“La connaissance et l’être” by S. L. Frank — the history of translation and its reception

Abstract

The article examines the circumstances and history of the translation into French of S. L. Frank’s master’s thesis “The Object of Knowledge,” which was published in Russian in 1915 in Petrograd. The aim of the study is to determine the place and significance of this work in the creative biography and philosophical heritage of the Russian thinker. For this purpose, we used the synthetic method, which allows us to reconstruct in detail the history of the creation of the French translation, as well as the method of text analysis. First, the German context of Frank’s work on the “The Object of Knowledge” is presented. It has been established that the initiator of the publication of this book in France was G. D. Gurvich, who collaborated with the philosophers Louis Lavelle and René Le Senne, who founded the publishing series “Philosophy of Spirit” in Paris. Based on archival correspondence between Frank and Gurvich, as well as the book’s translator A. Сaffi and the editor of the translation G. P. Fedotov, the details of the preparation of the abridged version of the book for the French reader are revealed. To this end, we analyze the edits made by Frank in the author’s copy of the Russian edition of “The Object of Knowledge”. The last part of the article presents how the reception of this book in the French philosophical environment took place. A list of the currently known reviews of Frank’s work is given. Also noted is the fact that the book The Object of Knowledge was referenced by E. Gilson. Thus, we can conclude that the abridged French translation of Frank’s master’s thesis has had some influence on the French philosophers and reception of Russian philosophical thought in general.