The work of the philosopher Viktor Frankl to say yes to life. Online reading of the book Say Yes to Life! Say "Yes" to life! Psychologist in a concentration camp. About the book “Say Yes to Life!”: A Psychologist in a Concentration Camp by Viktor Frankl

This book made its author one of the greatest spiritual teachers of mankind in the 20th century. In it, the philosopher and psychologist Viktor Frankl, who went through the Nazi death camps, opened the way for millions of people around the world to comprehend the meaning of life. An additional gift for the reader of this publication is the play "Synchronization in Birkenwald", where an outstanding scientist reveals his philosophy through artistic means.

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My comment:

It is very difficult to comment on the work of an author who has become, to some extent, a "sacred cow" - but how to threaten the sacred? .. His authority is enormous, and his name has already been inscribed in golden letters in history. Out of respect for himself, for the horrors that he experienced, and for the help that he provided to people, the tongue does not turn to criticize anything in his books. Yes, and I'm not a psychologist, not a professional critic, but just a reader. But, perhaps, precisely because I am just a reader, it is easier for me to allow myself to have my own modest personal opinion about his works. Or rather, so far only about two of them: "To say yes to life!" and the play "Synchronization in Birkinwald".

I will almost not dwell on the play - in my opinion, although it is original in form, it is secondary in essence, since it is a reflection of his views and philosophy set forth in the first work. But the first work I would like to analyze in more detail.

For the first time I learned about Viktor Frankl not so long ago, about 6-8 years ago. All my knowledge about him came down to a few things: this is a man who was in a concentration camp, survived and wrote a book about it. Also, in many places where I came across his name, I saw the same quote about how he continued to brush his teeth with his finger in the camp in order to imitate at least some activity that preserves human dignity in him and supports the meaning of life.

This advice of his seemed to me very valuable, the book interested me, and therefore I wanted to read it in its entirety in the hope of enriching myself with other important thoughts of his. Looking ahead, I’ll say that after reading the book, this advice (although not about brushing your teeth, but about shaving, well, it doesn’t matter) for me turned out to be the only valuable thought in the book.

How did it happen? After all, the topic of fascism and being in a concentration camp is also very personal for me, and therefore especially exciting. Why did she almost leave me indifferent? It was not clear. And this didn’t just disappoint me, but it confused and upset me, or something. I expected more from the book. I was uncomfortable with the realization that I was not impressed by the book, did not admire it, that I was not shocked by all the horrors that he described. I decided that with age I became indifferent and ceased to be susceptible to someone else's pain.

And then I thought. Firstly, in my entire conscious life I have reviewed and re-read so many books about the war, heard so many memories that it would probably be difficult to impress me even more. And secondly, the number of psychologists who write articles about the meaning of life and survival is also growing exponentially, and it is becoming more and more difficult to come across some new, fresh thought on this topic. So maybe this is the reason? But then why did Viktor Frankl become so famous and popular in the world?

BIOGRAPHY

Frankl was born in 1905 in Vienna to a Jewish family of civil servants. At a young age he showed an interest in psychology. He devoted his thesis to the psychology of philosophical thinking at the gymnasium. After graduating from high school in 1923, he studied medicine at the University of Vienna, where he later chose to specialize in neurology and psychiatry. He studied the psychology of depression and suicide especially deeply. Frankl's early experience was influenced by Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler, but later Frankl would move away from their views.

In 1924 he became president of the Sozialistische Mittelschüler Österreich school. While in this position, Frankl created a specialized support program for students during the graduation period. During Frankl's time in this role, not a single case of suicide among Viennese students was noted. The success of the program attracted the attention of Wilhelm Reich, who invited Frankl to Berlin.

In 1933-1937. Frankl was the head of the suicide prevention department at a Vienna clinic. More than 30,000 women at risk of suicide became Frankl's patients. However, when the Nazis came to power in 1938, Frankl was banned from treating Aryan patients because of his Jewish heritage. Frankl went into private practice and in 1940 became head of the neurology department at the Rothschild Hospital, where he also worked as a neurosurgeon. At that time it was the only hospital where Jews were admitted. Thanks to Frankl's efforts, several patients were saved from extermination under the Nazi euthanasia program.

