Mikhail Ossipowitsch Gershenson

Gerschenson (Portrait of Leonid Pasternak 1917)

Mikhail Gershenzon ( Russian Михаил Осипович Гершензон ; born July 1 ' ^jul. / 13. July  1869 ^greg. In Chisinau ; † 19th February 1925 in Moscow ) was a Russian literary critic , philosopher , journalist and translator .

Life

Gerschenson (birth name Meylich Josifowitsch Gerschenson / Herschenson) was the son of Pinchus-Josef Leybowitsch Gerschenson, a trader and private lawyer from Lityn in the Ukraine , and his wife Gitli / Golda Jakowlewna Zyssina. From 1875 he attended the cheder and then the public Jewish Blumenfeld school . In 1887 he graduated from the First State Gymnasium in Chisinau.

The father wanted to provide his two sons with training that would ensure their material independence. He sent his eldest son Abram (1868–1933) to Kiev to become a doctor , and the youngest son , Mikhail, to the Technical University in Berlin to become an engineer . Michail Gerschenson studied diligently from 1887 to 1889, but then he came to the conclusion that such a career was not for him, so that he heard lectures by the historian Heinrich von Treitschke and the philosopher Eduard Zeller at the Humboldt University . In 1889 he returned to Chisinau and declared that he was now aiming for humanitarian training. The father was strictly against it, because with such an education he could only become a teacher at a university or a grammar school, because Jews were forbidden from all other careers. In addition, admission to study was already problematic because of the strict admission quota for Jews, especially since he had not received the gold medal when he graduated from high school.

Regardless of this, Gerschenson sent an application to the Ministry of Culture in St. Petersburg . Such an attempt was not completely hopeless, as the then Minister Ivan Deljanow often helped individual victims with regard to the protective measures initiated by the reactionaries Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonoszew and Count Dmitrij Andreevich Tolstoy . In fact, the Ministry ordered Mikhail Gershenson to be included in the initial course of the History Department of the History - Philological Faculty of Moscow University . So he began as a poor student in Moscow with constant tutoring. At the university he attended lectures on Modern History by Vladimir Guerrier , Greek History by Paul Winogradow, Classical Philology by Fyodor Korsch, Psychology by Nikolaus Grot and Matvej Troitski, Russian History by Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky and Ancient History of the Semitic East by Mikhail Korelin. Sergei Sobolewski introduced the practical use of ancient Greek , and Gershenson also attended some of the lectures given by Ivan Mikhailovich Setschenow on physiology and Sergei Sergeyevich Korsakov on psychiatry . In December 1893 Gershenson was awarded the gold medal for the font The Athenaion politeia of Aristotle and the Bíoi parálleloi Plutarchs , which he had made at the suggestion of Winogradov. He wanted to study abroad on the basis of the gold medal for Gerschenson if he could not stay at the university as a non-Christian, but this was unsuccessful. A Chisinau student colleague and lifelong friend was Nikolai Borissowitsch Goldenweiser (1871-1924), whose father had become a well-known lawyer in Moscow and whose brother was the composer Alexander Borissowitsch Goldenweiser .

Gerschenson earned his bread through literary work until the end of his life. His first published text was an essay on the Chinese Ming Dynasty that appeared in the Granat Brothers' encyclopedia , and other essays followed there. In 1894 his review of a book by Nikolai Ivanovich Kareev appeared without a signature in the journal Русская мысль (The Russian Idea) . In 1896 the newspaper Русские ведомости (Russischer Anzeiger) printed around 30 articles on various topics, mostly book reviews. His main source of income was translations, including the books Tales of Greek Heroes by Barthold Georg Niebuhr for his son , Greek History by Karl Julius Beloch , and three volumes of the multi-volume General History by Ernest Lavisse and Alfred Nicolas Rambaud . He also appeared as an editor of translations, including the monograph Economic Development of the Ancient World by Eduard Meyer . Since the end of the 1890s Gershenson researched the family archives of well-known Moscow aristocratic families, and he examined the Decembrist movement and the legacies of Alexander Ivanovich Herzens , Nikolai Platonowitsch Ogaryov , the Westerners and the Slavophiles of the period 1830–1840.

Since his student years, Gershenson was friends with Vasily A. Maklakov , one of the leaders of the Constitutional Democratic Party and Russian Freemasonry , and the educator Sergei Moravsky, who were also Vinogradov's students. During his work on the Athenaion politeia of Aristotle , he was in close contact with Mikhail Mikhailovich Pokrovsky . In the mid-1890s he was friends with the economist , lawyer and theologian Sergei Nikolajewitsch Bulgakow .

In 1893, the philanthropist Jelisaweta Nikolajewna Orlowa (1861-1949), wife of the Decembrist Mikhail Fyodorowitsch Orlow and great-granddaughter of General Nikolai Nikolayevich Rajewskis , founded a commission for reading at home to promote the education of the poor. The commission issued reading programs, sent books and supervised reading. Winogradov, member and then chairman of the commission, won Gershenson over for his work, so that he made a number of translations and his own texts on education available. In connection with this, a popular article about Francesco Petrarca arose in 1899 , which in a revised form found its way into a collection of translations in 1915. The acquaintance with the Orlows developed into a long-term friendship that played a large role in Gerschenson's life.

