Two Russian Aesthetes in the Eyes of One British Pharisee. W.H. Auden’s Reviews on Leontiev and Chaadayev

Abstract

The article presents for the first time W.H. Auden’s two reviews on Russian philosophers Konstantin Leontiev and Peter Chaadayev. Auden wrote these re­views for the American newspaper “The New Yorker” in early 1970s but the only one of them (on Leontiev) was published. Review on Chaadayev was only published in 1983, ten years after Auden’s death. The reason for writing was a publication Leontiev’s and Chaadayev’s selected works in English. Both reviews are the critical essays about advantages and disadvantages of their philo­sophical ideas. Auden studies closely the different sides of Russian philosophers’ works, tries to comprehend their values in the life, and to catch the internal logic of their intellectual and personal development as well. However, Auden is ready to dispute with Russian thinkers, to advance arguments, and to illuminate the contemporary political situation. Auden’s mode of operation – the citation of ideas – helps his reviews. Leontiev and Chaadayev become very close figures of Russian philosophy in them – both of them are aesthetes which think that the government has to be more powerful. So, these reviews are of great importance. They are also the historical, aesthetic and literary documents of the period. The biographical and scientific contexts Auden’s reviews are reconstructed in the preface and commentaries