The discourse over the classes and social groups of the modern. Publication and commentary by V.S. Razdyakonov

Abstract

The publication presents draft notes by P.A. Chistyakov, one of the leaders of the modern spiritualist movement in Russia at the beginning of the 20^th century. The document provides a glimpse of the spiritualists' views on a class structure of a society and also their estimation of the role and value of the monetary system. The commentary considers the degree of a possible influence of naturalistic sociology on the views of Russian spiritualists. It reveals the meaning of organic and mechanical metaphors in their descriptions of the society. Spiritualists, representing society as overtaken by “social disease”, believed that this disease would be finally overcome in the spiritual world by removing functional differences between individuals and social groups. The document also represents spiritualists' view on the creative work as a means of human transformation what previously has not been discussed in research literature. The commentary proposes to consider spiritualistic opinions on the nature of society in the context of the discussions held in Russian religious philosophy at that time. It believes the spiritualist ethics was the labor ethics par excellence, while spiritualists' activities to improve themselves and society were endowed with soteriological meaning. The published document is of interest to historians of religion who specialize in the study of changes in the social notions of religious communities and persons in the late 19^th - early 20^th centuries.