Philosophers' ships

The philosophers' ships or philosopher's steamers (‹See Tfd›Russian: философский пароход) were steamships that transported intellectuals 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 200 expelled Russian intellectuals and their families in September and November 1922 from Petrograd (modern-day Saint Petersburg) to the seaport of Stettin in Germany (modern-day Szczecin 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
Valentin Bulgakov
Semyon Frank
Ivan Ilyin
Abram Saulovich Kagan [ru] (university lecturer/publisher; father of architect Anatol Kagan)
Lev Karsavin (the brother of ballerina Tamara Karsavina; arrested again in 1940 and deported to a gulag in Komi, where he died in 1952)
Alexander Kiesewetter [ru]
Ivan Lapshin [ru]
Nikolai Lossky
Mikhail Osorgin
Pitirim Sorokin (train)
Fyodor Stepun
Prince Serge Troubetzkoy [ru]
Boris Vysheslavtsev

Literature

Catherine Baird. Revolution from Within: The Ymca in Russia’s Ascension to Freedom from Bolshevik Tyranny, 2013, ISBN 9780986219900 (with bio List of the Deported)
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].

This Russian history–related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.