Disenchanted Wanderer

Disenchanted Wanderer is the first comprehensive English-language study in over half a century of the life and ideas of Konstantin Nikolaevich Leontiev (1831–1891), one of the most important thinkers in nineteenth-century Russia on political, social, and religious matters. Glenn Cronin gives the reader a broad overview of Leontiev's life and varied career as novelist, army doctor, diplomat, journalist, censor, and, late in life, ordained monk.

Reviewing Leontiev's creative work and his writing on aesthetics and literary criticism—notable figures such as Belinsky, Turgenev, Gogol, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy appear—Cronin goes on to examine Leontiev's sociopolitical writing and his theory of the rise and fall of cultures and civilizations, placing his thought in the context of his contemporaries and predecessors including Hegel, Herzen, and Nietzsche, as well as Danilevsky, Pobedonostsev, and other major figures in Slavophile and Russian nationalist circles.

Cronin also examines Leontiev's religious views, including his ascetic brand of Orthodoxy, informed by his experiences of the monastic communities of Mount Athos and OptinaPustyn, and his late attraction to Roman Catholicism under the influence of the theologian Vladimir Solovyev. Disenchanted Wanderer concludes with a review of Leontiev's prophetic vision for the twentieth century and his conviction that, after a period of wars, socialism would triumph under the banner of a new Constantine the Great. Cronin considers how far this vision foretold the rise to power of Joseph Stalin, an aspect of Leontiev's legacy that previously had not received the attention it merits.

Elevating Leontiev to his proper place in the Russian literary pantheon, Cronin demonstrates that the man was not, as is often maintained, an amoralist and a political reactionary but rather a deeply moral thinker and a radical conservative.

Glenn Cronin is contributing author to Ideology in Russian Literature. He holds a PhD in Russian studies from University of London. He retired recently from a career with the Department of Transportation in the United Kingdom.

[I]t is worth noting that Cronin's eloquent and engaging prose softens the otherwise formidable density of his subject matter.Cronin's book offers an insight into Leontiev the writer.

While Leontiev alone will not be enough to understand Russia under Putin, the book is indeed a timely reevaluation of Leontiev and it is the first comprehensive study of his life and ideas in English since 1967.The book offers a well-written, easy-to-follow introduction to Leontiev for specialists in Russian history and nonspecialists alike

Glenn Cronin offers a meticulously researched, nuanced study of Leontiev's life and thought, providing the reader with a remarkably comprehensive insight into one of Russia's most original thinkers

Paul Robinson, University of Ottawa, author of Russian Conservatism :

Largely ignored in his own lifetime and in the century that followed, since the collapse of the Soviet Union Konstantin Leontiev has enjoyed an unexpected surge of popularity. Glenn Cronin's engaging biography provides a sympathetic account of a thinker who was entirely at odds with the prevailing intellectual trends of his own time, but who proved, Cronin argues, to be strangely prophetic.

Alexander Martin, University of Notre Dame, author of Romantics, Reformers, Reactionaries:

This is a page-turner. The book will be especially valuable to those who wish to engage with Leontiev as a thinker with interesting ideas about the world, or who want to understand why ideas like his might resonate in Russia today.