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Hegel at the GAKhN: between idealism and Marxism—on the aesthetic debates in Russia in the 1920s

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Abstract

This contribution analyses the importance of the State Academy of the Study of Arts (GAKhN) in the appropriation of Hegel's aesthetics in Russia. In immediate connection to this discussion at the GAKhN is Gustav Špet’s conception of the ontology of art. This concept represents an attempt of a non-metaphysical interpretation of Hegel’s aesthetics. There, art is interpreted as an autonomous mode of the cultural existence as “aesthetic reality.” In this interpretation of art Špet refers to two of Hegel's theses in which (1) art is determined as “appearance” which stands as a "quasi-reality" and (2) the aesthetic object gets its ontological status because of “recognition” by humans. These theses help Špet to develop an alternative to Marxist aesthetics.

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Notes

  1. On the perception of German classical aesthetics in GAKhN, see (Dobrokhotov 2014).

  2. See the partial publication: (Slovar’ khudožestvennykh terminov G.A.Kh.N. 2005).

  3. Cf. in connection with detailing the fundamental directions of the work of the philosophy department, Špet’s question addressed to his colleagues: “Do art historians really know what history they are studying?” (Špet 1926, 4).

  4. Cf. “At this point, German idealist philosophy in the person of Hegel attained results acceptable to us although only formally. For Hegel did not hold back from hypostatizing the “identical” moment that he found in absolute metaphysical reality” (Špet 1992, 50).

  5. Cf. Špet’s attacks against the “idealists” and those he called “experiencers” [perežival'ščikhi] (Špet 1922, 55).

  6. Already within the sociology department of GAKhN, which was designated with developing a Marxist theory of art, quite different conceptions claimed to be “Marxist” including the “vulgar” sociology of V. Friče, the biologically oriented aesthetics of A. Lunačarskij, the historico-sociological aesthetics of P. Sakulin, etc. It is noteworthy here that in none of these conceptions did a mastering of Hegel’s aesthetics play a significant role.

  7. “Artist as such refers to any cultured person as such, neither to the highest species of monkey nor also to a ‘citizen’ or ‘comrade’” (Špet 1923, 77).

  8. This is the source of the metaphor “the language of things,” which in the philosophical investations at GAKhN was understood not as a metaphor, but as an ontological characteristic of social things (Cf. Gabričevskij 2002).

  9. Concerning the “hermeneutic” character of Špet’s aesthetics, see Bird (2009).

  10. On the peripetias of the thesis “all that is real is rational” in Russian intellectual history, see Plotnikov (2010).

  11. In his drafts of the article “Iskusstvo kak vid znanija,” Špet uses the term “actionality” [aktual’nost’] (as opposed to “actuality” [dejstvitel’nost’] and “reality” [real’nost’]) to designate the mode of this being (Špet 2007b, 141).

  12. (Špet 1926/27, 39verso). This does not appear in the published text.

  13. Cf. “Consciousness of oneself as a socio-cultural community is not the same thing as an abstract individual” (Špet 1927, 217).

  14. See, for example, (Lifšic 1984) and also the article “Estetičeskoe vospitanie” in the dictionary Naučnyj kommunizm (Rumjancev 1983, 346).

  15. Particularly in the publications of the journal Literaturnyj kritik.

  16. Сf. “The concrete social subject exists and remains so only if it is recognized as a social subject by others who are recognized by it and as long as this recognition lasts” (Špet 1927, 188).

  17. The allusion here is to the exhibition “The Tyranny of Beauty. The Architecture of Stalin-Time” (1994) at the Museum für angewandte Kunst of Vienna, co-organized by Boris Groys.

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  1. Forschungsstelle “Russische Philosophie und Ideengeschichte”/Lotman-Institut für Russische Kultur, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 44780, Bochum, Germany

    Nikolaj Plotnikov

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Translated from the Russian by Thomas Nemeth.

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Plotnikov, N. Hegel at the GAKhN: between idealism and Marxism—on the aesthetic debates in Russia in the 1920s. Stud East Eur Thought 65, 213–225 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-014-9191-4

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