Stepun, Fedor

Vstrechi [Encounters]

Munich: Tovarishchestvo Zarubezhnykh Pisatelei, 1962. Item #1397

204 pages. 19 cm. In original printed wrappers. A visible tape stain runs along the spine; light foxing, general age-toning and minor wear consistent with fragile émigré production. The textblock is clean but detached from the cover.

First edition of this literary-philosophical memoir by the prominent Russian émigré thinker Fedor Avgustovich Stepun (1884–1965), professor of philosophy at the Dresden Polytechnic and the University of Munich, and a key figure in the intellectual life of the Russian diaspora. While best known for his work in religious philosophy and cultural criticism, Stepun was also a discerning literary observer. Vstrechi is a collection of essays written over nearly forty years, dedicated to writers who deeply influenced his worldview—among them Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Bunin, Zaitsev, Viacheslav Ivanov, Andrei Bely, and Leonov. The volume closes with the important essay Sovetskaia i emigrantskaia literatura 20-kh godov [Soviet and Emigrant Literature of the 1920s].

Stepun frames the book as a record of deeply meaningful intellectual and personal encounters, blending literary portraiture with philosophical insight. Particularly significant are his interpretations of Dostoevsky’s The Possessed in light of the Bolshevik Revolution, and his analysis of Tolstoy’s spiritual turmoil as a defining moment in modern Russian thought.

Price: $50.00