Pavel Florensky is a thinker of tragic fate. Sergei Tselukh

(1882-1937) Russian philosopher

Until recently, the name Florensky was perceived as an echo of the distant past. His ideas were not widespread in society, since his creative heritage was not published. However, it is obvious that the philosophical works of Pavel Aleksandrovich Florensky constitute one of the best pages of that period in the history of Russian philosophy, which is commonly called the religious and philosophical Renaissance.

In the first decade of the 20th century, there was a whole galaxy of unique philosophical minds in Russia - Nikolai Berdyaev, V. Solovyov, L. Shestov. But even among their works, the works of Pavel Florensky stand out not only for their content, but also for the methodology of describing social phenomena.

Pavel Florensky was born in a small working-class village located near the Azerbaijani village of Yevlakh. His father was a railway engineer and supervised the construction of the Transcaucasian Railway. Therefore, Pavel’s childhood years were spent constantly moving to places of assignment that his father received.

When the boy was one and a half years old, the family moved to Tiflis to live with the parents of Florensky’s mother, who belonged to the old Armenian-Georgian Satarov family.

Then the Florenskys lived in Batumi for several years, and in 1889 they returned to Tiflis again, since Pavel had to enter the gymnasium.

He studied at one of the best Tiflis gymnasiums. Already from the fifth grade, he was seriously interested in natural sciences and after graduating from high school he entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Moscow University, where he was lucky enough to listen to lectures by the largest Russian physicists Sergei Lebedev and N. Umov, mathematicians N. Bugaev, Nikolai Zhukovsky.

While studying in his second year, Pavel Aleksandrovich Florensky began to become interested in philosophy and the history of religion. Subsequently, he admitted that religious feeling passed to him from his paternal ancestors, who had been clergy for several generations.

At the university, Pavel Florensky met A. Bely and visited a youth circle that met in his house. He publishes articles in the symbolist magazines “Scales” and “New Path”, where he tries to apply mathematical concepts to philosophy. Florensky enthusiastically studies physics and mathematics and becomes the soul of the seminar led by Academician Zhukovsky.

In 1904, he graduated from the university with a candidate's degree and received an offer to remain in the department of mathematics. However, Pavel is in no hurry to choose a scientific career. He thinks a lot, visits Optina Pustyn, where he spends long hours in conversations with Elder Isidore, who became his spiritual father. At the same time, Pavel Florensky even wanted to become a monk, but his spiritual father did not bless him.

Then he makes another choice: he enters the first year of the Moscow Theological Academy. Subsequently, Florensky wrote that moving to Sergiev Posad became for him a kind of finding a spiritual homeland.

During his studies, he determined the direction of his scientific research, studied religious philosophy in depth, turning primarily to the legacy of V. Solovyov. Under his influence, Pavel Aleksandrovich Florensky begins to work on his first book, “The Pillar and Statement of Truth.”

The first part of the book was presented by him as his final work. Having defended it, he graduates from the academy with a candidate's degree in theology. Since 1908, Pavel Florensky became a teacher of philosophical disciplines. Soon the first edition of his book was published, and he began working on his doctoral dissertation.

In 1911, Pavel Florensky married O. Ryazanova, the daughter of a clergyman. After the wedding, he is ordained a priest and becomes an assistant professor at the academy.

The following year, he was appointed editor of the official printed organ of the academy, the Theological Bulletin magazine. Such an appointment meant recognition of Florensky’s unconditional scientific authority and his entry into the circle of leading philosophers of the time.

In 1912-1914 he visited the house of the artist L. Popova, where the whole flower of the Moscow avant-garde gathered - V. Tatlin, A. Vesnin, L. Shekhtel. In Sergiev Posad, Pavel Florensky is visited by A. Bely, M. Voloshin, Vyacheslav Ivanov, and A. Losev, who was very young in those years, comes to him. It was then that Florensky and S. Bulgakov were depicted in the painting “Philosophers” by the artist N. Nesterov.

On May 19, 1914, Pavel Aleksandrovich Florensky brilliantly defended his dissertation “On Spiritual Truth” for the degree of Doctor of Theology. A few days later he becomes an extraordinary professor at the Moscow Theological Academy, and soon publishes his work in the form of a book.

It gets a lot of press. At the end of 1914, Florensky received the Metropolitan Philaret Prize, which annually awarded the best works on the history of religion and the church. In 1915 he was awarded the Metropolitan Macarius Prize.

The Florenskys buy a house in Sergiev Posad, they have two sons and two daughters. In the last pre-revolutionary years, the philosopher was engaged in intensive scientific work, giving lectures at the academy, and heading the editorial office of the Theological Encyclopedia.

The plan for his next scientific work, the book “At the Watersheds of Thought,” is gradually taking shape. Pavel Florensky begins to study new areas of science - the philosophy of art and the origins of religious cult.

In 1918, he wrote the book “Essays on the Philosophy of Cult,” in which he first tried to analyze the Christian cult from the point of view of a philosopher.

The established life is gradually destroyed after the revolution. The Bolsheviks begin persecuting the church, closing religious publishing houses and magazines. On Lenin's instructions, church valuables are confiscated. At the beginning of 1918, the Theological Academy was closed, and its rich library was confiscated.

Suspended from work, Pavel Florensky begins to study art history. In 1921, the authorities closed the temple in which he served as a priest. Left without a livelihood, he remembers his first profession and moves to Moscow: G. Krzhizhanovsky invites him as a consultant to the Main Directorate of Electrification.

At that time, Pavel Aleksandrovich Florensky was studying physics and mathematics, while simultaneously completing planned work on the history of art.

Having become a leading specialist at Glavelektro, he begins a research program on dielectrics, in particular their behavior at high voltage. In 1924, the scientist published a monograph on the theory of dielectrics, which was nominated for a doctorate. But Florensky refuses the academic title, because he considers himself primarily a philosopher and art critic.

Since the early twenties, he developed friendly relations with V. Favorsky, not only a famous graphic artist, but also a professor at VKHUTEMAS. Simultaneously with his work at Glavelektro, Pavel Florensky lectures on the history and philosophy of art at VKHUTEMAS. Using his authority, he tries to prevent the theft of the wealth of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra and seeks the creation of a commission for the protection of monuments of art and antiquities. He regularly writes articles in the magazine “Makovets”, writes the book “Iconostasis” and begins to work on his memoirs.

From 1919 to 1925, Pavel Aleksandrovich Florensky created an original theory of the functioning of the monument in the artistic environment and its perception by the viewer. He views the temple as a place of special religious action, in which the emotional impact on the individual is combined with the visual. These studies are organically complemented by a series of works on prospect theory.

In those years, such activity ran counter to the interests of the authorities. At first, Pavel Florensky is simply advised to limit his interests to technical problems. But in the second half of the twenties, more drastic measures followed.

He is ordered to move to Nizhny Novgorod. He cannot disobey the decision of the authorities and in the summer of 1928 leaves Moscow. A few months later, with the help of friends and with the assistance of E. Peshkova, the scientist returns to Moscow again and continues to work in one of the institutes subordinate to Glavenergo.

Realizing that pursuing philosophy could harm his family, Pavel Aleksandrovich Florensky continues to deal with technical problems. He has published several papers on materials science.

In the early thirties, his persecution in the press began. His book “On Imaginaries in Geometry” is especially actively attacked. The author is accused of idealism and anti-science. On February 26, 1933, the philosopher was arrested. The investigation into his case lasted five months; in the summer, Florensky was sentenced to ten years of exile and sent to the Far East, to those areas where construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline would begin in the future. After several months in the camp, Pavel Florensky settles in the village of Skovorodino and begins working in a new area - researching permafrost.

In the summer of 1934, his wife sought permission to visit her husband. They spend several months together. But immediately after her departure, the philosopher was again transferred to the camp, and soon sent to the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp (SLON), where they were kept among especially dangerous criminals who were not subject to re-education. After a new wave of repressions, a special troika of the NKVD of the Leningrad region sentences Florensky to death. The sentence was carried out: on December 8, 1937, he was buried in a common grave.

As often happened at that time, the family was informed of the death of Pavel Aleksandrovich Florensky “from heart disease” only in mid-1943.

Pavel Aleksandrovich Florensky was a professor at the Moscow Theological Academy, the author of many books, articles, monographs, a poet, an astronomer who defended the geocentric concept of the world, a mathematician, physicist, art historian, engineer, inventor, author of a number of patents, professor of perspective painting, musician, music connoisseur, polyglot , who spoke Latin and ancient Greek, modern European languages, as well as the languages ​​of the Caucasus, Iran and India, a folklorist, founder of the new sciences, cosmist philosopher and scientist of the new science, i.e. cosmist scientist. N.O. Lossky called him “the new Leonardo da Vinci,” and Alexander Men said that “...like Solovyov, Florensky appeared as a man who stood at the pinnacle of culture, and did not come into it from somewhere from the outside and only benefit from its fruits.” for your needs,<…>he himself was culture. Both Florensky and Soloviev are culture itself personified.”

P.A. Florensky was born on January 21, 1882 in the town of Yevlakh, Elizavetpol province, Russian Empire, died on December 8, 1937. His father, Alexander Ivanovich Florensky, an engineer, came from a family of Florensky clergy, and his mother, Olga Pavlovna Saparova, from ancient Armenian family of the Saparovs (Saparian).

Since childhood, Pavel Aleksandrovich paid attention to those moments of life, “where the calm course of life is disrupted, where the fabric of ordinary causality is torn, there were seen ... the guarantees of the spirituality of being,” where “the boundary of the general and the particular, the abstract and the concrete” arose. Fascinated by physics and nature observations while studying at the Tiflis gymnasium, he comes to the conclusion that “the entire scientific worldview is rubbish and a convention that has nothing to do with the truth.” He is looking for that inner feeling of the truth of the universe, which is formed by man himself in the entire totality of his states, bodies, images, knowledge. With all his subsequent work, P.A. Florensky, having absorbed the foundations of world culture, affirms the mental creativity of man, representing the unity of the micro and macrocosmos. He writes: “The truth has always been given to people, and It is not the fruit of the teaching of some book, not rational, but something much deeper structure that lives inside us, what we live, breathe, eat.”

P.A. Florensky is a poet. He was published in the magazines of symbolist poets “New Way” and “Scales”, his last poem “Oro”, written in prison, is a kind of summary of his life. Currently, collections of his previously unknown poetic works are being published and his poetic creativity is being studied.

Florensky attached great importance to clan and family. In 1904, he went to the “homeland of his paternal ancestors,” where he collected and studied folklore: ditties, spiritual poems, ballads and studied the ethnic composition and culture of the Kostroma province. P.A. Florensky appears before us as an ethnolinguist, folklorist and researcher of folk culture.

After graduating from high school, he entered the mathematics department of Moscow University, where he also attended lectures at the Faculty of History and Philology and independently studied the history of art. He was interested in the articles of L.N. Tolstoy and the teachings of Vladimir Sergeevich Solovyov. He took part in the activities of the Christian Brotherhood of Struggle in 1904-5, condemned the imposition of the death sentence on Lieutenant P.P. Schmidt and the outbreak of mutual bloodshed, for which he was briefly arrested. He writes a candidate's essay: “On the features of flat curves as places of discontinuity,” pursuing the idea of ​​an impulsive impact on the evolutionary development of the world as opposed to the prevailing theory of sequential development. In 1904 he graduated from the university, refused the offered teaching position and entered the Moscow Theological Academy. Pavel Alexandrovich, in his words, wanted “to produce a synthesis of churchliness and secular culture, to fully unite with the Church, but without any compromises, honestly, to accept all the positive teachings of the Church and the scientific and philosophical worldview along with art.” In 1908, he wrote his candidate’s essay “On Religious Truth,” which became the basis of a book and dissertation for a master’s degree, “The Pillar and Ground of Truth.”

In 1911 he accepted the priesthood, from that moment his whole life was connected with the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. In 1912 he was editor of the academic journal “Theological Bulletin”. During the First World War, in 1915, Father Pavel, the regimental chaplain of a military ambulance train, went to the front.

After the revolution of 1917, Father Pavel, according to Alexander Men, did not emigrate: “He worked. He realized himself as a scientist who would work for his fatherland.” He was confident that the crisis of 1917 would cause a spiritual search for the people in the future. In one of the letters of this period, Father Pavel wrote: “... after the collapse of all this abomination, hearts and minds will no longer be as before, sluggishly and cautiously, but, hungry, will turn to the Russian idea, to the idea of ​​Russia, to Holy Rus'<…>I am confident that the worst is yet to come.” Preserving the foundations of spiritual culture, preserving museums, material images of culture - the goal of Father Paul’s actions during this period. In 1920, P.A. Florensky wrote, and he had the right to say so: “Never compromise anything from your convictions. Remember, a concession leads to a new concession, and so on ad infinitum.” P.A. Florensky works in many Soviet institutions without taking off his cassock, openly testifying that he is a priest. Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov will write in exile: “life seemed to offer him a choice between Solovki and Paris, but he chose... His homeland, although it was Solovki, he wanted to share his fate with his people to the end. Father Pavel organically could not and did not want to become an emigrant in the sense of a voluntary or involuntary separation from his homeland, and he himself and his destiny are the glory and greatness of Russia, although at the same time its greatest crime.”

