Lev Shestov: Religious Existentialism in Russian and European Thought / Krakow Meetings • Krakow Conferences on Russian Philosophy

Krakow Meetings on Russian Philosophy

	On 2–4 June 2025 the Krakow Meetings on Russian Philosophy and the Northwestern University Research Initiative for the Study of Russian Philosophy, Literature, and Religious Thought will sponsor a conference on Lev Shestov (Schwarzman) (1866–1938) and religious existentialism in Russian and European thought. The conference will be held at the Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow, Poland. The Polish poet Czesław Miłosz used the phrase “the purity of despair” to characterize Shestov’s philosophy. He was echoing the words of Nicolas Berdyaev, who wrote that “for Lev Shestov human tragedy, the terrors and sufferings of human life, the experience of hopelessness were the source of philosophy.” In 1900 Berdyaev and Shestov became lifelong friends. After the Russian Revolution they settled in Paris, where they became the main Russian founder-philosophers of “religious existentialism.” Shestov’s book Kierkegaard and Existential Philosophy (1936) appeared two years before Karl Jaspers’s Philosophy of Existence and several years before the French Catholic thinker Gabriel Marcel coined the term “existentialism” in 1943. Shestov’s preoccupation with existentialist themes began with his early works on Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Nietzsche (1900, 1903). It culminates with his last book, Athens and Jerusalem (1938), which contrasts biblical faith and revelation to Greek philosophical rationalism, with its ordered cosmos, made comprehensible by necessary, universal laws. For Shestov, the autonomy of reason actually stood for the autocracy or tyranny of reason. He thought it was limiting and subjugating, while faith was expansive and liberating. His searing critique of rationalism opened the way for an existential philosophy based on concrete personal experience. For him, the center of that experience was God–the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not the God of the philosophers (the Absolute). Perhaps the most precious and encompassing of his themes was “faith and freedom”. Shestov’s work lay at the crossroads of some of the main directions in contemporary European thought: existentialism (in its religious and atheistic forms), phenomenology, and personalism. His interlocutors included Husserl, Heidegger, and Buber. Papers are invited on any aspect of his legacy and on his Russian and European contexts and connections.

Dates

2–4 June 2025

Venue

The Library of the Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow, ul. Bobrzyńskiego 10, 30-348 Kraków, Poland

Organizers

Faculty of Philosophy, Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow, Poland
Northwestern University Research Initiative for the Study of Russian Philosophy, Literature, and Religious Thought

Academic board

Prof. Sr Teresa Obolevitch (The Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow, Poland)
Prof. Randall Poole (College of St. Scholastica, USA)

Advisory board

Dr. Paweł Rojek (Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland)
Prof. Marina F. Bykova (North Carolina State University, USA)
Prof. Gennadii Aliaiev (Poltava, Ukraine)
Prof. Daniela Steila (University of Turin, Italy)

Honorary patronage

“Studies in East European Thought” (SEET)

Conference secretary

Julia Kuznetsova (The Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow, Poland)
Ilias Stanekzai (The Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow, Poland)

Working languages
English and Russian

Files to download

“Lev Shestov: Religious Existentialism in Russian and European Thought” – poster 3.63MB [ .pdf ]

“Lev Shestov: Religious Existentialism in Russian and European Thought” – program 354.85KB [ .pdf ]

Program (PDF)

JUNE 2, 2025 (Monday)
9.30	Fr. Miłosz Hołda (Dean of the Philosophical Faculty, The Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow) Sr. Teresa Obolevitch (The Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow, Head of the Organizing Committee) Opening of the Conference (Conference Hall)
SECTION 1 (Conference Hall, chair: Sławomir Mazurek)
9.40	Anne Laurent (Paris, France) Татьяна Балаховская (Memorial museum of academician Peter Kapitza, Moscow) Из жизни Льва Шестова: по материалам семейного архива
10.20	Hanuš Nykl (Prague, Czech Republic) Оплошность или игра с читателем? О значении неточностей в биографических данных в текстах Льва Шестова
SECTION 2a (Conference Hall, chair: Fr. Lukasz Leonkiewicz)
12.00	Andrea Oppo (Pontifical Theological University of Sardinia, Italy) (online) Lev Shestov between Phenomenology and Existentialism: The Encounter with Husserl and Heidegger
12.30	Tomasz Herbich (University of Warsaw, Poland) What according to Lev Shestov philosophers (usually) don’t see?
13.00	Fr. Piotr Karpiński (The Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow, Poland) “Love builds up” (1 Cor 8:1). Thinking about love in Kierkegaard, Shestov and Marion
13.30–14.00	Discussion
SECTION 2b (Room 211, chair: Daniele Serretti)
12.00	Gennadii Aliaiev (Poltava, Ukraine) Берлинские доклады Шестова и о Шестове
12.30	Pylyp Bilyi (University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland) «Кто только не ссылался на интуицию…» или о том, как Шестов и Лосский не повлияли друг на друга
13.00	Fr. Aleksander Posacki SJ (Collegium Verum, Warsaw, Poland) Трагический опыт как инициация: Лев Шестов
13.30–14.00	Discussion
14.00-15.00	Lunch
SECTION 3 (Conference Hall, chair: Fr. Piotr Karpiński)
15.00	Ramona Fotiade (University of Glasgow, UK) (online) Spiritual Transmission in Lev Shestov’s Philosophy of Tragedy
15.30	Lina Vidauskytė (Military Academy of Lithuania, Vilnius) (online) Tragedy and Rationality: Lev Shestov and Gabriel Marcel Interpret Ibsen
16.00–16.30	Discussion
16.30–16.50	Coffee break
SECTION 4 (Conference Hall, chair: Vladimir Paperni)
16.50	Lilianna Kiejzik (University of Zielona Góra, Poland) О запоздалой дружбе о. Сергия Булгакова и Льва Шестова
17.20	Alexei Makushinsky (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany) (online) Рахиль Беспалова — ученица Шестова, предшественница Камю
17.50–18.20	Discussion
18.20	Dinner

