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Vladimir Solovyov (philosopher)

Russian philosopher and Christian mystic (1853–1900)

Vladimir Solovyov (philosopher)

Russian philosopher and Christian mystic (1853–1900)

FieldValue
regionRussian philosophy
era[19th-century philosophy](19th-century-philosophy)
imageVS Solovyov.jpg
nameVladimir Solovyov
birth_nameVladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov
birth_date
birth_placeMoscow, Russian Empire
death_date
death_placeUzkoye, Moscow Governorate, Russian Empire
school_traditionChristian philosophy, Sophiology, Christian mysticism, Russian symbolism, Russian Schellingianism
main_interestsPhilosophy of religion
notable_ideasGod-manhood, whole unity, Sophiology, Christian universalism, proto-ecumenism
alma_materImperial Moscow University
thesis_titleCritique of Abstract Principles (Kritika otvlechennykh nachal) 1880
captionPortrait of Vladimir Solovyov,
Note

the Russian philosopher

Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov (; – ) was a Russian philosopher, theologian, poet, pamphleteer, and literary critic, who 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

V. Solovyov in the 1880s

Vladimir Solovyov was born in Moscow; the second son of the historian Sergey Mikhaylovich Solovyov (1820–1879); his elder brother Vsevolod (1849-1903), became a historical novelist, and his younger sister, Polyxena (1867–1924), became a poet. Vladimir Solovyov's mother Polyxena Vladimirovna (née Romanova, d. 1909) belonged to a family of Polish and Ukrainian origin and among her ancestors was the 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 some views that were in line with those of the Orthodox Church. From 1869 to 1873 Solovyov studied at the Imperial Moscow University, where his philosophy professor was Pamfil Yurkevich (1826–1874).

In his 1874 work The Crisis of Western Philosophy: Against the Positivists (, Solovyov discredited the positivists' rejection of Aristotle's essentialism, or philosophical realism. In Against the Positivists he took the position of intuitive noetic comprehension, or insight. He saw consciousness as integral (see the Russian term sobornost) and requiring both phenomenon (validated by dianoia) and noumenon 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.

V. Soloviev, S. Trubetskoy, N. Grot, L. Lopatin, 1893

In 1877, Solovyov moved to Saint Petersburg, where he became a friend and confidant of the writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881). In opposition to his friend, Solovyov was sympathetic to the Catholic Church. He favoured the healing of the schism (ecumenism, sobornost) between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches. It is clear from Solovyov's work that he accepted papal primacy over the Universal Church. There is evidence that he converted to Catholicism in a ceremony on February 18, 1896. The testimony is signed by the Russian Greek Catholic priest Nikolay Tolstoy and two Catholic laypeople—Princess Olga Vasilievna Dolgorukova and Dmitry Sergeevich Novskiy. As an active member of Society for the Promotion of Culture Among the Jews of Russia, he spoke Hebrew and struggled to reconcile Judaism 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 ecumenism developed an increasing bias against Asian cultures—which he had initially studied with great interest. He dismissed the Buddhist concept of Nirvana as a pessimistic nihilistic "nothingness", antithetical to salvation and no better than Gnostic dualism. Solovyov spent his final years obsessed with fear of the "Yellow Peril", 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 27 February 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 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 Anna Nikolayevna Schmidt, who claimed to be his divine partner. In his later years, Solovyov became a vegetarian, 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. In Janko Lavrin'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's The Kreutzer Sonata (1889). It was also the work in which he introduced the concept of 'syzygy', to denote 'close union'.

