Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical
Page 55
In “The Education of Kira Argounova and Leo Kovalensky,” which constitutes chapter 4 of the expanded second edition of Robert Mayhew’s edited collection Essays on Ayn Rand’s “We the Living” (Mayhew 2012), Milgram (2012) focuses on the education received at Petrograd State University by two central characters in Rand’s first novel, We the Living.3 Many of the characters and events depicted in the novel were drawn from Rand’s personal experiences in the early days of Soviet communism; in the foreword to the 1959 edition of We the Living, Rand explains that the book “is as near to an autobiography as I will ever write” (We the Living, xviii).
In many ways, Milgram’s essay constitutes a simple thought experiment. She proposes various hypotheses about Rand’s education as alternatives to those offered by me—and by Rand herself—and thinks through some of the consequences. In my view, the experiment is unsuccessful.
It should be noted that Milgram largely confirms my findings. She points out, for instance, that the list of Rand’s university courses that I provide “correspond[s] to what can be found in the Ayn Rand Special Collections at the Ayn Rand Archives” (2012, 108n23).4 She states,
Chris Matthew Sciabarra has written two articles about the transcripts, the first based on a transcript that supplied only the names of courses, and the second incorporating information from additional transcripts [both of which now appear herein in the second expanded edition of Russian Radical—CMS].… He had previously written about Ayn Rand’s education in Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical … which contained information about [Professor Nicholas Onufrievich] Lossk[y]5 and speculations about his contact with, and impact on, the young Ayn Rand. His articles itemize the courses listed on the transcript; his articles and book offer information about the curriculum and the faculty, and attempt to explain the discrepancies between the information in Ayn Rand’s anecdote and the facts about Lossk[y]. His work refers to important sources of information about Russian universities (including Russka filosof, which provides information about the professors, the courses, and sometimes even the times and locations of classes and of the professors’ office hours) and about … Lossk[y] (including his … memoirs, some of his philosophical writings, and Bibliographie des oeuvres de Nicolas Lossky, established by his sons B. and N. Lossky …). Sciabarra was also in contact with Lossk[y]’s family and with [Helene] Sikorski, the sister of Vladimir Nabokov and of Ayn Rand’s childhood friend, Olga. (108 n. 23)
Milgram also mentions several of the professors whom I posited as possibly having been among Rand’s teachers, including N. A. Gredeskul, E. V. Tarle, Nikolai Ivanovich Kareev, and Lev Platonovich Karsavin (86). She quotes Rand as saying that many teachers “‘lectured from their own textbooks,’” and that many of them were “‘very good professors,’” but she provides no concrete evidence to confirm that Rand “attended mostly the seminars, not the lectures, and ‘took all the examinations from the textbooks’” (89). She does confirm, however, Rand’s accurate recollection of the required number of “Soviet subjects” she was compelled to take (94–95).
Milgram argues, however, that “[s]ome of [Sciabarra’s] conclusions are problematic” and that “the information needs to be checked for accuracy” (108 n. 23). Among the “problematic” conclusions that Milgram finds is my statement that the university courses that Rand attended were graded “pass-fail” during the period in question.6 She admits that my 2005 essay provides an analysis of a more detailed transcript, which includes differential grades of “satisfactory” or “very satisfactory” or “studied” or “received credit for” or “fulfilled the requirements of” the examinations and/or courses Rand took (109 n. 23). But she tells us that Rand had never claimed to have graduated “with the highest honors,” and that this claim, found only in Barbara Branden’s 1986 biography, The Passion of Ayn Rand, is itself undocumented. It appears nowhere in any of the original 1960–61 biographical interviews conducted by Nathaniel Branden and Barbara Branden. “Given that there is no evidence that [Rand] made such a claim (and that the book The Passion of Ayn Rand, which does not identify all of its sources, does not in fact state that Ayn Rand was the source of the information),” Milgram argues, “there is no claim to confirm. Ayn Rand did, to be sure, say that she had received the highest grade on her ancient philosophy exam; that assertion is confirmed by the transcript” (108 n. 23).
