Civilization #53: Dostoevsky and the Soul of Russia

Let's simplify the differences between the three great modern civilizations that are struggling for world domination even today: Anglo-American, German, and Russian.

While Americans and the British place an emphasis on science and mastering the material world, and the Germans are extremely idealistic in their want for an understanding of existence, the Russians are focused very much on the human heart. For the Russians, the greatest mystery and the most knowledge is found within the human heart.

Why Did Putin Invade Ukraine?

The leading question, and one I'm sure you're all interested in, is: Why did Putin invade Ukraine? What is driving the Russian invasion of Ukraine? There are lots of easy explanations, but the answer is actually extremely complicated. Putin himself has said in multiple interviews that there are historical, sociological, and philosophical issues at work here, and Westerners don't really understand what he's saying. I'm going to explain what he really means.

The Rise of a Marginal Power

If you look at the year 1300, you could not expect Moscow to eventually become the Russian Empire. At this point in history, the Mongols controlled most of the world, and Moscow, along with other areas in the empire, were vassal states. They paid taxes, tribute, and provided troops to the Mongol Empire, which was the great power at this stage.

However, if you look at history, you will see a very similar pattern where it's not really the greatest power that will eventually overwhelm everyone; it's always the marginal power.

• The Aztecs were a poor, isolated, and backward people, but eventually, through innovation, tenacity, and resilience, they came to conquer most of Central America.
• The Qin dynasty in China, around 300-400 BCE, was not expected to overwhelm all of China and become its first great national empire. The Chu or the Wei were stronger, but it was the marginal power that seemed weak at first that would overwhelm.
• Macedon, around 400-300 BCE, was overshadowed by Athens, Sparta, and Thebes. Eventually, Macedon would not only overwhelm the Greek peninsula but would also go on to conquer the Persian Empire.
• Rome, around 500 BCE, was the weakest of all the Italian states. The Etruscans were the main power, and the Romans were the poorest, weakest, and smallest of all these great tribes, but over the next centuries, they would conquer everyone.
• The Franks, after the Roman Empire, slowly expanded from central Europe to overwhelm most of the continent and create the Holy Roman Empire.
• The Prussians, who became modern-day Germany, started as a landlocked, isolated central area within Europe but eventually spread out to conquer all of Germany.

The lessons we can learn from these case studies are that there are three forces that drive these marginalized powers to become the great power of the day. For Moscow, it was a process of constant creative destruction.

1. Open Cooperative Competition: Moscow was always surrounded by adversaries. Because they lacked natural defenses like mountains or rivers, it forced them to be tough and unified to defeat their enemies. This toughness and unity allowed Moscow to emerge as a great power in Central Asia.
2. Advantage by Disadvantages: You're better off being weak because it forces you to be innovative and open. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention.
3. Vassalage: The idea that historical humiliation and subjection force reflection and resilience. Because Moscow was subjected to the Mongols for the longest time, it forced them to be humble. Humility allows you to reflect deeply on your own weaknesses, be honest with yourself, and eventually triumph over all your adversaries.

These are the three factors that drove the massive expansion of Moscow. It started as a very small principality within the Mongol Empire and eventually became the successor to the Mongol Empire.

From Trading Posts to Empire

The origins of Russia go back to the Viking Age, around the year 900-1000 CE. The Vikings in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, driven by poverty and overpopulation, began to expand. They moved west to England and Greenland, but they also moved east. They moved east because the great wealth of the age was located in the Byzantine Empire, Egypt, and the Abbasid Empire in Iraq and Persia. They were there to establish trading posts.

As they established these posts, they intermarried with the local Slavic population as well as the steppe peoples. They also built an alliance with the Byzantine Empire, basically becoming vassals to the Byzantines. Over time, their trading posts became cities, and they expanded outwards. The custom at this stage in history was that if you were a noble, you must go and conquer new lands. When you conquer new lands, you can enslave the people to work for you in a very feudal system. This forced a process of constant expansion; if they didn't expand, they only fought amongst themselves. The Kievan Rus' expanded very quickly throughout this area.

