THE PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATION OF AL. KOJEVE'S ARTICLE "NOTE ON HEGEL AND HEIDEGGER" KOJEVE'S NOTE IN-AND-FOR-ITSELF*

This article aims to contextualize and problematize Alexandre Kojeve's Note on Hegel and Heidegger, written in 1936 and unpublished during his lifetime, which is being introduced into Russian-language scholarship. A translation of the Note is published in the same issue with the permission of the cop-yright holders. This paper provides a general introduction to Kojeve's philosophy, illustrates possible reading strategies for Kojeve and the place of the translated Note in his corpus of the philosopher's texts, and describes the philosophical and historical circumstances of the text, namely that it was composed as an extension of a review on Tragische Existenz. Zur Philosophie Martin Heidegger by Alfred Delp written and published by Kojeve that same year in Recherches philosophique. The article reconstructs the lines of reference that are essential to understanding Alexandre Kojeve and provides a critique of certain statements. Finally, on the basis of an analysis of Kojeve's language, it offers a broader thesis on the epistemological problems of Kojeve's philosophy, the discovery of which led him to make a series of debatable statements in the philosophy of history (on the necessity for the philosopher to participate in the realization of the end of history), in anthropology (on the difference between people in their capac-ity to be philosophers or sages depending on a philosophical and religious attitude that is not entirely dependent on them), and in his decision to leave academia and turn to the ideological and diplomatic provision of economic integration of European states during the Cold War.