Alexander Zinoviev is a famous Russian writer and philosopher. He received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and the title of professor. His books and publications are unique in that they do not belong to any one direction, they are multifaceted. Moreover, the writer developed his own unique genre called “sociological novel”. He is also the author of a number of scientific papers.
Young years
Alexander Alexandrovich Zinoviev was born on October 29, 1922 in the Kostroma province. He was the sixth child in a poor peasant family. At school, he showed great abilities that distinguished him after moving with his family to Moscow in the 1930s.
Excellent study allowed him to enter the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History on a common basis, but in addition to classes at the university, he conducted fiery anti-Soviet speeches among fellow students. In childhood and adolescence, he was quite pro-communist; in adulthood, he was faced with disappointment in the form of dispelling illusions. It turned out that there is still a place for inequality in the world, and the sacrifice made by the country to the ideals of justice is in vain.
As a result, the philosopher came to the conclusion that the social world is incorrigible, and the embodiment in it of even the best ideals due to unforeseen phenomena leads to an inevitably gloomy reality.
Preparation of the attempt on the leader
This disappointment in society was not limited to discussions about the social system and Stalin. It was planned to shoot the leader from a column on May 1 in Red Square. Zinoviev knew how to carry weapons, and hoped for luck at least to make a shot. The chances of getting in, let alone killing, were minimal, and he knew very well that he was committing suicide. But at the same time he hoped for a court in which he could have the last word.
It is not known how the story could end, but Alexander was denounced about "preparing an attempt on the leader." Of course, the student was immediately expelled with the prohibition of ever going to college, and then arrested. He escaped execution only because they wanted to take his accomplices.
Alexander Zinoviev served in Lubyanka, but managed to escape directly from the prison gate. He hid for a long time from persecution, from fear, lack of money and disorder, even several times going to surrender to the Chekists. The solution was found in the form of a volunteer admission to the cavalry of the Red Army. At the military registration and enlistment office, he said that his documents were lost.
War time
In World War II, Zinoviev was a tanker, and then unlearned at a flight school and became an attack plane pilot. Pilots were considered suicide bombers, since on average they made 10 sorties and died. They were never taken prisoner. For this, they had certain privileges - tastier food, vodka, neat form, lack of hard physical work.
Alexander was lucky and he made more than 30 sorties, for which he was awarded insignia and medals, in particular the Order of the Red Star. But after the victory, the situation in the army became more complicated, and Zinoviev left it. I had to work from time to time for pennies, sometimes I had to deal with forgery of documents and seals.
Undergraduate and postgraduate studies
At the same time, Alexander Zinoviev resumed training. He circumvented the ban on entering universities by forging documents for two boxes of chocolates. So he got to the philosophy department of Moscow State University. In 1951, he received a red diploma and entered graduate school at the same university. Along with the preparation of his dissertation, he founded a logical circle, which largely influenced the work. At the same time, the future writer got married. The wife of Alexander Zinoviev was the daughter of an employee of the NKVD, and the marriage partly took place by calculation.
After 3 years, the couple had a daughter, Tamara, but family life was unsuccessful, a conflict of interest arose regularly, mutual misunderstanding intensified, aggravated by Zinoviev’s periodic drunkenness.
Work at MSU
In 1954, he successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis, in which Karl Marx's categorical apparatus of the substantive logic of Capital was analyzed. After that, Alexander became an employee of the Academy of Sciences, and in 1960 received the title of professor after defending a doctoral dissertation.
Zinoviev began to head the Department of Logic at Moscow State University and publish philosophical articles and books. He took the hottest topics and wrote what he thought should have touched the strings of the human soul. Some works were relevant, others did not cause interest.
At that time, Alexander Alexandrovich also had prose, written during the war. Once he shared the Tale of the Traitor with Konstantin Semenov, and he told him that the plot could lead to imprisonment. Semenov was not going to betray a friend, but the problem was that Alexander managed to share the text with another acquaintance.
The manuscript was urgently needed to steal and destroy. It turned out to be done just in time, in the morning they came to the writer with a search. After this, Zinoviev had a long break in writing literary works.
