Culture at a Turning Point: Observations and Speculations
Abstract
My time will soon be over. I shall have to say good-bye and leave. I came to the Earth when the world was still peaceful. It was the time when people believed in the infinite future, when the Russian Empire was still flourishing. I had an active life: I worked a lot, I stood up against many things, I had friends and teachers, I passed through the circle of suffering beyond Dante's imagination, I wrote many books that were edited either in our country or at least in the West. Now I feel like looking around and trying to comprehend what has happened, what I participated in, what was it that people who were my kin perished for? What are we leaving to the future inhabitants of the Earth? I am well aware of living at the turning point of culture. But what can be said about that? And who will hear what we say?