L Batkin. Leonid Batkin. "Humanists and Rhetoric". Scientific and pedagogical activities

Leonid Mikhailovich Batkin(born June 29, Kharkov) - Russian historian and literary critic, cultural critic, public figure.

Education

He graduated from the Faculty of History of Kharkov State University in 1955, Candidate of Historical Sciences (1959, dissertation topic: “Dante and the political struggle in Florence at the end of the 13th - beginning of the 14th centuries).” Doctor of Historical Sciences (1992, based on a set of works on the topic “Italian Renaissance as a historical type of culture”).

Scientific and pedagogical activities

In 1956-1967 - teacher, associate professor, dismissed for “gross ideological mistakes,” including “propaganda of pure art and formalism.” During the Soviet period, he was not allowed to defend his doctoral dissertation.

Since 1968, he worked at the Institute of World History of the USSR Academy of Sciences: senior researcher, since 1992 - leading researcher. Since 1992, at the same time, chief researcher at the Institute of Higher Humanitarian Studies of the Russian State Humanitarian University (RGGU). Member of the Academic Council of the Russian State University for the Humanities. Member of the international editorial board of the magazine Arbor Mundi (“World Tree”), published at the Russian State University for the Humanities.

In 1987-1989, at the same time, he taught at the Moscow State Institute of History and Archives.

Specialist in the history and theory of culture, mainly of the Italian Renaissance. Areas of scientific research - Italian Renaissance as a special type of culture; the nature and limits of personal identity in European cultural history; methodology for studying individual and unique phenomena in the history of culture.

Full member of the American Academy for Renaissance Studies. Winner of the Culture Prize of the Council of Ministers of the Italian Republic (for a book about Leonardo da Vinci) (1989).

Social activity

In 1979 he was a participant in the samizdat literary almanac “Metropol”. In 1988-1991 he was one of the leaders of the Moscow Tribune club. In 1990-1992 he participated in the activities of the Democratic Russia movement. Compiler of the collection “Constitutional Ideas of Andrei Sakharov” (Moscow, 1991). In May 2010, he signed the appeal of the Russian opposition “Putin must leave.”

Adheres to liberal political views.

Awards

Winner of the Culture Prize of the Council of Ministers of the Italian Republic (for a book about Leonardo da Vinci) (1989)
Medal "In memory of the 850th anniversary of Moscow"

Scientific works

Monographs

in Russian

Batkin L. M. Dante and his time: Poet and politics. M.: Nauka, 1965. Ed. on it. language: 1970, 1979.
Batkin L. M. Italian humanists: lifestyle and style of thinking / Rep. ed. prof. M. V. Alpatov. - M.: Nauka, 1978. - 208 p. - (From the history of world culture). - 37,500 copies.(Edition in Italian 1990)
Batkin L. M. Italian Renaissance in search of individuality. - M.: Nauka, 1989.
Batkin L. M. Leonardo da Vinci and the features of Renaissance creative thinking. - M.: Art, 1990.
Batkin L. M. Renewing History: Reflections on Politics and Culture. - M.: Moscow worker, 1991.
Batkin L. M.“Don’t dream about yourself”: On the cultural and historical meaning of “I” in “Confession” by Bl. Augustine. - M.: RSUH, 1993.
Batkin L. M. Passions: Selected Essays and Articles on Culture. - M.: Kursiv-A LLP, 1994.
Batkin L. M. There's still a chance. - M.; Kharkov, 1995.
Batkin L. M. Petrarch at the tip of his own pen: Author’s self-awareness in the poet’s letters. - M.: RSUH, 1995.
Batkin L. M. Italian Renaissance: Problems and People. - M.: Publishing house of the Russian State University for the Humanities, 1995.
Batkin L. M. The thirty-third letter: Reader's notes on the margins of Joseph Brodsky's poems. - M.: RSUH, 1997.
Batkin L. M. European man alone with himself. Essays on the cultural-historical foundations and limits of personal identity: Augustine. Abelard. Eloise. Petrarch. Lorenzo the Magnificent. Machiavelli. M.: RSUH, 2000.
Batkin L. M. The personality and passions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. - M.: RSUH, 2012.

in other languages

Leonardo da Vinci. - Bari: Laterza, 1988.

