The paper examines the problem of relations between philosophy and authorities in Russia. On several examples its authors demonstrate that prohibition is a universal strategy used by authorities when they have to deal with certain philosophers, or the whole philosophical schools, or even philosophy itself. When the authorities impose a ban on some cultural processes or elements of culture it results in rearrangement of unprohibited elements of culture and profound changes in general. In the introduction we discuss new terminology (deactualization, reactualization etc.) used for description of such cultural phenomena as repression from memory, oblivion and cultural exclusion zones. Then the experience of relations between philosophy and the authorities is described on the historical examples which give evidence of the authorities' desire to adapt the analytical potential of philosophy so that it could meet the goals of ideology; in other cases philosophy was prohibited, and that is demonstrated by the whole history of Russian thought. In this paper we pay special attention to the prohibition of philosophy in 1850 and some previous events which can be characterized as an implementation of prohibitive strategy. The first steps upon this path were taken as early as in the 1820s, i. e. in the very beginning of existence of institutionalized philosophy in Russia. This example of governmental use of prohibitive strategy in respect to philosophy leads us to the conclusion that at least for Russia prohibition is a universal form of de-actualization.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication2nd International Multidisciplinary Scientific Conference on Social Sciences and Arts SGEM2015
Subtitle of host publicationConference Proceedings. Book 3
Place of PublicationSofia
PublisherSTEF92 Technology Ltd.
Pages661-668
ISBN (Print)9786197105490
StatePublished - 2015

Publication series

NameSGEM
ISSN (Print)2367-5659

    Research areas

  • deactualization; zones of cultural exclusion; Russian philosophy; prohibition; "Professors' plot"; philosophy and authorities; history of philosophy; Fedor F. Sidonsky; Ivan V. Kireyevsky; the expulsion of philosophy; science and politics

ID: 4748938