The publication was prepared with the support of RSSF grant “The Library of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society” as part of the book collection of scientific library of the State Museum of History of Religion, project № 14-63-01001
This article analyzes the philosophical collection of the library of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society in the late 19th ‒ early 20th century. The authors conclude that the composition of the collection was not accidental. It was supposed to promote a particular view of the philosophy and its role in social and cultural life. A clear preference of all the Russian writers of the period, who wrote on philosophical topics, was given to theologian and philosopher, professor of Moscow Theological Academy Alexey Vvedensky (1862–1913); philosopher and literary critic, professor of Kazan and then of Warsaw Universities Yevgeny Bobrov (1867–1933), and philosopher, professor of Kiev University Alexey Gilyarov (1856–1938): four works of each of these authors were included in the collection of IOPS. Mentioned authors were represented by one, sometimes by two compositions. However, all of those works, one way or another, had a common direction, which reflected a certain ideological orientation and the philosophical attitude, close to one of the compilers of the book collection, or at least considered them useful for the readers of the library. Some of the books in the collection are dedicated to the criticism of positivism and modern science. A. Gilyarov, e.g., described the books by P. Rivet, J. Reinke, and A. Wagner; wrote in accordance with the theory of W. Oswald and stressed the need for removal of the philosophy from the “humiliated position”, in which it existed due to the spread of positivism. The collection included the article by E. Radloff, where he criticized the concept of religion by Jean-Marie Guyau and three critical historical and bibliographical reviews on the problems of psychology and epistemology, criticism of positivism and materialism by G. Chelpanov published in 1886–1900 in “Kyiv University Izvestia”. Quite a large group of works in the philosophical book collection of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society was the works on ethics. They all can be divided into two parts: works criticizing Leo Tolstoy, and works related to the description of modern decline of morals, exposing hedonism and false optimistic and pessimistic future models. All the works demonstrated the pessimistic description of the moral crisis, which was accompanied by a criticism of optimistic belief in the “all-powerful” development of science. All the authors in that collection proclaimed that the answer to the sharp problems of the modernity was to be found in the Orthodox doctrine. The library of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society offered a certain set of works, which expressed the certain outlook and was aimed to promote the formation of philosophical preferences associated primarily with contemporary academic philosophy.
Key words: Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society, Russian philosophy of the late 19th – early 20th century, spiritual and academic philosophy
DOI: 1022250/2072-8662.2017.1.99-108
About the author
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Marianna M. Shakhnovich – DSc (Philosophy), Professor, Head of the Department of Philosophy of Religion and Religious Studies, St. Petersburg State University; 5 Mendeleevskaya liniya, St. Petersburg, Russia, 199034; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |
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Tatiana V. Chumakova – DSc (Philosophy), Professor at the Department of Philosophy of Religion and Religious Studies, St. Petersburg State University; 5 Mendeleevskaya liniya, St. Petersburg, Russia, 199034; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |
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Ekaterina A. Teryukova – PhD (Philosophy), Associate Professor at the Department of Philosophy of Religion and Religious Studies, St. Petersburg State University; Vice-Director at the State Museum of the History of Religion; 5 Mendeleevskaya liniya, St. Petersburg, Russia, 199034; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |