Alexander Zinoviev: biography and books of the writer

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Alexander Zinoviev is a famous Russian writer and philosopher. He received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and the title of professor. His books and publications are unique in that they do not belong to any one direction, they are multifaceted. Moreover, the writer developed his own unique genre called "sociological novel". He is also the author of a number of scientific papers.

Young years

Alexander Alexandrovich Zinoviev was born on October 29, 1922 in the Kostroma province. He was the sixth child in a poor peasant family. At school, he showed great abilities, which also distinguished him after moving with his family to Moscow in the 1930s.

Excellent studies allowed him to enter the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History on a general basis, but in addition to studying at the university, he conducted fiery anti-Soviet speeches among fellow students. Quite pro-communist in his childhood and youth, in adulthood he faced disillusionment in the form of disillusionment. It turned out that there is still a place for inequality in the world, and the sacrifice made by the country to the ideals of justice turns out to bein vain.

As a result, the philosopher came to the conclusion that the social world is incorrigible, and the embodiment of even the best ideals in it, due to unforeseen phenomena, leads to an inevitably gloomy reality.

Preparing an assassination attempt on the leader

This disappointment in society was not limited to discussions about the social order and Stalin. It was planned to shoot the leader from the column on May 1 on Red Square. Zinoviev knew how to carry weapons, and hoped for luck to at least make a shot. The chances of hitting, let alone killing, were minimal, and he was well aware that he was going to commit suicide. But at the same time, he hoped for a trial in which he could have the last word.

It is not known how the story could end, but Alexander was denounced about "preparing an assassination attempt on the leader." Of course, the student was immediately expelled with a ban on ever further enrolling in universities, and then arrested. He escaped execution only because they wanted to take his accomplices.

Alexander Zinoviev spent time in the Lubyanka, but managed to escape directly from the prison gates. He hid from persecution for a long time, from fear, lack of money and disorder, even several times he was going to surrender to the Chekists. The way out was found in the form of volunteering for the cavalry of the Red Army. At the military registration and enlistment office, he said that his documents were lost.

Wartime

In the Great Patriotic War, Zinoviev was a tanker, and then studied at a flight school and became a pilot of an attack aircraft. The pilots were considered suicide bombers, since on average they made 10sorties and died. They were never taken prisoner. For this, they had certain privileges - more delicious food, vodka, neat uniforms, no hard physical work.

Alexander was lucky and he made more than 30 sorties, for which he was awarded insignia and medals, in particular the Order of the Red Star. But after the victory, the situation in the army became more complicated, and Zinoviev left it. I had to work from time to time for pennies, sometimes I had to deal with forging documents and seals.

Student and Graduate Studies

At the same time, Alexander Zinoviev resumed his studies. He bypassed the ban on entering universities by forging documents for two boxes of chocolates. So he got to the philosophical faculty of Moscow State University. In 1951, he received a red diploma and entered graduate school at the same university. Simultaneously with the preparation of his Ph. D. thesis, he founded a logical circle, which greatly influenced the work. At the same time, the future writer got married. The wife of Alexander Zinoviev was the daughter of an NKVD worker, and the marriage was partly arranged.

After 3 years, the couple had a daughter, Tamara, but family life was unfavorable, a conflict of interest regularly arose, mutual misunderstanding intensified, aggravated by Zinoviev's periodic drunkenness.

Work at Moscow State University

In 1954 he successfully defended his Ph. D. thesis, in which the categorical apparatus of the content logic of Karl Marx's "Capital" was analyzed. ThereafterAlexander became an employee of the Academy of Sciences, and in 1960 he received the title of professor after defending his doctoral dissertation.

Zinoviev became the head of the Department of Logic at Moscow State University and published philosophical articles and books. He took the hottest topics and wrote what, in his opinion, should touch the strings of the human soul. Some works were relevant, others did not arouse interest.

At that time, Alexander Alexandrovich also had fiction written during the war. Once he shared "The Tale of a Traitor" with Konstantin Semyonov, who told him that the story could lead to imprisonment. Semyonov was not going to betray his friend, but the problem was that Alexander managed to share the text with another acquaintance.