Pavel Alexandrovich – scientist, engineer, inventor. He is interested in the problems of that edge of science with other existence, that other world from which the synthesis of the science of the future is born. In 1929, in a letter to V.I. Vernadsky, he suggests the presence of a pneumatosphere in the biosphere, “a special substance that is involved in the cycle of culture or the circulation of the spirit,” noting that the pneumatosphere is characterized by “a special stability of material formations,” which, according to one of modern researchers of his work, Elena Mahler, “gives cultural conservation activities a planetary meaning.” P.A. Florensky is daring and brilliant in his thoughts and discoveries. He is extraordinarily talented in many areas. In science, as in all creativity, he is characterized by great hard work and curiosity. For him, science is joy, it’s wings, it’s fun. For him, ancient science is sacred and mysterious, new science is strict, but the science of the future is joyful, it is characterized by “a slight inspiration of the future, “joyful science.”

Pavel Aleksandrovich is an art critic and innovator in museum affairs. In 1921, he became a professor at the Higher Art and Technical Workshops (VKHUTEMAS), where from 1921 to 1927 he lectured on the theory of perspective. At the same time, he wrote a number of articles on ancient Russian, medieval art, and icon painting. On October 22, 1918, P.A. Florensky joined the Commission for the Protection of Monuments of Art and Antiquities of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra and became its scientific secretary. In the article “The Trinity-Sergius Lavra and Russia,” noting that “The Lavra is an artistic portrait of Russia as a whole,” he will put forward the idea of ​​a living museum, insisting on preserving the Trinity-Sergius Lavra as “a living museum of Russian culture in general and Russian art in particular.” . The commission described the wealth of the Lavra and prepared the conditions for the decree “On applying to the museum of historical and artistic values ​​of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra,” signed by V.I. Lenin in 1920.

In his work “Temple Performance as a Synthesis of Art,” P. A. Florensky proposed “to create a system of a number of scientific and educational institutions with the goal of “carrying out the supreme synthesis of arts, which modern aesthetics dreams so much about.” The idea of ​​a living museum, in his opinion, involves the preservation of each object in connection with the environment and relevant life circumstances inherent in this object. He insisted that “a work of art is a collection of a whole, a “bundle of conditions”, outside of which it simply does not exist as an artistic work.” The circle of “temple art” – P.A. Florensky’s term – includes vocal art and poetry. The idea of ​​a living museum echoes the ideas of N.K. Roerich about the synthesis of arts.

P.A. Florensky also speaks out in defense of the Optina Hermitage, calling this Abode “a powerful collective inciter of spiritual experience.” He addresses the Soviet administration with a letter about the need to “preserve Optina Pustyn (a monastery that existed since 1821, which was once visited by N.V. Gogol, F.M. Dostoevsky, L.N. Tolstoy).” In the same letter, Pavel Aleksandrovich will write that “Optina is precisely the beginning of a new culture,” moreover, a spiritual culture, from contact with which “the spirit is kindled.” He warns that the destruction of Optina Pustyn “threatens an unrewarded loss for all of us and the entire culture of the future.” Researcher of the work of P.A. Florensky I.L. Galinskaya reports that “as a result of the actions of O. Pavel and the trip of N.P. Kiselev (sent by the People's Commissariat for Education) to Optina Pustyn, a “living museum” was actually organized, which existed until 1928. "

In 1928, the persecution of P.A. Florensky began, with exile and subsequent sentencing to ten years in prison. In exile and imprisonment he manages to work. In conclusion, he will write the book “Permafrost and Construction on It,” which was published by his collaborators in 1940, the ideas of which were subsequently used in the construction of cities on permafrost. He studies the problem of extracting iodine from algae and discovers the extraordinary healing properties of iodine.

On November 25, 1937, by a special troika of the NKVD of the Leningrad region, he was sentenced to capital punishment and executed on December 8, 1937. Subsequently, he was completely rehabilitated. The OGPU destroyed the unique library of Pavel Alexandrovich, in which “in the form of book summaries, the key to which is known to me alone,” his future finished works, his compositions, which “were already half ready,” were stored. “Destruction of the results of my life’s work is much worse for me than physical death,” wrote Pavel Aleksandrovich Florensky.

When Pavel Alexandrovich was still twenty years old, before his exile and imprisonment, in the book “The Pillar and Ground of Truth” he wrote:
“And with anger I stamped my foot:
“Aren’t you ashamed, poor animal, to whine about your fate?
Can't you let go of subjectivity?
Can't you forget about yourself? Really, - oh, shame! - can’t you understand that you have to surrender to the objective?
The objective, standing outside of you, standing above you - won’t it really captivate you?
Unhappy, pathetic, stupid! You whine and complain as if someone is obligated to satisfy your needs. Yes? You can't live without this and without that? Well, so what?
If you cannot live, die, bleed to death, but still live objectively, do not descend into despicable subjectivity, do not seek conditions of life for yourself.
Live for God, not for yourself.
Be strong, be tempered, live objectively, in the clean mountain air, in the transparency of the peaks, and not in the stuffiness of the humid valleys, where chickens dig in the dust and pigs roll in the mud. Ashamed!"
Pavel Alexandrovich in life, “with human hands and feet,” accomplished his spiritual feat. Only in the work of improving the surrounding space and bringing good into life does an earthly personality approach its highest ideal. According to P.A. Florensky, a person must “through experience, through personal communication, through constant gazing into the Face of Christ, through finding in the Son of Man his true self, his true humanity” to find an example for himself, in order to become a saint, such how she appears in her ideal image. “A personality can and should correct itself, but not according to an external norm, even if it is the most perfect, but only according to itself, but in its ideal form.” Florensky argues that without creativity, a person’s self, or his earthly, carnal personality, will destroy him. Creative work associated with the Highest transforms the self - this is what the Teaching of Living Ethics says.

In the main work of his life, in the book “The Pillar and Ground of Truth,” P. A. Florensky creatively rethinks the heritage of world culture. The book is written in the form of letters to a friend, Sergei Semenovich Troitsky: “That’s why I write you “letters” instead of composing an “article,” which I am afraid to say, but prefer to ask.” An interview, a conversation with the reader is the principle of the book and the principle of exploring the world for P.A. Florensky, who, by talking with the outside world and readers, learns the internal relationships of man and the universe.

In the book “The Pillar and Ground of Truth,” Pavel Aleksandrovich Florensky studies the history of Christianity. He recognizes the truth in many guises. Describing the origins of the future in the past achievements of mankind, P.A. Florensky recognizes the achievements of many prophets who were before Christ: “Just as before Christ there were Christ-bearers, so before the complete descent of the Spirit there are spirit-bearers.” Synthesizing the world cultural heritage in the field of philosophy, religion, science, he identifies the main directions of development of Christian thought and world culture, and formulates the main problem of the coming crisis: the departure from the spiritualization of human life and activity. Analyzing the problem of the “new consciousness” - among its representatives he includes such contemporaries as D.S. Merezhkovsky, Z.N. Gippius, N.A. Berdyaev - he emphasizes that the “new consciousness” will cease to be “new” and inevitably will lead its bearers to a dead end if there is no synthesis of knowledge with the spiritualization of the life and activity of the person himself - the exponent of this “new consciousness”. According to D.S. Likhachev, P.A. Florensky was one of the first to remind the Russian intelligentsia of the need for a spiritual life.

