Abstract
At the end of 1907 within a couple of months Lunačarskij met both Gor’kij and Brzozowski in Italy and found many important points of contact with each. To compare Lunačarskij’s thought at that time with Brzozowski’s “philosophical program” of 1907 casts some new light on the great variety of interpretations that enlivened Easter European Marxism at the beginning of the twentieth century. On the one hand, it explains Lunačarskij’s “economism” as distinct both from Brzozowski’s extreme anthropologism and Gor’kij’s “cosmism”; on the other, it shows that Lunačarskij’s “philosophy of labour” promoted a violent attitude of conquest and humankind’s domination of nature. Although he criticized Brzozowski’s sympathies with German Idealism, Lunačarskij shared with him a deep appreciation of human creative power, which is evident in his peculiar form of collectivism as well.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Arkhiv IMLI, KG-OD, 1-22-7. Bogdanov’s letter to M. Gor’kij, March 18 (5), 1908.
Lunačarskij and Brzozowski gave very different meanings to the term “positivism”: Brzozowski rejected positivism as a form of objectivism, Lunačarskij on the contrary deemed that positivism means a realistic attitude towards the world, “it is an organizational principle in the struggle for life” (Lunačarskij 1905a, 206). According to Lunačarskij, Nietzsche himself could be considered somehow a “positivist” (cfr. Walicki, 1973, 167).
Brzozowski highly admired Giambattista Vico, who stated that truth is verified through creation and invention, so that we can really know only that which we have made ourselves. See Syska-Lamparska 1987.
On Gor’kij’s and Lunačarskij’s God-building, their common positions and their differences, see Sesterhenn 1982.
Lunačarskij firstly published the play Tri Putnika i Ono in 1912, in the volume Idei v maskakh.
References
Andreeva, M. F. (1968). Perepiska. Vospominanija. Stat’i. Dokumenty. 3-e izd. Moskva: Iskusstvo.
Avenarius, R. (1888–1890). Kritik der reinen Erfahrung. Leipzig: Fues (R. Reisland).
Bažanov, B. G., Blagoj, D. D., Ščerbina, V. P. et al. (Eds.). (1970). Literaturnoe nasledstvo, v. 82: A.V. Lunačarskij. Neizdannye materialy. Moskva: Nauka.
Berdnikov, G. P., Zil’berštejn, I. S., Ščerbina, V. P., et al. (1988). Literaturnoe nasledstvo, v. 95: Gor‘kij i russkaja žurnalistika načala XX veka. Neizdannaja perepiska. Moskva: Nauka.
Bernardini, L. (Ed.). (2005). A Firenze con i viaggiatori e i residenti polacchi. Firenze: Nardini.
Bogdanov, A. A. (1904). Empiriomonizm. Stat’i po filosofii. Moskva: izd. S. Dorovatovskogo i A. Charushnikova.
Brzozowski, S. (1907). Der Geschichtsmaterialismus als Kulturphilosophie. Ein philosophisches Programm. Die Neue Zeit, XXV(2), 153–160.
Brzozowski, S. (1910a). Idee. Wstȩp do filozofii dojrzałości dziejowej. Lwów: B. Połoniecki.
Brzozowski, S. (1910b). Legenda Młodej Polski. Studia o strukturze duszy kulturalnej (2nd ed.). Lwów: B. Połoniecki.
Brzozowski, S. (1970). Listy (Vol. 2). Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie.
Brzozowski, S. (1973). Kultura i życie. Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy.
Chrostowska, S. D. (2005). Stanisław Brzozowski, philosopher of history, myth, and will. New Literary History, 36(4), 521–542.
Coniglione, F. (1996). Nel segno della scienza: La filosofia polacca del Novecento. Milano: Franco Angeli.
Gor’kij, M. (1904). Čelovek. München: I. Marchlewski & Co.
Gor’kij, M. (1907). La question religieuse. Mercure de France, 592–595.
Gor’kij, M. (1976). Arkhiv A. M. Gor’kogo. v. XIV: Neizdannaja perepiska. Moskva: Izd.vo Khudožestvennaja Literatura.
Gor’kij, M. (2000). Polnoe sobranie sočinenij. Pis’ma. t. 6. Moskva: Nauka.
Kennedy, M. D. (1992). The alternative in Eastern Europe at century’s start: Brzozowski and Machajski on intellectuals and socialism. Theory and Society, 21(5), 735–753.
Kolakowski, L. (1981). Main currents of Marxism. Its origins, growth and dissolution. v. 2: The golden age. Oxford: Oxford U. P.
Lunačarskij, A. V. (1905a). Etjudy kritičeskie i polemičeskie. Moskva: Pravda.
Lunačarskij, A. V. (1905b). Kritika čistogo opyta R. Avenariusa v populjarnom izloženii A. Lunačarskogo. Moskva: izd. S. Dorovatovskogo i A. Čarušnikova.
Lunačarskij, A. V. (1907). Buduščee religii. Obrazovanie, 10, 1–25; 11, 30–67.
Lunačarskij, A. V. (1908). Religija i socializm. Kniga I. Sankt Peterburg: Shipovnik.
Lunačarskij, A. V. (1909a). Dvadcat’ tretij sbornik “Znanija”. In Literaturnyj raspad. Kritičeskij sbornik. Kn. 2 (pp. 84–119). Sankt Peterburg: Eos.
Lunačarskij, A. V. (1909b). Meščanstvo i individualizm. In A. A. Bogdanov, V. A. Bazarov, A. V. Lunačarskij, & M. Gor’kij (Eds.), Očerki filosofii kollektivizma (pp. 219–350). Sankt Peterburg: Znanie.
Lunačarskij, A. V. (1919). Komedii. izd. 2-oe. Petrograd: izd. Petrogradskogo Soveta rabočikh i krasnych Deputatov.
Lunačarskij, A. V. (1968). Vospominanija i vpečatlenija. Moskva: Sovetskaja Rossija.
Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1956–1968). Werke. Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 43 vols.
Sesterhenn, R. (1982). Das Bogostroitel’stvo bei Gorkij und Lunacharskij bis 1909. Zur ideologischen und literarische Vorgeschichte der Parteischule von Capri. München: Otto Sagner.
Steila, D. (1996). Scienza e rivoluzione. La recezione dell’empiriocriticismo nella cultura russa (1877–1910). Firenze: Le Lettere.
Suvorov, S. A., Lunačarskij, A. V., Bazarov, V. A., Bogdanov, A. A., et al. (1904). Očerki realističeskogo mirovozzrenija. Sbornik statej po filosofii, obščestvennoj nauke i žizni. Sankt Peterburg: izd. S. Dorovatovskogo i A. Čarušnikova.
Syska-Lamparska, A. (1987). Stanislaw Brzozowski: A Polish Vichian. Firenze: Le Lettere.
Walicki, A. (1973). Stanisław Brzozowski and the Russian “Neo-Marxists”. Canadian-American Slavic Studies, VII(2), 155–170.
Walicki, A. (1989). Stanisław Brzozowski and the Polish beginning of “Western Marxism”. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Walicki, A. (1995). Marxism and the leap to the kingdom of freedom: The rise and fall of the comunist utopia. Stanford: Stanford U. P.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Steila, D. A philosophy of labour: comparing A. V. Lunačarskij and S. Brzozowski. Stud East Eur Thought 63, 315–327 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-011-9153-z
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-011-9153-z