On September 25, 1942, Frankl, his wife and parents were deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. At the camp, Frankl met Dr. Karl Fleishman, who at that time was hatching a plan to create an organization psychological help newly arrived prisoners. He instructed Viktor Frankl, a former psychiatrist, to organize the implementation of this task.
Frankl devoted all his time in the concentration camp to medical practice, which he, of course, kept secret from the SS. Together with other psychiatrists and social workers from all over Central Europe, he provided specialized care to prisoners. The task of the service was to overcome the initial shock and provide support during the initial stage of the stay.

Particular attention was paid to people who were in particular danger: epileptics, psychopaths, "asocial", and in addition, all the elderly and infirm. Frankl himself often used this technique to distance himself from surrounding suffering by objectifying it.

Frankl used the same basis to create his method of psychotherapeutic help - logotherapy. According to Frankl, in a person one can see not only the desire for pleasure or the will to power, but also the desire for meaning. It was from the appeal to the meaning of existence that the result of psychotherapy in the camp depended. This meaning for a person in a camp in an extreme, borderline state should have been an unconditional meaning, including not only the meaning of life, but also the meaning of suffering and death. Most people's anxiety could be expressed by asking "Will we survive the camp?" Another question that was asked of Viktor Frankl was: "Does this suffering, this death, have any meaning?" If a negative answer to the first question made suffering and trying to survive imprisonment meaningless for most people, then a negative answer to the second question made survival itself meaningless.

On October 19, 1944, Frankl was transferred to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he spent several days and was further sent to Türkheim, one of the Dachau camps, where he arrived on October 25, 1944. Here he spent the next 6 months as a laborer. His wife was transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where she was killed. Frankl's father died in Theresienstadt from pulmonary edema, his mother was killed in Auschwitz.

April 27, 1945 Frankl was liberated by American troops. Of the members of the Frankl family, only a sister survived, who emigrated to Australia.

After three years in concentration camps, Frankl returned to Vienna. In 1945 he completed his world famous book“Say YES to life. Psychologist in a concentration camp. The book describes the prisoner's experience from the point of view of a psychiatrist.

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So. While reading Wikipedia, my eye fell on the little section "Translations" and then I realized what had happened. Frankl wrote this very book back in 1946, but the first translation into Russian, if I'm not mistaken, happened 60 years after it was written. That is, if in America this book appeared in 1959 and was declared the book of the year five times, and in Germany it was published in 1977, then his works came to Russian-speaking readers almost half a century later. Naturally, the perception of this book then and now will be completely different. What could have been a real discovery and revelation 70 years ago is now perceived more ordinary and familiar.

I wanted to read the comments and other readers. Most of them are clearly delighted with the book. But there were many (more than I had expected, and this reconciled me with my reaction to the book) who were clearly perplexed, and for the same reasons.

I will give a few of these comments, and in the next post I will post those quotes from the book that I liked.

COMMENTS

xxx

apparently I expected too much from this book, but my expectations were not justified ... maybe the translation is "to blame" ... despite the horrors of the concentration camp described, the book left me indifferent, indifferent in the sense that it would not have helped me survive it, the Bible would rather help ... or maybe the fact that quite a lot was read on this topic and new, if I may say so, the author did not say anything for me ... this is just my subjective impression ...

xxx
The whole essence of the book can be fit in one sentence, or rather, in a quote by Friedrich Nietzsche, quoted in it: “If a person has a “why” to live, he can withstand any “how””.

xxx
I really liked the idea - considering the life of a concentration camp prisoner from the point of view of a professional psychologist, but the feeling from the book that it was not completed, the topic was not fully disclosed, I was expecting more, at least in terms of volume (in my edition it is 158 pages in the pocket-book format larger font and line spacing). The author here, as it were, is one in two persons: on the one hand, he is a direct participant in the events, on the other, he is an outside observer, a doctor analyzing what is happening. It is a pity that the author did not develop his idea to the level of a full-fledged scientific work.

xxx
Specific book. Not scientific enough, not artistic enough. Creepy and heavy? No. There is too little fact and too many general phrases for this. The language of the story is rather dry. The story as a whole is more like a pastor's story than a psychologist's. But I still found a couple of interesting thoughts for myself.

