The "Krug" Society and its Contribution to the Formation of the Intellectual Heritage of the Russian Emigration and the Resistance Movement
Authors:   Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russia, Reshetnikov Stepan V. 
Published: January 2025

The "Krug" Society and its Contribution to the Formation
of the Intellectual Heritage of the Russian Emigration
and the Resistance Movement The first study of the "Krug" society offered
to the readers' attention allows us to show one of the reasons for the
participation of Russian émigrés in the resistance struggle against the
Nazi and fascist occupation in France, as well as to identify their moral
and political position on the eve and at the beginning of World War II.
Methods. Chronological and biographical methods of analysis were
used. Results and Discussion. The article describes the key stages of the
activity of the public figure of the Russian diaspora II Fondaminsky, who,
while in exile, underwent major changes in his political views, moving
away from radical revolutionary and anti-Bolshevik views towards the
spiritual struggle against the totalitarian ideologies that had developed in
Europe in the early 1930s. Fondaminsky, expressing his idea of creating the “Order of the Russian Intelligentsia”, was able to do what others in the
emigration had failed to do - to bring together the younger generation
of the emigration with the older one in the person of famous public and
religious figures of the Russian diaspora, close to the magazine "Novy
Grad ", in the "Krug" society. The approaching world war, however,
replaced the initially religious-philosophical and literary character of
the meetings with a political one. As a result of constant meetings, the
younger generation began to feel like an intellectual and spiritual whole
and, after a series of military escalations, felt their duty to come out with
an anti-fascist position and create their own political circle, separate from
the older ones, for an ideological struggle against the growing world
fascism. Already at the beginning of the Second World War, a number of
participants in the "Krug" society went to the French army to make their
contribution to the fight against the enemy. After which some members
of the "Krug" society, mainly BV Wilde and AN Levitsky, created the first
group of the French Resistance. The name of the underground movement
against fascism in Europe, "Resistance ", also came into use thanks to these
two representatives of the Russian intelligentsia. After the attack of Nazi
Germany on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, other former participants
of the "Krug" society meeting joined the Resistance movement: Mother
Maria with the "Orthodox Cause" organization in Paris, AA Ugrimov, who
organized the Dourdan group in the suburbs of the French capital, as well
as VB Sosinsky and VL Andreyev, who managed to create a sabotage
group of Soviet citizens who were captured on the island of Oléron in
1944. Conclusion. The author concludes that the members of the "Krug"
society laid the foundation for the struggle of Russian emigration against
fascism and Nazism, which subsequently influenced the creation of
several organizations and groups of the Russian Resistance in France,
which became an important contribution to the liberation of the country
and the saving of many lives from the occupation terror.