This history of Russian thought was first published in Polish in 1973 and subsequently appeared 2005 in a revised and expanded publication. The current volume begins with Enlightenment thought and Westernization in Russia in the 17<SUP>th century and moves to the religious-philosophical renaissance of first decade of the 20<SUP>th century. This book provides readers with an exhaustive account of relationships between various Russian thinkers with an examination of how those thinkers relate to a number of (...) figures and trends in Western philosophy and in the broader history of ideas. (shrink)

Public interest in the legacy of Russian religious philosophy, and above all in the legacy of V. S. Solovyov, reached its peak at the turn of the 1990s, after which it declined. As indirect evidence of this, we can note the remaining unrealized idea of installing a monument to the philosopher, slowing down the pace of work on the release of a complete collection of his works, and reducing the number of works dedicated to him. The year of (...) the centenary since the death of Solovyov was symptomatic, when the authoritative representatives of the Russian philosophical community, S.S. Khoruzhiy and P.P. Gaidenko made an ambiguous assessment of Solovyov's ideological heritage and its significance for the subsequent development of Russian socio-philosophical and religious-theological thought. In the article the statement that the genealogy of the critical interpretation of Solovyov's legacy goes back to the works of the philosopher and theologian G.V. Florovsky is substantiated. Florovsky influence in Russian studies, as well as in post-Soviet Russia in general is difficult to overestimate. In this regard, the author draws attention to the ideological evolution of Florovsky, which gives the key to his interpretation of Solovyov's philosophy. The analysis showed that Florovsky's critical reinterpretation of Solovyov's legacy had both a theoretical, theological, and doctrinal character, and was caused by certain socio-psychological factors related to the generational conflict between representatives and heirs of the Russian religious and philosophical Renaissance of the early XX century. It is demonstrated that the reception of Solovyov by Florovsky was very significant, influential and archetypal for Russian religious and philosophical thought, both in Russia and abroad. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the problem of Western perceptions of one of the most original branches of the Russian Philosophical Renaissance that occurred at the beginning of the 20th century: namely, the so called Russian Religious Philosophy. This problem still possesses contemporary relevance, owing to the fact that Russian philosophy continues to be engaged in a search for self-identification in respect of Western philosophical contexts. The paper shows that “Russian Religious Philosophy” is (...) perceived by Western thinkers not only as “an exotic cultural phenomenon,” but also as an equal partner in a dialogue: it is considered a significant philosophical achievement, meeting all generally accepted criteria of philosophical creativity. The German Catholic philosopher Peter Ehlen’s monograph on the subject of the religious philosophy of Semyon Lyudvigovich Frank will furnish us, here, with an example of just such an approach. The author of the monograph approaches his subject as something which he himself stands in an essential connection to—something which he, as a researcher, is in a peculiar spiritual communion with. A common spiritual experience of the religious perception of reality determines both Ehlen’s interest in Frank and the specific character of the research undertaken by him. The position of researcher, expected to maintain a certain distance from his or her subject matter, is replaced by that of a co-thinker, engaged in co-experiencing and understanding in depth the ideas of the particular philosopher under examination. The result of this approach is a new synthesis created by Ehlen on the basis of Frank’s philosophy. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the problem of Western perceptions of one of the most original branches of the Russian Philosophical Renaissance that occurred at the beginning of the 20th century: namely, the so called Russian Religious Philosophy. This problem still possesses contemporary relevance, owing to the fact that Russian philosophy continues to be engaged in a search for self-identification in respect of Western philosophical contexts. The paper shows that “Russian Religious Philosophy” is (...) perceived by Western thinkers not only as “an exotic cultural phenomenon,” but also as an equal partner in a dialogue: it is considered a significant philosophical achievement, meeting all generally accepted criteria of philosophical creativity. The German Catholic philosopher Peter Ehlen’s monograph on the subject of the religious philosophy of Semyon Lyudvigovich Frank will furnish us, here, with an example of just such an approach. The author of the monograph approaches his subject as something which he himself stands in an essential connection to—something which he, as a researcher, is in a peculiar spiritual communion with. A common spiritual experience of the religious perception of reality determines both Ehlen’s interest in Frank and the specific character of the research undertaken by him. The position of researcher, expected to maintain a certain distance from his or her subject matter, is replaced by that of a co-thinker, engaged in co-experiencing and understanding in depth the ideas of the particular philosopher under examination. The result of this approach is a new synthesis created by Ehlen on the basis of Frank’s philosophy. (shrink)

