Le christianisme social dans la tradition littéraire et philosophique russe : N. A. Kljuev et F. Lamennais

The article studies N. A. Klyuev’s work from the 1900s-1910s on the background of F.-R. Lamennais’ philosophy. After providing a brief history of the reception of Lamennais’ ideas in Russia (from P. Ya. Chaadaev to F. M. Dostoevsky and the revolutionaries), it offers a close-reading of Klyuev’s 1919 article “Red Alarm”, which reveals extended borrowings, without quotation marks or reference, from chapters 35 and 36 of Lamennais’ Words of a Believer (1834). An overview of Russian translations of Words of a Believer is then provided, in order to establish which translation Klyuev quoted from. The article then suggests that Klyuev’s mythology of the revolution originated in his reading of Lamennais, from whom he borrowed the idea that the sufferings of the revolution allow the Russian people to become like Christ and embody a new truth in the world, not only spiritually, but also socially. Additionnaly, it seems very likely that Klyuev already borrowed from Lamennais in his early lyrics. His idea of slavery as a vicious circle that people must break by awakening and regaining their human dignity may indeed very well originate in Lamennais’ pamphlet Modern Slavery.