Meanwhile, philosophical works were translated into foreign languages ​​and turned out to be known abroad. Invitations to foreign conferences began to come to the author, but he did not take part in them.
Emigration and homecoming
The work as the head of the department ended when Alexander Alexandrovich refused to dismiss two teachers. Then he began to write works for publication in the West, as a result of which in August 1978 he was forced to move with his family to Munich and earn scientific and literary work without a permanent job.
The family of Alexander Zinoviev lived there until the summer of 1999. Upon returning to Russia, the writer tried to run for the State Duma, but was denied registration because he lived too little after emigration. Nevertheless, he recovered as a professor, and his public activities were pleased with the active. He commented on political events, spoke at conferences, gave interviews.
Alexander Zinoviev negatively perceived the changes in the form of a revival of religion and Russian nationalism, as well as the destruction of the Soviet system. No less negatively did he evaluate the Western political system. This strongly distinguished him from other disagreements with communist ideology. The writer and philosopher died on May 10, 2006 in Moscow.
Popular books
The biography of Alexander Zinoviev is perfectly characterized by the works written by him at different stages of life. Scientific works are of great interest to everyone involved in sociology, social and political philosophy, ethics or logic.
In more literary works, the storyline is practically absent. Instead, the reader is invited to a series of situations in which the author conveys his thought through the conversations and actions of the characters. At the same time, heroes almost never bear names, but are designated by fulfilled roles (“thinker”, “talker”, “brother” and so on).
Scientific works
In 1960, the first volume of Zinoviev’s Philosophical Encyclopedia was published. It provides a systematic body of knowledge on historical and dialectical materialism, philosophical issues and the problems of religion and atheism. Strictly scientific and terminological information coexists with articles dealing with certain problematic issues, covering such concepts as possible, real and universal. There are also survey works covering history, philosophical schools and directions of various countries, as well as biographies of thinkers who have gained world fame.
A lot of work was devoted to the theories and formal apparatus of multi-valued and complex logic. In the framework of scientific works, interesting philosophical questions were again considered, as well as theories of deduction, the conditions for the emergence of logical systems and their features.
Separate studies are devoted to one of the main problems of modern logic - logical following. The questions of the possibility of analogies with the system of classical logic are considered. The terminology used refers to space, time, empirical relationships, and change.
Yawning Heights
Of the dozens of literary books by Alexander Zinoviev, there are several works that are most successful. First of all, this is the ostro-satirical sociological novel “Yawning Heights”. This was the first work of art by the author, although elements of a scientific treatise were also present.
It was published in Switzerland in 1976, translated into more than 20 foreign languages ​​and brought the author sensational world fame, but he was recognized as anti-Soviet in his homeland. Specifically, this was the reason for the deprivation of Soviet citizenship and expulsion from the country, after which the writer was able to return to his homeland only after 23 years.
The long two-volume book ironically, interestingly, vividly and sincerely describes social life in the USSR and its vices. The Soviet Union is shown as a world of late stagnation, which did not correspond to the ideological norms of the state. The writer Alexander Zinoviev was not just fired from his job and forced to emigrate under the threat of imprisonment; he was deprived of his academic ranks and military awards. The reviews note that the book is easy to read, but is full of satire. In this, she recalls the early work of Zadornov.
The Temptation cycle
In 1982, the work of Alexander Zinoviev, “Go to Calvary,” was published. It reproduced the spiritual path of the Russian man under the conditions of the Soviet system, which was not easy for the geniuses of thought. As a result, the best figures were forced to emigrate to the west and adapt to life in another society.
It would seem that the banal events of the novel are accompanied by the unpredictable inner world of its heroes. The main character in the story makes money on educating the people in Moscow and educating the son of an official on diplomacy, falls in love with a young ballerina, and "suffers professionally." The book is filled with Soviet humor, the reality of the Soviet system of the 70-80s and its paradoxes. She was the first to enter the cycle called Temptation.
In 1984, Alexander Zinoviev wrote a second book from the cycle - "The Gospel for Ivan." In it, he reflected on theological issues from the perspective of “smart” atheism and tried to compose a new religion with soul and spiritual discipline, but without God. At that, spirituality meant education, good breeding, hygiene and refusal of bad habits.
