”

Periodically, he experienced states of special spiritual uplift and mystical ecstasy. Here is a description of one of these high feelings:
“...I went for a walk in the garden. The first sensation that I felt in my heart was a certain swagger, freedom, cheerfulness... I felt an extraordinary movement within me that filled me with an incomprehensible strength. A certain sweetest instant outpouring filled my soul, causing everything inside me to burst into flames. The whole world disappeared before me, one feeling of love, peace, eternity revived me. Tears flowed from my eyes and poured a certain touching harmony into my entire composition...”

He had two idols - Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. Skovoroda carried his manuscripts with him in a traveling bag. There was always a Bible in Hebrew here. He did not see any of his works published. One day, wise and experienced a lot, the following words came out of him: “Oh, my Father! It’s hard to tear your heart out of the sticky spontaneity of the world!”

The law of elimination of difficulty discovered by him is curious - a kind of “Skovoroda’s razor”: “Necessity is not difficult, difficulty is not necessary.” In his excellent, easily and clearly, succinctly and accurately written study about Skovoroda, Yuri Barabash was able to discover the forerunner of the law formulated by Skovoroda. This is Epicurus. And although the ancient Greek did not have in his thoughts what Skovoroda expresses, it is nevertheless still interesting: “Everything that is natural is easily obtained, but what is empty and superfluous is difficult to obtain.”

Philosophical and ethical views of G. S. Skovoroda.

The origins of Skovoroda’s philosophical and ethical teachings lay in the cultural heritage of past centuries. The main semantic and thematic background was the Bible and the Christian-Neoplatonic interpretation of ethical problems against the background of popular Ukrainian free-thinking, which determined the inconsistency of his philosophical views. Philosophical systems such as Hellenic-Roman stoicism and skepticism also had a great influence. In contrast to the scholastic Aristotelianism of the Kyiv professors, Skovoroda’s philosophy is a personalistically interpreted Platonism.

The beginning of wisdom, according to Skovoroda, lies in the knowledge of God, and whoever is not involved in this is like a prisoner in prison, so if a desire and passion for knowledge arises, then it is necessary to “climb the mountain of knowledge of God” and be enlightened by the secret divine rays. God, according to Skovoroda, exists as the “internal beginning” of things, a “self-propelled cause,” the law of all things. Based on the recognition of this pattern, Skovoroda rejected the literal understanding of biblical miracles as inconsistent with the “wisdom” that predetermines development.

Skovoroda considered matter eternal in time and infinite in space. Nature, according to Skovoroda, consists of many worlds, it was not created by anyone, cannot be destroyed, has no beginning or end, because the end of one world is the beginning of another. He believed that all nature obeys strictly defined laws. On this basis his system of philosophical views was built.

At the center of this philosophical system lies the doctrine of three “worlds”:
- macrocosm (the endless world /Universe/, consisting of many small worlds where everything born lives);
- microcosm or small world, “little world” (man and society);
- symbolic world (“world of symbols” - the Bible, mythology, folklore, philosophical maxims) - symbolic reality, connecting together the macrocosm and microcosm. The big and small worlds are most ideally capable of being reflected precisely in this symbolic reality, which in its most perfect image is nothing more than the Bible. The third slice of being did not complete Skovoroda’s entire ontological picture of the world, since each of the listed worlds is bi-natural, antithetical, and consists of two eternal “natures” - visible and invisible. The first, visible nature, was called by the philosopher creation, matter, and the second, invisible, God or form.

Visible nature is a perishable shell, the shadow of the eternal tree of life, that is, spirit - invisible nature, which represents the immeasurable life-giving basis of changeable material nature, which, therefore, is also eternal and infinite and constantly moves from one opposite to another: “ ...The boundary of one place is also a door that opens a field of new dimensions, and then the chick is conceived when the egg spoils... Everything is a fulfilling beginning, and this world, being its shadow, has no boundaries” (Create. Vol. 1. - K., 1961. – P. 382).

The task of man is to see through the visible “nature” (matter, flesh, letter) the invisible “nature” - the “beginningless one-beginning”, the Sophian basis of each of the three “worlds”:
hierarchy of forms-eidos-archetypes;
paradigm of social order (a set of “affinities”);
spiritual meaning of the sacred text.

