Valentin Asmus

Valentin Asmus (1894-1975) was a Russian philosopher. He was one of the small group who continued the classical European philosophical tradition through the early Soviet times [cite book
last = Bakhurst
first = David
coauthors =
title = Consciousness and Revolution in Soviet Philosophy: From the Bolsheviks to Evald Ilyenkov (Modern European Philosophy)
publisher = Cambridge University Press
date = 1991
pages = p. 5
month = June
isbn = 0521407109 ] . He was an independent thinker and unorthodox Marxist [ [http://www.csudh.edu/dearhabermas/philruss01.htm PostSoviet Russian Philosophy ] ] , with interests in the history of philosophy and aesthetics.

He graduated from Kiev University in 1919, then moved to Moscow in 1927 [cite book
last = Barnes
first = Christopher
coauthors =
title = Boris Pasternak: A Literary Biography
publisher = Cambridge University Press; New Ed edition
date = 2004
pages = p. 5
month = February
isbn = 052152072X ] . At this period he attacked the views of William James [cite book
last = Grossman
first = Joan Delaney
coauthors = Rischin, Ruth
title = William James in Russian Culture
publisher = Lexington Books
date = 2003
pages = p. 7
month = February
isbn = 0739105272 ] . In the mid-1920s, he was a theorist of literary Constructivism [cite book
last = Makaryk
first = Irena R.
coauthors =
title = Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory: Approaches, Scholars, Terms (Theory / Culture)
publisher = University of Toronto Press
date = 1993
pages = p. 18
month = April
isbn = 080206860X ] .

Through his wife Irina, he became a friend of Boris Pasternak, from about 1931 [cite book
last = Marsh
first = Rosalind
coauthors =
title = Women and Russian Culture: Projections and Self-Perceptions (Studies in Slavic Literature, Culture, and Society, V. 2)
publisher = Berghahn Books
date = 1998
pages = p. 168
month = November
isbn = 1571819134 ] . His major work "Marx and Bourgeois Historicism" (1933) was influenced by György Lukács [cite book
last = Delanty
first = George
coauthors =
title = Handbook of Contemporary European Social Theory
publisher = Routledge
date = 2006
pages = p. 159
month = February
isbn = 0415355184 ] . At this point an opponent of formal logic, he changed position and wrote a text book on it. There is a story of his being summoned to see Stalin, and required to give logic lectures to Red Army generals [Bazhanov, "Logic and Ideologized Science Phenomenon (Case of the URSS)", in cite book
last = Sica
first = Giandomenico
coauthors =
title = Essays on the Foundations of Mathematics and Logic 1
publisher = Polimetrica
date = 2005
pages = p. 51
month =
isbn = 978-88-7699-014-4 ] .

He was Professor at Moscow State University from 1942 to 1972 [cite book
last = van der Zweerde
first = Evert
coauthors =
title = Soviet Historiography of Philosophy: Istoriko-Filosofskaja Nauka (Sovietica)
publisher = Springer
date = 1997
pages = pp. 89-90
month = November
isbn = 079234832X ] . In the 1960s he edited Plato, with A. F. Losev.

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