Sergei Alexandrovich Volkov. Near the monastery walls. Memoir. Diaries. Letters. (№ 423331)

There is an outstanding book "Near the Monastery Walls" by Sergei Volkov, one of the last graduates of the old Moscow Theological Academy. In my opinion, one of the best works about the Church and the Trinity-Sergius Lavra of the period of the revolution. Volkov knew Saint Tikhon, Hieromartyr Hilarion Troitsky, listened to Florensky's lectures, saw the closure of the Lavra in the 1920s and its opening after the war, taught, and became beggar. He died in the 1960s without having a family and spent his entire life working on diaries and memories, most of which have disappeared. But even what has been preserved and published in the form of the above book amazes with the volume of knowledge and amazing language, poetic, soft and deep, which marked the era of modernity.
But not only that is attractive. He was replaced by family, household amenities, friends, social circle of the book. He was a man who read all his life voraciously, who in the most bleak years obtained, bit by bit, rare, often forbidden books, analyzed them, got used to them, communicated with them as with living people. Reading, organizing what he read, analyzing texts and ideas became for Volkov the main and main business of life.
The records contain several thousand (!) Books, brochures and articles from the 18th to the middle of the 20th century. Volkov recalled how he returned to books during the difficult war years. “I again plunged into the world of knowledge and truly aesthetic pleasure. And again, as once upon a time in the academic years, I was carried away by all this. Antique World, Middle Ages and Renaissance; Goethe, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky and Balzac; Persian, Japanese and Chinese poets; the history of China and Egypt, philosophical and archaeological journals, memoirs, works, travel - everything came to life for me again. I read new and re-read old books ... Books are material clots of the world mind and world soul - you were true teachers and companions in life. The Academy and Florensky, symbolists, mystics, dreamers, visionaries, poets, musicians - you are the joy and color of the world, teachers, mentors, friends, loved ones and relatives! All the people who came into close contact with me, who influenced me with their kindness, sympathy, affection, wisdom, all teachers, friends, acquaintances, students, comrades - I see, I remember and are grateful to you ”- he enthusiastically described his attitude to books. “How would I like to know,” he wrote, “what people like Romain Rolland, Maurice Maeterlinck, Knut Hamsun, Bernard Shaw, Herbert Wales, Aldington, Feuchtwanger think and say now? What books did they publish, what did they say about this war and about the people and life of our days in general? And I - a contemporary of these talented and deeply respected people dear to my mind and heart - do not hear their voices and their heartbeats "on such days." It is insulting and bitter. And you hear different chatter from all sides, and on the radio, and through newspapers and magazines ... "
Among those records that I had to see, there are whole sections - poetry (Knyazhnin, Soloviev, Agnivtsev, Merezhskovsky, Severyanin, Gumilyov, Pasternak, Teffi and dozens of other names), art history, prose (hundreds of titles - from Olesha, Ilf and Petrov, Bely, Antokolsky, Veresaev to Morua, Gashek, Locke), ancient history, medieval history, modern history, bibliography and, finally, philosophy - Russian and Western, which he knew brilliantly. He made careful extracts from various books about those he knew - first of all, about Florensky, whom he idolized. This is not counting the most varied periodicals and occasional brochures and articles. Separately, a list of "books that I would like to have" was compiled. Among them are Mandelstam, Muratov, Marienhof, Rolland, Nietzsche, Spengler ...
To "feel" that distant, tragic, densely saturated and wonderful time, you need to read not so many authors. Among them, no doubt, Sergei Volkov.