Alexander Zinoviev is a famous Russian writer and philosopher. He received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and the title of professor. His books and publications are unique in that they do not belong to any one direction, they are multifaceted. Moreover, the writer developed his own unique genre called "sociological novel". He is also the author of a number of scientific papers.

Young years

Alexander Alexandrovich Zinoviev was born on October 29, 1922 in the Kostroma province. He was the sixth child in a poor peasant family. At school, he showed great abilities, which distinguished him even after moving with his family to Moscow in the 1930s.

Excellent studies allowed him to enter the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History on a general basis, but in addition to studying at the university, he conducted fiery anti-Soviet speeches among fellow students. Quite pro-communist in his childhood and youth, in adulthood he faced disillusionment in the form of disillusionment. It turned out that there is still a place for inequality in the world, and the sacrifice made by the country to the ideals of justice is in vain.

As a result, the philosopher came to the conclusion that the social world is incorrigible, and the embodiment of even the best ideals in it, due to unforeseen phenomena, leads to an inevitably gloomy reality.

Preparation of an assassination attempt on the leader

This disappointment in society was not limited to discussions about the social system and Stalin. It was planned to shoot the leader from the column on May 1 on Red Square. Zinoviev knew how to carry weapons, and hoped for luck to at least make a shot. The chances of hitting, let alone killing, were minimal, and he was well aware that he was going to commit suicide. But at the same time he hoped for a court in which he could have the last word.

It is not known how the story could end, but a denunciation was made against Alexander about "preparing an assassination attempt on the leader." Of course, the student was immediately expelled with a ban on ever further enrolling in universities, and then arrested. He escaped execution only because they wanted to take his accomplices.

Alexander Zinoviev served time in Lubyanka, but managed to escape directly from the prison gates. He hid from persecution for a long time, from fear, lack of money and disorder, even several times he was going to surrender to the Chekists. The way out was found in the form of volunteering for the cavalry of the Red Army. At the military registration and enlistment office, he said that his documents were lost.

War time

During the Great Patriotic War, Zinoviev was a tanker, and then studied at a flight school and became an attack aircraft pilot. The pilots were considered suicide bombers, since on average they made 10 sorties and died. They were never taken prisoner. For this, they had certain privileges - more delicious food, vodka, a neat uniform, the absence of hard physical work.

Alexander was lucky and he made more than 30 sorties, for which he was awarded insignia and medals, in particular the Order of the Red Star. But after the victory, the situation in the army became more complicated, and Zinoviev left it. I had to work from time to time for pennies, sometimes I had to deal with forging documents and seals.

Student and graduate school

At the same time, Alexander Zinoviev resumed his studies. He bypassed the ban on entering universities by forging documents for two boxes of chocolates. So he got to the philosophical faculty of Moscow State University. In 1951, he received a red diploma and entered graduate school at the same university. Simultaneously with the preparation of his Ph.D. thesis, he founded a logical circle, which greatly influenced the work. At the same time, the future writer got married. The wife of Alexander Zinoviev was the daughter of an NKVD worker, and the marriage was partly arranged.

After 3 years, the couple had a daughter, Tamara, but family life was unfavorable, a conflict of interest regularly arose, mutual misunderstanding intensified, aggravated by Zinoviev's periodic drunkenness.

Work at Moscow State University

In 1954, he successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis, in which the categorical apparatus of the content logic of Karl Marx's Capital was analyzed. After that, Alexander became an employee of the Academy of Sciences, and in 1960 he received the title of professor after defending his doctoral dissertation.

Zinoviev became head of the department of logic at Moscow State University and published philosophical articles and books. He took the hottest topics and wrote what, in his opinion, should touch the strings of the human soul. Some of the work was relevant, others did not arouse interest.

The manuscript had to be urgently stolen and destroyed. It turned out to be done just in time, in the morning they came to the writer with a search. After that, Zinoviev had a long break in writing literary works.

Meanwhile, philosophical works were translated into foreign languages ​​and became known abroad. The author began to receive invitations to foreign conferences, but he did not take part in them.

Emigration and homecoming

The work of the head of the department ended when Alexander Alexandrovich refused to fire two teachers. Then he began to write works for publication in the West, as a result of which in August 1978 he was forced to move with his family to Munich and earn money by scientific and literary work, without having a permanent job.

The family of Alexander Zinoviev lived there until the summer of 1999. Upon returning to Russia, the writer tried to run for the State Duma, but was denied registration, as he had lived too little in the country after emigration. Nevertheless, he recovered as a professor, and his public activity was quite active. He commented on political events, spoke at conferences, gave interviews.

Alexander Zinoviev negatively perceived the changes in the form of the revival of religion and Russian nationalism, as well as the destruction of the Soviet system. No less negative, he assessed the Western political system. This greatly distinguished him from other dissenters with the communist ideology. The writer and philosopher died on May 10, 2006 in Moscow.

Popular books

The biography of Alexander Zinoviev is perfectly characterized by the works written by him at different stages of his life. Scientific works are of great interest to anyone involved in sociology, social and political philosophy, ethics or logic.

In more literary works, there is almost no storyline. Instead, the reader is offered a series of situations in which the author conveys his thoughts through the conversations and actions of the characters. At the same time, the heroes almost never have names, but are designated by the roles they perform (“thinker”, “chatterbox”, “brother”, and so on).

Scientific works

In 1960, the first volume of Zinoviev's Philosophical Encyclopedia was published. It provides a systematic body of knowledge on historical and dialectical materialism, philosophical questions and problems of religion and atheism. Strictly scientific and terminological information is adjacent to articles that deal with certain problematic issues, covering such concepts as the possible, the real and the universal. There are also review papers covering the history, philosophical schools and trends of various countries, as well as biographies of thinkers who have gained worldwide fame.

