I looked this up because it sounded so made up but apparently it’s real
He arrived in Moscow in September 1935 and stayed “in the rooms which Napoleon had in 1812.” There he met with Sophia Janovskaya, professor of mathematical logic, who helped secure him offers to teach philosophy at Kazan or Moscow University. He was also shown around Leningrad, where his appeals to get manual work were rejected by party officials. It became apparent that outside of a teaching position, there would be no work for him.
Honestly? Sad turn of events in history. I’m not trying to “Great Man Theory” this, but Wittgenstein’s enduring legacy in Philosophy and Linguistics is incredible. Someon like that “defecting” to the USSR might have attracted others due to his sheer brilliance if nothing else, and resulted in a remarkably different Soviet intellectual climate. I treasure the Soviet Unions achievements in science and political struggle, but you know, critical support and all. I wonder if a school of truly international socialist intellectuals would have influenced the shape of history in a positive way. Maybe it would be doomed to fail, but what might have been if they’d moved there and thrived? What would the West look like if it lost some of it’s best the other direction? Would left-anti-communism have become such a force if the people propagating it had actually been there to see the reality, or help construct an alternative series of events? Just interesting to think about.
At least USSR got Stefan Cohn-Vossen. Sadly, he contracted pneumonia after a couple of years and died soon, but he made a significant contribution to the formation of Soviet school of geometry.
I looked this up because it sounded so made up but apparently it’s real
Honestly? Sad turn of events in history. I’m not trying to “Great Man Theory” this, but Wittgenstein’s enduring legacy in Philosophy and Linguistics is incredible. Someon like that “defecting” to the USSR might have attracted others due to his sheer brilliance if nothing else, and resulted in a remarkably different Soviet intellectual climate. I treasure the Soviet Unions achievements in science and political struggle, but you know, critical support and all. I wonder if a school of truly international socialist intellectuals would have influenced the shape of history in a positive way. Maybe it would be doomed to fail, but what might have been if they’d moved there and thrived? What would the West look like if it lost some of it’s best the other direction? Would left-anti-communism have become such a force if the people propagating it had actually been there to see the reality, or help construct an alternative series of events? Just interesting to think about.
At least USSR got Stefan Cohn-Vossen. Sadly, he contracted pneumonia after a couple of years and died soon, but he made a significant contribution to the formation of Soviet school of geometry.
From each their ability, to each their needs