Soviet overviews of émigré philosophy in the 1920s–1930s
Abstract
The article raises the question of the mutual reflection between the two branches of Russian philosophy that emerged as a result of the early 1920s emigration: the Soviet branch, which adhered to Marxism, and the émigré branch, which inherited the Russian religious philosophy of the Silver Age. A study of the historical sources demonstrates that over several consecutive decades, a mutual critical interest existed between both parts of the Russian philosophical community. This was manifested both in the monitoring of publications and events, and in the compilation of reviews and overviews of emerging scholarly literature. The author characterizes five reviews of émigré philosophy published in the Soviet Union: I.K. Luppol’s article “The New Middle Ages” (1926) and G.K. Bammel’s “On Idealistic Philosophy after October” (1930) in the journal Under the Banner of Marxism; I.I. Ivanov-Omsky’s article “Criticism of Marxism by Russian Émigrés” in Against the Latest Criticism of Marxism (1929), a collection compiled by graduates of the Philosophical Department of the Institute of Red Professors; N.V. Fedorovich’s article “Eurasianism and Religion” in the journal Militant Atheism (1931); and an article by the Estonian Marxist A. Kirikal, “On the Reactionary Philosophy of Russian Émigrés”, submitted for publication to the journal Bulletin of the Communist Academy in 1928–1929. The latter article was not published at the time and is provided in full as a special appendix to the present publication. It is concluded that Soviet scholars and philosophers closely followed the development of Russian philosophy abroad, were well-informed about all major book and journal publications, and evaluated them critically from Marxist positions.
