Your complimentary articles

You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.

To buy or renew a subscription please visit the Shop.

If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.

Philosophy in Russia

“What is to be Done?”

Anna Arutunyan on the lack of agency in contemporary Russia.

One late night in Moscow, just as the prospects for the three-liter carton of wine the three of us had been sharing started to look dismal and the talk turned mystical, our guest, an intellectual quasi-journalist of the Christopher Hitchens variety, decided to explain the real reasons why he was just a hair’s end away from adopting Orthodox Christianity.

“Orthodox Christianity is ultimately Eastern fatalism,” he said. “It completely negates this world. The town priest is a drunkard? Po khui (Fuck it). You beat your wife silly last night then woke up drunk under the fence? Po khui.

…