Articles

Batkin L. M.// Knowledge is power . - 1989. - No. 3,4.

Write a review of the article "Batkin, Leonid Mikhailovich"

An excerpt characterizing Batkin, Leonid Mikhailovich

Thirdly, it was pointless to lose their troops to destroy the French armies, which were destroyed without external reasons in such a progression that without any blocking of the path they could not transfer across the border more than what they transferred in the month of December, that is, one hundredth of the entire army.
Fourthly, it was pointless to want to capture the emperor, kings, dukes - people whose captivity would greatly complicate the actions of the Russians, as the most skillful diplomats of that time admitted (J. Maistre and others). Even more senseless was the desire to take the French corps when their troops had melted halfway to Krasny, and convoy divisions had to be separated from the corps of prisoners, and when their soldiers did not always receive full provisions and the already taken prisoners were dying of hunger.
The entire thoughtful plan to cut off and catch Napoleon and his army was similar to the plan of a gardener who, driving cattle out of the garden that had trampled his ridges, would run to the gate and begin to beat this cattle on the head. One thing that could be said to justify the gardener would be that he was very angry. But this could not even be said about the drafters of the project, because they were not the ones who suffered from the trampled ridges.
But, besides the fact that cutting off Napoleon and the army was pointless, it was impossible.
This was impossible, firstly, because, since experience shows that the movement of columns over five miles in one battle never coincides with plans, the likelihood that Chichagov, Kutuzov and Wittgenstein would converge on time at the appointed place was so insignificant , that it amounted to impossibility, as Kutuzov thought, even when he received the plan, he said that sabotage over long distances does not bring the desired results.
Secondly, it was impossible because, in order to paralyze the force of inertia with which Napoleon’s army was moving back, it was necessary to have, without comparison, larger troops than those that the Russians had.
Thirdly, it was impossible because cutting off a military word has no meaning. You can cut off a piece of bread, but not an army. There is no way to cut off an army - to block its path, because there is always a lot of space around where you can go around, and there is night, during which nothing is visible, as military scientists could be convinced of, even from the examples of Krasny and Berezina. It is impossible to take prisoner without the person being taken prisoner agreeing to it, just as it is impossible to catch a swallow, although you can take it when it lands on your hand. You can take prisoner someone who surrenders, like the Germans, according to the rules of strategy and tactics. But the French troops, quite rightly, did not find this convenient, since the same hungry and cold death awaited them on the run and in captivity.
Fourthly, and most importantly, this was impossible because never since the world existed has there been a war under the terrible conditions under which it took place in 1812, and the Russian troops, in pursuit of the French, strained all their strength and did not could have done more without being destroyed themselves.
In the movement of the Russian army from Tarutino to Krasnoye, fifty thousand were left sick and backward, that is, a number equal to the population of a large provincial city. Half the people dropped out of the army without fighting.
And about this period of the campaign, when troops without boots and fur coats, with incomplete provisions, without vodka, spend the night for months in the snow and at fifteen degrees below zero; when there are only seven and eight hours of the day, and the rest is night, during which there can be no influence of discipline; when, not like in a battle, for a few hours only people are introduced into the realm of death, where there is no longer discipline, but when people live for months, every minute struggling with death from hunger and cold; when half the army dies in a month - historians tell us about this and that period of the campaign, how Miloradovich was supposed to make a flank march this way, and Tormasov there that way, and how Chichagov was supposed to move there that way (move above his knees in the snow), and how he knocked over and cut off, etc., etc.
The Russians, half dying, did everything that could be done and should have been done to achieve a goal worthy of the people, and they are not to blame for the fact that other Russian people, sitting in warm rooms, assumed to do what was impossible.
All this strange, now incomprehensible contradiction of fact with the description of history occurs only because the historians who wrote about this event wrote the history of the wonderful feelings and words of various generals, and not the history of events.
For them, the words of Miloradovich, the awards that this and that general received, and their assumptions seem very interesting; and the question of those fifty thousand who remained in hospitals and graves does not even interest them, because it is not subject to their study.
Meanwhile, you just have to turn away from studying reports and general plans, and delve into the movement of those hundreds of thousands of people who took a direct, immediate part in the event, and all the questions that previously seemed insoluble suddenly, with extraordinary ease and simplicity, receive an undoubted solution.
The goal of cutting off Napoleon and his army never existed except in the imagination of a dozen people. It could not exist because it was meaningless and achieving it was impossible.
The people had one goal: to cleanse their land from invasion. This goal was achieved, firstly, by itself, since the French fled, and therefore it was only necessary not to stop this movement. Secondly, this goal was achieved by the actions of the people's war, which destroyed the French, and, thirdly, by the fact that a large Russian army followed the French, ready to use force if the French movement was stopped.