A lot of works were devoted to theories and formal apparatuses of many-valued and complex logic. Within the framework of scientific works, interesting philosophical questions are again considered, as well as theories of deduction, the conditions for the emergence of logical systems and their features.

Separate studies are devoted to one of the main problems of modern logic - logical following. Questions of the possibility of analogies with the system of classical logic are considered. Terminology is used that refers to space, time, empirical relationships and change.

"Yawning Heights"

Of the dozens of literary books by Alexander Zinoviev, there are several works that are most successful. First of all, this is an acutely satirical sociological story "Yawning Heights". It was the author's first work of art, although it also contained elements of a scientific treatise.

It was published in Switzerland in 1976, translated into more than 20 foreign languages ​​and brought the author a sensational worldwide fame, but in his homeland he was recognized as anti-Soviet. Specifically, this was the reason for the deprivation of Soviet citizenship and expulsion from the country, after which the writer was able to return to his homeland only after 23 years.

The long two-volume book ironically, interestingly, vividly and sincerely describes social life in the USSR and its vices. The Soviet Union is shown as a world of late stagnation, which in no way corresponded to the ideological norms of the state. The writer Alexander Zinoviev was not only fired from his job and forced to emigrate under the threat of imprisonment, he was deprived of his academic titles and military awards. The reviews noted that the book is easy to read, but full of satire. In this way, it resembles the early works of Zadornov.

Cycle "Temptation"

In 1982, the work of Alexander Zinoviev "Go to Calvary" was published. It reproduced the spiritual path of a Russian person in the conditions of the Soviet system, which was not easy for the geniuses of thought. As a result, the best figures were forced to emigrate to the West and adapt to life in a different society.

It would seem that the banal events of the novel are accompanied by the unpredictable inner world of its characters. The main character in the story makes money by educating the people in Moscow and teaching diplomacy to the son of an official, falls in love with a young ballerina and "suffers professionally." The book is filled with Soviet humor, the reality of the Soviet system of the 70s and 80s and its paradoxes. She was the first to enter the cycle called "Temptation".

In 1984, Alexander Zinoviev wrote the second book in the cycle, The Gospel for Ivan. In it, he reflected on theological issues from the standpoint of "smart" atheism and tried to compose a new religion with a soul and spiritual discipline, but without God. At the same time, spirituality meant education, good breeding, hygiene and the rejection of bad habits.

The third work with the title "Live" was published in 1987. In this book, Alexander Alexandrovich Zinoviev continued to explore the daily life of Soviet people. The work is written on behalf of a legless disabled person named Andrei Ivanovich Gorev, who lives in the fictional city of Partgrad. The protagonist is aware of the futility of his own life, but rejoices at the very fact of his existence.

Alexander Zinoviev wrote the next book in 1989. It was originally called "Perestroika in Partgrad", but was published under the title "Catastroyka". The unusual term is explained by the fact that the word "perestroika" is translated into Greek as "catastrophe". Their merger resulted in Catastrophe.

The text contains rather caustic arguments that communism was invented in the West, and implemented in Russia as the most suitable system for an ahistorical people. Queues to stores with empty shelves and cooperative enterprises with fabulous incomes are described. Anti-alcohol campaign, glasnost, condemnation of Stalinism and Brezhnev's stagnation, demonstrations of freedom aimed at proving to the West the humanity of communism.

The cycle was completed in 1991 with the book Troubles.

"Our youth flight"

Work on "The Temptation" did not absorb all the attention of the author. In 1983, the book “Our youth is flying” was published outside the cycle. Alexander Zinoviev wrote it while he was in exile, and his longing for collectivist communism rendered great attention to the tone of the novel.

In the work, the writer stated that he had ceased to be an ardent opponent of Stalinism. He argued that this system was more the product of the people living under Stalin than the leader himself. The policy of an indisputable leader was inevitable and necessary in the conditions of the collapse of the Russian Empire. This led to the emergence of Stalin's personality cult.

The tragic circumstances of the era that changed the lives of Soviet people and made many victims of repression, according to the author, reflect the terrible centuries-old dream of mankind, in which the executioners best fit the social environment.

"Global human"

Among the most significant ideas of Zinoviev, there is such a thing as "human life". What this means, he described in detail in a book released in 1997. In the work, the author worries about the fact that the traditions and values ​​of the West have become global and are spreading throughout the planet. He believes that in the future this may lead other cultures to a subordinate position. But although the new society became like an anthill, the human one remained in it.

The realism and value of the book lies in the fact that many of the predictions began to come true, and this is clearly seen two decades after it was written. The internal devastation and depersonalization of each person is progressing, and in the future this threatens with dire consequences. Alexander Alexandrovich predicts that this could lead to the self-destruction of civilization, and describes in detail how it will be.

The work that turned out as a result can be attributed to utopia and at the same time to dystopia. Because the world of the future, according to Zinoviev, is a high standard of living, a lot of free time, a developed entertainment industry. But in the aggregate, all this leads to a gray, dull and monotonous routine.

Latest works

"Russian Tragedy" by Alexander Zinoviev, written in 2002, became one of his last novels. It analyzes the causes of the collapse and liquidation of the Soviet Union, as well as the prospects for world development. The author expresses concerns about globalism and speculates about the future of Russia. The latter are not too optimistic in his vision. He believes that the troubles that began with the collapse of the Kursk nuclear submarine will lead to a sad ending. Despite the heavy topic, the book is surprisingly easy to read, the author in it revealed himself as a talented philosopher.

Alexander Zinoviev wrote three more books after The Russian Tragedy, but they are less known, so many sources write that in 2002 he published his last work. In fact, in 2003, The Ideology of the Party of the Future came out, in which the author voiced troubling forebodings about the prevailing anti-communism. In his political work, he proposed the creation of a new large-scale ideology of the future and described his thoughts on it.

In 2005, the publicistic book "Crossroads" was published, which is a portrait of Russia from the mid-1980s to the present day, and in 2006 the last philosophical work, "The Factor of Understanding", was published. It explains the meaning of the "intellectual factor" and discusses the problems associated with it.

