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Il’in, Ivan Aleksandrovich (1883–1954)

DOI
10.4324/9780415249126-E063-1
DOI: 10.4324/9780415249126-E063-1
Version: v1,  Published online: 1998
Retrieved March 29, 2024, from https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/biographical/ilin-ivan-aleksandrovich-1883-1954/v-1

Article Summary

Educated in law and philosophy in the first years of the twentieth century at Moscow University and several Western European universities, Il’in produced an important two-volume commentary on Hegel’s philosophy (1918), and a number of substantial works in political and legal theory, ethics and religious thought, aesthetics and literary criticism in later years. As a resolute foe of the Bolsheviks before and after the Revolution of 1917, he was exiled by them in 1922, living in Berlin until 1938, and subsequently in Switzerland until his death. Throughout his exile he remained deeply devoted to his Russian homeland, circulating extensive proposals for the eventual reconstruction of the Russian state, Church and society following the collapse of the Soviet regime (see Nashi zadachi (Our Tasks) (1956a)). He developed his own distinctive theory of monarchy as an ideal political form, grounded in a doctrine of natural right, and advocated it as the most appropriate choice for Russia in the best case, though he withheld judgment as to whether it would prove historically possible to implement it in the conditions prevailing after the demise of the Soviet system. His writing also focused to a significant extent upon moral and spiritual discipline and renewal, for societies as well as individuals, as necessary conditions of the well-ordered state and the well-lived life.

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Citing this article:
Grier, Philip T.. Il’in, Ivan Aleksandrovich (1883–1954), 1998, doi:10.4324/9780415249126-E063-1. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Taylor and Francis, https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/biographical/ilin-ivan-aleksandrovich-1883-1954/v-1.
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