Karsavin's philosophy was created by the last of the systems of the Russian metaphysics of all-unity. As for any great thinker, such a position for him did not mean an advantage (the ability to move in the beaten path, relying on the ideas of his predecessors), but, on the contrary, a source of difficulties, because there was a danger of becoming secondary, dependent, and unoriginal. And like any great thinker, he managed to overcome these difficulties. Karsavin's system is distinguished by its bright independence, introducing a number of fundamentally new aspects into the tradition. From the very beginning, Karsavin approached the solution of the initial problem of any system of all-unity in a new way, in his own way: where can we see the basic prototype, so to speak, the basic model of all-unity, as a certain principle of the organization of existence? His predecessors—Solovyov, Florensky, and others—considered the "world in God" as such a model: nothing other than the ancient "world of ideas" of Plato's philosophy, adapted to the concepts of the Christian era, interpreted as the totality of the Creator's plans for all things and phenomena. Karsavin, on the other hand, is looking for other models, more concrete, closer to the local reality. In addition, the very intuition about all-unity receives a significant development and enrichment in him. The principle of all-unity characterizes reality in its static aspect, as a kind of abiding. Karsavin, as a historian, has always been characterized by seeing reality dynamically, under the sign of development, process; and these aspects of it were not sufficiently reflected in the principle of all-unity. Therefore, in addition to this principle, he introduces another, the universal principle of becoming, of changing reality. This principle is the "trinity," or the totality of three consubstantial but mutually ordered stages, which Karsavin usually calls "primordial unity—separation—reunion," and which are described as a certain (any) unity, having passed through self-separation, reunites itself. The reader here will immediately recall Hegel's famous triad of dialectics: thesis – antithesis – synthesis. The convergence of the two triads is quite legitimate, but it should be clarified: Hegel's philosophy is only the final link in an ancient chain of philosophical systems based on the principle of the triad as a universal principle of existential dynamics, coming from antiquity, from the Neoplatonism of Plotinus and Proclus. And in this chain, Karsavin brings his concept of the trinity closer not so much to the Hegelian triad (as most Russian philosophers, beginning with Khomyakov, he felt alien to himself Hegel's pathos of self-sufficient abstract thinking), but to the ideas of one of Hegel's main predecessors, the famous Renaissance philosopher Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464). But the more important point is the connection between the two principles. Karsavin subordinates all-unity to the triunity, including it in the three-stage process of separation-reunification: for him, all-unity is, as it were, a "momentary slice" of the triunity, the principle of the structure of the disuniting-reuniting unity at any stage, "at any moment" (although it must be remembered that the entire three-stage process does not necessarily take place in time).

As a result, Karsavin's philosophy turns out to be no longer just another of the "systems of all-unity". It is based on a richer, tightly knit ontological structure of two interrelated principles: the principle of triunity, which describes the dynamics of reality, and the principle of all-unity, which describes its statics. It is for this integral structure that he finds the "basic model" of which we have spoken above; and it is not surprising that it turns out to be different from the "world in God" of previous systems. The final solution was not found immediately. Karsavin's three main philosophical works—The Philosophy of History (1923), On the Elements (1925), and On Personality (1929)—reflect the three stages of his search.

Naturally, in the Philosophy of History he applies his philosophical intuitions to historical reality and finds here that the principles of trinity and all-unity are subject to the historical process, and along with it the psychic process, the element of the life of consciousness. Then the scope of application of the principles expands: in the On the Elements, both fundamental subjects of metaphysics, the Absolute (God) and the created world, are already described on their basis. Cosmos. In this book, Karsavin for the first time presents his views as a new integral system of religious philosophy. But the application of the principle of all-unity, as well as the principle of the triad, to the doctrine of God and the world in itself was not something new and did not provide any original "basic model" of ontological structure. Such a model was put forward by Karsavin only at the next stage, in his book "On Personality". This is his main work, the final synthesis of his philosophical thought. The book is based on the key idea: the ontological structure of the trinity-all-unity is realized in the personality, describes the structure and life of the personality. Thanks to this idea, the metaphysics of all-unity accepted and placed at the forefront the concept of personality; and this transformation of it into a philosophy of personality is the most important thing that Karsavin introduced into our old tradition of all-unity.

Of course, here we have a Christian philosophy of personality. In accordance with the dogmas of Christianity, Karsavin's concept of personality is applied primarily not to man, but to God. Man is a personality only imperfectly, rudimentarily; but the purpose and meaning of his life consist in communion with the fullness of divine being, and consequently in becoming a true personality, "personification", as Karsavin writes. It is easy to catch the consonance of these ideas with our habitual ideas about personality. Karsavin shrewdly notes that, according to these ideas, personality for a person is an object of aspiration rather than an aspiration. possessions: that which I and everyone else would like to be, but, alas, we may not be. In this way, our today's concepts betray their religious source: the desire of the worldly man to be a person is a fading reflection of the Christian ideal of deification, the striving and duty of man to become God. And all this circle of Karsavin's thoughts and constructions, without a doubt, still retains value and interest, constituting an actual, even topical, part of his philosophical heritage. The problem of personality today is one of our key spiritual problems.

