Ivan Kapitonovich Luppol

Born Jan. 1 (13), 1896; died May 26, 1943. Soviet philosopher. Member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1939). Became a member of the CPSU in 1920.

Luppol was born in Rostov-on-Don. He graduated from the department of law of Moscow University (1919) and the Institute of the Red Professors (1932). He worked in the Marx-Engels Institute in 1924, became a philosophy professor at Moscow State University (1925-31) and the Institute of the Red Professors (1925-38), and served as director of the M. Gorky Institute of World Literature (1935-40). His main works are in the history of philosophy, aesthetics, and literature.

Luppol was one of the first researchers to work on the philosophical legacy of V. I. Lenin (Lenin and Philosophy, 1927; 3rd ed., 1930). He took an active part in the philosophical discussions of the 1920’s and 1930’s and protested attempts to debase Marxist philosophy (“On Two Fronts,” 1930). Luppol also wrote articles on the works of A. N. Radishchev, I. P. Pnin, A. S. Pushkin, L. N. Tolstoy, M. Gorky, V. V. Mayakovsky, J. W. Goethe, P. Beranger, H. Heine, and A. France. He edited the works of D. Diderot, J. O. La Mettrie, P. Beranger, A. N. Radishchev, and H. Heine.