Soviet Judgement and Criticism of Solovyev

Abstract

Bol’šaja Sovetskaja Ėnciklopedija (The Great Soviet Encyclopaedia), volume 52 (edited by S.I. Vavilov, K.E. Vorošilov, A.Ja. Vyšinskij, P.I. Lebedev-Poljanskij, A. Lozovskij, F.N. Petrov, F.A. Rotštejn and O.Ju. Šmidt), Moscow 1947: SOLOV’EV, Vladimir Sergeevič (columns 59-60):

SOLOVYEV, Vladimir Sergeyevich (1853–1900), was a well-known idealistic Russian philosopher of a mystical bent, a writer and a poet. He was a son of the historian Sergey Mikhaylovich Solovyev [1820–1879]. Following the publication of his dissertation, The Crisis of Western Philosophy (Krizis zapadnoj filosofii [1874]), Vladimir Solovyev lectured on philosophy first at the University of Moscow, and later at the University of St. Petersburg. In a public lecture in 1881 he called for clemency for the revolutionaries who were being tried by the czarist government as responsible for the murder of Alexander II. Because of this lecture Solovyev was forced to leave the university. From 1882 until 1888 he occupied himself with questions of theology and church history. After ecclesiastical censorship prohibited the publication of a series of works relating to the above, Solovyev as a writer criticized the views of the younger Slavophils from 1888 until 1895. From 1895 until 1900 he devoted himself anew to philosophical themes. His basic philosophical works are: The Philosophical Principles of Integral Knowledge (Filosofskaja načala cel’nago znanija, 1877); The Justification of the Good (Opravdanie dobra, 1894–1897; and A Critique of Abstract Principles (Kritika otvlečennyx načal, 1877–1880).