Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov (russian: Влади́мир Серге́евич Соловьёв; also romanized as Soloviev; – ), a
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
n
philosopher,
theologian
Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...
,
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...
,
pamphleteer, and
literary critic, played a significant role in the development of
Russian philosophy and poetry at the end of the 19th century and in the spiritual renaissance of the early-20th century.
Life and work
Vladimir Solovyov was born in
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...
; the son of the historian
Sergey Mikhaylovich Solovyov (1820–1879); his elder brother
Vsevolod (1849-1903), became a historical novelist, and his younger sister,
Polyxena
In Greek mythology, Polyxena (; Greek: ) was the youngest daughter of King Priam of Troy and his queen, Hecuba. She does not appear in Homer, but in several other classical authors, though the details of her story vary considerably. After the ...
(1867-1924), became a poet. Vladimir Solovyov's mother Polyxena Vladimirovna belonged to a family of
Polish origin and had, among her ancestors, philosopher
Gregory Skovoroda (1722–1794).
In his teens, he renounced
Eastern Orthodoxy for
nihilism, but later his disapproval of
positivism saw him begin to express views that were in line with those of the Orthodox Church. From 1869 to 1873 Solovyov studied at the
Imperial Moscow University
Imperial Moscow University was one of the oldest universities of the Russian Empire, established in 1755. It was the first of the twelve imperial universities of the Russian Empire.
History of the University
Ivan Shuvalov and Mikhail Lomonoso ...
, where his philosophy professor was
Pamfil Yurkevich (1826-1874).
In his 1874 work ''The Crisis of Western Philosophy: Against the Positivists'' ( ru , Кризис западной философии (против позитивистов)), Solovyov discredited the positivists' rejection of
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...
's
essentialism, or
philosophical realism
Philosophical realism is usually not treated as a position of its own but as a stance towards other subject matters. Realism about a certain kind of thing (like numbers or morality) is the thesis that this kind of thing has ''mind-independent e ...
. In ''Against the Positivists'' he took the position of intuitive
noetic
Noesis is a philosophical term, referring to the activity of the intellect or nous.
Noesis may also refer to:
Philosophy
* Noesis (phenomenology), technical term in the Brentano–Husserl "philosophy of intentionality" tradition
* Noetics, a bran ...
comprehension, or
insight
Insight is the understanding of a specific cause and effect within a particular context. The term insight can have several related meanings:
*a piece of information
*the act or result of understanding the inner nature of things or of seeing intui ...
. He saw consciousness as integral (see the Russian term ''
sobornost
Sobornost ( rus, собо́рность, p=sɐˈbornəstʲ "spiritual community of many jointly-living people") is a Russian term whose usage is primarily attributed to the 19th-century Slavophile Russian writers Ivan Kireyevsky (1806-1856 ...
'') and requiring both
phenomenon
A phenomenon ( : phenomena) is an observable event. The term came into its modern philosophical usage through Immanuel Kant, who contrasted it with the noumenon, which ''cannot'' be directly observed. Kant was heavily influenced by Gottfried ...
(validated by
dianoia Dianoia (Greek: διάνοια, ''ratio'' in Latin) is a term used by Plato for a type of thinking, specifically about mathematical and technical subjects. Dianoia is the human cognitive capacity for, process of, or result of ''discursive'' thinkin ...
) and
noumenon
In philosophy, a noumenon (, ; ; noumena) is a posited object or an event that exists independently of human sense and/or perception. The term ''noumenon'' is generally used in contrast with, or in relation to, the term ''phenomenon'', which ...
validated
intuitively. Positivism, according to Solovyov, validates only the phenomenon of an object, denying the intuitive reality that people experience as part of their consciousness. As Solovyov's basic philosophy rests on the idea that the essence of an object (see
essentialism) can be validated only by intuition and that consciousness as a single organic whole is done in part by reason or logic but in completeness by (non-dualist) intuition. Solovyov was partially attempting to reconcile the dualism (subject-object) found in
German idealism
German idealism was a philosophical movement that emerged in Germany in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It developed out of the work of Immanuel Kant in the 1780s and 1790s, and was closely linked both with Romanticism and the revolutionary ...