Skovoroda built his philosophical system using a method similar to the Socratic one. Skovoroda contrasts each proposition-thesis with an antithesis and considers this opposition as a means of analyzing philosophical problems. Thus, he formulates a number of provisions that reveal not only the polarity of phenomena, but also the unity of opposites: “the world perishes and does not perish,” “eternity in decay,” “light in darkness,” “lie in truth,” etc.

A special place in Skovoroda’s philosophy is occupied by the symbolic world - the Bible, which acts as a connection between visible and invisible nature, as a kind of guide leading to the “blessed nature” (God). Influenced by patristics, especially Clement of Alexandria and Origen, Skovoroda focuses on revealing its symbolic meaning. The symbolic world of the Bible played a kind of connecting role between the macrocosm and the microcosm, and man, in turn, was, according to Skovoroda, “the end, the center and the harbor of the entire Bible.”

Recognizing the knowability of the world (both visible and invisible), Skovoroda, in the traditions of rationalism and enlightenment, praises the power of reason aimed at understanding the secrets of nature, and states the success of science in studying the surrounding world. According to Skovoroda, human knowledge is endless, because it is carried out in the pathos of self-knowledge (“to know oneself, and to find oneself, and to find a person - all this means the same thing”), in the discovery of a “single, heartfelt” person, but must be based on constant introspection and consonance with the "world of symbols".

Problems of cognition are most reflected in such dialogues by S. as “Narkiss” and “Symphony, called the book of Askhan, about knowing oneself.” In these works, as in many others, the idea of ​​a person’s self-knowledge of his spiritual essence as a necessary condition for achieving inner peace was substantiated.

Skovoroda paid special attention to the ethical concepts of Epicurus and Plutarch. Skovoroda’s own ethics covered a wide range of problems and principles, such as good, evil, justice, honor, conscience, etc., but at the center of all ethical constructions was the concept of “affinities” and the doctrine of happiness.

The main ideas of the concept of “related work” were formulated in the dialogues “Narkiss”, “Askhan” and “Alphabet, or the primer of the world”.

The philosopher was convinced that there is a universal law of “affinities”, which contains the principle of the existential balance of things, objects and beings, as a guarantor of the harmonious balance of nature.

The path is self-knowledge, comprehension and realization of one’s “inner man”, “affinity” (Sophia’s predisposition to a certain form of socially significant work, mastery). The result is happiness, understood as self-sufficiency (autarky), peace of mind and dispassion.

The specificity of the philosopher’s “related work” is free reflection on the first principles, allegorical (in the spirit of Philo, Clement of Alexandria and Origen) interpretation of the world of symbols, fulfillment of the commandments and the pedagogical (“Socratic”) function of educating people in virtue.

The doctrine of human happiness (“Conversation of the Five Companions about True Happiness and Life”) considered the concept of “happiness” as terminologically and essentially different from the utilitarian understanding of it as fate, destiny and destiny.

Like affinity, happiness is a natural and universal law for Skovoroda. A person’s search for his own happiness is essentially a search for his “affinity.”

The question of human happiness was linked and gradually developed into the question of self-knowledge, which in the structure of Skovoroda’s worldview was the second side of the anthropological principle and by resolving the cardinal question of what constitutes the inner essence of man.

When considering these problems, Skovoroda's philosophical constructions reached a high level of theoretical abstraction, since what was meant was not a specific person, but his metaphysical essence, the divine idea of ​​man, existing in the divine intellect, the inner man, created on the model of a divine being, and making a logical connection between anthropology and biblicalism at all levels of the philosophical system.

Skovoroda’s anthropology contains motifs characteristic of Russian medieval thought. This, in particular, applies to his teaching about the heart as the center of a person’s spiritual and physical existence.

“Oh, my Father! It’s hard to tear your heart out of the sticky spontaneity of the world!” - Skovoroda exclaims at the end of his life. In his understanding, the ethical task of a person is to realize and find the mystical beginning in himself, and in this sense, finally become himself. But the transformation of the empirical subject into a “true person” is prevented by the will, which draws the personality into the world of struggle and suffering. “Anyone who has deified his own will, an enemy of God’s will, cannot enter the Kingdom of God,” wrote Skovoroda.

The motif of “lack of will” in a wide variety of variants is characteristic of the mystical traditions of both the West and the East. It is also present in Skovoroda’s work: partly as a result of certain ideological influences, but to a much greater extent as a reflection of personal spiritual experience, the experience of a constant and painful struggle with the “sticky spontaneity of the world”, with the “empirical man” in himself. At the end of his life, Skovoroda, like many mystics before him, was inclined to recognize empirical reality as the direct embodiment of evil. Leaving this world in mystical insights into the “primordial world,” a person thereby finds himself “beyond good and evil.”

