Konstantin Leontiev’s Followers (16)

Konstantin Leontiev

Born

in Russian Federation

January 01, 1831

Died

January 01, 1881

Genre

Philosophy

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Konstantin Nikolaevich Leont'ev was a Russian writer, philosopher, critic, and publicist. Like almost all important nineteenth-century Russian authors, Leont'ev came from a family of landowners. He was trained in medicine at the University of Moscow and served for three years as an army doctor in the Crimean war. After the war he took the post of family doctor on a country estate in the province of Nizhnii-Novgorod, married, and published his first novel, Podlipki (1861). In 1863 he entered the Russian diplomatic service and worked for eight years as a consular official on the island of Crete and the Balkans. After a cure from dysentery, he underwent a spiritual crisis and spent a year (1871–1872) in a Greek monastery on Mount Athos. Soon a Konstantin Nikolaevich Leont'ev was a Russian writer, philosopher, critic, and publicist. Like almost all important nineteenth-century Russian authors, Leont'ev came from a family of landowners. He was trained in medicine at the University of Moscow and served for three years as an army doctor in the Crimean war. After the war he took the post of family doctor on a country estate in the province of Nizhnii-Novgorod, married, and published his first novel, Podlipki (1861). In 1863 he entered the Russian diplomatic service and worked for eight years as a consular official on the island of Crete and the Balkans. After a cure from dysentery, he underwent a spiritual crisis and spent a year (1871–1872) in a Greek monastery on Mount Athos. Soon after he left the consular service, and he returned to Russia where he worked as a journalist in various cities and a censor of literature in Moscow. In 1887 he decided to renounce the secular world, was officially divorced from his wife, and retired to the Optyna Pustyn' cloister in the province of Tula. Shortly before his death he took monastic vows and died a monk in the Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery near Moscow.

Although Leont'ev can be considered one of the brilliant representatives of nineteenth-century Russian culture, on a par with Alexander Herzen, his work is not very well known. His novels and stories have hardly been translated and his philosophical and political views only scantily studied. The main reason for this seems to be his odd, maverick-like personality, which expressed itself in views so paradoxical and extreme that it is almost impossible to weld them together and to integrate them with the main ideas of his age.

Leont'ev was torn between an amoral aestheticism and the intense desire for saving his soul by the ascetic renunciation of the world. The protagonist of almost all his novels (among which, apart from Podlipki, V svoem kraiu [In my own land, 1864], and Egipetskii golub' [The Egyptian dove, 1881–1882]) is a narcissistic superhero (more or less identical with Leont'ev himself) who takes delight in all things beautiful and considers it his duty to lead a poetic life. "Ethics does not coincide with aesthetics: otherwise it is impossible to approve the beauty of Alcibiades, of a diamond, of a tiger." Which is better: "the bloody and spiritually exuberant age of the Renaissance, or contemporary Denmark, Holland, Switzerland—humble, prosperous, moderate?" (Sobranie sochinenii, Vol. I, p. 282; 414). However, the hero is dissatisfied with his actual self as he realizes his own limitations and the vanity of his sensuous experience and of the world he has enjoyed so much.

It is this latter attitude that made Leont'ev severely criticize contemporary writers such as Fëdor Dostoevsky, Lev Tolstoy, and Vladimir Solov'ëv. In the essay "Nashi novye khristiane: F. M. Dostoevskii i graf Lev Tolstoi" ("Our new Christians: F. M. Dostoevsky and Count Lev Tolstoy, 1882) he ridiculed the rose-colored Christianity of these authors. By promising paradise on earth (just like the utopian socialists), Leont'ev stated, they introduced heretical, humanistic elements into their religious views, making God a diluted God of love instead of a God of fear. However, in another essay he made a brilliant analysis of Tolstoy's novels, in particular praising War and Peace.

Leont'ev is best known for his aesthetic approach to history and his uncompromising criticism of his own age, which according to him, was dominated by equality and its unavoidable counterpart mediocrity. Just as such thinkers as de Maistre, Comte Joseph de Maistre, Thomas Carlyle, Friedrich Nietzsche, and John Stuart Mill, Leont'ev rejected the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century, which had led to democracies in which there was no place for great men and intense, creative contradictions. In his collection of essays Vostok, Rossiia i slavianstvo (The East, Russia, and Slavdom, 1885–1886), which includ ...more

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Konstantin Leontiev’s books

Average rating: 3.9 · 86 ratings · 20 reviews · 59 distinct works • Similar authors

	Byzantinism & Slavdom by Konstantin Leontiev, K. Benois (Translation) 4.24 avg rating — 17 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Византизм и славянство 3.83 avg rating — 18 ratings — published 1875 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Against the Current: Selections from the Novels, Essays, Notes, and Letters of Konstantin Leontiev 4.30 avg rating — 10 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Egyptian Dove by Konstantin Leontiev, George Reavey (Translator) 4.25 avg rating — 4 ratings — published 1969	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Записки отшельника 4.25 avg rating — 4 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Mısır Güvercini by Konstantin Leontiev, Yaşar Avunç (Translator) it was ok 2.00 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 2010	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Средний европеец как идеал и орудие всемирного разрушения 3.33 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 1875	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Der Durchschnitts-Europäer: Ideal und Werkzeug universaler Zerstörung 3.33 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 1913	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Storia di un giovane suliota by Konstantin Leontiev, Aldo Ferrari (Editor) 4.50 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 1991	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Цветущая сложность: Избр. статьи 4.50 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 1992	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Konstantin Leontiev (?)

“В прогресс верить надо, но не как в улучшение непременно, а только как в новое перерождение тягостей жизни, в новые виды страданий и стеснений человеческих. Правильная вера в прогресс должна быть пессимистическая, а не благодушная, все ожидающая какой-то весны...”
― Константин Леонтьев

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“Henüz yerli gelenekleri bilmiyorsunuz.Türk mahallesinde karşılaşmış olsaydık,birlikte dolaşabilirdik:Türkler ayrı bir dünyada yaşıyorlar;kadınlara karşı tutumları da bizimkinden o kadar farklı ki Hıristiyanlara göre neyin uygun neyin uygun olmadığını anlamaları güçtür.Onlara her şeyin uygunsuz gibi göründüğünü düşünüyorum.Türk evlerinin önünden geçerek sizinle seve seve dolaşmak isterdim.Ama burada kentin merkezinde bu olanaksız.Rumlar,Ermeniler ve Bulgarlar bu mahallede oturuyorlar.Sıkılıyorlar,tüm yaşamları da ev işlerini görmekle ve çok kötü niyetli bir merak duygusu içinde geçiyor.Bunlar ne isanlarla konuşmayı bilirler ne de en ufak bir ideal beslerler;bu yüzden de en ufak bir şeyi kendilerince yorumlarlar.”
― Konstantin Leontiev, Mısır Güvercini

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“Uzun süredir Doğu'da,Türkiye'de yaşamayı düşlüyordum;Türkiye'de olmak,servileri,minareleri,sarıkları görmek,Petersburg'un dümdüz,geniş,iğrenç caddelerinden olabildiğince uzak kalmak gibi düşlerim de gerçekleşmişti.”
― Konstantin Leontiev, Mısır Güvercini

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