THE RECEPTION, COMPARATISTICS AND TIMELINESS OF SERGEI HESSEN’S PEDAGOGICAL THOUGHT

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the outstanding philosopher, legal theorist and
pedagogue Sergiy Hessen, who at one time headed the Department of Philosophy
of Education at the Free Polish University (Wolna Wszechnica Polska) in Warsaw.
He remained in Poland for the rest of his life – having survived the harsh
experience of Nazi occupation (during which he lectured at an underground
university) and persecution by Stalin's security service. Hessen died in 1950 at the
height of his creative powers. The author notes that Vincent Okon very aptly
compared the biography of this outstanding humanist with the "fate of a traveler",
even before Zygmunt Bauman used this category in relation to the situation of
people living in the postmodern world. Hessen mastered the languages ​​of the
countries in which he stayed and gave lectures, and he learned Polish thanks to his
wife Maria Nemyska. According to the author, his most important works were
created in the last period of his life. During the Polish People's Republic,
dissertations published before the war were not available to students of philosophy,
law or pedagogy. Collections of works scattered all over the world were published
only in the Third Republic of Poland, as well as reprints of his pre-war works. This
is not surprising, since he revealed there the problems of socialism, the proximity

of Bolshevism and conservatism, as well as the hopes associated with the new
liberalism.