Milgram retains unimpeded access to Rand’s biographical interviews and other primary sources, both oral and written, in the Ayn Rand Archives, which, because of a highly restrictive access policy, have not been made available to independent scholars.7 This is not an incidental issue. The biographical interviews were the basis not only of Branden’s 1986 biography—whose accuracy Milgram questions—but of the only authorized “biographical essay,” entitled “Who Is Ayn Rand?,” published as part of the 1962 book Who Is Ayn Rand? It is extremely significant that the story about Lossky was first mentioned in that 1962 book, which was among those works by Nathaniel Branden and Barbara Branden that Rand never repudiated even after her bitter 1968 break with them. Rand herself continued to endorse and sanction that 1962 work as among “the only authentic sources of information on Objectivism,” which were
my own works (books, articles, lectures), the articles appearing in and the pamphlets reprinted by this magazine (The Objectivist, as well as The Objectivist Newsletter), books by other authors which will be endorsed in this magazine as specifically Objectivist literature, and such individual lectures or lecture courses as may be so endorsed. (This list includes also the book Who Is Ayn Rand? by Nathaniel Branden and Barbara Branden, as well as the articles by these two authors which have appeared in this magazine in the past, but does not include their future works.)8
That Rand gave her imprimatur to Who Is Ayn Rand? as an “authentic” source is highly significant to the issue of Lossky. I think it is fair to assume that Rand was a compulsively careful writer who would not have allowed the publication of information that was historically suspect to appear in the only authorized biography written and published during her lifetime.
And it is on the Lossky issue that Milgram parts company—not only with me, but with Rand herself.
Milgram begins her discussion of the Lossky case by acknowledging the controversy surrounding it, though she does not acknowledge explicitly that the controversy itself was brought about by questions initially raised by me in this book. Milgram tells us that Rand received an exam grade of “highly satisfactory,” but that the transcript “signature is an illegible scrawl” (89). She confirms what I’ve reported in my post–Russian Radical studies: “The dating of the exam signatures does not mean that she took the course (or even the exam) at or around the time indicated. She states that she took the course in her first year, 1921–1922, and a course listed seventh would belong to the first of three years, assuming that the courses are listed in approximate order. The title of the course appears to be a new version of the traditional title, “Istoriâî drevneî filosofii” (History of Ancient Philosophy), under which the course appears in earlier years” (106 n. 12).
But the new course title is significant; it is “History of Worldviews (Ancient Period).” As I have stated in “The Rand Transcript,” Lossky published a 1924 article on “Types of Worldviews,” which surveyed the ancients to the moderns. The article was subsequently expanded into an eighty-four-page monograph of the same title. The initial essay would have been published within a year and a half of his having taught a course that used the very same name, “Worldviews,” in place of the traditional terminology.
Milgram quotes Rand as saying that her study of Plato and Aristotle was “very detailed” in this course. “‘And there … the equivalent of a semester was the whole year, from Fall to Spring. So it was a very good and difficult detailed course, because we really had to know them thoroughly’” (89; ellipses in text). On this point, Milgram emphasizes that because “records of the course as offered in most years for which records exist” show that it “was a full-ye
ar course,” Lossky could not have possibly been its teacher, since he was quite ill in the first half of the academic year. It’s not clear from the Rand quotation, however, that Rand herself remembered the course as having lasted literally for a full academic year—or, alternatively, as being a difficult and detailed course that squeezed the “equivalent” of a year’s worth of study into a single semester. In any event, there is nothing in the transcript to suggest that the course lasted for anything more than a single semester, and since its listing as Course #7 on the Rand transcript suggests a Spring 1922 placement, Lossky would have been well enough to teach it.
Milgram argues, however, that the most likely teacher of Course #7 was Aleksandr Ivanovich Vvedensky. (As I’ve remarked, Rand may indeed have studied with Vvedensky, but, as chair of the Philosophy Department, he was most likely the teacher of Course #4 in Logic.) Milgram confirms the evidence I presented (in “The Rand Transcript,” 460 n. 10, in this edition) that Vvedensky taught a course on the “History of Ancient Philosophy” variously from 1896 to 1918, but she offers no evidence that he was the teacher of the newly titled 1922 course. She remarks that Wilhelm Windelband’s History of Ancient Philosophy, translated by Vvedensky, may have been used as a supplementary text, but this does little to bolster her case. Lossky himself studied with Windelband and learned much about philosophic integration from his teacher. He would have been just as likely as Vvedensky to assign supplementary reading from Windelband.
