The Presidential Library’s video lecture revealed the role of Lev Gumilyov in Russian culture

On October 4, 2022 the Presidential Library hosted the video lecture “L. N. Gumilyov: “…in someone else’s words of someone else’s day” marking the 110th anniversary since the birth of Lev Nikolayevich Gumilyov within the project “Knowledge of Russia”.

L. N. Gumilyov (1912–1992) was a remarkable Soviet scientist and thinker, historiosopher, geographer, orientalist, ethnologist, founder of the passionate theory of ethnogenesis, explaining the reasons behind the emergence and change of ethnic groups.

The scientist’s works are in high demand and are extremely popular among wide range of readers.

Son of the famous poets Nikolai Gumilyov and Anna Akhmatova, Lev Gumilyov had an idea of the irrational driving force of history – vital energy, the strive for active work, which moved great people. He called this natural force “passionarity”, from the Latin “passio” meaning “passion”.

In the late 1980s, Gumilyov became widely known. He was elected an academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, being a brilliant lecturer and educator, appeared on television, published books.

Among the scientific works of Lev Gumilyov, the book “From Rus to Russia”, written in 1992, is of special significance. It became the result of the scientist’s comprehension of the dynamics of the historical process, the development of the passionarity theory, the author’s approach to the fatherland’s past. This book has been discussed in a lecture of Docent of the Department of Theory and History of Culture of the Institute of Philosophy of the Herzen University, Candidate of Cultural Studies, authoritative researcher of the ideological legacy of L. N. Gumilyov Alexei Bondarev.

The video recording of the event is available on the institution’s Rutube-channel.

The Presidential Library regularly hosts interactive lessons and video lectures. Additional information is available on the institution’s portal in Multimedia Lessons section and Video Lectures for School section, which features the recordings of past lectures and open lessons held in the Presidential Library.