The scope of Russian studies in Poland has grown considerably since 1989. Many texts in this field published in the present decade are pioneer works on such writers as V. Solov’ev and K. Leont’ev, others present synthetic results of recent and current research, such as A History of Russian Thought from Enlightenment to Marxism , Russian Religious - Philosophical Renaissance. An Attempt at a Synthesis . Research centers publish regular series: “Jagiellońskie studia z filozofii (...) rosyjskiej,” “Almanach myśli rosyjskiej,” “Idee w Rosji”. A multi-volume Russian–Polish–English dictionary “Idee w Rosji,” fruit of research by Polish scholars has enjoyed considerable interest. (shrink)

In the treatise “Suprematism. The World as Objectlessness or Eternal Peace” (1922), Kazimir Malevich positions himself as a “bookless philosopher” who did not consider theories of other philosophers. In fact, the treatise contains a large number of references to philosophers belonging to different traditions. A careful reading shows the extent to which Malevich’s theory is linked to the Russian religious philosophy of the early twentieth century. In my view, Nikolai Berdyaev, Sergei Bulgakov, Pavel Florensky—philosophers of “Religious (...) class='Hi'>Renaissance,” as well as some other intellectuals—acquaint avant-gardists with Neoplatonic conceptions of apophasis. Malevich had access to ideas of fourteenth-century theologian Meister Eckhart, and I will refer to two sources to demonstrate this, including Margarita Sabashnikova’s translation of Eckhart and works of Sergei Bulgakov. Without any reference, Malevich retells the concepts of Dionysius the Areopagite, Meister Eckhart, and Gregory Palamas. I will demonstrate parallels between the treatise on Suprematism and Meister Eckhart’s Sermons concerning the concepts of apophaticism, Platonism, and Nothingness. I will also touch on the theme of Divine Light in the theology of Palamas (fourteenth century) to show the diversity of the avant-garde’s sources of inspiration. (shrink)

The topic of this article is the convergence of the fundamental theoretical intuitions of two independent currents of Christian philosophy at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Italian Catholic spiritualism and the internally diversified current of the Russian religious philosophical Renaissance proved to be convergent in their ontological realism based on the metaphysics of cognition. This consonance undermines the stereotype about the total difference between the Russian Orthodox and the Western Catholic mentality. The (...) article tries to show that these two denominations both drew inspiration from the Patristic heritage and that, contrary to all appearances, Russian religious philosophy owes much to the Augustinian tradition. The paper reminds the discovery of this convergence made by Vladimir Ern, and discusses certain elements of the teachings of Vladimir Solovyev and Evgenii Troubetzkoy in comparison with the basic philosophical intuitions of the Italian philosopher Antonio Rosmini. (shrink)

Volume 57, Issue 1, February 2019, Page 1-2.

Post-secularism is the fundamental evidence of the end of modernity. Modernity, as sleeping reason in Francisco Goya's painting, realizes that, although it thought that it was awake, it was producing monsters. We try to analyze post-secular philosophy from the point of view of Russian religious thought. We believe that such philosophers as Vladimir Soloviev, Pavel Florensky, Sergey Bulgakov, Nikolai Berdyaev, Georges Florovsky, and Semen Frank may be helpful for understanding and overcoming post-secular order. Their unique views on the (...) relations between religion and philosophy, science, and social life are apparently missing in the current Western debates. It seems to us that Russian religious philosophy becomes surprisingly up-to-date and attractive in the contemporary world. We hope that the present volume will be a significant step forward in the inclusion of the heritage of Russian religious philosophy in contemporary debates. (shrink)

This study is an attempt to reconstruct and sum up philosophical interpretations of Stavrogin, the main hero of the classic Dostoevsky’s novel “The Devils”, given by the outstanding Russian religious thinkers in the twentieth century. The author emphasizes that, however different can be their philosophical premises, the discussed interpretations of Dostoevsky’s hero are compatible and complementary. Confronting and, above all, synthesizing different points of view, he tries to grasp the basic historiosophical, anthropological and religious ideas (...) of Russian renaissance. (shrink)