Thus, Alexander Alexandrovich Zinoviev made a huge contribution to the world of science and literature and gained fame as an outstanding Russian philosopher.

After Pitirim Sorokin, Alexander Zinoviev is undoubtedly one of the most important figures in the world and national sociology of our time. An adequate assessment of his legacy is yet to come, because since 2006, when the thinker died, not enough time has passed.

Biography and activities of Alexander Zinoviev

Alexander Zinoviev was born in a remote Russian village in the Kostroma province on 10/29/1922. Then the family moved to Moscow. Living conditions were the most difficult: cold, hunger, dirt, hopeless need. It is for this reason that by the age of seventeen the young man had become a staunch anti-Stalinist. He put together a whole terrorist group with the aim of killing Stalin during one of the demonstrations before. Not surprisingly, a denunciation, arrest and interrogation at the Lubyanka soon followed. Zinoviev managed to escape. He wandered around Siberia, recruited for various construction projects, worked for some time in the Russian North.

In the autumn of 1940, Zinoviev illegally returned to Moscow, where he had to live in a friend's barn, and earn a living as a loader at the station. During one of the raids, all the loaders were taken to the police station. There they were faced with a tough choice: either a prison term or military service. Zinoviev, like many others, chose the second option. He served in the cavalry, then in the tank troops, then in the aviation. In 1946, he was demobilized and served for some time as a civil aviation pilot, then returned to Moscow, entered the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow University.

Whom only he did not have to work - and a loader, and a laboratory assistant, and a digger, and a school teacher. He taught completely different subjects: military science, mathematics, logic, psychology. Life did not spoil. It was impossible to live on a scholarship. In 1951 he graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy with honors, entered graduate school and wrote a dissertation. "On the Logic of Marx's Capital". The dissertation made a strong impression in philosophical circles, went in typewritten copies. Then it was banned, and no one was allowed to read it without special permission.

In 1954, Zinoviev went into science. His work has been published in the West. However, he was not allowed to go abroad. He was a member of the editorial board of the journal "Problems of Philosophy". Gradually, the scientist found himself in isolation: he lost his job at the university, students and graduate students. But free time formed, and Zinoviev decided to strike back at the system. He did it in a word, began to write "Yawning Heights". The book is written in the genre of a sociological novel, it can be read from any page, it has absorbed the life and scientific experience of the author, anecdotes and table conversations. Thus, fiction absorbed sociological and philosophical elements.

Zinoviev approached the criticism of Soviet society in a holistic and systematic way. The book was written in just six months, without any corrections. It was forwarded to the West and published in 1976 in Switzerland. The Western press called it the first book of the 20th century. Zinoviev was faced with a choice: emigration or prison. In his sixties, he was forced to choose exile from the country and deprivation of Soviet citizenship. Being a deeply Russian person, he experienced a break with the soil and roots quite hard and painfully.

At the age of 56, everything had to be started anew, from scratch. The atmosphere around was completely alien. At some point, even thoughts of suicide rolled up. Then the crisis ended, but Zinoviev could not fully adapt to the Western way of life. Sometimes he was able to see his work in print thanks to the magazine "Continent". He had undoubted success as a philosopher and sociologist, lectured on television, traveled a lot, books were translated into many languages. Once Zinoviev even had a chance to participate in a television debate with the future president of Russia.

However, on the whole, the emigration did not favor Zinoviev too much and treated him more hostile than friendly. He was too uncomfortable in the opinions and assessments of what is happening. Even in the era of Gorbachev's perestroika, Zinoviev was convinced that all the reforms only masked the preparation of new political repressions against the intelligentsia, but only skillfully pretended to be a reformer. In the last years of his life, Zinoviev radically revised many of his previous views. In a sense, he turned into a moderate Stalinist.

There are also such paradoxes: a man who plotted an attempt on his life in his youth became his ardent defender in his ninth decade. In what it is certainly difficult to convict Zinoviev is in deceit and duplicity. It is monolithic even in its contradictions and delusions. Like every prophet in his Fatherland, Zinoviev was not heard to the end. And whether it will be is still a rhetorical question. He died in Moscow on May 10, 2006.

• The NATO bombing of the former Yugoslavia in 1999 pushed Zinoviev to return to his homeland.
• He devoted the last years of his life to criticizing global capitalism.
• One word can be considered his spiritual testament to descendants - “Think!”

The famous Russian revolutionary Zinoviev Grigory (life years 1883-1936) was also a Soviet statesman and political figure. According to some sources, his real name was Radomyslsky Ovsei-Gershon (Evsei-Gershon) Aronovich; according to other sources, his name is Hirsch (Gersh) Apfelbaum (by mother). A brief biography of Grigory Zinoviev has become the subject of our review.

Childhood and family

Grigory Evseevich Zinoviev was born (you will learn about this person briefly from the article) in 1883, on September 11 (23), in the city of Elisavetgrad (modern Kropyvnytskyi), Kherson province. Since 1924, his hometown has been called Zinovievsk for a whole decade. His father Aaron Radomyslsky, who owned a dairy farm, gave him his primary education.

By the age of 14, Zinoviev was forced to work as a clerk and give lessons, as his family was impoverished.

The first wife of Grigory Evseevich was a professional revolutionary Ravich Sarra Naumovna, also known under the pseudonym Olga. She was a member of the RSDLP, temporarily replaced the Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Northern Region, and was repeatedly under arrest.

Zinoviev's next wife was Lilina Zlata Ionovna, also known under the pseudonym Zina Levina. She also participated in the RSDLP, worked in the Petrosoviet, collaborated with the newspapers Pravda and Zvezda. She gave birth to a son from Zinoviev - Radomyslsky Stefan Grigorievich. At the age of 29, he was arrested and sentenced to death.

