Stalin Era Intellectuals (Studies in Contemporary Russia)

This book focuses on the extent to which Soviet scholars and cultural theoreticians were able to act autonomously during the Stalin era. The authors question how we should consider certain intellectual achievements which took place despite the pressure of Stalinism, and how best to recognise and describe such achievements. The chapters in this book offer suggestions for new interpretations on Soviet philosophy of science and humanities, linguistics, philosophy, musicology, literature and mathematics from the point of view of general cultural theory. In this way, they challenge the received image of the Stalin-era humanities which reduces them into mere propaganda. Intended for scholars of Russian and Soviet studies, this book will dispel many received views about the character of Stalinism and Soviet culture.

Chapters 1, 2, 4, 6, 10 and 13 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Vesa Oittinen is a professor emeritus of Russian philosophy and intellectual history at the Aleksanteri Institute (University of Helsinki). His publications focus on the history of philosophy, especially Spinoza, German classical philosophy and Marxism, and on Russian and Soviet philosophy.

Elina Viljanen is a post-doctoral scholar at the Aleksanteri Institute (University of Helsinki). Holding a PhD in musicology, she specialises in Russian intellectual history of music and Soviet culture.