ABSTRACT
Russian readers have had over ten different encounters with Søren Kierkegaard, and each time he appeared not as an old acquaintance but as a new person. This stranger did not make a very prominent initial appearance; he spoke either in a very simple or in a very sophisticated manner, often contradicted himself and was hard to listen to. Failure to understand him gave rise to embarrassment. Trying to overcome this embarrassment, people hastened to find some justification for him, though more often than not they ended up condemning him. After people formed an opinion about him, he was forgotten. Later he appeared again, and even today the process of getting acquainted with him has not still been completed.