And the records of the “History of Ancient Philosophy” course that Milgram herself cites offer no conclusive evidence with regard to the length of that course. For example, in 1909–10, Milgram says, Vvedensky taught “History of Ancient Philosophy” for “four hours per week for the full year,” while in 1907–8 the course was “offered … in the fall semester only, for six hours per week” (109 n. 23). So this course was not always taught for a full academic year, and there is no record of it having been taught by Vvedensky with the Lossky-ian title of “History of Worldviews,” the precise name of the course found in the Rand transcript.
Milgram digs deeper, however. She unearths a number of texts from the period, including a 1911–12 book by Vvedensky on ancient philosophy, featuring detailed treatments of Plato and Aristotle. Key to Milgram’s positing of Vvedensky as the possible teacher of the course is the fact that Rand recalled her professor as “‘a famous Platonist, … and … an international authority on Plato’” (quoted by Milgram 2012, 92). For Milgram, this is “a fact, moreover, that is pertinent to the story” (109 n. 23). Milgram then proceeds to designate Vvedensky as “an internationally known Platonist” (93). To the contrary, Vvedensky was, if anything, an internationally known Russian idealist philosopher and psychologist, who was a “major representative of Russian neo-Kantianism” (GSE, vol. 4, 1974, 647). There is nothing that I have found in the literature to identify Vvedensky as a famous Platonist. As Evthuhov (1995, 245) stresses, “Vvedensky (1856–1925) is practically identified with Russian academic Neo-Kantianism at the turn of the century; his interpretation of Kant was immensely influential for an entire generation of students.” His interpretation of Kant, “presented to his many admiring students … [in] his lectures … [, was] the key to [his] influence and importance,” and, no doubt, contributed to his own antipathy to Lossky, one of his celebrated students, who took issue with much of the Kantian turn in Vvedensky’s work. Milgram acknowledges the rocky relationship between Lossky and Vvedensky.9
In the end, however, Milgram must confront the reality of Ayn Rand’s naming of Lossky as the teacher of the course in question. Milgram’s discussion is worth quoting at length:
There remains the question of why Ayn Rand mentioned Lossk[y]’s name (saying that she was certain about the last name, though not the first). She had an excellent memory in many respects; she did not, however, always retain names. When she was interviewed by Mademoiselle (for “Disturber of the Peace: Ayn Rand,” an article published in May 1962, 172–173, 194–196) she did not recall the name of Maurice Champagne, the author of La Vallée Mystérieuse, the adventure novel she read in childhood that greatly impressed her and that provided her first glimpse of a literary hero.
There is no indication that she had tried, over the years, to remember the name of the professor. Judging from the questions she was asked in the interview, she had previously referred to him only as “the Platonist professor.” The name Lossk[y], however, was familiar to her from her attendance at the Stoiunin Gymnasium, founded by his in-laws, and located on the lower floors of the building where Lossk[y] and his family lived. Her association with this gymnasium can be traced through her memory of studying there along with Olga, sister of Vladimir Nabokov, and can also be confirmed by a letter of January 2, 1927, from Ayn Rand’s mother (Carton no. 062, Ayn Rand Papers, Ayn Rand Archives), mentioning someone who knew her daughter at Stoiunin, and who sends regards.10 …
She had also seen Lossk[y]’s name in print. In the biographical interview, she comments: “I have even seen books by him [the man she believed was her former professor] advertised here in the New York Times Book Review, translated.” Lossk[y]’s History of Russian Philosophy (New York, International Universities Press, 1951) was reviewed in the New York Times Book Review by Sidney Hook (December 9, 1951). I believe that seeing the review may have led her to substitute a name she had seen in print for the name of her actual professor.…
It is more likely that she substituted a name she had seen recently for a name she had not heard or thought of for nearly four decades. (109–10 n. 23; bracketed material added by Milgram)
So, in a nutshell, here is Milgram’s case: We can trust Rand’s remarkable memory of her years at the Stoiunin gymnasium, when she was twelve—and her interactions with her Stoiunin classmate Olga Nabokov, in a school run by Lossky’s in-laws and in which he taught. We can trust Rand’s remarkable memory of the number of required “Soviet subjects” that she was compelled to take at Petrograd State University. We can trust Rand’s remarkable memory of the course she took on the “History of Worldviews” in the ancient period. We can trust Rand’s remarkable memory of having scored a “highly satisfactory” grade in that course on the “History of Worldviews (Ancient Period).” But we cannot trust Rand’s remarkable memory of Lossky himself, the man who most likely taught that 1922 course, when Rand was seventeen—not just because of the possible discrepancies that my own work uncovered (and with which I’ve dealt thoroughly in this book), but because Rand once could not recall the name of the author of The Mysterious Valley, a book she read in 1914, when she was nine.
