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At the beginning of the twentieth century the thought of the Russian émigré philosopher Lev Shestov (1866–1938) challenged traditional philosophical norms and brought the individual experience of the anxiety of death to the forefront of philosophical investigation. Based on my research in the Lev Shestov Archives at the Sorbonne, the Library Archives and the Special Collections of the British Psychoanalytical Society at the Institute of Psychoanalysis and my translations of Lev Shestov’s unpublished manuscripts and correspondence, the thesis represents a new interpretation of the philosopher’s work. Considering the development of Shestov’s worldview within the context of a historical and biographical narrative, I have carried my inquiry into the roots of Shestov’s philosophical position, looking through the conceptual prism of the parable of the Angel of Death. The comparative and hermeneutical analysis of the key notions in Shestov’s philosophy – the problems of truth, revelation and death was attained by way of examining the key concepts of his philosophy in relation to the ideas of some of the most influential figures of his time, such as William James, Edmund Husserl, Karl Jaspers, and Sigmund Freud, and with reference to major thinkers in the Western tradition from Plato, Plotinus, and Tertullian to Arthur Schopenhauer, and from Søren Kierkegaard and Fyodor Dostoevsky to Friedrich Nietzsche, Leo Tolstoy, Martin Heidegger, and Martin Buber. The construction of a network of hermeneutical interactions (philosophical, psychoanalytic, religious) thereby aims to bring Shestov’s philosophy into a meaningful and mutually informative dialogue with other disciplines. The main conclusion of this work is that the parable of the Angel of Death constituted a key element in Shestov’s methodology and played a synthesizing role in the development of his philosophical vision. Another important conclusion is that the discourse of the parable of the Angel of Death conveyed the notion of death as the awakening to life (the rebirth of the individual), which is a central theme in Shestov’s philosophy. This finding not only placed the Russian thinker’s ideas in the context of the Judeo–Christian theological tradition, but it also provided a connection to Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, the philosophy of Jacques Derrida, and the current revival of apophatic theology.

This thesis provides new perspectives on the epistemic conditions of pre- and post-revolutionary Soviet thought (1910s–early 1930s) and constructs a transdisciplinary entry point into a materialist ontology of ‘poor life’. The concept of poor life engages contemporary debates on class composition and individuation from the materialist viewpoint of self-organising labour causality and social mediation. The thesis opens with a critical examination of the ‘Western’ and ‘Eastern’ divide in Marxist philosophy and shifts discussion from the official doctrine of Bolshevism to the under-represented epistemologies of Empirio-Marxism and Spinozist- Hegelianism in the philosophy and political theory of Alexander Bogdanov, the writings and art criticism of Andrei Platonov and the experimental philosophy and psychology of Lev Vygotsky. A transdisciplinary, post-revolutionary logic assumes that theory should start where Marx ended and that it should act in a Marxist fashion across all conceptual and practical realms. The reconstruction of these epistemological conditions leads to an alternative philosophical genealogy of Soviet avant-garde art and the writings of Andrei Platonov. The thesis explores the connections between the Empirio-Marxism of Bogdanov and the problematic of construction, ‘life-building’ and production in the theories of the Soviet avant-garde. Bogdanov proposes an organisational ontology of the active and productive capacity of labour to compose and construct historically determined ‘life-complexes’ and orders of material relations. In turn, the organisation of sensibility, things and relations, or communist ‘life-building’, becomes the primary theoretical and practical agenda of Proletkult, Constructivism, Productivism and the Literature of Fact. The thesis demonstrates the unique place of Andrei Platonov within these conceptual settings. The core of the thesis is a reconstruction of Platonov’s method and form of writing, the aim of which is to demonstrate the conceptual reciprocity of the problems of ‘lifebuilding’ and ‘poor life’. Platonov stresses the negativity of partition and compartmentalisation within the compositional logic of ‘life-building’. In the experience of social poverty, the selforganising force of labour produces a disjunctive unity of thinking and speech, reaction and act, time and space. Vygotsky’s Spinozist-Hegelianism exposes the structural logic of this negativity. The reconstruction of his system shows how mediation produces a dialectical dramaturgy of individuation out of the compositional materiality of poverty and the given ensemble of social relations. The thesis concludes by outlining a differential unity between the three authors. The Soviet problematisation of poor life links social and ontological degrees of organisation, offering epistemological models of compositional productivity and of the individuating negativity of ‘life-building’. The epistemic conditions that we reconstruct in the thesis may have vanished along with their revolutionary context, but they are likely to resurface in the course of any new experiment in radical social transformation.

