LEV SHESTOV, pseud. of Lev Isaakovich Schwarzmann (1866-1938), was a Russian existentialist philosopher, known for his "Philosophy of Despair".  Although little known in the English-speaking world today, Shestov's work was admired and honored during his lifetime, influencing writers such as D.H. Lawrence, Albert Camus, Paul Celan, and Emil Cioran.

Shestov is known for his elegant and witty style, the range of his erudition and interests, and the trenchancy of his critique of rational speculation and systematic philosophy as modes of truth.  In ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE (1905), he adopted the aphoristic style of Nietzsche to investigate the difference between Russian and European Literature.  Although on the surface it is an exploration of numerous intellectual topics, at its base it is a sardonic work of existentialist philosophy which both criticizes and satirizes our fundamental attitudes towards life situations.  Shestov deals with key issues such as religion, rationalism, and science in this highly approachable work, topics he would also examine in later writings such as IN JOB'S BALANCES (1929), a collection of essays on Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Blaise Pascal, Descartes, Plotinus and Spinoza.

KIERKEGAARD AND EXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHY (1938) is an account of the author's "struggle with Kierkegaard" which spanned a decade and fuelled some of Shestov's most uncompromising insights into the nature of faith as source of life, insisting on the absoluteness and incomprehensibility of God through reason.  His notion of faith and God can be seen as a crucial bridge from Kierkegaard’s religious existentialism, which enabled man to connect to the Judeo-Christian God, to the interwar existentialism of figures like Heidegger, Sartre, and Camus, for whom there was no God to turn to.

ATHENS AND JERUSALEM (1937), written over a period of 20 years, is his crowning achievement -- a critical overview of the history of Western philosophy from the standpoint of Shestov's vision of the destructive bondage that rationalist thought imposes on human spirit.


The following books are in PDF format:

* All Things Are Possible (McBride, 1921).  S. Koteliansky, trans.
* Anton Chekhov & Other Essays (Maunsel, 1916).  S. Koteliansky & J.M. Murry, trans.
* Athens and Jerusalem (Ohio, 1966).  Bernard Martin, trans.
* In Job's Balances (Ohio, 1975).  Camilla Coventry and C.A. Macartney, trans.
* Kierkegaard and the Existential Philosophy (Ohio, 1969).  Elinor Hewitt, trans.

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