In this article I have dealt with empirical proofs for the Russian religious renaissance which came after the fall of the Soviet socialistic empire and carried on all through the nineties as a pro-religious consensus and a religious belief. Likewise, I have dealt with proofs suggesting certain limitations of the renaissance in question which manifested mainly in irregular fulfillment of religious duties. U ovom clanku autor se bavi empirijskim dokazima za rusku religioznu renesansu (...) koja je nastupila nakon urusavanja sovjetske socijalisticke imperije i kao proreligiozni konsenzus i religijsko verovanje odrzala se tokom 90-ih godina proslog veka. Takodje, autor se bavi i dokazima koji upucuju na izvesna ogranicenja pomenute renesanse, ponajvise izrazena kroz problematicnu redovnost ispunjavanja verskih duznosti. (shrink)

In the twentieth century was made grandiose on its scale as an attempt to re-open the idea of ​​development, evolutionism adapted to man - the image and likeness of God, moreover, to influence the further development of man in accordance with the designed purpose - "common good", "the main benefit" Expected result was considered close and easily achievable, so obviously the dependence of "characteristics" from the natural and social environment seemed to be. There was a temptation to create some kind (...) of supersonic "bloc of control" of society, which would "lead" not only a person who had many "disadvantages" but a new, "corrected" person better than the previous one. That is, the idea was to take over superhuman functions. In this program, three "inorganic" ideas organically joined: rationalism, reductionism, and evolutionism. (shrink)

Volume 57, Issue 1, February 2019, Page 3-16.

The subject of this paper is Alexandre Kojève’s relationship to Russian Religious Philosophy, which is characterized by a paradoxical contrast between Kojève’s openly critical judgment of it, on the one hand, and the hidden, implicit influence of this philosophical tradition on his own atheistic philosophizing on the other. The hidden influence of Russian Religious Philosophy, Kojève’s engagement with the philosophical ideas of Vladimir Solovyov and Fyodor Dostoevsky, will be shown by two case studies. The (...) first case is about Kojève’s “reshaping” and reevaluation of Solovyov’s principle of evil. The second case is about Kojève’s defense of Dostoevsky’s Man-God ideologues against their creator by critically rethinking Man-Godhood. The connection between these two cases is the question, if Kojève, while opposing Solovyov’s difference of Man-God and God-Man with something third, has actually moved beyond the Man-God ideology, or did he develop his own Man-God ideology. The essay concludes, with the assertion that Kojève remains with a revised Man-Godhood. This defense-revision is an important philosophical contribution to the polemics with Russian Religious Philosophy, but it is, at the same time, intimately connected with Kojève’s ideological agenda. (shrink)

This book explores central issues of modern Russian religious thought by focusing on the work of Soloviev and three religious philosophers who further developed his ideas in the early twentieth century: P. A. Florensky, Sergei Bulgakov, and ...

All of the principal tendencies in philosophy were represented in Russia during the brief period of the "religious and philosophical renaissance." However, at that time [the early twentieth century] a quite independent philosophical movement-the metaphysics of total-unity [vseedinstvo]-stood at the focus of philosophical development [in Russia]. That metaphysics was based on one of the most essential intuitions of Russian spirituality, namely, the conviction that there is a wholeness in nature and a harmonious unity of (...) all existence. The idea of total-unity was originally expressed in philosophical terms by Vladimir Solov'ev during the 1870s. And at the beginning of the present century, Pavel Florenskii gave a new impulse to this idea with his symbolic philosophy. (shrink)

Semen Frank is one of the most interesting and exciting pre-revolutionary Russian religious philosophers to be “rediscovered” after the fall of the Soviet Union. His involvement in Russian pre-revolutionary political and academic life brought Frank into contact with an imaginative, progressive and idealistic group of thinkers whose ranks he then joined. Like Nicholas Berdyaev and Fr. Sergei Bulgakov, Frank put forward his own philosophical views about their world, which was in upheaval, and about human nature. After (...) emigration from the then young Soviet Union, Frank continued to produce his impressive body of work. His ideas are remarkable for their considered, moderate and tolerant nature.This book is a contribution to the ever-growing body of scholarship, which strives to connect Russian thought to its contemporary Western context and continues to facilitate the revival of these fascinating thinkers. In addition to situating Frank’s thought in a Western context, this work seeks to provide an overview of his thought, and introduce his key arguments to those unfamiliar with Russian religious philosophy. (shrink)