This thesis is an examination of the teaching of the Russian religious thinker, Vladimir Solov'ev (1853 -1900), about divine-humanity, the term he used to express the patristic doctrine of deification. The first chapter examines the theme of deification in the patristic tradition and shows that he himself was extremely familiar with the writings of the Church Fathers and the doctrinal teachings of the early Church Councils. The following three chapters are devoted to specific works of Solov'ev which are analysed in detail, Lectures on Divine Humanity, The Spiritual Foundations of Life and The Justification of the Good. Of these, the latter two have, to date, received little extended scholarly study. The over-arching thrust of the thesis is that Solov'ev's concept of deification started as a reflection of the mystical and cosmic expressions of deification characteristic of the late Greek patristic period but develops so to be expressed in the western terminology of grace and focuses on the active implementation of deification in the world, taking the teaching out of its original monastic context. Chapter Two reveals the significant impact of Maximus the Confessor on Solov'ev's thought and identifies the dyothelite Christological model which Maximus develops from the dogmatic definition of the Council of Chalcedon as a crucial hermeneutical principle in Solov'ev's thought. Chapter Three shows the development of Solov'ev's teaching about deification, examining how it expands to embrace different models of deification, adopting western as well as eastern theological approaches and finding its centre in the life of the Church. Finally, Chapter Four shows how Solov'ev's deepening understanding of the western approach to deification through the language of grace is integrated with an eastern understanding of human anthropology, enabling him to integrate realistic and moral approaches to deification, and address the whole range of human experience in terms of divine union and the Kingdom of God.

This thesis explores the problem of time and the connected problem of history in the thought of two Russian thinkers, Sergei Bulgakov and Nikolai Berdiaev. After an introduction tracing the history of these problems in philosophical thought from the ancient Greeks to the twentieth century, the main body of the thesis is divided into two central chapters, the first on Bulgakov and the second on Berdiaev. Analysis of their two contrasting approaches to these questions reveals opposite formulations of the time-history relationship, in which Bulgakov suggested the primacy of history over time, whilst Berdiaev maintained the primacy of time over history. Subsequent exploration aims to account for these different organisations of the time-history relationship, and discusses how for Bulgakov a deterministic pattern of thought about time and history was central, and how for Berdiaev a paradoxical approach to these problems was dominant. Across this discussion, these thinkers’ various points of contact with classical, European and Russian intellectual traditions is highlighted, and in this way their thought on these questions is located within an intellectual context which extends beyond Russia.

This thesis explores how wholeness (tselostnost' or tsel'nost'), a central theme and impulse of Russian nineteenth-century philosophy, is expressed in the work of three different twentieth-century Russian artists. Tselostnost' is understood here as Russian philosophy‘s enduring preoccupation with the essential, original wholeness of the universe, an ideal state from which the human world has fallen and which man seeks to regain. Particular attention is paid to the way in which this idea was taken up and developed by a range of nineteenth-century Russian thinkers: Petr Chaadaev, Aleksei Khomiakov, Ivan Kireevskii, Nikolai Fedorov, Vladimir Solov‘ev and Fedor Dostoevskii. In their works, the vision of the universe as an ideal tselostnost' is connected with a number of key key concepts from Russian philosophy, among which are: tsel'noe znanie, sobornost', and vseedinstvo. The main body of the thesis bases its analysis on selected writings by Andrei Platonov (1899-1951) and Valentin Rasputin (1937- ), and on the cinematic oeuvre of Andrei Tarkovskii (1932-1986). It explores how in the work of all three artists, tselostnost' is repeatedly linked with the theme of memory, framing the worldviews they express and influencing their aesthetic. The work of these three men, crossing two artistic media and realised with different levels of complexity, also spans a historical period which stretches from the 1920s to the present. The choice of these three very different artists to explore these ideas is integral to the wider aim of this study, which is to investigate the pervasiveness and longevity of the ideal of the whole in Russian culture, as well as the consistency with which it has been expressed. In addition, the examination of the three artists' work is a contribution to the wider critical discussion about the close links between the Russian philosophical and literary traditions.

