Transcultural Studies, 4 (2008), 15-27.

FABIAN LINDE

SERGEI O. PROKOFIEFF – A CONTEMPORARY REPRESENTATIVE OF RUSSIAN SOPHIOLOGY?1

Sophia was one of the most intruiging concerns of Russian religious philosophy at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. Having appeared earlier in Orthodox iconography and church architecture, in the Western theosophical tradition, and in older esoteric teachings such as the Kabbalah and Gnosticism, Sophia was transformed and integrated into the modern Russian philosophical discourse through the efforts of Vladimir Solov’ëv (1853-1900), regarded by some as Russia’s greatest philosopher.2 Emanating from his work, this sophianic impulse spread in different directions and influenced Russian thinkers and writers of the Silver Age. However, with the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 and the ensuing ideolo- gical conformity enforced by the party during the Soviet era, the traces of Sophia become more scattered and difficult to identify. The Christian philosophers who were active at the time of the revolution were either silenced or exiled, the most notorious case being that of the “philosophy steamers” sailing from Petrograd in 1922. From then on, the philosophical Sophiological movement was concentrated abroad, with the exception of Pavel Florensky, who remained in Russia. Although it has been pointed out that the characters of Lara in Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago and Margarita in Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita bear some resemblance to the Sophia figure,3 it has thus far proven difficult to further trace her development within Russia during the Soviet period. Mention should never-theless be made of Daniil Andreev (1906-1959) and his metahistorical magnum opus The Rose of the World [Roza mira], which, among other things, treats the mystery of femininity, and may be at least indirectly related to the Sophiological tradition.4

1. This article was originally presented as a paper at the international conference Sophia – Transcultural Bridglet, June 27-28, 2007, at Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. 2. The literature on Solov’ëv is extensive. Suffice it to mention here a recent volume of scholarly articles: Vladimir Solov’ëv: Reconciler and Polemicist, Eastern Christian Studies 2, Wil van den Bercken, Manon de Courten and Evert van der Zweerde, eds. (Leuven: Peeters, 2000). 3. Per-Arne Bodin, “Boris Pasternak and the Christian Tradition,” Forum for Modern Lan- guage Studies, 26, 4 (1990): 393 f. 4. Daniil Andreev, Roza mira (Moscow: Mir Uranii, 2004 [1991]). For a good introduction and analysis, see Mikhail Epstein, “Daniil Andreev and the Mysticism of Femininity,” in Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, ed., The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture (Ithaca, NY and London: Cor- 16 Transcultural Studies

After the disintegration of the Communist regime, it has again been possible to discern a renewed interest in the idea of Sophia in Russia. This is not surprising, considering the importance of Sophia during the prerevolution- ary period, and it is likely that she will become an integrated element of future Russian thought and art as well. It can therefore be argued that it is the task of contemporary and future researchers to trace such a development (if it indeed occurs), to study it and relate it to the earlier phases of Russian Sophiology. The present article aims to contribute to this aim. The Russian writer examined here, Sergei O. Prokofieff, has written a chal- lenging work on Sophia as interpreted from an anthroposophical perspective: The Heavenly Sophia and the Being Anthroposophia [Nebesnaia Sofiia i su- shchestvo Antroposofiia].5 During the Post-Soviet era, Prokofieff has emerged as one of the leading, or at least one of the most frequently published, representatives of contemporary anthroposophy. Owing to his Russian origin and his familiarity with non-Russian European cultural history, he is in a position to forge a link between the Central European and Russian branches of the movement, a task Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), the founder of anthroposo- phy, considered crucial to the future spiritual and cultural development of Europe. Sergei Olegovich Prokofieff was born in Moscow in 1953, the grandson of the renowned composer Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953), and a graduate of the Moscow School of Art. In 1991 he became one of the co-founders of the Anthroposophical Society in Russia (which had previously existed in 1913- 1923), when it was re-established after the collapse of Communism. Since 2001, he has been a member of the Executive Council of the General Anthro- posophical Society in Dornach, Switzerland, and thus one of the leaders of the international anthroposophical movement. Prokofieff is a prolific writer and has published a great number of books on various topics; of particular interest are those on Russian cultural and spiritual history interpreted in the light of Rudolf Steiner’s teachings,6 such as a biography of Novalis7; an analysis of

nell Univ. Press, 1997), pp. 325-55. See also Alexei Bogdanov’s doctoral dissertation, “Daniil Andreev and the Mystical Tradition in Literature” (unpublished manuscript). 5. Translated into English from the Russian by Simon Blaxland de Lange and published by Temple Lodge Publishing, London, in 1996 (republished 2006). The work was originally pub- lished in German as Die himmlische Sophia und das Wesen Anthroposophie, Ursula Preuß, trans. (Dornach: Verlag am Goetheanum, 1995). The book appeared two years later in Russian as Ne- besnaia Sofiia i sushchestvo Antroposofiia (Moscow: PUBLISHER? 1997). The quotations in this article are taken directly from the English edition. 6. The most important of these is the ambitious The Spiritual Origins of Eastern Europe and the Future Mysteries of the Holy Grail (London: Temple Lodge Publishing, 1993), which has a Novgorod icon depicting Sophia on the cover. The original German version was published in Dornach in 1989. 7. Sergei O. Prokofieff, Eternal Individuality: Towards a Karmic Biography of Novalis (London: Temple Lodge Publishing, 1992).