G. V. Florovsky in Sofia and Prague: Revision of the Foundations of Philosophy and Theology (1920-1926)

Abstract

Analyzing how the philosophical and theological views of G.V. Florovsky (1893–1979) took shape, the author notes the special significance of that period in the life of the thinker, which is associated with his stay in Sofia and Prague. Here Florovsky consistently opposed two currents of Russian thought: Eurasianism and Europeanism. The article shows that the foundations of Florovsky's worldview were laid back in Russia, but they fully manifested themselves precisely in the first emigre years (1920–1926). He became a prominent representative of the generation of the 1910s. — the last one that took shape in old Russia and met her fall, completely independent, but fully revealed after the revolution. Florovsky's views were greatly influenced by the philosophy of the Slavophile I. V. Kireevsky. At the center of Florovsky's philosophical and theological constructions was the idea of personality, its freedom and responsibility. The problems of society, people, history were viewed through this prism. The break with the Eurasians was due to a different view of the role of religion than in Eurasianism: there, according to the thinker, Orthodoxy was perceived only as an element of Russian culture, and the spirit (despite the fact that the highest manifestation of personality for a philosopher is its spiritual life) was replaced by ethnographic features. According to Florovsky, Europeanism turned into a utopian attempt in Russia to apply the methods of the natural sciences to the human person and society and to avoid the problem of personal responsibility in history. Similar views were characteristic of Florovsky and later, when he became a famous Orthodox theologian.