The Great Patriotic War Through the Eyes of the Russian Philosophical Emigration: S.L. Frank and B.B. Becker

In: Voprosy filosofii: naučno-teoretičeskij žurnal, Issue 12, p. 182-186

Abstract

The article provides a historical and philosophical analysis of various ways of per­ceiving the Great Patriotic War, which are sealed in the heritage of the two Russian thinkers immigrants – Semen Frank (1877‒1950) and Bruno Becker (1885‒1968). Based on the creative and epistolary heritage of Becker and Frank, which is cur­rently stored in various American and European archives, their positions are recon­structed in relation to the main participants in the military confrontation of the last century, as well as the internal logic of these positions are revealed, which was due to both biographical circumstances and worldviews of both thinkers. In many ways Becker's position seems to be exceptional, not only he saw the danger posed by the new political regime in Germany earlier than many other Russian emigrant philo­sophers, including Frank, but also he tried to resist this by public and charitable activities in the Netherlands in the prewar and wartime periods.