Aleksei Losev

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Aleksei Losev : biography

1893 – 1988

Conflict with Communism

Losev wrote eight monograph volumes, beginning the work in 1923. The titles were: The Ancient Cosmos and Modern Science, The Philosophy of Name, The Dialectics of Artistic Form, The Dialectics of Number in Plotinus, Criticism of Platonism by Aristotle, Music as a Subject of Logic, Essays on Classical Symbolism and Mythology, and The Dialectics of Myth. The series was to conclude with a ninth volume but The Dialectics of Myth caused a great deal of controversy, and Losev never finished the final monograph.

In these works, Losev synthesized the ideas of Russian philosophy of the early 20th century, of Christian Neo-platonism, dialectics of Schelling and Hegel, and phenomenology of Husserl. In 1930’s The Dialectics of Myth, Losev rejected dialectical materialism and proposed that myth (idea) should be treated on equal terms with physical matter.

The Dialectics of Myth identified as false the constructs of the Soviet system; it pointed out the absurdity of the myths associated with state atheism, and with the dogma of Communism. Soviet officials reacted quickly to suppress the book. On April 18, 1930, Losev was arrested and held in solitary confinement in the basement prison of the Lubyanka Building. His wife Valentina was arrested on June 5, 1930; the couple’s eighth wedding anniversary. Marianna Gerasimova, an investigator with the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU), an agency of secret police, was assigned to investigate Losev with the goal of proving that he was a leader of the secret religious splinter group called Onomatodoxy, based on the idea that the Name of God is God Himself, and that Losev was involved in planning violence against the Soviet government. Losev was indeed associated with Onomatodoxy but his role was theological, not practical. Gerasimova led a team of investigators who gathered and fabricated evidence over the course of 17 months while Losev was held in prison. Gerasimova listed false claims against Losev such as his being a member of the Black Hundreds, an antisemite, and a religious bigot and fanatic. Losev’s library and writings were seized, and his dwelling was lived in by an agent of OGPU.

In the summer of 1930, the 16th Communist Congress met, and Losev’s case was discussed. The book was denounced by politician Lazar Kaganovich and playwright Vladimir Kirshon who said "for such nuances put him up against a wall" to be executed. All 500 copies of the book were seized and destroyed. After 4 months in Lubyanka, Losev was transferred to Butyrskaia Prison where he was held for 13 more months. The Losevs were sentenced for his "militant idealism": Valentina to five years and Aleksei to ten years of hard labor in Northern Siberia. Losev was sent to Gulag labor camps to work on the construction of the White Sea – Baltic Canal. Initially, he was put to work hauling timber, but his health failed and he was assigned night watchman at a timber storage facility. There he began to gradually lose his vision due to malnutrition, though he was reunited with his wife in 1932 at Belbaltlag labor camp. In December 1931, Maxim Gorky wrote acidly in Pravda and in Izvestia that he regretted Losev was still alive to foul the Soviet air.

Ironically, it was Gorky’s first wife who obtained Losev’s release from Gulag. Yekaterina Peshkova, formerly an activist with the Political Red Cross and in the 1930s the chair of the follow-on group Assistance to Political Prisoners, worked to free Losev, finally succeeding in late 1932 to overturn his conviction.

Early life

Losev was born in Novocherkassk, the administrative center of the Don Host Oblast, the far western Russian territory held by the Don Cossacks on the banks of the Don River. He was named after his maternal grandfather, Aleksei Polyakov; a priest in the Russian Orthodox Church. (The introduction to Marchenkov’s English translation of The Dialectics of Myth, ISBN 0203633733) Losev’s paternal great-grandfather was also named Aleksei, and was awarded for heroism during the Napoleonic Wars, while fighting in a Cossack Brigade. Losev’s father was Fyodor Petrovich Losev, a violinist and conductor by avocation and a teacher of mathematics and physics by trade. Attracted to a bohemian lifestyle, Losev’s father left the family in the hands of his wife, Natal’ya Alekseevna Loseva (née Polyakova), who raised Losev as an only child at her father’s house.