"...Tenir allurne... Le flambeau de la civilization": international congresses in the letters of philosophers and scholars

The article examines how the international congresses are constituted in the existential dynamics of their preparation and in the letters of their organizers and participants. it focuses on such kind of sources as archives, materials of congress organizers representing scholarly communities in humanities and their private correspondence. The latter reveals how the international interaction of ideas arose at the level of personal connections and relationships, how the topics of congresses were formulated, sections and panels formed, speakers selected, as well as the connection between congresses and publications of leading academic journals of that time. The study is not intended to comprehensively examine the topic of international congresses, rather it presents some reflections on what was discovered in the private correspondence of such figures as X. Leon, the chairman of the first International Philosophical Congress, E. Halevy, a friend and colleague of x. Leon, A. Lalande, a participant of the first International Philosophical Congress, and E. Claparede, a participant of the second International Philosophical Congress an organizer of the Psychological congresses.