.
In 1877, Solovyov moved to
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
, where he became a friend and confidant of the writer
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (, ; rus, Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский, Fyódor Mikháylovich Dostoyévskiy, p=ˈfʲɵdər mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ dəstɐˈjefskʲɪj, a=ru-Dostoevsky.ogg, links=yes; 11 November 18219 ...
(1821–1881). In opposition to his friend, Solovyov was sympathetic to the
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
. He favoured the healing of the
schism (
ecumenism, ''
sobornost
Sobornost ( rus, собо́рность, p=sɐˈbornəstʲ "spiritual community of many jointly-living people") is a Russian term whose usage is primarily attributed to the 19th-century Slavophile Russian writers Ivan Kireyevsky (1806-1856 ...
'') between the
Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches. It is clear from Solovyov's work that he accepted
papal primacy
Papal primacy, also known as the primacy of the bishop of Rome, is a Roman Catholic ecclesiological doctrine concerning the respect and authority that is due to the pope from other bishops and their episcopal sees. The doctrine is accepted ...
over the
Universal Church, but there is not enough evidence, , to support the claim that he ever officially embraced Roman Catholicism.
As an active member of
Society for the Promotion of Culture Among the Jews of Russia, he spoke
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
and struggled to reconcile
Judaism
Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in t ...
and Christianity. Politically, he became renowned as the leading defender of Jewish civil rights in
tsarist Russia in the 1880s. Solovyov also advocated for his cause internationally and published a letter in
''The London Times'' pleading for international support for his struggle. The ''Jewish Encyclopedia'' describes him as "a friend of the Jews" and states that "Even on his death-bed he is said to have prayed for the Jewish people".
Solovyov's attempts to chart a course of civilization's progress toward an East-West Christian
ecumenicism
Ecumenism (), also spelled oecumenism, is the concept and principle that Christians who belong to different Christian denominations should work together to develop closer relationships among their churches and promote Christian unity. The adjec ...
developed an increasing bias against Asian cultures - which he had initially studied with great interest. He dismissed the
Buddhist
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
concept of
Nirvana as a pessimistic nihilistic "nothingness", antithetical to salvation and no better than
Gnostic
Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized pe ...
dualism. Solovyov spent his final years obsessed with fear of the "
Yellow Peril
The Yellow Peril (also the Yellow Terror and the Yellow Specter) is a racial color metaphor that depicts the peoples of East and Southeast Asia as an existential danger to the Western world. As a psychocultural menace from the Eastern world ...
", warning that soon the Asian peoples, especially the
Chinese, would invade and destroy Russia.
Solovyov further elaborated this theme in his apocalyptic short-story "Tale of the Antichrist" (published in the ''Nedelya'' newspaper on February 27, 1900), in which China and Japan join forces to conquer Russia. His 1894 poem ''Pan-Mongolism'', whose opening lines serve as epigraph to the story, was widely seen as predicting the coming
Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...
of 1904-1905.
Solovyov never married or had children, but he pursued idealized relationships as immortalized in his spiritual love-poetry, including with two women named Sophia. He rebuffed the advances of the
Christian mystic
Christian mysticism is the tradition of mystical practices and mystical theology within Christianity which "concerns the preparation f the personfor, the consciousness of, and the effect of ..a direct and transformative presence of God" ...
, who claimed to be his divine partner. In his later years, Solovyov became a
vegetarian
Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter.
Vegetariani ...
, but ate fish occasionally. He often lived alone for months without a servant and would work into the night.
