From Aristotole, Through Ibn Sīnā and Ibn Rushd to Dialectical Materialism : Soviet Approaches Towards the History of Medieval Philosophy in the 1950s and 1960s

The publication of Orest Traxtenberg's Studies on the History of Western European Medieval Philosophy (1957) is generally accepted as the date of birth of the Soviet historiography of medieval philosophy. The aim of this article is to outline, starting from the publication of Traxtenberg's Studies, the way in which the Soviet canon in the study of medieval, including Arabic, philosophy was constructed in the 1950s-'60s. In addition, the birth of Soviet philosophical Mediaevistik is discussed in the article in the perspective the fight between Neo-Thomism and Marxism-Leninism that was taking part in the 1950s on both historiographical and doctrinal levels. [Publishers' text].