GERMAN AESTHETICS IN THE KHARKIV WORKS OF STEPAN FEDCHYSHYN (1899–1971)
Abstract
This article analyzes the aesthetic position of the forgotten Ukrainian philosopher, critic and theorist of aesthetics Stepan Fedchyshyn (1899–1971). In this context, his biographical and creative path is reconstructed for the first time, within which two periods of scientific and creative activity are distinguished: 1) the Kharkiv period (1926–1933) and 2) the Lviv period (1945–1971). The first period covers the formation of his aesthetic position, particularly during his postgraduate studies at the Ukrainian Institute of Marxism-Leninism in Kharkiv, his subsequent teaching at various higher education institutions in Kharkiv, and his management of the Institute of Red Professors. Separately mentioned are Stepan Fedchyshyn's accusation by the Stalinist regime of Ukrainian nationalism and his subsequent two arrests and imprisonment in Soviet concentration camps in northern russia (1933–1941). The second period covers Stepan Fedchyshyn's teaching in Zhytomyr and Lviv, including at Lviv University until 1970, where he influenced the development of aesthetic thought and had his own students and supporters.
The main part of this article focuses on a selective analysis of Stepan Fedchyshyn's aesthetic works during his Kharkiv period. Firstly, we discuss his publication “Hegel's Aesthetics” (1928), and secondly, his works on Marxist aesthetics, in particular “Marxism and Aesthetics” (1928) and “Plekhanov as the Founder of Marxist Aesthetics” (1928). In the first publication, at the beginning he analyzed the features of Hegel's philosophical system, the place of aesthetics in it, and turned to German predecessors in aesthetics (Baumgarten, Lessing, Winkelmann, Sulzer), as well as touching on the aesthetic views of Kant and Schiller. The Kharkiv author then focused his attention on Schelling's lectures on the philosophy of art, which the latter first gave at the University of Jena in the winter semester of 1802/1803 and which were later published by his son (1859). Fedchyshyn then moves on to analyze the peculiarities of Hegel's aesthetic concept, although he focuses specifically on the first volume of Hegel's “Lectures on Aesthetics”, citing both the first (1835) and second (1842) editions edited by his student H. G. Hotho. Here, the Kharkiv author refers to Marx and Engels, pointing to Hegel's achievements in aesthetics, but at the same time criticizing him and considering his aesthetics as an intermediate stage to Marxist aesthetics, to which he devoted the two aforementioned works. The conclusions point to the role of Stepan Fedchyshyn in the formation of early Ukrainian Marxist aesthetics in the 1920s and early 1930s, although his position was influenced by the Soviet ideology of the time.
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