The third wife of Radomyslsky was Evgenia Yakovlevna Lasman. She spent about 20 years of her life in exile and prison.

Pre-revolutionary activities

Already at the age of 18 (1901), Zinoviev became a member of the RSDLP and began to participate in the revolutionary movement. He organized workers' strikes in Novorossia, for which he was persecuted by the police. Avoiding persecution, in 1902 Radomyslsky left for Berlin, and then moved to Paris and Bern within a year. In 1903, it was there that he met Lenin, and subsequently became very close to him and began to represent him in European socialist organizations.

In 1903, Grigory Zinoviev, whose photo you see in the article, joined the Bolsheviks, and at the II Congress of the RSDLP supported Lenin. In the same year, the revolutionary returned to Ukraine, where he actively conducted propaganda.

A year later, due to heart disease, Radomyslsky again left the country, returning to Bern. There he began to study, entering the university at the Faculty of Chemistry, but a year later he interrupted his studies in order to participate in the revolution (1905-1907). In Russia, he was waiting for membership in the St. Petersburg City Committee of the RSDLP. A new attack of illness forced Zinoviev to leave for Bern again, but already to study at the Faculty of Law. In the spring of 1906, he returned to St. Petersburg, became a member of the Central Committee (only Lenin received more votes) and began working as an editor in the newspapers Vperyod and Sotsial-Democrat (underground publications). For his activities, he was arrested in 1908, due to illness, he was released three months later and left for Austrian Galicia with Lenin.

There Zinoviev Grigory Evseevich, whose biography is full of tragedy, received large sums of money for the Bolshevik Party through the well-known adventurer Parvus. The Austrian police believed that Zinoviev had been recruited by French intelligence.

The revolution

In April 1917, Zinoviev with his second wife Zlata Lilina, their son Stefan, his first wife Sarra Ravich and Lenin returned to Russia in a sealed carriage. After the July days, Radomyslsky and Lenin hid on Lake Razliv from the Provisional Government (at present, a monument has been erected there and a real hut is being erected every year). They were suspected of espionage and cooperation with Austria-Hungary.

In October 1917, a closed meeting of the Bolshevik Central Committee was held, where Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev declared that it was premature to overthrow the Provisional Government and did not agree with Lenin's resolution. Their appearance in Novaya Zhizn (Mensheviks) almost led to expulsion from the party, but they simply decided to forbid them to speak on its behalf.

When the Bolsheviks and Social Revolutionaries seized power in Petrograd, Zinoviev, with Lev Kamenev, Alexei Rykov and Viktor Nogin, advocated negotiations with Vizhel and giving in to his demand to unite the parties into one socialist government. Lenin and Trotsky stopped these negotiations, and on November 4, this foursome with Vladimir Milyutin who joined them left the Central Committee. Lenin, in response, declared them deserters - he even mentioned this in his political testament.

Civil War

By the end of 1917, Zinoviev was allowed to return to politics. During the Civil War, he served as chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, the Council of People's Fees of the Union of Communes of the Northern Region, and the Petrograd Revolutionary Defense Committee.

Access to unlimited power corrupted Zinoviev. When everyone around was starving, he arranged luxurious banquets for his close associates. On his initiative, the bourgeoisie and non-working elements were deprived of bread cards. At that time, tens of thousands of people fell into this category. They were literally doomed to starvation.

Zinoviev Grigory Evseevich (whose brief biography is presented to your attention in the article) at first abandoned the "red terror" after the murder of Volodarsky and Uritsky, for which he was severely criticized by Lenin. He also protested against the transfer of the capital to Moscow.

Zinoviev regained Lenin's favor by supporting the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and was soon returned to the ranks of the Central Committee with membership in the new Politburo. They also entrusted him with the post of chairman of the Executive Committee of the Comintern, where he introduced the concept of "social fascism".

Zinoviev participated in the organization of the "Red Terror" of the intelligentsia of Petrograd, for which he was nicknamed "Grishka the Third" by them (in comparison with Otrepiev and Rasputin).

Under the leadership of Petrograd Zinoviev, the population of the city decreased by more than 4 million people. Most of them simply left the city, but a large part died due to starvation and executions. The fuel crisis also had an effect - in winter, fuel was simply not imported into the city.

It is believed that such actions by Zinoviev were a strategy to reduce "non-proletarian elements."

At that time, hundreds of people were shot, Zinoviev's repressions were the most cruel and large-scale. There is an opinion that this was dictated by despair, fear for the death of the revolution.

Since 1921, Zinoviev was a member of the Politburo and aspired to leadership positions. At that time, he promoted Lenin's legacy, published many books - his collected works began to be printed.

Zinoviev actively participated in the persecution of the Orthodox clergy, when the Bolsheviks massively confiscated church valuables. In Petrograd, which he then ruled, a trial was taking place, where 10 clergymen were sentenced to death, including Archimandrite Sergius and Metropolitan Benjamin, who was later canonized as a holy martyr.

Zinoviev participated in the rise of Stalin, influenced his appointment as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the RCP in 1923. He did this not out of personal sympathy, but with the aim of attracting him to the fight against Trotsky.

After Lenin's death

After the death of Lenin, Trotsky and Zinoviev remained the actual contenders for power.

In those years, Zinoviev's positions were very tough. He called for the destruction of the peasantry and the complete plunder of the villages in order to force industrialization. It was he who cynically declared that it was necessary to destroy part of the Russian population, since the Bolsheviks would not be able to retrain everyone in their own way.

Zinoviev sought to arrange a world revolution. The communists tried to seize power in Hungary, Germany, Mongolia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Poland, Finland. All this led to many deaths and unrealistic financial costs.

Through the Comintern, Zinoviev Grigory, a revolutionary, withdrew crazy amounts of money to Western banks.

