The concept of creativity in Georges Florovsky’s thought

This article discusses the meanings of “creativity”—tvorchestvo—as we encounter it in Georges Florovsky’s thought, first and foremost in his magnum opus Ways of Russian Theology (1937). Tvorchestvo had by this time become a key concept in Russian pre-revolutionary and later émigré thought. It is associated above all with Nikolai Berdyaev’s philosophy, but it also plays an important role in Sergei Bulgakov’s philosophy of economy. In both cases, it stands for the human response to divine creation. Moreover, and somewhat less famously, it was also an epistemological concept in the religious idealism of Vladimir Solovyov as well as in Russian neo-Kantianism (Fyodor Stepun), where it stood for the active, synthetic faculty of our minds. Florovsky, meanwhile, used it as a description of how we should relate to the patristic heritage, but also to history more generally: Our attitude should be “creative,” active, as well as both backward- and forward-looking. This “return to the Fathers” was a central component of Florovsky’s neopatristic program, but, interestingly, in order to conceptualize this return, Florovsky took over a concept from traditions that his own approach otherwise firmly criticized. By analyzing Florovsky’s use of tvorchestvo, this article addresses the broader question as to the differences and parallels between the neopatristic movement and the legacy of the Russian Renaissance (Silver Age).publishedVersio

Universalising idealism: The cross-cultural case of Russian religious thought

The article analyses the idealist dimension of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Russian religious thought as it appears in key works by Vladimir Solov’ev (1853–1900), Sergei Bulgakov (1871–1944) and Nikolai Berdiaev (1874–1948). Under the impact of Schelling in particular, these thinkers took religious experience and human consciousness as a starting point for their projects. On the one hand, the article shows that this had a very significant impact also on the way in which they approached classical religious themes. More specifically, it examines how the transmission of idealist philosophy from Western Europe to Russia led to a reinterpretation in the works of these thinkers of certain themes of the Orthodox heritage as well as everyday cultural practices. On the other hand, it points to significant parallels between Russian religious idealism and idealist theology in the West, most notably Paul Tillich. Thus, the transfer of ideas from its Schellingian origin to Russia becomes, the article claims, an example of universalisation, in this case of Shellingian idealism, through the active use and application of ideas and concepts in new contexts.publishedVersio

Georgii Fedotov as a Theologian of Culture

The article discusses the notion of culture as it appears and is conceptualized in the works of G.P. Fedotov. The analysis focuses on two articles by Fedotov published in Russian émigré journals, "The Holy Spirit in Nature and Culture" of 1932 and "Eschatology and culture" of 1938, and in his magnum opus in a Western context, The Russian Religious Mind of 1946. The author proposes to analyze Fedotov's ideas as a theology of culture due to the profoundly religious meaning the Russian émigré thinker attributed to cultural products and production, regardless of their religious intention. By implication, Fedotov understood culture in a religious framework as the human experience of and response to the divine, though not necessarily as dependent on firm belief. Viewing Fedotov as a theologian of culture enables us, furthermore, to compare him with other thinkers across the West-East cultural gradient, most notably Paul Tillich. This approach contextualizes Fedotov in a post-Schellingian pan-European idealist tradition, to which Russian thinkers' analyses of religious experience and imagination have made seminal contributions, in particular from Vladimir Solov'ev on. The article discusses these issues within the framework of the perspectives of global intellectual history, entangled history ( histoire croisée ), and transnationalized Russian studies.publishedVersio

Semiotikk som indre eksil: Om binære modellars rolle i russisk kultur

The article consists of a critical discussion Jurij Lotman and BorisUspenskij's (in)famous theory of Russian culture possessing anunderlying dual (binary) structure and of a contextualisation of theirideas in relation to both their contemporary Soviet situation andpossible historical predecessors

Semiotikk som indre eksil? Om binære modellars rolle i russisk kultur

The article consists of a critical discussion Jurij Lotman and Boris Uspenskij's (in)famous theory of Russian culture possessing an underlying dual (binary) structure and of a contextualisation of their ideas in relation to both their contemporary Soviet situation and possible historical predecessors.publishedVersio

Nikolai Berdiaev and the "boundless spaces" of Russia

The article analyses the ways in which the Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdiaev understood Russian space and geography, beginning with the texts that he wrote during the First World War and ending with his book The Russian Idea (1946). It was characteristic of Berdiaev to extensively recycle passages from his own texts, not least those that put forth the claim that there was a correspondence between Russia’s vast and wide-open spaces and the "Russian soul." However, the article argues that Berdiaev’s seemingly similar phrases had different meanings in different contexts. In the 1910s, his perspective was predominantly critical, if speculative, positing that the acquisition of large territories had prevented the Russian "self-organization" in thought and culture. After the 1917 revolutions and his own emigration in 1922, by contrast, Berdiaev gradually became more essentialist in his approach to Russian space, seeing the vast territories as perfectly matching the strivings and quests of the Russian people. The article contextualises Berdiaev’s understanding of space both in relation to nineteenth-century traditions of interpreting Russian geography and to the political upheavals that took place during his lifetime

