Vladimir Solovyov (philosopher)

Vladimir Sergeyevich Soloviev

Vladimir Sergeyevich Soloviev (Владимир Сергеевич Соловьёв) (1853 - 1900) was an outstanding Russian philosopher, poet, pamphleteer, literary critic, who played a significant role in the development of Russian philosophy and poetry at the end of the 19th century. Solovyev played a significant role in the Russian spiritual renaissance in the beginning of the 20th century. He had an effect on the religious philosophy of Nicolas Berdyaev, Sergey Bulgakov, Pavel Florensky, Semyon Frank, and also to poetry and theory of the Russian symbolism by Andrei Belyi, Alexander Blok, and others.

Soloviev believed in the incarnation of Divine Wisdom in a being called Santa Sophia, a concept that greatly influenced the young symbolist poets, especially Blok and Belyi. He advocated a synthesis of Eastern and Western Churches in his book "Russia and the Universal Church" (written in French in 1889, translated into English in 1948). The imminent coming of the Antichrist was the theme of his last book "Three Dialogs on War, Progress, and the End of History" (1899, translated in 1915). His best known mystical poem is "Three Meetings" (1899), which describes his visions of Sophia. Soloviev was also deeply involved in the political writings and literary criticism. Soloviev later changed his earlier convictions and began expressing views inline with the Russian Orthdox Church. Vladimir Soloviev was also known to be a very close friend and confidant of F.M. Dostoevsky. It is a widely held belief that Soloviev is the basis of the character Aloysha Karamozov from The Brothers Karamozov.

Biography

Vladimir Solovyov was born in Moscow on 16 January, 1853, in the family of well-known Russian historian Sergey Mikhaylovich Solovyev (1820-1879). His mother, Polixena Vladimirovna, belonged to the Ukrainian-Polish family, having among here ancestors a remarkable thinker the 18th century G.S.Skovoroda (1722 - 1794).

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Bibliography

• The Crisis of Western Philosophy: Against the Postivists
• The Justification of the Good
• The Meaning of Love
• War, Progress, and the End of History

External links

• http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=0300060963
• http://aatseel.org/dissertations/literature/kostalevskym.html