L. M. Batkin 1
ON THE WAY TO THE CONCEPT OF PERSONALITY

(abbreviated)

It is generally accepted that the Renaissance - and, in particular, Castiglione in his dialogues on “The Courtier” - put forward the ideal of a versatile and harmonious personality. This is highly inaccurate. Italians of the 16th century They had not yet used such familiar words personalitaў and individualitaў and were not familiar with the concepts they expressed.

The idea of personality emerged only at the end of the 18th century, immediately serving as a powerful seed for romanticism. It was called upon to fill the vacuum created as a result of the final desacralization of ideas about the place of an individual person in the world. An individual, whose self-awareness was previously correlated with corporate or class status, with religious-universal responsibility and justification for a transient existence, suddenly saw himself in the middle of an unmerged, often hostile social cosmos, in the openness and unknown of history.

There was no longer any higher meaning and law above the human and earthly.

The starting point for a person and indeed integral to him in the end of modern times was only his belonging to himself, his individuality. It was in the sphere of the individual that he had to henceforth seek spiritual support. That is, to understand the momentary and special truth of one’s existence as something universally significant and priceless, to realize oneself as a “personality.”

Like a plant that can grow only in a certain landscape-climatic zone, so the radical new idea of “personality” was able to develop only in the environment and in connection with a whole landscape of other new ideas, in the context of a radically changed worldview. Personality is what includes a person in endless historical communication through his own unique message. The universal meaning of individual life, thus, turns out to be identified with culture. (Despite the antiquity of the word, this, of course, is also a specifically new European concept.) Both of them, “personality” and “culture,” penetrate each other and imply the presence of another “personality”, another “culture” and the establishment of a dialogue between them: here is the uniqueness is an indispensable condition, but it arises precisely on the border with another uniqueness. Therefore, both ideas are internally associated with another unprecedented idea of historicism, with the recognition of the unique originality and, consequently, the relativity of any structures and values, with a characteristic acute sense of anachronism.

So, by “personality” it seems that we can mean a concept that seeks to embrace the ideal attitudes and problems that arise as a result of the foregrounding of autonomous human individuality. When the universal appears not “above” the individual and not “in the form” of the individual, but as the most individual, special - this is personality.

Let's put it this way: personality is something that appears fleetingly and only once in the Universe, but that is why it is remarkable, taken as self-sufficient, substantial. Each personality is not a part, but a focus and refocusing of the all-human. If we agree that the idea of personality is one of the most important expressions of anti-traditionalism (no matter how many elements of tradition it absorbs), a conscious breakthrough of the ancient Christian horizon, then how can we evaluate the Renaissance in this regard?

It is known that the Renaissance is the earliest stage of movement in the indicated direction, which, however, has not yet reached such a breakthrough and collapse...