Semen Frank is one of the most interesting and exciting pre-revolutionary Russian religious philosophers to be “rediscovered” after the fall of the Soviet Union. His involvement in Russian pre-revolutionary political and academic life brought Frank into contact with an imaginative, progressive and idealistic group of thinkers whose ranks he then joined. Like Nicholas Berdyaev and Fr. Sergei Bulgakov, Frank put forward his own philosophical views about their world, which was in upheaval, and about human nature. After (...) emigration from the then young Soviet Union, Frank continued to produce his impressive body of work. His ideas are remarkable for their considered, moderate and tolerant nature.This book is a contribution to the ever-growing body of scholarship, which strives to connect Russian thought to its contemporary Western context and continues to facilitate the revival of these fascinating thinkers. In addition to situating Frank’s thought in a Western context, this work seeks to provide an overview of his thought, and introduce his key arguments to those unfamiliar with Russian religious philosophy. (shrink)

The purpose of the present article is not an excursion into the history of philosophy. It is not a story of the adventures of Immanuel Kant on Russian soil, and even less does it pretend to expound systematically the perception of Kantian philosophy by Russian metaphysics. The author's interest is strictly philosophical. Russian religious thought, insofar as it has an appetite for philosophizing, consciously enters into the life of classical European philosophy, into that living communication (...) of minds by which truth is sustained, moved, and nourished among people and nations.2 A clarification of its personal relations with the central figures of this philosophical drama will help us to understand the strictly philosophical significance of Russian metaphysics more accurately than even sometimes the most dedicated description of it in itself succeeds in doing. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explore the interaction between a tradition that belongs originally to the realm of orthodox contemplative monasticism (i.e., hesychasm) and nineteenth-and early twentieth-century Russian intellectuals. In the first part, this paper will explore how hesychasm gradually penetrated nineteenthcentury secular culture; a special focus will be on the hermitage of Optina Pustyn' and its renowned elders, as well as their appeal to members of the Optina-intelligentsia, especially Fëdor Dostoevskij. Then, attention will shift to the (...) imjaslavie controversy at the beginning of the twentieth century, which flared up initially as a dispute between Athonite monks and reached a sad culmination in 1912-1913 with a manu militari intervention by troops of the Russian Holy Synod. However, the debate was taken up by some prominent intellectuals of the Russian religious renaissance, such as Pavel Florenskij, Nikolaj Berdjaev, and Sergej Bulgakov, who explicitly sided with the imjaslavcy ("Glorifiers of the Name") and actively stepped into the debate. (shrink)

The article discusses how the meaning of the principle of “non-resistance to evil by violence” was changing in L.N. Tolstoy's religious and philosophical teachings and how this principle was evaluated in Russian religious philosophy of the late XIX - early XX century. In the first version of Tolstoy’s teachings, set forth in the book “What is my faith?”, the principle of non-resistance was understood in a moral sense, as the norm for all people; its execution should (...) lead to the perfection of earthly life. This idea of L. Tolstoy was sharply criticised by his contemporaries, who noted that there was no truly religious content in Tolstoy’s teachings, it was turning into a utilitarian doctrine of the earthly progress of mankind. Given this criticism, Tolstoy in his later works changed his understanding of the principle of non-resistance. Drawing a distinction between two levels of human life - “animal” and divine, Tolstoy recognised the principle of non-resistance to the law as the divine life of a man. As a result, the principle of non-resistance has acquired a religious rather than moral meaning, since the transition of a man to a divine life means a mystical transformation of his being. He is aware of his super-spatial and super-temporary unity with all people and with all being, and therefore can evaluate the consequences of his actions not only in the limited sphere of his life, but also in all infinite being. In this regard, a person realizes the absolute superiority of good deeds over evil, even if the latter are committed to confront evil. It is shown that some critics of Tolstoy came to a similar understanding of the religious meaning of the principle of non-resistance at the end of their lives. (shrink)

The art historian Alessandro Giovanardi has recently published a monograph on one of the important representatives of the Russian religious-philosophical renaissance of the beginning of 20th century – Vladimir Nikolayevich Zabugin. This volume, written in Italian, aims to provide a comprehensive overview of Zabugin's intellectual biography, philosophical and aesthetic ideas and opens up a completely unknown corpus of the author’s works as well as the history of the reception of his heritage. The monograph underlines the (...) contribution of Vladimir Zabugin in Italian and European humanitarian culture and defines his heritage as a rare synthesis of the finest erudition and Christian spirituality. (shrink)

The paper deals with the problem of human freedom and the freedom of person, as seen by Russian personalist philosophers of the 20th century in their Parisian exile - N. Berdyaev and N. Lossky, both of them influenced by F. M. Dostoyevsky. Their philosophical conceptions derive from existentialism, which is the existential-experiential source of the modern personalism in general. The Russian personalists saw human freedom as one of the absolute values and included its problematic together with the (...) paradoxes of the particularity of individual being into their sear_ching for the true essence of humans. In justifying freedom as the basic human right both thinkers combine their anthropocentric approach with the Christian doctrine. The free philosophy is religious and intuitive at the same time. (shrink)