xxx

Strange feeling. Well, I didn’t harden, I wasn’t used to human pain - to what you can’t get used to? Maybe for the end of the 70s of the last century, this book was a revelation, but now, in comparison with what is written and read in last years is not perceived as such a terrible revelation.

xxx

It was… not at all. Unless as sketches about concentration camps - it's normal. But nothing stands out from the multitude of similar testimonies. Unfortunately, they all merged in my head into some kind of single mass, these stories of prisoners. Terrible in content, of course, but not a single emotional, memorable and eye-catching storyteller. But as a "psychologist's own concept", promised in the annotation - outright crap. “You need to have the meaning of life, to know what you live for” - that's all. No, there will be nothing more specific, except that “everyone has a different meaning of life” and “as soon as fate has placed suffering on a person, he must see in these sufferings, in the ability to endure them, his unique task.” Sorry, but in order to draw such conclusions it is absolutely not necessary to get into such scary place like a concentration camp. As well as in order to give recommendations from the series: if everything is bad, you need to try not to lose your sense of humor, appreciate art - at least sing songs - and admire nature. Well, to want to live and see your own future, yes. Revolutionary concept, to say the least. “Happiness is when the worst has passed by” is a smart and very sensible thought under certain circumstances. But I don’t like books written largely for the sake of one idea that has long been known to everyone and transfusion from empty to empty.

Used materials from sites:

Hello dear readers!

What is the meaning of human life? Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, explains in his book Saying Yes to Life. After reading this great, without exaggeration, book by a philosopher, psychologist, scientist, I saw that my alleged problems are not at all like that. And I felt ashamed of myself, for the fact that I do not enjoy life with all the forces of my soul, I do not thank life. After all, I'm a happy person! I suddenly realized it completely! Curious to know what the book is about?

1. About the author of the book “To say yes to life. Psychologist in a concentration camp.

Before proceeding to the review of the book, it is important to say a few words about the author. Viktor Frankl (life: 1905-1997) is a famous Austrian scientist, psychologist and philosopher. He has been given many degrees. He has written more than 30 books on psychology, devoted to the theory of the meaning of human life. He made millions of people (including myself) understand what the meaning of their lives is.

Viktor Frankl spent 3 long years in Nazi camps from 1942 to 1945. Moreover, before his arrest, he had the opportunity to go with his wife to America, but his parents did not have a visa. He understood that in the concentration camp his parents would not survive without him. Not knowing what to do, he went to the Church of St. Stephen in Vienna for an answer. He wanted to receive an "answer from heaven."

And I got it when I got home. His father gave him a piece of marble. It was a stone from one of the destroyed synagogues. On a piece of marble was a fragment of one of the Commandments. It was a commandment to honor parents. He decided to stay and serve the family. He couldn't leave his parents.

I'm sure it's thanks to this heroic act, he was mysteriously able to survive in inhuman conditions concentration camps.

The fact that Viktor Frankl survived the concentration camps is unimaginable combination of regularity and chance:

by chance you can call the fact that not a single time he did not get into any of the teams that were formed daily for destruction.
And by regularity- the fact that he remained alive in conditions of cold, hunger, torture, but most importantly: retaining all the principles of humanity to the end.

Have you noticed that it is often possible to draw a parallel between our previous actions and subsequent events? We often blame fate for our troubles and problems, not realizing that our life tomorrow depends on ourselves and our actions today. Even a good thought can save us in difficult situation, but just one wrong deed "spoil" us all life.

Even before the war, Frankl had written a book on psychology. It was a theory about the meaning of life. He tried to save the manuscript in the camp, but to no avail. In the death camp, he had to test the correctness of his theory on himself. He saw that in such inhuman conditions there is a greater chance of survival for people who are strong in spirit, and not for physically strong people.

To go through such terrible trials and save his human face, he was helped by the hope of seeing his wife among the living. That was his purpose, his purpose, to survive in order to meet his wife. But when he realized that she, being a fragile creature and being far away from him, in another concentration camp, would not be able to physically survive in these conditions, he promised himself to survive and preserve all human principles, not to turn into a beast, so that she accepted a quick, not painful death.

