Philosophical Dialogue between Russia and The West: Translation of Meanings and Hermeneutic “Failure” (On the Example of Dutch Translations of Semyon Frank’s Creative Heritage of the 1930s)

Abstract

The article addresses a number of hermeneutic difficulties faced by representa­tives of the Dutch philosophical community of the 1930s in the context of their comprehension of Frank’s works. Semyon Frank was one of the famous Russian émigré thinkers. The article draws attention to important linguistic, cultural, and ideological features inherent in Russian religious philosophy, which might be­come obstacles to Western hermeneutic practices, implicitly emanating from other cultural and value-semantic foundations. The available examples of incom­plete, distorted translation and interpretation by Dutch intellectuals of such a key concept for Russian religious philosophy as “collegiality” are analyzed. It is noted that this concept was perceived in a simplified way, only as a “feeling of connectedness”, which far from fully reflects its content and makes it diffi­cult to build a full-fledged philosophical dialogue. In the philosophy of Semyon Frank, this concept has a much deeper content. According to Semyon Frank the collegiality acts as a historically important construct on which the unity of his­tory is based since this spiritual phenomenon presupposes a supertemporal pri­mordial unity, built on the basis of the common fundamental values of those who lived, who is, living now, and those who are still going to live. Especially, it is emphasized that the analyzed example of an unsuccessful translation of meaning should not be absolutized. Additionally, examples of adequate perception of Se­myon Frank by Western thinkers are provided in the article. It is concluded that the hermeneutic difficulties of Dutch intellectuals are caused primarily by their self-centered philosophical view of the world, which interfered with the adequate comprehension of semantic references present in the work of the Russian philosopher.