Vellanskii, Danilo

also (D. M. Kavunnik). Born Dec. 11, 1774, in Borznia, Chernigov Province; died Mar. 15, 1847, in St. Petersburg. Russian scientist, physician, and idealist philosopher.

Vellanskii was an adjunct professor (from 1805) and professor (1814-37) at the St. Petersburg Medical and Surgical Academy. In 1819 he became an academician. As a follower of F. W. Schelling’s philosophy of nature, Vellanskii believed that matter was created by an absolute principle and that in its development it passed through many subsequent stages, the highest of which was man. Rejecting agnosticism and empiricism, Vellanskii was an adherent of rationalism. He expounded in idealistic form the dialectical thesis of the universal relation between phenomena, their duality, and the struggle between polarities as the source of development. Vellanskii’s ideas exerted influence on M. Pavlov and the so-called lovers of wisdom; his philosophy of nature was criticized both by adherents of empirical knowledge (the physicist E. Kh. Lents, the Decembrist V. F. Raevskii, and others) and by official circles, which saw Vellanskii’s activity as a threat to Orthodox doctrine.