“So, my Prague Period is Finally Ending”: S.I. Hessen’s Life in the Context of Memoirs and Epistolaryof the 1920‒1930s

Abstract

The article deals with the most important events in the biography of Sergei Hes­sen in the second half of the 1920s – 1930s. The philosopher’s life in Prague was marked with significant scholarly achievements, active philosophical and peda­gogical, editorial and publishing, social activity, the publication of works that strengthened his fame not only among the Russian emigration, but also with the European intellectual circles. Due to the growing world economic crisis, the end of the “Russian action” in Czechoslovakia, the conditions of his professorship and his financial situation were noticeably worsening. The authors show how salutary for S. Hessen was his leave for Warsaw. There the new field for schol­arly and pedagogical activity opened up. In Warsaw he became one of the lead­ing Polish experts in pedagogy, philosophy and politics of education and school didactics. He also managed to get a new family. The fragment of the scholar’s bi­ography is reconstructed on the basis of archival materials and memoirs, a sig­nificant part of which was introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. The article is accompanied by the publication of S.I. Hessen’s letters to P.N. Sa­vitsky, prepared by O.E. Osovsky and V.P. Kirzhaeva.