The Light of the Russian Soul: A Personal Memoir of Early Russian Theosophy
Elena Fedorovna Pisareva
Wheaton, Ill.: Quest Books, 2008. 119 pages, paper, $19.95.
This small, charming memoir opens the door to a little-known chapter in Theosophical history–its early days in H.P. Blavatsky's homeland of Russia. The author, Elena Pisareva (1855-1944), first encountered Theosophy in 1901 at a spa in what is now Slovenia. When she returned home to Russia, members of the Theosophical Society contacted her, and she quickly became involved.
While H. P. Blavatsky was a native of Russia, most of her spiritual exploration and teaching took place abroad. Moreover, at that time the Orthodox Church had close links with the tsarist regime, and alternative spiritual viewpoint often suffered under prohibitions. Thus the Theosophical Society took longer than might have been expected to establish itself in Russia. Nevertheless, by the turn of the twentieth century, pioneers such as Nina Gernet and Anna Kamensky were making efforts to promote it.
Pisareva's memoir is particularly focused on the personality and work of Anna Kamensky and her tireless work in the face of opposition, first from the tsarist government and then from the early Soviet state. Kamensky shines as an exemplar of calm, confident, fearless, and truthful spiritual endeavor, regardless of outer circumstances. Together with her coworkers, she achieved legal recognition for the TS in Russia in 1908. Her labors continued until the postrevolutionary state halted the Society's activities in 1920. In 1921, Kamensky and a colleague, carrying only necessary items and copies of the Bhagavad Gita and the Gospels, fled across the Finnish border. In 1925, Kamensky reestablished a Russian section of the TS in exile.
In this memoir, Pisareva, who was well acquainted with the Austrian esotericist Rudolf Steiner and his second wife, Marie von Sivers, discusses the departure of the majority of the German Section of the TS under Steiner's leadership to form the Anthroposophical Society in 1912. She also describes the contacts of the early Russian Theosophists with Leo Tolstoy and his family and followers. Anyone interested in Theosophical history will enjoy Pisareva's account.
John Plummer
The reviewer is a member of the Theosophical Society living in Nashville, Tennessee. He is the author of The Many Paths of the Independent Sacramental Movement.