BellaOnline Forums Travel and Culture Polish Culture Pieter and philosophy

Pieter, some time ago I wrote a longer post about my impressions on Levinas, Wittigenstein an a bit of the Schopenhauer's Parega and paralipomena, pressed a wrong combination a keys and it was all gone. I thought I will write in once again, but somehow cannot get the inspiration. So, now just a question - have you ever read something by Lev Shestov?

PS. I started a new, let's call it philosophical thread, since I didn't like the previous's one title <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Arthur Schopenhauer � Parerga und Paralipomena. &#1042;&#1089;&#1077;&#1075;&#1086; &#1074; &#1087;&#1077;&#1088;&#1074;&#1086;&#1080;&#1089;&#1090;&#1086;&#1095;&#1085;&#1080;&#1082;&#1077; � 31 &#1075;&#1083;&#1072;&#1074;&#1072;. &#1057;&#1082;&#1072;&#1085;&#1080;&#1088;&#1086;&#1074;&#1072;&#1085;&#1080;&#1077;, OCR &#1080; &#1074;&#1099;&#1095;&#1080;&#1090;&#1082;&#1072;: &#1040;&#1088;&#1082;&#1072;&#1076;&#1080;&#1081; &#1050;&#1091;&#1088;&#1072;&#1082;&#1080;&#1085;, &#1075;. &#1053;&#1080;&#1082;&#1086;&#1083;&#1072;&#1077;&#1074;, 04.2001: ark@mksat.net &#1048;&#1089;&#1090;&#1086;&#1095;&#1085;&#1080;&#1082;:87.3 &#1064;79 &#1064;&#1086;&#1087;&#1077;&#1085;&#1075;&#1072;&#1091;&#1101;&#1088; &#1040;. &#1040;&#1092;&#1086;&#1088;&#1080;&#1079;&#1084;&#1099; &#1080; &#1084;&#1072;&#1082;&#1089;&#1080;&#1084;&#1099; � &#1051;.: &#1048;&#1079;&#1076;&#1072;&#1090;&#1077;&#1083;&#1100;&#1089;&#1090;&#1074;&#1086; &#1051;&#1077;&#1085;&#1080;&#1085;&#1075;&#1088;&#1072;&#1076;&#1089;&#1082;&#1086;&#1075;&#1086; &#1091;&#1085;&#1080;&#1074;&#1077;&#1088;&#1089;&#1080;&#1090;&#1077;&#1090;&#1072;, 1990. � 288 &#1089;.IS&#1042;N 5-288-00966-&#1061; &#1055;&#1077;&#1095;&#1072;&#1090;&#1072;&#1083;&#1086;&#1089;&#1100; &#1087;&#1086; &#1080;&#1079;&#1076;.: &#1064;&#1086;&#1087;&#1077;&#1085;&#1075;&#1072;&#1091;&#1101;&#1088; &#1040;&#1088;&#1090;&#1091;&#1088;. &#1040;&#1092;&#1086;&#1088;&#1080;&#1079;&#1084;&#1099; &#1080; &#1052;&#1072;&#1082;&#1089;&#1080;&#1084;&#1099; / &#1055;&#1077;&#1088;. &#1089; &#1085;&#1077;&#1084;. &#1060;. &#1042;. &#1063;&#1077;&#1088;&#1085;&#1080;&#1075;&#1086;&#1074;&#1094;&#1072;. &#1057;&#1055;&#1073;., 1892.

