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| Losev wrote eight monograph volumes, beginning the work in 1923.<ref name=Khoruzhii/> The titles were: ''The Ancient Cosmos and Modern Science'', ''The Philosophy of Name'', ''The Dialectics of Artistic Form'', ''The Dialectics of Number in Plotinus'', ''Criticism of Platonism by Aristotle'', ''Music as a Subject of Logic'', ''Essays on Classical Symbolism and Mythology'', and ''The Dialectics of Myth''.<ref name=ISFP>{{cite web |url=http://www.isfp.co.uk/russian_thinkers/alexey_losev.html |title=Alexey Losev |work=Gallery of Russian Thinkers |last=Takho-Godi |first=Aza A. |editor=Dmitry Olshansky, Robert Barsky, Maryse Dennes, Geoffrey Klempner, John McCannon, Henrietta Mondry |publisher=International Society for Philosophers |accessdate=May 11, 2013}}</ref> The series was to conclude with a ninth volume but ''The Dialectics of Myth'' caused a great deal of controversy, and Losev never finished the final monograph.<ref name=Khoruzhii/> | Losev wrote eight monograph volumes, beginning the work in 1923.<ref name=Khoruzhii/> The titles were: ''The Ancient Cosmos and Modern Science'', ''The Philosophy of Name'', ''The Dialectics of Artistic Form'', ''The Dialectics of Number in Plotinus'', ''Criticism of Platonism by Aristotle'', ''Music as a Subject of Logic'', ''Essays on Classical Symbolism and Mythology'', and ''The Dialectics of Myth''.<ref name=ISFP>{{cite web |url=http://www.isfp.co.uk/russian_thinkers/alexey_losev.html |title=Alexey Losev |work=Gallery of Russian Thinkers |last=Takho-Godi |first=Aza A. |editor=Dmitry Olshansky, Robert Barsky, Maryse Dennes, Geoffrey Klempner, John McCannon, Henrietta Mondry |publisher=International Society for Philosophers |accessdate=May 11, 2013}}</ref> The series was to conclude with a ninth volume but ''The Dialectics of Myth'' caused a great deal of controversy, and Losev never finished the final monograph.<ref name=Khoruzhii/> | ||
| In these works, Losev synthesized the ideas of Russian philosophy of the early 20th century, of Christian ], dialectics of ] and ], and ] of ]. In 1930's ''The Dialectics of Myth'', Losev rejected ] and |
In these works, Losev synthesized the ideas of Russian philosophy of the early 20th century, of Christian ], dialectics of ] and ], and ] of ]. In 1930's ''The Dialectics of Myth'', Losev rejected ] and proposed that myth (]) should be treated on equal terms with physical ].<ref name=Khoruzhii/> | ||
| ''The Dialectics of Myth'' identified as false the constructs of the Soviet system; it pointed out the absurdity of the myths associated with state ], and with the dogma of ]. Soviet officials reacted quickly to suppress the book. On April 18, 1930, Losev was arrested and held in the basement prison of the ]. His wife Valentina was arrested on June 5. In the summer of 1930, the ] met, and Losev's case was discussed. The book was denounced by politician ] and playwright ] who said "for such nuances put him up against a wall" to be executed.<ref name=Khoruzhii/> The Losevs were sentenced for his "militant idealism": Valentina to five years and Aleksei to ten years of hard labor in Northern Siberia. After more than a year in Lubyanka Losev was transferred to ], then on to ] ]s to work on the construction of the ].<ref name=ISFP/> Losev was put to work as a night watchman at a timber storage facility.{{Citation needed|date=May 2013}} There he began to gradually lose his vision due to malnutrition,<ref name=Khoruzhii/> and eventually was sent to ] in the ] region.{{Citation needed|date=May 2013}} ] wrote acidly in '']'' that he regretted Losev was still alive to foul the Soviet air.<ref name=Khoruzhii/> | ''The Dialectics of Myth'' identified as false the constructs of the Soviet system; it pointed out the absurdity of the myths associated with state ], and with the dogma of ]. Soviet officials reacted quickly to suppress the book. On April 18, 1930, Losev was arrested and held in the basement prison of the ]. His wife Valentina was arrested on June 5. In the summer of 1930, the ] met, and Losev's case was discussed. The book was denounced by politician ] and playwright ] who said "for such nuances put him up against a wall" to be executed.