Russian philosophical thought is enjoying a small revival of sorts among scholars of Russian literature, culture, and intellectual history; at the 2018 annual meeting of the Association for Slavic, East European & Eurasian Studies, for instance, over a dozen panels were dedicated to philosophy in some form. Within this new body of scholarship, some of which has been dedicated to the foundational question of “What is Russian philosophy?,” Mikhail Sergeev's volume addresses an area often left out of the conversation: contemporary Russian philosophical thought in diaspora. The transnational and sometimes liminal status of these thinkers—Russian speakers but not necessarily citizens; publishing in Russian but holding academic affiliations abroad—means they often risk a kind of intellectual homelessness, included among the ranks of “Russian philosophers” only in their home countries. The critical attention with which these thinkers reflect on Russian intellectual history and politics from a distance, however, counts them among the most innovative cultural commentators of the present day. This Russian-language anthology includes contributions from eighteen emigre scholars, with birthdates ranging from 1930 to 1974, who reside among eight countries: China, Israel, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the USA.

Despite this volume's title, not all its authors are philosophers. The adjective “philosophical” is sooner employed to refer to philosophically-minded thinking rather than philosophy as a discipline. This choice, however, highlights a trait shared among the work of Russia's philosophers more broadly: the tendency for philosophical careers to arise out of scientific or other non-philosophical training, rather than primarily from philosophy departments. In this regard, one immediately thinks of Sergey Horujy, who was trained in quantum theory and statistical physics at Moscow State University before becoming one of contemporary Russia's most well-known philosophers, with more than ten books on hesychasm, Russian Orthodox thought, and the role of anthropological analysis for spiritual practice. The backgrounds of the contributors to this anthology are equally diverse: Alexander Yanov is a historian and scholar of Russian nationalism; Igor Yefimov is author of fifteen novels and the founder of the Hermitage publishing house; Alexander Genis is a well-known cultural commentator at Radio Liberty. Like Horujy, philosophers Anatolii Akhutin and Natal΄ia Shelkovaia have backgrounds in the physical sciences: Akhutin in physical chemistry and Shelkovaia in radioelectric engineering. Likewise, before publishing his groundbreaking work The Total Art of Stalinism (1992), Boris Groys studied mathematics at Leningrad State University. Mikhail Sergeev's degree was in international journalism, while other contributors to the volume were trained according to more traditional literary and/or philosophical trajectories: Ruslan Loshakov, Nikolai Plotnikov, Igor΄ Smirnov, Karen Svas΄ian, and Vladislav Zlatogorov.

Equally diverse in this anthology is the nature of philosophical form. Contributions include scholarly articles, an interview, a philosophical letter in the style of Petr Chaadaev (written to him), and original reflections in essay and treatise form. Common themes include Russia's political past and present; the concept of culture; Russian literature as a springboard for philosophical analysis; and the fusion of biography and theory, especially with regards to freedom of speech, emigration as a cultural phenomenon, and the realities of scholarly life during the Soviet period. Several of the contributions for this volume were written in the early 1990s and directly address the post-Soviet intellectual climate. In his brief preface to the anthology, Sergeev provides a helpful overview of the four waves of emigration from Russian territory. Especially interesting is his consideration of how scholars from the fourth wave (after 1988) have negotiated their relationship to their country of birth. Unlike emigres from prior waves, members of this generation have been able to return to Russia freely and often retain dual citizenship, sometimes even holding academic appointments in both countries. One might equally speak now of a fifth wave of emigration, including the “brain drain” of young professionals during the Putin era.

The flexible approach to philosophy in the present volume is likely to frustrate some readers. The volume does not try to summarize what philosophy is in Russia today; neither does it offer any overarching claims about what it is to be a philosopher in exile. On the one hand, the selection of authors and texts paints a picture of philosophy in the ancient tradition, as a love of wisdom that sits at the apex where all disciplines meet. On the other hand, it considers philosophy in the tradition of Richard Rorty, where philosophy does not seek to answer questions but to open up discourse to further lines of questioning. Many of the included contributions investigate this very question of writing, in both their content (What is philosophy?) and form (How is it written?): Zlatogorov's speculative treatise on the “Philosophy of Religion”; Ruslan Loshakov on “Mikhail Bakhtin's ‘First Philosophy’”; Mikhail Epstein on “The Vocation of Philosophy in the 21st Century”; and Mikhail Arkad΄ev's “Soillessness and Escape, or What Is Philosophy?” Each starts with the same question, “What is philosophy in Russia?,” though no single answer is posited among them.

To appreciate this anthology, we would better direct ourselves to define Russian philosophy in apophatic terms, according to what it is not. In his contribution to the anthology, Arkad΄ev argues that philosophy cannot offer any final answers to life's most pressing existential questions. For Epstein, philosophy has lost the intellectual and rhetorical status it once held and must turn to creating new vectors of inquiry, from new words to entirely new sub-disciplines, as part of its method. If we can say anything about Russian philosophical thought, as Natal΄ia Shelkovaia points out, it is that it is not guided by the same philosophical distinctions we find in the English-speaking academies. Russian philosophy, in other words, is not limited to a single discipline, a single way of writing, a single country, or even a single language. The present anthology is one example of the transnational, interdisciplinary, and multi-voiced status of Russian philosophical thought in the twenty-first century.