Kantʼs Philosophy in the Mirror of the Editions of Kantʼs Collected Works in Russian

Abstract

After long preparatory work, which began before the revolution of 1917 and continued in Soviet Russia in the pre-war period, three different editions of Kantʼs collected works were published in Russian. The first one was released in 1963–1966 in the Soviet period, while the second and the third collections were produced in 1994 and 1994–2019 in the post-Soviet period. The history of the origin of these editions clearly reflects various attitudes towards Kantʼs philosophy in our country in these different periods. The first edition was printed with the state support by the state publishing house “Myslʼ”. V.F. Asmus, A.V. Gulyga and T.I. Oizerman were its editors. The private publishing house “Choro” under the editorship of A.V. Gulyga patronaged the second, the most complete, collection in Russian. German scientific foundations financially sponsored the third, bilingual (German-Russian), one. As a result, four different publishers printed the volumes under the editorship of N.V. Motroshilova and B. Tuschling. Despite their high standards, all these collections can no longer be regarded as a reference edition, and a new edition of Kantʼs writings in Russian is needed. It should be supplemented with additions to the previous editions, with an improved academic and reference apparatus and new editorial works. New and revised translations should be included and terminology should be unified. However, the initiative of the Kant Baltic Federal University of 2013 to publish a new collection of Kantʼs works in Russian for the 300th anniversary of the Königsberg philosopher was a complete failure. A sad fate of this edition of Kant’s Collected Works, which failed even to begin, reflects the attitude to the research component of Kant’s philosophy in contemporary Russia and indirectly indicates the state of Russia itself.