Vol 34, No 2 (2024)

This article is dedicated to the surprises that Russia’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine brought with it. The author counts ten such circumstances: the beginning of a full-scale war in Europe; the actual clash between Russia and the United States, despite the fact that for many years the United States considered China its enemy; fierce military resistance of Ukraine, despite its state of a failed state; Russia’s economic stability; the complete submission of the European Union countries to the political will of the United States; the unexpectedly active involvement of Great Britain and the Scandinavian countries as Russia’s major opponents in Europe; the weakness of the American military-industrial complex, unable to meet the military needs of Ukraine; the ideological loneliness of the West, whom not only China, but also the countries of the global South and the Muslim world refused to unconditionally support. The last surprise, according to the author, will be the impending defeat of the West. It will be a consequence of the its deep ongoing crisis. This crisis is primarily caused by the decline of the idea of the nation state in its classical form. In the case of the United States, it took the form of a post-imperial state formation.

Thus, two mentalities collide in this conflict. On the one hand, the strategic realism of nation state, and on the other, the post-imperial mentality. Neither mentality fully understands the other. Russia does not understand that the West no longer consists of nation states, and the West has become immune to the idea of national sovereignty. However, this asymmetry works in Russia’s favor, since its stakes in this conflict are existential.

In his conversation with the editors of Logos about the key plots and the context of the book Endgame Europe. Why the Europe Political Project Has Failed and How Can We Dream of It Again (2022) its co-author, Hauke Ritz, emphasizes that it was induced by a reflection on the reasons of the European Union project’s failure at the time of the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Maastricht Treaty. This failure has both an internal political — the failure of democracy and republicanism in the internal structures of the EU, and a foreign dimension — the deterioration of relations between Germany (Europe), the West and Russia and, of course, the conflict in Ukraine. Moreover, the internal political failure in the implementation of the European peace project, largely associated with the choice of an extensive path of its development (EU enlargement, coupled with NATO expansion to the east) at the expense of intensity (deepening political integration) leads to deep foreign policy complications and is aggravated by them.

The fact that the EU project, which has not made progress in its domestic political (democratic and republican) content and is artificially limited through the exclusion of Russia from the European world and the common security architecture, has turned out to be instrumentalized, along with support for the US position on Ukraine, according to Ritz, constitutes a betrayal of Europe. The problem is compounded by the disregard of the university community and the mainstream media for this catastrophic state of affairs. However, new, alternative media are emerging and gaining popularity all over Europe, critically and responsibly exploring these topics and contributing to the formation of reflective European solidarity.

The case of Ulrike Guérot, which has become an administrative case, which highlights the problematic nature of current university policy in Germany and beyond (the policy of direct and indirect restrictions and sanctions imposed on manifestations of free, non-standard thinking in the public space of a modern democratic society), is described by the author in its unique facticity for Germany — correlated except with the wave of prohibitions on the profession and the expulsion of dissidents in 1977 (the case of Peter Bruckner, etc.). The essay sets itself and tries to answer the following structurally significant and rooted in the specifics of the analyzed case: (1) How, when and why is Professor (political scientist Ulrike Guérot) labeled “controversial” (#umstritten)? (2) What impact does public pressure have on the decision of the (Bonn) University to dismiss? (3) What happens to a democratic society in which scientists and intellectuals are no longer free and cannot participate in public discussions without self-censorship?

In search of answers to these questions, the author comes to a statement of a characteristic and symptomatic circumstance for the current moment: through a media campaign promoting his case professionally (but laterally, divergently) analyzing the current political realities (Germany, Europe, etc.) the political scientist is being pushed out by both the mainstream media and the university community “into that segment of society whose representatives began to be called ‘outside the box’ in a negative and exclusive way [from ‘normality’] even during the polarized discussion about coronavirus…” As a result: “Alliances and communities that previously seemed unthinkable suddenly arose, The classic political categories of the ‘right’ and ‘left’ are mixed up… Which once again underlines the complexity of the social dynamics that have arisen: which side is ‘wrong’ in a democracy?”

The article is dedicated to the philosophy of Evald Ilyenkov, its historical and cultural context and its relevance today. Ilyenkov is known for his original solution to the problem of the ideal within the framework of Marxism. The concept of the ideal is the center of his philosophical teaching, from which he draws pedagogical, psychological, and aesthetic conclusions. In Soviet times, the concept of the ideal by Ilyenkov caused a discussion, in which David Dubrovsky opposed the philosopher and his school, defending the “subjectivity of the ideal.” In our opinion, this dispute reflected the opposition of two value systems in the Soviet civilization, one of which dominated in the era of the “thaw,” the other — in the “era of stagnation.”

The “thaw” was ambivalent, along with elements of liberal Marxism, from which “perestroika” later grew, there was a tradition in it that went through Lenin to classical culture. “Stagnation” marked the victory of philistinism, the ideology of the black market, huckstering, cynicism, disappointment in ideals under the cover of hypocritical recognition of dogmatic officialdom. This correlated with the positivist denial of the universal Truth, the assertion of relativism, “the subjectivity of the ideal.” The long shadow of “stagnation” in the form of value relativism and cynicism also lies on modern, post-Soviet, peripheral capitalist Russian culture, and therefore the Ilyenkov’s philosophy of the ideal does not lose its relevance.