The manuscript needed to be urgently stolen and destroyed. It turned out to be done just in time, in the morning they came to the writer with a search. After that, Zinoviev had a long break in writing literary works.

Meanwhile, philosophical works were translated into foreign languages and became known abroad. The author began to receive invitations to foreign conferences, but he did not participate in them.

Emigration and homecoming

The work of the head of the department ended when Alexander Alexandrovich refused to fire two teachers. Then he began to write works for publication in the West, as a result of which in August 1978 he was forced to move with his family to Munich and earn money by scientific and literary work,not having a permanent job.

The family of Alexander Zinoviev lived there until the summer of 1999. Upon his return to Russia, the writer tried to run for the State Duma, but was refused registration, as he had lived too little in the country after emigration. Nevertheless, he recovered as a professor, and his public activity was quite active. He commented on political events, spoke at conferences, gave interviews.

Alexander Zinoviev negatively perceived the changes in the form of the revival of religion and Russian nationalism, as well as the destruction of the Soviet system. No less negative, he assessed the Western political system. This greatly distinguished him from other dissenters with the communist ideology. The writer and philosopher died on May 10, 2006 in Moscow.

Popular books

The biography of Alexander Zinoviev is perfectly characterized by the works written by him at different stages of his life. Scientific works are of great interest to anyone involved in sociology, social and political philosophy, ethics or logic.

More literary works have almost no storyline. Instead, the reader is offered a series of situations in which the author conveys his thoughts through the conversations and actions of the characters. At the same time, the characters almost never have names, but are designated by the roles they perform (“thinker”, “chatterbox”, “brother”, and so on).

Scientific papers

BIn 1960, the first volume of Zinoviev's Philosophical Encyclopedia was published. It provides a systematic body of knowledge on historical and dialectical materialism, philosophical questions and problems of religion and atheism. Strictly scientific and terminological information is adjacent to articles that deal with certain problematic issues, covering such concepts as the possible, the real and the universal. There are also review papers covering the history, philosophical schools and trends of various countries, as well as biographies of thinkers who have gained worldwide fame.

A lot of works were devoted to theories and formal apparatuses of many-valued and complex logic. Within the framework of scientific works, interesting philosophical questions are again considered, as well as theories of deduction, the conditions for the emergence of logical systems and their features.

Separate studies are devoted to one of the main problems of modern logic - logical following. The questions of the possibility of analogies with the system of classical logic are considered. Terminology is used relating to space, time, experiential relationships and change.

Yawning Heights

From dozens of literary books by Alexander Zinoviev, there are several works that are most successful. First of all, this is an acutely satirical sociological story "Yawning Heights". It was the author's first work of fiction, although it also contained elements of a scientific treatise.

It was published in Switzerland in 1976, translatedmore than 20 foreign languages and brought the author a sensational worldwide fame, but in his homeland he was recognized as anti-Soviet. Specifically, this was the reason for the deprivation of Soviet citizenship and expulsion from the country, after which the writer was able to return to his homeland only 23 years later.

The long two-volume book ironically, interestingly, vividly and sincerely describes social life in the USSR and its vices. The Soviet Union is shown as a world of late stagnation, which in no way corresponded to the ideological norms of the state. The writer Alexander Zinoviev was not only fired from his job and forced to emigrate under the threat of imprisonment, he was deprived of his academic titles and military awards. The reviews noted that the book is easy to read, but full of satire. In this way, she resembles the early works of Zadornov.

Cycle "Temptation"

In 1982, the work of Alexander Zinoviev "Go to Calvary" was published. It reproduced the spiritual path of a Russian person in the conditions of the Soviet system, which was not easy for the geniuses of thought. As a result, the best figures were forced to emigrate to the West and adapt to life in a different society.

It would seem that the banal events of the novel are accompanied by the unpredictable inner world of its characters. The main character in the story makes money by educating the people in Moscow and teaching diplomacy to the son of an official, falls in love with a young ballerina and "suffers professionally." The book is filled with Soviet humor, the reality of the Soviet system of the 70s and 80s and its paradoxes. She was the first to enter a cycle called "Temptation".

In 1984 AlexanderZinoviev wrote the second book in the cycle, The Gospel for Ivan. In it, he reflected on theological issues from the standpoint of "intelligent" atheism and tried to compose a new religion with a soul and spiritual discipline, but without God. At the same time, spirituality meant education, good breeding, hygiene and the rejection of bad habits.

