The Modest Philosopher Adolf Lazarev: Life, Ideas, Correspondence (Review on “A Hardworking Interpreter of Shestov’s Groundlessness”: Adolf Markovich Lazarev. Letters. Articles on Lev Shestov, ed. by V. Khazan. Moscow: Vodolei Publ., 2019. 440 p.)

Abstract

The review is dedicated to the new book of Vladimir Khazan, which collects the correspondence of the “forgotten” existential thinker from the “Shestov” circle A.M. Lazarev with G.G. Shpet, N.A. Berdyaev, A.M. Remizov, J. Papini, Lev Shestov, J. Grenier and B. de Schloezer; also included are unknown articles on Lev Shestov’s philosophy. From the introduction and published letters we learn about Lazarev’s biography, the direction of his views, his environment, the life and work of Russian thinkers and writers in exile, as well as the reception of Russian philosophy in Europe. Despite the fact that the views of Shestov and Lazarev have much in common (interest in the personalities of philosophers, “peregrination through souls” as a philosophical method, philosophizing about the “one thing is necessary” (Luke, 10: 42), the struggle for personality and its freedom, criticism of rationalism and intellectualism, religious searches and etc.), Lazarev’s interests are not limited to Shestov’s philosophy: he is the author of one of the first thorough studies of pragmatism in Russia and one of the most successful domestic works about Bergson, he also wrote an article that played a significant role in the history of the study of philosophy J. Lequier. The book of Khazan opens up for the history of Russian thought and culture the name and writings of a philosopher who fell outside the field of view of researchers and readers.