French Literature Reviews - 2026
Alexandre Kojève, Sophia, t. I : Philosophie et phénoménologie
Philosophy, Anthropology and Ideas
Edited and translated from Russian by Rambert Nicolas
Coming to light today, this book sheds fresh light on a figure as legendary as he is mysterious in the French intellectual life of the past century.
Kojève was known as one of the pioneers of Hegelian thought in France through the lectures he delivered at the École pratique des hautes études in the 1930s. His lectures would exert a crucial influence on post-war philosophy, owing to the distinguished audience that attended them—from Raymond Aron and Jacques Lacan to Georges Bataille, Raymond Queneau, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The broad outlines of this reading of the Phenomenology of Spirit were familiar through Queneau's 1947 account published under the title Introduction à la lecture de Hegel.
However, this manuscript—with its turbulent history, written frantically between November 1940 and June 1941 and left unfinished—reveals a very different Kojève. First, a Kojève deeply rooted in Russian philosophy. Second, and above all, a Kojève who gives his reading of Hegel a resolutely political, if not propagandistic, turn by placing it under the banner of "Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism." He undertakes a justification of the USSR by conceptualizing the role of the Russian Empire grappling with universal history, that is, against the West and bourgeois social democracy.
In this first volume, conceived as the introduction to a monumental work, Kojève sets forth his definition of philosophy, outlines his method, and states his goal: to help bring about the best of all regimes—communism—in the country destined for this mission, namely Soviet Russia.
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An article about this work can be read on en-attendant-nadeau.fr:
"A Surprising Kojève", by Marc Lebiez (online June 3, 2025)
Alexandre Kojève (1902–1968) exerted a considerable influence on the small circle of leading intellectuals who discovered a still little-known Hegel through him. Because his influence did not rest upon a solid academic position, legend took hold of this fascinating personality. In striving for the discretion of a senior civil officer keen on exercising genuine political power, he seemed to have something to hide—perhaps covert activities in the service of Soviet power. Did the Hegelian mask conceal a Moscow eye?
The intellectual landscape of twentieth-century France was profoundly shaped by the reception of German idealism, particularly through seminars that drew prominent figures from philosophy and psychoanalysis. While subsequent intellectual history often privileged various frameworks, the underlying currents of political thought and historicism remained vital to these debates. The writings dating from the early years of the Second World War reveal a thinker engaging directly with the geopolitical transformations of his era, attempting to synthesize speculative philosophy with historical trajectories and the destiny of empires.
Readers interested in the history of twentieth-century European philosophy, the reception of Hegel, and the intersections between speculative thought and political ideology may find this volume relevant. Rambert Nicolas's edition and translation makes available a text that illuminates the complex intellectual background of Alexandre Kojève beyond his famous pre-war lectures at the École pratique des hautes études, where he was known as one of the pioneers of Hegelian thought in France through the lectures he delivered in the 1930s.