Vasily Seseman

Vasily Seseman (several other latinizations of his name exist, Lithuanian: Vosylius Sezemanas, Russian: Василий Эмильевич Сеземан) (June 11, 1884, Vyborg — March 23, 1963, Vilnius) was a Russian and Lithuanian philosopher, a representative of Marburg school of Neo-Kantianism. He is mostly remembered for his role in fostering philosophy in newly independent Lithuania and developing Lithuanian philosophical vocabulary (most remarkable are his translations of Aristotle into Lithuanian and contributions to Lithuanian encyclopedias). A close associate of Viktor Zhirmunsky and Lev Karsavin, as a prisoner of Gulag he was also an informal philosophy tutor and supporter of Buddhist writer Bidia Dandaron.

Born to the family of a medical doctor of Finnish Swedish descent and a Baltic German mother, he was initially named Wilhelm Sesemann and attended the Lutheran school (Katharinenschule) in St Petersburg. As he grew up, he adopted a more Russian identity, changing Wilhelm to Wassilij (Vasily) and embracing Russian Orthodox Christianity.

After two years of medical studies he turned to philosophy, fervently studying classical authors under Nikolay Lossky and classical languages under Tadeusz Stefan Zieliński at University of St. Petersburg. In 1909-1911 the university sent him to Germany to prepare him for a teaching career. In Berlin and Marburg, he took courses in philosophy, psychology, and pedagogics under Hermann Cohen, Paul Natorp, Ernst Cassirer, Hermann Alexander Diels, and Heinrich Wölfflin. In Germany he also met José Ortega y Gasset who made a great impression on him, and re-established a lifelong friendship with Nicolai Hartmann who in St Petersburg had influenced Vasily's decision to switch from medicine to philosophy.

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