Gustav Gustavovich Shpet (; ,

Kiev Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

– November 16, 1937,

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Russian SFSR The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR or RSFSR), previously known as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and the Russian Soviet Republic, and unofficially as Soviet Russia,Declaration of Rights of the labo ...

) was a

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

historian of philosophy The history of philosophy is the systematic study of the development of Philosophy, philosophical thought. It focuses on philosophy as rational inquiry based on argumentation, but some theorists also include myth, Religion, religious traditions ...

, psychologist, art theoretician, and interpreter (he knew 17 languages) of

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

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descent. He was a student of a well-known Russian psychologist and philosopher George Chelpanov, a follower of

Edmund Husserl Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (; 8 April 1859 – 27 April 1938) was an Austrian-German philosopher and mathematician who established the school of Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology. In his early work, he elaborated critiques of histori ...

phenomenology Phenomenology may refer to: Art * Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties Philosophy * Phenomenology (Peirce), a branch of philosophy according to Charles Sanders Peirce (1839� ...

, who introduced Husserlian phenomenology to Russia, modifying the phenomenology which he found in Husserl. Shpet was a

Vice president A vice president or vice-president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vi ...

of the Russian State Academy of Arts in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

(1923—1929). Shpet is an author of many books, including his famous ''A View on the History of Russian philosophy'' (; in 2 vols.) and ''The Hermeneutics and its problems'' ().

Biography

Shpet was born as the illegitimate son of an

Austro-Hungarian Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military and diplomatic alliance, it consist ...

officer and a mother of

descent of an aristocratic background. Shpet enrolled in St. Vladimir University of Kiev in 1898, but was expelled for joining a

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

circle. He never adopted a Marxist philosophical viewpoint, even though he sympathised with the socio-economic aims of Marxism. As a thinker, he was thoroughly grounded in Russian

religious Religion is a range of social- cultural systems, including designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relate humanity to supernatural ...

thought of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His philosophy combined Husserl's analysis of the structure of consciousness with

Platonism Platonism is the philosophy of Plato and philosophical systems closely derived from it, though contemporary Platonists do not necessarily accept all doctrines of Plato. Platonism has had a profound effect on Western thought. At the most fundam ...

Orthodoxy Orthodoxy () is adherence to a purported "correct" or otherwise mainstream- or classically-accepted creed, especially in religion. Orthodoxy within Christianity refers to acceptance of the doctrines defined by various creeds and ecumenical co ...

, the doctrine of

incarnation Incarnation literally means ''embodied in flesh'' or ''taking on flesh''. It is the Conception (biology), conception and the embodiment of a deity or spirit in some earthly form or an Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic form of a god. It is used t ...

, and veneration of matter. In 1921 he founded the Institute of Scientific Philosophy in

. From 1921 he was a full member of the Russian Academy of Art Sciences and from 1924 he was vice-president of the academy. His espousal of Husserl's phenomenology influenced the literary scholars Mikhail Petrovsky, Grigoriy Vinokur, and Mikhail Stoliarov.

Death

Shpet was a victim of the

Great Purge The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...

. He was originally arrested on 14 March 1935, along with several other former colleagues from the State Art Academy. He was charged with anti-soviet activities, received a sentence of five years internal exile, and was sent to

, the first university city in Siberia. Here Shpet worked on a new Russian translation of

Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a 19th-century German idealism, German idealist. His influence extends across a wide range of topics from metaphysical issues in epistemology and ontology, to political phi ...

's ''

The Phenomenology of Spirit ''The Phenomenology of Spirit'' (or ''The Phenomenology of Mind''; ) is the most consequential philosophical work of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel described the 1807 work, a ladder to the greater philosophica ...

''. However, he was arrested again on 27 October 1937 and charged with belonging to a monarchist organisation. He was executed on 16 November 1937. He was posthumously rehabilitated in 1956.

References

External links

At the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shpet, Gustav Gustavovich 20th-century Russian philosophers 1879 births 1937 deaths Phenomenologists Soviet rehabilitations Interpreters 20th-century Russian translators Great Purge victims from Ukraine Executed philosophers

Biography

Death

References

Further reading

External links