Voprosy filosofii in the context of 1990s-era Russian philosophical journals

Abstract

The article provides an analysis of the journal Voprosy filosofii in the era of the 1990s. This journal is compared with other philosophical journals published in Russia at that time. While it is methodologically problematic to do a one-to-one comparison of 1990s issues of Voprosy filosofii and independent philosophy journals, a comparison of the two can offer some interesting (but not unexpected) conclusions. What is interesting about the data from Voprosy filosofii is not what it tells us about Voprosy filosofii itself, but how it can help us better appreciate the diversity among 1990s independent philosophical journals. Some of these journals published mostly scholarly texts; others included high percentages of historical texts and translations. However, most saw themselves as new vehicles for a new discipline. They crafted distinctive intellectual identities for themselves, be it underground philosophy in St. Petersburg (Stupeni), phenomenology (Logos), the history of Russian philosophy (Nachala), or post-structuralism and postmodernism (Paralleli). Voprosy filosofii too reacted to the new intellectual freedoms of the early 1990s, but its reaction was tempered by the fact that it was a professional philosophical journal with a long history and, thus, far less flexibility in form and content. Perhaps this is why independent philosophical journals made such a splash in the early 1990s, and perhaps this is why most of them would cease to exist by the time the new millennium hit. Refs 4. Tabl. 5.