Ivan Ilyin
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Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyin (Russian: Иван Александрович Ильин) (March 28, 1883 - December 21, 1954) was a Russian religious and political philosopher, and émigré anti-communist publicist associated with the White movement.
Ivan Ilyin was born in Moscow in an aristocratic family of Rurikid descent. In 1906 he graduated from Moscow State University with a law degree and began working there as a scholar from 1909 on. In 1918 Ilyin became a professor of law in his university. After the Bolsheviks seized power in October 1917, Ilyin was imprisoned several times for alleged anti-communist activity. In 1922, he was sentenced to death but was eventually expelled among some 160 prominent intellectuals, on the so-called "philosophers' ship" the same year.
Between 1923 and 1934 Ilyin worked as a professor of the Russian Scientific Institute in Berlin. He became the main ideologue of the Russian White movement in emigration and between 1927 and 1930 was a publisher and editor of "Russian Kolokol (Bell)" journal. In 1934 German Nazis fired Ilyin and put him under police surveillance. In 1938 with financial help from Sergei Rachmaninoff he was able to leave Germany and continue his work in Geneva, Switzerland.
Ivan Ilyin was a conservative Russian monarchist in the Slavophile tradition. Starting from his 1918 scholarly thesis on Hegel's philosophy, he authored many books on political, social and spiritual topics pertaining to the historical mission of Russia. His views influenced other 20th century Russian authors such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as well as many Russian nationalists. As of 2005, 23 volumes of Ilyin's collected works have been republished in Russia.
The Russian filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov, in partuclar, was instrumental in propagating Ilyin's ideas in post-Soviet Russia. He authored several articles about Ilyin and came up with the idea of transferring his remains from Switzerland to the Donskoy Monastery in Moscow, where the philosopher had dreamed to find his last retreat. The ceremony of reburial was held in October 2005.
Following the death of Ilyin's wife in 1963, Ilyin scholar Nikolai Poltoratzky had Ilyin's manuscripts and papers brought from Zurich to Michigan State University, where he was a professor of Russian. In May 2006, MSU transferred Ilyin's papers to the Russian Culture Fund, affiliated with the Russian Ministry of Culture. [link]
Major works
- Resistance to Evil By Force (О сопротивлениии злу силою, 1925)
- The Way of Spiritual Revival (1935)
- Foundations of Struggle for the National Russia (1938)
- The Basis of Christian Culture (Основы христианской культуры, 1938)
- About the Future Russia (1948)
- The Way to Insight (Путь к очевидности, 1957)
- Axioms of Religious Experience (Аксиомы религиозного опыта, 2 volumes, 1953)
- On Monarchy and Republic (О монархии и республики, 1978)
External links
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