Abstract
The history of Russian liberalism reflects the transformation of intellectual and political culture that took place in Russia from the eighteenth to the beginning of the twentieth century. The legacy of the Russian liberal thinkers requires close attention and study because it allows us to formulate the most important and relevant question: is the liberal project even possible in Russia? This chapter attempts to analyze the main ideas of the political philosophy of Russian liberalism and considers different national models of liberalism, such as those allowing for traditional cultural values, among other things. This analysis proposes a new intellectual tradition of Russian liberalism, as distinct from the Soviet version, and also introduces the reader to the historical-philosophical tradition of research on Russian liberalism from the eighteenth to the beginning of the twentieth century.
The chapter was prepared within the framework of the Basic Research Program at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) and supported within the framework of a subsidy by the Russian Academic Excellence Project ‘5–100’.
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Notes
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Andrey Borisovich Zubov (ed.), Istoriya Rossii 20 v. 1899–1939 and Istoriya Rossii 20 v. 1939–2007 (Moskva: Astrel’-AST, 2010); Alexey Miller, “Memory control”, Russia in Global Affairs 14, no. 3, 2016, pp. 121–131.
- 2.
Many Russian people perceive the death of the Russian Empire, as well as the collapse of the Soviet Union as interrelated dramatic stages in the Russian history. They feel that they have lost their country (state, historical perspective, social achievements, cultural tradition) twice during the course of the twentieth century.
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This edition – published in two volumes by the Liberal Mission Foundation – collects intellectual biographies of about 140 Russian liberals in chronological order. See: Alexey Kara-Murza (ed.), Russkij liberalizm: idei i lyudi: v 2 t. (Moskva: Novoe izdatel’stvo, 2018).
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Boris G. Kapustin, Irina I. Myurberg, Mariya M. Fedorova, Etyudy o svobode. Ponyatiye svobody v yevropeyskoy obshchestvennoy mysli (Moskva: Akvilon, 2015); Shantall Muff, “Karl Shmitt i paradoks liberal’noy demokratii”, Logos 6, 2004; Isayya Berlin, Istoriya svobody. Rossiya (Moskva: NLO, 2001); Seyla Benkhabib, Prityazaniya kul’tury. Ravenstvo i raznoobraziye v global’nuyu eru (Moskva: Logos, 2003); Lourens Kharrison, Yevrei, konfutsiantsy i protestanty. Kul’turnyy kapital i konets mul’tikul’turalizma (Moskva: Mysl’, 2014).
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Mariya M. Fedorova, Klassicheskaya politicheskaya filosofiya (Moskva: Ves’ mir, 2001).
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See:A. V. Gladyshev “«Artisty», «legisty» i «burzhua» (K. A. Sen-Simon o tvortsakh Frantsuzskoy revolyutsii)”, in A.V. Chudinov (ed.), Frantsuzskiy yezhegodnik 2001–Annuaire d’etudes françaises, 2001, pp. 266–279; M. I. Tugan-Baranovskiy, “Sen-Simon i sen-simonisty”, in Ocherki iz noveyshey istorii politicheskoy ekonomii: Smit, Mal’tus, Rikardo, Sismondi, istoricheskaya shkola, kateder-socialisty, avstriyskaya shkola, Ouen, Sen-Simon, Fur’e, Prudon, Rodbertus, Marks (Sankt-Peterburg: Izd zhurnala «Mir bozhij», 1903), pp. 110–133; A.V. Gladyshev, “Sen-Simon i partiynoye stroitel’stvo v epokhu Restavratsii”, in Francuzskiy ezhegodnik, 2009, pp. 139–173.
- 11.
See: O.S. Gayko, “Sovremennoye gosudarstvo i krizis liberal’noy modeli demokratii”, Sotsiosfera 4, 2013, pp. 186–190.
- 12.
See Svetlana E. Knyazeva and V.E. Yaz’kova, “Ital’yanskiy liberalizm v epokhu Risordzhimento”, Novyy istoricheskiy vestnik 2, no. 4, 2001, pp. 99–108; D.S. Moiseyev, “Politicheskaya mysl’ Dzhuzeppe Madzini”, Istoriya filosofii 20, no. 1, 2015, pp. 63–78.
