June 3–6, 2018 (begins on Sunday evening, closes on Wednesday evening)

 

Benedictine Abbey in Tyniec, ul. Benedyktynska 37, 30-398 Krakow, Poland

 

Academic Board: Prof. Sr Teresa Obolevitch (Krakow), Prof. Artur Mrówczyński-Van Allen (Granada), Dr Paweł Rojek (Krakow)

Conference Secretary: Alexander Tsygankov (Moscow), Kornelia Dorynek (Krakow)

 

Advisory board
Prof. Gennadii Aliaiev (Poltava National Technical Yuri Kondratyuk University, Ukraine), Prof. Konstantin Antonov (St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University, Moscow, Russia), Prof. Rev. Pavel Khondzinskii (St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University, Moscow, Russia), Prof. Marcelo López Cambronero (Instituto de Filosofia Edith Stein in Granada, Spain), Prof. Randall Poole (College of St. Scholastica, USA), Prof. Daniela Steila (The University of Turin, Italy)

 

• Book of Abstracts and Program

The process of the disappearance of the capacity to understand icons can be equated to a breakdown of the capacity for self-expression in one’s own language, to a forced break with a people’s traditions, to a progressive loss of identity. This loss is dramatically revealed in both the inability to articulate one’s own identity in rational language, and in the dissolution of identity itself. It is a dichotomous process, because in losing the image we have of ourselves, we lose the language with which we have been defining ourselves. Icons, which arose from the Christian tradition that today we call Byzantine, preserve, reveal, and explain the nature of man and of the community. They turn out to be bearers of the meaning of life. And they do so in a special way, simultaneously serving as both image and language, as image and philosophy. Ontology, anthropology, and historiosophy naturally coexist where grace and creation meet, where the supernatural and natural come together: in the liturgy, in the liturgy that has been the exquisite womb of philosophy since the first centuries of the Church, and that continues to be so today. The natural place for philosophy in the strictest sense has been, and is, the liturgy. Icons are therefore the paradigmatic bearers of the liturgical arena and of reflection on the nature of the being of man and his history.

If we are increasingly aware of the need to return theology to the position of master discourse, and if we affirm that the legacy of Russian Christian thought must reclaim its specific value, then Russian-Byzantine iconography represents an excellent arena from which to do so, with an extraordinary power that without a doubt can also overcome the superficial aestheticism that has covered it up over the past hundred years almost as much as the smoke from the candles of previous centuries.

In the context of modernity, Eugene Trubetskoy was the first to address this challenge. Accordingly, we feel that the centennial of the 1918 publication of his third essay on Russian iconography, Russia in her icon, and his work The meaning of life offers us a valuable opportunity to be inspired by his thought. His conviction that “the unconditional truth must make itself exist in life despite the lie that reigns therein,” today serves as a challenge that calls to us whenever we find ourselves in front of an icon.

We do not intend to only focus on E. Trubetskoy’s work, but rather aim to use it as a starting point for exploring the nature of icons as the bearers and expressions of the truth that gives meaning to life. We thus dare to take another step forward in discovering the ontological, anthropological, and historiosophical arenas that icons offer us, thereby venturing deeper into the as yet minimally explored field of the relationship between icons and philosophy, between icons and all of the existential dimensions of the world around us.

In this way, we hope to recover the profound, broad, and non-fragmented view of the contemporary world that icons offer us, restoring their unique value as aids to answering the question that Eugene Trubetskoy poses in the first sentence of the first essay The question of the meaning of life in ancient religious painting, published in 1915: “It may be that the question of the meaning of life has never been posed with such force as in these current times of evil and meaninglessness on display around the world.”

The reflection on the will surely help us explore the sources for the answer that Trubetskoy already provided: “In response, the ancient Russian iconographers, with surprising clarity and power, incarnated, in the images and the colors that filled their souls, a vision of the truth of life and a different meaning of the world.” We are convinced that, just as Trubetskoy maintained, this truth about icons and the Church does not belong to the past, and thus it is not just a more or less interesting characteristic of the already antiquated and rather extreme way of thinking of the first centuries of Christianity. It is a perpetually current ekklesiotea.