Studying this tragedy of our time, Florensky is looking for its origins, the point from which the development of human thought went in the wrong direction. In his opinion, it was the Middle Ages that became a turning point for humanity. In such works as “Imaginaries in Geometry”, “Iconostasis”, “Names”, in the book “The Pillar and Ground of Truth” he writes that the spiritual perception of the world, which was inherent in the Middle Ages, is subsequently lost by people, and secular science loses relationship with spiritual vision, plunging into materialism, putting earthly man first, denying his connection with the divine, with the cosmos. The Age of Enlightenment, according to Florensky, is not progress, but a regression of humanity, its departure from the spiritual worldview. Many researchers consider this point to be a delusion of Father Paul, who, in their opinion, idealizes the Middle Ages.

P.A. Florensky has always remained among those scientists and researchers of the philosophy of religion who at different times, in different guises, preserved the innermost life of the Church - its spiritual part, realized in life. Florensky, from this point of view, is an exponent of the best spiritual quests of the Russian priesthood, manifested in such movements as hesychasm, name-glorification, and many other trends in the internal life of the Church that may be unknown to us. Alexander Men recalled: “Florensky appeared as a man who stood at the top of culture, and did not come into it from somewhere from the outside and use its fruits only for his own needs... he himself was culture. Both Florensky and Solovyov are culture itself personified.”

Approaching his work from the standpoint of only religion leads to a misunderstanding of his ideas. As Lyudmila Vasilyevna Shaposhnikova rightly asserts, he cannot be called a “religious philosopher.” He is precisely the one whom we can now rightly classify as a cosmist philosopher. The philosophy of P.A. Florensky basically echoes Solovyov’s idea of ​​unity: “Everything is interconnected. The whole world is permeated by united forces. And divine power enters the universe, nothing is separated, but everything is intertwined, it hurts in one place and is felt in another.”
“...If there is Truth,
then she is real intelligence
and reasonable reality;
she is the finite infinity
and endless finitude,
or, to put it mathematically,
actual infinity,
infinite, conceivable
as a whole
Unity…"

In 1923, at a time when the country was witnessing the destruction of churches and temples, P.A. Florensky wrote an article “Christianity and Culture”, in which he explores the origins of disappointment in the Christian faith, the origins of differences between the various branches of Christianity, which had previously become the causes religious wars. In his opinion, the essence of this problem is not the differences in rituals, and even the dogmas of one or another branch of Christianity: “The Christian world is full of mutual suspicion, ill-willed feelings and enmity. He is rotten at his very core, does not have the activity of Christ, does not have the courage and sincerity to admit the rottenness of his faith. No church office, no bureaucracy, no diplomacy will breathe unity of faith and love where there is none. All external gluing not only will not unite the Christian world, but, on the contrary, may turn out to be only isolation between confessions. We must admit that it is not these or those differences in teaching, ritual and church structure that serve as the true cause of the fragmentation of the Christian world, but a deep mutual distrust, mainly of faith in Christ, the Son of God, who came in the flesh.” Pavel Aleksandrovich does not “fit” into the framework of the generally accepted scheme: he is not an ordinary priest and not an ordinary philosopher, he is a thinker of modern times, a cosmist thinker. From the study of philosophy, the foundations of religion, mathematics, physics, many natural sciences and the simultaneous spiritual comprehension of the foundations of the universe and the interconnections of existence, a synthesis of scientific knowledge, philosophical concepts with spiritual experience was born. This synthesis, the expression of which we see in the work of P.A. Florensky, was born on that line between the private and the general, internal and abstract, which his father told him about. L.V. Shaposhnikova called this state “two worlds.” P.A. Florensky noted that modern science has not yet begun to study spiritual experience, and that science’s denial of achievements in the field of knowledge that are obtained in the course of spiritual experience by true followers of the Teachings of Christ denies science itself as such.

Art can most fully convey the state of “two worlds” and make the results of this state an achievement for a person. In the book “The Thorny Path of Beauty,” L.V. Shaposhnikova notes that since 1910, a period began “when creative individuals, and above all artists, paid attention to the treasure of Russian culture - Orthodox icons.” It was in icons that Father Pavel saw (and revealed in his works “Iconostasis” and others) the role of art as a method in comprehending existence and otherness, as a method of conveying “two worlds.”

An icon, specifically a Russian icon, is a reflection of the act of creativity of icon painters, their bringing of spiritual experience into life. An icon is the line between worlds. But it becomes such only with the spiritual creativity of the person himself. P.A. Florensky argues that the method of reverse perspective, which was used by Russian icon painters, is not a mistake or inability to depict the world, but precisely mastery in depicting another space, other planes of existence. The strength and genius of a true artist is not in naturalism, which “does not reflect the multi-worldliness of space,” but imitates external truthfulness and creates “doubles of things”; The artist’s genius is in conveying a special view of space and the world, in conveying his vision of other existence. P.A. Florensky believes that children’s drawings often reflect precisely the phenomenon of reverse perspective and “only with the loss of a direct relationship to the world do children lose their reverse perspective<…>since children's thinking is not weak thinking, but a special type of thinking,” conveying a synthetic perception of the world. A person sees not just with vision, with his eyes; during the process of vision, a person perceives the image of a thing, a phenomenon, which consists of his mental perceptions. That is why “the artist must and can depict his own idea of ​​the house, and not at all transfer the house itself to the canvas.”

In the article “Organoprojection” P.A. Florensky examines the issues of the relationship between mechanisms and humans, technology and culture. He proposes to consider man in his entirety, as a microcosm, as a basis for the projection of possible mechanisms, emphasizing that only in this case can technology be considered as part of culture. P.A. Florensky points out many, not yet studied, hidden human capabilities. Man is the universe, a microcosm, fraught with many secrets not yet known by man himself. It is necessary to study the relationship between the microcosm and the macrocosm, man and nature, and their subtle interactions. Denial of these relationships leads to denial of the person himself, warns Florensky. P.A. Florensky prophetically saw that the idea of ​​“conquering nature,” established in the materialism of the twentieth century, would lead to the primacy of a spiritless, mechanistic civilization, a process that is currently leading to the collapse of the mechanistic civilization itself.