This is a review of Teresa Obolevitch's Faith and Science in Russian Religious Thought, which provides an intellectual history of the collaboration between fides and ratio in the course of the development of Russian thought, from its Byzantine origins to the twenty-first century. Obolevitch examines various approaches to combining faith and science in such eighteenth-century thinkers as Mikhail Lomonosov and Gregory Skovoroda, the nineteenth-century thinkers Victor Kudryavtsev-Platonov, Dimitrii Golubinsky, Sergei Glagolev, the Schellingian Peter Chaadaev, the Slavophiles Alexei (...) Khomyakov and Ivan Kireevsky, the writers Fedor Dostoevsky and Lev Tolstoy, Vladimir Soloviev, the twentieth-century philosophers Nikolai Lossky, Pavel Florensky, Semen Frank, Nikolai Berdyaev, Lev Shestov, Sergius Bulgakov, Alexei Losev, the Russian Cosmists Nikolai Fedorov, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, and Vladimir Vernadsky, and the Orthodox priest Georges Florovsky. The book ends with considerations on the Neo-Patristic synthesis of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In the present review, I situate the book in the context of the author's works, I summarize it, editorializing occasionally, and I discuss the thesis of the book in the wider context of world religions. (shrink)

In the development of modern philosophical thought there is the so-called "neo-religious Renaissance." He appears as a search for the religious factors necessary to construct a social being. The well-known representative of the Ukrainian diaspora, Lev Silenko, the founder of the Russian Orthodox Church, which he considers the national religion of the Ukrainian people, contributes to the postmodernist tendency of modern religious philosophy. The main provisions of which he laid out in the fundamental work (...) of "Mage Faith". (shrink)

The article deals with Bulgakov’s critique of Hegel’s monistic system. For Bulgakov, Hegelian monism is an example of philosophical reductionism which aims at reducing the question of Being, the latter expressed by a proposition and constituted by the inseparable unity of three elements (person as hypostasis, its meaning and the essence of Being), to its second principle. Contrary to Hegel, Bulgakov claims that no philosophy can begin with and as itself—it has to be initiated with a datum. This is (...) in fact where the tragedy of German philosophy, and each monistic philosophy, starts. (shrink)

The article deals with Bulgakov’s critique of Hegel’s monistic system. For Bulgakov, Hegelian monism is an example of philosophical reductionism which aims at reducing the question of Being, the latter expressed by a proposition and constituted by the inseparable unity of three elements, to its second principle. Contrary to Hegel, Bulgakov claims that no philosophy can begin with and as itself—it has to be initiated with a datum. This is in fact where the tragedy of German philosophy, and each (...) monistic philosophy, starts. (shrink)

This volume explores the inherent pluralism of Hinduism through ethnographic and philosophical evidence as presented in the Journal of Anthropological Society of Bombay. The essays dated 1886-1936, represent a period that marked the emergence of a European-educated native intelligentsia with a rationalist outlook. The essays cover a wide range of topics from Tree Worship in Mohenjo Daro, the origin of the Hindu Trimurti, interpretation of Avestic and Vedic Texts; to a second set of more localized papers that cover the (...) Muhammadan Castes of Bengal, the Tenets and Practices of a Certain Class of Faqirs in Bengal, the Theoretical History of the Goddess Yellamma, and much more. Written during a particular historical as well as intellectual period that reflected certain key patterns - a period just following the Bengal Renaissance of the nineteenth century that ushered in the ideologies of a reformative Hinduism - this volume highlights how religions of all denominations have influenced each other and appear to have mingled beliefs and practices from multiple sources. It shows how tolerance and inclusiveness along with syncretism have been part of India's religious and social history. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of religions, history, anthropology, sociology, political science, and sociology of religion. It will also be useful to those interested in inter-religious dialogues and civil society. (shrink)