<ref name=Khoruzhii/> The Losevs were sentenced for his "militant idealism": Valentina to five years and Aleksei to ten years of hard labor in Northern Siberia. After more than a year in Lubyanka Losev was transferred to ], then on to ] ]s to work on the construction of the ].<ref name=ISFP/> Losev was put to work as a night watchman at a timber storage facility.{{Citation needed|date=May 2013}} There he began to gradually lose his vision due to malnutrition,<ref name=Khoruzhii/> and eventually was sent to ] in the ] region.{{Citation needed|date=May 2013}} ] wrote acidly in '']'' that he regretted Losev was still alive to foul the Soviet air.<ref name=Khoruzhii/> | ||
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| Aleksei Losev | |
|---|---|
 Aleksei Losev | |
| Born | (1893-09-23)September 23, 1893 Novocherkassk, Don Host Oblast, Russian Empire |
| Died | May 24, 1988(1988-05-24) (aged 94) Moscow, Soviet Union |
| Era | Contemporary philosophy |
| Region | Russian philosophy |
| Institutions | Moscow University University of Nizhni Novgorod Moscow Conservatory Moscow State Pedagogical University |
Aleksei Fedorovich Losev (Template:Lang-ru) (September 23, 1893 – May 24, 1988) was a Russian philosopher, philologist and culturologist, one of the most prominent figures in Russian philosophical and religious thought of the 20th century.
Early life
Losev was born in Novocherkassk, the administrative center of the Don Host Oblast, the far western Russian territory held by the Don Cossacks on the banks of the Don River. He was named after his maternal grandfather, Aleksei Polyakov; a priest in the Russian Orthodox Church. Losev's paternal great-grandfather was also named Aleksei, and was awarded for heroism during the Napoleonic Wars. Losev's father was Fyodor Petrovich Losev, a violinist and conductor by avocation and a teacher of mathematics and physics by trade. Attracted to a bohemian lifestyle, Losev's father left the family in the hands of his wife, Natal'ya Alekseevna Loseva (née Polyakova), who raised Losev at her father's house.
Losev was schooled in the classics at gymnasium from the age of ten. He was little interested in his studies until he was introduced to philosophy. As well, he became fascinated by astronomy after reading a book by Camille Flammarion. His early interest in music continued, and he considered a career as a violinist.
In his final year of gynmasium, Losev received a gift from his professor: an eight-volume set of writings by Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov, which influenced him greatly. Losev entered Moscow University in 1911. He held season tickets to the Bolshoi Theatre where he watched every opera he could. During a study visit to Berlin, his luggage was stolen, including his books and all of his manuscripts. The trip was cut short by the start of World War I.
Career
Losev graduated with a double degree—philology and philosophy—in 1915. He stayed at Moscow University to prepare for a position as lecturer in Classical Philology. In 1916 he published his first paper, "Eros in Plato". When Russia erupted in the 1917 February and October Revolutions, Losev kept a low profile, spending all of his time writing and studying. In 1919, typhus killed his mother. The same year, Losev's paper "Russian Philosophy" was published in a German-language volume composed of various articles about Russian cultural development. Losev was unaware of this publication until 1983. It was finally published in the Russian language after Losev's death.
After the revolution, the Bolsheviks stopped the teaching of the classics at Moscow University. In 1919, Losev became a professor of classical philology at the newly opened University of Nizhni Novgorod. He also found work teaching aesthetics at the State Institute of Musical Science, at the State Academy of Artisitic Science, and at the Moscow Conservatory where he was named professor.