The third work, entitled “Live,” was released in 1987. In this book, Alexander A. Zinoviev continued to explore the everyday life of Soviet people. The work was written on behalf of a legless disabled person named Andrei Ivanovich Gorev, who lives in the fictional city of Partgrad. The main character is aware of the futility of his own life, but enjoys the very fact of his existence.
Alexander Zinoviev wrote the following book in 1989. It was originally called "Perestroika in Partgrad", but was published under the name "Disaster". The unusual term is explained by the fact that the word "perestroika" is translated into Greek as "disaster." From their merger, the result was “Catastrophe”.
The text contains quite acrimonious reasoning that communism was coined in the West, and implemented in Russia as the most suitable system for non-historical people. Queues to stores with empty counters and cooperative enterprises with fabulous income are described. Anti-alcohol campaign, publicity, condemnation of Stalinism and Brezhnev stagnation, demonstrated freedoms, with the goal of proving to the West the humanity of communism.
The cycle was completed in 1991 by the book “Troubles”.
“Our youth is flying”
The work on Temptation did not absorb the full attention of the author. In 1983, the book “Our Youth's Flight” was published outside the cycle. Alexander Zinoviev wrote it while in exile, and his longing for collectivist communism paid a lot of attention to the tone of the novel.
In the work, the writer stated that he had ceased to be an ardent opponent of Stalinism. He argued that this system was more a product of the people living under Stalin than the leader himself. The policy of an indisputable leader was inevitable and necessary in the conditions of the collapse of the Russian Empire. This led to the emergence of the Stalin personality cult.
The tragic circumstances of the era that changed the lives of Soviet people and made many victims of repression, according to the author, reflect the terrible centuries-old dream of mankind, in which the executioners are best suited to the social environment.
Thus, the author considers the era of Stalinism as the history of real communism. With the advent of Khrushchev, in his opinion, a period of turmoil began, and Brezhnev brought communism to a state of maturity.
"Global humane"
Among the most significant ideas of Zinoviev, there is such a thing as a “humane man”. What this means, he described in detail in a book released in 1997. In the work, the author is worried that the traditions and values ​​of the West have become global and spread throughout the planet. He believes that in the future this may lead other cultures to a subordinate position. But although the new society has become like an anthill, human remains in it.
The realism and value of the book is that many of the predictions began to come true, and this is clearly visible two decades after its writing. The internal devastation and depersonalization of each person is progressing, and in the future this threatens with terrible consequences. Alexander Alexandrovich predicts that this can lead to the self-destruction of civilization, and describes in detail how it will be.
The work that turned out in the end can be attributed to utopia and at the same time to dystopia. Because the world of the future, according to Zinoviev, is a high standard of living, a lot of free time, a developed entertainment industry. But collectively, all this leads to a gray, dull and monotonous routine.
Recent works
“Russian tragedy” by Alexander Zinoviev, written in 2002, became one of his last novels. It analyzes the causes of the collapse and liquidation of the Soviet Union, as well as the prospects for world development. The author expresses fears about globalism and builds speculations about the future of Russia. The latter are not too optimistic in his vision. He believes that the troubles that began with the collapse of the Kursk nuclear submarine cruiser will lead to a sad ending. Despite the difficult topic, the book is read surprisingly easy, the author in it revealed himself as a talented philosopher.
Alexander Zinoviev wrote three more books after The Russian Tragedy, but they are less well-known, so many sources say that in 2002 he published his last work. In fact, the “Ideology of the Party of the Future” was published in 2003, in which the author expressed alarming forebodings about the prevailing anti-communism. In his political work, he proposed the creation of a new large-scale ideology of the future and described his thoughts on it.
In 2005, the journalistic book “Crossroads” was published, which is a portrait of Russia from the mid-1980s to the present day, and in 2006 the really last philosophical work “The Factor of Understanding” was published. It explains the meaning of the “intellectual factor” and discusses the problems associated with it.
Thus, Alexander Alexandrovich Zinoviev made a huge contribution to the world of science and literature and gained fame as an outstanding Russian philosopher.