Eventually, they were all conquered by the Mongols. When the Mongols left, it created a vacuum of great powers. The great power of this age was the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Novgorod was also a great power. Moscow was the weakest. But again, because it was weak, it was forced to be united, resilient, and innovative. Over time, it would overwhelm Novgorod and become the Russian Empire. The Russian Empire expanded rapidly until it absorbed the entire Mongol Empire and unified all of northern Asia, becoming the largest landmass in the world.

Even though it's a very large country, most of Russia is not able to be cultivated, so it has a very low population. Most of the wealth is located in the west, in what is basically Ukraine. This is what's driving the invasion—historically, most of the wealth in Russia has been located in the Ukraine area. The land to the east is basically just forest and mountains. So why were they moving eastwards when there were very little resources there? The answer is fur. Fur was a very valuable commodity, and they traded it for a living.

Some of the great tsars of Russian history are Ivan the Great and his son, Ivan the Terrible, who expanded Russia greatly. Russian expansion wasn't really driven by state policy; it was driven by oppression and misery. Because Russia was essentially a feudal state, the only way to build a better life was to escape eastwards, ethnically cleanse an area, and build a new settlement. As these people moved further east, the state would follow them to collect taxes. Sometimes the state would intervene to protect these people from their local adversaries. It was a very brutal process that took centuries. The Russians won out because there were more of them and because they had muskets, which the local people did not. The expansion was very rapid, taking only about 300 years.

As I mentioned, it was an extremely brutal process involving ethnic cleansing and enslaving people. These paintings are meant to capture the brutality and misery involved. The people who were conquered were either ethnically cleansed, forced to immigrate, or enslaved. It's a very similar process to the American expansion. These two would eventually become the great empires of the 20th and 21st centuries.

The Americans expanded westwards, and the Russians expanded eastwards. The difference is this: Americans were expanding westwards for better opportunities—to get wealthy and build a better life. The Russians were expanding eastwards because they were trying to escape misery, oppression, and slavery. Because of this difference, even though they have many similarities, the fundamental belief systems of these two nations are very different. Americans are fundamentally optimistic. Russians are fundamentally fatalistic and pessimistic.

The Slavic East vs. The Germanic West

The word "Slavic" gives us the word "slave." Why? Because for the longest time, the Slavs in Eastern Europe were pagans. They weren't Muslims or Christians. The custom at that time was that you could only enslave people who were not of your religious belief. So, the pagans were the most valuable people because they could be enslaved by everyone. Vikings, Muslims, and Christians came to enslave the Slavic people and sell them off to the Byzantines and the Abbasids.

Let's look at the three major differences between Russia and Germany:

1. Imperial Heritage: The Russians believe they are heirs to the Byzantine Empire, which was a very top-down, centralized bureaucracy. The Germans believe they are heirs to the Holy Roman Empire, which was a confederation. The Holy Roman Empire was based on consensus, diplomacy, and intermarriage—a much more democratic and independent system than the Byzantines.
2. Religious Authority: The Germans have the Catholic Church. The Russians have the Eastern Orthodox Church. This sounds similar, but as I will show, they are night and day. These two belief systems are extremely different.
3. Cultural Cohesion: The Germanic West is culturally coherent. They believe they speak the same language and come from the same culture. The Russian Empire is culturally incoherent. It encompasses a vast array of different cultures, languages, and belief systems.

The Birth of the Russian Empire

The Russian Empire starts with Peter the Great. He modernizes Russia and forces a decisive war with Sweden, which was the great military power in Europe at the time. For most of Russian history, European powers didn't really take Russia seriously; they thought the Russians were part of Asia, not Europe. Peter the Great was determined to westernize and Europeanize Russia and prove it was a European power.

