[2] Losev's paternal great-grandfather was also named Aleksei, and was awarded for heroism during the Napoleonic Wars, while fighting in a Cossack Brigade.

[2] In his final year of gymnasium, Losev received a gift from his professor: an eight-volume set of writings by Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov, which influenced him greatly.

[4] When Russia erupted in the 1917 February and October Revolutions, Losev kept a low profile, spending all of his time writing and studying.

[2] Pavel Florensky, a former priest and physicist working on the official GOELRO plan to bring electrical utility service to Russia, performed the wedding ceremony in Sergiyev Posad.

Losev and his wife found they were matched artistically, intellectually and also spiritually; they both sought higher understanding in the study of Russian religion under Archimandrite David.

[5] The series was to conclude with a ninth volume but The Dialectics of Myth caused a great deal of controversy, and Losev never finished the final monograph.

[4] In these works, Losev synthesized the ideas of Russian philosophy of the early 20th century, of Christian Neo-platonism, dialectics of Schelling and Hegel, and phenomenology of Husserl.

Marianna Gerasimova, an investigator with the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU), an agency of secret police, was assigned to investigate Losev with the goal of proving that he was a leader of the secret religious splinter group called Onomatodoxy, based on the idea that the Name of God is God Himself, and that Losev was involved in planning violence against the Soviet government.

The book was denounced by politician Lazar Kaganovich and playwright Vladimir Kirshon who said "for such nuances put him up against a wall" to be executed.

[2] In December 1931, Maxim Gorky wrote acidly in Pravda and in Izvestia that he regretted Losev was still alive to foul the Soviet air.

[8] The flawed heroine Losev created, Maria Valentinovna Radina, was a woman musician who spouted high-minded philosophy but slipped to lower standards in her personal life.

In 1996, a controversy arose when author Konstantin Polivanov, Jewish studies historian Leonid Katsis, and journalist Dmitrii Shusharin published three articles that described Losev as an antisemite who bargained with Joseph Stalin for his release from exile.

According to translator Vladimir Leonidovich Marchenkov these three articles appearing in Russian newspaper Segodnya were a coordinated series of accusations.

[2] Olesya Nikolaeva responded to deny this assertion in the Russian Orthodox newspaper Radonezh: "The logic of the Bolshevist secret police" (1996).

The popular science magazine Rodina moved to settle the matter by publishing materials from the 1930–31 OGPU case file, which for the first time publicly demonstrated how Soviet secret police fabricated evidence against Losev.

[2] Swiss Slavicist Felix Philipp Ingold followed with "Zerbrechende Mythen" ("Crumbling myths") in 1996, in support of the idea that Losev was antisemitic.

"[2] He said that mitigating documents that should have been included in the OGPU investigation case files appeared to be missing, likely because they did not support the antisemitic conclusions.

He found the issue to be more nuanced than he previously thought, and agreed that "all attempts to distort" Losev's legacy were "politically motivated".

[10] Losev also entered into the controversy raging within Eastern Orthodoxy over the nature of the Name of God, siding with and clearly articulating the Imiaslavie position which was at odds with the official stance taken by the Russian Orthodox Church.