Letters from S.I. Hessen to N.A. Hans in 1931–1935. Hessen, Sergei I., “Letters to N.A. Hans (1931–1935)”, Ed. byKirzhaeva, Vera P.

The publication presents 13 letters of the outstanding Russian philosopher and pedagogue S.I. Hessen to his friend, the famous English educator N.A. Hans. Hessen’s letters are the most important source for his scientific biography of the first half of the 1930s. They reflect his intensive work on new books and articles for émigré periodicals, including the new journal “Russkaja Shkola”, and German, Polish, Czechoslovak, Serbian, Bulgarian, Italian philosophical and pedagogical editions. It allows us to assess the scope of his research activity and further plans, and the prospects for their realization in future publications. They contain detailed accounts of his personal problems, difficulties in obtaining a professorship at the Slavic Institute of Charles University in Prague, and a con­stant lack of money. The letters of this period are characterized with special depth of philosophical reflections on life, sharp criticism of present day policy, inner fortitude and optimism. Hessen discusses with Hans the details of revision of their manuscript on the Soviet educational policy (1933) for the German Beltz publishing house, the additions to chapters already written and the inclusion of new material. The special story is the fate of Hessen’s monograph “Moderne Pädagogik im Ausland”, which never reached the reader due to political circum­stances. The letters of 1933–1934 make it possible to trace how the scholar’s decision to move from Prague to Warsaw gradually took shape. The letter of 24 April 1933, one of the most striking anti-Nazi documents of the Russian emigration, is fundamentally important for Hessen’s understanding of the es­sence of Hitlerism and the catastrophic nature of the Nazi regime for Germany.