A New Chapter in the History of Russian Émigré Religious Philosophy: Georges Florovsky’s Unpublished Manuscript Russkaia Filosofiia v emigratsii

The article discusses Florovsky’s approach to the history of Russian philosophy, focusing on his un-published article ‘Russkaia filosofiia v emigratsii’ (‘Russian Philosophy in Emigration’, finished in 1930).In this article, Florovsky interprets the expulsion of many philosophers from the Soviet Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 as a political and spiritual act, amounting to the government’s rejection of creativity and freedom. He takes up the issue of continuity and discontinuity in Russian intellectual history and reaches a conclusion that it is émigré thought, especially religious philosophy, which stands in continuity with the philosophical heritage of pre-revolutionary Russia. In contrast, he interprets the communist ideology developed inside the Soviet Russia as a disruption of this intellectual tradition.