A letter to the President of Humboldt University

Dear Sabine Kunst,

I hope that you will read 'The Phaedrus and the Charmides – Plato in Athens 405-404', which I enclose in the Attachment. 

I hoped against hope that the article would be published in the forthcoming Winter edition of History of Political Thought. My hopes were dashed. On Dec. 20, there appeared an addition at the bottom of the first page of the proofs: HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT. Vol. ????. No. ?. ?????????.  

The addition with its question-marks is worth seeing against the background of Barry O’Brien’s ‘Philosophers in knots over Dr Tomin’s Plato thesis’ (The Daily Telegraph, August 25, 1988): ‘A leading scholar responded yesterday to complaints by Dr Julius Tomin, the Czech dissident philosopher, that he cannot get his controversial work on Plato published in Britain. “He holds that the Phaedrus is Plato’s first dialogue, which is contrary to the beliefs of pretty well all scholars in the field in this century,” said Dr David Sedley, editor of Classical Quarterly, and director of studies in classics at Christ’s College in Cambridge. “He is extremely ingenious in his use of arguments, but he has not yet made out the kind of case that people are going to be able to take seriously.’ 

I believe that no one, who will read 'The Phaedrus and the Charmides – Plato in Athens 405-404', will be able not to take my views on Plato seriously. May I hope to be allowed to present it at Humboldt University? 

With best wishes,

Julius Tomin

PS – for your information

In Prague, in 1997 the first International Plato Symposium took place, and the Czech Plato Society was established. The Symposium was devoted to The Republic and the Laws of Plato.  In my contribution ‘Joining the beginning to the end’ I interpreted the Laws on the basis of the ancient tradition, according to which the Phaedrus was Plato’s first dialogue, written during Socrates’ lifetime. In 1998, at the end of the first Czech Symposium, which was devoted to Plato’s Lysis, the Members of the society decided that the theme of the next but one International Symposium should be the Phaedrus. But in 1999, at the next International Symposium, devoted to Plato’s Phaedo, this decision was overturned.

I was later informed that the international participants confronted the leading Members of the Czech Plato Society with a dilemma: if they persisted in having the Phaedrus as the theme for the next International Symposium, all foreign financial support would be withdrawn from the Czech Plato Society.

In the Preface to Plato’s Phaedo the leading Members of the Czech Plato Society write: ‘We would like to offer our warm thanks to the Deutsch-Tschechischer Zukunftsfonds which take over the sponsorship of the symposium.’

You may ask why ‘I was later informed … ‘? Why did not I ask there and then? But I did ask there and then; but the President, Aleš Havlíček, began to reply in Czech. I interfered: ‘In English, please, so that everybody can understand.’ He began again in Czech. I stopped him again: ‘In English, please!’ He sat down. No explanation was given.

 

Putin, Muratov, and Shinkaruk

This afternoon I heard on BBC that Muratov, the chief editor of Novaya Gazeta was awarded a Nobel prise. I googled Novaya Gazeta; I’ve found it informative, a better read than Izvestia. I found there a reference to Putin congratulating Muratov for his winning the Nobel prise. I looked up the article. It was not complimentary; Putin discussed Muratov’s Nobel prise against the background of Berdyaev’s – a Russian existentialist philosopher – never obtaining it.

Putin’s knowledgeable reference to Berdyaev brought me back for more than forty years, to Czechoslovakia of 1967. At the Hegelian congress, which took place in Prague, I asked Shinkaruk, a participant from Kiev University, whether people in the Soviet Union read Solovyov and Berdyaev. He replied ‘More than Lenin and Marks.’

Incredible? I must explain. Shinkaruk wrote a book on Hegel, and he wrote an interesting paper on Hegel for the conference, in German, but he didn’t trust himself to read it for the conference. He asked me for help, and I read his paper at his request. Then I interpreted Shinkaruk’s discussion with the West German philosophers, who tried their best to denigrate him: ‘How could a Soviet philosopher pretend to understand Hegel?’ I interpreted the discussion with gusto; Shinkaruk was well versed in Hegel.

Delighted, Shinkaruk wanted to donate me a bottle of vodka. I told him that I was deeply offended, and that there was only one way he could make it right: ‘If we drink the bottle together.’

He invited me to his room in a hotel somewhere on the outskirts of Prague. In the end we drank two and a half bottles of vodka. It was in the course of that evening that I asked Shinkaruk my question concerning Solovyov and Berdyaev.

I met Shinkaruk once again, twenty years later, in Brighton, at the World Congress of Philosophical Societies. I attended the Congress as an unemployed philosopher, Shinkaruk as the Head of the delegation of Soviet Philosophers. I interpreted for him again, this time in Russian-English; I interpreted his discussion with the Mayor of Brighton.

I would like to know what happened to Shinkaruk; what happened to him when the Soviet Union disintegrated? In our long discussion I asked him about Ukraine and Russia. He said: ‘If I were not a Communist, I would fight the Russians.’

Can someone inform me about him?