vladimir Iljine

Vladimir N. Ilyin was born on the estate of his grandfather, Nikolai Petrovich Chaplin, in the village of Vladovka, Radomysl County, Kiev Province. His parents were Nikolai Alexandrovich Ilyin and Vera Nikolaevna Ilyina (née Chaplina). From the age of 2-3 years he lived in the estate of Ivany, Slutsk County, Minsk Province, where his family moved. From 1900 he attended Slutsk high school, where he completed three classes. In 1904 he enrolled at the private V.I. Petr gymnasium in Kiev, in January 1905 was transferred to the 1st Kiev gymnasium, from 1907 he studied at the 4th Kiev gymnasium, graduating with a silver medal.

From 1909 Ilyin continued his education at Kiev University, first at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics (1909-1910), then at the Faculty of Law (1910-1912), from 1913 he studied at the department of History and Philology, graduating in 1918. As Zenkovsky wrote in his memoirs, on his recommendation V. N. Ilyin was left "to prepare for a professorship". Ilyin was unable to pursue a university career as he soon left Kiev for Odessa before the arrival of the Bolsheviks.

At the beginning of 1920. V. N. Ilyin emigrated to Turkey, from 1920 to 1922 he lived in Istanbul, where he gave public lectures and taught at the theological-pastoral courses. From the summer of 1922 he lived in Berlin, actively establishing links with other Russian emigrants, started co-operation with the Eurasian movement and became acquainted with the philosopher N. A. Berdyaev, who had a great influence on him. From 1923 Ilyin taught logic and psychology at the Russian Institute of Science, which had been created by Russian religious philosophers exiled from Soviet Russia.

In 1925. Ilyin moved to France, where he lived for most of the rest of his life. On the recommendation of V. V. Zenkovsky recommended he be invited to teach liturgics and the history of medieval philosophy at the St. Sergius Institute of Orthodox Theology in Paris. At the same time he was actively co-operating with the Russian Student Christian Movement (ACER), lecturing at the Religious-Philosophical Academy under N. A. Berdyaev, writing articles and reviews for the journal "Put'" (Way), publishing five books of his: "Venerable Serafim Sarovsky" (1925), "The Sealed Casket. Imperishable Easter" (1926), "The riddle of life and origin of living beings" (1929), "All Night Vigil" (1930), "Six days of creation" (1930).

In 1934 V.N. Ilyin married Vera Nikolaevna Pundik, born in 1912, who left Russia in 1927 to reunite with her mother Z.L. Pundik in Paris. In 1935 V.N. Ilyin and his wife had a daughter, Elena, and later, in 1944, a son, Nikolai.

The need to earn money to provide for his family led Ilyin to actively write for newspapers, which led to his cooperation with the Parisian newspaper "Renaissance". Ilyin's conservative political views and newspaper articles caused him to break away from the leftist, democratic part of the Russian emigration, including N. A. Berdyaev and his associates.

In 1940, the German occupation of France began, the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute suspended its activities, and the journal Put' was closed, as were many other Russian periodicals. V. N. Ilyin lived with short breaks in Berlin and worked at the University Library in Berlin - in his words, forcedly (to save his family), but in the Russian emigration his activities were perceived as collaboration with the German occupation authorities. Officially, V. N. Ilyin worked in the Slavic Department of the University Library on his work "Schatzkästlein der Deutschen Kultur" (The Treasure Box of German Culture), which was never completed. After his return to Paris (10 May 1942) V. N. Ilyin tried to rethink his life, restore his relations with his former colleagues in St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute, met with V. V. Zenkovsky and S. N. Bulgakov, but he could no longer regain their trust and return to his former position.

From 1945 Ilyin taught at the French Orthodox Institute of St Dionysius, where he gave lectures in liturgy, philosophy, logic and the methodology of science. Between 1949 and 1952 he was a Professor at the Russian Conservatoire in Paris, where he taught a course on the history and theory of Church music. V.N. Ilyin was involved in music all his life. Many of his musical works, written since 1914, have survived. Among Ilyin's sheet music manuscripts there are several symphonies, sonatas, string quartets and trios, numerous romances (to poems of A.S. Pushkin, E.A. Boratynsky, A.A. Fet, F.I. Tyutchev, K. D. Balmont, A.A. Blok, I.A. Bunin, etc.), sketches of two operas - "Horrible revenge" (based on the work of Gogol of the same name) and "Black masks" (based on the play of the same name by L.N. Andreev).

The main part of Ilyin's activity in the post-war period is devoted to two directions - the development of morphology (a system of morphology) and the study of Russian culture (Russian science, music, philosophy). Unfortunately, the books that V. N. Ilyin had been offering to various publishers since the late 1940s were not published. He was only able to partially present the results of his scientific work in numerous articles for the journals Vozrozhdenie, Vestnik RSHD, Russkiy Put, and Novyi Zhurnal.

V.N. Ilyin died suddenly while sitting at his typewriter.

The unpublished manuscripts of V.N. Ilyin began to appear shortly after his death. Thanks to the efforts of the philosopher's widow V. N. Ilyin, who devoted all her spare time to the preparation of the publication of her late husband's heritage, and with the financial support of her son, Nikolai Ilyin, the books "David's Harp. Religious and Philosophical Motifs in Russian Literature" (San Francisco, 1980), and "Religion of Revolution and the Death of Culture" (Paris, 1987). In 1996 the journal "Questions of Philosophy" (No 11) published one of the most important works for the understanding of V. N. Ilyin's philosophical views - "Statics and Dynamics of Pure Form, or Sketch of General Morphology". Then the publication of Ilyin's books started in Russia: in 1997 a collection of essays "Essays on Russian Culture" was published, and in 2000, "Mirosozerzaniye grazhdanskogo kultura" (World Outlook on Russian Culture) was published. - The Worldview of Earl Leo Tolstoy" was published in 1997, and in 2010 - Fire of the Worlds: Selected Works. - The Fire of the Worlds: Selected Articles from the Renaissance Journal.

In 2005, Elena Ilyina-Gurdon and Nikolai Ilyin donated their father's personal archive to the Library-Foundation "Russian Abroad" in Moscow (since 2009 - Alexander Solzhenitsyn House of Russian Abroad). On the basis of the transferred archive, Fund 31 was created and active work on the development of V. N. Ilyin's heritage began. V. N. Ilyin's books "Russian Science" (Moscow, 2017) and "Russian Philosophy" (Moscow, 2020) were prepared and published on the basis of Archive Fund 31; his memoirs "Experienced" (2015), chapters from the book "Russian Music" (2018) and Constantinople diary of 1920 (2022) were published in the Yearbook of the A. Solzhenitsyn House of Russian Abroad.