Hryhorii Skovoroda

Hryhorii Skovoroda (1722-1794) was a philosopher, poet, teacher, and composer of

Cossak origin, claimed as a native son by both Russia and Ukraine, because, at the time,

the region where he was born, Sloboda Ukraine (modern day Ukraine), was part of the

Russian Empire. Throughout his life, he made important contributions to the Russian

philosophy, and to the Ukrainian cultural heritage and philosophical thought. He lived a

controversial life, as any innovator in that time. It is indeed justified to call Skovoroda an

innovator, since he was the first philosopher under the Russian Empire to support an

ethical system different from the one of the Christian Church, alongside with new

ideologies about the man, God , and happiness. He did not only lived by his ideas, but

he also taught and preached them to the people.

The rebel

Hryhorii studied at the Kiev Mogila Academy. After graduating his theology

program, he was proposed to be ordained as a monk, but did not accept. Instead, he

traveled for 5 years in Europe, and studied alongside western theology scholars,

discovering the rationalist views on The Bible. After his return, he held poetry

seminaries in Kiev, but was dismissed for his innovative methods. Hryhorii was a teacher

for 10 years at the Kharkоv Collegium, but gave up after his ethics class was attacked.

One might have already observed that Hryohorii was not the usual intellectual for

his time. Furthermore, one might wonder why he did not want to be part of the church,
and why his teaching methods and contents were questioned. In order to shed some light

upon that, I shall introduce some of his philosophical ideas.

Hryhorii was a free thinker, who did not just embrace the church ideology, but filtered

the information through his own analytical mind. He believed that The Bible should not

be interpreted literally, but metaphorically, since the anecdotes' ideas were the ones that

mattered for the development of the people. Moreover, he had a different perception

about the pagan wisdom, as described by Taras Zakydalsky :Skovoroda felt that wisdom

was granted to the pagan thinkers by God, whom they sought, and that their wisdom

could and should be incorporated into a Christian philosophy, a higher and fuller form of

wisdom.[1] Kovalinskii himself states: Skovoroda maintained that in all these thinkers

[Marcus Aurelius, Titus, Socrates, Plato] the higher spirit acted and therefore they do not

deserve condemnation, but on the contrary they deserve respect and imitation of their

love for truth. And if God is truth then they were his faithful servants. [2]

Furthermore, he had a different idea of God than the usual one in his times. He believed that

God was the truth, what is good, the essence of all things. Good is identified with God, evil with

the realm of appearances. Man finds himself between the two worlds and is free to choose

between them. Though faith and obedience to God's will he achieves union with God, his

salvation and happiness.[3] His ethics became therefore not only a way of salvation, but also a

path to achieve happiness. The endpoint of his ethical system was a happy temporal existence

and "peace of the soul". The purpose of life is thought to be seeking the truth, and not being

deceived by appearances. Here it is worth mentioning one of Skovoroda’s favorite metaphors for

the relation of appearance to reality: a tree’s many passive, shifting shadows to the firm, single,

living tree itself. A man should never be satisfied only with the passive shadows!
The Ukrainian Socrates

Hryhorii was entitled by some with the name of the Ukrainean Socrates. The first

reason is the style of his writings. He was not an essayist, nor a man of monologue. His

first published work, and also one that includes his motto is Narcisus and Know Thyself.

The writing is in itself a dialogue, in which the hero of Ovid's poem, Narcisus, reveals

the secret that it has been revealed to him when looking into the waters:

Tell me, O beautiful Narcissus, did you see something in your waters? Did someone

appear?

RESPONSE. In my waters […] I beheld on the linen cloth of my body which flowed,

an image not created by human hand […]. My flesh is the enchantress who showed me my

Samuel. I love this one, and I melt, I disappear, I am transformed. [4]

His Socratic title was also given because he chose to quit his academic career to

teach philosophy and grammar to the poor. After his ethics course was attacked, Hryhorii

gave up teaching and became a holly wanderer. He used to travel around the country,

his only purpose being to teach the poor with no education. Vasily Voskresensky

described Skovoroda's Socratic qualities in teaching as following: Both Socrates and

Skovoroda felt from above the calling to be tutors of the people, and, accepting the

calling, they became public teachers in the personal and elevated meaning of that

word.[5]
 One might wonder why an accomplished academician would leave his career

behind to teach the poor. The only way to provide insight into this matter is to

understand what role played the man in Skovoroda's philosophy. In deliberate opposition

to the Baconian summons to "know nature in order to master it!" Skovoroda urged
[6]
individuals to "know themselves in order to master themselves". He placed self-

knowledge as the highest knowledge one can achieve, and believed every man had the

potential to achieve it. His reasoning followed that he saw in a man a micro cosmos,

functioning by the same rules as the world, the macro cosmos. The crucial difference was

that the man, and not the world had the potential to be understood. This ideology was

deep rooted in his perception of the world: If man achieves harmony with God and a

new level of "divinized" life, then the world has fulfilled its end and is raised to a

higher existence also. Without man the existence of the world would be pointless.[7]