Cult of personality

Although Zinoviev publicly reproached Stalin, he created his own cult of personality earlier and inflated it much more. He renamed his hometown Zinovievsk to perpetuate his name. In many major cities, monuments and busts were erected on his orders. He published a whole collection of his works (33 volumes).

New opposition

Already after 2 years, Zinoviev and Kamenev oppose Stalin. As a result, he ceased to lead the Executive Committee of the Comintern and the Lensoviet, was removed first from the Politburo, and a year later from the Central Committee. This is followed by exclusion from the party and exile.

In 1928, Zinoviev Grigory, whose family also suffered, repented, and he was reinstated in the party, having been appointed rector to Kazan University. After four years of literary and journalistic activity, arrest and exile again follow, but this time for non-information. In this reference, he translates Mein Kampf (My Struggle) by Hitler. In 1933, a limited edition of this translation was published (studied by party workers).

Instead of four years of exile, a year later Zinoviev was again reinstated in the party and sent to the Tsentrosoyuz. At the party congress, he repents and glorifies Stalin and his comrades-in-arms. It was Zinoviev who then called Stalin "the genius of all times and peoples."

Judgment and trial

In December 1934, Zinoviev was once again arrested, sentenced to 10 years in prison. The accusation was assistance in the assassination of Kirov, according to many historians, this fact was rigged by Stalin. While in the Verkhneuralsk political isolator, he takes notes, turning to Stalin with assurances that he is no longer his enemy and is ready to fulfill any requirements.

Stalin and his supporters actively used the origin of Zinoviev and Kamenev, spread rumors that the oppositionists were Jews and intellectuals.

This time, Zinoviev's rehabilitation did not follow, and in 1936 the "trial of the sixteen" took place, where former party leaders were tried. On August 24, they decided to carry out execution - the highest penalty. A day later, the sentence was carried out.

It is noteworthy that in 1988 this verdict was canceled, recognizing the absence of corpus delicti in the action of the convicts.

There is evidence that during the investigation, Zinoviev was demanded to return the money of the Comintern. He returned part of the amount that he personally stole and did not have time to spend or invest. After that, Stalin did not need him alive.

Upon learning of Zinoviev's behavior before the execution, Stalin contemptuously spat on the floor, saying that he was much more comfortable putting others up against the wall.

During his arrest, Zinoviev was kept in appalling conditions. In the heat in the cell, the heating was turned on to the maximum. Problems with the kidneys and liver and such conditions brought the prisoner to severe attacks - from pain he rolled on the floor and begged to be transferred to the hospital. Instead of the necessary help, doctors gave him drugs that further aggravated the disease.

In terrible prison conditions, after a comfortable and prosperous life, Grigory Evseevich Zinoviev broke down and with tears begged Stalin to cancel the trial.

Stalin promised Zinoviev and Kamenev to let them live together with their families if they agreed in court with all the accusations and slandered some of the old Bolsheviks. This farce took place at the trial, but did not save the lives of the convicts.

Doom

Zinoviev was shot on the night of August 26, 1936. It happened in the building of the VKVS (Moscow). Witnesses to the execution recalled that Zinoviev humiliated himself and asked for mercy, kissed the boots of the executors of the sentence, and in the end he could not even walk himself, so the last meters simply dragged him. Before being shot, he began to read prayers in his native Hebrew. Kamenev, sentenced along with him, urged him to stop humiliating himself and die with dignity. There is another version, according to which Zinoviev had to be carried to the execution on a stretcher.

After the rehabilitation of Zinoviev in 1988, he was praised for several years as a victim of Stalin's repressions without guilt.

Repression of relatives

All three wives of Zinoviev were repressed. The first wife, Sarah Ravich, was arrested three times, finally rehabilitated and released due to a serious illness only three years before her death, in 1954.

The second wife, Zlata Lilina, was arrested twice and sent into exile, but unlike her son, she escaped death. Zinoviev's son died the following year after him. After the execution of Gregory, all Lilina's works (mostly works on social and labor education) were confiscated from the libraries.

Zinoviev's third wife, Yevgenia Lyasman, was arrested for almost two decades. She was released only in 1954, and rehabilitated in the next century - in 2006. She wrote memoirs about her husband, but relatives forbade publishing them.

Cinema

The significance of Zinoviev in historical and political events was repeatedly reflected in films. The first film was "October" - a silent creation of Eisenstein. It is noteworthy that Zinoviev was played by Apfelbaum - his own brother. Among other films known are "Blue Notebook", "In the days of October", "Red", "Red Bells", "Lenin. Train”, “Stalin”, “Under the Sign of the Scorpion” and the TV series “Yesenin”.

Opinion of contemporaries

A brief biography of Grigory Zinoviev, one way or another, is interesting to many contemporaries. What is the opinion of the public about this person? Basically, contemporaries were not very well disposed towards Zinoviev. They recognized his intelligence and culture, but also noted that he was a decent coward and intriguer.

People close to Zinoviev talked about his lack of restraint, excessive vanity and ambition, and noted lordly manners.

Zinoviev's party comrades criticized Zinoviev for his rudeness in polemics and for his unprincipled choice of means in achieving personal and political success.

During the famine in Petrograd, various delicacies were brought to Zinoviev's table. It was said that the thinness and modest manners of the pre-revolutionary Gregory grew into the importance and arrogance of the "obese rascal" who squeezed money out of the hungry people.

In the memoirs of Zinoviev's contemporaries there are words about the existence of a cult of his personality in Leningrad.

Alexander Alexandrovich Zinoviev (October 29, 1922, Kostroma province - May 10, 2006, Moscow) - Soviet and Russian logician, sociologist and social philosopher; writer.
In the last years of his life in the USSR and in exile, A. Zinoviev was considered a "famous Soviet dissident." Zinoviev himself claimed: "I have never been a dissident ... I was stubbornly enrolled as a dissident."

