Grigory Pomerants
Encyclopedia
Grigory Solomonovich Pomerants (also: Grigorii or Grigori, ; born March 13, 1918, Vilnius
, Poland
– now Lithuania
) is a Russian philosopher and cultural theorist. He is the author of numerous philosophical works that circulated in samizdat
and made an impact on the liberal intelligentsia
in the 60-s and 70-s.
. His family moved to Moscow
in 1925. Pomerants graduated in Russian language
and literature from the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and Art (IFLI). His thesis on Fyodor Dostoyevsky was condemned as "anti-Marxist" and as a result he was barred from admission to post-graduate studies in 1939.
During the Second World War, Pomerants volunteered to the front, where he fought as a Red Army
infantryman. He was twice wounded and twice decorated.
In 1946, he was expelled from the Communist Party
for "anti-Party statements". Three years later he was arrested and sentenced to five years' imprisonment for anti-Soviet agitation. After Joseph Stalin
's death in 1953, he was released due to a general pardon. He did not rejoin the Party, which prohibited him from teaching at tertiary level.
, Pomerants started considering furthering his political resistance. In 1959–1960, he led semi-secret seminars on philosophical, historical, political and economic issues. During this time he established contact with dissidents around Vladimir Osipov as well as the editors and contributors of the dissident magazine Sintaksis – Alexander Ginzburg
, Natalya Gorbanevskaya
and Yuri Galanskov
, and the painters of the underground Lianozovo group.
In 1968, Pomerants co-signed the letter in support of the "Appeal to the World Public Opinion" by Larisa Bogoraz
and Pavel Litvinov
in protest of the Trial of the Four. As a result he was deprived of any opportunity to defend his thesis at the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies
.
In addition to official articles on Oriental studies
and comparative culturology
, which focused on the spiritual traditions of India
and China
, Pomerants began to write essays on historical and social topics which had a broad circulation in samizdat
. While his works were soon stopped from being printed in the Soviet Union, they were widely published in samizdat and reprinted in the western émigré magazines Kontinent
, Sintaksis
and Strana i Mir. A collection of essays under the title Unpublished Works was published in 1972 in Frankfurt
.
Pomerants' political and social articles as well as his public conduct attracted the attention of the KGB
. On November 14th 1984, Pomerants was officially warned in connection with his publications abroad. On May 26th 1985, KGB agents searched his flat and confiscated his literary archive.
, who had met Pomerants in an underground seminar, describes his interests as follows:
Pomerants was among the first Russian disciples of cultural and literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin
.
For many years, Pomerants was involved in polemics with Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Pomerants strongly criticized what he saw as Solzhenitsyn's dogmatic Christian nationalism and argued against his notion of "evil", associated with Communism, as an unavoidably global, well-established phenomenon. In this debate, Pomerants positioned himself closer to the liberal, internationalist wing of the intelligentsia
. He countered Solzhenitsyn's ideas by citing Eastern traditions which reject the notion of an inherently permanent, ontological evil.
In 2009, The Bjørnson Prize of the Norwegian Academy of Literature and Freedom of Expression was awarded to Pomerants and Mirkina "for their extensive contribution to strengthening the freedom of expression in Russia."
Vilnius
Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
– now Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
) is a Russian philosopher and cultural theorist. He is the author of numerous philosophical works that circulated in samizdat
Samizdat
Samizdat was a key form of dissident activity across the Soviet bloc in which individuals reproduced censored publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader...
and made an impact on the liberal intelligentsia
Intelligentsia
The intelligentsia is a social class of people engaged in complex, mental and creative labor directed to the development and dissemination of culture, encompassing intellectuals and social groups close to them...
in the 60-s and 70-s.
Early life
Grigory Pomerants was born in 1918 into a Jewish family in VilniusVilnius
Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...
. His family moved to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
in 1925. Pomerants graduated in Russian language
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
and literature from the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and Art (IFLI). His thesis on Fyodor Dostoyevsky was condemned as "anti-Marxist" and as a result he was barred from admission to post-graduate studies in 1939.
During the Second World War, Pomerants volunteered to the front, where he fought as a Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
infantryman. He was twice wounded and twice decorated.
In 1946, he was expelled from the Communist Party
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
for "anti-Party statements". Three years later he was arrested and sentenced to five years' imprisonment for anti-Soviet agitation. After Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
's death in 1953, he was released due to a general pardon. He did not rejoin the Party, which prohibited him from teaching at tertiary level.
Dissident activities
Under the impression of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the persecution of Boris PasternakBoris Pasternak
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak was a Russian language poet, novelist, and literary translator. In his native Russia, Pasternak's anthology My Sister Life, is one of the most influential collections ever published in the Russian language...
, Pomerants started considering furthering his political resistance. In 1959–1960, he led semi-secret seminars on philosophical, historical, political and economic issues. During this time he established contact with dissidents around Vladimir Osipov as well as the editors and contributors of the dissident magazine Sintaksis – Alexander Ginzburg
Alexander Ginzburg
Alexander Ilyich Ginzburg , was a Russian journalist, poet, human rights activist and dissident.During the Soviet period, Ginzburg edited the samizdat poetry almanac Sintaksis. Between 1961 and 1969 he was sentenced three times to labor camps...
, Natalya Gorbanevskaya
Natalya Gorbanevskaya
Natalya Yevgenyevna Gorbanevskaya is a Russian poet, translator of Polish literature and civil rights activist. She is also a citizen of Poland.- Life :Gorbanevskaya graduated from Leningrad University in 1964 and became a technical editor and translator...
and Yuri Galanskov
Yuri Galanskov
Yuri Timofeyevich Galanskov was a Russian poet, historian, human rights activist and dissident. For his political activities, such as founding and editing samizdat almanac Phoenix, he was incarcerated in prisons, camps and forced treatment psychiatric hospitals ...
