Tolstoy wrote during the 1860s, the most “prosaic” and “anti-poetic” of epochs. How-ever, he never entirely excluded mythopoetic elements and devices from his art. On the con-trary, he developed new and subtle methods to embed mythopoetic meanings within his seemingly dry and matter-of-fact prose.

Helena Tolstoy taught Russian literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She organized three confer-ences at the University, on Jewish-Russian writing in 2009, on Leo Tolstoy in 2011, and on Jabotinsky in Rus-sia in 2013, and published three collections of their ma-terials. She authored monographs on Chekhov (1994, 2003), Aim Volynsky (2013, an English version in 2017) and her grandfather Aleksei Tolstoy (2005, 2013, and 2022), and research on Nabokov, Platonov, and Nadezhda Bromley (2022), who was a brilliant prosaic of late 1920s. Her 2017 NLO book ‘Igra v klassiki” (A Game of Classics) includes mini-monographs on Tolstoy (Tainye figury v ‘Voine I mire’- Secret Figures in ‘War and Peace’) and Turgenev (‘Nakanune’ Turgeneva: Prevrasceniia romantizma’ – Turgenev’s ‘On the Eve’: Metamorphoses of Romanticism’).

 

For many, Hermann Cohen appears as a dry pedant, a scientistic philosopher who saw the task of thought solely as refining the physical-mathematical natural sciences. This unfair assessment is due to the changing era at the end of Cohen's life and Heidegger's biased critique of his philosophy. However, Cohen was a figure of Renaissance magnitude, although he did not live during the Renaissance but rather at a time of the breakdown and collapse of European civilization. Cohen’s philosophy signifies a re-evaluation not only of Kant but also of Plato, Nicholas of Cusa, Spinoza, and Leibniz, along with a renewed return to the roots of biblical thought. In this context, attention should be paid to Cohen’s new philosophy of love, which is evident in several of his works. Equally important is the examination of how this theme was developed in the works of Cohen’s disciples and followers during the later period of his career. For many, Cohen's philosophy of love became the key to creating a new aesthetics and philosophy of religion. In this presentation, we will primarily explore the concepts of Kagan, Bakhtin, Rubinstein, and Pasternak. It is also essential to compare these ideas with the philosophy of Cohen’s German disciple, Franz Rosenzweig. Cohen’s philosophy of love holds particular significance in his understanding of aesthetics and literary theory. After a period of neglect in the mid-20th century, the study of Cohen saw a sharp resurgence in the 1970s under the influence of the so-called "Hegelian Renaissance" (a term coined by Heinrich Levy). Over the past 50 years, Cohen and his school have attracted the attention of hundreds of scholars, allowing us to pose new questions and offer new answers.

Leonid Vidgof is an independent researcher, formerly an associate of the Mandelshtam Centre of the Philology Department at the Faculty of Humanities of the Research University “Higher School of Economics” (Moscow). His select book publications include: Kotova M., Lekmanov O., Vidgof L., In the Labyrinths of a Mystery Novel. A Commentary on the Novel by V.P. Kataev “My Diamond’s Crown” (first edition 2004, second edition 2023); Vidgof L., “But I Love My Bitch-Moscow.” Osip Mandelshtam: Poet and City (2012); Mandelshtam O.E., Complete Collection of Works and Letters. Application: Chronicle of Life and Creativity, compiled by A.G. Mets with the participation of S. Vasilenko, L. Vidgof, D. Zubarev, E. Lubyannikova, P. Mitsner, S. Subbotin (some editions); Vidgof L., Articles about Mandelshtam (second edition, corrected and expanded, 2015); Vidgof L., Akhtimneevo and Surroundings. Poetry (2016); Vidgof L., Mandelshtam and… Archival Materials. Articles for the Encyclopedia. Works on Mandelshtam’s Poetry and Prose (2018); Vidgof L., Osip Mandelshtam from Different Angles. Articles (2021).