Seminar by Evert van der Zweerde: Political Philosophy in Russia – Incurable Imperial Mindset?
Against the background of these questions, I will address three further notions that seem to set the stakes of the discussion: anarchy, authority, autocracy. This “triple A” suggests a specificity (rather than a uniqueness) of political-philosophical thought in Russia and in Russian (with the additional, far from obvious question: where to find it? partly in odd places…). The latter part of this sentence, however, raised new questions, that have become, arguably, more pressing than they ever were as a result of the current military conflict in Ukraine that some will describe as “Russia’s War” while others persist in calling it “Special Military Operation” - turning contemporary Russian society into a “special operation” in the process. Is a neutral, distanced approach possible in this case? While we always should seek nuance and perspective, we cannot, nor should we abstain from judging, nor can we avoid the question how to assess the current conflict, which can be described, alternatively but not mutually exclusively, as a clash between civilizations, as a geopolitical conflict between two of several large blocks -Schmittian Großräume [large spaces]- in a multipolar world, or as part of the yet-not-processed Russian as well as Soviet past – the total absence of Vergangenheitsbewältigung [coming to terms with the past], which not accidentally is a German word.
Presupposing, despite all differences, continuity rather than rupture when it comes to the Tsarist Russian Empire, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the present-day Russian Federation, we need to address the question if and how the current situation is nourished and / or legitimized by important strands and concepts in the tradition of political-philosophical thinking in Russia / Soviet Union. While, again, simplification must be avoided, we can identity, I will suggest, a specific dynamics of, on the one hand, an imperial and, by implication, Russo-Centric logic that comes in two variants, a belligerent and a benevolent (and paternalistic) one, and, on the other hand, an anti-colonial and, by implication, plural logic than emphasizes national identity and, politically, sovereignty and self-determination. This dynamics can then, finally, be tied back to the concepts of “empire” and “nation-state” as the two main alternative models of political modernity, both standing in opposition to alternatives that challenge the very notion of “statehood”. The specificity, albeit not uniqueness, of the Russian case would then be the historical fact of an expanding empire that incorporates, by whatever means, its blizhnеe zarubezh’e rather than establishing a colonial empire with overseas colonies.
One of the very few good things about the current military conflict in Ukraine is that it forces us to readdress, reassess and reinvestigate the anyway complicated reality of Russian political philosophy.
Seminar de Yurii Latysh: Ukraine's Memory Politics during the War
History is one of the main battlefields of the war between Russia and Ukraine. Russia launched against Ukraine not only a conventional war, but also a war in the sphere of historical memory. The Russian authorities claim that Ukrainian statehood is a historical curiosity, the Ukrainian people were "invented" by a small group of intellectuals and enemies of Russia (Polish aristocrats or the Austrian military), the Ukrainian language is one of the dialects of Russian, and Ukraine was created by the Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin, who gave "Russian lands" (Eastern and Southern regions of Ukraine) to it.
One of the main features of the memory landscape of Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet space is that the leading actor in the politics of memory is the state, which regulates historical politics through laws and state institutions. The independent Ukrainian state is declared the highest value, and its existence is the guarantee of the survival of the Ukrainian people. All the tragedies of the Ukrainians (world wars, genocides) are considered a consequence of the absence of a Ukrainian state. The defensive reaction was the concept of a “vulnerable” nation (language, history, memory), which is constantly threatened with prohibitions and destruction.
The main component of Ukraine's politics of memory during the war is Decolonization, as a continuation of Decommunization, which began in 2015, and Derussification, which began at the initiative of some local authorities and right-wing activists after the full-scale Russian invasion. Decolonization of memory involves the removal of symbols – names and memorial signs, which are considered markers of Russian imperial policy – from the public space.
In the context of information aggression using "historical arguments" Ukraine is forced to consider history and historical memory as a sphere of national security and a weapon against Russian humanitarian aggression. Securitization and Weaponizing of historical memory in Ukraine began after the Russian aggression in 2014 and acted as a means of ensuring the security of the national historical narrative by delegitimizing and criminalizing the Soviet and Russian narratives, which are considered a threat to the state and society.
Présentation de Victor Malakhov
The following questions were selectively discussed in the report:
1. Why philosophy? The Philosophy Department of Kyiv University (KNU) in the 60-70s. Our teachers.
2. Kyiv Institute of Philosophy as an island of freedom. The role of the Institute in the life of the Ukrainian philosophical community.
3. What united Kyiv philosophers – the Sixtiers? Did the Kyiv School of Philosophy really exist?
4. So what did Kyiv philosophers of the 60-80s argue about in the last century?
5. From the paradigm of activity to the paradigm of culture. Key aspects of philosophical discourse in Kiev in the last third of the 20th century.