Smuta : Cyclical visions of history in contemporary Russian thought and the question of hegemony

In the post-Soviet context, various cyclical models of recurrent Russian “Times of Troubles” (smuty) have become increasingly popular. This perspective emerged first in Soviet dissident circles (Alexander Yanov, Aleksandr Akhiezer), who used it as a means to expose as mistaken the Soviet belief in continual historical progress on Russian soil. In post-Soviet Russia this critical approach has been continued by members of the “Akhezier circle,” the economist Egor Gaidar, and others. Meanwhile it was given an affirmative, conservative reinterpretation by Aleksandr Panarin, according to whom Russia has always managed to overcome its phases of devastating Westernization and state collapse. This idea of Russian history has become influential; even Vladimir Putin has talked about Russia as a strong state able to survive various “Times of Troubles” from the early seventeenth century to the early post-Soviet period. It also figures prominently among members of the neoconservative Izborsk Club. This article analyzes different conceptions of Russian history as cyclical and their prominent place in the prevailing civilizational discourse of post-Soviet Russia. By means of postcolonial perspectives, this discourse is seen on the one hand as an attempt to question and reject Western hegemony, attempts that on the other hand nevertheless seem unable to liberate themselves from a normative dependence on the West

Ivan Karamazov as a Philosophical Type —But Which One and in What Ways? A Narratological Reading of a Philosophical Novel

The article analyzes a set of philosophical statements made by and attributed to Ivan Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov, in order to answer the question as to what kind of philosophy Ivan may be said to express in the novel. This close reading reveals that there is a significant distinction between, on the one hand, Ivan's most radical statements, that is his rational egoism and the idea that "everything is permitted," which are always given in reported speech, and on the other the Ivan of direct speech, who is characterized by a stronger moral sensibility. On the basis of these findings the article seeks to bring together two traditions in the reception of Dostoevsky – the philosophical and the narratological. By letting these approaches inform each other it shows that the structural organization of the text is itself a bearer of philosophical meaning. Moreover, the article takes seriously Bakhtin's claim that Dostoevsky's heroes are not merely stable representations of ideas, but engage with them through dialogue, as exemplified by Ivan Karamazov himself as well as by other characters in their responses to his statements

Metaphysics, Aesthetics, or Epistemology? : The Conceptual History of tvorchestvo in Nineteenth-Century Russian Thought

This article analyzes the history of the Russian concept of tvorchestvo (“creation,” “creativity”) from its emergence and early usages in the early nineteenth century, in particular in the writings of Nikolai Nadezhdin, Nikolai Stankevich and Vissarion Belinskii, and up to and including the philosophy of Vladimir Solov’ev. While the concept later on became a key term and pivotal philosophical issue for thinkers such as Nikolai Berdiaev and Sergei Bulgakov, this article focuses on its early history, and more specifically on how it was coined in the translation of the ideas of Schelling, while subsequently becoming independent of the Schellingian origins. More specifically, while it initially was a metaphysical concept, corresponding to Schilling’s idea of “productivity” (of nature as well as of the human being), thinkers like Nadezhdin and Belinskii used it as an aesthetic concept, referring to the creative genius, while Solov’ev in turn applied it in order to emphasize the active role we play in cognition and perception (epistemology). The article demonstrates the importance of cultural transfer in the creation of a Russian philosophical discourse in the nineteenth century and expolores how processes of transfer and translation generate new philosophical issues.Социалистический реализм получил широкое освещение в истории как русской, так и восточноевропейской литератур. Тем не менее, при использовании сложившегося в этих историях институционального и эстетического аппарата, представляется сложным объяснить существование левых текстов вне рамок государственного социализма. Настоящая статья посвящена мировому пролетарскому роману первой половины ХХ века и предлагает новый аппарат для рассмотрения таких текстов, во-первых, очерчивая границы Народной республики литературы (литературной подсистемы, соседствовавшей с политическими левыми и отличной от Мировой республики литературы Паскаль Казановы), внутри которой эти тексты циркулировали, а во-вторых, объясняя широкое использование религиозных нарративов и системы образов, посредством которых в таком романе были представлены революционные сообщества старых левых