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The destiny of a well-known komi scientist-ethnographer, writer,
enlightener Kallistrat Falaleevich Zhakov was not easy. All his life he was in
creative search, trying to open something new in science, literature, in
understanding of the world, to find his own place in it and to help other people to
find the truth. His searchings in many things (if not in everything) were
determined by religious views, the basis of which was formed in consciousness
of a thinker yet in early childhood.
Kallistrat Zhakov was born on September 18, 1866 in a small village of
Davpon near Ust-Sysolsk (now part of Syktyvkar). He spent his childhood in the
Komi-land - at that time the remotest province of Russian Empire. His father, a
talanted engraver, earned additionally on ornamenting iconostases in Orthodox
Churches, straggled in different villages of the Komi-land, with the boy
accompanying him. Childhood impressions of these travels lay deep in the heart
and soul of K.Zhakov. Spending much time in village churches, with priests, he
absorbed the atmosphere of church spiritual life, and may be this resulted later in
some of his decisions and behaviour. It is no mere chance that many years later
Kallistrat Zhakov called iconostas of the Orthodox Church “symbolic remains of
all the wisdom of ancient phylosophy”.
However, the parents of K.Zhakov didn`t strictly follow the norms of
orthodoxy. His mother gave him milk to drink in fasting which was not allowed
to do, and “was not too religious”, as K.Zhakov himself recalled later. The ideas
of people of the Komi-land didn`t fully correspond to christian canons.
Afterwards Zhakov wrote: “Imagination of the people of this land should be
captured by mysterious, severe nature and be full of mysticism and distrust to
nature and man”. This “mysticism”, the heritage of the former heathen beleifs,
was widely spread among komi people, mixing up with Christianity, which gave
grounds for researchers of the first third of the XX century to speak of “two-
beleifs” of the komis. Thus, the childhood of Kallistrat Zhakov went in
surroundings of wood-goblins, water-sprites and christian holy things.
Zhakov started to study at the age of four, his first books, except “ABC-
book”, being christian church-service literature. At first the boy didn’t much wish
to study it. Here is one of the episodes from his childhood, as Zhakov recalled it:
“I am sitting and reading Psalter in sad voice”, my father working close-by
watching my reading. But as soon as my father is distracted by some friend of
his, “I immediately run away from home, and good-bye my learning for the whole
day”. Of great importance here was the fact, that there was no religious or some
other literature in the komi language at that time, while komi people knew Russian
very poorly (Zhakov himself started to speak Russian freely only at the age of
15). Nevertheless, by the time of entering school ( it was when he was 11)
Kallistrat Zhakov knew, according to him, “prayer-books, chasoslov (church-
service book with every-day prayers), Psalter”. He very much wanted to study
orthodox literature in the komi language. Once, on finding out that his coeval
“knows “The Virgin”in komi”he so much wished to talk to him that had gone one
hundred and fifty versts along Komi-land with his friend without any adults.
When entering elementary school in 1877, Zhakov said: “ I want to know prayers
in zyryan-language”. At school, which he finished in 1878, Kallistrat Zhakov,
apart from reading and writing and arithmetics, studied “some biblical
histories”(this was mentioned later in his autobiographic story). In 1878-1881
K.Zhakov studied mathematics, Russian language, Laws of God, history at the
Ust-Sysolsk college.
In autumn 1881 K.Zhakov left the Komi-land and went to the Russian town
of Totma, where, in spite of poor knowledge of the Russian language, he was
admitted to the Teachers seminary (there were no such educational institutions in
the Komi land). He found himself in quite new, unusual atmosphere, separated
from his relatives and friends, from native land. Under the influence of people,
surrounding him, the ideas of Zhakov of life and religion had changed. The
seminarist was keen on reading Ch.Darvin, read avidly “The origin of man”,
became materialist. “In less than a year I stopped beleiving into “water-sprites”, I
stopped beleiving everything”, - he wrote of this time. “I became convinced that
a thought is a chemical combination in a brain, that man developed from a
monkey, and that there is no great God in heaven”. This change in him was
noticed by his teachers, and one of them started to persecute him for “atheism”.
