HISTORY
9. LOSEV: PHILOSOPHER OF MYTH - RAS 13, JRL 6571
SOURCE. The Dialectic in A.F. Losev's Thought. Russian Studies in Philosophy, Vol. 40 No. 3, Winter 2001-2002 [published by M.E. Sharpe of New York]
This is the third issue of Russian Studies in Philosophy ABOUT the Russian philosopher Alexei Losev (1893-1988). (1) And it includes the first ever English-language publication of a substantial text BY Losev: the last three chapters of his book "The Dialectics of Myth," translated by Vladimir Marchenkov of Ohio University, who recently organized a conference about Losev. (2)
Why such interest in this obscure figure? And why do I have to admit to a certain fascination even though I would never have dreamt of devoting any attention to him had I not been asked to translate one of the articles about him?
Losev was born in Novocherkassk, where he spent much of his early childhood at the home and church of his grandfather, who was an Orthodox priest -- the source of his deep lifelong religiosity. At the age of 17, while still at gymnasium, he studied the works of the religious philosopher Vladimir Solovyov, his "first teacher" and the subject of his last book. Then at university in Moscow he joined the intellectual milieu of the religious thinkers of the "Silver Age."
Though Orthodox Christianity was the first tradition to shape Losev's mind, at university he also absorbed the philosophies of classical antiquity and modern Europe. (He graduated in 1915 in philosophy and classical philology.) In fact, ancient Greek philosophy seems to have become his main interest. His first book, published in 1916, was on Plato, and the papers he read to the Vladimir Solovyov Religious-Philosophical Society were all about Plato and Aristotle.
He published nothing more until 1927. Then between 1927 and 1930 no fewer than eight of his books appeared. It is on these that his current reputation rests. Four of these books were again on the thought of classical antiquity, but the other four developed his own ideas on art, music, names, and myth. He even dared to intersperse "The Dialectics of Myth" with caustic criticism of the Soviet ideology and way of life. How did it get past the censor? After all, this was no longer the relatively easy-going 1920s: Stalin was already firmly in the saddle. Presumably it slipped by precisely because it seemed so obscure.
In any case, the party leaders were soon alerted. At the 16th party congress in the summer of 1930 Losev was attacked by Kaganovich and by the dramatist Kirshon. To a comment that Losev was merely "expressing the nuances of philosophical thought," Kirshon responded with a charming little rhyme: "Za takie ottenki, stavit' k stenke" ("For such nuances put him up against the wall")
Losev was arrested and sent to a labor camp on the White Sea--Baltic Canal. Here he did not long withstand the heavy labor of felling and floating timber. He got rheumatism, scurvy, dystrophy, and hemorrhage into the optic nerve, which led a few years later to blindness. But he was rescued: in 1933 he was released thanks to the appeals of E.P. Peshkova, head of the Political Red Cross and first wife of the famous writer Maxim Gorky. (Gorky himself also complained, in Pravda -- that Losev was too slow in dying!)
Losev was even able to return to scholarship. To do this he had to compromise with the powers that be. He no longer gave voice to his own philosophical ideas (at least in public) but presented himself only as a specialist on the ancient world. He did not "bend his soul" (to use the Russian expression) but he accepted certain limits. An American scholar by the name of George Kline (Bryn Mawr College) tracked him down -- or "dug him up" as Losev put it -- and visited him four times between 1956 and 1968. Professor Kline's reminiscences of Losev and correspondence with him are included in the source.
At the level of philosophical method, Losev attempted to combine the dialectics of Hegel with the phenomenology of Husserl. But (as Khoruzhii, author of the article that I translated, demonstrates) the synthesis failed. Dialectics and phenomenology do not work well together. In practice Losev sacrificed phenomenology to dialectics. Phenomenology, which focuses on how things appear to our consciousness and avoids speculation about their inner "essence," was too mundane and boring for Losev.
Losev's thought is extremely hard to understand -- not just because the style is involved and idiosyncratic but also because many of his concepts and assumptions are alien to our modern way of thinking. Indeed, Losev makes no claim to be modern. To take one striking example, he does not even believe that the Earth goes round the sun.
I am not really competent to judge -- perhaps someone will put me right? -- but I suspect that Losev's ideas about the world were very deeply influenced by the ancient philosophy he studied so closely. Thus for him myth is a pervasive reality that is "detached" from, but no less material than, the reality of everyday experience. Didn't the ancient Greeks view their myths that way? Khoruzhii compares Losev's philosophy of myth with Jung's psychoanalytical interpretation of myth and also with the recent intellectual movement known as semiotics, but he warns against exaggerating the similarities. Whatever importance Jung and the semioticians assign to myth, it remains for them a psychological and cultural phenomenon, whereas for Losev myth is REAL.
So where does Losev's appeal lie? Of course, the current religious revival creates a demand for religious philosophers. And there is the drama of his life story. In addition, his work exudes an air of mystery and enchantment (not wholly Christian in origin). Many people yearn for these qualities, so rare in our everyday lives, and they are congenial to the "New Age" sensibility. (3)
NOTES
(1) The other two issues were Vol. 28 No. 2 (Fall 1989) and Vol. 35 No. 1 (Summer 1996).
(2) Professor Marchenkov's translation of the whole book is forthcoming from Routledge.
(3) In all these respects he has much in common with another Silver Age religious philosopher , Father Pavel Florensky, to whom a forthcoming issue of RSP is devoted. See RAS No. 9 item 10.
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