Review of the Interdisciplinary Scientific Seminar Forced Communication: Existential Experience of Philosophers and Scientists of “Subcapital Siberia” (late 19th – early 20th centuries)

Abstract

The article is a review of an interdisciplinary scientific seminar dedicated to the communication of Russian philosophers and public figures during their exile in the city of Vologda in the late 19th – early 20th century. At that time, N.A. Berdyaev, A.V. Lunacharsky, A.A. Bogdanov, S.A. Suvorov, A.M. Remi­zov, P.E. Shchegolev. were exiled in Vologda. The seminar discussed the prob­lem of “forced interdisciplinarity”, which is understood as the influence of scien­tific and philosophical ideas in exile. Unlike ordinary philosophical or scientific communication carried out to solve some research problem, “forced communi­cation” in exile occurs in order to expand each other’s scientific interests. The “sphere of conversation” of political exiles, their philosophical interests and political preferences are considered. Abstracts and banquets were the main forms of organization of philosophical and scientific debates in exile. The main forms of organization of philosophical and scientific debates in exile were essays and banquets. The abstracts included reading the report with its subsequent discus­sion; banquets were built on the principle of a “round table”. The existential ex­perience of exile also included “forced communication with oneself”, which con­tributed to the concentration of creative activity. It is concluded that the living space of Vologda and the environment favorable for communication strongly in­fluenced the thinkers who were exiled here. A.V. Lunacharsky began to write scientific papers here. N.A. Berdyaev rethinks his views and begins to move from Marxism to idealism and A.A. Bogdanov on the one hand, significantly de­velops his theoretical positions in Marxism and on the other hand, finds itself in the literary field.