This book provides the first detailed study in English of the religious philosophy of Vasilii Rozanov, one of the most influential and controversial thinkers of Russia's Silver Age. It examines his subversion of traditional Russian Orthodoxy, including his reverence for the Creation, his focus on the family, and his worship of sex. Rozanov is one of the towering figures of Russian culture, a major influence on thinkers and writers such as Bakhtin, Maiakovskii, and Mandel ́shtam, as well as many European writers. He critiqued Orthodox theology, and wrote extensively on philosophy, literature, and politics, and helped reform marriage and divorce laws. His enormous contribution to Russian thought has been largely neglected, and much of his work has been misunderstood. Ure addresses this by examining the basis of Rozanov's religious philosophy, the Creation of the Earth and the Book of Genesis.

This thesis will examine the Creation of the world as the referential event in Vasilii Rozanov's religious thought. The first chapter explores Rozanov's rejection of Orthodoxy's formal doctrines, in favour of a philosophy based on man's physical ties with God. Rozanov's God is bisexual, whose creation of the cosmos is a sexual event. Man is linked to God not through Christ (a created being), but biologically, and by his bodily activity which repeats the Creation. Rozanov subverts the eschatology of Orthodoxy, replacing it with an attachment to the material world. The subsequent chapters examine the implications of Rozanov's thought for his Christianity, and specifically the manner in which he tries to make ancient values relevant in contemporary Russian society. The second chapter investigates Rozanov's studies of ancient Egypt. Rozanov tries to restore Egyptian religious practices, in particular their reverence for the Creation. The third chapter turns to Rozanov's writings on the Jews. He believes that the Jews have preserved the rituals they learned from the Egyptians, and therefore can provide a connection between the Russians and pre-Christian civilizations. The final chapter looks at the role played by art, specifically literature, in the restoration of pre-Christian values for Rozanov, arguing that his aesthetics are ethical and based on his interpretation of the Creation. Writing re-enacts the Creation. This thesis argues that Rozanov's thought emerges from the traditions of Russian philosophy, and also from traditional Russian Orthodoxy; in many ways he is a typical Russian thinker, as well as a devout Orthodox believer. Having assumed these traditions, he proceeds to define his thought in opposition to them. This thesis will also illuminate the broader tendencies in the development of Russian thought at this time, and the way Russian thinkers engaged with the established religious teachings of the Church.

"Eros and Creativity in Russian Religious Renewal" explores a tradition of sublimation and the theories of creativity in works of the four greatest Russian religious thinkers: Solovyov, Rozanov, Berdyaev and Vysheslatsev. Crone's study adds what is missing to the few books that currently exist about the use of psychoanalysis in Russia. It shows how the sexual theories of creativity /sublimation of Solovyov and Rozanov led to the concepts of Berdyaev and Vysheslatsev.

‘Bakhtin and his Others’ aims to develop an understanding of Mikhail Bakhtin’s ideas through a contextual approach, particularly with a focus on Bakhtin studies from the 1990s onward. The volume offers fresh theoretical insights into Bakhtin’s ideas on (inter)subjectivity and temporality – including his concepts of chronotope and literary polyphony – by reconsidering his ideas in relation to the sources he employs, and taking into account later research on similar topics. The case studies show how Bakhtin's ideas, when seen in light of this approach, can be constructively employed in contemporary literary research.