He did this for many reasons. As an empire, Russia needed a unifying ideology. For the Russians, a philosophy that even Putin shares, is the belief that they are trying to restore the Byzantine Empire, be the Third Rome, and save civilization. The first Rome was Rome, the second was Constantinople, and the third Rome is now Moscow. Not only that, but they believe they are the true heirs to the Christian tradition. All other Christian religions—Catholic, Protestant—are corrupt forms. It is the Orthodox Church that is the true heir to Roman Christianity.

This quest for military supremacy meant Russia needed to copy and imitate the Europeans, who had the great militaries of the age. Russia imported a lot of German soldiers and mercenaries to learn German military techniques. The quest for absolute power meant that tsars like Peter the Great and Catherine the Great were interested in centralizing authority, removing the feudal system, and consolidating power in their hands. Peter the Great wanted to subject the church and the nobility to his authority, unlike in Europe where the Catholic Church was above the kings.

At this time, the great rival to the Russians was the Ottoman Empire. Finally, there was a contempt for Asia. Even though the Mongols probably influenced the Russians much more than the Vikings, the Russians believe the Vikings are their true ancestors, not the Mongols. They try to erase the Mongols from their own history, as they are kind of ashamed of it.

Around the year 1700, Sweden was the great military power of the age. Peter the Great and Charles XII of Sweden got into a major conflict. Peter the Great was not that great and had a lot of issues, but Charles XII was a complete disaster. He was a young man, only about 27 when he invaded Russia, who fancied himself Alexander the Great. And as we discussed, Alexander the Great was very problematic because he was tyrannical and believed he was invincible.

Charles decides to invade Russia, and this is a disaster. Why? Because Peter the Great uses a scorched-earth policy. He knows he cannot defeat the Swedes on the battlefield, so the Russians retreat and burn down all the fields so the army cannot feed itself. This is important because this is how the Russians would defeat Napoleon in 1812 and how they would defeat the Germans in World War II. It is a very familiar pattern in history.

The great enemy of Russia at this time were the Ottomans, and they would clash over the Crimea. This would lead to the Crimean War in 1854. Peter the Great wins his war because Charles XII makes disastrous military decisions. But this begins the Russian Empire. For the first time, Russia is now considered a great European power because it has defeated the great military power of Europe, Sweden.

After this victory, Russia expands greatly. The next great westernizer of the Russian Empire is Catherine the Great. What's important to remember about her is that she's not actually Russian; she's German. She was born in Prussia and married into the Russian noble family. It was very common at this stage for European powers to intermarry. Most of the Russian nobility had German blood and actually spoke French at home. This "Russianization" created a process where the nobility became very European—they spoke French, had German ancestry—while the peasants were Slavic. This created a massive divide in Russia.

Catherine the Great extended Russia greatly. The great event that followed was the defeat of Napoleon in 1812. Napoleon, the great conqueror, invades Russia and defeats the Russian army. But what the Russians do, which no one could possibly imagine, is they burn down their capital, Moscow. Moscow was the cultural capital, the heart and soul of the Russian Empire, and they burned it down to starve Napoleon's army. The Europeans thought this was an incredible act of barbarism. But for the Russians, they believed it was an incredible act of self-sacrifice that saved the Russian Empire. In fact, the great Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky wrote a symphony dedicated to celebrating the victory over Napoleon called the 1812 Overture. The Russians thought that by defeating Napoleon, by making this sacrifice, they not only saved Russia but all of Europe. They saved Western civilization.

After the defeat of Napoleon, however, the Europeans take notice of Russia, especially Britain. Britain, the great naval power, was dedicated to a divide-and-conquer policy in Europe. They ganged up against whoever was the growing power. As Russia grew, the British encouraged the Ottomans and the French to unite against Russia to prevent its expansion into the Ottoman Empire. Eventually, the Russians would defeat the Ottoman Empire, but the Crimean War was a major setback. This created something called The Great Game, where the Russians were now being hemmed in by the British, and they would fight for supremacy over Central Asia.

The next disaster for the Russians was the Russo-Japanese War, where Russia was heavily defeated by the Japanese. This instigated revolutionary sentiment and fever in Russia. And of course, what followed next was the great disaster of the First World War, where the Russians were defeated mightily by the Germans. This created the 1917 Revolution, which destroyed the Russian Empire and created the Soviet Empire.