P.A. Florensky points out the special relationships and interactions between sound and words, studying these issues using the example of the relationship between a person and his name. When the Soviet government asserted itself by renaming streets, cities, people, P.A. Florensky wrote an article “Names”, in which he shows how the interaction of the image of a thing, a phenomenon is formed in the imagination of a person through sound into a word: “...The name is embodied in sound , then his spiritual essence is comprehended primarily by feeling into his sound flesh.” In the renaming of streets, people, cities, Florensky sees an action with a clearly expressed goal - the destruction of the foundations of culture. “Names behave in the life of society as certain focal points of social energy; Let these tricks be imaginary, but for the eye that sees them, even imaginary, they are quite equivalent to real tricks.” A name is a fact of culture; not understanding the meaning and significance of the role of a name means not understanding the meaning of culture. Humanity cannot "without self-destruction<…>deny the reality of culture that binds the human race." P.A. Florensky emphasizes: “a name is a word, even a condensed word; and therefore, like any word, but to a greater extent, it is the tireless playing energy of the spirit.” P.A. Florensky was close to name-slavism; he studied the energetic relationships of numbers and letters with sound.

The finitude of the physical world and the infinity of other beings, types of spaces, spheres of being are considered by P.A. Florensky in the article “Imaginaries in Geometry.” Florensky’s space is multifaceted, multiworldly. He distinguishes several types and subtypes of space, saying that “for each of the intended divisions of space, large and fractional, one can, abstractly speaking, think very differently.” P.A. Florensky criticizes the foundations of Euclidean geometry, relying on the metaphysical perception of the world by the author of the Divine Comedy, recognizes Dante's providence as a scientific fact and builds a mathematical theory on this fact. For him, poetic reality is reality “imaginable and conceivable, which means that it contains data for understanding ... geometric premises.” Explaining the meaning of his article “Imaginaries in Geometry” in a letter to the political department, P.A. Florensky wrote: “My idea is to take the original words of Dante and show that in a symbolic way he expressed an extremely important geometric thought about nature and space.” P.A. Florensky “was and is fundamentally hostile to spiritualism, abstract idealism and the same metaphysics.” He believes that “a worldview must have strong concrete roots in life and end in life embodiment in technology, art, etc.” Mathematical analysis and poetic image as “an expression of a certain psychological factor”, monism of the world order, “non-Euclidean geometry in the name of technical applications in electrical engineering” - on the verge of these combinations of sciences, at the intersections of science and poetry P. A. Florensky opens up new opportunities for research and applying the results of this research in life. P.A. Florensky is a cosmist scientist, for whom human thinking is not limited to the narrow framework of the dense world, but expands to the infinite dimensions of space, containing the universe and transforming the knowledge gained to improve life on earth.

Thought, according to P.A. Florensky – an independent entity: “The thought was conceived and embodied, born and grew; nothing will return her to her mother’s womb: thought is an independent center of action.” In the book “At the Watersheds of Thought” he studies the rhythm of thought, the processes of its origin and development. The rhythm of thought reminds him of Russian folk song, where “unity is achieved by the internal mutual understanding of the performers, and not by external frameworks.” P.A. Florensky knew music professionally. Music and art can convey the subtle states of the soul observing the birth of thoughts, ideas, those facets that are so indefinable in dense earthly matter. Watersheds of thought on the verge of being and other being, on the verge of Time, where the secrets of Evening and Morning meet - “these two secrets, two lights are the boundaries of life” - these states of “two worlds” are inherent in P.A. Florensky, a thinker and scientist of the new, spiritual science. Lyudmila Vasilievna Shaposhnikova in her book “Messengers of Cosmic Evolution” notes that 2000 years ago, the Apostle Paul was executed for asserting the need for constant remembrance of worlds of other dimensions, and Father Pavel Florensky was executed in the twentieth century for the same ideas.

The name of P.A. Florensky was forbidden to be mentioned for a long time. But the thoughts and ideas of P.A. Florensky were used in the practice and technology of life of the twentieth century and contributed to the transformation of people’s consciousness and their lives. Cosmist thinker P.A. Florensky, with his creativity, works and thoughts, gave impetus to the evolutionary transformation of the complex living space of the twentieth century.

This man was an outstanding mathematician, philosopher, theologian, art critic, prose writer, engineer, linguist and national thinker. Fate prepared him with world fame and a tragic fate. After him there remained works born of his powerful mind. The name of this person is Florensky Pavel Aleksandrovich.

The childhood years of the future scientist

On January 21, 1882, railway engineer Alexander Ivanovich Florensky and his wife Olga Pavlovna had a son, who was named Pavel. The family lived in the town of Yevlakh, Elizavetpol province. Now this is the territory of Azerbaijan. In addition to him, five more children will subsequently appear in the family.

Recalling his early years, Pavel Florensky will write that since childhood he had a tendency to notice and analyze everything unusual that goes beyond the scope of everyday life. In everything he was inclined to see hidden manifestations of the “spirituality of existence and immortality.” As for the latter, the very thought of it was perceived as something natural and beyond doubt. By the scientist’s own admission, it was his childhood observations that subsequently formed the basis of his religious and philosophical beliefs.

Possessing deep knowledge acquired at the university, Pavel Florensky became a professor at VKHUTEMAS and at the same time took part in the development of the GOELRO plan. Throughout the twenties, he wrote a number of major scientific works. In this work, he was assisted by Trotsky, which subsequently played a fatal role in Florensky’s life.

Despite the opportunity to leave Russia repeatedly presented, Pavel Alexandrovich did not follow the example of many representatives of the Russian intelligentsia who left the country. He was one of the first to try to combine church ministry and cooperation with Soviet institutions.

Arrest and imprisonment

The turning point in his life came in 1928. The scientist was exiled to Nizhny Novgorod, but was soon returned to Moscow. The period of persecution of the scientist in Soviet print media dates back to the early thirties. In February 1933, he was arrested and five months later, by a court decision, he was sentenced to ten years in prison under the notorious fifty-eighth article.

The place where he was to serve his sentence was a camp in Eastern Siberia, named “Svobodny” as if to mock the prisoners. Here, behind the barbed wire, the scientific management department of BUMLAG was created. Scientists who were imprisoned, like thousands of other Soviet people, worked there in this ruthless era. Together with them, the prisoner Pavel Florensky conducted scientific work.

In February 1934, he was transferred to another camp, located in Skovorodino. A permafrost station was located here, where scientific work on the study of permafrost was carried out. Taking part in them, Pavel Aleksandrovich wrote several scientific papers that examined issues related to construction on permafrost.

The end of a scientist's life

In August 1934, Florensky was unexpectedly placed in a camp isolation ward, and a month later he was escorted to the Solovetsky camp. And here he was engaged in scientific work. While researching the process of extracting iodine from seaweed, the scientist made more than a dozen patented scientific discoveries. In November 1937, by the decision of the Special Troika of the NKVD, Florensky was sentenced to death.

The exact date of death is unknown. The date December 15, 1943, indicated in the notice sent to relatives was false. This outstanding figure of Russian science, who made an invaluable contribution to various fields of knowledge, was buried on Levashova Heath near Leningrad, in a common unmarked grave. In one of his last letters, he wrote bitterly that the truth is that for everything good you give to the world, there will be retribution in the form of suffering and persecution.

