Pavel Alexandrovich Florensky (1882–1937) — Russian religious philosopher, theologian, Orthodox priest, mathematician, physicist, engineer and poet, called "the Russian Leonardo da Vinci" for the encyclopedic breadth of his talents.[4] One of the most striking figures of the cultural and religious renaissance of the Silver Age, he perished in the dungeons of Stalinist terror on 8 December 1937.[2]
Origins and family
Pavel Florensky was born on 9 (22) January 1882 near Yevlakh (now in Azerbaijan), into the family of a Russian railway engineer. His childhood and adolescence were spent in Georgia. His mother came from an old family of Karabakh Armenians, the Saparovs. Florensky's grandson, Hegumen Andronik (Trubachyov), described the family lineage as a fusion of four branches: the Florenskys (from Malorossia, who settled in the Kostroma land in the early 18th century), the Solovyovs, the Ivanovs and the Saparovs. In Florensky's own words, from the Florensky line he inherited a propensity for scientific innovation, from the Moscow Solovyovs — musicality, from the Ivanovs — artistry, and from the Armenian Saparovs — "a vivid sense of matter and the concrete world."[2]
The family deliberately shielded the children from religious influences, seeking to recreate a secular "paradise" at home out of culture, art and mutual love. Orthodoxy became for Pavel the result of an independent spiritual quest: a profound inner turning point that brought him to faith occurred in August 1899, when he was 17 years old.[4] With his own five children, Florensky acted differently, striving to pass on to them both fatherly love and faith — often through correspondence written from prison.[2]
Education and scholarly work
Florensky graduated from the 2nd Tiflis Gymnasium with a gold medal and in 1900 entered the physics and mathematics faculty of Moscow University. Among his mentors were N. Ye. Zhukovsky, S. N. Trubetskoy, and the mathematician N. V. Bugaev — one of the founders of the Moscow Mathematical School, who had a particular influence on him.[4] During his student years Florensky grew close to Andrei Bely, Konstantin Balmont, Alexander Blok, Zinaida Gippius, Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Valery Bryusov.[2]
The range of Florensky's scholarly pursuits was exceptional: philosophy and theology, philology and art history, mathematics and physics, ethnography and museum studies, electrical engineering and geology, mineralogy, the study of permafrost, and the production of iodine from seaweed and of agar-agar. In his treatise "Imaginary Numbers in Geometry" (1922) he attempted to identify the "imaginary Riemannian space" with Dante's Hell and Empyrean.[1] The scholar himself wrote of the formative role of nature rather than schooling: "My father personally gave me much. But mainly I learned from nature."[4]
Fate and memory
Florensky was repressed and shot on 8 December 1937.[2] To mark the 75th anniversary of his death, the Multimedia Art Museum in Moscow held the exhibition "Pavel Florensky — the Russian Leonardo" (November–December 2012): it included drawings, manuscripts, memorial items, portraits and photographs from the priest's memorial apartment-museum, as well as materials related to his scientific research.[4] Numerous publications by researchers around the world attest to the broader cultural significance of Florensky's personality and work.[4]
Sources
- mamm-mdf.ru — Exhibitions: Pavel Florensky — the Russian Leonardo (Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow) (archive)
- miloserdie.ru (archive)
- ng.ru — An eccentric of natural science (archive)
- citaty.net — Pavel Florenskij citáty — Citáty slavných osobností (archive)