The 67th issue of NZ, being formally not a thematic one, consists
basically of texts devoted to “theory”. This includes an attempt to
construct “the theory of fear” as phenomenon of public consciousness (“Fear from the Year 2009”
by Alexander Pyatigorsky), a discussion on interference of the
political theory and depoliticization practices on the example of
Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalysis (conversation with the French
psychoanalyst, Jacques-Alain Miller). The analysis of reasons for
“theoretical poverty” of the modern Russian historiography is provided
in the article “Histories That Are Not Written by Us” by the
Moscow mediaevalist, Yury Zaretsky). We will also mention the reasoning
on some features of not a theory, but practice of modern academic life
by Mikhail Sokolov (“The Academic Tourism: About One Form of Secondary Adaptation to Institutes of International Science”).
The first big topic of the 67th issue is devoted to one of the
versions of the “Left” political theory. Our authors identify
themselves as the “Left”. Accordingly, the reader faces a kind of
“introspection” -- that of course excludes neither critics, nor
polemics. Alexander Tarasov (“Mother of Disorder”), Vadim Damier and Dmitry Rublev (“Economic Views of Peter Kropotkin and Challenges of the 21st Century”)
write on the controversies of the theory and practices of anarchism.
Alexander Shubin tries to grope an image of what he calls “socialism of
the 21st century”, and Boris Kagarlitsky gives the critical analysis of
the left intellectuals who are not ready, in his opinion, to radical
change of the society. This selection of articles is adjoined by a
curious research of history of the so-called “Sozialistisches
Patientenkollektiv” (“The Socialist Patients\' Collective”) -- leftist
German organization of the end of the 1960s -- beginning of the 1970s (“Murderer of White Gowns” by Evgeniy Kazakov).
The “left” theme is partly continued by the second block devoted
to out-of-market, out-of-state manufacture and culture reproduction (or
to be more precise “cultures” in plural and even “subcultures”).
Different aspects of this phenomenon in a modern society are analyzed
in the texts of Alexander Bikbov (“Economy and Policy of Critical Judgment”) and Vlad Tupikin (“Note about Russian «Samizdat» in the 1990s and 2000s”).
Alexander Bikbov, besides his own article, presents the interview with
the Petersburg artist Dmitry Vilensky. The reader should also pay
attention to the conversation of writer Magnus Edgren with the director
Emmanuel Rouglan on such a specific theme, as “employment” in “cultural
manufacture”. Edgren and Rouglan most of all concentrate on the
situation in the French culture (cinema, TV, theatre) where the role of
the state is so strong. The sketch concerning relatively new blogger
political culture in Great Britain offers one of the most known
journalists of this country Iain Dale; other type of culture --
subculture of squatters in the Republic of South Africa -- a theme of
the article by Olga Aksyutina and Daria Zelenova.
Authors of our permanent rubrics Political Imaginary and Sociological Lyrics
also contribute to the 67th issue of NZ on the theme of political
“left”: about anarchism (Alexander Kustarev) and about socialism in its
present Russian state version (Alexey Levinson). These texts are
adjourned by the article of the NZ editor-in-chief Ilya Kalinin “The Heroic Theater of Revolutionary Life”.
Besides the “left” theme and analysis of the subcultures connected
therewith, there is Dmitry Panchenko\'s research devoted to the
important historiography problem of chronological frameworks of the
Modern Era. It is worth to pay attention to the two interviews in this
issue: the first one is with the British historian Geoffrey Hosking
(about the Second World War which 70th anniversary was this year in
September) and with Alvaro Gil-Robles, the former Commissioner of human
rights of the Council of Europe. The theme of the Russian XX century is
continued in Lyudmila Klimovich\'s conversations with members of the
National-Labor Union (NTS) which can become the important source in
studying of history of this organization.
At the end of this NZ issue there is Russian Intellectual Journals’ Review (Vyacheslav Morozov, Peter Rezvyh) and the New Books section.