The Contradictions of Russian Civilization

Westernization has been a major trend in Russia, but because of it, three major contradictions were created within the Russian Empire. These three contradictions would go on to create Russian civilization.

1. It's both European and Central Asian. It's both Viking and Slavic, as well as Tartar. There are a lot of ethnicities and cultures within Russia, creating a contradiction.
2. It's both Christian Orthodox and Pagan. It fancies itself as the true Christian nation, but it's also very pagan. The massive eastward expansion involved a lot of war and violence. The peasantry, even to this day, maintains a lot of pagan rituals and beliefs.
3. It's a conflict between Enlightenment and Empire. Catherine the Great, who was Prussian, saw herself as an enlightened monarch. She was best friends with Voltaire—they never met but were pen pals—and she saw herself as an enlightened despot trying to bring reason, justice, and goodness to Russia. But at the same time, it's a brutal empire, and the Russians engaged in a lot of barbarism. This is also a massive contradiction.

If you study Russian civilization, it is unique because of these three major contradictions. Let me show you how they influence Russian arts and literature.

Russian Culture: Art, Music, and Literature

There are too many major Russian cultural figures to name, but I'll go through the most famous.

Alexander Pushkin is considered the Shakespeare of Russia. He is the great innovator of the Russian language, basically modernizing it. He was a poet and a very romantic figure, the national poet of Russia. Something really interesting about him is that his grandfather was an African general who became a noble in Russia. He's about one-eighth black and was very proud of it. What's important for us to remember is that for most of human history, race was not a concept. People didn't really care what race you were.

Anton Chekhov is considered the greatest short story writer in human history.

Russian music is just beautiful. Mikhail Glinka was a very famous composer. The most famous composer, of course, is Pyotr Tchaikovsky. He is famous for three ballets that are still performed today: The Nutcracker, which is performed at Christmas; his most famous, Swan Lake; and Sleeping Beauty.

What's astonishing about this music is that it can flow into your essence, your soul. This music comes from the soul. And to create music this beautiful, your soul must suffer. Your soul must engage in misery, pain, and suffering to create such beauty. It is haunting, beautiful music.

Igor Stravinsky is considered the first great modern composer. He composed The Rite of Spring in 1913. It was first performed in Paris and was so revolutionary that it caused a riot within the music hall. This ballet tries to fuse the pagan tradition into modernity. This music expresses and encapsulates the contradictions within Russian civilization—between the pagan and the Christian. You can feel the rawness, the energy, the violence, the aggression, the sensuality.

The ballet is about the rites of spring. It goes back to a Slavic tradition where they celebrate the mother goddess. To celebrate the transition of seasons, they perform games and have festivals. What ends the festivities is the sacrifice of a maiden. She will dance until she dies, and when she dances to her death, her heart will explode. This symbolizes how the mother goddess gives life to the world by pouring out her blood for plants to grow and seasons to change. In this worldview, everything is interconnected and must be balanced and harmonized. If the mother goddess sacrifices herself for there to be life, then the maiden must sacrifice herself to thank the mother goddess.

The Prophets of the Russian Soul: Tolstoy and Dostoevsky

In Russian civilization, there are two great prophets: Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky. Together, they created modern Russian civilization—the sensibilities, the beliefs, the philosophies. They were trying to reconcile the contradictions within Russia through their novels. These are the great novelists in the human tradition.

Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina

Tolstoy's most famous novel is Anna Karenina, which is considered the greatest novel ever written. I want to first read the beginning, one of the most famous openings in world literature.

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys’ house. The wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with a French girl, who had been a governess in their family, and she had announced to her husband that she could not go on living in the same house with him.

What Tolstoy is telling us from the first couple of paragraphs is that Europeanization is a process of corrupting the Russian soul. The idea that you bring in a French girl and the husband is going to sleep with her is corruption.