Losev married Valentina Mikhailovna Sokolova on June 5, 1922; she was a student of math and astronomy who was five years younger than Losev. He had seen her since 1917 when he began renting a room from her parents in Moscow. Pavel Florensky, a former priest and physicist working on the official GOELRO plan to bring electrical utility service to Russia, performed the wedding ceremony. Losev and his wife found they were matched artistically, intellectually and also spiritually; they both sought higher understanding in the study of Russian religion under Archimandrite David. Religion was being suppressed by the Bolsheviks, so this study was conducted in secret. In 1929 the two were ordained monks in the Russian Orthodox Church in a private ceremony officiated by David. They took the monastic names Andronik and Afanasiya. The Losevs successfully hid their monastic status from the public until five years after Losev's death in 1988.
Conflict with Communism
Losev wrote eight monograph volumes, beginning the work in 1923. The titles were: The Ancient Cosmos and Modern Science, The Philosophy of Name, The Dialectics of Artistic Form, The Dialectics of Number in Plotinus, Criticism of Platonism by Aristotle, Music as a Subject of Logic, Essays on Classical Symbolism and Mythology, and The Dialectics of Myth. The series was to conclude with a ninth volume but The Dialectics of Myth caused a great deal of controversy, and Losev never finished the final monograph.
In these works, Losev synthesized the ideas of Russian philosophy of the early 20th century, of Christian Neo-platonism, dialectics of Schelling and Hegel, and phenomenology of Husserl. In 1930's The Dialectics of Myth, Losev rejected dialectical materialism and proposed that myth (idea) should be treated on equal terms with physical matter.
The Dialectics of Myth identified as false the constructs of the Soviet system; it pointed out the absurdity of the myths associated with state atheism, and with the dogma of Communism. Soviet officials reacted quickly to suppress the book. On April 18, 1930, Losev was arrested and held in the basement prison of the Lubyanka Building. His wife Valentina was arrested on June 5. In the summer of 1930, the 16th Communist Congress met, and Losev's case was discussed. The book was denounced by politician Lazar Kaganovich and playwright Vladimir Kirshon who said "for such nuances put him up against a wall" to be executed. The Losevs were sentenced for his "militant idealism": Valentina to five years and Aleksei to ten years of hard labor in Northern Siberia. After more than a year in Lubyanka Losev was transferred to Butyrskaia Prison, then on to Gulag labor camps to work on the construction of the White Sea – Baltic Canal. Losev was put to work as a night watchman at a timber storage facility. There he began to gradually lose his vision due to malnutrition, and eventually was sent to internal exile in the Altai region. Maxim Gorky wrote acidly in Pravda that he regretted Losev was still alive to foul the Soviet air.
Ironically, it was Gorky's first wife who obtained the release from Gulag. Yekaterina Peshkova, the leader of the Political Red Cross, worked to free Losev, finally succeeding in 1933.
Post-arrest career
After returning to Moscow, Losev was allowed to pursue his academic career and to teach. Ancient philosophy, myth and aesthetics became his "inner exile": he was able to express his own spiritualist beliefs.
Losev had been very admiring of the famous pianist Maria Yudina. He had met with her at his Moscow home in early April 1930, prior to a concert she performed on April 16. Soon afterward, Losev was arrested because of his book The Dialectics of Myth. When he returned home in 1933, he wrote a novel using Yudina as the model: Woman as Thinker, or The Woman Thinker. The flawed heroine Losev created, Maria Valentinovna Radina, was a woman musician who spouted high-minded philosophy but slipped to lower standards in her personal life. The novel has been criticized as an outlet for Losev's difficult relationship with Yudina, and as a poor example of his capabilities as a writer. Yudina disliked the character of Maria which she recognized as herself, and in early 1934 she broke with Losev, never to see him again.
Losev published some 30 monographs between the 1950s and 1970s. With regards to Western philosophy of the time, Losev criticized severely the structuralist thinking.
From 1942 to 1944, Losev taught at Moscow University and from 1944 on at the Moscow State Pedagogical University.
In the USSR, his works were censored while he was praised as one of the greatest philosophers of the time. He was even awarded the USSR State Prize in 1986 for his 8-volume History of Classical Aesthetics, two years before his death.
Works
- 1927 – The Ancient Cosmos and Contemporary Science (Античный космос и современная наука.)
- 1927 – The Philosophy of Name
- 1927 – The Dialectics of the Artistic Form (Диалектика художественной формы.)
