Pecherin's Quest for Meaningfulness

The wide divergence of views among the Russian Westernizers makes it difficult to generalize about them, and the personality of Vladimir Pecherin, in particular, defies all categorization. In his search for perfection he was, like the radical Westernizers, led from idealism to left Hegelianism to revolution. But unlike the radical Westernizers he ultimately freed himself from the revolutionary mystique and moderated his demands for perfection, finding meaningfulness in a life of service as a Roman Catholic priest at a hospital in Dublin. It seems worth while to re-examine Pecherin's intellectual development, since the only Russian biography of Pecherin, by Mikhail Gershenzon, was completed before the publication of Pecherin's memoirs, Zamogil'nye zapiski. Of two recent German works, the essay by Victor Frank centers on Pecherin, the Russian exile, but takes the memoirs insufficiently into account in evaluating Pecherin's religious views.