From mysterious India to mystical Russia

Marc Smnoff's - East as the spiritual future of humanity

Marc Smnoff (or Semenov, born , 1884 ?) was a renowned Russian
translator, writer and intellectual. He was son of the Russian historian, philologist and journalist of
Jewish-Russian origins Eugne Smnoff (1861 1944), and brother of the popular artist and
sculptress Anna Smnoff (1888 1977). Marc emigrated at early age, together with his father
(who was exiled from Russia due to his revolutionary activities), from Russia in 1889. In the
early 1920s, he became renowned in France both as a translator, and as sponsor of Russian
literature.
During the same years, Smnoff began to write about subjects related to spirituality and
esotericism. In 1932 he published his most remarkable work De l'Inde mystrieuse la Russie
mystique.
The aim of this paper is to show that Smnoff's description of the East should be understood as a
research on the initiatory dimensions, milieus, and sources which modern Western humanity must
connect to in order to regain access to genuine spirituality. Smnoff's work can be understood in
the context of a perceived need of the sacred that was felt in Europe in the 1930s, and to which he
tried to respond through the rediscovery of the secret treasures of the East. These initiatory, and
milieus are geographically located between the Eastern Europe, Russia and India, but for Smnoff
they spiritually belong to another dimension and/or era.