6. Regarding Ethics.
7. Relations with colleagues from Russia (Moscow, Leningrad*) and other Republics of the Soviet Union.
* St. Petersburg nowadays
Seminar by Antoine Arjakovsky: With the return of war in Europe the necessary overcoming of Western amnesia and the possible ways of judging the crimes of communism and imperialism
We know that failure to judge the crimes of the communist past leads to their justification and then their repetition. Kholodomor, the cold genocide carried out by Russia against Ukraine in the winter of 2022-2023, a population of more than 40 million, is the tragic repetition of Kholodomor, the hunger genocide to which committed, on Stalin's orders, the Soviet Union to crush independent Ukraine, a crime against humanity which left more than 5 million dead.
Similarly, while at the beginning of the 21st century China was believed to respect international law, in 2013, President Xi Jinping called for "methodically carrying out external propaganda work" and "better telling China's story and making hear the voice of China.” Ten years later, on November 21, 2023, Lu Shaye, Chinese ambassador to France, denied on LCI the sovereignty of the countries resulting from the Soviet Union. The countries of the former USSR "do not have effective status in international law because there is no international agreement to concretize their status as sovereign countries", he declared in particular. The Chinese ambassador also questioned Crimea's belonging to Ukraine, a territory that Russia has occupied since 2014. "It depends on how we perceive this problem," he said. "There is History. Crimea was, at the very beginning, Russia's. It was Khrushchev who offered Crimea to Ukraine during the time of the Soviet Union." For the Chinese diplomat, we must stop “quibbling” over the question of post-Soviet borders.
To escape from amnesia on the one hand and propaganda on the other, it is necessary to rehabilitate authentic history, based in metaphysics, capable of showing the truth, of bringing out a therapeutic story, capable of deeply healing the wounded memories, resentments and desires for revenge. During this brief intervention, we propose firstly to bring to light the reality of the memorial conflict at the root of the current war between Russia and Ukraine. Then we will recall certain attempts to judge the crimes of communism, notably that of Vladimir Bukovsky, and we will briefly present the proposal of the Russian historian Nikolai Epplee for the democratization of the work of historical justice. Finally we will insist on the fact that, as Nicolas Berdyaev had already noticed who compared the 3rd communist international to the Third Imperial Rome, communist mythology is itself linked to imperialist mythology on a historical level but also on a metaphysical level. It is only by purifying imperial political theology that we will be able to free ourselves from the demons that haunt Russian consciousness and, beyond that, European consciousness.
Presentation by Svetlana Novikova
The Boom of Time: Perception of W.G. Sebald in Russia in Socio-Political Context of the 2010s – early 2020s.
The literary legacy of W.G. Sebald (1944 – 2001) had long remained out of reach of Russian readers. Even after the Russian publication of his most famous novel, "Austerlitz" (2001, translated by Marina Koreneva, 2006), the name of the German writer was almost unknown in Russia. However, the situation changed dramatically in the latter half of the 2010s. These years were marked by a significant surge of interest in Sebald among Russian literary critics, writers, and scholars, which provoked a reader’s interest as well. This paper explores author's integration into the Russian literary discourse, in the context of "inflammation of memory" (Nikolai Epple) in Russia during the 2010s. It is analyzed within the broader context of the polemical response of Russian intelligentsia to the state's policies that shape the historical memory and that are rooted in retromania.
30 September [past event]
Organized by RASA and SEET
Moderator: Marina F. Bykova, North Carolina State University, USA
Management: Marina Bykova, Vitaliy Pronskikh, Yuliya Sineokaya, Sergey Chasovskikh
Liisa Bourgeot, University of Helsinki, Finland
Shpet and Berdyaev: Opposing Views on the Fate of Russian Philosophy.
Abstract: The phenomenologist Gustav Shpet was also supposed to emigrate on a philosophical ship, but he managed to stay in Russia. 1922 became a turning point in Shpet's personal career for another reason: it was then that his Sketch on the Development of Russian Philosophy was published. The lecture discusses Shpet's work and his highly critical attitude towards the history of Russian thought. Shpet claims that, on the whole, Russian philosophy was based on the idea of Russian national exceptionalism. In his opinion, such an approach effectively hindered the emergence of a "pure" and "rational" philosophy in Russia. Shpet holds a particular contempt for Nikolai Berdyaev, or "Beliberyaev," as Shpet calls him in his book.
Contrary to this, Berdyaev perhaps became the most famous of thinkers from Russian abroad. His popular Russian Idea, published in Paris in 1946, became a model for Western attitudes towards Russian thought: Russian philosophy - or even Russian culture as a whole - was considered an antipode to Western rationalism. In my presentation, I will compare the views of these two philosophers. How were they received by readers, and what role could they play in contemporary discussions?
