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Russia’s Political Persecution of a Philosopher: Further Details (guest post)
Earlier this week, it was reported that Russian Philosopher Svetlana Mesyats was placed under house arrest and the offices and homes of several other employees of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences were searched. What is going on there, and why? In the following guest post, Elizaveta Shcherbakova (Humboldt University of Berlin), who used to work at the Institute of Philosophy alongside Dr. Mesyats, but who has now left Russia, explains. “The danger… is very real,” she wrote in an email. “the charges, bogus though they are, carry a sentence of up to ten years in a Russian penal colony.” She is hoping that “even a little clarity and attention from abroad could help my former colleagues.” Russia’s Political Persecution of a Philosopher by Elizaveta Shcherbakovba I am writing to make you aware of a deeply troubling case of political persecution in Russia involving a scholar in our field, targeted for practicing that field with integrity. The purpose of this note is, first and foremost, to make the case known to the community. I will close with some suggestions about possible steps to take, should people wish to do so. The case concerns the Russian scholar of ancient philosophy Svetlana Mesyats, whom some of you may know. Svetlana has been a visiting scholar at Karlsruhe and Freiburg and, most recently, held a postdoctoral position with the TIDA (Text and Idea of Aristotle’s Science of Living Things) project at Tübingen. She works on Plotinus and Neoplatonism, and is a member of the International Society for Neoplatonic Studies; she also works on Aristotle, especially the Parva Naturalia, and on Theophrastus. The case also concerns her colleagues working on ancient philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences. I will divide this memo into sections, in order to give a manageable overview of the case. What Happened I have learned that on the 19th of May, 2026, the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences was raided by officers reportedly from the Centre for Combating Extremism, which effectively functions as Russian state’s secret police. Svetlana, along with around ten others, all of them participants in a project dedicated to, among other things, preparing..
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