Alexandre Kojève

• 1. A Russian Inheritance

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  Aleksandr Vladimirovich Kozhevnikov entered the world on the 28th of April 1902 within the borders of the Russian Empire. He was born into a wealthy and influential family that would shape his early trajectory. His uncle, Wassily Kandinsky, stood as one of history's most important abstract artists. Kojève wrote an essay about Kandinsky's work in 1936 that gained significant attention among art critics. This familial connection provided him with access to avant-garde circles long before he turned to philosophy. The young man studied at both the University of Berlin and the University of Heidelberg during the 1920s. He completed his doctoral thesis under Karl Jaspers in 1926. The title of this dissertation read Die religiöse Philosophie Wladimir Solowjews. It examined Vladimir Soloviev's views on the union of God and man in Christ.

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• 2. The Hegel Seminars

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  Kojève delivered a series of lectures on Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit between 1933 and 1939. These sessions took place in Paris and attracted a small but highly influential group of intellectuals. Raymond Queneau attended these classes alongside Georges Bataille and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. André Breton and Jacques Lacan also sat in the audience while Michel Leiris listened intently. Henry Corbin and Éric Weil were other notable attendees who would later shape French thought. Raymond Queneau edited and published these collected lectures in 1947. They appeared in English as Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit. His interpretation of the master, slave dialectic profoundly influenced Jacques Lacan's mirror stage theory. Post-structuralist philosophers like Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida acknowledged Kojève's influence on their own work. The well-known end of history thesis suggested that ideological history had ended with the French Revolution and Napoleon's regime.

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• 3. Architect Of Europe

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  After World War II, Kojève worked within the French Ministry of Economic Affairs. He served as one of the chief planners tasked with forming the European Economic Community. This organization eventually evolved into what we now call the European Union. Kojève dedicated much of his intellectual effort to protecting Western European autonomy from domination by either the Soviet Union or the United States. He believed the capitalist United States represented right-Hegelianism while the state-socialist Soviet Union represented left-Hegelianism. Victory for either side would result in a rationally organized bureaucracy without class distinctions according to Mark Lilla. Kojève died in 1968 shortly after giving a talk to civil servants and state representatives for the European Economic Community in Brussels. He spoke on behalf of the French government during this final appearance before an audience of officials.

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• 4. Stalin And The End

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  Kojève claimed to be a communist from youth and expressed enthusiasm regarding the Bolshevik revolution. However he ran away knowing that establishing communism meant thirty terrible years. In a letter dated the 7th of October 1948 to Tran Duc Thao he stated his course was essentially propaganda intended to strike people's minds. His articles from the 1920s talked positively about the USSR as a new development. Isaiah Berlin met him in Paris around 1946-1947 where they discussed Stalin and the Soviet Union. Kojève wrote to Stalin but received no reply according to Berlin's account. A manuscript titled Sophia written between 1940 and 1941 contained more than 900 pages defending his thesis. Boris Groys noted that Kojève believed scientific Communism of Marx, Lenin, Stalin expanded the philosophical project to its ultimate historical borders. Less than three months after completing typesetted copies in March 1941 Nazi troops burned the embassy containing them.

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• 5. The Strauss Debate

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  Kojève maintained a close lifelong friendship with Leo Strauss beginning when both were philosophy students in Berlin. They shared deep philosophical respect for each other despite fundamental disagreements on politics. Kojève argued philosophers should have an active part in shaping political events while Strauss disagreed. Strauss believed philosophy and politics were fundamentally opposed and warned against Plato's disastrous results in Syracuse. Philosophers should influence politics only to ensure contemplation remains free from power's seduction. In spite of this debate Strauss sent his best students to Paris to finish their education under Kojève's guidance. Allan Bloom published the first edition of Kojève's lectures in English while Stanley Rosen also studied there. Their correspondence has been published along with Kojève's critique of Strauss's commentary on Xenophon's Hiero.

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• 6. Posthumous Writings

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  Most of Kojève's writings remained unpublished until recently becoming subjects of increased scholarly attention. His 1943 book Esquisse d'une phenomenologie du droit appeared posthumously in 1981 elaborating a theory contrasting aristocratic and bourgeois views of right. Le Concept le temps et le discours extrapolated Hegelian notions about wisdom becoming possible in fullness of time. The books published so far include volumes of Esquisse d'une histoire raisonnée de la pensée païenne released between 1968 and 1973. Other works like L'idée du déterminisme dans la physique classique appeared in 1990 while L'Athéisme emerged in 1998. Several shorter texts are gathering greater attention and being published in book form as well. A Russian translation titled Атеизм и другие работы included Descartes and Buddha from 1920 alongside other essays. Some future publications remain scheduled for release including Kant translations set for 2025.

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