Gershenson had a deep friendship with Maria Borissowna Goldenweiser (1873–1940), the sister of his friend Nikolai Goldenweiser, but marriage between a Jew and an Orthodox was forbidden in imperial Russia . Nevertheless, they lived together from 1904. Maria's father strictly disapproves of this and expected Gershenson to convert to Christianity. Gershenson's children Alexander (who died as a child), Sergei and Natalija were listed as illegal children in the passport of the maid Goldenweiser . In 1914, the legislation became more tolerant: Orthodox could convert to another Christian denomination, and such were allowed to marry Jews. Maria became a Lutheran and married Gerschenson as a Lutheran.

In 1908/1909 Jelisaveta Orlova brought the Gershensons into their large Moscow house near the Arbat , which was replaced by a new building in 1912 by the architect Illarion Alexandrowitsch Ivanov-Schitz and in which Orlova with her mother and later her sister, the former wife of the historian and politician Sergei Andrejewitsch Kotljarewskij lived. Even after the loss of her fortune due to the October Revolution , Orlowa continued to live with the Gerschensons until her death, gave drawing and language lessons and sold her own pictures.

In 1909 Gerschenson initiated the publication of the anthology Wechi (Wegzeichen) , which with Gerschenson's foreword introduced the most important representatives of Russian philosophy , in particular Nikolai Alexandrowitsch Berdjajew , Sergei Nikolajewitsch Bulgakow and Simon Lyudwigowitsch Frank . He published literary-historical materials, for which he edited the Russian Propylaea (6 volumes 1915-1919) and the New Propylaea (1923). In collaboration with the Moscow Religious-Philosophical Society , he edited the collected works of Ivan Vasilyevich Kireevsky (2 volumes 1911) and Pyotr Jakowlewitsch Tschaadajews (2 volumes 1913-1914). He was the author of works on Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin , Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev . Tschaadajew and the epoch of Nikolaus I. As a recognized literary scholar , he continued to work as a journalist until the Bolsheviks closed all independent newspapers and magazines . He was editor of the literature department of the journals Das Wissenschaftliche Wort , Kritische Rundschau (since 1904) and Westnik Jewropy (1907/1908). In 1913 he published 18 articles on previous topics in the newspaper Russisches Rumor under the pseudonym Junior . 1914–1916 he wrote in the Börsenanzeiger on general and literary topics.

After the Beilis affair , Gerschenson began working for the magazine Jüdische Welt . He published an essay on the poet Chaim Nachman Bialik , and he wrote the introduction to the Jewish anthology with Russian translations of new Hebrew poems by Bialik's friends Vladislav Felizianowitsch Khodasewitsch and Lev Borissowitsch Jaffe ( Safrut , Moscow 1918). In 1922 he wrote the philosophical essays Source of Faith and Fate of the Jewish People , in which he opposed Zionism with the universality of the Jewish spirit.

After the February Revolution of 1917 , Gershenson became chairman of the All-Russian Union of Writers . In 1920/1921 he was a member of the bureau of the literature department of the People's Commissariat for Education and a member of the board of directors of the 4th section of the main archive . From 1921 he headed the literature section of the State Academy of Art and Sciences .

The events of the First World War , the October Revolution and the Civil War contributed to Gerschenson's growing pessimism about culture . During a stay in a sanatorium , he came into close contact with Vyacheslav Ivanovich Ivanov , with whom he shared a room. They summarized their in-depth conversations about culture and religion in twelve letters that appeared in the book Correspondence between two corners of the room .

Works

• Michail Gerschenson, Wjatscheslaw Iwanowitsch Iwanow : Correspondence between two corners of the room (from the Russian by Nikolai von Bubnoff, edited by Fritz Mierau). Pforte Verlag , Dornach 2008. ISBN 9783856362140

swell

• Iakov Berman: Gershenzon , Bibliografia. Odespoligraf, Odessa 1928.
• L. Grossman: Gerschenson-pisatel (The writer Gerschenson). Moscow 1926.
• Enziklopedija Kulturologiji: Gershenson (Russian), accessed September 4, 2015

Individual evidence

1. ↑ People with connections to Litin in the Kishinev Vital Records Database as of June 23, 2006 , accessed September 4, 2015
2. ↑ Anke Hilbrenner: Review of the book B. Horowitz: Russian Idea - Jewish Presence (Academic Studies Press, Brighton / MA 2013) H-Soz-Kult from December 5, 2014, accessed on September 4, 2015
3. ↑ Olga Martynova: - Gerschenson and Iwanow philosophize Der Tagesspiegel from February 8, 2009, accessed on September 4, 2015
4. ↑ Volker Strebel: Spirit and gesture of a confession . literaturkritik.de review forum No. 7, July 2011 (published on June 30, 2011) , accessed on September 4, 2015