Pavel Florensky, whose biography is very similar to the biographies of many Russian scientific and cultural figures of that time, was posthumously rehabilitated. And fifty years after his death, the scientist’s last book was published. In it, he reflected on the government structure of future years.

Russian religious philosopher, scientist, priest and theologian, follower of Vl. WITH.

Solovyova. The central questions of his main work "The Pillar and Ground of Truth"

(1914) - the concept of unity and the doctrine of Sophia coming from Solovyov, as well as

justification of Orthodox dogma, especially trinity, asceticism and veneration

icons Main works: “The Meaning of Idealism” (1914), “Around Khomyakov” (1916), “The First Steps of Philosophy” (1917), “Iconostasis” (1918), “Imaginaries in Geometry”

Pavel Aleksandrovich Florensky was a man of great talents and unique

tragic fate.

Outstanding mathematician, philosopher, theologian, art critic, prose writer, engineer,

Yevlakh, Elizavetpol province (now Azerbaijan) in the family of a railway engineer,

who built the Transcaucasian Railway. Mother came from ancient Armenian

Saparov family. In addition to the eldest Pavel, there were five more children in the family

In his notes “Memories of Past Days to My Children” (1916-1924) Florensky

explores

the world of childhood. "The secret of genius is in preserving childhood, the child's constitution on

all life. It is this constitution that gives the genius an objective perception of the world..." -

he thinks.

Since childhood, he looked closely at everything unusual, seeing in the “special” (so

called one of the sections of his memories) signals from another world. "...Where

the calm course of life is disrupted, where the fabric of ordinary causality is torn, there

I saw the guarantees of the spirituality of existence, perhaps immortality, in which, however,

I was always so sure that it didn’t even bother me much, if not

began to occupy the mind later and was implied by itself." The child was worried

fairy tales, magic tricks, anything that was different from the usual kind of things

Florensky’s religious and philosophical beliefs were not formed from philosophical books,

which he read little and always reluctantly, but from childhood observations. His child

excited by the "restrained power of natural forms, when behind the obvious one anticipates

infinitely more hidden"

Florensky’s father once told his high school student son that his (son’s) strength “is not in

the study of the particular and not in thinking about the general, but where they are combined, on

the border between the general and the particular, the abstract and the concrete. Perhaps, in this case, the father

He also said “on the border of poetry and science,” but I definitely don’t remember the latter.”

Recalling his years of apprenticeship at the 2nd Tiflis gymnasium, Florensky wrote:

"The passion for knowledge absorbed all my attention and time." Mostly he

studied physics and nature observation. At the end of the gymnasium course, in the summer

1899, Florensky experienced a spiritual crisis. The limitations and

the relativity of physical knowledge first made him think about Truth

absolute and complete.

Pavel Florensky described this crisis of the scientific worldview in the chapter “Collapse” of the book

memories. He remembered well the time (“hot afternoon”) and place (“on the mountainside

on the other side of the Kura"), when suddenly it became clear to him that "the entire scientific worldview

Rubbish and convention that have nothing to do with the truth." The search for truth

continued and culminated in the discovery of the simple fact that the truth is within ourselves,

in our lives “The Truth has always been given to people, and It is not the fruit of some teaching

some kind of book, not rational, but something much deeper construction, inside

what lives us, what we live, breathe, eat."

The first impulse of my soul after the spiritual revolution was to go among the people, partly under

influenced by the works of L.N. Tolstoy, to whom Florensky wrote a letter at that time

Parents insisted on continuing education and in 1900 Florensky entered

at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Moscow University Greatest influence

he was influenced by one of the founders of the Moscow Mathematical Society N.V.

Bugaev His candidate's essay on a special mathematical topic Florensky

intended to be part of a larger work synthesizing mathematics and philosophy.

In addition to studying mathematics, Florensky attended lectures at the historical and philological

faculty, independently studied the history of art "My studies in mathematics and

physics,” he later wrote, “led me to the recognition of formal

the possibilities of the theoretical foundations of a universal religious worldview

(idea of ​​discontinuity, theory of function, numbers) Philosophically and historically I

I became convinced that we can talk not about religions, but about religion, and that it exists

an integral part of humanity, although it takes countless forms."

In 1904, after graduating from the university, P. A. Florensky entered the

Moscow Theological Academy, wanting, as he wrote in one of his letters, “to produce

a synthesis of ecclesiastical and secular culture, to fully unite with the Church, but without

any compromises, honestly perceive all the positive teachings of the Church and

scientific and philosophical worldview together with

art..."

The main aspiration of those years was the knowledge of spirituality not in an abstract and philosophical way,

but vital. It is not surprising that Florensky’s candidate essay “On Religious

truth" (1908), which became the core of his master's thesis and the book "The Pillar

and the affirmation of the Truth" (1914), was dedicated to the ways of entering the Orthodox Church

Church. "Living religious experience as the only legitimate way of knowledge

dogmas," - this is how P. A. Florensky himself expressed the main idea of ​​the book. "Churchness -

this is the name of that refuge where the anxiety of the heart is pacified, where claims are pacified

mind, where great peace descends into the mind."

After graduating from the academy in 1908, Florensky was left as a teacher at

Department of History of Philosophy. Over the years of teaching at the MDA (1908-1919), he created a number of

original courses on the history of ancient philosophy, Kantian issues,

philosophy of cult and culture A. F. Losev noted that Florensky “gave the concept

Platonism, which in depth and subtlety surpasses everything I have read about Plato" "In

Father Pavel, wrote S.N. Bulgakov, - culture and churchliness met,

Athens and Jerusalem, and this organic compound is itself a fact

church-historical significance" Around Florensky, who in 1912-1917

He also headed the magazine “Theological Bulletin”, a circle of friends and acquaintances formed,

which largely determined the atmosphere of Russian culture at the beginning of the 20th century

The revolution did not come as a surprise to Florensky. Moreover, he wrote a lot about

deep crisis of bourgeois civilization, often spoke of the impending collapse

familiar foundations of life But “at a time when the whole country was delirious about the revolution, and

also in church circles there arose one

after another, albeit ephemeral, church-political organizations, Father Pavel

remained alien to them, whether due to his general indifference to the earthly structure, or

(S N Bulgakov)

Florensky had no intention of leaving Russia, although a brilliant opportunity awaited him in the West.

scientific career and, probably, world fame. He was one of the first among the

clergy, who, having served the Church, began to work in Soviet institutions

At the same time, Florensky never betrayed either his convictions or his priesthood,

having written down for his edification in 1920, “From my convictions, I will never

give up Remember, a concession leads to a new concession, and so on - until

infinity" As long as it was possible, that is, until 1929,

Florensky worked in all Soviet institutions without taking off his cassock, so

most openly testifying that he is a priest

Florensky felt a moral duty and calling to preserve the foundations

for the protection of monuments of art and antiquity of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra As a result

the activities of the commission described the enormous historical and artistic wealth

Laurels and national treasure saved The commission prepared the conditions for

implementation of the decree "On applying to the museum of historical and artistic values