Renaissance thought worked - and this is precisely where its original completeness lies - not on a ready-made idea of personality, but, if you like, on its pre-determinations, which would allow the individual to establish himself in himself, in his, as they said then, “fantasy”, not breaking with traditionalist, absolute and normative guidelines (with “human nature”, “imitation of the ancients”, “perfection”, “divinity”), but strangely shifting them and changing them. Attempts to somehow reconcile the eternal and the earthly, the absolute and the separate, the norm and the incident led to the interpretation of the individual as l'uomo universale (Italian - universal man - A.P.), and this was fully reflected in the mysteriously hidden motive “ diversity” - in my opinion, the decisive cultural category of the Renaissance.

1. Batkin Leonid Mikhailovich (b. 1932) - theorist and cultural historian. The main works are devoted to the Italian Renaissance: “Italian humanists: lifestyle and style of thinking” (1978), “Italian Renaissance in search of individuality” (1989), “Leonardo da Vinci and the features of Renaissance thinking” (1990).

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Leonid Mikhailovich Batkin

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Leonid Mikhailovich Batkin(born June 29, Kharkov) - Russian historian and literary critic, cultural critic, public figure.

Education

Scientific and pedagogical activities

In 1987-1989, at the same time, he taught at the Moscow State Institute of History and Archives.

Full member of the American Academy for Renaissance Studies. Winner of the Culture Prize of the Council of Ministers of the Italian Republic (for a book about Leonardo da Vinci) (1989).

Social activity

Adheres to liberal political views.

Awards

Winner of the Culture Prize of the Council of Ministers of the Italian Republic (for a book about Leonardo da Vinci) (1989)
Medal "In memory of the 850th anniversary of Moscow"

Scientific works

Monographs

in Russian

Batkin L. M. Dante and his time: Poet and politics. M.: Nauka, 1965. Ed. on it. language: 1970, 1979.
Batkin L. M. Italian humanists: lifestyle and style of thinking / Rep. ed. prof. M. V. Alpatov. - M.: Nauka, 1978. - 208 p. - (From the history of world culture). - 37,500 copies.(Edition in Italian 1990)
Batkin L. M. Italian Renaissance in search of individuality. - M.: Nauka, 1989.
Batkin L. M. Leonardo da Vinci and the features of Renaissance creative thinking. - M.: Art, 1990.
Batkin L. M. Renewing History: Reflections on Politics and Culture. - M.: Moscow worker, 1991.
Batkin L. M.“Don’t dream about yourself”: On the cultural and historical meaning of “I” in “Confession” by Bl. Augustine. - M.: RSUH, 1993.
Batkin L. M. Passions: Selected Essays and Articles on Culture. - M.: Kursiv-A LLP, 1994.
Batkin L. M. There's still a chance. - M.; Kharkov, 1995.
Batkin L. M. Petrarch at the tip of his own pen: Author’s self-awareness in the poet’s letters. - M.: RSUH, 1995.
Batkin L. M. Italian Renaissance: Problems and People. - M.: Publishing house of the Russian State University for the Humanities, 1995.
Batkin L. M. The thirty-third letter: Reader's notes on the margins of Joseph Brodsky's poems. - M.: RSUH, 1997.
Batkin L. M. European man alone with himself. Essays on the cultural-historical foundations and limits of personal identity: Augustine. Abelard. Eloise. Petrarch. Lorenzo the Magnificent. Machiavelli. M.: RSUH, 2000.
Batkin L. M. The personality and passions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. - M.: RSUH, 2012.

in other languages

Leonardo da Vinci. - Bari: Laterza, 1988.

Articles

Batkin L. M.// Knowledge is power . - 1989. - No. 3,4.

