Soloviev, Vladimir Sergeyevich [key], 1853–1900, Russian religious philosopher and poet; son of Sergei Mikhailovich Soloviev. Soloviev believed in the incarnation of divine wisdom in a being called Sophia, a concept that greatly influenced the young symbolist poets, especially Blok. He advocated a synthesis of Eastern and Western churches in Russia and the Universal Church, which he wrote in French in 1889 (tr. 1948). The imminent coming of the Antichrist was the theme of his Three Conversations on War, Progress, and the End of History (1899, tr. 1915). The best known of his mystical poems is Three Meetings (1899), which describes his visions of Sophia. Soloviev is also noted for political writings and literary criticism.
See biography by M. d'Herbigny (1918); studies by E. Munzer (1956) and P. M. Allen (1973).
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