Skovoroda’s teaching about the inner man complicated his philosophical teaching, dividing it into theoretical and practical. The philosopher was not only a folk sage and moralist, but also a theoretical philosopher, and his ethics had a deep connection with his ontology. On the one hand, morality was the sphere of the dynamic functioning of the will - the supreme desire to be happy, and on the other hand, the principles of morality were concentrated in ontology, being realized in the epistemological doctrine of the inner man.

The desire to create his own concept of existence receded into the background for Skovoroda before his interest in anthropology, in which, as in Skovoroda’s philosophical lyrics, the symbol of “Petra” (stone) plays an important role - the spiritual focus and support of a restless and passionate spiritual life. In exactly the same way, epistemology merges with ethics.

Skovoroda’s ethics were not normative, but internally autonomous and of a purely personal nature. The inner man, in search of his inherent “affinities,” acquired a specific entelechy, which in the metaphysical plane was contained in God, and in the concrete historical plane - in personal human happiness.

Truth, according to Skovoroda, is complete only when it promotes virtue and moral improvement; knowledge should contribute to human well-being. Human happiness, which is the focus of Skovoroda’s attention, is considered by him in connection with “kindred labor,” that is, labor corresponding to a person’s natural inclinations.

The second principle underlying Skovoroda’s ethical teaching is “equal inequality.” Skovoroda argued that there is a correspondence between true needs and ways of satisfying them, while people’s desire for the “unnatural” is associated with a violation of this correspondence and becomes a source of misfortune.

Following Epicurus, Skovoroda believed that the “blessed nature” made what a person needs easy, and what is difficult to achieve is unnecessary.

Thus, knowledge of man, the study of his nature, is the path to happiness. It was precisely in accordance with human nature that Skovoroda saw the criterion for the reasonableness of social orders and moral norms. And since Skovoroda’s desire for reasonable social relations is associated with the identification of natural inclinations, his call: “Know yourself” receives a new, socio-pedagogical sound.

Skovoroda’s aesthetics is the understanding of “beautiful” as the “idea” of things in the speculative light of the One, while “ugliness” is the result of the loss of “eidos” (images, ideas) of their self-identity.

The influence of Platonism is manifested in its substantiation of the role of eros in human aesthetic experiences and in the fact that love itself presupposes a certain “affinity” with its subject - the original, metaphysical predisposition of the heart. In his teaching about the “Spirit of God hidden in man,” that each person in his earthly existence is only “a dream and a shadow of a true man,” Skovoroda is close to the constructions of European mystics, in particular to Meister Eckhart with his teaching about the “hidden depth "in God and man. The thinker also has mystical-pantheistic motives: “God penetrates and contains all creation...”, “God is the foundation and eternal plan of our flesh...”, “Mystery is the spring of everything...”, etc.

V.V. Zenkovsky in his History of Russian Philosophy wrote about the religious feeling of alienation from the world as the most important in Skovoroda’s worldview. It was about the mystical experience of the duality of world existence and about alienation precisely from what was perceived by the religious thinker as the external, “vain”, non-existent side of life.

Skovoroda did not want to be “caught” by this “world.” At the same time, he was characterized by the experience of the reality of a different, higher level of existence, to the knowledge of which, in his conviction, a person can and should strive: “If you want to know something in truth, look first in the flesh, i.e. in appearance, and you will see in it the traces of God, revealing the unknown and secret wisdom.”

One can come to the knowledge of the “footprints of God” in the world only by remaining faithful to the ancient philosophical covenant: know yourself. “If you don’t measure yourself first,” the thinker wrote, “what benefit will you derive from knowing the measure in other beings?” In justifying the exceptional importance of philosophical reflection, Skovoroda did not stop at identifying the process of self-knowledge with the knowledge of God: “To know oneself and to understand God is one work.”

Considering man as a philosophical problem, Skovoroda staged a unique and unprecedented philosophical experiment. The wandering philosopher modeled a grandiose philosophical-speculative and philosophical-practical experience. The constituent elements of this experience were his personal life and his philosophical and reflective thinking. The essence of the experience was the consistent combination of philosophical teaching and human life.