"I ... was born in 1922, grew up on the ideals of communism. I was never an apologist for the social order that developed in Russia after 1917. But I grew up in it, assimilated its best ideals, made myself a person who can be We then considered the ideal communist a person who lives and works in the interests of the collective and the whole country, who is ready to sacrifice everything personal for his people, who is content with little, who does not strive for property and a career, etc. I still adhere to these principles. For me, for example, there is still nothing more hateful than property, although I live in the West. ("Tomorrow", 1993, No. 2)

Alexander Zinoviev was born in the village of Pakhtino, Chukhlomsky district, Kostroma province of the RSFSR (now the Chukhlomsky district of the Kostroma region), the sixth child of painter Alexander Yakovlevich and peasant woman Apollinaria Vasilievna. In search of a better life, the Zinoviev family moved to Moscow. In the village, and later - in the capital school, Alexander stood out for his great abilities.

In 1939 he graduated from high school with honors and entered the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History. About his secret speeches criticizing the Soviet regime (“... not as an anti-communist, I never was and never am, but as a“ real ”(romantic) communist who considered Stalinism a betrayal of the ideals of real communism”), they reported what he was expelled from MIFLI, then arrested and subjected to a psychiatric examination. Before being re-arrested, he went on the run, lived on corrected documents, and in 1940 volunteered for the Red Army, thus managing to avoid persecution.

Served in the cavalry. Participated in the Great Patriotic War since 1941 as part of a tank regiment. However, by the beginning of the war, his regiment did not have time to get tanks and therefore actually fought as a rifle unit. At the end of 1941, Zinoviev got into an aviation school, where he mastered the fighter profession. He did not have time to finish school, since in 1942 he was returned to the tank troops. However, he then resumed his studies at an aviation school, from where he was released in 1944 as an attack pilot. He continued to fight in various assault regiments on the Il-2 plane, went through Poland, Germany, was in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Austria. The last sorties were made during the Prague operation to destroy a large group of German troops, Field Marshal Schörner. He had 31 sorties, was awarded the Order of the Red Star and other orders and medals. He ended the war in 1945 in Berlin with the rank of captain.
In 1946, Alexander Zinoviev entered the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University, in 1951 he received a diploma with honors and remained in graduate school. Zinoviev is one of the founders of the Moscow logical circle (since 1952; it also included B. A. Grushin, M. K. Mamardashvili and G. P. Shchedrovitsky; later - the Moscow methodological circle). In 1954 he defended his Ph.D. thesis "The method of ascent from the abstract to the concrete." In 1955 he became a researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the USSR Academy of Sciences, where he worked until 1976. In 1960 he defended his doctoral dissertation on the logic of the book "Capital" by Karl Marx (subsequently published in 2002 by the Institute of Philosophy) and soon received the title of professor and head of the department of logic at Moscow State University.

He wrote many scientific books and articles, gained worldwide fame: all his major works were soon translated into foreign languages. He was nominated as a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences and for the USSR State Prize. He was often invited to foreign conferences, but did not visit any.
Zinoviev was removed from the post of head of the department, apparently for refusing to fire two teachers, and then deprived of his professorship. After that, he began to write "unscientific" works, and send them to the West.
In 1976, the book "Yawning Heights", published in Switzerland, was compiled from them. The book in an ironic and humorous way described social life in the Soviet Union. For inconsistency with ideological norms, the book was recognized as anti-Soviet, and Zinoviev was deprived of all scientific titles, military awards and expelled from work. Law enforcement officials, he said, offered him a choice between imprisonment and leaving the country, and he chose to leave.
On August 6, 1978, A. Zinoviev and his family were deported from the USSR to the FRG.
Upon arrival in Munich, Zinoviev was received by the President of the University of Munich N. Lobkowitz, Zinoviev was given the job of a professor at the Department of Logic at the University of Munich.
From 1978 to June 1999, Alexander Zinoviev and his family lived in Munich, doing scientific and literary work.
In 1999, he was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature, but Zinoviev was harshly critical of the bombing of Serbia at the time; Grass, Günther received the prize. Zinoviev's widow Olga noted that what was happening in Yugoslavia prompted Zinoviev to return to Russia.
In 1990 he was restored to Soviet citizenship. In June 1999 he returned to Moscow.
Prior to the perestroika period, Zinoviev was one of the most outspoken critics of the Soviet system. Zinoviev had a negative attitude towards the spread of pro-Western liberal values. In later published works, he extremely negatively assessed the destruction of the Soviet system.
In 1999, he was nominated to the State Duma on the list of the Russian All-People's Union, but was not registered, as he returned to Russia shortly before.
Zinoviev died on May 10, 2006 from a brain tumor. According to the will, he was cremated, the ashes were scattered from a helicopter over the Chukhloma area, where Zinoviev was born and raised. In memory of his services to Russian culture, a symbolic cenotaph grave and a monument to Zinoviev were erected at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

A. A. Zinoviev was married three times. From the first marriage, Zinoviev had a son, Valery (b. 1944), from the second, a daughter Tamara (b. 1954), from a third marriage, two daughters - Polina (b. 1971) and Ksenia (b. 1990).

We need a dream, a hope, a utopia. Utopia is a great discovery. If people do not invent a new, at first glance, useless utopia, then they will not survive as people. We need a fairy tale: it is important for people what kind of fog they believe in and what kind of fairy tale they believe.
- One of the very last words of Zinoviev, according to the testimony of the widow Olga

Alexander Zinoviev was born in the village of Pakhtino, Chukhlomsky district, Kostroma province of the RSFSR (now the Chukhlomsky district of the Kostroma region), the sixth child of painter Alexander Yakovlevich and peasant woman Appolinaria Vasilievna. In search of a better life, the Zinoviev family moved to Moscow. In the village, and later - in the capital school, Alexander stood out for his great abilities.

In 1939 he graduated from high school with honors and entered the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History. His secret speeches criticizing the totalitarian regime were reported, for which he was expelled from MIFLI, then arrested and subjected to a psychiatric examination. Before being re-arrested, he escaped, and in 1940 he volunteered for the Red Army, thus getting rid of persecution.

