Academic Studies Press Landmarks Revisited: The Vekhi Symposium One Hundred Years On (Cultural Revolutions: Russia in the Twentieth Century Series)

The symposium entitled Vekhi, or Landmarks, is one of the most famous publications in Russian intellectual and political history. Its fame rests on the critique it offers of the phenomenon of the Russian intelligentsia. It was published in 1909, under the editorship of Mikhail Gershenzon, as a polemical response to the revolution of 1905, the failed outcome of which was deemed by all the Landmarks contributors to exemplify and illuminate fatal philosophical, political, and psychological flaws in the revolutionary intelligentsia that had sought it. Its fame persists until today not least because the volume has been deemed by many in Russia and the West to have proven prophetic in its prediction (and urgent warning) that the realisation of the intelligentsia’s platform would bring ruin upon Russia. More than any other text, its republication in 1991 symbolically heralded the end of the ideological hegemony of Marxist-Leninism in the Soviet Union. Review "The chapters of Landmarks Revisited are of a uniformly high level of scholarship and sophistication. It will be profitably read by anyone with an interest in the intellectual, philosophical, and religious life of Russia in the early twentieth century."--David G. Rowley "The Russian Review, July 2014 (Vol. 73, No. 3)" The various scholarly articles, some of which feature fresh research, others reassessments in the context of contemporary European political thought or of the Russian political, sociological and religious tradition past and present, and still others in-depth examinations of the polemics aroused by the 1909 publication, combine effectively to point up the compendium's continued resonance for today's readers.--Avril Pyman "Rereading the 'Signposts'," Slavonic and East European Review, 92, 4, 2014" The volume is particularly strong on emphasizing the centrality of religion to these Russian thinkers and their thought systems, and the considerations of Vekhi's contributors on the 'inner self' a privileged realm separate from politics and vulgar materialism. As with Vekhi itself, the essays in this collection have many interesting things to say on the role of the intelligentsia and its relationship to wider society, and how both Russian liberals and neo-Slavophiles championed 'inner freedom', against what they saw as the crude didacticism of the revolutionary intelligentsia. This volume is, therefore, a solid accompaniment to the original volume of 1909, and will prove useful to those interested in Russian intellectual history, political philosophy and the relationship between religious and political thought in the late imperial period.--George Gilbert, Balliol College, University of Oxford, UK " European History Quarterly, Vol. 45 No. 2" "Vekhi (1909) was a collection of essays by major Russian thinkers who set out to examine and challenge the boundaries between social thought, epistemology, religion, and law. In its wide-ranging and stimulating papers, the present volume offers a rich and helpful contextualization of this important work and ponders its impact on later decades in political and moral philosophy."--Galin Tihanov About the Author Robin Aizlewood, University College London, UK Ruth Coates, Bristol University, UK