Aleksei Losev

For footballer, see Aleksei Anatolyevich Losev.

Aleksei Fedorovich Losev (Russian: Алексе́й Фёдорович Ло́сев) (September 22 [O.S. September 10] 1893, Novocherkassk – May 24, 1988, Moscow), a Russian philosopher, philologist and culturologist, one of the most prominent figures in Russian philosophical and religious thought of the 20th century.

Contents

Biography

Losev graduated from two departments—of classical philology and philosophy—of historical-philological faculty of Moscow University in 1915. In 1919, he became a professor of classical philology at the University of Nizhni Novgorod; and then (1920) at the Moscow Conservatory. From 1942 to 1944 he taught in Moscow University and from 1944 on at the Moscow Pedagogical Institute.

In works written in the 1920s, Losev synthesized ideas of Russian philosophy of the early 20th century, of Christian Neo-platonism, dialectics of Schelling and Hegel, and phenomenology of Husserl. In The Dialectics of Myth (1930) Losev rejected dialectical materialism. For his "militant idealism", Losev was sentenced to labor camps at the construction of the White Sea–Baltic Canal, where he almost lost his vision, and to subsequent exile.

Losev was suddenly released in 1932. After returning to Moscow, he 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. He published some 30 monographs between the 1950s and 1970s. With regards to Western philosophy of the time, Losev criticised severely the structuralist thinking.

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.

Personal life

As a young man Losev proposed to the famous pianist Maria Yudina, but was refused. He subsequently portrayed her in an autobiographical novella in slanderous terms, as a deviant living in fornication with three men.[1]

Losev and his wife Valentina were secretly Orthodox-ordained monks in 1929, and wore hair shirts under their everyday garments. They took monastic names Andronicus and Athanasia.

Controversies

At least three of Losev's publications contain noted misogynistic, Аntisemitic[2][3] and anti-Judaic passages. In "Essays on Symbolism and Mythology in the Antiquity" Losev writes:

Konstantin Polivanov suggests that Losev's antisemitic (and thus anti-revolutionary and anti-Marxist) sentiments are likely to derive from Otto Weininger's writings, and they later influenced Stalin's own philosophical development in the direction of Russian Imperial idea that paved the way to the repressions of the 1930s[5] that largely purged Jews from the Soviet government. Leonid Katsis and Dmitry Shusharin similarly accused Losev of complicity in Stalin's repressions.[6]

Bibliography

Volume 35 of the Russian studies in philosophy was the first volume entirely dedicated to A. F. Losev.

External links

References

  1. ^ Alexei Losev, "Woman as Thinker" («Женщина-мыслитель»)
  2. ^ ~http://www.krotov.info/lib_sec/08_z/zem/zemlyanoy.html
  3. ^ http://www.litru.ru/?book=49347&page=4
  4. ^ Земляной, Сергей. "Клерикально-консервативная мифологическая дистопия: Алексей Лосев". russ.ru. http://scepsis.ru/library/id_91.html. Retrieved 2009-10-05. 
  5. ^ http://www.electroniclibrary21.ru/philosophy/losev/03.shtml
  6. ^ Losev, Aleksei. The Dialectics of Myth. Vladimir Marchenkov Introduction, 2003, p. 51 introduction.