Frank, Semyon Ludwigovich

Baby years

Semyon Ludwigovich Frank was born into a Jewish family. His father, a doctor Ludwig Semenovich Frank (1844-1882) - a graduate of Moscow University (1872), moved to Moscow from the Vilna province during the Polish uprising of 1863, participated as a military doctor in the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878 , for courage and devotion to the Russian Empire was awarded the Order of St. Stanislav 3rd degree and personal nobility ^{[2] [3] [4]} . L. S. Frank worked in the Department of Health of the Ministry of the Interior, the family lived on Pyatnitskaya Street , then in the Myasnitsky okolotok; Felicia Frenkel’s mother (the philosopher’s grandmother) lived with them, as well as the sisters of the father Theophilia and Eve. In 1891, 9 years after the death of her husband from leukemia , the mother of S. L. Frank - Rozaliya Moiseevna Rossiyanskaya (1856, Kovno - 1908, Nizhny Novgorod) ^[5] - remarried to pharmacist Vasily Ivanovich (Tsalel Itsikovich) Zak, in 1884, returning from a six-year Siberian exile, which he was serving for his participation in Narodnaya Volya ^[6] .

As a child, Semyon Frank received a home education from his grandfather, the merchant of the first guild, Moses Mironovich of Russia (1830–1891), a native of Kovno ^[7] , who was one of the founders of the Moscow Jewish community in the late 60s and from whom the grandson took interest in the philosophical problems of religion ^[8] . R.M. Rossyanskaya with children lived with Moses Mironovich and his wife (philosopher's grandmother) Sora-Hitl Dobriner (1834— ?, originally from Tilsit in East Prussia ), first in the Myasnitsky okolotke, and since 1899, in his own house in Crooked Lane; grandfather was busy in the tea trade.

In 1886-1892, Simon Frank studied at the Lazarev Institute of Oriental Languages , where he was immediately accepted to the second grade. In 1891, his mother moved to her new husband in Nizhny Novgorod and settled in Kanavino , Semyon joined them a year later and graduated from high school in Nizhny Novgorod, after which he entered Moscow University (1894 ^[9] ).

Scientific career

While still a gymnasium student in Nizhny Novgorod, S. L. Frank took part in Marxist circles, under the influence of which he entered the law faculty of Moscow University (where he was a student of the famous professor A. I. Chuprov ). In 1899 he was arrested and deported from university cities. In 1901 , P. B. Struve attracted Frank to participate in his collection Problems of Idealism (published in 1902), where materialism and positivism were criticized.

Soon after, Frank went abroad, where he worked in Berlin and Munich . Disagreement with the policy of the tsarist government prompted him in 1903 to participate in the establishment of the Union for Liberation movement and to take an active part in his struggle for political freedom ^[10] . He was a member of the Cadet Party , adjoining its right wing ^[11] .

The first major printed work of Frank ("The Theory of the Value of Marx and Its Importance") was devoted to a criticism of Marxism (1900). In 1902, in the collection Problems of Idealism, his first philosophical study (Nietzsche and the love of the distant) was published - from that time on, Frank's work became completely connected with the problems of philosophy. After passing the master's exam (1912), Frank becomes a privat-docent of St. Petersburg University and in the same year passes to the Orthodox faith. In 1915 he defended a master's thesis (“The Subject of Knowledge”), which deals with the ontological conditions of the possibility of intuition as a direct perception of reality, thereby adjoining the course of intuitionism .

The book “The Soul of Man,” published in 1918 , was presented by Frank as a dissertation for a doctorate, but because of the external conditions of Russian life, her defense could no longer take place. In 1917, Frank headed the historical and philological faculty of the young University of Saratov , and in 1921 he occupied the Department of Philosophy at Moscow University .

In 1922 he was expelled from Russia , settled in Berlin and became a member of the Religious and Philosophical Academy, organized by N. A. Berdyaev , with whom he worked in Moscow (at the Academy of Spiritual Culture).

Since 1937 he moved to France, from where in 1945 he moved to London .