 

Participants
Gennadii Aliaiev (Poltava National Technical Yuri Kondratyuk University, Ukraine)
Daniil Anikin (Russian Federation Saratov State University, Russia)
Natalya Batova (Kaliningrad, Russia)
Elena Besschetnova (National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia)
Andreas Buller (Ministry of Social Affairs and Integration Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart, Germany)
Anna Buller (Waiblingen, Germany)
Arsenii Buslaev (St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University, Moscow, Russia)
Vladimir Chernus (National Research University Higher School of Economics, Russia)
Anatoly Chernyaev (Russian Federation Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia)
Igor Evlampiev (St. Petersburg State University, Russia)
Elizabeth Heather (Totnes, UK)
Michael Heather (Northumbria University, Kingdom of Northumbria)
Ruri Hosokawa (The University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Japan)
Vladimir Keidan (Rome, Italy)
Fr. Pavel Khondzinskii (St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University, Moscow, Russia)
Nadezhda Koreneva (St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University, Moscow, Russia)
Aleksei Kozyrev (Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia)
Victoria Kravchenko (Moscow Aviation Institute National Research University, Russia)
Justyna Kroczak (University of Zielona Gora, Poland)
Tatiana Kuznetsova (Federation Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia)
Tatiana Levina (National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia)
Tatiana Litvin (Russian Christian Academy for Humanities, St. Petersburg, Russia)
Eric Lohr (American University, USA)
Ruslan Loshakov (Uppsala University, Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Sweden)
Bernard Marchadier (Paris, France)
Oleg Marchenko (Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russia)
Olga Masloboeva (Saint-Petersburg State Economy University, Russia)
Fr. Savva (Dzmitry Mazhuko) (St. Nicholas monastery, Gomel, Belarus)
Katia Mendonca (Federal University of Rara, Brazil)
Kåre Johan Mjør (IRES Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Uppsala, Sweden)
Konstantin Ocheretyany (Saint Petersburg State University, Russia)
Viktor Okorokov (Oles Honchar Dnipro National University, Ukraine)
Fr. Georgyi Orekhanov (St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University, Moscow, Russia)
Nikolai Pavliuchenkov (St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University, Moscow, Russia)
Nina Peñaflor Rastorgueva (Russian Federation Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia)
Jeremy Pilch (Heythrop College, University of London, Norfolk)
Aleksandr Poberezhnyi (Kursk State Agricultural Academy, Russia)
Fr. Aleksander Posacki (Catholic Church, Karaganda, Kazakhstan)
Anna Reznichenko (Russian State University for the Humanities, The Memorial House Museum of S.N. Durylin, Russia)
Tatiana Rezvikh (Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox University, Moscow, Russia)
Valentin Shtyrbul (I. I. Mechnikov National University, Odessa, Ukraine)
Tatiana Sidorina (National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia)
Walter Sisto (D'Youville College, New York, USA)
Svetlana Skorokhodova (Moscow Teachers-training State University, Russia)
Boris Tarasov (Russian Federation Maxim Gorky Literature Institute, Moscow, Russia)
Viktor Troitskiy (Library of History of Russian Philosophy and Culture A. F. Losev’s House, Moscow, Russia)
Elena Tverdislova (Tzur-Hadassah, Israel)
Natalia Vaganova (St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University, Moscow, Russia)
Fr. Tikhon Vasilyev (University of Oxford, United Kingdom)
Jennie Wojtusik (University of Texas at Austin, USA)

 

The conference will be divided into six sections investigating different aspects of our general topic.

1. Life and works of Eugene Trubetskoy
2. Eugene Trubetskoy in the context of Russian religious philosophy
3. Eugene Trubetskoy in the context of contemporary philosophy and theology
4. Metaphysics and theology of icons
5. Icons and anthropology
6. Icons and political philosophy and philosophy of history

Proposals of talks are submitted to determinate sections.

 

Talks and discussion will be held in either English or Russian.

 

The deadline for applications passed on December 15, 2017

 

After the conference, selected participants will be asked to prepare chapters for the volume edited in English in our series Ex Oriente Lux published by Wipf and Stock Publisher. The requested papers will be reviewed and may not be accepted for publication.

 

Bank transfer details: Uniwersytet Papieski Jana Pawla II w Krakowie, ul. Kanonicza 25, 31-002 Krakow,

ALIOR BANK SA, BIC or SWIFT: ALBPPLPW (8-digit version) or ALBPPLPWXXX (11-digit version) account number for EUR: PL 29 1060 0076 0000 3210 0020 3364 account number for PLN: PL 12 1060 0076 0000 3210 0016 0117, in both cases with the annotation: “Trubetskoy” and your last name in latinized form.

 

If necessary, organizers will send the invitation required to obtain a Schengen visa. Please provide the required passport information in the Application Form.