This thesis explores the nature and significance of the task allocated to humanity in the thought of the Christian philosopher Vladimir Solov'ev (1853-1900)—the ‘spiritualization of matter’ (odukhotvorenie materii). It is split into four parts, which follow the chronological development of Solov'ev’s thought while retaining a thematic approach in large part deriving from that development. The first section builds a foundation for the rest of the thesis by exploring his philosophy of matter. The second section outlines the major themes in Solov'ev’s thought on the interaction between God and humanity, and analyzes his reasons for arriving at his formulation of the goal of the historical process and the task incumbent upon humanity. The third section argues for the centrality of the phenomenon of prophecy to Solov'ev’s project, as well as tackling the question of the late, apocalyptic turn in his life and work. It then discusses the mode of ‘feeling’ as a central component in the dynamics of the spiritualization of matter. The last section looks at Solov'ev’s eschatology, philosophy of love and aesthetics, and discusses his final relation to many of the defining influences of his intellectual and spiritual development. While exploring the sources on which Solov'ev drew as well as the resonance his thinking finds in contemporary philosophical and theological thought, the thesis also incorporates biographical details of the philosopher's life into its analysis of his oeuvre.

This thesis will examine the Creation of the world as the referential event in Vasilii Rozanov's religious thought. The first chapter explores Rozanov's rejection of Orthodoxy's formal doctrines, in favour of a philosophy based on man's physical ties with God. Rozanov's God is bisexual, whose creation of the cosmos is a sexual event. Man is linked to God not through Christ (a created being), but biologically, and by his bodily activity which repeats the Creation. Rozanov subverts the eschatology of Orthodoxy, replacing it with an attachment to the material world. The subsequent chapters examine the implications of Rozanov's thought for his Christianity, and specifically the manner in which he tries to make ancient values relevant in contemporary Russian society. The second chapter investigates Rozanov's studies of ancient Egypt. Rozanov tries to restore Egyptian religious practices, in particular their reverence for the Creation. The third chapter turns to Rozanov's writings on the Jews. He believes that the Jews have preserved the rituals they learned from the Egyptians, and therefore can provide a connection between the Russians and pre-Christian civilizations. The final chapter looks at the role played by art, specifically literature, in the restoration of pre-Christian values for Rozanov, arguing that his aesthetics are ethical and based on his interpretation of the Creation. Writing re-enacts the Creation. This thesis argues that Rozanov's thought emerges from the traditions of Russian philosophy, and also from traditional Russian Orthodoxy; in many ways he is a typical Russian thinker, as well as a devout Orthodox believer. Having assumed these traditions, he proceeds to define his thought in opposition to them. This thesis will also illuminate the broader tendencies in the development of Russian thought at this time, and the way Russian thinkers engaged with the established religious teachings of the Church.

This thesis offers the first full-length historical biography of Semen Frank. Frank is well-known as one of the most important representatives of Russian 20th century philosophy, and as a contributor to the famous collection of essays of 1909, Vekhi. Apart from that, he is a slightly obscure figure. This thesis attempts to rectify that by putting his work in the context of his time and his own personal Journey. It reveals the extent to which his philosophical Journey was a response to personal problems, how his thought was In some way confessional. Frank's philosophy was closely linked to his religious ideas and experiences, and this biography outlines the motives and landmarks of his spiritual Journey. In addition it shows how his ideas, even those which were most abstract, were often responses to contemporary social challenges. Although the thesis contains a lot of information and comment about Frank's philosophical ideas and development, its focus is primarily historical. In providing a detailed account of Frank's life both in Russia and in emigration, it offers an insight into the dilemmas of the generation who were forced to leave Russia after the Bolshevik revolution. The thesis contains a lot of new information about Frank's life and work. In particular, this involves material from the archives in Moscow and St Petersburg, from the Bakhmeteff Archive at Columbia University in Jew York and the Solzhenitsyn Archive in Vermont, and from correspondence and family papers held in private hands. It has also benefited from extensive Interviews with Frank's sons and daughter and other friends.