Institute of Philosophy in Russian Academy of Sciences

This photograph shows part of the Institute of Philosophy, whose architecture is not ostentatious like that of the Moscow State University.

This is a photograph of the main building of the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, and it was actually the Golitsyn Estate, which was a palace constructed in the 18th century.

A.A. Zinoviev is a Russian logician and writer who criticized the Soviet political system in the 1970s and eventually faced exile.

E.V. Ilyenkov was a Marxist author and Soviet philosopher who helped revive Russian Marxist philosophy after the fall of Stalinism. 

Another emblematic institution of higher education in Moscow is the Russian Academy of Sciences, which has an incredibly rich history, that includes a network of 650 institutions all over Russia and is headquartered in Moscow, focusing not just exclusively on the hard sciences but also on a diverse range of different subjects such as philosophy, archaeology, and botany. What distinguishes it from some other institutions of higher learning in in Moscow is that it is considered a civil, self-governed, and non-commercial organization, although it is chartered by the Government of Russia (1). This institution was established in 1724 by Emperor Peter the Great by the decree of the Senate and was initially situated in Saint Petersburg (1). Since its founding, it has undergone a myriad of changes that reflect the main tension between the pervasive influence of the state and the Academy's desire to remain an independent institution.

One of the institutions of the Russian Academy of Sciences is the Institute of Philosophy, which evolved from the Institute of  Philosophy, a place of higher learning founded by the prominent Russian phenomenologist Gustav Shpet in 1921 (2). The founding of the Institute of Philosophy reflects the conflicting interests of the state and the goals of this institute as one dedicated to philosophical scholarship because one of the main aims of the Institute at its inception was the creation of an expansive and definitive Encyclopedia or World Philosophy but this goal was not achieved due to Stalin's antagonist stance against certain branches of philosophy and the pogroms he implemented to rid people who opposed him (2).

While the Institute of Philosophy was founded as an independent institution focused on the study of philosophy, it was later integrated into the Academy of Sciences in 1992, and this evolution continued as several research groups within the Institute of Philosophy developed into other independent institutions of the Academy of Sciences, such as the Institute of Psychology and Institute of Sociology. Two seminal figures in the development of this institution to the one that it is today are E.V. Ilyenkov  and A.A. Zinoviev, who were key figures in spearheading the intellectual movement that pivoted toward a "new, scientifically and humanistically inspired, reading of Marx' heritage and or rethinking the basic principles of social philosophy from that standpoint" during the political "thaw" in the 1960's (2). It is important to note that without the political liberalization that came after Stalin's death, it would have been highly unlikely and potentially dangerous for these thinkers to reorient the dialogue around Marxism and to transform the Institute of Philosophy ideologically because of repercussions from the totalitarian government headed by Stalin. Thus, the transformation of the Institute of Philosophy demonstrates not only the constraints that the government can place on the development of academic institutions but also how certain individuals can prove instrumental to the shaping of an institution.

(1)"The Russian Academy of Sciences." N.p., n.d. Web.

(2) "About the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy ..." N.p., n.d. Web.