For a reconstruction of A.F. Losev's work on Dostoevsky at GAKHN's literary section.pdf In recent years, the history of the State Academy of Artistic Sciences (GAKhN, 1921-1931) has increasingly attracted the attention of researchers. There have been published works that shed light on certain moments of its history, as well as publications of previously unpublished materials stored in Russian archives. However, as Nikolay Bogomolov pointed out, little attention was paid to GAKhN's Literary section [2. P. 278] 1. The Literary section was created at the end of 1921, in parallel with the foundation of the Academy 52 53, and its first meeting was held on November 26, 1922 [5. P. 23]. The main task of the section was the scientific study of literature in its various trends and schools. Its main interests included the notion of literary style, the poetic form in the broadest sense of the word, and work on unpublished materials. At first, three subsections were formed: theoretical poetics (where “poetics” meant both poetic and fictional works), literary history, and folklore. A few years later, to them was added the subsection of literary criticism, and from 1924-1925 began their activity the subsection of Western literature and the Commission of literary translation [5. P. 24]. The work plan of the Literary Section during the last years (1930-1931, 1932-1933) provided for three main directions: Russian literature (ancient and Western literature), history of the science of literature and literary criticism, and literary theory. In addition, the study of Lev Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky's work (the Dostoevsky commission was headed by Valerian Fedorovich Pereverzev) was continued [6. P. 1-4]. The Literary section published the collection “Ars poetica” (the first issue of which was issued in 1927), as well as research works and investigations devoted to the problems of artistic expression, Russian and foreign literary prose and to the poetic language. The section also conducted work on unpublished materials of Russian writers and raised the question of the Dostoevsky House (Dom Dostoevskogo) [7. P. 26-27]. Along with subsections (theoretical poetics, historical, folklore, criticism and literary criticism, general literature), in May 27, 1922, at the suggestion of Nikolay Piksanov was formed the Commission for the study of Dostoevsky, which was then reformed in December 1923. It included N.K. Piksanov, L.P. Grossman, V.V. Veresaev, V.F. Pereverzev, G.I. Chulkov and others. The Commission developed a plan for the study and analysis of the Russian writer's texts based on new materials and, as a result of the plenary discussions held at the Literary section, prepared a number of works for publication in this field, suffice it to mention Georgy Chulkov's renowned Dostoevsky's Poetics. It should be noted that literature within the framework of GAKhN was studied at different departments (Physio-psychological, Sociological and Philosophical). The close connection of the Philosophical Department with the Literary section was largely due to the efforts of Gustav Shpet, vice-president of the Academy [8, 9]. Literary criticism was understood by many GAKhN members not as a mere method of studying works of art, but as part of the philosophy of art1. Such transitional ideological atmosphere of scientific universalism, as well as the dialogue between different interpretations of literature [11], could not fail to attract Aleksei Losev, who was both a philosopher, a writer and a philologist. However, little is known about Losev's participation in the Literary section. Would it be appropriate to see in this lack of information only the influence of circumstances? In the last years of its existence, GAKhN experienced a crisis moment, as evidenced by archival materials54 55, moreover, Losev did not work at the Academy for long, and soon Losev will be expelled from the Academy. Nevertheless, archival information about the activities of the Academy makes it possible, at least hypothetically, to raise the question of the possibility of Losev's scientific dialogue with the main research themes developed in the Literary Section. Losev's work at GAKhN began in 192356, when he became a full member of the Academy, and continued until his discharge in 1930 due to staff cuts, a few months after the closing of the Academy57. In 1923 he was a member of the Commission for the study of artistic terminology, created with the aim of publishing a (never completed) Vocabulary of artistic terms [10], in which he will take part with some entries. The following year (1924-1925) he headed the Musical-psychological commission and was elected president of the Commission for the form of the Philosophical department. From 1925 he joined the Music section as a full member, where he presented a series of reports on music, which will form the basis for the publication of Muzyka kak predmet logiki (Music as a Subject of Logic, 1927). Finally, between 1926 and 1927 he was president of the Commission for the study of aesthetic doctrines, and a few years later (1929) he was secretary of the Group for the study of musical aesthetics [16]. In addition to participating in the works of these sections, Losev presented various reports in other sectors1, such as the Association of Rhythmists and the Literary section, thanks