On the generation that squandered its philosophers

Losev, Bakhtin, and classical thought as equipment for living

Caryl Emerson

pp. 95-117

in: Studies in East European Thought 56, 2004.

Abstract

The essay juxtaposes the intellectualpreoccupations and fraught careers of two great20th-century Russian philologist-philosophers,Aleksei Losev and Mikhail Bakhtin. AlthoughLosev's is the more crippling case, theexternal trajectory of their lives develops inrough parallel (bold, prolific productivity inthe 1920s; arrest and deportation in the1930s; slow reintegration in thepost-Stalinist era; recent revivals, cults,booms, and scandals connected with theirlegacy). What is more, the subject matterthat fascinated them often overlapped (theClassical world, the status of the Word,Dostoevsky). Still, differences overwhelm thesimilarities. The essay concludes withspeculation about these two types ofphilosopher-king squandered, martyred, andelevated by their home culture.

Cited authors

Bachtin Michajl

Losev Aleksei