The result was that on finishing the seminary in 1884 Zhakov was disqualified as
a village teacher for “free-thinking”. In 1884-1886 K.Zhakov worked as an
unskilled worker at a plant in Vyatka province, served as a clerk in the village of
Kortkeros not far from Ust-Sysolsk. The priest of Kortkeros thought Zhakov to
be an atheist, and not without reason, as at that time he had nothing in his head
but “atoms, didn`t admit anything in nature”.
In 1887 K.Zhakov went to Vologda. In 1888 he entered the 5-th form of
the Vologda college. During his studies he became keen on idealistic phylosophy,
discovered for himself Kant, Tan. Studying of the works of Kant had changed all
his inner world. Materialism he beleived in disappeared. In the 7-th form Zhakov
was so much influenced by Kant that he felt it a burden to live: “The essence of
things is non-understandable, sciences know only shadows, illusions, our
feelings. What to live for?”- he thought, and took poison, but doctors saved him.
K.Zhakov left the college, but in 1891 returned to Vologda, having decided to
pass examinations without attending lectures. At that time he wrote his first, yet
unskilled phylosophical works “About God” and “On boundaries in knowledge”.
After passing the exams Zhakov went to Petersburg, where he entered
Timber Institute intending to become a forester, thus binding his lot with Zyryan
forest that attracted him with its age-old mysteries. “Zyryans are surrounded by
dense forest... This forest has become for them (zyryans) a living being,
powerful, mysterious, terrible. Hundreds of years passed, when this terrible
living being has divided in the mind of a primitive man into two beings - the
forest, full of wonders and mysteries, and the God of forests, a stern master in
them...”- he wrote later. But soon K.Zhakov got disappointed in his studies. A
large city, the capital of the Empire, staggered him: “I saw thousands of workers
living in poverty, I saw fuss, constant movement and absence of any naturality
and justice”- he spoke. “What is this fussy life, going on in Petersburg and other
large cities, for?” Neither was Zhakov satisfied with subjects he studied: “Natural
sciences that are taught in the Timber Institute are of no use to me: there is no
soul in them”. The life in Petersburg has become intolerable for him. The zyryan-
student felt drawn back to province, this remore corner, to the non-fussy life of
the village, where, as it seemed to him, spiritual life was preserved. And came
back the interest to Holy Writ, better realized now, which seemed to have gone
with childhood. “I wanted to become a priest”,- Zhakov recalled. G.S.Lytkin,
komi scientist and enlightener, who lived in Petersburg (Lytkin`s book “Zyryan
land under the Perm bishops and the zyryan language” impressed Zhakov greatly)
approved his intention. The rector of the Alexander-Nevski monastery Vassian
said to Zhakov:”It will be difficult for you to live among clergy-men”. But the
latter, on receiving a letter of recommendation from the office of Ober-
Prosecutor of the Holy Sinod to the Vologda bishop Ilarion, already at the end of
December 1891 was in Vologda.
When he met with Ilarion, the question was either to study at the
Ecclesiastical Academy or to devote himself to priesthood. The bishop advised
him to live in the monastery. His resolution on Zhakov`s application was: “It is of
no good for him to be idle, he should accustom himself to church-life”. Zhakov
met Christmas in Zaozerskaya hermitage not far from Vologda. He lived in a cell,
wore surplice of a lay-brother, read church-service-books, life-stories of holies,
attended divine services, sang on choir, wrote work “On immortality and
love”(“There, beginning with description of nature, I went up to the thought of
immortality, of eternal beauty and of love”,- he recalled). It seemed, everything
was OK, but... In some months after coming back from the hermitage Zhakov
was intrusted to teach arithmetics at the monastery school. In enthusiasm, he
started to give his pupils something of astronomy and physics, to tell them of the
sun and the planets, on the origin of man. “There are sceintists,-he said,- who say
that there was neither Adam nor Eva and that people originated from a monkey”.
Rumours on his “heretical” ideas quickly spread in the monastery. The attitude to
K.Zhakov had changed, he was treated with suspicion, a complaint was sent to
the bishop and the prosecutor. “I understood,- K.Zhakov wrote later,- that I
won`t be allowed to describe biblical and gospel events in lively vivid speech...I
guessed that I`ll never be a priest, and even if I were, I`ll be unfrocked later. I had
to find some other ways in life. I had to know myself, be satisfied with science
and become an independent preacher of truth”. With this thought, on the 5-th
month of his stay, Zhakov went away from Zaozerskaya hermitage.
