Discourse of freedom in Russian intellectual history

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Nikolaj Plotnikov
• Subject Area: History of Philosophy
• Term: from 2014 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 263480264

lt is a commonplace in modern political thought that the concept of freedom, conceived of as individual autonomy, serves as a basic value and fundamental principle of modern societies. Most of the philosophical and political discourse that informs the self-conception of liberaldemocratic societies takes this evidence as a starting point. Against this background, both common perception and scientific research treat Russia as a space where past and present are dominated by traditions of bondage, despotism and authoritarianism. However, the formative conditions, discursive construction and semantic transformations of the concept of freedom in Russian thought have rarely been studied, let alone systematically analysed. And yet the concept has been fiercely contested throughout Russian intellectual history, and came to represent an emerging politically active public that challenged the dominating discourse of power. Based on these observations, the submitted project pursues two goals:First, to reconstruct the discourse of freedom from the late 18th century up to the present day in its various facets, focusing on elements of continuity as well as moments of disruption. This reconstruction begins by exploring the semantic field of 'freedom', as it has been shaped in philosophical, political and religious discourse. At the same time, the study of the Russian discourse of freedom must embrace an intercultural perspective in order to take into account the growing exchange of concepts between Russian and 'Western' thought since the Age of Enlightenment. Second, to study how the notion of 'freedom' acts as 'indicator' and 'factor' of political and cultural experience in Russia, and to what extent it constitutes philosophical discourses. ln doing so, the project aims for a genealogy of the concept of freedom that seeks to transcend a traditional history of ideas in favour of a more comprehensive cultural history approach. A continuous focus of the project will be on the limits of freedom that define the concept in legal and social terms and reveal its relevance for the political order ¿ for the specific semantic field of a given notion of freedom depends on how it is delineated or legitimized (either through legal order, the "moral law within me", divine authority or the presence of the "Other"). The notion of 'limits' transforms the concept of 'freedom' into a powerful tool for interpreting what is considered dissent within a given social order.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants