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The text discusses one of the bright phenomena in the spiritual atmosphere of the Russian Silver Age – the affirmation of erotic experiences as a path to God and to earthly immortality. Some of the most characteristic attitudes of the era, inherent in a part of the intelligentsia of the time, shared at the meetings held at the beginning of the 20th century with representatives of the clergy, are discussed. As an emblematic example, the experiment undertaken by three philosophizing writers – Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Zinaida Gippius and Dmitry Filosofov, to create a new religion based on the ambition to sanctify the world (with its flesh – the entire material and spiritual sphere of man) and reject of the monastic abhorrence of it. The article also examines the ideal of human androgyny launched by Nikolay Berdyaev; an ideal leading to victory over birth and death.
The conclusion presents the failure of the imagined new religious forms, called to overcome sexual asceticism, insofar as they again presuppose it. Fruit of the desire for entertainment, these religious-utopian experiments also have serious consequences – decadence instead of renaissance, misogyny instead of the ideal of Eternal Femininity, etc., which cast a shadow on the silver of the century.
Keywords: Silver Age, erotica, religion, "new church", Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Zinaida Gipius, Nikolai Berdyaev, religious-sexual utopianism
The article comments on various attempts at a humorous presentation of the history of Bulgaria and the Bulgarians. Several such versions have been analyzed – they date from the interwar period (their authors are Hristo Brazitzov, Georgi Tsarkovski and Rayko Alexiev), from the second half of the eighties (Nikolay Genchev) and from the last period, the nineties (Georgi Konstantinov, Ivan Kulekov). All of them are presented as stories parallel to the official historical discourse, the purpose of which is to parody the present in which they are written, as well as to entertain. In all of them a number of features of Bulgarian folk psychology are ridiculed. Particular attention is paid to the work of Nikolai Genchev "Short-Funny History of Bulgaria", as the author is the only professional historian among the others. It is concluded that creating a humorous version of the story of the past - scientific, artistic, mythological, etc., is always a creative challenge. To varying degrees, the narratives discussed in the article are a necessary corrective to the "serious" historical interpretation.
NOTA BENE journal decided to celebrate the 140-th Anniversary of the birth of Dimitar Michaltchew (1880-1967), one of the most distinguished Bulgarian philosophers, by publishing George Moore’s famous review in Mind from 1911. Together with the review, translated by Prof. Nina Dimitrova, we also publish her extensive article on Michaltchev and the Bulgarian Rhemkeanism.
The subject of this paper is the revolutionary attitude of the Russian social-spiritual movement called mystical anarchism. The article describes its specific characters summarized mainly by the idea of non-acceptance of the world. An analogy between the ancient Gnosticism and the mystical anarchism is drawn. The focus of the paper is on the views of Vasilij Nalimov and Aleksej Sinyagin whose activity is in the context of the Soviet reality. The author shows the similarities between the Gnostic essence of mystical anarchism and the ideas of the Bulgarian Bogomils who are highly appreciated by Sinyagin. It is concluded that the Gnostic essence of the mystic-anarchist ideas determines their destructive character and that the imagined by the representatives of this movement revolution could not at all be soft.
Keywords: mystical anarchism, gnosticism, utopia, Soviet revolution
Abstract. The following text presents the personality and philosophy of Stepan Popov, Bulgarian emigre (1906-1989). The first comment is on his Bulgarian period when he was one of the leaders of the rightist socio-political movement "The Third Generation". More attention is paid on his philosophy of history expressed mainly in his book „Der Wille zur Gestalt", 1970. The article analyzes some of the basic philosophical-historical concepts such as nation, national character, people, state, etc. The stress is put on the author's concept of the Bulgarian idea as the essence of his philosophy of native land.
Keywords: Stephan Popov, philosophy of history, philosophy of native land, the Third Generation, the Bulgarian idea