B. P. Vysheslavtsev about G. S. Skovoroda.

“The first original Russian philosopher, as I recognize G. Skovoroda, a Russian thinker, theologian and poet, back in the mid-18th century, immediately expressed the entire future character of Russian philosophy and all its ancient sources.

He undoubtedly belonged to that spiritual culture, the bearer of which in his time was the Kiev Academy. This culture drew its ideas from the Platonic tradition of Greek philosophy and from the patristic literature closely related to it. This amazing man, who knew, in addition to new languages, Latin, Greek and Hebrew, walked around Austria, Italy and Germany.

He was a Russian European and an all-man, as Dostoevsky dreamed of seeing man in general in his Pushkin speech. His favorite philosophers were Socrates and Plato, he knew ancient philosophy and literature very well, and of the church fathers he most appreciated Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Dionysius the Areopagite and Maximus the Confessor and our Nilus of Sora, i.e. the most philosophical and most neoplatonic fathers. In Russia he was everywhere, from Kyiv and Kharkov to St. Petersburg, Moscow, the Trinity Lavra and Pereslavl. He also lived in central Russia, with his landowner friends, mainly with Kovalevsky.

Let me give only two quotes to characterize the starting point of philosophy: “this all-important, universal, invisible Force is one - mind, life, movement, existence - pouring out from the incomprehensibility of phenomena, from eternity into the universality of time, from unity exclusively to infinite multiplicity , forming the circle of humanity, gives it its most noble advantage, free will.” But here are the words that perhaps express the essence of modernity: “My God! - he exclaims, - what we don’t know, what we can’t! we have measured the seas, the earth, the sky, discovered a myriad of worlds, and are building “incomprehensible” machines. But something is missing. Do not fill the spiritual abyss with limited and transitory things.”

The personality of G. Skovoroda embodies, in essence, all the cherished aspirations and sympathies of Russian philosophy, which were then embodied in the personality of Vl. Solovyov and our entire galaxy of Russian philosophers of the Russian Renaissance, such as the Trubetskoy brothers, Lopatin, Novgorodtsev, Frank, Lossky, Askoldov and we are the few who can still remind the new generation what the spirit and tragedy of Russian philosophy is, and who tried to continue it in their works abroad.”

Vysheslavtsev B.P. Eternal in Russian philosophy: introduction to the book. “The Eternal in Russian Philosophy.” – N.Y., 1955. – P.7-15; The full text of this book has been republished in the publication: Vysheslavtsev B.P. Ethics of Transfigured Eros. – M., 1994. – P.153-324.

From the correspondence of G.S. Skovoroda with M.I. Kovalensky.
“Let’s sit down, my brother, let’s sit down to talk.
Your living verb is sweet, it cleanses all my troubles.”
G. Skovoroda
Letters from G. Skovoroda
*********
Kharkov, end of August – beginning of September 1762
My Mikhailo, rejoice in the Lord!
If you are not allowed to study Greek officially, not so much because you do not overload yourself, but because of the unreasonable interference of some people, then you should not, as they say, lay down your arms just yet. Little by little you can study it privately, and in any case, if you love me, you will learn...
So, imitate the palm tree, which, the harder it collides with the rock, the faster and more beautiful it rises. This is the tree that is given into the hands of the victorious martyrs, as can be seen on the icons. Find time every day, little by little, but be sure to do it every day, throw a word or a maxim into your soul, like into your stomach, and, like food for fire, add little by little, so that the soul is nourished and grows, and not suppressed. The slower you study, the more fruitful the learning will be. Slow continuity accumulates more mass than might be expected.
Help from the manager, if needed, is provided. Among your comrades you will have those who will tell you if you doubt anything. If you want to use my help, then nothing will be more pleasant for me. If the merits and virtue of your uncle, the Reverend Father Peter, did not call for this, then our very friendship would be a sufficient reason for this.
Your friend Grigory Skovoroda.
*********
September 1762
Hello, my dearest being, dear Mikhail!
...When I communicate with my muses, I always see you in my thoughts, and it seems to me that we are enjoying the lures of the muses together and walking around Helikon together. I am sure that you too are consoled by the same objects, the same lures of stones (muses). And indeed, for complete and true friendship, which is the only one that softens life’s sorrows and even brings life to people, not only excellent honesty is required, but also similarity not only of souls, but also of activities... That is why not everyone becomes my friends, because they are not were engaged in sciences, and if they were engaged, then only in those sciences that were alien to my mentality, even if in all other respects these people would be similar to me.<...>There is nothing more pleasant for me than to chat with you and people like you. But they call me.
Be healthy, Mikhaila!
Fold up three or four virshiks for me and send it to me. About what? - you ask. Whatever you want, because I like everything of yours. And you did well and piously, my soul, to assign Maximka to your sick brother. But don’t listen to random advisers who recommend this or that remedy. In no other field are there so many well-wishers among the people as in medicine, but nowhere is there so much ignorance as in the treatment of illnesses. Except for the well-known simple drugs, discard everything. Avoid bloodletting and laxatives like a poisonous snake. If you want, come to me and we can talk about this some more.
Velmi loving you Grigory Savvich

