Chamberlain, Lesley, Motherland, A philosophical history of Russia

Nel Grillaert

pp. 255-257

in: Studies in East European Thought 59 (3), 2007.

Abstract

By Western academic standards, Russian philosophy—habitually referred to by the less scholarly designation Russian thought—has generally been categorized as an anti-rationalistic, unsystematic, and rather intuitive undertaking. Even Isaiah Berlin once labeled pivotal figures in Russian history of ideas “thinkers, but not eminent philosophers” (Isaiah Berlin, “Thinkers or philosophers?”, Times Literary Supplement, 27 March 1953: xii). Still, as Lesley Chamberlain rightly observes, philosophy in Russia holds the key to fathom the country and its people, to this day an enigma for many foreigners. The aim of her book is to relate the philosophical “story” of Russia which is “a ‘motherland’ to its own people, but a strange ‘otherland’ to outsiders” (x), a story that encompasses almost 200 years. The leitmotif of Chamberlain’s chronicle is the long tradition of Russian philosophy; from 1815 up to now, the Russian intellectual experience has been “of a piece” (xi), and the assumed...