Vladimir Karpets: the Formation of a Russian Thinker and Writer

Abstract

The article highlights the stages in the evolution of Vladimir Karpets' socio-political views. It also reveals the conditions of the formation of Vladimir Karpets as a thinker, basically at the early stage of his creative work from 1975 to 1995. Poems, historical and literary essays, publishing projects, and a dissertation by Vladimir Karpets are used as sources here. The ways in which the thinker promoted Orthodox and monarchical views against the background of the Soviet censorship are also shown. The article mentions the classics and contemporaries who influenced the formation of Vladimir Karpets' identity: his father Igor Karpets, Pyotr Palamarchuk, Tatyana Glushkova, Anatoly Ivanov, monarchists of the Perestroika era, Grigory Kremnev, Vladimir Mikushevich, Oleg Fomin, Alexander Dugin. All the poetry collections by Vladimir Karpets and the themes of his poems are considered. Attention is paid to his activity as a researcher and lecturer in law, his historical and legal studies of Russia and Spain. The article considers in detail the study by Vladimir Karpets of life and work of Admiral Alexander Shishkov and poet Fyodor Glinka, and traces the influence of their literary and religious views on the formation of Vladimir Karpets as a poet and thinker. The article states the features of monarchism according to Vladimir Karpets, his emphasis on the royal family natural succession, his interpretation of the Soviet period of history as a secret continuation of Russia's mission as Katechon Withholding. In this context, the published films and unpublished scripts by Vladimir Karpets for 1989–1992 are considered: “For Your Friends”, “The Third Rome”, “Name”, “Angel of Harvest”, “Khovanshchina”, “Morok” (“The Story of the Story”). The evolution of the thinker's views in the 1990s is discussed, including his reassessment of the Russian Church schism (dissent) in the 17th century. The article also tells about the translation activity of Vladimir Karpets, and represents a brief description of the subsequent evolution of Vladimir Karpets' thought during 1995–2016.