Lectures by S. L. Frank in Amersfoort (The Netherlands), 1932

Abstract

Historical and philosophical reconstruction of the visit of Semen Ludwigovich Frank to Amersfoort in the summer of 1932, where the philosopher delivered at the International School for Philosophy (Internationale School voor Wijsbegeerte) a course of lectures entitled “Russian spiritual type in his attitude to the Western one” accompanied by the publication of some materials related to this visit. The organizer and inspirer of the lecture course was the historian and Slavist Bruno Borisovich Becker, a friend of Frank since the pre-émigré period, who moved to Amsterdam after the 1917 revolution. In the summer of 1932 in Amersfoort, fragments of Frank’s lecture course were also recorded on black and white film, recently found at the city archive of Utrecht. This is obviously the only record of Frank that has reached us. Along with the Russian philosopher and numerous course participants, it also captured Albert Schweitzer, Martin Buber, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Paul Ehrenfest and Bruno Becker. On the 9^th of August, 1932, Frank sent from Amersfoort a postcard to his wife, Tatiana Sergeevna Frank, which is stored in the personal archive of Frank’s grandson, Fr Peter Scorer in Great Britain. In the appendix to the publication, this postcard is published, with the permission of the philosopher’s heirs. The publication also includes several photographs from the personal archive of Frank’s grandson, related to his trip to Amersfoort (The Netherlands), in August 1932.