Abstract

Heidegger’s influence in the twentieth century probably outstrips that of any other philosopher, at least in the so-called Continental tradition. The 'revolution' Heidegger brought about with his compelling readings of the broader philosophical tradition transformed German philosophy and spread quickly to most of Europe, the United States and Japan. This volume examines Heidegger’s influence in a region where his reception has had a remarkable and largely hidden history: Eastern Europe and Russia.

The book begins by addressing two important literary influences on Heidegger: Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. It goes on to examine Heidegger’s philosophical influence, and features three crucial figures in the reception of Heidegger’s thought in Eastern Europe and Russia: Vladimir Bibikhin, Krzysztof Michalski, and Jan Patočka. Finally the volume deals with an often vexed issue in current treatments of Heidegger: the importance of Heidegger’s philosophy for politics. The book includes essays by an international team of contributors, including leading representatives of Heideggerian thought in Russia today. Heidegger’s thought plays a key role in debates over Russian identity and the geopolitical role Russia has to play in the world. The volume surveys the complicated landscape of post-Soviet philosophy, and how the rise of widely differing appropriations of Heidegger exploit familiar fault lines in the Russian reception of Western thinkers that date back to the first stirrings of a distinctively Russian philosophical tradition.
Jeff Love is Professor of German and Russian at Clemson University. He is the author of Tolstoy: A Guide for the Perplexed (2008) and The Overcoming of History in War and Peace (2004). He has also published an annotated translation of F. W. J. Schelling’s Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom (2006) with Johannes Schmidt
This path-breaking collection provides in one volume a wide-ranging, innovative assessment of Heidegger’s interest in Russian literature and of his impact on Eastern European philosophy and politics. The Russian, Czech, and Polish responses to Heidegger are extensive and often profound, and the essays here present them in unfailingly accessible, insightful, and historically grounded fashion.
William Mills Todd III, Professor of Literature, Harvard University
Martin Heidegger in Russia and Eastern Europe is a most welcome contribution to at least three fields of inquiry. It enriches our understanding of the world-wide reception of Heidegger’s philosophy, adds a dimension to Russian and Eastern European intellectual and cultural history, and provides a vivid case study in “misplaced ideas” (Roberto Schwarz), concepts and imaginaries crossing cultural, linguistic and historical boundaries and changing emphases and valences in the process.
Ilya Kliger, Associate Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies, New York University