A dam,

In fact I am not really a philosophy expert, because I read more historical, relgiogious and political books and material than philosophy
books. In fact I have some difficulties as an layman, to understand the
complicated terminology of Philosophers.
I read more books about the development and history of Philosophy,
Philosophers, and the philosophic movements and schools.
Ofcourse everybody heared about Socrates, Plato and Aristoteles.
About the theorists of the Catholic church Augustine and Thomas of Aquino. Maybe Maimonides. Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, Voltaire, Rousseau, Thomas More, Edmund Burke, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Feuerbach, Friedrich Nietsche ("Also Sprach Zarathustra"), Karl Marx (the economical philosopher), Henry Bergson, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege, Edmund Husserl (phenomenology), Martin Heidegger (existential phenomenology), Hanah Arendt (books "the banality of evil", about the Eichman process and "The Origins of Totalitarianism", a political philosopher - I am reading her biography now-), Jean Paul Sartre.
Besides that you have Adorno, Habermas, Isiah Berlin, Bertrand Russell, Friedrich Hayek (Chicago school of economics), Richard Rorty, Francis Fukuyama (the End of history), Samuel Huntington (Clash of civilizations) and Martha Nussbaum.

Unfortunately I have never read something by Lev Shestov,
this is what I found about him on the internet:

"Who is Shestov

Lev Shestov (1866-1938) is a Russian-Jewish philosopher of existentialism. In France he is well known as L�on Chestov. Variously described as an irrationalist, an anarchist, a religious philosopher, Shestov's themes were initially inspired by Nietzsche until he found a kindred spirit in Kierkegaard. Among his contemporaries he entertained long-standing philosophical friendships with Martin Buber, Edmund Husserl and Nikolai Berdyaev.

Shestov's development as a thinker lead him to undertake a vast critique of the history of Western philosophy which he saw broadly as a monumental battle between Reason and Faith, Athens and Jerusalem, secular and religious outlook. He thus engaged on what he termed a "pilgrimage through the souls" of such greats as Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Blaise Pascal, Descartes, Plotinus, Spinoza, Plato, Luther and others.

This site proposes a number of Shestov's works in extenso. The English translations published mainly by Bernard Martin (1928 - 2001) in the 1960's, have long been out of print. Were it not for the dedication of this academic, the most important of Shestov's writings would not be available to the English reader today."

Pieter

Hello Pieter,
the above citation from the site you've read about Shestov precisely explains why I have asked you whether you know his works. Since you've mentioned some of the 'superstars' of philiosphy (Levinas, Wittgenstein, Schopenhauer) I wanted to draw our exchange to the feedbacks of philososphy 'European way' as well. Perhaps only Wittgenstein does not 'fit' under Szestow's critisims - especially W. work on the interplay between the way we talk and the way we think. It is very useful to read Shestov, he doesn't use that much philosophical terms at all. HIs 'Apotheosis of Groundlessness' (Apofeoz bezpochvennosty") is just unbelieveably 'valid' today!
All the best.

A dam,

I understand what you are saying and I get curious about Shestovs work. Again I have to say that I am not a great expert in philosophy,
but I can say you that the "Logos" and "Mathematic way of thinking"
of great Philosophers fascinate me.
The questions "why do I exsist", "where do I come from", "what is the reason of being", what is your position towards the world and the other,
why is there suffering, are questions you maybe already asked yourself
when you were a kid or teenager. I did, and did not stop asking myself and others questions. And there were not always answers to that questions. Then I did not know that these questions were philosophical,
so I searched in my environment, in education, and especially in history,
art (form and content) and politics.
The nice thing about philosophical rhetoric, is that the the subject can be anything. About everything you can imagine philosophers have written, are writing now and will write in the future.
In the past art and philosophy were seen as oponents, because a greek Philosopher (I don't remember if it was Plato or Aristoteles) accused artists of trying to reinvent nature, or to copy it.
Philosophers argued that it was impossible to remake nature, while artists said that they made their version of what they saw in reality.
Because of my art background I struggle with that historical fact that art was always critisized and rediculized by philosophers.
From the other hand philosophers read books which became pieces of art, and influenced artists deeply. You have many artists who read Nietsche, Wittgenstein, Jacques Derrida and Postmodern Philosopher Michel Foucault. And some of them like Martin Heidegger and Jean Paul Sartre too. Artists like the way philosophers design thought patterns,
structures, systematic thinking, phenomenons, and ofcourse Methaphysics. There is competition in the conceptual way of thinking and expressing oneselves. Many artists are thinkers, watchers, analysers of life and reason to, only the shape it in another form.