In conclusion, let us return to the personality and fate of the philosopher. In 1940, he moved from Kaunas to Vilnius following the university and resumed teaching there after the end of the war. In 1945-1946, he was allowed to teach the only course, aesthetics, and then he was completely removed from teaching. For two years he still worked as the director of the Art Museum in Vilnius - and then he was arrested. After the investigation and trial, in the autumn of 1950, he was transferred to Abez, a disabled camp near the vast complex of Inta camps: in the remand prison, he began to have a tuberculosis process.

Peering into the fate of a real thinker, one always gets the impression that its features bear the imprint of his spirit, the external is subordinate to the internal. Karsavin was a thinker of a paradoxical bent. He was drawn to paradoxes, and he generously filled his philosophical constructions and his conversation with them. This was clearly conveyed to his biography - it is full of paradoxes no less than his virtuoso "spirals of thought" (his favorite expression). The last, tragic period is no exception. Imprisonment in a lager brought an outburst, the rise of his creativity - isn't it a paradox?! In less than two years in the barracks of Abezi he created at least ten works, including an exposition of the essence, the quintessence of his philosophy in the form of... wreath of sonnets and the tercine cycle. Of course, these works are not large, but the depth and acuteness of thought in them do not betray him in the least. And one more thing, no less surprising. The camp was also the period in his life about which we know more and most of all. The main reason for this is this: in the camp he met the Apprentice.

A. A. Vaneev (1922–1985) was far away· not an ordinary person. A talented engineer who came to the camp at a very young age and became a believing Christian there, he ardently devoted himself to spiritual learning and, having found it with Karsavin, forever remained faithful to his teacher and his system. "I have never met a person who would be so immersed in the world of his teacher's ideas," writes a former fellow prisoner, an Austrian philosopher, about him. "Karsavin was his mentor in history, philosophy, religion, in Latin and Greek... and Plato's Academy itself could not have had a more grateful student... He could read Karsavin's camp writings by heart for hours. But at the same time, he was not only full of his word, read or heard; after Karsavin's death, he continued to develop his thoughts, to complete his metaphysical system." A. A. Vaneev left his camp memoirs "Two Years in Abez". However, only a few meager phrases speak about the author himself, about his life. In the center of memories is Lev Platonovich Karsavin. So, the word to the Disciple.

«… After resting, Karsavin found time when he could work. After breakfast he settled down half-sitting in bed. His legs bent at the knees and a piece of plywood on them served him as a music stand. With a shard of glass, he sharpened a pencil, leisurely drew lines on a sheet of paper and wrote in a straight, thin, slightly trembling handwriting. He wrote almost without corrections, interrupting work only to sharpen a pencil or line another sheet. First of all, the Wreath of Sonnets, composed as a souvenir in the remand prison, was written down... Having finished work on the Sonnets, Karsavin continued the poetic expression of his ideas in the Terzines, after which he wrote a Commentary on his poems... The favorable time for work was short. At about 11 o'clock the doctor's rounds began. Then Karsavin put away everything related to written work in the bedside table, read, if there was something to read, talked... And in general, he spent the rest of the day in the same way as everyone else did. People around him saw in him an eccentric old man, who wrote out of idleness or out of habit."

"In everything that Karsavin said, I was attracted by a certain special, hitherto unknown essentiality of understanding. Karsavin knew how to speak without imposing himself in the least. Of the things that were most serious to him, he spoke as if he were a little joking. And as he spoke, the restrained, affectionate half-smile on his face and the diamond gleam in the warm blackness of his eyes seemed to remove the distance between him and the interlocutor. When he went deep into himself, his gaze acquired concentration, did not withdraw into itself, but passed through the surroundings, as if beyond the limits of the visible. The same is true of what he wrote... Our "here" became transparent to him, but never illusory. This is the method of Karsavin's spiritual work. In his speculations, the world remains itself and loses nothing, but undergoes a new comprehension."

But the philosopher's days were already numbered. His tuberculosis is progressing rapidly, and the names of the parts in the Memoirs are the stages of his descent through the steps of the camp medical system: Inpatient — Semi-Inpatient — Isolation Ward for the Hopeless. The last hours were approaching.

"When I came the next day, Karsavin said to me in a cheerful voice:

"A priest, a Lithuanian, came to me. I confessed to him in Lithuanian. You see how God came up with the idea of arranging through you.

Karsavin was lying on his back, his hands on top of the blanket. In the slit of his unbuttoned shirt I saw that on his chest lay two crosses, one mine, made of lead, and the other black, gleaming with a miniature crucifix. I was surprised and asked:

"Why are you wearing two crosses?"