Influence
It is widely held that Solovyov was one of the sources for Dostoevsky's characters
Alyosha Karamazov and
Ivan Karamazov in ''
The Brothers Karamazov
''The Brothers Karamazov'' (russian: Братья Карамазовы, ''Brat'ya Karamazovy'', ), also translated as ''The Karamazov Brothers'', is the last novel by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky spent nearly two years writing '' ...
''. In
Janko Lavrin
Janko Lavrin (10 February 1887 – 13 August 1986) was a Slovene novelist, poet, critic, translator, and historian. He was Professor Andrej Jelenc DiCaprio of Slavonic Studies at the University of Nottingham. An enthusiast for psycho-analysis, he ...
's opinion, Solovyov has not left a single work which can be considered an epoch-making contribution to philosophy as such.
And yet his writings have proved one of the most stimulating influences to the religious-philosophic thought of his country.
Solovyov's influence can also be seen in the writings of the
Symbolist and
Neo-Idealist writers of the later Russian Soviet era. His book ''The '' can be seen as one of the philosophical sources of
Leo Tolstoy
Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...
's ''
The Kreutzer Sonata
''The Kreutzer Sonata'' (russian: Крейцерова соната, ) is a novella by Leo Tolstoy, named after Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata. The novella was published in 1889, and was promptly censored by the Russian authorities. The work is a ...
'' (1889). It was also the work in which he introduced the concept of 'syzygy', to denote 'close union'.
Sophiology
Solovyov compiled a philosophy based on
Hellenistic philosophy (see
Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
,
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...
and
Plotinus
Plotinus (; grc-gre, Πλωτῖνος, ''Plōtînos''; – 270 CE) was a philosopher in the Hellenistic tradition, born and raised in Roman Egypt. Plotinus is regarded by modern scholarship as the founder of Neoplatonism. His teacher wa ...
) and early Christian tradition with
Buddhist
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
and Hebrew
Kabbalistic elements (
Philo of Alexandria
Philo of Alexandria (; grc, Φίλων, Phílōn; he, יְדִידְיָה, Yəḏīḏyāh (Jedediah); ), also called Philo Judaeus, was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria, in the Roman province of Egypt.
Philo's de ...
). He also studied
Gnosticism
Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized pe ...
and the works of the Gnostic
Valentinus. His religious philosophy was
syncretic
Syncretism () is the practice of combining different beliefs and various schools of thought. Syncretism involves the merging or assimilation of several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, thu ...
and fused philosophical elements of various religious traditions with Orthodox Christianity and his own experience of
Sophia.
Solovyov described his encounters with the entity Sophia in his works, such as ''Three Encounters'' and ''Lectures on Godmanhood''. His fusion was driven by the desire to reconcile and/or unite with Orthodox Christianity the various traditions by the Russian
Slavophiles' concept of
sobornost
Sobornost ( rus, собо́рность, p=sɐˈbornəstʲ "spiritual community of many jointly-living people") is a Russian term whose usage is primarily attributed to the 19th-century Slavophile Russian writers Ivan Kireyevsky (1806-1856 ...
. His Russian religious philosophy had a very strong impact on the
Russian Symbolist art movements of his time. His teachings on Sophia, conceived as the merciful unifying feminine wisdom of God comparable to the Hebrew
Shekinah
Shekhinah, also spelled Shechinah ( Hebrew: שְׁכִינָה ''Šəḵīnā'', Tiberian: ''Šăḵīnā'') is the English transliteration of a Hebrew word meaning "dwelling" or "settling" and denotes the presence of God, as it were, in a pla ...
or various goddess traditions, have been deemed a
heresy
Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...
by
Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia and as unsound and unorthodox by the
Patriarchate of Moscow
, native_name_lang = ru
, image = Moscow July 2011-7a.jpg
, imagewidth =
, alt =
, caption = Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Russia
, abbreviation = ROC
, type ...
.