I think that Schopenhauer is not such a superstar as the other Philosphers, because of his scorn for fellow philosophers.
Their revenge was to keep him quiet. Nietsche was a great admirer
of his work, and Schopenhauer introduced Hinduism (the Indian Veda's)
and Buddhism into 19th century Europe. He may be a pessimist -
the wisdom of the life of this christian ahte�st always stays human in the highest meaning of the word.

I am really interested about the work of Lev Shestov,
and I hope that I can find him in the library or in a bookshop.
Thanks for bringing him up in my mind by your post.

Pieter:

Under here about Jacques Derrida's a tekst I found on internet about his theory of deconstruction, which was very influential on artists (who first want to deconstruct before they can construct, see Cubism, Mixed media art, assemblage -Rauschenberg-, Dada, and surrealism);

Deconstruction: A school of philosophy that originated in France in the late 1960s, has had an enormous impact on Anglo-American criticism. Largely the creation of its chief proponent Jacques Derrida, deconstruction upends the Western metaphysical tradition. It represents a complex response to a variety of theoretical and philosophical movements of the 20th century, most notably Husserlian phenomenology, Saussurean and French structuralism, and Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis.
[First paragraph of a seven-page explanation in the Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993).]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Deconstruction: The term denotes a particular kind of practice in reading and, thereby, a method of criticism and mode of analytical inquiry. In her book The Critical Difference (1981), Barbara Johnson clarifies the term:
"Deconstruction is not synonymous with "destruction", however. It is in fact much closer to the original meaning of the word 'analysis' itself, which etymologically means "to undo" -- a virtual synonym for "to de-construct." ... If anything is destroyed in a deconstructive reading, it is not the text, but the claim to unequivocal domination of one mode of signifying over another. A deconstructive reading is a reading which analyses the specificity of a text's critical difference from itself."
[First paragraph of a four-page definition of the term deconstruction in J.A. Cuddon, A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, third ed. (London: Blackwell, 1991)].

N. A. BERDYAEV (BERDIAEV)
�

THE� FUNDAMENTAL� IDEA� OF� THE� PHILOSOPHY
OF� LEV� SHESTOV

(1938 - #439)

�������� Several times already I have written in the pages of �Put�� about Lev Shestov. But here is a demand to speak otherwise about him, and to honour his memory. Lev Shestov was a philosopher, who philosophised with all his being, and for whom philosophy was not an academic specialisation, but rather a matter of life and death. He was consistent of mind. And it was striking, his independence from the surrounding tendencies of the times. He sought God, he sought the liberation of man from the forces of necessity. And this was his personal problem. His philosophy belonged to the existential type of philosophy, i.e. it did not objectify the process of knowledge, it did not tear it asunder from the subject of knowing, it tied it together with the integral judgement of man. Existential philosophy signifies the remembrance of the philosophising subject, who incorporates existential experience into his philosophy. This type of philosophy presupposes, that the mystery of being is comprehendible only within the human existential condition. For Lev Shestov the human tragedy, the terrors and suffering of human life, the surviving of hopelessness, were all at the basis of philosophy. It ought not to be exaggerated as something new, that which they term existential philosophy, or that it derives from certain currents of contemporary German philosophy. This element is something possessed by all genuine and noteworthy philosophers. Spinoza philosophised via a geometric method and his philosophy can produce the impression of being a cold objective philosophy. But philosophic knowledge was for him a matter of salvation, and his� amor Dei intellectualis� in no way belongs to objective scientific-form truths. By the way, the attitude of L. Shestov towards Spinoza was very interesting. Spinoza was his enemy, one with whom he struggled all his life, as though a temptation. Spinoza -- was representative of human reason, a destroyer of revelation. And at the same time, L. Shestov very much loved Spinoza, constantly he had him in mind, and often he quoted him. In his final years, L. Shestov had a very remarkable encounter with Kierkegaard. He earlier had never read him, he knew him only by hearsay, and did not even consider perchance the influence of Kierkegaard on his thought. But when he read him, he became then deeply agitated, he was struck by the closeness of Kierkegaard to the fundamental theme of his life. And he came to number Kierkegaard among his heroes. His heroes were Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, Luther, Pascal and the Biblical heroes -- Abraham, Job, Isaiah. Just as it was with Kierkegaard, the philosophical theme of L. Shestov was religious, and just as with Kierkegaard, his chief enemy was Hegel. He went from Nietzsche to the Bible. And he all the more and more turned himself to Biblical revelation. The conflict of Biblical revelation and Greek philosophy became a fundamental theme of his pondering.