Write a review of the article "Batkin, Leonid Mikhailovich"

Links

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An excerpt characterizing Batkin, Leonid Mikhailovich

Anna watched me carefully, apparently hearing my sad thoughts, and in her kind, radiant eyes there was an adult, stern understanding.
“We won’t go to him, mommy.” “We’ll try it ourselves,” my brave girl said, smiling tenderly. – We still have some time left, right?
North looked at Anna in surprise, but, seeing her determination, did not say a word.
And Anna was already looking around in admiration, only now noticing what wealth surrounded her in this marvelous treasury of Caraffa.
- Oh, what is this?! Is this really the Pope's library?.. And could you come here often, Mommy?
- No, my dear. Just a few times. I wanted to learn about wonderful people, and for some reason the Pope allowed me to do this.
– Do you mean Qatar? – Anna asked calmly. “They knew a lot, didn’t they?” And yet they failed to survive. The earth has always been very cruel... Why is that, mom?
– It is not the Earth that is cruel, my sun. These are people. And how do you know about Qatar? I never taught you about them, did I?
A “pink” embarrassment immediately flared up on Anna’s pale cheeks...
- Oh, forgive me, please! I just “heard” what you were talking about, and it became very interesting to me! So I listened. I'm sorry, there was nothing personal in it, so I decided that you wouldn't be offended...
- Surely! But why do you need such pain? What the Pope gives us is enough for us, isn’t it?
– I want to be strong, mom! I want not to be afraid of him, just as the Kathars were not afraid of their killers. I want you not to be ashamed of me! – Anna said, raising her head proudly.
Every day I was more and more amazed at the strength of spirit of my young daughter!.. Where did she get so much courage to resist Caraffa himself?.. What moved her proud, warm heart?
– Do you want to see anything else? – North asked softly. “Wouldn’t it be better to leave you two alone for a while?”
– Oh, please, Sever, tell us more about Magdalene!.. And tell us how Radomir died? – Anna asked enthusiastically. And then, suddenly coming to her senses, she turned to me: “You don’t mind, do you, Mom?”
Of course, I didn’t mind!.. On the contrary, I was ready to do anything just to distract her from thoughts about our near future.
– Please tell us, Sever! This will help us cope and give us strength. Tell me what you know, my friend...
The North nodded, and we again found ourselves in someone else’s, unfamiliar life... In something long ago lived and abandoned in the past.
A quiet spring evening was fragrant with southern scents before us. Somewhere in the distance the last reflections of the fading sunset were still blazing, although the sun, tired of the day, had long since set in order to have time to rest until tomorrow, when it would return to its daily circular journey. In the quickly darkening, velvety sky, unusually huge stars flared up more and more brightly. The world around us was gradually preparing itself for sleep... Only sometimes, somewhere, the offended cry of a lonely bird could suddenly be heard, unable to find peace. Or from time to time, the silence was disturbed by the sleepy barking of local dogs, thereby showing their vigilance. But otherwise the night seemed frozen, gentle and calm...
And only in the garden enclosed by a high clay wall were two people still sitting. It was Jesus Radomir and his wife Mary Magdalene...
They spent their last night... before the crucifixion.
Clinging to her husband, laying her tired head on his chest, Maria was silent. She still wanted to tell him so much!.. To say so many important things while there was still time! But I couldn’t find the words. All the words have already been said. And they all seemed meaningless. Not worth these last precious moments... No matter how hard she tried to persuade Radomir to leave a foreign land, he did not agree. And it was so inhumanly painful!.. The world remained just as calm and protected, but she knew that it would not be like that when Radomir left... Without him, everything would be empty and frozen...
She asked him to think... She asked him to return to her distant Northern country, or at least to the Valley of the Magicians, to start all over again.
She knew that wonderful people were waiting for them in the Valley of the Magicians. They were all gifted. There they could build a new and bright world, as the Magus John assured her. But Radomir didn’t want to... He didn’t agree. He wanted to sacrifice himself so that the blind could see... This was exactly the task that the Father placed on his strong shoulders. White Magus... And Radomir did not want to retreat... He wanted to achieve understanding... among the Jews. Even at the cost of his own life.
Not one of his nine friends, loyal knights of his Spiritual Temple, supported him. No one wanted to hand him over to the executioners. They didn't want to lose him. They loved him too much...
But then the day came when, obeying the iron will of Radomir, his friends and his wife (against their will) vowed not to get involved in what was happening... Not to try to save him, no matter what happened. Radomir fervently hoped that, seeing the clear possibility of his death, people would finally understand, see the light and want to save him themselves, despite the differences in their faith, despite the lack of understanding.
But Magdalena knew that this would not happen. She knew this evening would be their last.
My heart was torn to pieces, hearing his even breathing, feeling the warmth of his hands, seeing his concentrated face, not clouded by the slightest doubt. He was confident that he was right. And she could not do anything, no matter how much she loved him, no matter how fiercely she tried to convince him that those for whom he went to certain death were unworthy of him.

