Philosophical Letters

Chaadaev remained known to the Russian reader for a long time by a single publication, which became a challenge to public consciousness. In 1836, the first of his "Philosophical Letters" was published in the journal "Telescope." The bitter skepticism expressed in them regarding Russia's estrangement from the "universal education of mankind" and the "spiritual stagnation that hinders the fulfillment of the historically predetermined mission from above" provoked the anger of Nicholas I. The magazine was closed, the editor was exiled, the censor was dismissed from service, and the author was declared insane. Chaadaev's works were banned from publication in Russia: they were "inconvenient" for the official ideology. Only in the early 20th century did his creative legacy gradually begin to return to Russian readers. The unusual fate of this outstanding thinker has always attracted significant attention from historians of Russian philosophy. As protopriest V. Zenkovsky wrote, "he was luckier in this regard than anyone else."