JUNE 3, 2025 (Tuesday)
SECTION 5 (Conference Hall, chair: Fr. Piotr Karpiński)
9.30	Aleksandra Berdnikova (FINO Convention, University of Turin, Italy) (online) Lev Shestov on Richard Kroner: the possibilities of metaphysics, neo-Kantianism and the journal Logos
10.00	Bernard Marchadier (Paris, France) A brief comment on Etienne Gilson’s letter of March 3rd 1936 to Lev Shestov
10.30	Victor Chernyshov (National University “Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic”, Ukraine) (online) Lev Shestov’s Critique of Medieval Thought
11.00–11.30	Discussion
11.30–12.00	Coffee break
SECTION 6 (Conference Hall, chair: Cyril Šolle)
12.00	Sławomir Mazurek (Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland) Lev Shestov and Two Masterpieces of Polish Literature
12.30	Marina G. Ogden (University of Glasgow, UK) (online) Karl Jaspers and Lev Shestov on Philosophical Faith and Faith in Revelation
13.00–13.30	Discussion
13.00–14.30	Lunch
SECTION 7a (Conference Hall, chair: Bernard Marchadier)
14.30	Daniele Serretti (Urbino, Italy) Философия Львa Шестовa исходя из Augusto Del Noce и Etiènne Gilson
15.00	Ana Siljak (Hamilton Center, University of Florida, USA) (online) Lev Shestov and the Absurd
15.30–16.00	Discussion
SECTION 7b (Room 211, chair: Daniel Kisliakov)
14.30	Maciej Wołkow (University of Warsaw, Poland) Tolstoy – Shestov
15.00	Cyril Šolle (Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic) Between Closed and Open Thinking: Lev Shestov’s Fragmentary Writing in the European Context
15.30–16.00	Discussion
16.00–16.30	Coffee break
SECTION 8a (Conference Hall, chair: Françoise Lesourd)
16.30	Anna Reznichenko (Russian State University for the Humanities, Russia) (online) Что страшит Льва Шестова?
17.00	Elena Tverdislova (Russian City Library in Jerusalem, Israel) Планетарное мышление как основа экзистенциальной философии Льва Шестова
17.30	Milan Stojanović (Russian State University for the Humanities, Russia) (online) Бунт против разума: трагедия как путь к свободе в философии Льва Шестова
18.00–18.30	Discussion
SECTION 8b (Room 211, chair: Andrew Schumann)
16.30	Daniel Kisliakov (University of Divinity, Australia) Lev Shestov and Fr Sergei Bulgakov – Two Contemporaneous Perspectives on Anton Chekhov
17.00	Fr. Lukasz Leonkiewicz (Orthodox Theological Seminary in Warsaw, Poland) Synergistic Anthropology of S. Choruzhy and the Thought of L. Shestov
17.30	Krzysztof Piętak (University of Warsaw, Poland) The knowledge argument against physicalism and the battle of Shestov against Athens: Why does the debate in contemporary philosophy of mind confirms Shestov’s criticism of philosophy?
18.00–18.30	Discussion
18.30	Dinner

JUNE 4, 2025 (Wednesday)
SECTION 9a (Conference Hall, chair: Lilianna Kiejzik)
9.30	Victor Okorokov (Oles Honchar Dnipro National University, Ukraine) (online) Системная несистемность Льва Шестова
10.00	Paulina Czoska (University of Warsaw, Poland) Две апофатичности. Сравнение идеи небытия в философии Льва Шестова и Николая Бердяева
10.30–11.00	Discussion
SECTION 9b (Room 211, chair: Elena Tverdislova)
9.30	Andrew Schumann (University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszow, Poland) Религиозный экзистенциализм и Минская поэтическая школа
10.00	Nikolai Kostin (The Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow, Poland) Лестница Иакова: религиозный экзистенциализм Я. Друскина в СССР
10.00–11.00	Discussion
11.00–11.30	Coffee break
SECTION 10 (Conference Hall, chair: Gennadii Aliaiev)
11.30	Vladimir Paperni (University of Haifa, Israel) Философия Льва Шестова и Библия
12.00	Françoise Lesourd (Université Jean Moulin, IRPhiL, France) «Гефсиманская ночь» в свете сборника «На весах Иова» : диалог между верой и западным разумом Нового Времени
12.30–13.00	Discussion
13.00–13.30	Fr. Manfred Deselaers (Centre for Dialogue and Prayer in Oświęcim) Should We Talk About Forgiveness Between Nations Now?
13.30–13.40	Closing remarks of the conference (Conference Hall) Sr. Teresa Obolevitch (The Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow)
13.40–14.40	Lunch

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