- 1927 – Music as a Subject of Logic
- 1928 – The Dialectics of Number in Plotinus
- 1928 – Criticism of Platonism by Aristotle
- 1929 – Essays on Classical Symbolism and Mythology
- 1930 – The Dialectics of Myth (translated by Vladimir Marchenkov). New York: Routledge, 2003, ISBN 0-415-28467-8.
- 1934 – Woman as Thinker, or The Woman Thinker, a novel inspired by pianist Maria Yudina
- 1978 –Aesthetics of the Renaissance (Эстетика Возрождения.)
- 1982 – Sign, Symbol, Myth (Знак, символ, миф.)
- 1983 – Vladimir Solovyov (Владимир Соловьев.)
- 1963–1988 – The History of Classical Aesthetics (История античной эстетики, 8 volumes.)
- 1994 – "Twelve Theses on Antique Culture", a public lecture Losev delivered to the Scientific Committee of Culture of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Science. First published in 1994 in Russian. Translated to English by Oleg Kreymer and Kate Wilkinson and published in Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics, 2003, vol. 11, no. 1.
- Electronically available books by Losev (in Russian)
References
Notes
- Pyman, Avril (2010). Pavel Florensky: A Quiet Genius: The Tragic and Extraordinary Life of Russia’s Unknown Da Vinci. Continuum International. p. 229. ISBN 1441187006.
- ^ Marchenkov, Vladimir Leonidovich (2003). Aleksei Losev and His Theory of Myth. (The introduction to Marchenkov's English translation of The Dialectics of Myth, ISBN 0203633733)
- Takho-Godi, Elena A. (2008). "Aleksei Losev's Philosophical Novel 'The Woman Thinker' and the Problem of the Eternal Feminine". Transcultural Studies. 4. Idyllwild, California: Charles Schlacks. Special Issue: Sophia Across Culture: From Old Testament to Postmodernity.
- Shevchenko, Alexander. "Monument to the Don Cossacks on the Arbat". Religion in Contemporary Society (in Russian). Konstantin Gordeev. Retrieved May 11, 2013.
- ^ Khoruzhii, Sergei Sergeevich (2002). M. E. Sharpe (ed.). "A Rearguard Action" (PDF). Russian Studies in Philosophy. 40 (3): 30–68. English translator: Stephen Shenfield. First published in Russian in 1994 in Posle pereryva. Puti russkoi filosofii as "Ar'ergardnyi boi".
- ^ Takho-Godi, Aza A. Dmitry Olshansky, Robert Barsky, Maryse Dennes, Geoffrey Klempner, John McCannon, Henrietta Mondry (ed.). "Alexey Losev". Gallery of Russian Thinkers. International Society for Philosophers. Retrieved May 11, 2013.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link) - ^ Takho-Godi, Elena A. (January 31, 2009). "Глава первая. Основные этапы творчества А.Ф. Лосева". Слово (in Russian). (Word magazine, article title "The art of A.F. Losev's prose")
- Šatskih, Aleksandra Semënovna (2007). Vitebsk: the life of art. Yale University Press. p. 308. ISBN 0300101082.
- Perova, Natalii͡a; Tait, A. L. (1994). Booker Winners and Others. Glas new Russian writing. Vol. 7. Russlit. p. 227. ISBN 0939010437.
Bibliography
- Volume 35 of the Russian studies in philosophy was the first volume entirely dedicated to Losev.
- Kline, George L. Reminiscences of A. F. Losev. In Russian studies in philosophy. Vol. 40, no. 3 (Winter 2001–2002), pp. 74–82.
- Postovalova, V.I. Christian motifs and themes in the life and works of Aleksei Fedorovich Losev: Fragments of a spiritual biography. In Russian studies in philosophy. Vol. 40, no. 3 (Winter 2001–2002), pp. 83–92.
- Seifrid, Thomas. The word made self: Russian writings on language, 1860–1930. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005 (ISBN 0-8014-4316-4).
- Gasan Gusejnov. The Linguistic aporias of Alexei Losev's mystical personalism. – Studies in East European Thought (2009) 61: 153–164.