Sobornost
Solovyov sought to create a philosophy that could through his system of logic or reason reconcile all bodies of knowledge or disciplines of thought, and fuse all conflicting concepts into a single system. The central component of this complete philosophic reconciliation was the
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
Slavophile concept of ''sobornost'' (organic or
spontaneous order through integration, which is related to the Russian word for 'catholic'). Solovyov sought to find and validate common ground, or where conflicts found common ground, and, by focusing on this common ground, to establish absolute unity and/or integral fusion of opposing ideas and/or peoples.
Death
Intense mental work shattered Solovyov's health.
[Zouboff, Peter P. (1944). ''Vladimir Solovyev's Lectures on Godmanhood''. International University Press. p. 14. "The passionate intensity of his mental work shattered his health. On the thirty-first of July, in "Uzkoye", the country residence of Prince P. N. Troubetskoy, near Moscow, he passed away in the arms of his close friend, Prince S. N. Troubetskoy."] He died at the Moscow estate of
Nikolai Petrovitch Troubetzkoy
Prince Nikolai Petrovitch Troubetzkoy (russian: Никола́й Петро́вич Трубецко́й; 1828–1900) was a Privy Counsellor and Chamberlain of the Russian Imperial Court. A relative of the Decembrist revolt, Decembrist Prince S ...
, where a relative of the latter,
Sergei Nikolaevich Trubetskoy, was living.
By 1900, Solovyov was apparently a
homeless pauper. He left his brother, Mikhail Sergeevich, and several colleagues to defend and promote his intellectual legacy. He is buried at
Novodevichy Convent
Novodevichy Convent, also known as Bogoroditse-Smolensky Monastery (russian: Новоде́вичий монасты́рь, Богоро́дице-Смоле́нский монасты́рь), is probably the best-known clois ...
.
Quotes
"But if the faith communicated by the Church to Christian humanity is a living faith, and if the grace of the sacraments is an effectual grace, the resultant union of the divine and the human cannot be limited to the special domain of religion, but must extend to all Man's common relationships and must regenerate and transform his social and political life."
Works
English translations
* ''The Burning Bush: Writings on Jews and Judaism'', Compiled 2016 by Lindisfarne Books,
''The Crisis of Western Philosophy: Against the Positivists'' 1874. Reprinted 1996 by Lindisfarne Books,
* ''The Philosophical Principles of Integral Knowledge'' (1877)
* ''The Critique of Abstract Principles'' (1877–80)
* ''Lectures on Divine Humanity'' (1877–91)
* ''The Russian Idea'', 1888. Translation published in 2015 by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform,
*
' (novel), 1900. Reprinted 2012 by Kassock Bros. Publishing Co.,
''The Justification of the Good'' 1918. Reprinted 2010 by Cosimo Classics,
''The Meaning of Love''. Reprinted 1985 by Lindisfarne Books
''War, Progress, and the End of History: Three Conversations, Including a Short Story of the Anti-Christ'' 1915. Reprinted 1990 by Lindisfarne Books,
''Russia and the Universal Church'' . Reprinted 1948 by G. Bles. (Abridged version: ''The Russian Church and the Papacy'', 2002,
Catholic Answers
Catholic Answers is a Catholic advocacy group based in El Cajon, California. It describes itself as the largest lay-run apostolate of Catholic apologetics and evangelization in the United States. It publishes ''Catholic Answers Magazine'', a b ...
, )
* 103 pages
See also
*
Apophatic theology
*
Mikhail Epstein
Mikhail Naumovich Epstein (also transliterated Epshtein; russian: Михаи́л Нау́мович Эпште́йн; born 21 April 1950) is a Russian-American literary scholar and essayist who is Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Cultural Theo ...
*
Leo Mikhailovich Lopatin
Lev (Leo) Mikhailovich Lopatin (russian: Лев Миха́йлович Лопа́тин; 13 June 1855, Moscow – 21 March 1920, Moscow) was a Russian philosopher and former head of the Moscow Psychological Society until the formal liquidatio ...
