Vladimir Solov'ev as 'a mirror of the Russian counter-revolution'

In this narrative analysis of two Soviet dissertations in philosophy I discuss the role of Solov'ev as one of the major characters in the Soviet academic narration of Russian philosophy: I show how the authors (Turenko and Spirov) cope with the necessity of criticizing Solov'ev from the Marxist position and protect him from Western scholars as the latter attempted to revise Russian philosophy. I also discuss the way in which this requirement both to criticize and protect is represented in the dissertations in which the strong Marxist posture and loyalty to communist doctrine corresponded to the authors' belief that Solov'ev was a great philosopher who made mistakes, although his philosophy remains a part of Russia's cultural heritage. The main conclusion is that in spite of their vision of the world as split into the communist and bourgeois camps, both authors try to avoid straightforward Manichean assessments and, in 60s and 70s, were keen to find as many positive elements in Solov'ev's philosophy as possible.