������ L. Shestov subordinated to the fundamental theme of his life everything, which he thought, and which also he spoke and wrote. He could look upon the world, he could produce evaluations of the thoughts of others exclusively within the context of his own theme, and entirely towards this he regarded and remade the world in relation to this theme. But how to formulate it? He was struck by the force of necessity over human life, which begets the terrors of life. The vulgar forms of necessity did not interest him, but rather the more subtle forms. The force of irreversible necessity has been idealised by philosophers, as reason and morals, as self-evident and generally-observed truths. Necessity is begotten by knowing. L. Shestov is completely caught up by this thought, that the Fall into sin is connected with knowledge, with the knowledge of good and evil. Man ceases to be nourished off the tree of life and begins to be nourished off the tree of knowledge. And L. Shestov struggles against the force of knowledge, which makes man subject under the law, in the name of the liberation of life. This is a terrible sundering for paradise, for the free paradaisical life. But paradise is attained through the tension of conflict, through disharmony and hopelessness. In essence, L. Shestov is not at all against scientific knowledge, he is not against reason in everyday life. Not in this is his problematic. He was against the pretensions of science and reason to decide questions about God, about the liberation of man from the tragic anguish of human judgement, wherein reason and rational knowledge want to circumscribe potentiality. God first of all is limitless potentialities, and this is a basic definition of God. God is not bound by any sort of truths of necessity. The human person is a victim of the truths of necessity, of the law of reason and morals, a victim of the universal and the conventional.

������ God stands opposite the kingdom of necessity, the kingdom of reason. God is in no way limited, to nothing can He be subordinated, and for God rather everything is possible. L. Shestov posits here the problem, which yet disquieted the Scholastic medieval philosophy. Is God to be subordinated to reason, to truth and the good, or is truth and the good only that, which God posits? The first point of view derives from Plato, and upon it stands St. Thomas Aquinas. The second point of view was that defended by Dun Scotus. The first point of view is bound up with intellectualism, while the second is with voluntarism. L. Shestov had kinship with Dun Scotus, but he posits the problem far more radically. If God is, then there lays disclosed all possibility, then the truths of reason cease to be incontrovertible and the terrors of life cease to be victorious. Here we touch upon a chief matter in the Shestov theme. And with this is connected that profound tremulation, which characterises all the thought of Shestov. Could God act thus, so that what formerly was, might not be? This is something most incomprehensible for reason. It would be very easy to misunderstand L. Shestov. The poisoned Socrates could be resuscitated, and in this Christians believe. His bride could be restored to Kierkegaard, while Nietzsche could be cured of his terrible illness. But this is not altogether what L. Shestov wants to say. God could have done it thus, so that Socrates would not have been poisoned, that Kierkegaard would not have deprived of bride, that Nietzsche would not have been strickened with terrible illness. Is there possible an absolute victory over that necessity, which rational knowledge invests upon the past? L. Shestov was tormented by the irreversibility of the past, fear of the formerly occurred tormented him.