The third work called "Live" was published in 1987. In this book, Alexander Alexandrovich Zinoviev continued to explore the daily life of Soviet people. The work is written on behalf of a legless disabled person named Andrei Ivanovich Gorev, who lives in the fictional city of Partgrad. The protagonist is aware of the futility of his own life, but rejoices at the very fact of his existence.

The next book Alexander Zinoviev wrote in 1989. It was originally called "Perestroika in Partgrad", but was published under the title "Catastroyka". The unusual term is explained by the fact that the word "perestroika" is translated into Greek as "catastrophe". From their merger, the Catastrophe was born.

The text contains rather caustic arguments that communism was invented in the West, and implemented in Russia as the most suitable system for an ahistorical people. Queues to stores with empty shelves and cooperative enterprises with fabulous incomes are described. Anti-alcohol campaign, glasnost, condemnation of Stalinism and Brezhnev's stagnation, demonstrations of freedom aimed at proving to the West the humanity of communism.

The cycle was completed in 1991 with the book Troubles.

Our youth is flying

Work on"Temptation" did not absorb all the attention of the author. In 1983, the book “Our youth is flying” was published outside the cycle. Alexander Zinoviev wrote it while he was in exile, and his longing for collectivist communism rendered great attention to the tone of the novel.

In the work, the writer said that he had ceased to be an ardent opponent of Stalinism. He argued that this system was more the product of the people living under Stalin than the leader himself. The policy of an indisputable leader was inevitable and necessary in the conditions of the collapse of the Russian Empire. This led to the emergence of Stalin's personality cult.

The tragic circumstances of the era that changed the lives of Soviet people and made many victims of repression, according to the author, reflect the terrible centuries-old dream of mankind, in which the executioners best fit the social environment.

Thus, the author considers the era of Stalinism as the history of real communism. With the advent of Khrushchev, in his opinion, a period of unrest began, and Brezhnev brought communism to a state of maturity.

Global human book

Among the most significant ideas of Zinoviev, such a concept as "human life" is distinguished. What this means, he described in detail in a book released in 1997. In the work, the author worries about the fact that the traditions and values of the West have become global and are spreading throughout the planet. He believes that in the future this may lead other cultures to a subordinate position. But although the new society became like an anthill, the human one remained in it.

The realism and value of the book is that many predictions began to come true, and this is clearly seen two decades after it was written. The internal devastation and depersonalization of each person is progressing, and in the future this threatens with dire consequences. Alexander Alexandrovich predicts that this could lead to the self-destruction of civilization, and describes in detail how it will be.

The work that turned out as a result can be attributed to utopia and at the same time to dystopia. Because the world of the future, according to Zinoviev, is a high standard of living, a lot of free time, and a developed entertainment industry. But in the aggregate, all this leads to a gray, dull and monotonous routine.

Latest works

Russian Tragedy by Alexander Zinoviev, written in 2002, was one of his last novels. It analyzes the causes of the collapse and liquidation of the Soviet Union, as well as the prospects for world development. The author expresses concerns about globalism and speculates about the future of Russia. The latter are not too optimistic in his vision. He believes that the troubles that began with the collapse of the Kursk nuclear submarine will lead to a sad ending. Despite the heavy topic, the book is surprisingly easy to read, the author in it revealed himself as a talented philosopher.

Alexander Zinoviev wrote three more books after The Russian Tragedy, but they are less known, so many sources say that in 2002 he published his last work. In fact, in 2003 the “Ideology of the Party of the Future” was published, in which the author expressed disturbingpremonitions about the reigning anti-communism. In his political work, he proposed the creation of a new large-scale ideology of the future and described his thoughts on it.

In 2005, the publicist book "Crossroads" was published, which is a portrait of Russia from the mid-1980s to the present day, and in 2006 the last philosophical work "The Understanding Factor" was published. It explains the meaning of the "intellectual factor" and discusses the problems associated with it.

Thus, Alexander Alexandrovich Zinoviev made a huge contribution to the world of science and literature and gained fame as an outstanding Russian philosopher.