2. Letters from M. Kovalensky.
*********
My dear Mainguard! (Skovoroda’s friendly nickname is Daniil Meingard - after the name of a Swiss acquaintance M.I. Kovalensky)
I received your letter from Taganrog. Both your memories and your letters produce heartfelt consolation in me. In the crowd of secular gatherings, the most pleasant feeling is truth and integrity. And in these names I always introduce myself to you! Where are you now?
I am healthy, by the grace of my God, with my dear family. I set off again into the local sea, so that I could more conveniently reach the pier of solitude. Everything becomes boring: the great, the glorious, and the wondrous are nothing to the human spirit.
Adio, mio ​​caro Mangard! Your friend Mikhaila Kovalensky.
February 18, 1782
*********
My dear friend Grigory Savvich!
As the tree desires water springs, so I would like to see you and be consoled in life by your friendly conversation... Oh, my friend! I often recall the quiet and serene times of my young years, the value, kindness and beauty of which I attribute to your friendship... But I was not so happy in the big world! With all the favor of fortune, my mind could not have happiness, so as not to fall into the nets, the shackles of “iron” and vanities... You are inseparable from me in my thoughts, as I am with myself. Why is it my desire to see you and end the century together. I am trying in every possible way to buy a village in the Kharkov governorship, out of habit of that land and of you... I hope in God that he will place me in a “green” and quiet place, on the water, where I can calm both myself and your old age, although you don't need it.
I'm sending you glasses. I don’t know whether they are suitable for your eyes; I wish that they were acceptable. My wife is sending you half a pound of Parmasan cheese and Galana cheese... I won’t have time to send the flute now, but I’ll send it with another opportunity.
June 22, 1787.
*********
By the will of fate, Grigory Skovoroda and Mikhail Kovalensky became related in their distant relatives and descendants: the son of Moscow University professor S.M. Solovyov, Mikhail, on his mother’s side, was G. Skovoroda’s great-great-grandson and was married to the great-granddaughter of M. Kovalensky.
Source of information:
(Head of the Department of ISAA Vladislav Remarchuk)

Bibliography

The main works that were not published during G. S. Skovoroda’s lifetime and were distributed in lists:

"Narcissus";
"Rant about the ancient world";
“About the Holy Supper, or About Eternity”;
“Symphony, called the book Ashan, about self-knowledge”;
"A Primer of the World";
“A conversation between two people about how it is easy to be blessed”;
“Aesop’s Fable” (1760): / “Aesop’s language” was especially inherent and organic to Skovoroda. The fables written by him cover many everyday and social topics. In the one mentioned above, he tells the story of the Wolf, who, carried away by playing the minavet on the flute, became a victim of dogs. The hint was that among the students of the Kharkov Collegium there were students who were incapable of learning. The head of the Collegium, Bishop Joasaph Mitkevich, heard the reproach and responded to the prompt: more than 40 people were immediately expelled. / ;
"Garden of Divine Songs";
“A Conversation of Five Travelers about True Happiness in Life” (1772);
"Ring";
"Icon of Alcibiades";
“Straight devil with Barsaba”;
“Fables of Kharkov” (1774);
“Friendly Conversation about the Peace of Mind” (1775);
“The initial door to Christian good morals” (1769 - 1780);
“The Flood of the Serpent” (1791).

Essays:

Essays. - X., 1894;
Collected works. T.1. - St. Petersburg, 1912;
Essays. T. 1-2. - M., 1973;
Outside zibrannya created. T. 1-2. - K., 1973.

