Friedrich Schiller and the Future of Freedom

Friedrich Schiller and the Future of Freedom: With Aspects of His Occult Biography

“The primary task of this book is to build a bridge to a deeper understanding of Schiller himself who, along with Goethe and Novalis, was one of the great spiritual forerunners and trailblazers of anthroposophy.” — Sergei O. Prokofieff

Intended as the second volume in a trilogy on Novalis, Schiller, and Goethe, Friedrich Schiller and the Future of Freedom is much more than a conventional biography. Prokofieff shines new light on Schiller’s character and destiny, helping to establish his position as a crucial antecedent to Rudolf Steiner in the spiritual history of humanity. He also defines Schiller’s task in the context of Goethe’s and Novalis’s achievements at the end of the eighteenth century—an extraordinary period that saw a seminal transformation in the philosophical and artistic landscapes.

Following the publication of The Riddle of Dmitri, which explores Schiller’s unfinished drama Demetrius, Sergei O. Prokofieff’s theme in this volume is the framework of Schiller’s life and extensive body of work. In timely way he conveys Schiller’s mediating role between Central and Eastern Europe, indicating how he came “near to the soul of the Russian people through an idealism imbued with his entirely self-created moral power and his fiery enthusiasm for everything in the world that is true, beautiful and good.”

About the Author

Sergei O. Prokofieff (1954-2014) was born in Moscow, where he studied fine arts and painting at the Moscow School of Art. At an early age he encountered the work of Rudolf Steiner and quickly realized that his life would be dedicated to the Christian path of esoteric knowledge. He wrote his first book, Rudolf Steiner and the Founding of the New Mysteries, while living in Soviet Russia, and it was published in English in 1994. After the fall of Communism, he helped establish the Anthroposophical Society in Russia. In 2001, he became a member of the Executive Council of the General Anthroposophical Society at the Goetheanum in Switzerland. More than 30 of his books have been translated into English. Sergei Prokofieff passed away in Dornach, Switzerland.