Alexandre Kojève 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.
Alexandre 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 including Raymond Queneau, Georges Bataille, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.
After World War II, Alexandre Kojève worked within the French Ministry of Economic Affairs 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 while he dedicated much of his intellectual effort to protecting Western European autonomy from domination by either the Soviet Union or the United States.
Alexandre Kojève claimed to be a communist from youth and expressed enthusiasm regarding the Bolshevik revolution before running 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.
Alexandre Kojève argued philosophers should have an active part in shaping political events while Leo Strauss believed philosophy and politics were fundamentally opposed and warned against Plato's disastrous results in Syracuse. Strauss believed philosophers should influence politics only to ensure contemplation remains free from power's seduction despite their deep philosophical respect for each other.