Literature:

Danilevsky G. P. Ukrainian antiquity. - X., 1866. – P.1-96;
Ern V. F. G. S. Frying pan. Life and teaching. - M., 1912; (Magic Mountain. – 1998. – No. 7. – P. 26-157);
Bagaliy D. Ukrainian mandrovanian philosopher G. Skovoroda. - X., 1926;
Chizhevsky D. I. Philosophy of G. S. Skovoroda. - Warsaw, 1934;
Tichina P., Popov P., Trakhtenberg O. G. S. Skovoroda. Zbirnik dopovidey z nagodi 220-richchya narozhda. 1722-1942. - Ufa, 1943;
Bilic T. A. Svitoglyad G. S. Skovorodi. - K., 1957;
Popov P. M. G. Frying pan. - K., 1960;
Shkurinov P. S. Worldview of G. S. Skovoroda. - M., 1962;
Redko M. P. Svitoglyad G. S. Skovorodi. - Lviv, 1967;
Berkovich E. S., Stavinska R. A., Streimish R. I. G. Skovoroda. Biobibliography. - X., 1968.
Loshits Yu. M. Skovoroda. - M., 1972;
Abramov A. I., Kovalenko A. V. Philosophical views of G. S. Skovoroda in the circle of his historical and philosophical interests // Some features of Russian philosophical thought of the 18th century. - M., 1987;
Ushkalov L.V., Marchenko O.V. Narisi from the philosophy of Grigory Skovorodi. - Kharkov, 1993.

Remember who is depicted on the 500-hryvnia bill? How much do we know and remember about him as a person?
In any case, I’ll remind you... and I’ll remember along with you :)

This was clearly a Man with a capital M.

I think it’s not for nothing that his portrait is placed on a banknote highest denomination Krajina.

Grigory Savvich Skovoroda(Russian doref. Grigory Savvich Skovoroda, Grigory son of Savva Skovoroda, lat. Gregorius Sabbae filius Skovoroda, Ukrainian Grigory Savich Skovoroda; November 22 (December 3), 1722, Chernukhi village, Kiev province, Russian Empire - October 29 (November 9) 1794, village of Ivanovka, Kharkov governorship, Russian Empire) - Russian and Ukrainian wandering philosopher, poet, fabulist and teacher who made a significant contribution to East Slavic culture. Gained fame as the first original philosopher of the Russian Empire. Grigory Skovoroda is considered the end of the Cossack Baroque era and the founder of Russian religious philosophy. The works of Grigory Savvich Skovoroda had a significant influence on a number of major Russian thinkers, in particular on Vladimir Frantsevich Ern.

Grigory Skovoroda is the great-great-uncle of another Russian philosopher Vladimir Sergeevich Solovyov

Grigory Savvich Skovoroda was born on November 22 (December 3), 1722 in the vicinity of Poltava in the hundredth village of Chernukha of the Lubensky regiment, which was part of the Kyiv province. Among the natives of the Lubensky regiment, the revision books of the 18th century also mention Klim, Fyodor and Emelyan Skovoroda, who were obviously related to Grigory Skovoroda. Grigory was the second child in the family of the land-poor Cossack Savka (Savva) Skovoroda and his wife Palazhka (nee Pelageya Stepanovna Shengereeva, also Shangireeva).

The philosopher's mother was the daughter of the Crimean Tatar Stepan Shangireev (or Shan-Gireev), who served as a Cossack in the Kanevsky regiment. The Shan-Girey clan once had a high position in the Crimean Khanate. Accurate information about Stepan Shangireev’s father has not been preserved.

There is a legend explaining the young Cossack's passion for learning. According to legend, in his adolescence Gregory faced misunderstanding in his family; At the age of sixteen, Grisha left his father’s house after his father punished him with assault because his son lost a sheep in the field. More plausible, however, seems to be the version according to which the sons - Gregory and Stepan - went to study at the will and instruction of their father, since these were not the best times for the land-poor Cossacks. Savva Skovoroda’s eldest son, Stepan, left for the capital during his father’s lifetime, and Grigory after his death.

Grigory Skovoroda for the most part led the life of a wandering philosopher-theologian, wandering around Little Russia, the Azov region, and the Sloboda, Voronezh, Oryol and Kursk provinces. It is also known that Skovoroda visited the Don Army Region in Rostov with Kovalensky’s relatives.

