Pavel Florensky

Mikhail Nesterov, Философы [Philosophers], 1917. Florensky and Sergei Bulgakov, painting.
Born	January 22, 1882(1882-01-22) near Yevlakh, Elisabethpol Governorate, Russian Empire (today Azerbaijan)
Died	December 8, 1937(1937-12-08) (aged 55) Leningrad, Soviet Union (today St. Petersburg)

Pavel Florensky (Священник Павел Флоренский, 1882–1937) was a Russian theologian, priest, mathematician, scientist, inventor, and philosopher.

He wrote on art, language, organic chemistry, mysticism, Kant, sculpture, Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Aegean culture, arithmetic, idealism, iconography, electromagnetism, microscopy, carbolic acid, asbestos, Pythagorean numbers, Aleksandr Blok, ecclesiology, and a wide variety of other topics. After the revolution he was one of the few intellectuals with conservative views to be permitted to remain professionally active in the country, at least for a time. His training in science made him useful in the early years of the Soviet Union, when he applied his expertise as an electrical engineer to various public-works projects. In Soviet history, until recently the achievement for which Florensky was perhaps best remembered officially in his own country was his invention in 1927 of a noncoagulating machine oil. [1]

Works

Books

Mnimosti v geometri, 1922, PDF; 1985, JPGs.

in Russian

• Stolp i utverzhdenie istiny, T1 (1) [Столп и утверждение истины], Moscow: Pravda, 1990; T1 (2).
• U vodorazdelov mysli Т.1. Stati po inkusstvu, ed. N.A. Struve, Paris: YMCA Press, 1985.
• U vodorazdelov mysli Т.2 [У водоразделов мысли], Moscow: Pravda, 1990.
• Mnimosti v geometrii [Мнимости в геометрии], Moscow: Pomore [Поморье], 1922; new ed., intro. Michael Hagemeister, Munich: Otto Sagner, 1985; Moscow: Lazyr [Лазурь], 1991, 96 pp. "Poiasnenie k oblozhke" (pp 58-65) was reprinted in Florensky, U vodorazdelov mysli Т.1. Stati po inkusstvu, ed. N.A. Struve, Paris: YMCA Press, 1985, pp 369-379. [2]
• Ikonostas. Izbrannye trudy po iskusstvu [Иконостас. Избранные труды по искусству], Moscow: Russkaja kniga, 1993.
• Сочинения в 4-х томах: том 1, Moscow: Мысль, 1994, 797 pp.
• Сочинения в 4-х томах: том 2, Moscow: Мысль, 1996, 877 pp.
• Сочинения в 4-х томах: том 3(1), Moscow: Мысль, 2000, 621 pp.
• Сочинения в 4-х томах: том 3(1), Moscow: Мысль, 2000, 623 pp.
• Сочинения в 4-х томах: том 4, Moscow: Мысль, 1998, 795 pp.
• Istoriya i filosofiya iskusstva [История и философия искусства], Moscow: Mysl [Мысль], 2000.
• Философия культа, Moscow: Мысль, 2004, 685 pp.
• Письма семье из лагерей и тюрем 1933 -1937 гг, Сатисъ, 2004.

in Italian

• La colonna e il fondamento della verità, Rusconi, 1974, PDF.
• La prospettiva rovesciata e altri scritti, ed. Nicoletta Misler, Rome: Casa de Libro, 1983.
• Stratificazioni. Scritti sull’arte e la tecnica, Diabasis, 2008.

in Romanian

• Iconostasul, trans. Boris Buzilă, Fundatia Anastasia, 1994.
• Dogmatică şi Dogmatism, trans. and notes Elena Dulgheru, Bucharest: Anastasia, 1998, IA.
• Stâlpul şi Temelia Adevărului. Încercare de teodicee ortodoxă în douăsprezece scrisori, trans. Emil Iordache, Iulian Friptu and Dimitrie Popescu, Iaşi: Polirom, 1999, IA, PDF.

in English

• The Pillar and Ground of the Truth, Princeton University Press, 1997. Introduction.
• Beyond Vision: Essays on the Perception of Art, ed. Nicoletta Misler, trans. Wendy Salmond, Reaktion Books, 2002, ARG. [3]

in German

• Die Ikonostase: Urbild und Grenzerlebnis im revolutionären Rußland, trans. and intro Ulrich Werner, Stuttgart: Urachhaus, 1988, PDF, ARG. Translation of the 1922 version.