Andrey Doronin
Leonid Mikhailovich Batkin. In Memoriam

Andrej Doronin. Leonid Batkin. In Memoriam

Andrey Doronin(German Historical Institute in Moscow; researcher; candidate of historical sciences) [email protected].

Andrej Doronin(Deutsches Historisches Institut Moskau; researcher; PhD) andrej.doronin@dhi-moskau. org.

On November 29, 2016, at 4.00 am, Leonid Mikhailovich passed away. His departure resonates with pain in my heart.

I don’t think it’s worth explaining to UFO readers who L.M. is. Batkin. His best works, which brought him world fame and were translated in the West, are still being republished today. In 2015-2016, they were published again - in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd volumes of the planned 6-volume collection of his works, which was undertaken by the New Chronograph (I address my sincere gratitude to Leonid Sergeevich Yanovich) with financial support German Historical Institute in Moscow [Batkin 2015a; 2015b; 2016].

Leonid Mikhailovich is from the cohort of our most famous, outstanding Soviet/Russian medievalists and classical scholars, historians and philologists. He was one of the last remaining with us from the generation of Vladimir Solomonovich Bibler, Sergei Sergeevich Averintsev, Georgiy Stepanovich Knabe, Eleazar Moiseevich Meletinsky, Yuri Lvovich Bessmertny, Aron Yakovlevich Gurevich, Mikhail Leonovich Gasparov and other scientists who make up the glory of Soviet / Russian science. They belonged - and this is not a tribute to a panegyric or an obituary - not only to their era and country, but to humanity. Leonid Mikhailovich counted himself among this group, remaining in a creative dialogue with his colleagues until the end of his life.

I met and became friends with Leonid Mikhailovich by chance. In 2008, one of my Berlin colleagues, a friend of mine, got the idea to translate his 1000-page “European Man Alone with Himself” into German [Batkin 2000a]. At his request, I found Leonid Mikhailovich, without knowing him personally at that time. That's how I ended up at his house. The Berlin venture predictably failed - after several unsuccessful attempts To hire a translator, the German professor embarrassedly disappeared from Leonid Mikhailovich’s field of vision, although he continued to gratefully remember that only meeting with him. But try to imagine “European Man”, translated into no matter what language! Behind the laconicism, literary grace and apparent lightness of Batkin’s style there is an idea that is striking in its depth and elaboration: Leonid Mikhailovich repeatedly added, rewrote, and “finished” his works. As you know, no author is smarter than his translator. Where is that translator worthy of L.M. Batkina?

There are better specialists than me to engage the UFO audience in a discussion about his brilliant reading of Ficino, Dante, Lorenzo the Magnificent, Machiavelli, Leonardo da Vinci, about his “varieta”, about his search for a modern European “individualité”, about his Man alone with himself (be it Augustine, Abelard, Rousseau, Diderot, Brodsky, Mandelstam, or himself), about his method. The dispute of A.Ya., which is fundamental not only for Russian medieval studies. Gurevich with L.M. Batkin recently became the subject of a deep, focused article by M.L. Andreeva. A.L. wrote wonderfully about Batkin’s style of thinking and scientific writing, his creative originality in the preface to the 1st volume of his collected works. Dobrokhotov, and at the presentation of the 1st volume in December 2015, V.S. Krzhevov. Like them, here I want to testify to Leonid Mikhailovich my respect and admiration - I had the good fortune to be in close relations with him at the end of his life.