������ Indeed, everything connected with this theme about a necessarily compelling truth is bound up with the setting in opposition of Jerusalem and Athens, the setting of Abraham and Job in opposition to Socrates and Aristotle. When they attempted to unite reason, as developed by Greek philosophy, together with revelation, there occurred then an apostacising and stepping-away from faith, and theology has always done this. The God of Abraham, of Isaac and Jacob, is replaced by the God of the theologians and the philosophers. Philo was the first betrayer. God was subordinated to reason, to necessity, to commonly-held truths. Therein perished Abraham, the hero of faith. L. Shestov was very close to Luther, to the Lutheran theme of salvation by faith alone. The deliverance of man cannot come from man himself, but only from God. God -- is the Deliverer. Deliverance occurs not by intellect, not by morals, not by human activity, but by faith. Faith signifies the miraculous for the necessary truths of reason. The heights bestir themselves from their places. Faith demands the irrational. The Apostle Paul also says this. Faith asserts a conflict, a paradox, as Kierkegaard loves to say. L. Shestov with great radicalism gave expression authentically to the existential and eternal problem. The paradoxicality of thought, the irony, to which L. Shestov constantly recoursed in his manner to write, prevented its comprehension. Sometimes they have understood it, but indeed backwards. This occurred, for example, with such a remarkable thinker as Unamuno, who much sympathised with L. Shestov.

������� The philosophic thought of L. Shestov encountered tremendous perplexity in its expression, and this engendered much misunderstanding. The difficulty was in the inability to express by words that which L. Shestov pondered concerning the fundamental theme of his life, the inexpressibility of the chief points. He often recoursed to a negative form of expression, and this was more successful for him. It was the clear, against which he led the struggle. Positive forms of expression were more difficult. Human language is so very rationalised, so very predisposed to thought-forms engendered by the Fall-into-Sin -- to the knowledge of good and evil. The thought of L. Shestov, directed against the commonly-held, itself took on the form of the commonly-held. And this provided easy ammunition into the hands of the critics. We stand here before a profound and little investigated problem of communication of creative thought to an other. Is that which is communicated something very primary and very consequential, or is it only secondary and transitory? This at present is a problem posited by existential philosophy. For it, this is a problem of the transference from the �I� to the �thou� in an authentic communality. For philosophy, which imputes itself to be rational, this problem does not present disquieting consequences as regards an universal reason. One way or another universal reason makes possible an adequate transfer of thought and knowledge from the one to the other. But in actuality reason is in steps, of varied qualities and dependent on the character of human existence, of existential experience. Will determines the character of reason. Whereupon then there is posited the question about the transfer of philosophic thought through the non-rational concept. And indeed at present rational concepts do not make for a communication from one to an other. L. Shestov frankly was not interested by this problem and he did not write about it, since he was completely absorbed by the relationship of man and God, and not by the relationship of man and man. But his philosophy very acutely posits this problem, and he himself is beset by the problem of philosophy. His contradiction was in this, that he was a philosopher, i.e. a man of thought and knowledge, and he comprehended the tragedy of human existence, the negative apperception. He struggled against the tyranny of reason, against the force of knowledge which banished man out of paradise, yet he struggled upon the territory of that same knowledge, and recoursed to the weaponry of that selfsame reason. In this is the difficulty of� philosophy, which wants to be existential. And in the thick of this difficulty I see the merit of L. Shestov.

������� L. Shestov struggled for the person, for the individually unrepeatable, against the force of the general. His chief opponent was Hegel and the Hegelian universal spirit. In this he was akin to Kierkegaard, he was akin to the theme of Belinsky in his letters to Botkin, and especially to Dostoevsky. In this struggle is the right-truth of L. Shestov. In this struggle against the force of the commonly-held he was so radicalised, that what was veritable and saving for one he regarded as not veritable and not obligatory for another. In essence, he thought that each man has his own personal truth. But by this were posited all those problems of communication. A matter whether there be communication between people on the soil of true revelation, or is this communication only upon the ground of the truths of reason, as conformed to the conventional, on the soil of that which L. Shestov following upon Dostoevsky called the �allness�?

