Исторический обзор русских биографий Аристотеля (вторая половина XVIII – начало XX в.)

Abstract

The article reviews some multi-genre texts of Russian intellectual literature (the 18th – early 20th centuries), containing structured biographies of Aristotle: dictionaries and encyclopedias, textbooks, educational and scientifi c publications. The author singles out seven main chronological periods in the history of the philosopher’s biographies’ creation, as well as their features and source base, with special attention to the authors’ personalities. A separate block examines the key biographies of Aristotle written in the Soviet era. In the main part of the article the author describes each of the selected periods chronologically in every detail, and considers the history of the individual biographical works’ creation. It is noted that the content of the studied texts varies from full-fl edged biographical sketches to brief notes, listing only the main facts or stages of Aristotle’s life. The conclusion is made about the auxiliary nature of these works, where the philosopher’s biography was often referred to when compiling thematic encyclopedic and dictionary articles, or historical references for educational purposes. At the same time, this information was borrowed mainly from foreign encyclopedic publications and popular science works devoted to Aristotle. The above features of the content of the studied texts allow us to call them Russian biographies of Aristotle only conditionally. Among the designated authors there are scientists from various fi elds, philosophers, publicists, theologians and popularizers of science. However, among them there were no professional researchers who purposefully studied the biography of Aristotle. The most signifi cant for the Russian culture of the studied period are the works of S. Ya. Nechaev, G. Voskresensky, S. S. Gogotsky, S. G. Kovner, E. F. Litvinova, S. N. Trubetskoy.