Ilya Dementev
@kantiana.ru
Institute for the Humanities
Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University
RESEARCH, TEACHING, or OTHER INTERESTS
History, Multidisciplinary
Scopus Publications
Scopus Publications
Ilya O. Dementev
Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University
The article explores the biography of Professor Paul Henry Gerber (1863-1919), a bright representative of the intellectual elite of Königsberg at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. A native of the capital of the German province East Prussia, he was an outstanding otorhinolaryngologist, a lecturer at the University of Königsberg, as well as an original poet and publicist. The study, based on biographical and narrative methods, reveals the main stages of Gerber’s life, and clarifies the dating of its most important events. The author comments the Gerber’s most significant works, including scholarly publications on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johann Wolfgang Goethe (the article briefly covers subsequent scholarly controversy surrounding the article on Mozart’s ear). Some of Gerber’s scholarly and popular texts are quoted, reflecting both his varied interests and the specificity of his literary style. Based on the materials of address books of Königsberg the article reconstructs the addresses of Gerber’s residence and work as well as the current state of the places connected with the biography of the outstanding citizen of Königsberg (the house where Gerber lived in the last years of his life has been preserved and included in the register of cultural heritage objects in contemporary Kaliningrad, but the memory of the famous tenant is not commemorated there). The author describes the research perspectives related to further study of the integration of medical and literary discourses.
I. О. Dementev
Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University
In 1836, Peter Chaadaev in his private letter to Alexander Turgenev mentioned that the French thinker Alexis de Tocqueville had stolen from him a “deep thought” that the point of departure of peoples determined their fate. Russian and foreign scholars interpreted these words differently, trying to assess the seriousness of Chaadaev’s reproach. The article explores the history of the expression ‘le point de départ’ and the use of it in the works by Tocqueville (“Democracy in America”) and Chaadaev (“Philosophical Letters”, “Apology of a Madman”). The author argues that the concept of the ‘point of departure’, which had special significance for Tocqueville, was also important for Chaadaev, who used this phrase in different contexts. Having compared Russian translations of the texts by Tocqueville and Chaadaev, the author concludes that although the translators used different strategies to convey the meaning of the phrase in Russian, in all cases, to a greater or lesser extent, there was a threat of violation of the intentions of both authors. Based on the analysis of the word usage in the texts of both thinkers, the author suggests a number of recommendations aimed to clarify the translations of Chaadaev and Tocqueville works into Russian. The article also notes possible sources of the image “the point of departure of peoples” in the text by Tocqueville (from François Guizot to American interlocutors).
and I. O. Dementev
Novosibirsk State University (NSU)
Ilya DEMENTEV
East View Information Services, Inc.
The paper analyses the content of the collective monograph ‘Human Sciences. The history of Disciplines’ (2015) in terms of contemporary approaches to the history of sciences. The article contains main theses of the authors of the monograph including interpretation of prehistory of humanitarian epistemology in Europe and the history of discipline building in sociohumanitarian knowledge in 18–21 centuries. The author gives characteristic to genealogy of the concept ‘human sciences’ (‘humanities’) and marks culturally determined differences in the classification of human and social sciences. The paper redefines the perspectives of further elaboration of the topic of the monograph in context of the analysis of such processes as globalisation, digitalisation and demodernisation of human sciences.