Contemporary fiction and film are full of complex narrative forms. They attempt to make readers’ and viewers’ experience more perplexed, while also challenging and redefining the basic elements of narrative. The forking-path narrative also highlights the complexity of contemporary narrative forms: it presents a storyworld which encompasses multiple possible alternative worlds. Events within it can be either reversible or irreversible, and each time they remain unpredictable to the reader.

The author examines the irreversibility of events in forking-path narratives on the example of the Paul Auster’s novel 4321. While reversibility of events emphasizes that the fabula can be changed in each storyline and, as a result, it becomes multiversion, irreversibility of events instead has a different effect. Irreversible events operate in forking-path narratives on the principle of repetition: they invariably recur in each storyline, and this recurrence enhances (more frequently a tragic) experience. The recurrence of irreversible events also creates a specific rhythm within the narrative. Such rhythmic patterns emerge at the narrative level and have a major role in shaping the reader’s experience, requiring bodily response, i.e. potentially resulting in bodily feelings. It constructs a mimesis which can be understood as “carnal” (in terms of Vivian Sobchack), with less mediation between storyworld and reader reality. The experience generated by irreversible events conflicts with another, shaped by reversible events, and together they generate the effect of a chaotic temporal movement, typical for narratives that can be regarded as “unruly” and “extreme,” with a versatile (and simultaneous) impact on the reader.

Alexander Pushkin wrote that “spirit of literature” depends, at least in part, “on writers’ financial situation.” These words can justly be applied to Pushkin himself. His life largely depended on material conditions on his marital status and financial relations with his relatives. The article studies this side of his life, which until recently has not received due attention. As a young man, Pushkin enjoyed substantial support of his parents. Before Pushkin’s marriage, his father passed 200 peasants over to his son. Pushkin pledged these peasants obtaining 40,000 roubles as a loan. Of this money, he lent 11,000 roubles to Natalia Ivanovna Goncharova, his future mother-in-law, to provide her daughter, Natalia Nikolaevna, with dowry. Later, the Goncharovs granted to Natalia Nikolaevna only minimal financial support. Pushkin never saw his loan returned. A constant source of financial troubles in Pushkin’s family was his brother, Lev. Pushkin was on friendly terms with his sister, Olga, however, her husband, Nikolay Pavlishchev, constantly pestered him with financial demands.

Pushkin endeavored to settle his family’s money problems trying to manage his parents’ estate in Boldino, but without much success. Goncharova’s sisters, Ekaterina and Alexandra, since 1834 lived with Pushkin’s family. They received money from their brother and partially compensated living expenses. Georges Dantès, who married Ekaterina in January 1837, got 10,000 roubles as his marriage portion. Pushkin’s income consisted of his civil servant’s salary, peasant servage and his earnings from literary and publishing activity. The article demonstrates that Pushkin’s living expenses and family spending were approximately 429,000 roubles. Undoubtedly, lion’s share of this money was spent after Pushkin’s marriage. During his last years, Pushkin was constantly under the stress caused by money matters. Astonishing as it may seem, under such difficult conditions he managed to create great pieces of literature.

The article presents a response to Igor Dzhokhadze’s critical review of Oksana Tselishcheva’s book Richard Rorty: A Marginal Analytical Philosopher.” The main reproach of Dzhokhadze lies in the incorrect, from his point of view, depiction of the figure of Rorty, who, according to Dzhokhadze, is “a monoideist philosopher who, for 35 years of his life, adhered to one essentially unchanged position [of a pragmatist].” The author rejects this “monoideism” attributed to Rorty, showing that, firstly, Dzhokhadze ignores Rorty’s assessment of his own philosophy, and secondly, wrongfully restricts his philosophical evolution — from a linguistic turn to analytical philosophy and its criticism and the subsequent turn to an increasingly rich palette of philosophical prose with its inherent relativism syncretism, ecumenism and pluralism.

The author questions Dzhokhadze’s confidence that Rorty’s “pragmatism” excludes the above-mentioned evolution of the philosopher’s views, showing that pragmatism itself acts as an umbrella term for a rather diverse philosophical techniques and views. The article refutes the popular view supported by Dzhokhadze that criticism of analytical philosophy resulted in Rorty’s final rejection of its methods and values, and shows that the evolution of his philosophy led to the recognition of its parity with the “instructive, revolutionary, hermeneutic” philosophy recognized by him. This is evidenced by the title of Tselishcheva’s book, quoting Rorty’s own confession. Unlike Dzhokhadze, the author considers Rorty’s re-description of himself to be the most important topic, which is reflected in the evolution of his views on the essence of philosophy, from “philosophy as the conversation of mankind” to “philosophy as cultural policy.” Critical assessments of other researchers, in order to limit the consideration of Rorty’s work to the “more or less accurate and well-founded” opinion of one researcher (in this case, Dzhokhadze), are not motivated by scientific considerations, which are indicated in this article.