Почему он не уехал? Густав Шпет и революция

Abstract

Over the past twenty years, the rehabilitation of Gustav Gustavovich Shpet’s work has taken place almost simultaneously in France and in Russia, thanks to the close cooperation of researchers. Among the intersecting themes that have become the focus of their attention is his attitude to the revolution as a social and cultural-historical phenomenon. And although this issue is not a priority in his work, it nevertheless turns out to be very significant for understanding his life and phi­losophy. Gustav Shpet, as a philosopher, understood that he had to keep his dis­tance from political events in order to concentrate on his work, especially when the implementation of this work is threatened by what should have contributed to it (meaning the cultural policy that was conducted in the post-revolutionary Russia in the late 1910s and 1920s. It is important for us today that at different moments of his life, Gustav Shpet interprets the revolution, relying on his experi­ence of understanding the revolutionary struggle in which he participated in his youth, phenomenological ideas, the history of Russian philosophy and organiza­tional academic activity. It was these factors that determined the dynamics of his interpretation of the revolution that played an important role in his decision to re­main in Russia in 1922, when he asked Lunacharsky to cross his name off the lists of those who were to leave the country on the Philosophers’ Ship. Gustav Shpet chose to stay in his country, for better or for worse, but he chose it.