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Thursday 6 October 2022

Blavatsky’s Writings on Russia

Blavatsky’s Writings on Russia
Even though living a rather nomadic life, Blavatsky still maintained much contact with Russia, and often shared interesting news about Russia to english-speaking audiences. Below is a sampling that give an extra glimpse into the Russian character of her personality.
 
She was actually quite candid about her attitude to her natal country, stating in a newspaper interview:
"No, I am an American by adoption - I respect American religious freedom - but I am still a good Russian at heart. Only, there is too little freedom at home; that is why I do not go back. I have not been in Russia for many years; I would not care to give my friends and relations a chance of shutting me up in a convent for life on the plea that I was a victim of illusions. I like the Emperor personally, if only because of the long relations of my family with the Imperial house. We have always been loyal supporters of the throne. I see very little Russian society even at Nice, where I might see everybody. It is so unpleasant to find them wondering why you do not go to Church, and to the Greek Church."
 
The Making of a Global Community: Blavatsky’s Travelogues from 1879 to 1886
Marina Alexandrova Oct 8, 2021  
This paper presents the history of publication and analysis of Blavatsky’s three works written in Russian about India, The Mysterious Tribes of the Blue Mountains, Durbar of Lahore, and From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan, all initially published in serialized form in the leading Russian periodicals and separate editions between 1879 and 1886.
 
Liberation Theosophy: Discovering India and Orienting Russia between Velimir Khlebnikov and Helena Blavatsky
Anindita Banerjee
PMLA , Volume 126 , Issue 3 , May 2011 , pp. 610 - 624
Why would Khlebnikov invoke Blavatsky, the founder of a spiritual movement called heosophy, in a meditation on worldly violence framed by the First World War and the impending October Revolution? And why would he single out India, geographically and historically distant from Russia’s upheavals in the twentieth century, as a locus for discovering Russian identity? Khlebnikov’s own account of a journey to India, composed simultaneously with A New Lesson about War, provides a tantalizingly complex answer to this enigma. 
 
The Russian Investigation 
another disgrace for science.—the St. Petersburg
professors imitate those of Harvard and London. — A. N. Aksakoff’s noble protest.
[Spiritual Scientist, Boston, Vol. IV, April 27, 1876, pp. 85-7] Collected Writings,V.1, 204
Translation of a letter of protest against irregularities by the
commission appointed by the society of physical sciences of the St. Petersburg University, for the investigation of mediumistic manifestations. 
 

A. N. Aksakov
“Psychophobia” in Russia

[Banner of Light, Boston, Vol. XXXIX, No. 5, April 29, 1876, p. 8] CW, V.1, 210
Comments and translation of protest by Alexander Mikhaylovich Butlerov regarding previous irregularities 

The Russian Scientists
Excitement in St. Petersburg.—a protest by the highest nobility of the empire.—the severest rebuke a scientific body ever had.
[Banner of Light, Boston, Vol. XXXIX, June 24,1876, p. 8] CW, V.1, 215
 Another letter of protest on the high-profile Russian investigation with an impressive number of signatures. Blavatsky criticizes Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev 

 
Turkish Barbarities
[The World, New York, August 13, 1877] CW, V.1, 255
Defends Russian against reports of war crimes in the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878. Received correspondence from Alexander Yulyevich de Witte (1846-1877) the second son of Yuliy Feodorovich de Witte and Katherine Andreyevna de Fadeyev, sister of H.P.B.’s mother. He was a younger brother of Serguey Yulyevich de Witte who became Prime Minister of Russia.
“I regard this war not as one of Christian against Muslim, but as one of humanity and civilization against barbarism.” 
 
The Jews in Russia
[New York World, Sept. 25th, 1877] CW, V.1, 262
Blavatsky writes to defend against news statements that Jews are oppressed in Russia.
 
The State of Russia (From a Correspondent)
[The Pioneer, Allâhâbâd, May 4, 1881] CW, V.3, 155
Dramatic, eloquent, insightful account of the assassination of Emperor Alexander II of Russia.
 

Alexander II
Persian Zoroastrianism and Russian Vandalism
[The Theosophist, Vol. I, No. 1, October, 1879, pp. 19-21] CW, V.2, 122
Blavatsky protests against Russian oil drilling near an ancient Zoroastrian temple: ''And now, hardly a year later, we find in the papers that Messrs. Kokoreff and Co., are busy erecting on the Fiery Field enormous buildings for the refining of petroleum! All the cells but the one occupied by the poor old hermit, half-ruined and dirty beyond all expression, are inhabited by the firm’s workmen; the altar over which blazed the sacred flame, is now piled high with rubbish, mortar and mud, and the flame itself turned off in another direction. The bells are now, during the periodical visits of a Russian priest, taken down and suspended in the porch of the superintendent’s house; heathen relics being as usual used—though abused—by the religion which supplants the previous worship.''
 