2. The question of the meaning of life. Psychologist Viktor Frankl explains.

And now the most interesting. Viktor Frankl's approach was discouragingly unexpected for me. Initially, we incorrectly raise the question of the meaning of life. The case, it turns out, not in WHAT WE EXPECT FROM LIFE, but in WHAT LIFE EXPECTS FROM US. Every day and every minute we are faced with a choice of what to do, life puts questions before us. We must respond with the right deeds and actions. And it depends on how we acted in each specific case, how circumstances will develop in the future. What will be next question who will give us life (= God).

This postulate was derived by Frankl, based on the many circumstances and events in the death camp, where the connections of cause and effect are especially obvious and bare.

Another valuable idea of the author: every person has something more than "I": responsibility, caring for others, the desire to create something meaningful for people. And then only a person feels truly happy, in this main point his existence. Moreover, each person has his own meaning of life. Each person seeks to determine his own meaning of existence, this is the engine of everyone's life.

The latest research has shown that 4 out of 10 Americans do not see any specific and important goal in their lives. 4 out of 10 is 40%.

Simultaneously, studies show that people who have purpose, meaning in life, are more satisfied with life and have better well-being, better physical and mental health, greater flexibility, higher self-esteem, and minimal risk of depression.

3. Review of the book “To tell life - yes. Psychologist in a concentration camp.

As a scientist, Frankl described his experiences in the camp in various phases. shock phase he called the 1st phase. 2nd phase - phase of apathy. At this time, something dies in the soul of people and a defensive reaction turns on - apathy. Phase 3 is release phase when there is a reaction of complete lack of joy. The person needs psychological support.

The body's defenses

Frankl was struck perfection of the human body. What possibilities and reserves are hidden in it! For six months the prisoners wore one shirt without washing. Constantly dirty after excavation, during which it is impossible to do without wounds. At the same time, no one had inflammation or infection. Work in the cold half-bare without warm clothes. But no one even had a runny nose. How is this possible? At what point does the human body launch such defensive forces? At a time when there is a constant threat to life?

Hunger

The author tells in the book not about global horrors, but about "small" debilitating daily torments of prisoners. For example, a detailed narrative about the author's daily struggle with hunger, about ways to stretch an unimaginably small portion of bread for a day. It was as if I felt this state myself, it is so realistically described.

Meals for the day consisted of a bowl of empty soup, a tiny piece of bread. Plus there was an additive - a terrible sausage (a tiny piece) or jam (a small spoon). For prisoners who worked hard and were constantly in the cold in shabby clothes, this was unimaginably small.

It is very difficult for a person who has never starved to imagine this state. Imagine that you are standing in the cold rain, in the mud. And you need to peck the ground with a pickaxe. You are constantly waiting for a siren that will call for a half-hour break, the only one in every day. Do you constantly think about whether there will be bread today? With swollen fingers, you feel the bread in your pocket, break off crumbs, stretching for the whole day.

The topic of how to use such a meager portion of bread was the most important topic among the prisoners. It even gave rise to 2 parties: a party in which they held the opinion that rations should be eaten immediately and a party with the opinion that a portion of bread should be stretched out for the whole day. The first put forward 2 arguments: bread will not be stolen and at least once a day you can drown out unbearable hunger. Frankl belonged to the 2nd party. He tells in the book about his motives to join her. The hour of awakening was one of the most unbearable hours of the day. First, the piercing whistle of a siren, then the fight against dampness, cold, when swollen feet had to get into wet shoes. And to see how men cry from the pain of wounded legs. It was then that Frankl clutched at a consolation, albeit weak, but still - a piece of bread in his pocket!

Suicide

You ask, who can fight for life in such conditions? After all, death, compared with life, looks like a reward. Frank says that indeed, almost all the prisoners had the idea of suicide. He himself, as a believer, immediately vowed to himself under no circumstances "not to throw himself on the wire." He knew the statistics and knew that he was unlikely to be able to avoid falling into the daily selection of destruction.

Apathy

Frankl talks realistically about apathy. She appears in everyone after the shock. In the beginning, the prisoners could hardly bear the pictures of sadism. But over time, people began to get used to and no longer reacted to screams of pain. Every day they came across the sick, the suffering, the dying and the dead, so over time they began to react to them with detachment and indifference.

Frankl, being a doctor, was struck by his insensitivity. Apathy is actually a special protective mechanism of the body. The reality around narrows and a person concentrates only on the main task: how to survive today?

