Ivan Ilyin

Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyin (Russian: Иван Александрович Ильин, romanized: Ivan Aleksandrovich Il'in; 9 April [O.S. 28 March] 1883 – 21 December 1954) was a Russian jurist, religious and political philosopher, publicist, orator, and a far-right thinker. Ilyin began his career as a political writer during the failed 1905 Russian Revolution; by the February Revolution of 1917, which he later saw as a "temporary disorder", he shifted towards liberalism, and by October he became a radical right opponent of democracy. October Revolution, in his view, marked a "national catastrophe". This conviction led him to oppose the Bolshevik regime. As a white émigré journalist, he aligned himself with Slavophile beliefs and emerging as a key ideologue of the Russian All-Military Union. This organization firmly believed that force stood as the sole means through which the Soviet regime could be toppled. An anti-communist, he found himself admiring of Italian fascism and Benito Mussolini and initially, sympathetic to Adolf Hitler and Nazism; yet, his attitude critical of totalitarianism, which he distinguished from his own concept of fascism, was not embraced by the Nazi regime. In 1934, his refusal to comply with Nazi directives to spread propaganda led to his dismissal from the Russian Academic Institute, stripping him of employment opportunities. Financial support from Sergei Rachmaninoff in 1938 allowed Ilyin to remain in Switzerland albeit barred from work or political engagement. This phase of restriction led him to delve deeper into studies encompassing aesthetics, ethics, and psychology. Despite battling chronic illness, Ilyin wrote over 40 books and numerous articles in Russian and German. His works predominantly revolved around religion and Russia, although he diverged from Vladimir Solovyov's (with whom the Russian religious and philosophical Renaissance of the early 20th century is usually associated) ideology, which advocates a global theocracy. Instead, Ilyin championed a patriarchal model of...