Ideas Against Ideocracy

Reviews / Votes

This second volume of Mikhail Epstein's magisterial philosophical survey is an immense event. Each of its four sections-conservative nationalism, Orthodox religiosity, mystical cosmism, postmodernism-presents major Russian thinkers and artists working their way out of an astonishing paradox: how militant materialism of the Soviet sort could have promoted its apparent opposite, a Platonic utopia where ideas reigned supreme over factual matter, wholeness over difference, and totalizing projections over individual lived experience. The quest of these non-Marxist creators for solid ground is both frightening and inspirational. * Caryl Emerson, Princeton University, USA * Mikhail Epstein's magisterial Ideas against Ideocracy: Non-Marxist Thought of the Late Soviet Period (1953-1991) completes the project begun in its companion volume, the 2020 Phoenix of Philosophy: Russian Thought of the Late Soviet Period, tracing the development of Eurasianist, Christian, cosmist, and postmodern strands. Epstein clarifies and contextualizes the contributions of a dizzying range of thinkers, and his painstaking scholarship, lucid explication, and capacious archive make this an essential guide to the fertile and sometimes eccentric riot of ideas that emerged in the late Soviet period. Despite its omnivorous scope, however, his account is never merely encyclopedic. Epstein's framing arguments about the saturation of Soviet life with the philosophical and
about the Soviet consummation and exhaustion of the Platonic tradition will foster productive disputation for years to come. * Awarding Committee of the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Studies in Slavic Languages and Literatures * This book offers an extraordinary comprehensive account of Russian intellectual life in the latter Soviet period and brings to light central philosophical trends, themes, and ideas largely unknown or not readily available to the Anglophone readership. Clearly written and brilliantly argued, the volume provides valuable insights into genuine philosophical thought that continued flourishing under Soviet ideocracy, thus countering a still prevailing dismissive view of Soviet intellectual discourse and affirming the global appeal and contemporary relevance of Russian thought. * Marina F. Bykova, Professor of Philosophy, North Carolina State University, USA * Mikhail Epstein's second volume of his unprecedented survey of late Soviet philosophy daringly connects the works by philosophers, political thinkers and dissidents, writers, and visual artists. The work covers three major areas: the philosophy of national spirit, religious philosophy, and postmodernist thought. Philosophical ideas expressed through the poetics of literary or visual art are as important for Epstein as traditional forms of philosophic discourse. Despite Epstein's significant impact on all three areas of philosophy discussed in the book, the reader will not find in it a special chapter dedicated to his own philosophy. Nevertheless, this book reads as Mikhail Epstein's ultimate contribution - in the form of critique - to these fields of philosophy, Russian as well as global. * Mark Lipovetsky, Professor of Russian, Columbia University, USA, and co-author of Oxford History of Russian Literature *