Sophiology

Main article: Sophiology

Solovyov synthesized a philosophy based on Hellenistic philosophy (see Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus) and early Christian tradition with Buddhist and Hebrew Kabbalistic elements (Philo of Alexandria). He also studied Gnosticism and the works of the Gnostic Valentinus. His religious philosophy was syncretic 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. His Russian religious philosophy had a very strong impact on the Russian Symbolist art and poetry movements of the Silver Age and his written arguments in favor of the reunion of the Russian Orthodox Church with the Holy See played an instrumental role in the formation of the Russian Greek Catholic Church. His teachings on Sophia, conceived as the merciful unifying feminine wisdom of God comparable to the Hebrew Shekinah or various goddess traditions, have been deemed a heresy by Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia and as unsound and unorthodox by the Patriarchate of Moscow. This condemnation, however, was not agreed upon by other jurisdictions of the Orthodox church and was directed specifically against Sergius Bulgakov who continued to be defended by his own hierarch Metropolitan Evlogy until his death.

In his 2005 foreword to Solovyov’s Justification of the Good, the Orthodox Christian theologian David Bentley Hart wrote a defense of Sophiology including a specific defense of Solovyov's later thought:

Sobornost

Main article: 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 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. He died at the Moscow estate of Nikolai Petrovitch Troubetzkoy, 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.

Quotes

Works

Original Russian

English translations

Notes

References

Citations

Works cited

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References

  1. "Symbolism".
  2. ''[[Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]'' (1998): [https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/schellingianism-russian/v-1/sections/schellingian-philosophies-of-history "Schellingianism, Russian"].
  3. (16 March 2018). "Дочь своего века, или Изменчивая Allegro". Крымский ТелеграфЪ.
  4. Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov, ''Russia and the Universal Church'', trans. William G. von Peters (Chattanooga, TN: Catholic Resources, 2013).
  5. Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov, ''The Russian Church and the Papacy: An Abridgment of Russia and the Universal Church'', ed. Ray Ryland (San Diego: Catholic Answers, 2001).
  6. Ryland, Ray. (2003). "Soloviev's Amen: A Russian Orthodox Argument for the Papacy".
  7. Kmita, Robert Lazu. (2025-04-30). "The Greatest Eastern Apologist for Pontifical Authority: Vladimir Solovyov".
  8. Falk S. J., Heinrich. (1949). ""Wladimir Solowjows Stellung zur katholischen Kirche", Stimmen der Zeit, vol. 144".
  9. Grigorieff, Maxim. (2024-05-13). "The Father of Russian Philosophy Died a Catholic".
  10. Solovyov, Vladimir. (2016). "The Burning Bush: Writings on Jews and Judaism". [[University of Notre Dame Press]].
  11. "SOLOVYEV, VLADIMIR SERGEYEVICH".
  12. Masaryk, Tomáš Garrigue. (1919): [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:The_Spirit_of_Russia_by_T_G_Masaryk,_volume_2.pdf/254 ''The Spirit of Russia: Studies in History, Literature and Philosophy, Volume 2'']. Allen & Unwin. p. 228
  13. Zouboff, Peter, Solovyov on Godmanhood: Solovyov's Lectures on Godmanhood Harmon Printing House: Poughkeepsie, New York, 1944; see {{harvnb. Milosz. 1990.
  14. (2004). "Transformations of Eros: An Odyssey from Platonic to Christian Eros". [[Grailstone Press]].
  15. Fr. Paul Mailleux, S.J. (2017), ''Blessed Leonid Feodorov: First Exarch of the Russian Catholic Church; Bridgebuilder between Rome and Moscow'', [[Loreto Publications]]. Pages 11–13.
  16. "SOPHIAN HERESY".
  17. (23 September 2021). "The Living Christ: The Theological Legacy of Georges Florovsky". T&T Clark.
  18. (31 August 2005). "The Justification of the Good: An Essay on Moral Philosophy". Wm. B. Eerdmans.
  19. 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."
  20. Oberländer, Erwin; Katkov, George. (1971). ''Russia Enters the Twentieth Century, 1894–1917''. Schocken Books. p. 248; {{ISBN. 978-0805234046 "Vladimir Solovyev died in the arms of his friend Sergey Nikolayevich Trubetskoy (1862–1905), on the estate of Uzkoye."
  21. Solovyov, Vladimir. (1948). "Russia and the Universal Church". Geoffrey Bles Ltd..
  22. (1948). "Russia and the Universal Church".
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