Given that the man was a central piece to his philosophical system, it is now

easily understood why he taught philosophy to every man, helping everyone that crossed

his path to understand his views and live by them. These ideas made him sympathize with

the peasants and inspired the basis of the democratic views , which was not viewed with

good eyes in an enslaved Ukraine. But neither this, nor the fact that none of his works

were published while he was alive did not stop him to teach everyone his doctrine and

to be acknowledge as a brilliant mind amongst the people.

The first Russian Philosopher

 Hryhorii was also viewed as the first Russian philosopher. He had great historical

interest for the students of Russian philosophy and Ukrainian culture. For Ern, the

appearance of Skovoroda is the "birth of philosophy in Russia".[8] This may appear

unnatural or even odd to some, but I shall explain why he was worthy of the title.

If we consider philosophy as the science of mind, the rational investigation of

the truths and principles of being, and view the act of philosophizing as seeking the

truth, then Hryohorii can indeed be regarded as the first Russian philosopher. Just

embracing one philosophy, for example the Christian one at the time, may bring one form

of wisdom, but it is not the same as being a philosopher. At that time, all the wisdom had

its root in Christianity. Skovoroda was the first under the Russian Empire to challenge

the Christianity doctrine, to seek better and personal answers for himself: about God,

about the man, about the world, and about happiness. Not only that, but he also found

answers and wrote about them, and taught them to others. In the times of Kyivan Rus-

Ukraine, a thinker was the one who sought the truth and then applied his knowledge of

the truth, derived from various sources, to his own life as the guideline. But he did even

more than this, he was a philosopher, living his own life by his philosophical system.

Because he was an innovator, his works were not published until his 1798, 5 years

after his death, when Narcisus And Know Thyself was published anonymously. It was not

until 1837 that his name appeared on any book, when 9 of his writings were published,

and only in 1891 we can mention a full set of texts and a bibliography of the man who

revolutionized the Ukrainian philosophy.

The pioneer

Now that we established that we can rightfully call Hryhorii Skovoroda a rebel of

his time, a Ukrainian Socrates and even The first Russian Philosopher, the time has

come to conclude that he was above all of those, a pioneer.

He pioneered the Easter European definition of the man, putting him, after

centuries of subordination to the church, again in the center of the world. He did not

see God as an almighty being anymore, but as a monistic essence, as a truth that can be

found by every man, and not only by religion, but by philosophy. He reinterpreted the

bible as simple anecdotes and then wrote fables himself to inspire the world. Above all,

Hryhorii Skovoroda was a path opener for the future philosophers of Ukraine, of The

Russian Empire, and even the whole Christian Eastern Europe.

Moreover, the impact of this Ukrainian philosophers' works, lifestyle and philosophical

ideas has influenced the literature. The first one to describe Skovoroda was V. T. Narezhny in

his novel "Russian Zhilblaz" (1814). After that I. I. Sreznevsky's story "Mayor, mayor!" was

published, where the philosopher was the main hero, and the great Ukrainian poet T. G.

Shevchenko in his story "Twins" showed Skovoroda as a teacher of music. Skovoroda

associations are found in Gogol's reasoning, in Dostoyevsky's philosophical views, in Vladimir

Solovyov's works and in N. S. Leskov's works, Leo Tolstoy used to study his views.
 References:

[1]- Taras Zakydalsky, The Theory of Man in the Philosophy of Skovoroda, 1965, Chapter I, 4

[2]- M. I. Kovalinskii, "Zhizn Grigoriya Skovorody" (The Life of Gregory Skovoroda), Tvory,

II, p. 502

[3]- Taras Zakydalsky, The Theory of Man in the Philosophy of Skovoroda, 1965, Chapter I, 4

[4]- Skovoroda, Narcisus and Know Thyself

[5]- Archimandrite Gavriil, Istoria filosofii (History of Philosophy), Kazan', 1837. Vol. VI, pp.

60-61

[6]- Taras Zakydalsky, The Theory of Man in the Philosophy of Skovoroda, 1965, Chapter I, 4

[7]- Taras Zakydalsky, The Theory of Man in the Philosophy of Skovoroda, 1965, Chapter I, 4

[8]- Grigorii Savvich Skovoroda: Zhizn i uchenie (Gregory Savvich Skovoroda: His Life and

Teaching) (Moscow: Put, 1912), p. 332