������� In the last days of his life Lev Shestov was embued of heated thoughts, agitated and intense. And he shew the victory of spirit over the infirmity of body. His perhaps finest books, �Kierkegaard and Existential Philosophy�, and �Athens and Jerusalem, an Essay of Religious Philosophy�, were written by him in the final period of his life. Here is not the time to criticise the philosophy of my old friend Lev Shestov. One thing only I shall say. I am very sympathetic to the problematics of Lev Shestov and I find close to me his motif of the struggle against the force of the �common� over human life. But I always parted with him over the value of knowledge, and I do not see in it the source of oppressive necessity over our lives. Yet only in an existential philosophy can there be explained, what the matter of concern is here. The books of L. Shestov help to give an answer to the basic question of human existence, and within them there is existential significance.
�

���������������������������������������������������������������������� NIKOLAI� BERDYAEV.

����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 1938

Hello Pieter. And thank you. It was a real pleasure and a double one. One - the reading. Second - I need to explain. I am not an acadamic philosopher, just a hobbist, exactly as you are. The only difference between us is that I practice the hobby (Pinkola would probably say 'finding the essence') probably some ten years longer than you. Which is not equal to and is not supposed to mean that I am ten years ahaed of, not at all, you know it. Nonetheless I said so on purpose. Some ten years ago, when I was your age, another hobbist drew my attention to Shestov. Since that time L.S. has become one of the most favourite thinkers for me, if not the most important one. So now you can imagine how joyful I am to see that apparently you've become interested with Shestov!
Now to Berdayev and Shestov. To my mind they didn't differ that much. Pehaps they even - at the baseline- agreed but, as is often with very good friends, tried to outline the differences as sharp as they can - for the sake of good discussion <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> You cannot discuss with someone with whom you totally agree, isn't it? <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> And surely they were very close when they critised Ratio (Berdayev in his 'Sub specie aeternitatis'book with the title of Spinoza). As to Dostoyevski - besides what says Berdayev in Put', Shestov critisized Dostoyevski's, doubtful indeed, input into philosophy. He was especially critical re Dosoyevski's 'slavophilia', which Shestov insightfully exposes as the Russian version of Bismarckan verse - 'Russland, Russland ueber alles' (If you want more on that pleae check 'Nachala i koncy' - ("Beginnings and ends)).
Shestov and Hegel. Berdayev says: "L. Shestov struggled for the person, for the individually unrepeatable, against the force of the general. His chief opponent was Hegel and the Hegelian universal spirit." - no wonder Shestov was not the philosopher the Soviet Union liked most <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
And, finally, since that's a Polish Culture Forum, a Polish accent. You've had your Dutch one with Spinoza already <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Shestov thought and wrote a lot about the nessesity and it's opponent, the blind chance. For everyone always wanting to know everything about the role of accident in human life but afraid to ask:


there's a really very good film by Kieslowski 'Przypadek' (Blind chance)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084549/

That film is a real must. ANd I personally assure - noone will regret watching it <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

All the best and thank you once again.