to the fruitful exchange between different areas that was GAKhN's main feature as an institute. Losev also took part in the work of the Commission for the study of art education, mainly with themes relating to antiquity. Losev's work at GAKhN continued until his arrest in 1930. The Academy soon was closed58 59. Such a variety of interests and fields of research could only positively influence the development of Losev's thought; observing the titles of his reports, many of which have not yet been found in Russian archives, we notice an evident insistence on the themes that will be resumed in his works of the 1920s - the ontology of the symbol, the cultural roots of classical and romantic aesthetics, the notion of myth, the dialectics of musical form -, consequently it cannot be excluded that the systematisation of Losev's philosophy dates back to these years. Our thesis is supported by sometimes very evident examples. The report O mifotvorchestve (On Mythopoiesis, 1926-1927) [17. P. 219-220] almost literally anticipates the well-known Losev's definition of myth and the criticism of modern theories of myth as they appear in Dialektika mifa (Dialectics of Myth, 1930), so much so as to suggest a much previous elaboration with respect to the final draft of the work. Another example is the report Dialektika v nemeckoj estetike konca XVIII veka (Dialectics in German Aesthetics of the End of the XVIII Century, 1925), which theses will be taken up almost entirely in the long in-depth footnotes dedicated to Romantic aesthetics in Dialektika chudozhestvennoj formy (Dialectics of the Artistic Form, 1927) [Ibid. P. 215]. The same applies in particular to the musical theme, whose relationship with Muzyka kak predmet logiki is made explicit by the author himself; for example, the report K voprosu o sistematike muzykal'no-theoreticheskich kategorij (For the Problem of a Systematics of Musical-theoretical Categories, January 26 and February 23, 1928) is presented as “an extract from the work Music and logic that he wrote in this year” [20. P. 13/ob]. In recent years, several works have been published, testifying Losev's activities at GAKhN [3; 15; 17; 21-23], however in many cases we only know the titles of the reports, as their textual version has not been found yet. Here we would like to refer to some archival materials which testify the participation of the Russian philosopher in the work of the Literary Section in the 1920s. Losev actively participated in the work of the group for the study of ancient literature of the subsection of General literature. He took part in the discussions on the reports of the classical philologist F.A. Petrovsky Replika i stikh u Plavta (Line and Verse in Plautus, December 17, 1928) and the philologist-Germanist A.G. Chelpanov K voprosu o zhanre istorii Gerodota (On the Issue of the Genre of the History of Herodotus, March 6, 1929) [23. P. 20], as well as in the organizational meetings of the ancient group (November 21, 1928, and December 5, 1928 [Ibid. P. 14; attendees list: 24, p. 15], November 1929-March 1930 [Ibid. P. 5]), served as president in the debate on M.E. Grabar'-Passek's report (October 30, 1929)1. In the list of all GAKhN meetings for December 1929 of the group for the study of ancient literature, among the discussions of topics planned for collective study, Losev's reports O rabote po chudozhestvennomu stiliju (On the Work on Artistic Style, December 5, 1928) [24. P. 74] and Plan raboty po chudozhestvennomu literaturnomu stiliju (Plan of the Work on the Artistic Literary Style, December 17, 1928) [25; 17. P. 202] are mentioned. Losev himself mentions his work in the ancient group of the literary section in a report kept in the GAKhN fund in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Arts (RGALI). On a separate handwritten sheet (no date) we read: “A.F. Losev 1. Conducted work for five years on the history of aesthetic doctrines in the cabinet 2. major specialist in Ancient aesthetics 3. plans to conduct work next year a. on the sociology of aesthetic doctrines60 61 b. according to the terminological cabinet c. in the Ancient group of the s[ub]/s[ection] of General literature of the Literary section d. in the Music section” [12. P. 23/ob]. In addition, Losev is mentioned among the employees participating in the work of the Dostoevsky Commission for 1928-192962. The general research direction of the Commission's activities, as we read in the work plans of the section for 1928-1929, was shared by Losev: “[.] a group of researchers focused their attention on the development of the problem of critical and organic principles in Dostoevsky's artistic dialectics. Considering the ideas of the writer as a kind of artistic material, this group of researchers establishes a connection between the style of the writer and his ideology, since the latter finds expression in his artistic dialectics” [26. P. 32/ob]63. Losev intervened at meetings of departments and sections with reports related to the classification of arts, the problem of the artistic word, artistic style and symbolic forms [29. P. 445], and further developed research on these topics in later works. In the plan of the Dostoevsky Commission's work, the list of reports scheduled for 1927-1928 includes Losev's report Simvolizm v poetike Dostoevskogo (Symbolism in Dostoevsky's Poetics) [30. P. 