Another outlook on Russia. Letters from the "Russian Archive"

The article presents previously unpublished letters written by Andrzej Walicki (15.05.1930-21.08.2020), a worldly renowned Polish historian of Russian thought, to Professor Michael Maslin, the head of the Department of the History of Russian Philosophy at Lomonosov Moscow State University. Walicki's letters (1997-2019) together with books, articles and other materials formed his gift to the abovementioned Department. Walicki himself referred to these materials as "my small Russian archive". The letters are written in excellent Russian and require no additional revision or stylistic improvement. This publication retains the letters in their full originality including some phrases of Polish origin. These unique epistles reveal Walicki's individual creative worldview. The letters contain new information about the details of Walicki's biography and his work in Poland, Russia, USA, Great Britain, Japan, Australia. The letters provide a unique perspective on the "flow of ideas", which was Walicki's personal conception of understanding and interpretation of the Russian intellectual history from the Enlightenment through the Russian religious and philosophical Renaissance of the twentieth century. The letters discuss his interactions with Sergei Gessen, Isaiah Berlin, Leszhek Kolakowski, Czeslaw Milosz, George Kline, James Scanlan, Leonard Shapiro, Martin Malia, Richard Pipes, Nicholas Riasanovsky, James Billington etc. A special attention is paid to the critique of the Western and especially Polish Russophobia based on various superstitions and stereotypes about Russia as well on a lack of knowledge, various kinds of bias and blunders. Of considerable interest are Walitsky's expert assessments of the general state of the scientific historiography of Russian philosophy, its fundamental differences from Soviet dogmatic Marxism, of which the Polish scientist was a consistent critic.