This is important because the Oblonskys are now engaged in a divorce, and Anna Karenina comes from St. Petersburg to try to reconcile them. Anna herself will commit adultery. She'll fall in love with a man named Vronsky, and they'll have a very passionate affair that will destroy both of them. Anna has a husband and a child back in St. Petersburg. She asks for a divorce, but her husband won't give it to her. She slowly falls into depression and then commits suicide.

Let's look at the monologue she has within herself before she decides to kill herself. She's trying to explain why she's unhappy.

My love keeps growing more passionate and egoistic, while his is waning and waning, and that's why we are drifting apart.’ And she repeated the reasoning by which she had been brought to this conclusion. ‘And there's no help for it. He is everything for me, and I want him more and more to give himself up to me entirely. And he wants more and more to get away from me. We were walking to meet each other up to the time of our love, and then we have been irresistibly drifting in different directions. And there's no altering that. He tells me I'm insanely jealous, and I have told myself that I am insanely jealous. But it's not true. I'm not jealous, but I'm unsatisfied.’

This is the most important word: unsatisfied. It tells us that she's a very selfish person who's using love as a way to fill the void in her heart. She feels that this relationship, this adultery, will give her meaning. What she doesn't understand is that when you try to possess someone, you can't love that person, because love is really about giving yourself entirely to another. Think about Dante: he never got anything from Beatrice, but he loved her regardless. This is where Anna fails. She doesn't really understand what love is.

Also, a huge problem for Anna is that because she betrayed her husband, she now fears that Vronsky will betray her. Do you see the psychology here? That's why she can't love—she broke the fundamental condition for love, which is trust.

This is telling us that the heart is a mystery, something you cannot reason out, something you can never fully understand. In theory, if you find someone more attractive and think you're better off with him, then you should go be with him. That's Western civilization: pursue your own happiness. But what Tolstoy is telling us is that the heart is something you cannot master. Maybe you can master your mind, reason, and logic, but the human heart works by its own set of logic, and you must respect it. If you want to love, then you must give and not receive. If you want to love, base your love on trust. Do not betray yourself; do not betray others.

Fyodor Dostoevsky: The Heart of Russian Civilization

Now let's move on to the man who is at the heart and center of Russian civilization: Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Both Tolstoy and Dostoevsky were extremely passionate Christians. They had deep empathy for the people around them. Tolstoy was born very wealthy, of the nobility, but he was so distraught by the suffering around him—because his wealth was based on the oppression of the peasantry—that he wanted to give up all his money and become a beggar. It was only at the insistence of his family that he was prevented from doing what his heart demanded of him.

Dostoevsky came from the lower nobility; his father was a doctor. As a young man, he was a revolutionary and participated in literary revolutionary circles. He wasn't violent, but he had subversive ideas. He was arrested and condemned to death. He was put in front of a firing squad, and at the last minute, his sentence was commuted. He was spared by the Tsar and sent to hard labor in Siberia for a number of years. This was a very traumatic, but also an extremely enlightening, experience for Dostoevsky. It made him think very deeply about the meaning of life.

He wrote Crime and Punishment, which is really the great novel of Russian civilization. It has to do with a man, Raskolnikov, who is young, brilliant, and a university student, but he's poor. He decides that to escape his circumstance and control his fate, he's going to murder a pawnbroker, an old woman who has a lot of money. No one likes her, no one will miss her, and he will take her money to build a new life for himself. This will become the basis for his greatness. He reasons that as a great individual, as a genius, he's going to contribute so much to humanity, so if he kills an old woman no one likes, it won't really matter. He's been thinking about this for a long time and has it all reasoned out. What Crime and Punishment will show us is that reason is nothing. What matters is the heart.

First, I want to talk about Dostoevsky's understanding of God, which is the Russian understanding of God. At the beginning of the novel, Raskolnikov meets a middle-aged drunk named Marmeladov. Marmeladov is an extremely pitiful man. He's a middle-aged bureaucrat who married a poor widow, and they have four children to feed. The widow decides to prostitute Marmeladov's daughter, Sonia, to make money. Marmeladov, in a fit of tremendous regret, finds a job, which seems like it will resolve all the family's problems. But he does something no one can predict or expect: he steals all the money in the household, quits his job, and gets drunk every day.