On returning to Vologda Zhakov was arrested by police. He was
interrogated of his views on religion, contacts with local “free-thinkers” and
political convicts. From May 1892 to spring 1895 K.Zhakov was in Vologda
under surveillance of the police, and so he could not leave the town. On setting
free from surveillance, he wanted to pass the exams for school-leaving certificate,
to enter a university, but plucked in the examination of the Law of God. Next
year Zhakov passed the exams and entered the Kiev University, where he studied
mathematics, geology, anatomy, psychology, phylosophy, history, philological
sciences, going from physical-mathematical faculty to historical-philological, not
knowing what to choose.
In spite of non-successful experience from his stay in hermitage, Zhakov
didn`t lose interest to religion (not only to christian one). This interest increased
in 1899, when after the 3-rd course he came back to his native-land, where he
hadn`t been for 9 years. Zhakov visited many villages, known to him from
childhood, but this time he saw them from new, unexpected side. He “for the
first time looked at ...his native villages, great rivers, dense forests as a painter..
and was astonished by their beauty”. Leaving the Komi-land, he, “full of fairy-tale
plots”, on his way to Ustyug wrote the work “Heathen world outlook of
Zyryans”(published in 1901 in the journal “Nauchnoye obozreniye (Scientific
survey)”. In autumn 1899 Zhakov was transferred to the 3-rd course of
historical-philological faculty of the Petersburg University. He read papers in
phylosophy and folklore. This was noticed by his teachers, and in 1900
K.Zhakov was sent by the Academy of Sciences on a study tour to the Komi
land.This trip resulted in the work “Ethnological essay of Zyryans”written in
autumn 1900 (published in 1901 in the journal “Living olden times”). In the above
works the main place is given to religious beleifs of the komi people, their roots
and present-day state. We may suppose that the author was interested not only in
the scientific problem itself ; he considered himself to be an intergral part of
Zyryan people and tried to find out, to understand the roots of his own world
outlook. With these works started the transition of Zhakov to positions of
religious phylosophy.
Analyzing the world outlook of komi-zyryans, the roots of their
“mysticism”, K.Zhakov first of all addressed to natural conditions of the Komi-
land - to its bounless spaces, covered with forests, with scattered villages
stretching along river-banks. It is no mere chance, that the researcher accented
his attention at this fact, as it was what he himself loved and appreciated most of
all. As to cities, their civilization with cars (“dead cars..., pitiful product of human
hands”), Zhakov thought them to be an obstacle on the way to free development
of people, the force levelling human individuality. “I am dispirited with car-filled-
cities, giving no leisure, no development for a person”, “I am a peasant, and I am
perishing”,- he wrote.
Komi land made quite another impression, here were no large plants,
highways, towns (with the exception of small Ust-Sysolsk) with their fussy social
life.”Here are some other things”,- Zhakov wrote,- “the forest life. Almost all
space here is covered with forests. They are the place of hunting and feats, the
source of mysticism and poetry. Forests are... boundless, they have developed
the liveliness in the character of a zyryan. There is as little of social mind in him,
as much of wild, natural power... He is brave and courageous as a hunter,... he
is a son of spacious forests”. “People living here should...keep to polytheism,
beleifs, the essence of which is in personification of great natural phenomena”,-
thought Zhakov. “The poetry of religion...is the expression of the nature of a
locality, occupation of the people”. Forest and hunting, in the opinion of
K.Zhakov, had the greatest effect on the formation of beleifs of zyryans. “The
dense forest gave some concrete trend to shamanism in zyryans. The God of
forest - Versa - was in the central place among other gods, if not in might, then in
closeness to man”. “Zyryans live on river-banks,-he continued,-...River gives
them food and water... Rivers are ways of communication. So another cycle...of
beliefs...deals with water and its master - water-sprite”. “The third occupation of
zyryans ...is farming. It depended on other gods, on the Sun, the God of thunder
and lightning, the winds”. Zhakov thought that “versa”, the forest master, his
wide - “ema”, their children, bear - “osh”, the God of the river -“vasa”- were the
closest gods for komis. “Sacrifices were made to these close gods”. “Zyryans
had ...sanctuaries, full of copper and wooden gods - gods of forest, water, fire
etc. They had sacred birch-trees always decorated with animal skins”. They also
had gods that “were far from people”: “The dome of heaven decorated with stars
was the habitat of God “En”... The God of Sun and the God of Moon and
heavenly Ox (eshka-meshka) also lived in the skies. Zhakov mentioned of
“peculiar komi theory about “ort”- man`s double... When a person comes on a
visit, his “ort”- shadow, double, the same as this person is, in the same clothes -
comes with him. When a person dies, his “ort” continues to live, and it may be
seen.