Milgram introduces a significant element of uncertainty into the way future scholars might begin to assess the accuracy of Rand’s recollections expressed in her own biographical interviews. Yes, of course Rand was not omniscient. Yes, of course she could have been mistaken. But the evidence that Milgram offers here as a counterpoint to Rand’s memory is thin, at best. In my view, it fails to undermine Rand’s testimony—or, by extension, my arguments.11
In the end, however, whether Ayn Rand studied with Lossky or not, the evidence shows that she was exposed to the very context-sensitive dialectical methods, in her university courses and in her texts, that she would ultimately master. These methods helped her to critically overturn so much of the substantive content of her Russian schooling and life experience in pursuit of a philosophic system that celebrated human reason, individualism, and freedom.
NOTES
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
1. Various reviews of Russian Radical and author responses are indexed online at http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sciabarra/rad/randrevus.html. Chief among these is Sciabarra 1997.
2. Among these are Bell-Villada 2014, forthcoming; Branden 2009; Burns 2009; Cookinham 2005; Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism 2012; Gladstein 2010; Gotthelf 2000; Gotthelf and Lennox 2011, 2013; Harriman 2010; Heller 2009; Machan 2000, 2005; Mayhew 2005, 2007, 2009, 2012; Merrill and Enright 2013; McConnell 2010; Peikoff 2012a, 2012b; Sciabarr
a [1996] 1999, 2003a, 2005a; Smith 2006; Thomas 2005; and Younkins 2007.
3. The cinematic impact can be measured in dramatizations and documentaries. Atlas Shrugged is a three-part cinematic treatment of Rand’s 1957 novel, roughly corresponding to the three parts of the book. Part I was released in April 2011, directed by Paul Johansson, produced by John Aglialoro and Harmon Kaslow for The Strike Productions, and distributed by Rocky Mountain Pictures and 20th Century Fox. Part II was released in October 2012, directed by John Putch, produced by Harmon Kaslow, John Aglialoro, and Jeff Freilich for Either Or Productions, distributed by Atlas Distribution Company. Part III is slated for release on 4 July 2014; it is being produced by John Aglialoro and Harmon Kaslow. Among the documentaries on Rand are Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life, a 1997 Oscar-nominated film written, produced, and directed by Michael Paxton and distributed by Strand Releasing (and in which I am listed as a “Research Assistant” for having provided A. G. Media with a very limited amount of material on Rand’s education in Russia, including a photograph of N. O. Lossky that his son Boris authorized for use in the film); Ayn Rand: In Her Own Words, a 2011 film produced and directed by John Little and Robert Anderson for Northern River Productions Canada and Entertainment One U.S. LP; Ayn Rand and the Prophecy of “Atlas Shrugged,” a 2012 film written, produced and directed by Chris Mortensen for Virgil Films; and The Birth of Objectivism, a multivolume series of the Objectivist History Project, produced by the Atlas Society and Duncan Scott Productions, Inc.
4. While President Obama’s opposition to Rand is well-known, not many people appreciate the inherent opposition between Rand and one of her defenders, GOP 2012 vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan. I agree with Burns 2012a that Rand would not have approved of the narrow ways in which her work has been appropriated by conservatives like Ryan.