, and the painters of the underground Lianozovo group.
In 1968, Pomerants co-signed the letter in support of the "Appeal to the World Public Opinion" by Larisa Bogoraz
Larisa Bogoraz
Larisa Iosifovna Bogoraz was a dissident in the Soviet Union....
and Pavel Litvinov
Pavel Litvinov
Pavel Litvinov is a Russian physicist, writer, human rights activist and former Soviet-era dissident. He is the grandson of Maxim Litvinov, Joseph Stalin's foreign minister during the 1930s, and as such was born and raised amongst the Soviet elite...
in protest of the Trial of the Four. As a result he was deprived of any opportunity to defend his thesis at the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies
Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences , formerly Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences, is Russia's leading research institution for the study of the countries and cultures of Asia and North Africa...
.
In addition to official articles on Oriental studies
Oriental studies
Oriental studies is the academic field of study that embraces Near Eastern and Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages, peoples, history and archaeology; in recent years the subject has often been turned into the newer terms of Asian studies and Middle Eastern studies...
and comparative culturology
Culturology
Culturology is the branch of Social Sciences concerned with the scientific understanding, description, analysis and prediction of cultural activities, cultural systems and culture broadly-construed.-History of the term in Russia:...
, which focused on the spiritual traditions of India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, Pomerants began to write essays on historical and social topics which had a broad circulation in samizdat
Samizdat
Samizdat was a key form of dissident activity across the Soviet bloc in which individuals reproduced censored publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader...
. While his works were soon stopped from being printed in the Soviet Union, they were widely published in samizdat and reprinted in the western émigré magazines Kontinent
Kontinent
Kontinent was an émigré dissident journal which focused on the politics of the Soviet Union and its satellites. Founded in 1974 by writer Vladimir Maximov, its first editor-in-chief, it was published in German and Russian and later translated into English...
, Sintaksis
Sintaksis
Sintaksis: publitsistika, kritika, polemika , was a journal published in Paris in 1978-2001 with Maria Rozanova as chief editor. A total of 37 issues of the journal were published before the journal was discontinued. According to Rozanova, there are no plans to resume publication.-Publications:*...
and Strana i Mir. A collection of essays under the title Unpublished Works was published in 1972 in Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
.
Pomerants' political and social articles as well as his public conduct attracted the attention of the KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
. On November 14th 1984, Pomerants was officially warned in connection with his publications abroad. On May 26th 1985, KGB agents searched his flat and confiscated his literary archive.
Philosophical positions
Andrei SakharovAndrei Sakharov
Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov was a Soviet nuclear physicist, dissident and human rights activist. He earned renown as the designer of the Soviet Union's Third Idea, a codename for Soviet development of thermonuclear weapons. Sakharov was an advocate of civil liberties and civil reforms in the...
, who had met Pomerants in an underground seminar, describes his interests as follows:
Pomerants was among the first Russian disciples of cultural and literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin
Mikhail Bakhtin
Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin was a Russian philosopher, literary critic, semiotician and scholar who worked on literary theory, ethics, and the philosophy of language...
.
For many years, Pomerants was involved in polemics with Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Pomerants strongly criticized what he saw as Solzhenitsyn's dogmatic Christian nationalism and argued against his notion of "evil", associated with Communism, as an unavoidably global, well-established phenomenon. In this debate, Pomerants positioned himself closer to the liberal, internationalist wing of the intelligentsia
Intelligentsia
The intelligentsia is a social class of people engaged in complex, mental and creative labor directed to the development and dissemination of culture, encompassing intellectuals and social groups close to them...
. He countered Solzhenitsyn's ideas by citing Eastern traditions which reject the notion of an inherently permanent, ontological evil.
Other
Pomerants is married to Russian poet Zinaida Mirkina.In 2009, The Bjørnson Prize of the Norwegian Academy of Literature and Freedom of Expression was awarded to Pomerants and Mirkina "for their extensive contribution to strengthening the freedom of expression in Russia."
Major works
Померанц, Григорий. Открытость бездне [Openness to the Abyss]. М.: Советский писатель, 1990 г., ISBN 5-265-01527-2 Померанц, Григорий. Выход из транса [Exit from Trance]. Юрист., 1995 г., ISBN 5-7357-0028-5 Миркина, Зинаида; Померанц, Григорий. Великие религии мира [The Major World Religions] М.: Рипол., 1995 г., ISBN 5-87907-016-6 Померанц, Григорий. Записки гадкого утенка [Notes of an Ugly Duckling], М.: Московский рабочий, (1995) 2003, ISBN 5-8243-0430-0- Pomerants, Grigory. The spiritual movement from the West. An Essay and Two Talks, Caux: Caux Books, 2004, ISBN 2-88037-600-9
External links
- "Conversations in depth: Grigori Pomerants", Herald of Europe No. 2, 2005
- "Dissident for our times: Russian essayist and philosopher Grigory Pomerants found his voice in a Soviet prison camp", For A Change, April-May, 2001
- "Preserving Depth. Interview with Grigory Pomerants", Russia Profile, January 8, 2008
- "In God's Way", Gregory Pomerants, Herald of Europe No. 7, 2010 Записки гадкого утёнка – Notes of an Ugly Duckling, Pomerants' autobiographical essays hosted at the Andrei Sakharov Museum and Public Center «Григорий Померанц: Жить без подлости» – Acceptance speech for the Bjørnson Prize, «Российская газета», November 23, 2009 Список статей, «Журнальный Зал» – Digital article archive