Vasily Rozanov

Who was Vasily Rozanov?

Vasily Vasilievich Rozanov was one of the most controversial Russian writers and philosophers of the pre-revolutionary epoch. His views have been termed the "religion of procreation", as he tried to reconcile Christian teachings with ideas of healthy sex and family life and not, as his adversary Nikolai Berdyaev put it, "to set up sex in opposition to the Word". Because of phallic notions in his writings, Klaus von Beyme called him the Rasputin of the Russian intelligence.

Rozanov's mature works are deeply personal diaries, which contain his intimate thoughts, impromptu lines, unfinished maxims, vivid aphorisms, reminiscences, and short essays. These collections, attempting to recreate intonations of spoken speech, form a loosely-connected trilogy: Solitaria, and the two-volume Fallen Leaves.

Rozanov frequently referred to himself as Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Underground Man, and proclaimed his right to espouse contrary opinions at the same time. He first attracted attention in the 1890s when he published political sketches in the conservative newspaper Novoye Vremya, owned and run by Aleksey Suvorin. His comments, always paradoxical and sparking controversy, would lead him to clashes with radicals and the Tsarist government alike.