“Christianity didn`t bring any sudden change into this world of peculiar
technology and mythology”,- K.Zhakov pointed out. Until now the ideas of
people ...are full of mystic views on nature and man”, “the world outlook of the
komis is nothing but heathenism, a bit changed, smoothed by Christianity, but
not destroyed”. Zhakov spoke of “two-beliefs”of the komis, of their “religious
duality”, odd combination of Orthodoxy with ancient heathen beliefs.
(Undoubtedly, these remarks may be referred to religious views of Kallistrat
Zhakov that were formed under the influence of not only Christianity and
Heathenism, but of other religions and dogmas of the West and the Orient).
“Two-beleifs”, Zhakov noted, ”gradually disappear in people under the influence
of the Church and reading the Holy Writ”, slowly altering into “a truly christian
dogma”. But even “now” when all previous gods are forgotten, the God of forest
still plays a great role in ...beliefs, in superstitious stories. He now and then
appears with his dog among hunters and begins to cry: “Tet, tet!”- this is how he
calls his dog”.
Sadly K.Zhakov pointed out considerable differences in relation to religion
in different generations of komis. “There is great difference between grandfathers
and grandchildren in zyryans. Grandparents were trappers, magicians, mystics,
singers. Their grandchildren are workers at timber-merchants, wood-cutters at
Perm plants, there is little mysticism in their souls and absolutely no poetry”. “In
the soul of growing generation, brought up under Russian plant-owner, you will
find no former idealism that was formed in dense forests under the influence of
heathen mythology and beginning of Christianity. People became materialists.
Wealth and force, these are their gods... Religion doesn`t give consolation”. The
loss of interest of new komi generations to the beliefs of their fathers and
grandfathers, which Zhakov considered an integral part of culture, troubled him:
“Sadness fills you when you look at young people... What for do they live in the
North? What of the North do they have? Harmony between man and nature is
destroyed, there is no sense in his existence”. The reason for these changes
Kallistrat Zhakov saw in the industrial development and urban civilization. With
the increase of occupation at different by-work in industry “people stopped
working with zeal in agriculture, started to forget hunting, to be distracted from
home, to forget speaking zyryan-language, became bad-tempered”. “Many of
them stopped loving their motherland, lost respect to old customs and
traditions”. Zhakov only ascertains this fact, not knowing where to find the way
out. The solution will come only in two-three years...
In 1901 K.Zhakov graduated from the Petersburg University, for some
time he worked at the Russian Language and History Department, prepared a
dissertation on fairy-tales of zyryans. Then he taught at high schools, at
Chernyaev cources, since 1908 he worked at Psycho-Neurological Institute. In
the beginning of the XX century Zhakov went to several research expeditions,
wrote a number of works of literature (stories, essays, fairy-tales, poems and an
autobiographic story) and scientific works (on ethnography, folklore, linguistics,
mathematics, literary criticism...).
Kallistrat Zhakov considered the development of original phylosophic
theory which he called “limitism”- from the word “limes”- his main achievement
(according to one of the key provisions of limitism “cognition is a variable
quantity going to its limit, to being”, the prime reason of all is the “Prime
Potential or the God” who is “limitless in all directions and in all senses, it is
impossible to cognize him. He acts differently, but his attitude to cosmos is
cognisable”. The works of K.Zhakov “The theory of variable and limit in
gnosiology”, “Limitism: theory of variable and limit in gnosiology”, “The
fundamentals of evolutional theory of knowledge (limitism)” etc. are devoted to
limitism.
“I have been a materialist for a long time,- Zhakov recalled,- ...From the
age of 23 I was the follower of Kant and an idealist... But I was not satisfied by
any of these. From 35 I thought of their synthesis and came to my theory of
knowledge”. “Limitism gets over materialism, idealism and scepsis”. “Limitism is
a new method of studying the history of phylosophy and phylosophic history
and all other sciences... It unites all sciences and religions”. Zhakov stressed:
“Limitism comes to the doctrine on the Prime Potential, which is inexhaustible,
simple, natural, free, wise, good and indivisible.This is a medial understanding of
the world. Minimal permits only energy, maximal thirsts for God. So, limitism is a
religion of science. The doctrine of Prime Potential is the kernel of science and
religion”.
