Fyodor Avgustovich Stepun (russian: Фёдор А́вгустович Степу́н; February 18, 1884 – February 23, 1965) (also known as Friedrich Steppuhn) was a Russian and

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

writer, philosopher, historian and sociologist.

Biography

Fyodor Avgustovich Stepun was born in Russia on 18 February 1884, in Moscow. After attending secondary school in Moscow he went as a student to Heidelberg, and there in 1910 he obtained his doctorate for a thesis on Vladimir Solovyov's philosophy of history. Between 1910 and 1914 Stepun edited the international philosophical journal, ''Logos'', and travelled across Russia lecturing on philosophy, literature and culture. During the first World War he was an officer in a Siberian regiment, and after the Russian revolution was an army commissar under the

Russian Provisional Government The Russian Provisional Government ( rus, Временное правительство России, Vremennoye pravitel'stvo Rossii) was a provisional government of the Russian Republic, announced two days before and established immediately ...

. From 1920 to 1922 he directed the state experimental theatre; but in 1922 he was deported from the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. He settled in Germany, working first in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

, and afterwards as a professor of sociology in

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(1926-1937). During this period he published in Russian his books on 'Life and creation' (1923) and 'Letters of an Artillery Ensign' (1925), as well as ''Wie war as moglich?'' (1929), ''Das Antlitz Russlands und das Gesicht der Revolution'' (1934) and ''The Russian Soul and Revolution'' (1936). In 1937 he was expelled from his teaching-post by the Nazi authorities. From 1946 he worked as a professor of Russian cultural studies at

Munich University The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's sixth-oldest university in continuous operatio ...

, and published several works: ''Vergangenes und Unvergangliches'' (1947; Russian version, ''Byvshee i Nesbyvsheesya'', 1956), ''Theater und Film'' (1953), ''Der Bolshewismus und die Christliche Existenz'' (1959), and in Russian 'Encounters' (1962). Stepun was a fierce opponent of Bolshevism, as well as

Nazism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

. His philosophical doctrine has been described as neo-Kantist transcendentalism linked with religious

metaphysic Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

s, close to the ideas of Vladimir Solovyov and

Nikolai Berdyaev Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev (; russian: Никола́й Алекса́ндрович Бердя́ев; – 24 March 1948) was a Russian Empire, Russian philosopher, theologian, and Christian existentialism, Christian existentialist who e ...

. Stepun died on 23 February 1965.

References

External links

* Fedor Stepun Papers. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. {{DEFAULTSORT:Stepun, Fyodor 1884 births 1965 deaths Russian people of German descent Emigrants from the Russian Empire to Germany Writers from Moscow 20th-century Russian philosophers Metaphysicians German male writers 20th-century German philosophers Russian military personnel of World War I