You hear this and think it makes no sense. But again, that's the beauty of Russian literature. It's focused on what drives us psychologically, not what is reasonable or logical. Marmeladov is driven to despair because he feels he sacrificed his daughter. He hates that his daughter has become a prostitute and cannot allow himself and his family to live happily ever after. That's why he decides to become an alcoholic.

Then, they talk about God and the nature of God. This is very important for understanding Orthodox Christianity. Marmeladov says to Raskolnikov:

“And why am I to be pitied, you say? Yes! There’s nothing to pity me for! I ought to be crucified, crucified on a cross, not pitied! Crucify me, oh judge, crucify me, but pity me! And then I will go of myself to be crucified, for it is not merry-making I seek, but tears and tribulation!... Do you suppose, you that sell, that this pint of yours has been sweet to me? It was tribulation I sought at the bottom of it, tears and tribulation, and I have found it, and I have tasted it; but He will pity us Who has had pity on all men, Who has understood all men and all things, He is the One, He too is the judge. He will come in that day and He will ask: ‘Where is the daughter who gave herself for her cross, consumptive step-mother and for the little children of another? Where is the daughter who had pity upon the filthy drunkard, her earthly father, undismayed by his beastliness?’ And He will say, ‘Come to me! I have already forgiven thee once.... I have forgiven thee once.... Thy sins which are many are forgiven thee, for thou hast loved much....’ And He will forgive my Sonya, He will forgive, I know it.... I felt it in my heart when I was with her just now! And He will judge and will forgive all, the good and the evil, the wise and the meek....”

This God that the Orthodox Christians celebrate is a forgiving God, a merciful God, a knowledgeable and wise God. Why? Because we humans cannot be trusted to be wise. We suffer the mysteries of the heart. We do not know ourselves, we do not know our nature, and therefore we are bound to suffer. God understands this, and that's why God will ultimately redeem us all when the time is appropriate. It's fatalistic, but at the same time, it's also optimistic.

Let us summarize the differences between the Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox religions.

This is important because the Orthodox religion is at the heart and center of Russian civilization. Let's see how this influences Crime and Punishment.

Raskolnikov has killed the old lady and stolen her money, but now he feels tremendous regret and doesn't know why. He can't sleep; he falls into sickness. He doesn't know why this is happening because he's already reasoned it out. Then he meets Sonia and confesses to her what he's done. Not only that, but he tries to explain why. This is a very important passage in Western civilization.

“I saw then that if one waits for everyone to get wise, it will take too long.... Afterwards I understood that that would never come to pass, that men won't change and that nobody can alter it and that it's not worth wasting effort over it. Yes, that's so! That's a law of their nature, Sonya... that's so!... And I know now, Sonya, that whoever is strong in mind and spirit will have power over them! Anyone who is greatly daring is right in their eyes. He who despises most things will be a lawgiver among them and he who dares most of all will be most in the right! So it has been till now and so it will always be! A man must be blind not to see it!”

Let's go back to the French Revolution. Robespierre fundamentally believed that everyone can be reasoned with, that reason exists in all of us. Napoleon believed that he must lead; people are weak, and he must be strong. What Raskolnikov is saying is, "I killed the old lady because I'm trying to prove that I'm Napoleon and not Robespierre." It's people like Napoleon who will change history, who will save us.

What Dostoevsky wants to show is that this sort of reasoning sounds right, but it goes against the human heart. When reason and the heart come into conflict, the heart will always triumph, and this can only lead to misery. Important thinkers like Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud would read this and interpret it in their own way. Nietzsche would read this and think, "No, this makes sense. It's not that Raskolnikov is wrong; it's that he didn't believe this enough."

