Late Soviet Intellectual Cult(ure): Merab Mamardashvili’s Strategy of Self‐Presentation

Abstract

Abstract This article analyzes Merab Konstantinovich Mamardashvili’s philosophical strategy in the context of late and post‐Soviet intellectual culture. It focuses on How I Understand Philosophy (1990), a collection of Mamardashvili’s works and interviews that had a significant impact on the reception of his thought and the shaping of his intellectual cult. This article argues that in the late 1980s, by assuming the role of a public intellectual, Mamardashvili laid the foundations for this cult, and after his death, his friends and colleagues who participated in its creation reinterpreted his ideas to legitimize (post‐)Soviet academic philosophy. I draw on Pierre Bourdieu’s approach to studying philosophy as a social practice, determined by both theoretical controversies and political struggle. This article is divided into three parts: the first section examines Mamardashvili’s career trajectory within the late Soviet academic environment; the second section analyzes his definitions of philosophy, which reflect the position of a public intellectual he occupied in the late 1980s; and the third section focuses on his critique of political and academic institutions and demonstrates how these “inconvenient” aspects of his legacy were neutralized and decontextualized by his followers.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. The Russian Review, 2026 · DOI ↗