Russia’s Investigative Committee raided the homes of employees of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Philosophy on May 21, with the searches reported by the Telegram channel “Notes of a Traditionalist” («Zаписки традиционалиста», notably spelt with a pro-war “Z”) and by the channel of “Russian world” ideologue Alexander Dugin, though Dugin’s post was later deleted. Two sources confirmed the searches to the independent science-focused publication T-invariant.
According to T-invariant, at least 10 scholars were taken in for questioning, including the acting director of the Institute of Philosophy, 87-year-old Russian Academy of Sciences academic Abdusalam Guseynov. Preliminary reports suggested most were released after questioning under travel restrictions.
The academic Svetlana Mesyats is believed to remain in custody. The independent outlet Mediazona reported that she was placed under house arrest, and a Moscow City Court case card showed a hearing on pretrial restrictions.
According to the case card, Mesyats is suspected of fraud committed by an organized group or on an especially large scale. “Notes of a Traditionalist” claimed that the institute's employees are accused of “stealing budget money under a state assignment for translations of Aristotle that ultimately never appeared.”
Philosophy Today, a philosophy-focused Telegram channel, wrote the case “concerns an error in reporting on a state assignment under which poor Aristotle was supposed to be translated, and for some reason Svetlana Mesyats was placed under house arrest.”
In 2021, the Education and Science Ministry appointed Anatoly Chernyaev, a scholar of Russian philosophy, to lead the Institute of Philosophy. Staff opposed both his appointment and the fact that it was made without an election. He soon lost the post and was later dismissed from the institute.
The newspaper Zavtra claimed the academic was “dismissed for his patriotic position.” “Chernyaev repeatedly criticized the position of the Institute of Philosophy, many of whose employees not only failed to support the special military operation but also created Russophobic centers abroad,” the publication wrote.
The BBC Russian Service, in turn, reported that the attempted appointment of Chernyaev was backed by “Orthodox oligarch” Konstantin Malofeev. His Tsargrad TV channel previously called the Institute of Philosophy “a center for the destruction of Russia.”
“The role of institutions such as the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences should not be underestimated by reducing them to a harmless sinecure for ‘so-called philosophers’ who simply siphon off the [state] budget. The institute has long served as the intellectual headquarters of the liberal-destructive, protest-oriented, cosmopolitan movement in Russia, with roots going back to [George] Soros and [Gene] Sharp. It is engaged not so much in philosophy as in a very specific ideology,” Tsargrad wrote.
