Dr Ramona Fotiade French – SMLC University of Glasgow

EUROPEAN PHILOSOPHY - EXISTENTIALISM Martin Heidegger 1889 - 1976 Among the better known representatives of existential philosophy in Europe, Soren Kierkegaard has had a major influence on the evolution of Continental Philosophy, in particular in shaping Heidegger’s ontology as well as Sartre’s and Camus’s French existentialist thought. Last year, the bicentenary of Kierkegaard’s birth was celebrated all around Europe by a host of international conferences, publications, radio and TV broadcasts. Albert Camus 1913 -1960 Jean-Paul Sartre 1905 - 1980

Russian religious philosophy Fyodor Dostoevsky 1821 - 1881 Lev Shestov, one the first critics of Husserl’s phenomenology, had a lasting impact on the early joint reception of Dostoevsky’s novels and of Nietzsche’s philosophy in France during the early 1920s. His unique brand of existential discourse combined Russian religious philosophy and Nietzsche’s critique of German idealism in order to arrive at a new understanding of faith and of the meaning of human existence. The sesquincentenary of Shestov’s birth in 2016 will be marked by a range of academic and public events aiming to highlight his contribution to debates on the role of faith and religion in contemporary society. Lev Shestov (1866 – 1938) 150th anniversary in 2016 Friedrich Nietzcshe 1844 - 1900

Shestov film documentary Eisensteim’s Battleship Potemkin 1925 Lev Shestov in 1912 As part of the celebrations scheduled for 2016, the Lev Shestov Studies Society (based at the University of Glasgow) is planning to release a documentary on his intellectual life and his influence on Continental Philosophy in the twentieth-century. The reconstruction of the Russian historical context at the turn of the century will be based on extracts from reel documentary footage and fiction films (such as Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin). Reference will be made to his relationship to other influential diaspora writers and philosophers such as his close friend and disciple, Benjamin Fondane. Interviews with specialists and members of the family will seek to underscore the academic expertise of Shestov scholars with references to iconographic material held in private or public collections. This project is part of a wider, long-term collaboration between the School of Modern Languages and the School of Critical Studies (Theology) on the dissemination of Russian Religious Philosophy in Western Europe during the first half of the twentieth-century, for which funding has been sought from the British Academy and the AHRC. Interviews with specialists and members of the family

The scottish connection In his critique of scientific philosophy and of the Kantian view of religion, Lev Shestov often drew on arguments he found in the work of the Scottish theologian, John Duns (aka Duns Scotus), and in David Hume’s skeptical and empiricist stand on human nature. Duns Scotus – Scottish Philosopher-Theologian 1266 - 1308 David Hume – Scottish Philosopher 1711 - 1776

Robert burns Samuil Marshak (1887 – 1965) One of the first and most influential translators of Robert Burns in Russia, Samuil Marshak came from a Jewish-Russian family, like Shestov, and secured Burns’s lasting reputation as the ‘people’s poet’ in imperial Russia through skillful translations which brought out the rebellious aspect in Burns’s work. This was quickly embraced by the Communist regime during the 1920s, in the same manner in which Shestov’s thought was initially considered ‘revolutionary’ (as it opposed Western systematic philosophy and defended the rights of the individual) before he was forced into exile due to his religious existential ideas and Jewish origin. Shestov’s admiration for Scottish empiricism and for Luther’s conception of faith more widely brings out the connection between his existential thought and the Scottish philosophical and literary tradition. Samuil Marshak (1887 – 1965) Russian Translator of Robert Burns