I strongly advise everyone to read this book in order to understand and realize that it is not right to complain about the blows of fate. Creating favorable circumstances and happy life largely depends on us, on how we act in each specific case, how much we disinterestedly give others our attention, warmth, care and work!

Another important conclusion to draw from the book is that Each person tends to seek to determine the meaning, purpose of his existence.. This is the engine, the stimulus of life and human development. But Everyone has their own meaning of life, everyone has their own.

I wish everyone to enjoy life, love and dream!

(ratings: 9 , average: 2,78 out of 5)

Title: Say Yes to Life: A Psychologist in a Concentration Camp

About the book “Say Yes to Life!”: A Psychologist in a Concentration Camp by Viktor Frankl

Every citizen of his country must know its history. Here you can talk about high patriotic values and banal education. But the most important was and remains the invaluable experience of past generations, which, first of all, concerns the experienced military operations. Great Patriotic War left a huge imprint on a whole generation of people in many countries, and no one should forget the terrible and vital experience that she gave. Those, without exaggeration, the great heroes who survived the years of the war and those who have sunk into oblivion, are clearest example for the next generations, so that people would never allow the sad repetition of the past, neither in the struggle for mythical ideals, nor in the agony of the most terrible human vices.

Among other things, the war of 1941-1945 is also famous for the creation and rapid development of the so-called concentration camps. A lot has also been said about this phenomenon, but it is unlikely that stories about this will be able to convey all the true horror of what is happening. Viktor Frankl, a philosopher and psychologist, one of the greatest spiritual teachers of mankind of the 20th century, has created a book that can turn the average person's idea of the Nazi death camps. She received a rather life-affirming title - "Say Yes to Life!": A Psychologist in a Concentration Camp.

Having personally been captured by the Nazis and survived in a concentration camp, Frankl was able to use such a sad experience as a way of understanding the essence of human life. Paradoxically, the book “Say Yes to Life!” in fact, it does not directly tell about the horrors of the death camps, it tells about the strength of the spirit, about how important it is, under no, even the most terrible circumstances, not to lose faith in oneself, about the importance of the true goal. Being professional psychologist, Frankl in his work abstracted as much as possible from value judgments and personal experience prisoner. He described everything that happened precisely from the point of view of a professional, analyzing the behavior and feelings of a person who fell into such conditions, and brought out a kind of recipe for survival in spite of everything.

The book is really incredibly deep, touching the most hidden strings of human souls. Everyone who reads it will definitely rethink many of their life values and attitudes, and will be able to better understand themselves.

Read Viktor Frankl's amazing, poignant book-revelation - "Say Yes to Life!": A Psychologist in a Concentration Camp, analyze, form an opinion. Enjoy reading.

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This book is one of the few greatest human creations.

Karl Jaspers

Blessed is he who has visited this world

In his fatal moments,

He was called by all the good

Like an interlocutor at a feast.

F.I. Tyutchev

Before you is a great book by a great man.

Its author is not just an outstanding scientist, although this is true: in terms of the number of honorary degrees awarded to him by various universities of the world, he has no equal among psychologists and psychiatrists. He is not just world celebrity, although it is difficult to argue with this: 31 of his books have been translated into several dozen languages, he traveled the whole world, and many were looking for meetings with him prominent people And powers of the world this range from such eminent philosophers as Karl Jaspers and Martin Heidegger to political and religious leaders including Pope Paul VI and Hillary Clinton. Less than a decade after Viktor Frankl's death, few would dispute that he turned out to be one of humanity's greatest spiritual teachers of the 20th century. He not only built psychological theory meaning and the philosophy of man based on it, he opened the eyes of millions of people to the possibility of discovering meaning in their own lives.

The relevance of Viktor Frankl's ideas is determined by the unique encounter of a large-scale personality with the circumstances of place, time and mode of action that gave these ideas such a loud resonance. He managed to live a lot, and the dates of his life are 1905–1997. - absorbed the 20th century almost without a trace. He has lived almost his entire life in Vienna, in the heart of Europe, almost at the epicenter of several revolutions and two world wars, and close to the front lines of forty years of the Cold War. He lived through them all, he lived through them in both senses of the word, not only by staying alive, but also by translating his experiences into books and public lectures. Viktor Frankl experienced the full tragedy of the century.