War in Olympus

[The Theosophist, Vol. I, No. 2, November, 1879, pp. 40-42]
The Teutons and Slavs in the case under observation, are not fighting according to their nationality but conformably to their respective beliefs and unbeliefs. Having concluded, for the occasion, an offensive as well as a defensive alliance, regardless of race—they have broken up in two camps, one representing the spiritualists, and the other the skeptics. And now war to the knife is declared. Leading one party, are Professors Zöllner, Ulrici, and Fichte, Butleroff and Wagner, of the Leipzig, Halle and St. Petersburg Universities; the other follows Professors Wundt, Mendeleyeff, and a host of other German and Russian celebrities.

[H.P.B.’S Writings in Russian]

CW, V.1, 313

There are some Russian newspaper writings of Blavatsky that do not seem to have been located.
 

Russian Superstitions 

A Russian folk belief related by Evgeny Lvovich Markov
[The Theosophist. Vol. I, No. 12, September, 1880, pp. 308-309] CW, V.2, 444

The Study of Russian by Indian Officers
[Bombay Gazette, Bombay, February 21, 1881] CW, V.3, 46
Likes the idea of Anglo-Indian-Russian cross-cultural language learning exchanges.

A Russian “Symposium”
[The Pioneer, Allahabad, March 1, 1881] CW, V.3, 75
Comments on Russian writers articles on Anglo-Indian/ Russian relations. ''We need hardly explain that, in giving an account of this controversy, we aim merely at showing on what inaccurate pictures of the whole situation the public opinion of Russia is nourished—not at reproducing views which have any substantial claims to attention.''
 
What scientific Russia knows of Ceylon
[The Theosophist, Vol. V, No. 5 (53), February, 1884, p. 110] CW, V.6, 138 
Debunks reports that the Singhalese practice polyandry.
 
Are all Russian ladies Russian agents?
What Madame Blavatsky has to say
[Pall Mall Gazette, London, Vol. XLIX, January 3, 1889, p. 7] CW, V.10, 291  
A good example of all the truly amazing amount of rumours circulating about her, even in her own lifetime, to which she would frequently respond to. Blavatsky is portrayed in a novel, 'Miss Hildreth' by  Augusta de Grasse Stevens. Gives a hint as to the origin of the doubtful correspondence with 'Prince Dondoukoff-Korsakoff'. ''Prince Doudaroff Korsakoff stands probably as the cunning anagram of Prince Dondoukoff-Korsakoff? This gentleman has been a friend of my family and myself since 1846; yet beyond two or three letters exchanged, I have never corresponded with him. It was Mr. Primrose, Lord Lytton’s Secretary, who was the first to write to him, in order to sift to the bottom another mystery. The Anglo-Indian Mrs. Grundy had mistaken me for my ‘twin-brother’ apparently, and people wanted to know which of us was drowned in the washtub during our infancy—myself or that ‘twin-brother,’ as in the fancy of the immortal Mark Twain. Hence the correspondence for purposes of identification.''
 
Neo-Buddhism
CW, V.12, 334 
Unpublished response to Vladimir Solovyov’s review of The Key to Theosophy , in Russkoe obozrenie, 1890, no. 8, pp. 881–886.
An example of a certain type of intellectual who refuses to engage with her writings per se, due to her reputation and the misconceptions regarding Theosophy. She does quite well in dealing with this and despite obvious struggles, succeeds in remaining fairly diplomatic. Not too sure how this even begins to be about the Sarva-darsana-Sangraha of  Mâdhavâchârya, but serves to show her capacity to go head-to-head with a leading Russian intellectual, defending the traditional six darshanas, schools of Hindu philosophy, which today are considered much more standard than the  Mâdhavâchârya listing.
 
Problems of life
from the diary of an old physician By N. I. Pirogoff (Translated from the Russian by H.P.B.)
[Lucifer, Vol. VII. December, 1890, and January and February,

1891; Vol. VIII, March, April, May, June, July, August, 1891;
Vol. IX, October, 1891.] CW, V.12,
403  

Interesting esoteric commentary on the mystical observations from a great Russian scientist's memoirs.

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