Dear Adam,

I like your serious response very much.
I am greatful of being able to know that Lev Shevtov exsist, although
it is hard to find any material about him in this provincial city in the East of the Netherlands (me comming from the South-West of Holland, and after that living and studying for two years in Amsterdam often mock with Arnhem and Arnhem people, like Schopenhauer and Heine with their fellow German compatriots). I love the environment here and the fact that I live near Germany, the city of Nijmegen and Arnhem and Utrecht. What I miss however sometimes is the Cosmopolitan, international, cultural and intellectual climate of Amsterdam (a city with two huge universaties, and lots of people of other Western countries, Russians and Poles). When I lived in Amsterdam I knew the Russian community over there. Wonderful but strange people, blessed with a nobel soul and a profound love and knowledge of culture, cursed with their notorious hypochondric deep melancholy (longing for Mother Russia), nostalgia and alcoholism (Vodka) which goes with that.
They share that subtle, sensitive, Slavian soul which shapes the spirituality, sense of tradition and culture which seems to flow through their blood. We Germanistic peoples (Duch, Flemish, Germans, British)
miss that. We have to learn that ourselves, individualy, because it is not in your uprbringing, in your family or social environment.
Duch or other Germanistic friends will be offended by my words here,
I often quarelled about that with them, when I said that I am not fond of Duch music, cinema, theater and even literature.
I think Poles and Russians have a kind of selfawareness, a positive Patriotism which can not exsist overhere in the West.
Here it would emediatly become a reactionary form of Nationalism,
a dangerous, sentimental wallow in our own culture, music and history.
In Poland and Russia it is more ecclectic, a struggle for life in which elements of differant cultures were incorperated, and then Polonised or Russificated in a natural manner. Polish culture is very Polish, but in the same time has Pan-European roots, because it was a huge empire in the Middle ages (the Polish-Lithuanian kingdom), and because of the influence of German, Jewish, Ukranian, Russian, Duch immigrants,
and Italian, French and German artists, architects and stiles.
In Polish cities you see next to the Polish Gothical stile, also the influence of Italian Renaissance and German jugendstil.
Back to the Russians of Amsterdam and the Poles in my past.
From the Russians and their Russian parties, I learned to know the music and the sound of their language, by listening to their conversations and songs (with I could not understand).
I laso learned in Amsterdam and from my mother that Poles often hate
Russians, but Russians do not necasseriy hate Poles.
In Amsterdam I got Polish lessons from a Russian who looked like Boris Becker. Later other Russians said that he was a KGB guy, and he disappeared (that was in 1991). I got the lessons in the appartment of an older Spanish girlfriend, which friend was a Russian.
From the other side I as a Duch guy who spoke English with them, never really became part of them. Russians have a strong group culture with eachother. I started watching Russian movies in cultural cinema's and rented video's of Tarkowski, Sergei Bodrov (Prisoner of the Mountains) and others.

But my first real encounter with Russia was when I red Dostoyevski's
Crime and Punishment, Gogols Petersburg stories, Isaac Babel's Red Cavelry, and I did a lecture on the Russian Revolution in the first class of my highschool (the subject was to difficult for my fellow pupils).
Dostoyevski is nearly my favorite writer, next to Kafka, Gunter Grass,
Tadeusz Konwicky and Bashevis Singer.
So I can understand Shemtov's fascination with Dostoyevski very well.
In my opinion Dostoyevski's novels are especially psychologically interesting. When you read about Rashkalnikov and his interrogators,
the description of the various persona.
I really would wish I had more time to find and read more philosophical novels of great philosophers. I really loved Levinas "Humanism of men",
and Bergson. I can imagine Shemtovs fascination for the Christian existentialist Kierkegaard, whom I read a long time ago, in my early twenties. I read often in the new literary bible translation, which is written in Modern (present-day) Duch. Especially old testamony stories, because with my christian background I know ofcourse the New testamony better. I can understand Shemtovs identification with the bible as a jew (the bible tells the story of his hebrew ancestors) and philosopher. What is amazing is his interest in Luther and christian
stories. Most jewish thinkers I know were not interested in christianity
or christian subjects, because both faiths have fundamental differances.
It is interesting that Shemtovs main subjects of study Nietsche, Dostoyevski and Kierkegaard, are extremely differant in their stile of writing and philosophy. Nietsche is nearly manical or agitating when you read his "Also sprach Zarathustra". People in my circle of friends or like him or hate him. Nietsche himself wanted that reaction. He said, I want to be rejected or to be read very carfully. Wehn you read him you have to chew on his sentances and words and digest it piece by piece.
For me it was not easy to read then man with the Hammer, who later on went crazy on a mountain. Kierkegaard was more sympathetic to me,
although he did inherit his father's melancholy, his sense of guilt and anxiety, and his pietistic emphasis on the dour aspects of Christian faith. He is considered the father of the Existentialist philosophy,
although most people connect that kind of philosophy with Sartre.
The sources Lev Shemtov was interested in made my interest in him grow the last days. Thursday I will go to the library again to see if I can find anything about him in the encyclopedea Juda�ca, which is kept in the archives of that library.