Almost in the middle of his life there is a fault marked with the dates 1942-1945. These are the years of Frankl's stay in Nazi concentration camps, inhuman existence with a meager probability of surviving. Almost anyone who was lucky enough to survive would consider it the highest happiness to erase these years from life and forget them like a bad dream. But on the eve of the war, Frankl basically completed the development of his theory of striving for meaning as the main driving force behavior and personality development. And in the concentration camp, this theory received an unprecedented test of life and confirmation - according to Frankl's observations, the greatest chances to survive were not those who were distinguished by the strongest health, but those who were distinguished by the strongest spirit, who had a reason to live for. Few people in the history of mankind can be remembered who paid such a high price for their beliefs and whose views were subjected to such a cruel test. Viktor Frankl is on a par with Socrates and Giordano Bruno, who accepted death for truth. He, too, had the opportunity to avoid such a fate. Shortly before his arrest, he managed, like some other high-class professionals, to obtain a visa to enter the United States, but after much hesitation, he decided to stay in order to support his elderly parents, who did not have a chance to leave with him.

Frankl himself had something to live for: he took with him to the concentration camp the manuscript of the book with the first version of the doctrine of meaning, and his concern was first to try to save it, and then, when this failed, to restore the lost text. In addition, until his release, he hoped to see his wife alive, from whom he was separated in the camp, but this hope was not destined to come true - his wife died, like almost all of his relatives. In the fact that he himself survived, both chance and regularity agreed. It was a coincidence that he didn't get on any of the death teams, not for any particular reason, but simply because the death machine had to be powered by someone. The pattern is that he went through all this, preserving himself, his personality, his “stubbornness of spirit”, as he calls a person’s ability not to succumb, not to break under the blows that fall on the body and soul.

When he was released in 1945 and learned that his entire family had died in the crucible of the world war, he did not break down and did not harden. Over the course of five years, he published a dozen books in which he outlined his unique philosophical doctrine, psychological theory of personality and psychotherapeutic methodology based on the idea of a person's desire for meaning. The desire for meaning helps a person to survive, and it also leads to the decision to die, it helps to endure the inhuman conditions of the concentration camp and endure the ordeal of fame, wealth and honor. Viktor Frankl passed both those and other tests and remained a Man with a capital letter, having tested the effectiveness of his own theory on himself and proving that a person is worth believing in. “Each time needs its own psychotherapy,” he wrote. He managed to find that nerve of time, that request of people that could not find an answer - the problem of meaning - and, based on his life experience, find simple, but at the same time tough and convincing words about the main thing. This man is rare! – and there is a desire, and there is something to learn in our time of universal relativity, disrespect for knowledge and indifference to authorities.

"Stubbornness of Spirit" is his own formula. The spirit is stubborn, despite the suffering that the body may experience, despite the discord that the soul may experience. Frankl is palpably religious, but he avoids talking about it directly, because he is convinced that a psychologist and psychotherapist should be able to understand any person and help him, regardless of his faith or lack thereof. Spirituality is not limited to religiosity. “After all,” he said in his Moscow lecture, “to God, if he exists, it is more important whether you are a good person than whether you believe in him or not.”

The first version of the book "A Psychologist in a Concentration Camp", which formed the basis of this publication, was dictated by him in 9 days, shortly after his release, and was published in 1946 anonymously, without attribution. The first 3,000 copies were sold out, but the second edition sold very slowly. This book was much more successful in the United States; its first English edition appeared in 1959 with a preface by the most authoritative Gordon Allport, whose role in Frankl's international recognition is extremely great. This book proved insensitive to the vagaries of intellectual fashion. Five times it was declared the "book of the year" in the United States. For more than 30 years, it has gone through dozens of editions with a total circulation of over 9 million copies. When in the early 1990s a nationwide survey commissioned by the Library of Congress was conducted in the United States to find out which books had the most impact on people's lives, the American edition of Frankl's book that you hold in your hands entered the top ten!

