Philosophers' ships

Oberbürgermeister Haken

Philosophers' ships is the collective name for ships which transported intellectuals who were expelled from Soviet Russia in 1922.

The main load was handled by two German ships, the Oberbürgermeister Haken and the Preussen, which transported more than 160 expelled Russian intellectuals in September and November 1922 from Petrograd to Stettin in Germany (now in Poland). Three detention lists included 228 people, 32 of them students.

Later in 1922 other intellectuals were transported by train to Riga in Latvia or by ship from Odessa to Istanbul.

Among the expelled

• Vladimir Abrikosov
• Yuly Aikhenvald
• Nikolai Berdyaev
• Boris Brutskus
• Sergei Bulgakov
• Semyon Frank
• Ivan Ilyin
• Abram Saulovich Kagan (university lecturer/publisher; father of architect Anatol Kagan)
• Lev Karsavin (later arrested, died in Komi)
• Alexander Kizevetter
• Nikolai Lossky
• Mikhail Osorgin
• Pitirim Sorokin (train)
• Fyodor Stepun

Literature

• Lesley Chamberlain, Lenin's Private War: The Voyage of the Philosophy Steamer and the Exile of the Intelligentsia, St Martin's Press, 2007; ISBN 0-312-36730-9
• V. G. Makarov, V. S. Khristoforov: «Passazhiry ‹filosofskogo parokhoda›. (Sud’by intelligencii, repressirovannoj letom-osen’ju 1922g.)». // Voprosy filosofii 7 (600) 2003, p. 113-137 [contains a list with biographical information on Russian intellectuals exiled 1922-1923].