Aleksei A. Solonovich’s Mystical Anarchism (A Historical and Philosophical Analysis)

In this article the philosophical views of one of the key figures of 1920–1930s Russian mystical anarchism, Aleksei A. Solonovich, are reconstructed in a comprehensive manner. With the help of a historical and philosophical analysis based on the émigré community publications (newspapers and magazines), as well as on some archival documents, the author discloses the main peculiarities of Solonovich’s religious and philosophical thought. The latter, in fact, is based on the ideological synthesis of Gnosticism and anarchism within the following areas of knowledge: philosophical anthropology, philosophy of culture, and social philosophy. As a result, the origin of Aleksei A. Solonovich’s philosophical views appears to lie in the idea that, according to the Gnostic doctrine, all people are divided into three categories, which relate to the dimensions of physics, of the psyche, and of the soul. The article demonstrates that Solonovich associated his historical, cultural, and socio-philosophical views with this concept: in fact, an analysis of his biography – including the events of his life directly related to the history of the organization named “Order of Light” – allows us to draw such a conclusion. The author concludes that Solonovich’s intellectual life was inseparable from his social and political activity as a participant in the 1920-1930s mystical anarchist movement. This fact explains why he primarily decided to express himself through lectures, articles and philosophical essays, rather than through the format of large-scale monographs (the only significant book written by Solonovich was destroyed by Bolsheviks). In conclusion, it can be affirmed that Aleksei A. Solonovich epitomized many of the characteristic features of an intellectual who lived in the early 20th century in Russia (revolutionary spirit, radicalism, passion for mysticism, etc.), but at the same time, along with Apollon A. Karelin, he was a special intellectual, whose religious-philosophical views formed the basis of the ideology of a holistic movement within the theory of anarchism.