In this article, the author analyzes the concept of religious foundations of culture and power as a problem of Russian political consciousness. The paper reveals the patterns of interaction between the religious and political traditions of the Russian Empire in the early 20th century. The author provides Bargradsky project case as a unique example of such influence, identifying its mean in the later Russian Empire’s political history. Philosophical-political case that is analyzed in the article (...) makes it possible to trace the inner links between religious attitudes and political imagination of Russian monarchical circles and to identify the peculiarities of religious and political self-awareness of Russian power, its mechanisms for the selecting the ideas, symbols, images of the national political, religious and artistic culture in the last period of the Russian Empire. From our point of view, it would be most effective to combine the cultural-historical and the philosophical and historical approaches both in the reconstruction of Bargradsky project and in studies of Russian political culture. The article examines both the political conditions of activities and spiritual-cultural goals of Bargradsky Committee on Bargradsky project in Italian Bari as well as in Saint Petersburg in the 1910s. The author discusses the religious concept of Russian political culture, applying philosophical-historical method for the analyses Bargradsky Committee activity and its attempt to slow down the degradation of the Russian autocracy. The major emphasis is placed on the political and philosophical way of analysis as well as on the possibility of introducing the results of philosophical-historical research into current debates on the issue of alternatives to Russian history. (shrink)

Intellectual experiences of Russian philosophers of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries devoted to Russia demonstrate the intensive work of national self – knowledge. The concentration of thinkers on a certain range of topics, such as freedom and revolution, the state and society, culture and politics, religion and ideology, indicates a high density and polemical intensity of discussion. The thematic focus of Russian thought on national and cultural issues creates an end-to-end narrative with an open (...) structure, where texts are dialogically intertwined with each other. These statements often indicate a value and ideological conflict between various actors in the social history of Russia. This historiosophical narrative can be interpreted as a meta-text of Russian social and religious-philosophical thought, which in many senses is the practice of self-description of the national intelligentsia. It testifies to her spiritual and ideological quest, the struggle for a social ideal – about the moral choice of thinking Russian people, which encourages criticism of the historical experience of Russia. The main problem of this pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary discourse is the question of the moral and political responsibility of the educated class for the historical choice of Russia and its fate. The most important from a historical and philosophical point of view texts are the works of Russian Silver Age thinkers. Their arguments about Russia include both a reaction to the events of the three Russian revolutions and the Great War, which traumatized the consciousness of the intelligentsia, and a painful post-traumatic reception of their own intellectual tradition and the moral deformation of ideals that took place in it. Those ideals based on the idea of freedom and philosophical honesty in achieving the truth. (shrink)

An examination of Russia's philosophical heritage. It extends from the Slavophiles to the philosophers of the Silver Age, from emigre religious thinkers to Losev and Bakhtin and assesses the meaning for Russian culture as a whole.

The article defines the nature of the Russian war against Ukraine in the context of social and state transformations of the 20th — 21st centuries. It is emphasized that this is a war of different worlds, mentalities, worldviews, ways of life, values, etc., which has been going on for many centuries in various forms (direct and mediated, open and veiled, hot and cold). The role of the religious-legal factor in the Russian war against Ukraine at various stages (...) of Ukrainian state formation (periods of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, Soviet, modern) is revealed. It is emphasized that it was during the time of the Ukrainian People’s Republic that the legal basis for the organization of the Ukrainian Local Orthodox Church, confessional differentiation and the establishment of freedom of conscience and interconfessional tolerance in Ukrainian society was created. Emphasized attention is paid to the fact that in the Soviet period, the Russian war against Ukraine continued in a new, veiled, hidden, invisible (at first glance) form with the active use of the religious factor. The results of this period have been determined, namely: rampant militant/ scientific atheism, radical extermination, Russification of Ukrainian Orthodoxy, liquidation of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, etc. Special attention is paid to the Soviet secular/political religion (Marxism-Leninism) as a key basis for the implementation of an aggressive policy regarding the historical memory and cultural identity of the Ukrainian people and a manipulative tool for the destruction of Ukrainian history, culture, worldview, nation, state and law in the information, hybrid, total, full-scale and other Russia’s wars against Ukraine. The article substantiates that improved legislation with an effective legal mechanism for its implementation, a strong civil society with developed institutions, including the institution of religion (church), adequate guarantees of religious rights and freedoms are important factors in ensuring state, national, religious security and victory of Ukraine (at the current stage) in the war waged against it by the Russian Federation. (shrink)