Raskolnikov is being pursued by the police, and it's obvious that he's the culprit. But then, someone else confesses to the crime. At this point, you would think Raskolnikov is now happy, free to do whatever he wants. This shows it is God's will that he become great. But what happens next is he decides to confess. The confession is so striking and nonsensical that the legal system doesn't know what to do with him. They sentence him to hard labor in Siberia for a few years—the lightest punishment he could have ever received.

You would think that now he's happy with himself. He killed someone, felt regret, and is now doing some punishment; eventually, he will be redeemed. But this causes even more anxiety and confusion in him.

He did not repent of his crime.

At least he might have found relief in raging at his stupidity, as he had raged at the grotesque blunders that had brought him to prison. But now in prison, in freedom, he thought over and criticised all his actions again and by no means found them so blundering and so grotesque as they had seemed at the fatal time.

“In what way,” he asked himself, “was my theory stupider than others that have swarmed and clashed from the beginning of the world? One has only to look at the thing quite independently, broadly, and uninfluenced by commonplace ideas, and my idea will by no means seem so strange. Oh, sceptics and half-penny philosophers, why do you halt half-way!”

He doesn't understand what's happening or what his problem is. There was nothing wrong with his plan, nothing wrong with what he did, and now he's being punished and cannot escape his own reason.

Remember Achilles in The Iliad? He had the same problem. He saw the death of his friend Patroclus, swore vengeance against Hector, killed him, and mutilated his body. You would think he would find relief and catharsis, but it only made him more depressed and miserable. This is what Homer and Dostoevsky are telling us: don't try to reason things out. It will only make you miserable because the truth is not within reason. The truth is within the human heart.

“Why does my action strike them as so horrible?” he said to himself. “Is it because it was a crime? What is meant by crime? My conscience is at rest. Of course, it was a legal crime, of course, the letter of the law was broken and blood was shed. Well, punish me for the letter of the law and that's enough. Of course, in that case many of the benefactors of mankind who snatched power for themselves instead of inheriting it ought to have been punished at their first steps. But those men succeeded and so they were right, and I didn't, and so I had no right to have taken that step.”

It was only in that that he recognised his criminality, only in the fact that he had been unsuccessful and had confessed it.

He keeps on reasoning and decides that the source of his misery is his weakness. He killed the lady and felt regret, which proves he's not great. Napoleon wouldn't have felt any regret. Julius Caesar would have laughed about it. Alexander the Great would have bragged about it. But he felt regret, and therefore he is weak. That is where his reasoning gets him, and it makes him more miserable.

But he finds salvation and redemption in the love of Sonia. Raskolnikov is in Siberia, in prison, and Sonia comes all the way to be with him. This is how the novel ends.

How it happened he did not know. But all at once something seemed to seize him and fling him at her feet. He wept and threw his arms round her knees. For the first instant she was terribly frightened and she turned pale. She jumped up and looked at him trembling. But at the same moment she understood, and a light of infinite happiness came into her eyes. She knew and had no doubt that he loved her beyond everything and that at last the moment had come....

This is what saves him. He surrenders himself to his love for Sonia. Think back to The Iliad. What saves Achilles is Priam coming, kissing his hand, and forgiving him. Then Achilles surrenders himself to Priam, and they cry together. The source of salvation and redemption is in our hearts, not in reason. You have to surrender yourself to your love, either for other people like Sonia or to God. That's where salvation is.

Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov

The other great novel of Dostoevsky is The Brothers Karamazov. It's much too long to read, but there's a very important passage within it called "The Grand Inquisitor." The Grand Inquisitor is in charge of the Inquisition in Spain in 1492, which is horrific. Christians with their own ideas are being persecuted and slaughtered. It is a nightmare.

Jesus, in heaven, sees this pain and suffering, and it bothers him. He descends to earth. As he's walking among men, people recognize him and worship him. Then he's dragged before the Grand Inquisitor and becomes his prisoner. At this point, you would think the Grand Inquisitor would be happy to see his God. Instead, he gets really, really angry at Jesus.