Kallistrat Zhakov addressed his theory not only to religious people, though
he himself at the beginning of the XX century finally changed over to positions of
religious phylosophy. “Limitism,- Zhakov wrote,- is a ground on which an atheist
is able to unite with a believer. An atheist doesn`t recognize the God as he is
unable to create him logically; a religious man feels the Gos without creating him.
In limitism an atheist can logically find the God, while a baliever - to feel him.
Thus, the point for an agreement is found”.
“There is God in every man,- Zhakov taught,- but He doesn`t show neither
for him, nor for any other ; for Him to show, there is necessary work and love
for the Creator”. One of the “Rules of life according to limitism”formulated by
K.Zhakov read: “All your days try to find the God - your Creator”. It will not be
an exaggeration to say that the first 3-4 decades from Zhakov`s life were devoted
to this search. And then, on finding his Creator and the way to follow to preserve
the spiritual life testated by forefathers, the thinker formulated his task as follows:
“My task is to preach of my God, to wander on the Earth and, without slyness,
with naivety of a child, to describe all I hear and see...This way I`ll create a fairy-
tale of the world”. K.Zhakov thought the main aim of his activity of an enlightener
to be “the distribution of evolutional religion”. At lectures he “spoke of the God
and the world”, “of Prime Potential - the wise principle of the Universe”.
“Everyone will perish without the religion”, - the scientist thought.
Though Zhakov wrote that “there is no higher phylosophy than
Orthodoxy”, his religion, his God were not well inserted into the orthodox ( and
even christian) canons. It is no mere chance that in one of the towns no listeners
attending courses for teachers of church-parochial schools were admitted to his
lectures: “one ecclesiastic” thought Zhakov to be non-orthodox, but “panteist”.
Really, in his beleiefs of the next world the influence of religions of the Orient is
reflected. He wrote: “Life in the next world is a potential life of spiritual remains
of man...Dreams are also the potential of soul. Dreams are the symbol of the next
world. Dreams, lethargy, hypnosis are analogs, symbols for cognition of the next
world. As in dreams we see that we are attacked by different animals, the
symbols of our instincts, so in the next world our worst feelings and deeds will
appear before us as animals hungering after us”. “After corporal death of a
man...the Prime Potential core of our being...remains, and on the Prime Potential
core traces of out deeds and thoughts and thirst for life are left. So the Prime
Potential core will reincarnate as another organism”. The researcher
V.V.Muravyev pointed out the closeness of K.Zhakov`s ideas of God to masson
understanding of God as the Great Architect of the Universe (but no information
of Zhakov`s belonging to massons is available). Kallistrat Zhakov`s sceptic
attitude to “official”Russian church is known: “I would like to go to pray to my
Father, but how can I go if I know that my people are under pressure of ministers
of religion in the home of my Father”. “There is necessary another language in
religion, another church forms”. In his search for these new forms, for new
language Zhakov , to some extent, followed Lev Tolsloi , the teachings of whom
greatly influenced the views of the scientist.
All the rest period of his life K.Zhakov devoted to propaganda of limitism.
In Petersburg he organized a circle for phylosophy, every year he went to
different regions of the country with lectures on limitism. Zhakov visited China,
Japan, twice he visited Finland. His works - scientific and fiction - were known in
Germany, France. In spring 1917 Zhakov left Petersburg, he lived in Pskov,
Tartu, Valga, at the end of 1921 he went to Riga. Everywhere supporters of his
teachings were left. Besides his work on enlightenment, Zhakov wrote new
scientific and literary works, worked as a teacher. He lived very modestly, almost
poorly. At the end of his life he wanted to return to Russia, but death on January
20, 1926 prevented him to do so. But K.Zhakov hoped to remain useful for his
favourite “child” even after his death: his balsamed body was to be kept in the
“Temple of limitism”, from where his teachings, as Zhakov hoped, will be
spreading all around the world. But in some time after the death of the creator of
limitism his “evolutional religion of science” was forgotten. He was buried on one
of Riga cemeteries, where from many decades later his ashes were brought to
Syktyvkar.
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