A new, most complete German edition of Frankl's main book, Still Saying Yes to Life, was published in 1977 and has been constantly reprinted ever since. It also included Frankl's philosophical play Synchronization at Birkenwald, which had only been published once, in 1948, in a literary magazine under the pseudonym Gabriel Lyon. In this play, Frankl finds a different, artistic form for expressing his main, philosophical ideas - and not only in the words spoken by the prisoner Franz, Frankl's alter ego, but also in the structure of the stage action. This edition is from this edition. In Russian, shortened versions of Frankl's story about the concentration camp, made according to other publications, were previously published. Its full version is published in Russian for the first time.

At the end of his life, Frankl visited Moscow twice and spoke at Moscow University. He met with an extremely warm welcome. His thoughts fell on fertile ground, and today Frankl is perceived in Russia rather as one of his own, and not as a stranger. Frankl's books, which had come out earlier, received an equally warm welcome. There is every reason to hope that this publication will have a long life.

Dmitry Leontiev,

Doctor of Psychology

This book belongs

among the few greatest

human creations.

Karl Jaspers

Blessed is he who has visited this world

In his fatal moments,

He was called by all the good

Like an interlocutor at a feast.

F.I. Tyutchev

Foreword

Before you is a great book by a great man.

Its author is not just an outstanding scientist, although this is true: in terms of the number of honorary degrees awarded to him by various universities of the world, he has no equal among psychologists and psychiatrists. He is not just a world celebrity, although it is difficult to argue with this: 31 of his books have been translated into several dozen languages, he has traveled all over the world, and many prominent people and the powers that be were looking for meetings with him - from such prominent philosophers as Karl Jaspers and Martin Heidegger, and to political and religious leaders, including Pope Paul VI and Hillary Clinton. Less than a decade after Viktor Frankl's death, few would dispute that he turned out to be one of humanity's greatest spiritual teachers of the 20th century. He not only built a psychological theory of meaning and a philosophy of man based on it, he opened the eyes of millions of people to the possibility of discovering meaning in their own lives.

The relevance of Viktor Frankl's ideas is determined by the unique encounter of a large-scale personality with the circumstances of place, time and mode of action that gave these ideas such a loud resonance. He managed to live a lot, and the dates of his life - 1905-1997 - absorbed the 20th century almost without a trace. He has lived almost his entire life in Vienna, in the heart of Europe, almost at the epicenter of several revolutions and two world wars, and close to the front lines of forty years of the Cold War. He lived through them all, he lived through them in both senses of the word, not only by staying alive, but also by translating his experiences into books and public lectures. Viktor Frankl experienced the full tragedy of the century.

Almost in the middle, a fault passes through his life, marked with the dates 1942-1945. These are the years of Frankl's stay in Nazi concentration camps, inhuman existence with a meager probability of surviving. Almost anyone who was lucky enough to survive would consider it the highest happiness to erase these years from life and forget them like a bad dream. But on the eve of the war, Frankl basically completed the development of his theory of the desire for meaning as the main driving force of behavior and personality development. And in the concentration camp, this theory received an unprecedented test of life and confirmation - according to Frankl's observations, the greatest chances to survive were not those who were distinguished by the strongest health, but those who were distinguished by the strongest spirit, who had a reason to live for. Few people in the history of mankind can be remembered who paid such a high price for their beliefs and whose views were subjected to such a cruel test. Viktor Frankl is on a par with Socrates and Giordano Bruno, who accepted death for truth. He, too, had the opportunity to avoid such a fate. Shortly before his arrest, he managed, like some other high-class professionals, to obtain a visa to enter the United States, but after much hesitation, he decided to stay in order to support his elderly parents, who did not have a chance to leave with him.

Frankl himself had something to live for; he took with him to the concentration camp the manuscript of the book with the first version of the doctrine of meaning, and his concern was first to try to save it, and then, when this failed, to restore the lost text. In addition, until his release, he hoped to see his wife alive, from whom he was separated in the camp, but this hope was not destined to come true - his wife died, like almost all of his relatives. In the fact that he himself survived, both chance and regularity agreed. It was a coincidence that he didn't get on any of the death teams, not for any particular reason, but simply because the death machine had to be powered by someone.

The pattern is that he went through all this, preserving himself, his personality, his “stubbornness of spirit”, as he calls a person’s ability not to succumb, not to break under the blows that fall on the body and soul.