“Didst Thou not often say then, ‘I will make you free’? But now Thou hast seen these ‘free’ men,” the old man adds suddenly with a pensive smile. “Yes, we’ve paid dearly for it,” he goes on, looking sternly at Him, “but at last we have completed that work in Thy name. For fifteen centuries we have been wrestling with Thy freedom, but now it is ended and over for good. Dost Thou not believe that it’s over for good? Thou lookest meekly at me and deignest not even to be wroth with me. But let me tell Thee that now, to-day, people are more persuaded than ever that they have perfect freedom, yet they have brought their freedom to us and laid it humbly at our feet. But that has been our doing. Was this what Thou didst? Was this Thy freedom?”

The Grand Inquisitor is saying to him, "I sacrificed myself to free my people, to give them free choice, free will to love me freely. Instead, you guys have built this great Christian empire, the Catholic Church, to oppress everyone. Why?" The Grand Inquisitor replies, "It's because people don't want free choice. They don't want free will. They only want to be told what to do, and you refused to be their king, their emperor. You demand that they reason, that they love you freely, and people don't want to do that. So we had no choice but to oppress people, to build the church as a great oppressive empire to liberate people from the burden of free choice."

“And how are the other weak ones to blame, because they could not endure what the strong have endured? How is the weak soul to blame that it is unable to receive such terrible gifts? Canst Thou have simply come to the elect and for the elect?”

He's also saying to Jesus, "Listen, you tell us that only by believing in you freely can we be redeemed. But that takes power, that takes strength. What about those who cannot do such a thing? What about the weak, the lost? Will you condemn them to hell? That's not very merciful."

This is how the story ends.

When the Inquisitor ceased speaking he waited some time for his Prisoner to answer him. His silence weighed down upon him. He saw that the Prisoner had listened intently all the time, looking gently in his face and evidently not wishing to reply. The old man longed for Him to say something, however bitter and terrible. But He suddenly approached the old man in silence and softly kissed him on his bloodless aged lips. That was all his answer. The old man shuddered. His lips moved. He went to the door, opened it, and said to him: “‘Go, and come no more.... Come not at all, never, never!’ And he let Him out into the dark alleys of the town. The prisoner went away.”

“And the old man?”

“The kiss glows in his heart, but the old man adheres to his idea.”

What this is saying is this: the Grand Inquisitor has this philosophy of why Jesus is bad, why we should worship Satan, why we need an empire and oppression. And it all makes sense. Now Jesus must respond. And Jesus responds with an act of forgiveness, an act of charity. He kisses the Grand Inquisitor. This is exactly like Priam kissing Achilles. Priam didn't go to reason with Achilles; he went to kiss his hand, to forgive him.

What's important for us to understand is that the kiss glows in his heart, but the old man adheres to his idea. We can't change someone's reason ever, but we can change his heart with an act of mercy, forgiveness, and love. That's the secret of humanity. Debate gets you nowhere because people are stubborn about their ideas. But the heart, even though it's a mystery, is still loving and open. If you touch it, you change people forever.

Conclusion: A Clash of Civilizations

Let's go back to the original question: Why did Putin invade Ukraine? What Putin has said over and over again is, "We invaded Ukraine to save Russian civilization." And that's the answer. Because for the Russians, their civilization is unique, distinct, and beautiful. It's worth dying for. Even though the Russian Empire is gone, Putin and the Russians believe they are the heirs to the empire.

To understand why this war happened, let's look at the differences between American and Russian civilization, as the Russians see it.

The Russians think, "No, we are a spiritual people. We are unique, and we demand sovereignty. We demand the right to be who we are. And if it means fighting America, if it means our deaths, if it means sacrifice, we will do so because our civilization is the greatest in the world. Because our conception of God is the correct conception. Because our truth is the real truth."

In other words, this is really a clash of civilizations. And in a clash of civilizations, there can only be one winner. There can be no compromise. This war in Ukraine is signaling something much more devastating, much more cataclysmic. This is what's going on.