Aleksei Solonovich

Aleksei Aleksandrovich Solonovich (Russian: Алексей Александрович Солонович; 23 October 1887 – 4 March 1937) was a Russian mathematician, philosopher, and esotericist who became the chief ideologist of the mystical anarchist movement in the Soviet Union during the 1920s and 1930s. Together with Apollon Karelin he co‑created the underground “Order of Light” (also known as the Eastern Detachment of the Templars of the World Order of Templars), and after Karelin’s death he assumed leadership of the organisation. His magnum opus, Bakunin and the Cult of Yaldabaoth, was destroyed by the OGPU after his arrest, and his work remained largely forgotten until the 1990s.

Biography

Early life and education (1887–1914) Solonovich was born into a noble family in Kazimierz, Lublin Governorate (then part of the Russian Empire). He studied physics and mathematics at Moscow State University, where he became acquainted with Gnostic literature and radical political ideas. Between 1919 and 1921 he took part in the “Free Commonwealth of Spiritual Currents”, where he publicly criticised both Marxism and anthroposophy. After Karelin’s death in 1926, Solonovich became the central figure of Russian mystical anarchism and was recognised as the “undisputed leader” of the movement. According to the testimony of D. A. Bem, Solonovich was also one of the co‑organisers of an émigré “branch” of mystical anarchism in the United States. His wife Agnila was shot later the same year. In a lecture series entitled “Critique of Materialism”, he argued that matter‑atomistic conceptions cannot account for dialectical contradictions, because “one atomic combination cannot contradict another – that is nonsense”. Every particle of material reality emerges spontaneously and arbitrarily – in a word, anarchically. Physics (people of the flesh) are determined by corporeality, hunger, sensuality and fear of death. Their social forms are the family, the crowd and the mass. Psychics (people of the soul) are philosophers who rebel against the physic’s world and try to “tame” reality through institutions (science, law, the state). They correspond to Bakunin’s “thought”. Solonovich used 137 esoteric “legends” (which he probably wrote himself) to create a mythical genealogy linking the Order to Gnostic groups, the Bogomils, the Cathars, and a hidden tradition of “spiritual knights”. He called for the creation of a new anarchist knighthood that would fight in the “army of light” against the forces of darkness. The morality of the physic is instinct‑based. The morality of the psychic is grounded in personal sympathy. The morality of the pneumatic rests on suprapersonal love. Most of Solonovich’s other works survived only in manuscript form or as articles in émigré periodicals (Rassvet, Russkiy Vestnik – Rassvet, Probuzhdenie, Volna). The mathematician and philosopher Vasily Nalimov, a former initiate of the Order, also preserved and developed many of Solonovich’s ideas in his later works, such as The Tightrope Walker (1994). At the end of the 1990s, Aleksandr Khinevich, leader of the Church of Ynglings, published a collection of allegedly ancient “Slavo‑Aryan Vedas” that includes several legends that Nikitin had identified as Solonovich’s own compositions. According to recent research, the movement reveals a “longue‑durée perspective on Russian New Age” and shows that post‑Soviet esotericism has deep roots in the early‑20th‑century underground.

Selected works 1914 – Wanderings of the Spirit (Skitaniia dukha). Moscow: Sfinks. 1924 – “Anarchism and Socialism” (Anarkhizm i sotsializm). Volna, No. 50, pp. 16–26. 1926 – “Magi and Forerunners” (Volkhy i predtechi). Russkiy Vestnik – Rassvet, No. 156–157. 1927–28 – “Person and Society” (Lichnost' i obshchestvo). Probuzhdenie: No. 3–4 (1927), No. 6 (1928). 1927 – “Philosophy of Culture” (Filosofiia kul'tury). Probuzhdenie, No. 2, pp. 26–37. 1928 – “The Philosophical Premises of P. A. Kropotkin’s Teaching”. Probuzhdenie, No. 8, pp. 28–46. 1930 – “The Worker’s Task” (Zadacha rabochego). Rassvet, No. 14(182), p. 2. n.d. – Critique of Materialism (2nd philosophy lecture series) – published in Nikitin (2003), Vol. 3, pp. 443–514. n.d. – Christ and Christianity – manuscript, RGALI 122/2/2.