Authors

Discussion

With my colleagues, we began exploring the role of women in the history of philosophy very optimistically before 2022, as the representation of women in the Russian philosophical canon was very low. The change of ideology in Russia has resulted in a decline in the voices of equality, with Russian philosophers' ideas being interpreted by Putin's ideologues in a traditionalist and militant manner. It is therefore of paramount importance to resist these tendencies in order to support the ideas of democracy contained in the writings of women philosophers from the revolutionary period and the Soviet era, as well as emigre philosophers. In support of my argument, I will cite a review by Anne Eakin Moss. She emphasizes the importance of including women philosophers in the canon of the study of Russian philosophy, which has not yet occurred. In her review of The Palgrave Handbook of Russian Thought (2021), she suggests ways in which thinking about the role of gender in Russian literary tradition and intellectual history might suggest new paths for Russian thought. To gain insight into the contributions of women to Russian intellectual thought, readers must often turn to articles on gender studies rather than philosophical works. The Handbook devotes significant attention to Catherine the Great, while Alexandra Kollontai, Marina Yudina, Lyubov Axelrod and Olga Freidenberg are mentioned in brief. Lydia Ginzburg is mentioned, but only as a secondary source.

The discipline of Philosophy, as taught in the Russian Federation, did not include the study of women philosophers and their work. A good example of the state of the field of post-Soviet philosophy is the book series The Philosophy of Russia in the Second Half of the 20th Century. Without wishing to deny the excellent collective work of colleagues, to which one is always tempted to refer in one’s own scholarly practice, the series reflects the situation in the canon of Russian philosophy: it consists of 21 volumes on male philosophers only. In another series, which covers the first half of the 20th century, 37 volumes are planned. The only woman mentioned, Lubov Akselrod (1868-1946), is in the volume on Russian Marxism as one of a number of heroes of the volume. An important research question comes up: does the almost total exclusion of women in philosophy canon in this context help explain certain processes in the political reality of contemporary Russia?