Served in the cavalry. Participated in the Great Patriotic War since 1941 as part of a tank regiment. However, by the beginning of the war, his regiment did not have time to get tanks and therefore actually fought as a rifle unit. At the end of 1941, Zinoviev got into an aviation school, where he mastered the fighter profession. He did not have time to finish school, since in 1942 he was returned to the tank troops. However, then he resumed his studies at an aviation school, from where he was released in 1944 as an attack pilot. He continued to fight in various assault regiments on the Il-2 plane, went through Poland, Germany, was in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Austria. The last sorties were made during the Prague operation to destroy a large group of German troops, Field Marshal Schörner. He had 31 sorties, was awarded the Order of the Red Star and other orders and medals. Finished the war with the rank of captain.

post-war period

In 1946, Alexander Zinoviev entered the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University, having given a box of chocolates for not disclosing the ban on him to enter universities. In 1951 he received a diploma with honors and remained in graduate school. Zinoviev is one of the founders of the Moscow Logic Circle (since 1952; the Circle also included B. A. Grushin, M. K. Mamardashvili and G. P. Shchedrovitsky; later - the Moscow Methodological Circle). In 1954 he defended his Ph.D. thesis on the logic of the book "Capital" by Karl Marx (the dissertation was published in 2002 by the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences). In 1955 he became a researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1960 he defended his doctoral dissertation and soon received the title of professor and head of the department of logic at Moscow State University. He wrote many scientific books and articles, gained worldwide fame: all his major works were soon translated into foreign languages. He was nominated as a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences and for the USSR State Prize. He was often invited to foreign conferences, but did not visit any.

Zinoviev was removed from the post of head of the department, apparently for refusing to fire two teachers, and then deprived of his professorship. After that, he began to write "unscientific" works, and send them to the West. In 1976, the book "Yawning Heights", published in Switzerland, was compiled from them. The book in an ironic, humorous form described social life in the Soviet Union. For inconsistency with ideological norms, the book was recognized as anti-Soviet, and Zinoviev was deprived of all scientific titles, military awards and expelled from work. Law enforcement officials, he said, offered him a choice between imprisonment and leaving the country, and he chose to leave. On August 6, 1978, A. Zinoviev and his family were deported from the USSR to the FRG. Upon arrival in Munich, Zinoviev was received by the President of the University of Munich N. Lobkowitz, Zinoviev was given the job of a professor at the Department of Logic at the University of Munich. From 1978 to June 1999, Alexander Zinoviev and his family lived in Munich, doing scientific and literary work. In 1999, he was nominated to the State Duma on the list of the Russian All-People's Union, but was not registered, as he returned to Russia shortly before.

Prior to the perestroika period, Zinoviev was one of the most outspoken critics of the Soviet system. Zinoviev had a negative attitude towards the spread of pro-Western liberal values. In later published works, he extremely negatively assessed the destruction of the Soviet system.

Zinoviev died on May 10, 2006 from brain cancer. According to the will, he was cremated, the ashes were scattered from a helicopter over the Chukhloma area, where Zinoviev was born and raised. In memory of his services to Russian culture, a symbolic cenotaph grave and a monument to Zinoviev were erected at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. In Kostroma, in the park of the Kostroma State University, a monument to A. A. Zinoviev was erected by the sculptor A. N. Kovalchuk.

Since 2007, in memory of A. A. Zinoviev, the Zinoviev socio-political online magazine has been published, dedicated to the topical problems of society and the human worldview, the authors of which are well-known Russian and world politicians and thinkers.

Since 1999, the Russian-Bavarian Research Center named after A.A. Zinoviev has been operating.

Family

A. A. Zinoviev was married three times. From his first marriage, Zinoviev had a son, Valery, from his second, his daughter Tamara, and from his third marriage, two daughters, Polina and Ksenia.

General characteristics of creativity

The work of A. Zinoviev is divided into three main periods:

• 1st, "academic" - before the publication of "Yawning Heights" (1976) and expulsion from the Soviet Union. His main field of study is the logic and methodology of science. Proceedings of this period: "Philosophical problems of many-valued logic" (1960), "Propositional logic and the theory of inference" (1962), "Fundamentals of the logical theory of scientific knowledge" (1967), "Complex logic" (1970), "Logic of science" (1972) ), "Logical Physics" (1972), etc.;

• 2nd: 1978-1985 - research, description and criticism of real communism in various literary genres: journalism, social satire and sociological essay. During this period, Zinoviev wrote the following works: "A Bright Future" (1978), "On the Eve of Paradise" (1979), "The Yellow House" (1980), "Communism as Reality" (1981), "Homo Sovieticus" (1982), "My Home Is My Foreign Land" (1982), "Para Bellum" (1982), "No Liberty, No Equality, No Fraternity" (1983), "Go to Calvary" (mostly written 1982, made public 1985), and others;
• 3rd: after the beginning of perestroika in the USSR - criticism of the collapse of the Soviet system, a turn towards criticism of modern Western society

Alexander Zinoviev was one of the most famous and fruitful authors in the genre of sociological essay. In such a story, in an artistic style, socially significant aspects of people's life in a given society are described, illustrated by events characteristic of it and descriptions of typical phenomena. Fictional characters serve to describe the qualities of social types of people and express different opinions. In this genre, his book “Yawning Heights” and others were written: “Bright Future”, “On the Eve of Paradise”, “Notes of a Night Watchman”, “Yellow House” in 2 volumes (1980), “Go to Calvary” (1985), "Live" (1989), "Global Human" (1997), "Catastrophe" (1988), "Temptation" (1991), "Russian Tragedy (Death of Utopia)" (2002).