85]1. Another of his reports entitled Simvolizm Dostoevskogo (Dostoevsky' Symbolism) was included in the work plan for the year 1928-1929 at a meeting held on May 17, 1928 [26. P. 33/ob; 32. P. 125/ob]. However, neither the text nor the theses could be found in the archive. In the schedule of meetings of the literary section from October to April 1929, the reports read by Losev are not mentioned, and in the list of scientific and temporary employees of the literary section for 1928-1929 Losev's name is not indicated [36. P. 59]. As part of the work of the Dostoevsky commission, he took part in the debate on the reports by Georgy Chulkov Kriticheskoe i organicheskoe v chudozhestven-noj dialektike Dostoevskogo (Critical and Organic in Dostoevsky's Artistic Dialectics, March 29, 1928) [33. P. 20-21], F.F. Berezhkov Snovidenija v “Prestuplenii i nakazanii”. Po povodu knigi Otto Kaus (Dreams in “Crime and Punishment”. About Otto Kaus's Book, October 25, 1928) [34. P. 7], A.E. Gornostaeva Dostoevsky i N.F. Fedorov (Dostoevsky and N.F. Fedorov, December 27, 1928) [Ibid. P. 15]. As already noted by researchers, the connection with Losev's reports at GAKhN emerges from the comparison with his works of the 1920s, as evidenced by Losev's references to his own reports in the “octateuch” 64 65 66 and by recently found archival materials [22]. In a similar way, Losev will turn again to the issue of Dostoevsky's symbolism in his Problema simvola i realistichesoe iskusstvo (The Problem of Symbol and Realistic Art, 1976), in which he examines the deep symbolic images that permeate all of Dostoevsky's work. In particular, Losev dwells on the 3 symbol of the “slanting rays of the setting sun” [36. P. 180] that has repeatedly appeared in the Russian writer's works. Here too we can find a parallel with the discussions at GAKhN. In The Problem of Symbol and Realistic Art, discussing the main symbol in Dostoevsky, Losev refers to an article [Ibid. P. 179] by Sergei Durylin Ob odnom simvole u Dostoevskogo (On One Symbol in Dostoevsky), published in the 1928 collection Dostoevsky. Proceedings of the State Academy of Artistic Sciences [38]). The same work also contains quite large passages devoted to “the identity and difference of a symbol with its subject” on the example of Dostoevsky's symbols in The Eternal Husband, The Double, Notes from the Underground, The Brothers Karamazov and The Adolescent [36. P. 40-43]. Also, Losev's idea that “Dostoevsky's Petersburg is a real symbol in our sense of the word” [Ibid. P. 181] was a topic no stranger to the discussions held at the Literary section in 1927-1928 [7. P. 27]67. Of great value, in our opinion, are his observations of those characters of the Russian writer who reveal the contradiction of human nature as such. According to Losev, the randomness of the behaviour in Dostoevsky's heroes hides the heterogeneity of personality as a symbol. It should be noted that the work of Dostoevsky attracted Losev throughout his life. This is evidenced not only by youthful memories of his passion for the work of the great novelist [13. P. 59-60], but also references to the Russian writer, which are observed in his works of different periods [40]. For Losev, Dostoevsky was not only a great and original artist-thinker who tried to answer the “damned” questions of human existence, but his works can be considered as an artistic attempt to describe the universal human desire to search for the meaning of being, to inner freedom. Reflecting on the relationship between literature and philosophy, Losev identifies the characteristic trait of Russian thought precisely in its intimate connection with the aesthetic and literary sphere, which he interpreted, within the opposition of ratio and logos, as the choice of an expressive mode closer to the dimension of concrete life and different from the logical-rational one. This “vitality” of Russian philosophical thought is due to the fact that the belle-lettres are the cradle of the original Russian philosophy. The prose works of Zukovsky and Gogol', the works of Tyutcev, Fet, Lev Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Maxim Gorky, often deal with the main philosophical questions, obviously, in their specifically Russian, exclusively practical, life-oriented form. And these issues are discussed in such a way that any impartial and competent judge will call such solutions not only “literary” or “artistic”, but philosophical and ingenious [41. P. 188-189]. Precisely in this particular tension of thought, according to Losev, lies the specificity of Dostoevsky's work, since “a writer and poet must think ‘eschatologically'” [42. P. 62], must try to resolve “the inner questions”. The Russian philosopher emphasizes: “Remember how much tension in the search for Dostoevsky's heroes [...] Sometimes it seems that if Alyosha Karamazov does not solve the question of faith, if Ivan does not find his ideal truth, then there will be no peace” [Ibid.]