Council of People's Commissars V and Lenin

In 1921, Florensky was elected professor of Higher Artistic and Technical

workshops During the period of the birth and flourishing of various new movements (futurism,

constructivism, abstractionism) he defended the spiritual value and significance

universal forms of culture He was convinced that a cultural figure is called

reveal the existing spiritual reality "Another view according to which

an artist and a cultural figure in general organizes what he wants and how he wants,

subjective and illusionistic view of art and culture", in

ultimately leads to meaninglessness and devaluation of culture, that is, to

destruction of culture and man Florensky’s works are devoted to these issues

"Analysis of spatial (tm) and time in artistic and visual arts

works", "Reverse perspective", "Iconostasis", "At the watersheds of thought"

As in his youth, he is convinced of the existence of two worlds - the visible and the invisible,

supersensible, only making itself felt with the help of the “special” Thus

special are, in particular, dreams that connect the world of the human

of being with the transcendental world Florensky expounds his concept of dreams in

at the beginning of the treatise “Iconostasis” This is a very important idea for Florensky of the opposite

flow of time "In a dream, time runs, and accelerates towards

present, against the movement of time of waking consciousness. It is inverted through

himself, and, therefore, all his concrete images are inverted along with him. And this is

means that we have moved to the region of imaginary space"

Back in 1919, he published the article “The Trinity-Sergius Lavra and Russia” - his

a kind of philosophy of Russian culture It is in the Lavra that Russia is felt as a whole, here

a visual embodiment of the Russian idea, appearing as the legacy of Byzantium, and through

her - Ancient Hellas

The history of Russian culture falls into two periods - Kiev and Moscow.

The first is the adoption of Hellenism "For the formation of the feminine from the outside

the receptivity of the Russian people, the time has come for courageous self-awareness and

spiritual self-determination, creation of statehood, sustainable life,

manifestation of all their active creativity in art and science and development

economy and life" The first period is associated with the name of Equal-to-the-Apostles Cyril,

the second - St. Sergius. Women's receptivity is embodied in the symbol of Sophia -

Wisdom, courageous design of the life of Moscow Rus' - in the symbol of the Trinity

The Trinity is a symbol of the unity of Russian lands. This is exactly how Florensky interprets the Trinity

Rublev, who embodied the ideas of Sergius of Radonezh in colors

Florensky - theorist of ancient Russian painting It was he who substantiated the legitimacy

"reverse perspective" on which iconography is built. Not helplessness, not

lack of skill forced the ancient artist to enlarge objects by

background, but the laws inherent in our vision "Russian icon painting of the XIV-XV centuries

is the achieved perfection of figurativeness, equal to or even

The history of world art does not know anything like this and with which, in a certain sense,

one can only compare Greek sculpture - also the embodiment of spiritual

images and also, after a bright upsurge, decomposed by rationalism and

sensuality"

Simultaneously with the work on preserving the cultural heritage, P A Florensky was

involved in scientific and technical activities He chose applied physics in part

because it was dictated by the practical needs of the state and in connection with the plan

GOELRO, partly because it soon became clear to engage in theoretical

physics, as he understands it, will not be given to him. In 1920, Florensky begins

work at the Moscow Karbolit plant, next year he will move to

research work at Glavelektro VSNKh of the RSFSR, participates in the VIII

electrical congress, at which the GOELRO plan was discussed in 1924

elected as a member of the Central Electrotechnical Council of Glavelectro and begins

work in the Moscow Joint Committee of Electrical Standards and Rules

At the same time he creates at the State Experimental Electrotechnical

institute, the first materials testing laboratory in the USSR, later the department

materials science, in which dielectrics were studied, Florensky publishes a book

"Dielectrics and their technical application" (1924), systematizing the latest

theories and views regarding insulating materials He was one of the first to begin

promote synthetic plastics

Since 1927, Florensky has been co-editor of the Technical Encyclopedia, for which

wrote 127 articles, and in 1931 he was elected to the presidium of the Bureau of

electrical insulating materials of the All-Union Energy Committee, in 1932

included in the commission for standardization of scientific and technical designations of terms and

symbols under the Labor and Defense Council of the USSR

In the book "Imaginaries and Geometries" (1922) Florensky from the general theory of relativity

brings out the possibility of a finite Universe when the Earth and man become

the focus of creation. Here Florensky returns to Aristotle’s worldview,

Ptolemy and Dante For him, unlike many

many mathematicians and physicists, the finitude of the Universe is a real fact, not

as much based on mathematical calculations as arising from

universal human worldview. “The principle of relativity,” Florensky wrote in

1924, - was accepted by me not at all after a long discussion and even without study,

but simply because it was a weak attempt to put into a concept a different understanding of the world.

The general principle of relativity is, to some extent, a roughened and

my simplified fairy tale about the world." Florensky believed that the physics of the future, having moved away from

abstraction, must create concrete images, following Goethe-Faraday

worldview.

In 1929, in a letter to V.I. Vernadsky, developing his doctrine of the biosphere, Pavel

Aleksandrovich came to the idea “about the existence in the biosphere of something that could

called the pneumatosphere, that is, the existence of a special part of the substance,

involved in the cycle of culture or, more precisely, the cycle of spirit." He pointed "to

special stability of material formations worked out by the spirit, for example,

objects of art", which gives cultural protection activities

planetary meaning.

In the summer of 1928, Florensky was exiled to Nizhny Novgorod. Although after three months

he was returned and reinstated at the request of H.P. Peshkova,

the situation in Moscow by that time was such that Florensky said: “I was in

thereby preparing public opinion to understand the inevitability and necessity

repression. Florensky was subjected to especially cruel persecution for his interpretation

theory of relativity in the book “Imaginaries in Geometry” and for the article “Physics on

service of mathematics" (Socialist Reconstruction and Science, 1932).

assigned to work in the research department of the BAMLAG management.

station. Here Florensky conducted research that later became the basis for

the basis of the book by his collaborators N.I. Bykova and P.N. Kapter-va "Permafrost and

construction on it" (1940).

At the end of July and beginning of August 1934, they were able to come to Pavel Alexandrovich

A.M.'s wife Florenskaya with her younger children Olga, Mikhail and Maria (at this time

the eldest sons Vasily and Kirill were on geological expeditions). This

Florensky’s last meeting with his family took place thanks to the help of E.P.

iodine industry, where he dealt with the problem of extracting iodine and agar-agar from

seaweed and made more than ten patented scientific discoveries

in those days this meant the death penalty. Official end date

fictional. The tragic end of life was realized by P.A. Florensky as

manifestation of the universal spiritual law: “It is clear that light is structured in such a way that to give

the world can do no other way than by paying for it with suffering and persecution" (from

Florensky was posthumously rehabilitated, and half a century after his murder

the family was given a manuscript written in prison from the state security archives:

"Proposed government system in the future" - a political testament

great thinker. Florensky sees the future Russia (Union) as united

a centralized state headed by a man of prophetic disposition,

possessing a high cultural intuition. Florensky is obvious about the flaws of democracy,

which serves only as a screen for political adventurers; policy -

a specialty that requires knowledge and maturity, inaccessible to everyone, like any other

special area. Florensky predicted a revival of faith: “This will no longer be

an old and lifeless religion, but the cry of the hungry in spirit.”