Pieter

Dear Adam,

I can see that you're smiling a lot , anyway what I was going to say?

Someone once said that the life of every man, was a diary,in which he meant to write one story, but wrote another! <img src="/images/graemlins/rolling.gif" alt="" />

CIEKAWA STATYSTYKA!!!
Jezeli daloby sie zmniejszyc Ziemie do rozmiar�w wioski,
kt�ra zamieszkuje dokladnie stu mieszkanc�w, zachowujac proporcje
wszystkich ras, mieszka?oby tam mniej wi?cej:
*57 Azjat�w
*21 Europejczyk�w
*14 os�b z zachodniej p�lkuli (poludniowej i p�lnocnej)
*8 Afrykanczyk�w
*52 kobiety
*48 mezczyzn
*70 nie-bialych
*30 bialych
*70 niechrzescijan
*30 chrzescijan
*89 heteroseksualist�w
*11 homoseksualist�w
*6 os�b posiadaloby 59% bogactwa calego swiata
*6 byloby ze Stan�w Zjednoczonych .
*80 os�b zyloby ponizej standardu.
*70 os�b nie umialoby czyta?
*50 os�b cierpialoby z powodu niedozywienia
*1 osoba bylaby bliska smierci
*1 osoba bylaby bliska narodzin
*1 (tak, tylko jedna) mialaby wyzsze wyksztalcenie
*1 osoba posiadalaby komputer

Kiedy spojrzy sie na swiat z takiej perspektywy, potrzeba akceptacji,
zrozumienia i edukacji staje sie bardzo wyrazna. Godne uwagi jest
r�wniez, co nastepuje...

Jezeli dzisiaj rano wstales/as z l�zka raczej
zdrowy niz chory ...
Masz wieksze szczescie niz milion ludzi, kt�rzy nie przezyja tego tygodnia.
Jezeli nigdy nie doswiadczyles/as niebezpieczenstw wojny, samotnosci, wiezienia, tortur ani glodu, jestes w lepszym polozeniu, niz 500 milion�w ludzi na swiecie.
Jezeli mozesz chodzic do kosciola bez strachu, nie obawiajac sie aresztowania, tortur lub smierci, jestes szczesliwszy/a niz miliard ludzi na tym swiecie.
Jezeli masz dach nad glowa, ubranie na grzbiecie, jedzenie w lod�wce i
masz gdzie spac, jestes bogatszy niz 75%ludzi.
Jezeli masz pieniedze w banku i troche drobnych w portfelu, jestes wsr�d 8% swiatowych bogaczy.
Jezeli twoi rodzice zyja i ciagle sa malzenstwem... jestes wyjatkowa
rzadkoscia.
Jezeli mozesz przeczytac ta wiadomosc, otrzymales podw�jne blogoslawienstwo:
ktos o tobie mysli, a co wiecej, jestes szczesliwszy niz dwa miliardy ludzi, kt�re w og�le nie umiej? czytac.
Oto wnioski:
Pracuj, jakbys nie potrzebowal pieniedzy.
Kochaj, jakby nikt cie nigdy nie zranil,
Idz na piwo ze swoja paczka zawsze kiedy masz ochote, uprawiaj
seks trzy razy dziennie <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />)), Tancz, jakby nikt nie patrzyl.
Zyj, jakby to bylo niebo na Ziemi.
To jest Tydzien Przyjazni. - Wyslij to i rozjasnij czyjs dzien. Nic sie
nie stanie, jezeli nie zdecydujesz sie wyslac tego listu do nikogo;
jedyne, co moze sie zdarzyc jezli go wyslesz, to to, ze ktos moze sie
usmiechnie dzieki Tobie.
----------------------