In addition to philosophical works, Zinoviev devoted much time to poetry and painting. Zinoviev's paintings are made in an expressionistic and surrealistic manner, carry a strong charge of emotions, symbolize the author's opposition to a hostile world, loneliness. Even in lyrical poems, Zinoviev's sharp, cocky manner of communicating with the outside world is felt.

Criticism

The well-known German Slavist and Russian literary critic Wolfgang Kazak characterized the literary work of A. Zinoviev as follows:

Zinoviev and "New Chronology"

Alexander Zinoviev highly appreciated the "New Chronology" by Anatoly Fomenko and Gleb Nosovsky, whom he met around 1999. In the article "When Aristotle Lived" (2004), Zinoviev called the "New Chronology" "one of the most outstanding discoveries in science of the twentieth century."

From his school and student years, Zinoviev was convinced that "human history is systematically falsified literally before our eyes, and descriptions of past history in textbooks and scholarly works do not deserve unconditional trust." With the works of N. A. Morozov, the predecessor of Fomenko and Nosovsky, he met in the 1930s.

International recognition

International awards

• Recipient of the Alexis Tocqueville Prize for Humanism, 1982
• Winner of the 1977 Charles Veyonne European Prize
• Laureate of the Tevere Literary Prize, issued by the Italian Center for the Diffusion of Art and Culture (Centro italiano diffusione arte e cultura (Cidac) in 1992 (Corriere della Sera of 09/19/1992).

Membership in academies

• Member of the Russian Academy of Social Sciences
• Vice President of the Academy of Russian Literature
• Member of the International Eurasian Academy of Sciences

honorary titles

• Honorary Citizen of the City of Avignon (Avignon, 1986)
• Honorary citizen of the Kostroma region (2008, posthumously)
• Honorary Citizen of the City of Ravenna (Ravenna, 1984)
• Honorary Citizen of the City of Orange (Orange, 1986)
• Honorary Professor at the University of Santiago de Chile
• Honorary Professor of Moscow University for the Humanities
• "Person of the Year - 2001" ("For outstanding educational activity" in the nomination "Culture", Russian Biographical Institute)

Academic degrees and titles

• Doctor of Philosophy (1960)
• Professor of the Faculty of Philosophy, Moscow State University
• Professor at the Literary Institute M. Gorky

State awards

• Order of the October Revolution
• Order of the Red Star

Public awards

• "Star of Moscow University" ("For Service to Truth", 2005)
• Medal "250 years of Moscow State University" (2005)
• Medal "Nikita Moiseev" (Moscow University for the Humanities, 2002)
• Medal "Pushkin" ("Zealous of Enlightenment", Academy of Russian Literature)
• Medal "Viktor Rozov" ("For Contribution to National Culture", 2001)
• Medals "65 years of defense of Moscow"
• Medals "65 defeat of the Nazi troops near Moscow" (Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation)
• Medals "60 years of the capture of Berlin" (Interregional public fund "In memory of the people")
• Medal "50th Anniversary" For Our Soviet Motherland ""
• Order of the Academy of Security and Law Enforcement
• Medal "850 years of Kostroma"

Memory

The monument to Alexander Zinoviev (sculptor A. Kovalchuk) was installed in Kostroma on the territory of the Kostroma State University named after N. A. Nekrasov at the address: Kostroma, st. May 1, 14. A memorial auditorium of Alexander Zinoviev was opened at the Faculty of History of the University (photo exposition and exhibition of works).

Main works

Scientific works

• Zinoviev A. A. Logical structure of knowledge about connections // Logical researches. - M.: 1959.
• Zinoviev A. A. Following as a property of statements about connections // Scientific reports of higher education. Philosophical sciences. - 1959. - No. 3.
• Zinoviev A. A. About one program for the study of thinking // Reports of the APN of the RSFSR. - 1959. - No. 2.
• Zinoviev A. A. On the logical nature of the ascent from the abstract to the concrete // Philosophical Encyclopedia. - 1960. - T. 1.
• Zinoviev A. A. On the question of the method of knowledge research (statements about connections) // Reports of the APN of the RSFSR. - 1960. - No. 3.
• Zinoviev A. A., Revzin I. I. On the definition of the concept of connection // Questions of Philosophy. - 1960. - No. 1.
• Zinoviev A. A. On the definition of the concept of connection // Questions of Philosophy. - 1960. - No. 8.
• Zinoviev A. A. On the basic concepts and principles of the logic of science // Logical structure of scientific knowledge. - M.: 1965.
• Zinoviev AA Philosophical problems of many-valued logic. - M., 1960.
• Zinoviev A. A. Propositional Logic and Inference Theory. - M., 1962.
• Zinoviev A. A. Fundamentals of the logical theory of scientific knowledge. - M., 1967.
• Zinoviev A. A. Essay on many-valued logic. - M., 1968.
• Zinoviev A. A. Logical consequence. - M., 1970.
• Zinoviev A. A. Complex logic. - M., 1970.
• Zinoviev A. A. Logic of science. - M., 1971.
• Zinoviev A. A. Logical physics. - M., 1972.
• Zinoviev A. A. Non-traditional theory of quantifiers. - M., 1973.
• Zinoviev A. A. Logic of classes (sets). - M., 1973.
• Zinoviev A. A. Essay on empirical geometry. - M., 1975.
• Zinoviev AA Complete induction and Fermat's Last Theorem. - 1979.
• Zinoviev A. A. Essays on complex logic. - M., 2000. - 560 p. - ISBN 5-8360-0125-1
• Zinoviev A. A. Ascent from the abstract to the concrete (on the material of K. Marx's Capital). - M., 2002. - 312 p. - ISBN 5-201-02089-5
• Zinoviev A. A. Logical sociology. - M.: Sotsium, 2006. - 260 p.

Sociological novels and short stories

• Yawning Heights (1976)
• Bright Future (1978)
• Notes of a Night Watchman (1979)
• On the Threshold of Paradise (1979)
• No Illusions (1979)