The task of this article is to clarify the appropriateness and adequacy of peace-making (confessional) rhetoric in the situation of the war of aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, in particular, the meaningful correspondence of the concept of «peace» in its application or reading by the bearers of different worldview paradigms. The «russkii mir» cannot be translated either as «Russian peace» or as «Russian world». This is because the scope and content of these concepts are different. (...) Rus (Kyiv`s Rus) — a thousand-year-old princely state with its center in Kyiv, where the ancestors of modern Ukrainians lived, baptized by Prince Volodymyr in 988. Rus is not Russia. But Muscovy adopted the name Russia to derive its historiography from Rus. «Russkii mir» actually refutes the axiological principles laid down by ancient Rus’s civilization (freedom, dignity, partnership, co-creation, mutual responsibility). «Russkii mir» destroys peace in global or any local images, trying to grab the territory it decided to own. «Russkii mir» encroaches on world domination and therefore tries to impose its rules of the game on the world, which would reshape the world structure according to the wishes of the Russian dictators. For this, «russkii mir» uses any means and institutions as a tool: the army, weapons of mass destruction, atrocities, terror, lies, propaganda, the church and peace-making rhetoric. The goal is not to restore peace, but to establish the world domination of the Russian Empire in any of its variants (Muscovy, Russian Empire, Soviet Union, Russian Federation or Orthodox Civilization). Russian Orthodox Church plays a leading role in this — it uses religious rhetoric to formu- late a worldview model of the «russkii mir», consolidates the Russian population for a war of aggression, and justifies the atrocities of the Russian military with the sacred mission of restoring the Holy Rus’. Russian Orthodox Church justifies the «civilizing mission» of the Russian troops, actually calls to protect «our Common Russian Fatherland» by killing Ukrainians on the territo- ry of Ukraine. False messianism, manichaeism, paternalism, hatred of the civilized world that lives by democratic standards and respects the dignity and freedom of the individual, Russian arrogance, conceit, supremacy and egomania — this is what Russian Orthodoxy promotes with its religious rhetoric. Therefore, if we hear calls for «peace» from the bearer of the «russkii mir»’s worldview, it actually means a demand to come to terms with all their whims, to give up one’s own identity, one’s own world, one’s own life, if they do not fit into the concept of «russkii mir». (shrink)

This article is devoted to Russian religious thinker Semyon L. Frank’s philosophical interpretation of Alexander S. Pushkin’s work. The article identifies the place and significance of the Pushkin...

I should like to supplement somewhat the interpretation of the data presented by D.E. Furman. It seems to me that to understand current processes, we must have a clearer idea of the starting point of the present intellectual movement—the "mass atheism" of the preceding period. What was this mass atheism?

Vladimir Solov’ëv, Sergej Bulgakov, Nikolaj Berdjaev, and Semën Frank shared the conviction that Creation is incomplete: humanity must arrive at organizing social life on an “eighth day.” Thus they prophesied the Universal Church, “social Christianity,” “personalist socialism,” and “spiritual democracy.” Their attempt to avoid any illegitimate confusion between independent rational thought and Christian faith prompted Bulgakov to become an ordained theologian, Berdjaev a “philosophical poet,” and Frank a “Christian realist.” Solov’ëv’s theosophical attempt to philosophically substantiate faith and consequently eschatological (...) prophecy finds itself in the same tragic predicament as Christian faith in general when amalgamated on a one to one basis with the world. I am to show that this is not the case for any of the three other authors discussed, however, much they did adhere to some of Solov’ëv’s major lines of thought. (shrink)