I was amazed that the only interesting thing for him, even in our disillusioned 21st century, after all the horrors of the 20th century, remained Man. A man surrounded by people. A person who thinks, speaks, writes, seeks dialogue, is by nature alone with himself. It was in this dialogue that Leonid Mikhailovich saw the destiny of Man as a person/individuality, giving birth to new meanings and opening up new horizons. Like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin, Joseph Brodsky, Thomas Mann, Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov, who admired him.

Leonid Mikhailovich did not seek refuge in “better times.” Yes, in his memories he returned to the exciting atmosphere of seminars filled with disputes at the Institute of Historical Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in the Historical and Archival Institute or in the apartment of V.S. Bibler; talked about meetings - preludes to the Metropol almanac, about his active participation in the work of the perestroika "Moscow Tribune", about rare, but extremely important for him meetings with Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov (who remained an absolute moral authority for him), etc. But he lived today, directly and acutely reacting to the most important events in the life of Russia and the world. As in Soviet times, he listened to “voices” (even in the hospital there was always a radio next to him). But in recent years, the Internet has become its conductor. He was an active user social networks. Many of his respondents (mostly strangers to him personally) were lucky enough to communicate with him at ease. Leonid Mikhailovich willingly discovered new people, new things in people, and shared it. “I listen/read with satisfaction,” Leonid Mikhailovich often said about someone.

His “academic” and civic themes were equally characterized by a personal, frankly emotional style. He insisted that the form of existence of authorship that claims to be serious can and should change over time and that it was the Internet that provided us with a completely new field of mental activity, including the exchange of scientific and humanitarian opinions. It is not surprising that in the final volumes of his collected works he included several works published only online.

Leonid Mikhailovich did not leave behind the school, although I have more than once heard someone consider themselves one of his students. It is difficult to follow him - he was invariably new, fresh, resourceful, sparkling, provocative, variable - impossible to repeat. It would be necessary to have an equally prominent gift of thought and speech. I think he himself would not repeat what he went through. After all, there is still so much unknown and uninterpreted.

He lived definitely interesting(I think this was his motto), with dignity. Until the end. Without complaining about the illnesses that increasingly beset him and the oblivion that seemed to him, and in part actually was approaching. “You need to keep in shape,” he told me, “some kind of meaning... It’s boring to be just an old man. Not interested!"

I thank Leonid Mikhailovich for the years of our close communication, for his wisdom and warmth, for the irreplaceable kinship of souls. He was and will remain in my life. May his memory be blessed.

With love

A.V. Doronin

Bibliography / References

[Batkin 2000] - Batkin L.M. European man alone with himself: Essays on the cultural and historical foundations and limits of personal self-awareness. M.: RSUH, 2000.

(Batkin L. M. Evropeyskiy chelovek naedine s soboy: Ocherki o kul’turno-istoricheskikh osnovaniyakh i predelakh lichnogo samosoznaniya. Moscow, 2000.)

[Batkin 2015a] - Batkin L.M. Selected works: In 6 volumes. T. I: People and problems of the Italian Renaissance. M.: New Chronograph, 2015.

(Batkin L.M. Izbrannye trudy: In 6 vols. Vol. I: Lyudi i problemy ital’yanskogo Vozrozhdeniya. Moscow, 2015.)

[Batkin 2015b] - Batkin L.M. Selected works: In 6 volumes. T. II: Leonardo da Vinci and the features of Renaissance creative thinking. M.: New Chronograph, 2015.

(Batkin L.M. Izbrannye trudy: In 6 vols. Vol. II: Leonardo da Vinchi i osobennosti renessansnogo tvorcheskogo myshleniya. Moscow, 2015.)

[Batkin 2016] - Batkin L.M. Selected works: In 6 vols. T. III: European man alone with himself. M.: New Chronograph, 2016.

(Batkin L.M. Izbrannye trudy: In 6 vols. Vol. III: Evropeyskiy chelovek naedine s soboy. Moscow, 2016.)