*
Vladimir Lossky
Vladimir Nikolaievich Lossky (russian: Влади́мир Никола́евич Ло́сский; 1903–1958) was a Russian Eastern Orthodox theologian exiled in Paris. He emphasized '' theosis'' as the main principle of Eastern Orthodox Christi ...
* ''
Phronesis''
References
Footnotes
Works cited
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Further reading
* du Quenoy, Paul. "Vladimir Solov’ev in Egypt: The Origins of the ‘Divine Sophia’ in Russian Religious Philosophy," ''Revolutionary Russia'', 23: 2, December 2010.
* Finlan, Stephen. "The Comedy of Divinization in Soloviev," ''Theosis: Deification in Christian Theology'' (Eugene, Or.: Wipf & Stock, 2006), pp. 168–183.
* Gerrard, Thomas J
''"Vladimir Soloviev – The Russian Newman,"''
The Catholic World, Vol. CV, April/September, 1917.
* Groberg, Kristi. "Vladimir Sergeevich Solov'ev: a Bibliography," ''Modern Greek Studies Yearbook'', vol.14–15, 1998.
* Kornblatt, Judith Deutsch. ''"Vladimir Sergeevich Solov’ev,"'' Dictionary of Literary Bibliography, v295 (2004), pp. 377–386.
* Mrówczyński-Van Allen, Artur. ''Between the Icon and the idol. The Human Person and the Modern State in Russian Literature and Thought - Chaadayev, Soloviev, Grossman'' (Cascade Books, /Theopolitical Visions/, Eugene, Or., 2013).
* Nemeth, Thomas. ''The Early Solov'ëv and His Quest for Metaphysics.'' Springer, 2014. rint Book
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physi ...
* Stremooukhoff, Dimitrii N. ''Vladimir Soloviev and his Messianic Work'' (Paris, 1935; English translation: Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1980).
* Sutton, Jonathan. ''The Religious Philosophy of Vladimir Solovyov: Towards a Reassessment'' (Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1988).
* Zernov, Nicholas. ''Three Russian prophets'' (London: SCM Press, 1944).
External links
*
*
Vladimir Solovyov (1853–1900)
– entry on Solovyov at '' Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy''
* http://www.orthodoxphotos.com/readings/end/antichrist.shtml
ALEXANDER II AND HIS TIMES: A Narrative History of Russia in the Age of Alexander II, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky
Several chapters on Solovyov
* http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/s/solovyov.htm
* http://www.christendom-awake.org/pages/soloviev/soloviev.html
* http://www.christendom-awake.org/pages/soloviev/biffi.html (address by Cardinal Giacomo Biffi)
Vladimir-Sergeyevich-Solovyov
// Britannica
* http://www.valley.net/~transnat/solsoc.html
* – excerpt from ''Three Conversations'' by Solovyov
Civil Society and National Religion: Problems of Church, State, and Society in the Philosophy of Vladimir Solov'ëv (1853–1900)
– research project at Centre for Russian Humanities Studies, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
* http://rumkatkilise.org/necplus.htm
* ttps://archive.org/details/bub_gb_R2kMAAAAIAAJ English translations of 2 poems by Babette Deutsch and Avrahm Yarmolinsky, 1921
"The Positive Unity: How Solovyov's Ethics Can Contribute to Constructing a Working Model for Business Ethics in Modern Russia"
by Andrey V. Shirin
{{DEFAULTSORT:Solovyov, Vladimir
1853 births
1900 deaths
19th-century Christian mystics
19th-century philosophers
19th-century theologians
Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery
Christian philosophers
Critics of atheism
Honorary members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences
Imperial Moscow University alumni
Pamphleteers
People from Moscow Governorate
Philosophers of literature
Philosophers of mind
Philosophers of love
Philosophers of religion
Platonists
Russian male poets
Russian Orthodox Christians from Russia
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Russian people of Ukrainian descent
Russian philosophers
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Sophiology
Writers from Moscow
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