The ancient Romans, among them Marcus Aurelius and Seneca, considered that for a true philosopher, sage and stoic the end of earthly life, “the fulfillment of destiny,” is to be as dignified, lofty, and proud as his entire life’s journey. Ancient thinkers believed that in going to meet eternity, an individual must resolutely rid himself of fear, vanity, malice, and all kinds of base inclinations: only a person like this is truly free spiritually.
The outstanding Ukrainian philosopher Hryhoriy Skovoroda, who was one of the most extraordinary men our land has ever given birth to, knew the true value of life. He knew how difficult it is to distinguish a truly lasting thing from one that rings, glitters, but is very quickly reduced to ashes. He used to say, “False gilding shines brighter than gold itself,” for he was all too well aware of the complicated and involved relationship between form and content, the exterior and the essence. And when it is time to complete the journey of life, everything falls into place and shows its true colors.
“It is time to complete the journey.” Skovoroda pronounced these words on the last stretch of his earthly life’s journey, in the bleak days of October 1794 in the village of Ivanivka (now Skovorodynivka) near Kharkiv. On the one hand, Skovoroda’s final months and weeks are practically common knowledge. Who does not know the famous inscription that the philosopher asked to be engraved on his headstone: “The world tried to catch me but did not succeed”? Still, his story is so full of wisdom, courage, and instructive simplicity that it would be useful to recall it.
Skovoroda managed to overcome his fear of death so easily because he knew that he had accomplished his mission on earth. In 1783, in his characteristic and inimitable playful, proud style he told none other than the very influential governor of Kharkiv about his life: “I chose this role, I took it and am satisfied”. The great sage was not afraid to depart this life because he overcame his fear not by philosophizing (this can hardly help) but by clearly understanding that this inevitably happens to everyone at some point. Another thing that may have eased his heart is that when Skovoroda had a presentiment of the inevitable, he was able to discuss certain crucial points with his disciple and close friend Mykhailo Kovalynsky whom he treated like his own son. Incidentally, Kovalynsky wrote the only biography of Skovoroda. Their encounter occurred at Kovalynsky’s manor in the small village of Khotetovo near Orel.
Kovalynsky knew that since 1790 Skovoroda had lived for several years in the village of Ivanivka, in Slobodian Ukraine, on the estate of the Kharkiv landlord Andriy Kovalevsky, in a modest room facing the park in a one-story building with Empire-style columns. The natural surroundings of this village reminded Skovoroda very much of his native Chernukhy. “This little land is mountainous. It is studded with forests, orchards, and natural springs. I was born in a similar place near Lubny.” Our genius was then almost 72 years old, weak and seriously ill. Yet he readily accepted Kovalynsky’s invitation to visit him in Khotetove. The old philosopher, with a ragged bag on his shoulder and an old knotty stick in his hand, walked a good 150 kilometers from Ivanivka to Khotetove. He had been walking this way through Ukrainian and Russian villages for more than a quarter of a century, but this was his final journey.
As Kovalynsky reminisced later, in those August days of 1794 the Teacher “reasoned about the attitudes and ideas that should be expected from a person who has been seeking the truth his entire lifetime by doing things, not by philosophizing” (a very precise definition of Skovoroda’s philosophy). Nearly a month passed. One day Skovoroda told his disciple that it was time for him to go. Before bidding farewell to Kovalynsky, Skovoroda gave him the contents of the old shoulder bag that he had been carrying around for several decades. These were manuscripts of his philosophical works. The sage requested his pupil to keep them safe. Kovalynsky honored this request, for which his descendants should be grateful. But Skovoroda’s request also contained a hidden and implicit message. Skovoroda felt and knew that he was approaching the days when he would need nothing except a clean shirt. Taking leave of Kovalynsky, Skovoroda said, “Perhaps I shall never see you again. Forgive me! Always remember in all your life’s adventures what we have often been discussing: light and darkness, head and tail, good and evil, eternity and time.”
Let us take a close look at the only genuine portrait of Skovoroda that was painted shortly before his death, in the spring of 1794, by the Kharkiv-based artist Lukyanov. We see a man with penetrating, shrewd eyes, who can almost instantly penetrate the soul of any interlocutor, a man with a close, bowl-shaped haircut typical of many Kyivan students of Mohyla Academy and other institutions in the 17th-18th centuries. Oddly enough, even in his old age Skovoroda kept up this style. He is holding the Alphabet, or the Primer of the World, his favorite philosophical work. You can see Skovoroda’s marvelous fife jutting from behind his belt. So this man, who had the great and noble feeling of being linked to God, Mother Nature, and everything in existence (“This feeling is the crowning of a lifetime and the door to immortality”) and knew that he had accomplished his noble mission on earth, began to dig a grave for himself with his weak hands. When his host Kovalevsky asked what this meant, he heard these simple and eternal words, “It is time, my friend, to stop wandering.” At dawn on Oct. 29, 1794 (Julian calendar) Skovoroda departed this life.
What aspects of the great Teacher’s spiritual essence strike us today, after more than 200 years after his death? Skovoroda knew how to resist the material and much subtler temptations of the surrounding world, and his words “The world tried to catch me but did not succeed” are clearly consonant with a line from the Gospel of St. John: “I alone have conquered the world!” (Skovoroda undoubtedly recalled Christ’s words that “the world resides in evil.”) Independently of William Shakespeare, who also reached the same conclusion, Skovoroda frequently remarked that “the human world is like a theater,” and if an individual does want to lose himself in this wicked masquerade of actors, he must remember this: “Human essence is in our thoughts, not in our outer flesh. This is what we are.” This is why the great Traveler’s call, “Know thyself!” will always be important and essential, for it enables one to resist the temptations of a vain world, a “painted monkey,” as Skovoroda used to say.
It would be vary naive to present our prominent philosopher as a pious and good “old man,” who pleased people’s ears with sweet words and said precisely what others wanted him to say at a given moment. There were things that Skovoroda detested, above all the sin of hypocrisy, especially one disguised as “Christian righteousness.” In The Battle between Archangel Michael and the Satan (1783) the philosopher makes harsh comments about hypocrites: “They are hypocrites, and holier- than-thou monkeys: they are righteous in appearance but lawless in heart. They are silver-seeking, ambitious, lustful, flatterers, panderers, unmerciful, implacable, rejoicing in their neighbors’ woes, considering profits as godliness, all day long kissing God’s commandments but selling them out for a penny. Domestic animals and internal serpents fiercer than tigers, crocodiles, and basilisks.” His words are still topical, aren’t they? And although they formally belong to one of the archangels, there is no doubt that behind them lies the implacable soul of Skovoroda.
According to the reminiscences of Tolstoy’s friends and family, in the last years of his life the great writer repeatedly declared that he sincerely envied the wandering philosopher from Chernukhy and dreamed of departing this life as quietly and proudly as he did. These words came from Tolstoy, who recognized no authorities and rejected “the false grandeur of Shakespeare.” For us, the life and death of Skovoroda — his finest work — is an eternal lesson: do not lie and do not be hypocritical at least to yourselves. And remember the philosopher’s call, “Look into the caves of your heart!”