He considered the world as a single whole, as a single picture and reality, but in each

moment or, more precisely, at each stage of your life, from a certain angle.

I looked through the world relations on a section of the world in a certain direction,

in a certain plane and tried to understand the structure of the world from this, on this

stage that occupies me. The cutting planes changed, but one did not cancel

different, but only enriched. Hence the constant dialectical nature of thinking (change

planes of consideration), with a constant attitude towards the world as a whole."

Russian religious philosopher, scientist, priest and theologian, follower of Vl. S. Solovyova. The central issues of his main work “The Pillar and Ground of Truth” (1914) are the concept of unity and the doctrine of Sophia coming from Solovyov, as well as the justification of Orthodox dogma, especially the trinity, asceticism and veneration of icons.

An outstanding mathematician, philosopher, theologian, art critic, prose writer, engineer, linguist, statesman, was born on January 9, 1882 near the town of Yevlakh, Elizavetpol province (now Azerbaijan) in the family of a railway engineer who built the Transcaucasian railway.

Recalling his years of apprenticeship at the 2nd Tiflis gymnasium, Florensky wrote: “The passion for knowledge absorbed all my attention and time.” He was mainly involved in physics and nature observation. At the end of the gymnasium course, in the summer of 1899, Florensky experienced a spiritual crisis. The revealed limitations and relativity of physical knowledge for the first time made him think about the absolute and holistic Truth.

His parents insisted on continuing his education, and in 1900 Florensky entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Moscow University. In addition to studying mathematics, Florensky attended lectures at the Faculty of History and Philology and independently studied the history of art. In 1904, after graduating from the university, P.A. Florensky enters the Moscow Theological Academy, wanting, as he wrote in one of his letters, “to produce a synthesis of ecclesiastical and secular culture, to fully unite with the Church, but without any compromises, to honestly perceive all the positive teachings of the Church and the scientific and philosophical worldview together with art... “After graduating from the academy in 1908, Florensky was left as a teacher at the department of history of philosophy. Over the years of teaching at the Moscow Academy of Sciences (1908-1919), he created a number of original courses on the history of ancient philosophy, Kantian issues, philosophy of cult and culture. The revolution did not come as a surprise to Florensky. Moreover, he wrote a lot about the deep crisis of bourgeois civilization and often spoke about the impending collapse of the usual foundations of life. Florensky had no intention of leaving Russia, although a brilliant scientific career and, probably, world fame awaited him in the West. He was one of the first among the clergy who, while serving the Church, began to work in Soviet institutions.

In 1921, Florensky was elected professor of the Higher Art and Technical Workshops. During the period of the emergence and flourishing of various new movements (futurism, constructivism, abstractionism), he defended the spiritual value and significance of universal forms of culture. He was convinced that a cultural figure is called upon to reveal the existing spiritual reality. As in his youth, he is convinced of the existence of two worlds - the visible and the invisible, the supersensible, which only makes itself felt with the help of the “special”. So special are, in particular, dreams that connect the world of human existence with the world beyond. Florensky sets out his concept of dreams at the beginning of the treatise “Iconostasis”. In 1919, he published the article “The Trinity-Sergius Lavra and Russia” - a kind of philosophy of Russian culture. It is in the Lavra that Russia is felt as a whole, here is a visual embodiment of the Russian idea, appearing as the legacy of Byzantium, and through it, ancient Hellas.

Florensky is a theorist of ancient Russian painting. It was he who substantiated the legitimacy of the “reverse perspective” on which icon painting is built.

Simultaneously with the work on preserving the cultural heritage of P.A. Florensky was involved in scientific and technical activities. He chose applied physics partly because it was dictated by the practical needs of the state and in connection with the GOELRO plan, partly because it soon became clear: he would not be allowed to study theoretical physics, as he understood it. In 1920, Florensky began working at the Moscow Karbolit plant, the following year he moved to research work at Glavelektro VSNKh of the RSFSR, and participated in the VIII Electrotechnical Congress, at which the GOELRO plan was discussed. In 1924, he was elected a member of the Central Electrotechnical Council of Glavelektro and began working in the Moscow Joint Committee of Electrical Standards and Rules. Since 1927, Florensky has been co-editor of the Technical Encyclopedia, for which he wrote 127 articles, and in 1931 he was elected to the presidium of the Bureau for Electrical Insulating Materials of the All-Union Energy Committee, in 1932 he was included in the commission for the standardization of scientific and technical designations of terms and symbols under the Council Labor and Defense of the USSR.

In the book “Imaginaries and Geometries” (1922), Florensky, from the general theory of relativity, deduces the possibility of a finite Universe, when the Earth and man become the focus of creation. Here Florensky returns to the worldview of Aristotle, Ptolemy and Dante. For him, unlike many mathematicians and physicists, the finitude of the Universe is a real fact, not so much based on mathematical calculations as arising from the universal human worldview.

In the summer of 1928, Florensky was exiled to Nizhny Novgorod. Although three months later he was returned and reinstated at the request of H.E. Peshkova.

On February 26, 1933, Florensky was arrested on a warrant from the Moscow regional branch of the OGPU, and on July 26, 1933, he was sentenced by a special troika to 10 years and sent to an East Siberian camp. On December 1, he arrived at the camp, where he was assigned to work in the research department of the BAMLAG management.

On February 10, 1934, he was sent to Skovorodino to an experimental permafrost station. Here Florensky conducted research that later formed the basis for a book by his collaborators N.I. Bykova and P.N. Kapterev “Permafrost and construction on it” (1940).

On August 17, 1934, Florensky was unexpectedly placed in the isolation ward of the Svobodny camp, and on September 1 he was sent with a special convoy to the Solovetsky special purpose camp.

On November 15, he began working at the Solovetsky camp iodine industry plant, where he worked on the problem of extracting iodine and agar-agar from seaweed and made more than ten patented scientific discoveries.

On November 25, 1937, Florensky was convicted for the second time - “without the right to correspondence.” In those days this meant the death penalty. The official date of death - December 15, 1943 - initially reported to relatives, turned out to be fictitious. The tragic end of life was realized by P.A. Florensky as a manifestation of the universal spiritual law: “It is clear that light is structured in such a way that one can give to the world only by paying for it with suffering and persecution” (from a letter dated February 13, 1937).

Florensky was posthumously rehabilitated, and half a century after his murder, the family was given a manuscript written in prison from the state security archives: “The proposed state structure in the future” - the political testament of the great thinker.