Selected articles and lectures

• "Poiasnenie k oblozhke", in Mnimosti v geometrii [Мнимости в геометрии], Moscow: Pomore [Поморье], 1922, pp 58-65; Munich: Otto Sagner, 1985; repr. in Florensky, U vodorazdelov mysli Т.1. Stati po inkusstvu, ed. N.A. Struve, Paris: YMCA Press, 1985, pp 369-379. (Russian)
  • "Spiegazione della copertina", in Florenskij, La prospettiva rovesciata e altri scritti, ed. Nicoletta Misler, Rome: Casa de Libro, 1983, pp 136-143. (Italian)
  • "Explanation of the Cover", trans. Avril Pyman, Leonardo 22:2 (1989), pp 239-244. (English)
  • "Explanation of the Cover", trans. Wendy Salmond, in Beyond Vision: Essays on the Perception of Art, ed. Nicoletta Misler, Reaktion Books, 2002, pp 183-196, n297-298. (English)

• "Obratnaia perspektiva", Trudy po znakovym sistemam 3 (1967), pp 381-416; repr. in Florensky, U vodorazdelov mysli Т.1. Stati po inkusstvu, ed. N.A. Struve, Paris: YMCA Press, 1985, pp 117-187. (Russian). Delivered as a lecture, "Reverse Perspective" was not published at the time, even though Florensky himself prepared the text, dictating it, in part, to Aleksandra Rozanova, daughter of his friend, the writer Vasilii Rozanov. The printed proofs are preserved in Manuscript Section, RGL, f. 218, op. 1304, d.12.
  • "La prospettiva rovesciata", in Florenskij, La prospettiva rovesciata e altri scritti, ed. Nicoletta Misler, Rome: Casa de Libro, 1983, pp 73-135. (Italian)
  • "Die umgekehrte Perspektive", in Sikojev, 1989, pp. 7-79. (German)
  • "La perspective inversee", in Lhoest, 1992, pp. 67-120. (French)
  • "Gyakuenkinh", in Kuwano, 1998, pp. 11-111. (Japanese)
  • "Reverse Perspective", trans. Wendy Salmond, in Beyond Vision: Essays on the Perception of Art, ed. Nicoletta Misler, Reaktion Books, 2002, pp 197-272, n299-306. (English)

• "Ikonostas", Bogoslovskie trudy, 9 (1972), pp 88-148.

Literature

Books

• Robert Slesinski, Pavel Florensky: A Metaphysics of Love, New York: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1984.
• K.G. Isupova (ed.), P.A. Florensky: Pro et contra, St. Petersburg: Русский Христианский Гуманитарный Институт, 1996, 752 pp. (Russian)
• Milan Zust, À la recherche de la vérité vivante. L’expérience religieuse de Pavel A. Florenskij (1882-1937), Rome, Lipa, 2002, 394 pp. Review: Lanne (CMR 2004). (French)
• Avril Pyman, Pavel Florensky: A Quiet Genius: The Tragic and Extraordinary Life of Russia s Unknown Da Vinci, New York: Continuum, 2010, 304 pp. [4]. Reviews: Karlson (VN 2010), Michelson (CSP 2011).

Book chapters, papers, articles, blog posts

• Leonid Sabaneeff, "Pavel Florensky-Priest, Scientist, and Mystic", Russian Review 20:4 (October 1961), pp 312-325.
• Kirill Sokolov, Avril Pyman, "Father Pavel Florensky and Vladimir Favorsky: Mutual Insights into the Perception of Space", Leonardo 22:2 (1989), pp 237-244.
• Steven Cassedy, "Pavel Florensky", in Flight from Eden: The Origins of Modern Literary Criticism and Theory, University of California Press, 1990, pp 114-120.
• Nicoletta Misler, "Toward an Exact Aesthetics: Pavel Florensky and the Russian Academy of Artistic Sciences", in Laboratory of Dreams: The Russian Avant-garde and Cultural Experiment, eds. John E. Bowlt and Olga Matich, Stanford University Press, 1996, pp 118-132.
• Stephen C. Hutchings, "Making Sense of the Sensual in Pavel Florenskii's Aesthetics: The Dialectics of Finite Being", Slavic Review 58:1 (Spring 1999), pp 96-116.
• Antonio Maccioni, "Pavel Aleksandrovič Florenskij. Note in margine all'ultima ricezione italiana", eSamizdat V:1-2 (2007), pp 471-478. (Italian)
• Vasile Cristescu, "The Reverse Perspective in the Orthodox Iconography According to P. Florenski: A Dogmatic Perspective", European Journal of Science and Theology, 5:1 (March 2009), pp 41-50.
• Steven Cassedy, "Pavel Florenskii's Trinitarian Humanism", in A History of Russian Philosophy 1830–1930, 2010, pp 190-204. [5]
• Ross Wolfe, "The aesthetics of Russian Orthodox Church architecture: A philosophical, historical, and critical investigation", The Charnel-House blog, 30 August 2010.
• Clemena Antonova, "Visuality Among Cubism, Iconography, and Theosophy: Pavel Florensky's Theory of Iconic Space", Museum of Russian Icons, February 2012.

Theses

• Elizabeth Cooper English, "Arkhitektura i mnimosti": The origins of Soviet avant-garde rationalist architecture in the Russian mystical -philosophical and mathematical intellectual tradition, University of Pennsylvania, 2000. [6]

Links

• Selected Florensky's works online and bibliography
• Florensky's biographies from varius Russian encyclopedias
• http://www.eparh33.ru/news/Svyashchennik_Pavel_Florenskiy___russkiy_Leonardo
• http://www.hrono.info/biograf/bio_f/florenski_pa.php
• http://www.runivers.ru/lib/authors/author103700/
• Florensky's biography and texts on him in German
• Florensky at Russian Wikipedia