The spiritual geography of Russian cosmism. General characteristics ; Recent definitions of cosmism -- Forerunners of Russian cosmism. Vasily Nazarovich Karazin (1773-1842) ; Alexander Nikolaevich Radishchev (1749-1802) ; Poets: Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov, (1711-1765) and Gavriila Romanovich Derzhavin (1743-1816) ; Prince Vladimir Fedorovich Odoevsky (1803-1869) ; Aleksander Vasilyevich Sukhovo-Kobylin (1817-1903) -- The Russian philosophical context. Philosophy as a passion ; The destiny of Russia ; Thought as a call for action ; The totalitarian cast of mind -- (...) The religious and spiritual context. The kingdom of god on earth ; Hesychasm: two great Russian saints ; The Third Rome ; Pre-Christian antecedents -- The Russian esoteric context. Early searches for "deep wisdom" ; Popular magic ; Higher magic in the time of Peter the Great ; Esotericism after Peter the Great ; Theosophy and anthroposophy -- Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov (1829-1903), the philosopher of the common task ; The one idea ; The unacknowledged prince ; The village teacher ; First disciple: Dostoevsky and Tolstoy ; The Moscow librarian ; Last years: Askhabad: the only portrait -- The "common task" ; Esoteric dimensions of the "common task" ; Fedorov's legacy: projectivism, delo, regulation -- The religious cosmists. Vladimir Sergeevich Solovyov (1853-1900) ; Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov (1871-1944) ; Pavel Aleksandrovich Florensky (1882-1937) ; Nikolai Aleksandrovich Berdyaev (1874-1948) -- The scientific cosmists. Konstantin Edouardovich Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935) ; Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky (1863-1945) ; Alexander Leonidovich Chizhevsky (1897-1964) ; Vasily Feofilovich Kuprevich (1897-1969) -- Promethean theurgy. Life-creation ; Cultural immortalism ; God-building ; Re-aiming the arrows of Eros ; Technological utopianism ; Occultism -- Fedorov's twentieth century followers. Nikolai Pavlovich Peterson (1844-1919) and Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kozhevnikov (1852-1917) ; Svyatogor and the biocosmists ; New wine and the universal task ; Alexander Konstantinovich Gorsky (1886-1943) and Nikolai Alexandrovich Setnitsky (1888-1937) ; Valerian Nikolaevich Muravyov (1885-1932) ; Vasily Nikolaevich Chekrygin (1897-1922) -- Cosmism and its offshoots today. The N.F. Fedorov museum-library ; The Tsiolkovsky museum and Chizhevsky center ; ISRICA - Institute for Scientific Research in Cosmic Anthropoecology ; Lev Nikolaevich Gumilev (1912-1992) and neo-eurasianism ; The hyperboreans ; Scientific immortalism: Igor Vishev, Danila Medvedev ; Conclusions about the Russian cosmists. (shrink)

The Russian philosopher and cultural theorist Mikhail Bakhtin has traditionally been seen as the leading figure in the group of intellectuals known as the Bakhtin Circle. The writings of other members of the Circle are considered much less important than his work, while Bakhtin's achievement has been exaggerated in proportion to the downgrading of the thinkers with whom he associated in the 1920s. This volume, which includes new translations and studies of the work of the most important members of (...) the Circle, sets out to correct the distortions in the established representations of its activity. The original contributions to literary and linguistic theory made by Valentin Voloshinov and Pavel Medvedev (but frequently credited to Bakhtin) are assessed, and the distinctiveness of their approaches is highlighted. (shrink)

This study is an attempt to reconstruct and sum up philosophical interpretations of Stavrogin, the main hero of the classic Dostoevsky’s novel “The Devils”, given by the outstanding Russian religious thinkers in the twentieth century. The author emphasizes that, however different can be their philosophical premises, the discussed interpretations of Dostoevsky’s hero are compatible and complementary. Confronting and, above all, synthesizing different points of view, he tries to grasp the basic historiosophical, anthropological and religious ideas (...) of Russian renaissance. (shrink)

In Russian culture, there was neither Scholasticism nor Renaissance, and the problem of faith and reason was formulated, most of all, on the ground of Patristic tradition. This collection of essays explores various dimensions of this alternative Russian account. The book shows the peculiarities of the Orthodox interpretation of faith. It traces the interrelations between Eastern and Western thinkers, and it investigates the heritage of Russian religious philosophy, with a special attention to Pavel Florensky, Sergius (...) Bulgakov, and Georges Florovsky. *** Librarians: ebook available on ProQuest and EBSCO [Subject: Philosophy, Religious Studies, Russian Studies]. (shrink)

The paper handles a possibility to use the term “national philosophical tradition” in comparative philosophy as a branch of knowledge, which provides for methodological tools in an intercultural dialogue. It defines the concept of “national philosophical tradition”, principles and ways of its research. The basis of studies is a comparison between the Russian and Spanish philosophical cultures. Inherent common features of both traditions are an epistemological status of philosophy in culture, prevalence of an intuitive insight in (...) the essence of the matter, a tendency to a synthesis between life and reason, confirmation of a fundamental cognation of literature and philosophy. An understanding of a boundary character of their culture has given rise to a messianic predestination of both nations and caused a keen interest in creation of an original national philosophy. So much in common have these two extremes of the European civilization, their main difference lies in the personalism of the Spanish philosophy and the cosmologism of the Russian one. This distinction can to a great extent be explainedby a different type of a religious background and mentality. It is these differences in national philosophical traditions that feed the world philosophy. It is on the basis of these national philosophical traditions that achievements of other philosophical cultures are introduced and assimilated in a new context. That is the reason why this concept may serve as a basis of comparison between different philosophical system. (shrink)