Family

• Brother - mathematician Mikhail Ludwigovich Frank , professor, author of works on geometry, differential equations and the history of aeronautics. Nephews (sons of Mikhail Ludwigovich Frank) - Ilya Mikhailovich Frank, Nobel laureate in physics and biologist, academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences Gleb Mikhail Frank .
• The younger brother (by mother) is an artist, sculptor, stage designer and book illustrator Leon (Lev Vasilievich) Zak , who published poems under the poetic pseudonyms M. Rossiyansky and Chrysanthus , who was one of the ideologists of the ego-futurist movement in the 1910s ^[12] . His wife, Nadezhda Aleksandrovna Braudo (1894-1976), was the sister of the organist and music teacher Isaiah Braudo ^[13] . Their daughter, Irina Zack (1918-2013) is a sculptor.
• Wife (since 1908 ) - Tatyana Sergeevna Frank (nee. Bartseva, 1886-1984), author of the memoirs “Memory of the Heart”. Son - Victor Semenovich Frank (1909-1972) - a literary critic, radio journalist, headed the London bureau of Radio Liberty. The youngest son, Vasily Semenovich Frank (1920-1996), also worked as a journalist at the Liberty radio station in Munich (from 1964). Other children are Alexey (born 1910) and Natalya (born 1912).

Frank believed that there were serious philosophical and logical arguments against subjective idealism. Subjective idealism comes from the "I", which stands at the center of the universe. In dialogue with the world, a person discovers within himself something that can be called "you." But there is another thing - what we call "we."

Like his predecessors, Sergei Trubetskoy and Solovyov, Frank emphasized that human consciousnesses, human "I" are not cut off from each other. Real knowledge , real being is possible only when contact arises between people, unity arises. We do not live on isolated islands, but on a single mainland. And this same continent, which unites all of us, is the last and true subject of knowledge. A man learns not only a reflection of his own feelings, but also knows a certain substrate, depth. Later, the German philosopher Paul Tillich wrote that God is not the sky above us, but the depth of being. However, Frank was the first to say this.

In 1917, Frank published the book "The Soul of Man," which was then repeatedly published in foreign languages. Frank was translated into many languages, including Japanese, Czech, Polish, German, English; naturally, he himself wrote books in these languages. This book analyzes the question of the unity of spiritual life, which cannot be cut, cannot be divided. This unity concerns not only our “I”, but also the field in which those “I” are located, to which we are addressed. That is, “I”, then “we” and, finally, some mysterious substrate, which is incomprehensible.

At the same time, Frank reacted negatively to collectivism, which crushes the personality . Every dictate is contrary to freedom, and divine unity cannot exist without freedom, it is free.

Frank on Socialism:

“Socialism in its main socio-philosophical plan is to replace the whole individual will with a collective will ... putting in its place the existence of a“ collective ”, as if to mold or glue monads into one continuous dough of“ mass ”, is a meaningless idea that violates the basic unremovable principle of the public and which can only lead to paralysis and decomposition of society. It is based on the crazy and blasphemous dream that for the sake of the plannedness and orderliness of his economy and the equitable distribution of economic goods, a person is able to give up his freedom, his “I” and become completely and completely a cog in the social machine, an impersonal medium of common forces. In fact, it cannot lead to anything else but the unbridled tyranny of despotic power and dumb passivity or animal riot of citizens. ”

• Bubbeier F.S. L. Frank: Life and work of the Russian philosopher. - M .: ROSSPEN , 2001. ISBN 5-8243-0269-3
• Chapter V. Metaphysics of all-unity, a) Systems of L.P. Karsavin and S.L. Frank // V.V. Zenkovsky . History of Russian philosophy.
• Frank S. L. / A.V. Sobolev // New Philosophical Encyclopedia : in 4 volumes / before. scientific ed. Council V. S. Styopin . - 2nd ed., Rev. and add. - M .: Thought , 2010 .-- 2816 p.

• S. L. Frank - Books, Articles, Biography
• Frank Semyon Ludwigovich - Biography. Statements
• Tatyana Frank - audio memoirs of S. L. Frank's wife on Radio Liberty
• S. L. Frank at the Vѣhi library
• S. L. Frank in the library of Jacob Krotov
• S. L. Frank in the library "Second literature"
• Men, Alexander "World Spiritual Culture"
• S. L. Frank on the site "Existential and humanistic psychology"
• Zyuzin A. V. Professor's library: a collection of books from the library of S. L. Frank as part of the foundation of the V. A. Artisevich Zonal Scientific Library of the Saratov State University named after N. G. Chernyshevsky . - Saratov, 2012
• Kupriyanov V.A. Transformation of the philosophy of duration of A. Bergson in the ideal realism of S. L. Frank // History of Philosophy. T. 21. - No. 1/2016. - S. 128-135.