Yulia Sineokaya, Sorbonne University & Independent Institute of Philosophy, France
Lev Shestov: overcoming existential anxiety
Abstract: The ongoing military aggression of Russia in Ukraine for the second year has intensified existential questions about faith and disbelief, duty and guilt, tragic meaningfulness and total absurdity of human existence, self-destruction, and violence. The texts of Lev Shestov (1866-1938) help counterpose careful philosophical analysis to the emotions of existential anxiety. Shestov's work is aimed at liberating people from the power of the "otherworldly" anonymous objective order, which condemns them to earthly, "otherworldly" suffering. The presentation will be devoted to the logic of the worldview search, which ultimately enables Lev Shestov to overcome existential anxiety by turning to mythical plots drawn from biblical texts, as well as the reception of his ideas in the works of his French interlocutors Boris Schlösse, Georges Bataille, and Benjamin Fondane. The worldview context within which Shestov's work will be considered is set by the creative works of authors such as Nietzsche, Unamuno, Camus, and Tillich.
Olga Lyanda-Geller, Purdue University, USA
The Multifaceted "Philosophical Steamboat": The Case of the Brutskus Brothers.
Abstract: Among the passengers of the "Philosophical Steamship" were not only philosophers, but also representatives of other disciplines. This report examines a relatively little-known case of the Brutskus brothers. Of the two brothers, the younger, Boris, was sent on the actual philosophical steamship. In the list of deportees prepared by the Cheka, Boris was listed as the fourth. The elder, Yuliy, was arrested and imprisoned in 1920. In 1922, he was deported by train to Lithuania.
Boris (Ber) Davidovich Brutskus (1874-1938) was an outstanding economist and agronomist whose views on the free market and planned economy contradicted Bolshevik ideology. After his exile, Ber Brutskus became a professor at the Russian Scientific Institute in Berlin and later a professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His book on economic planning in Soviet Russia was published in English translation in 1935, with a preface by future Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek.
Yuliy (Yudel, Julius) Davidovich Brutskus (1870-1951), a physician, journalist, historian, public figure, and deputy of the Constituent Assembly, was arrested primarily as one of the leaders of the Zionist movement. After his expulsion, he became a deputy of the Lithuanian Republic Seimas and Minister of Jewish Affairs. He was also one of the creators and leaders of the Society for Jewish Healthcare, of which Albert Einstein was the honorary chairman. Alexander Solzhenitsyn refers to Julius Bruckus's historical works on the history of the Khazars in his writings. While in Vichy France during World War II, Brutskus saved thousands of Jews from concentration camps by organizing the issuance of Lithuanian passports to them.
Such is the fate and contribution to the development of world civilization of just two passengers of the "philosophical steamboat".
Vladimir Marchenkov, Ohio University, USA
The Problem of Integrity in Russian Philosophy and the Integrative Trends in Global Thought of the 20th Century.
Abstract: My brief message is an overview and an attempt to position Russian philosophy of the idealistic direction among the efforts made by philosophers of different countries to develop integrating models of knowledge, culture, and history. Starting from Vl. Solovyov's teachings on holistic knowledge to contemporary international (if not to say global) Hegelianism, these attempts permeate the entire history of Russian and global thought in various fields. Alongside this continuity, the main theme in these tendencies has been and remains resistance to and the desire to overcome fragmenting, diffusive directions in philosophy, humanities, and social sciences. Not being an expert in the history of science, I will only briefly try to connect some scientific doctrines with these integration tendencies, among which theories of the noosphere, biosphere, and others occupy a particularly significant place and connect Russian thought with the global context.
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Dear colleagues and participants of the mini-conference!
We would like to draw your attention to the recently formed and registered Independent Institute of Philosophy (IIPh) in Paris. It is a professional association that brings together Russian-speaking researchers in the field of philosophy and other disciplines outside of Russia.
Russia’s "New Conservatism" as Pseudo-Conservatism
It has long become commonplace among scholars and non-scholars to speak of a conservative turn in Russia in the past 10 to 15 years. In my paper, I will take a different approach, arguing that this turn is, in fact, anti-conservative, as its essential features are directly opposite to the ones of mainstream conservatism. In the first part, I will give six reasons why it is counterproductive to use the term ‘conservatism’ while describing the social and political developments in Russia before and after the invasion of Ukraine. In the second part, I will reintroduce the notion of pseudo-conservatism (borrowed from Adorno and Hofstadter) and explain its main elements on specific examples of contemporary Russian politics, with its instrumentalization of various (religious, ethical, legal, and social) discourses for the sake of justifying its situational, ahistorical and anti-intellectual orientation. In conclusion, I will explain how the notion of pseudo-conservatism can help us understand social and political developments in Russia not as an isolated case but as part of a broader perspective of the worldwide crisis of conservatism.