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Boris G. Kapustin, “Nachalo rossiyskogo liberalizma kak problema politicheskoy filosofii”, Polis–Politicheskie issledovaniya 5, 1994, pp. 23–37; A. Naumov, “Ob aktual’nosti analiza i nekotorykh osobennostyakh evolyutsii rossiiskogo liberalizma v kontse 18–nachale 20 veka”, Rossiyskiy ekonomicheskiy zhurnal 3, 2007, pp. 95–96; A.S. Naumov, Rossiyskiy liberalizm: istoki, soderzhaniye, vliyaniye na sotsial’no-ekonomicheskiye protsessy v strane (konets 18–nachalo 20 vekov), Avtoreferat dissertatsii kandidata ekonomicheskikh nauk (Moskva: Institut Ekonomiki RAN, 2007).
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D.V. Aronov, “K voprosu o sootnoshenii ponyatiy: gosudarstvo–lichnost’ - obshchestvo v teorii rossiyskogo liberalizma”, Istoriya gosudarstva i prava 3, 2005, pp. 2–4; V.I. Bakulin, “Fevral’skaya revolyutsiya i rossiyskiy liberalizm: problemy teorii i politicheskoy praktiki”, Bytie–yazyk–istoriya sbornik nauchnykh statey (Kirov: 2017), pp. 6–12.
- 15.
Alexander I. Herzen, Byloe i dumy (Moskva: Zakharov, 2003).
- 16.
Ibid., pp. 369–370.
- 17.
Ibidem.
- 18.
Russian Europeanism is the philosophical and cultural basis of Christian liberalism in Russia. See Olga A. Zhukova, “K intellektual’noj istorii russkogo evropeizma”, Filosofskie nauki 1, 2014, pp. 103–115; and Olga A. Zhukova, Na puti k Russkoj Evrope. Intellektualy v bor’be za svobodu i kul’turu v Rossii (Moskva: Fond Liberal’naya missiya, 2013).
- 19.
Richard Pipes, Russkij konservatizm i ego kritiki. Issledovanie politicheskoj kul’tury (Moskva: Novoe izdatel’stvo, 2008), p. 197.
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Timofey N. Granovsky and Andrei A. Levandovskii (ed.), Publichnye chteniia. Stat’i. Pis’ma (Moskva: ROSSPEN, 2010), p. 653.
- 21.
Ibidem.
- 22.
Vasily O. Klyuchevsky, Kurs russkoj istorii: polnoe izdanie v 1 t. (Moskva: Al’fa-Kniga, 2009), p. 1178.
- 23.
Boris N. Chicherin, Vospominanija (Moskva-Minsk: Harvest-Ast, 2001), p. 281.
- 24.
Alexander I. Herzen, Eshhe raz. Sbornik statej Iskandera (Zheneva: 1866), p. 11.
- 25.
Alexey A. Kara-Murza and Olga A. Zhukova, “Petr Berngardovich Struve. Khristianskiy liberalizm kak politika kul’turnogo sinteza”, in Svoboda i vera. Khristianskij liberalizm v rossiyskoy politicheskoy kul’ture (Moskva: Institut filosofii Rossiyskoy Аkademii Nauk, 2011), pp. 134–170; P.P. Gaydenko, “Pod znakom mery (liberal’nyj konservatizm P.B. Struve)”, in P.P. Gaydenko, Vladimir Solov’ev i filosofija Serebryanogo veka (Moskva: Progress-Traditsiya, 2001), pp. 437–454; O.A. Zhukova and V.K. Kantor (eds.), Petr Berngardovich Struve (Moskva: ROSSPEN, 2012).
- 26.
A.V. Golovchenko, “Teoreticheskiye aspekty i issledovaniya ideologicheskikh i funktsional’nykh inversiy v “novom” rossiyskom liberalizme”, Vestnik Povolzhskogo instituta upravleniya 17, no. 5, 2017, pp. 116–122.
- 27.
See M. Kolerov and, N. Plotnikov, “Ioann Krestitel’ vsekh nashikh vozrozhdeniy. Sud’ba P.V. Struve”, Znanie-sila 12, 1991, p. 77.
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Kara-Murza, A., Zhukova, O. (2019). The Political Philosophy of Russian Liberalism. In: Cucciolla, R.M. (eds) Dimensions and Challenges of Russian Liberalism. Philosophy and Politics - Critical Explorations, vol 8. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05784-8_1
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