In his philosophy, Skovoroda was close to pantheism, since, like Spinoza, he identified God (“the highest being”) and “our universal mother nature.” At the same time, nature is defined as a “Roman word” synonymous with the words nature or nature, which in its entirety can also be called the world. Moreover, this world is beginningless, and its symbol can be called a snake, “coiled in a circle, holding its tail with its teeth.” Moreover, the Serpent and God are one (“there is a serpent, know that he is also God”). This nature gives rise to hunting (fiery, inclination and movement), and hunting is labor.

Picture from The Secret Doctrine of Madame Blavatsky

Skovoroda was very tolerant of paganism, seeing in it the preparation of the human race for the adoption of Christianity (“Pagan shrines or temples are also temples of Christ’s teaching and schools”). In relation to religion, he proposed a middle path between the “mounds of violent atheism” and the “vile swamps of servile superstition.”

He saw the universe as consisting of three worlds - macrocosm (universe), microcosm (man) and a certain “symbolic world” connecting the large and small worlds, ideally reflecting them (for example, with the help of sacred texts like the Bible). Each of these worlds consists of “two natures” - visible (created) and invisible (divine), matter and form, or “flesh and spirit”

Skovoroda paid considerable attention not only to the Christian tradition in philosophy, but also to the ancient heritage, in particular the ideas of Platonism and Stoicism. Researchers find in his philosophy features of both mysticism and rationalism. G. S. Skovoroda is often called the first philosopher of the Russian Empire. For his unusual way of life, and also because Skovoroda wrote most of his philosophical works in a dialogical form, he also received the nickname “Russian Socrates.”

From Skovoroda’s original ideas, A.F. Losev singled out his doctrine of the heart, mystical symbolism in the doctrine of the three worlds and the idea of ​​two essences of the world, visible and invisible

In the works of G. S. Skovoroda, the central place is occupied by the problem of self-knowledge, which for the philosopher inevitably comes down to the question of the nature of the human being. In accordance with the maxim about man, who is “the measure of all things” (Protagoras’ thesis), Skovoroda comes to the idea that man is the beginning and end of all philosophizing. “However, man, who is the beginning and the end of everything, of all thought and philosophizing, is not at all a physical or generally empirical man, but an internal, eternal, immortal and divine man.” To come to an understanding of oneself as an inner man, one must go through a difficult path full of “suffering and struggle.” In the case of Skovoroda, this path is associated with a rejection of abstract thinking, a rejection of the tools for understanding the external world. The place of empirical knowledge, therefore, should be filled with the figurative-symbolic world, where symbolism should be “akin” to inner life and the eternal meaning of existence. As a Christian thinker, Skovoroda sees such symbolism in the Bible. Through the text of Holy Scripture, human thought “transforms into the eye of the Most High God.” Grigory Savvich calls biblical symbolism “footprints of God.” Walking along them, a person comes to know himself as an inner man, where “true man and God are one and the same.” Skovoroda’s experience of self-knowledge, thus, turns out to be unusually close in spirit to Rhenish mysticism (Meister Eckhart, Dietrich of Freiberg, etc.), and German theosophy of the Reformation era (primarily Jacob Boehme, Angel of Silesia, etc.), which penetrated into the Russian kingdom in the 17th century through the German Settlement, and received its first original embodiment on Orthodox soil in the circle of the “freethinker” Dmitry Tveritinov.

According to Skovoroda, everything that exists consists of three worlds:

“The first is the universal inhabited world, where everything born lives. This is made up of countless world-worlds and is a great world. The other two are private and small worlds. The first is a microcosm, that is, a small world, a little world, or a person. The second is the symbolic world, otherwise the Bible"

Gregory’s attitude towards death and his departure from this world deserve special attention.

Skovoroda’s vital and philosophical intuition was very strong. This is a person who spent his entire life thinking, analyzing, reasoning, and not eating, walking, or wasting away.. Skovoroda has Gogol's mystery and Socratic logic of life. Gogol was the man who did some incomprehensible things at night or in the evening, and Socrates was a very natural man: he fell asleep with the sunset and woke up with the sunrise. This natural cycle was very important in the life of Skovoroda. Because I think Skovoroda's death is not a legend.

He was preparing for the transition to another life and knew that no one could come up with a place or circumstances for his death better than himself. He came to where he wanted to be buried (the village of Pan-Ivanovka in the Kharkov region, currently Skovorodinivka), dug his own grave, washed himself, put on clean clothes, lay down and died. The philosopher bequeathed to write on his grave:

“The world was catching me, but it didn’t catch me.”