. Losev reveals a series of ideas which go back to Dostoevsky's philosophical attitude: the crisis of humanism, the awareness of the need to reject the deified world, return to the original being, to the “existential” question, which poses the problem of man's connection with the Absolute68. In the early article Russkaja filosofija (Russian Philosophy, 1919) Losev wrote that The Brothers Karamazov “gives an understanding of the world of that depth of life, in which the roots of all existence are hidden and the prediction of the near end of the world is clearly heard” [41. P. 260]. It is clear that the philosopher of this new Russian apocalyptic sense of life, Vladimir Soloviev, the who had a great influence on Russian religious thinkers like Sergei Bulgakov and Nikolay Berdyaev. Indeed, in Dostoevsky, Losev traces the same philosophical discourse that characterized Soloviev's thought, and it is quite interesting that Losev's judgments on Russian literature can often be found precisely in his book on Soloviev [44]. Such osmosis between philosophy and literature is not surprising; as the American scholar Edith W. Clowes argued, taking up the famous Dostoevsky's image, Russian philosophy emerged from the Russian literature's “overcoat”, which prepared the basis for the development of an autonomous speculative discourse, with its own claim to authority and truth [45]. According to Losev, in his Legend of the Grand Inquisitor Dostoevsky formulated the problem of world evil, which Soloviev tried to outline in his Kratkaja povest' ob Antikhriste (A Short Tale on the Anti-Christ), and tried to propose its solution. Soloviev's “logical” (philosophical) system and Dostoevsky's “poetic” (artistic) system all speak of the same thing1. Soloviev himself, opposing to Friedrich Nietzsche in Tri razgovora o vojne (Three Talks about War, 1899), proposed the concept of universal history, in which he predicted the coming of the Antichrist as a result of people losing their faith, and was inspired by The Brothers Karamazov's legend of the Grand Inquisitor, the defender of “the Kingdom of God without God”, embodying the tragic essence of our time. It is no coincidence that the work Dialektika mifa (Dialectics of Myth, 1930), in which Losev examines the social significance of modern myths, contains quotations from Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov and Demons [46. P. 180-182; 36] 69 70. Solovyov's metaphysical beliefs are close to Dostoevsky's ideas about “realism in the highest sense”. True realism is impossible without an orientation towards the ideal (true) being, without the direction of the writer's entire work towards one goal: the restoration of the ideal sphere in man's life. According to Losev, Dostoevsky combines “both romanticism, [...] and symbolism, [...] and realism” [42. P. 62]. Inheriting Vyacheslav Ivanov's concept of Dostoevsky's real-ism71 and symbolism and rethinking it in an existential perspective the problem of the relationship between “me and you”), Losev emphasizes: “What is Dostoevsky? The life of the elements in the soul of the hero and the death of individuality in the sea of being. Resurrection and striving for it are Dostoevsky's inner joy” [49. P. 618]. Losev's literary prose of the 1930-1940s also did not remain devoid of plot contaminations in the spirit of Dostoevsky, it is enough here to name such works of the Russian philosopher as Perepiska s komnaty (Correspondence from a Room,1932), Vstrecha (The Encounter, 1933), Zhenshchina-myslitel' (The Woman Thinker, 1933-1934). The same religious pathos of Losev's philosophical discourse is also present in his literary prose: the estrangement of man from ideal being and the rejection of the religious sphere turn the world into a sort of prison. In the short story Vstrecha (The Encounter) the expression “proceeding from the foundations of Marxism and communism, I come to the abolition of music” recalls Shigalev's well-known formula from Dostoevsky's Demons “proceeding from unlimited freedom, I end with unlimited despotism” [13. P. 192]. In the short story Perepiska s komnaty (Correspondence from a Room) Losev argues with scientific materialism (“the monkey of Christianity” 72), which can turn man into an ape (“hell has become reality, and heaven has become fiction” [50. P. 105]). As in Dostoevsky's novel-tragedy, Losev shows the battle between faith and unbelief, the battle of different kinds of being, rebelling against God and striving for a highest ideal. In the souls of Losev's characters, there is a struggle between “a hero against an antihero, between a hero-monk against a middle-class anti-hero” [51. P. 237]. As Elena Takho-Godi pointed out, Losev's “antiutopia” can be viewed as a new type of “anti-nihilistic novel”, genetically going back to the traditions of Russian literature and to reflections on the Apocalypse as a consequence of the crisis of civilization and culture, including the tradition of Dostoevsky [52]. The outlined possibilities of Losev's research in the field of literature and philosophy of art, to which the Russian philosopher will return only later (in the 1970-1960's), testify his attention to the problem of artistic style, artistic imagery, to the analysis of symbolic and mythicl forms of works of art. Although we do not pretend to provide an exhaustive coverage of the issue of Losev's investigation of Dostoevsky's work, nevertheless, information about his work at the Literary section introduces important clarifications on his scientific activity in the 1920's and is extremely important for further studies of this period of the Russian philosopher's life, and in general for the reconstruction of the history of GAKhN.

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