Vesa Oittinen – författare

This book focuses on the extent to which Soviet scholars and cultural theoreticians were able to act autonomously during the Stalin era. The authors question how we should consider certain intellectual achievements which took place despite the pressure of Stalinism, and how best to recognise and describe such achievements. The chapters in this book offer suggestions for new interpretations on Soviet philosophy of science and humanities, linguistics, philosophy, musicology, literature and mathematics from the point of view of general cultural theory. In this way, they challenge the received image of the Stalin-era humanities which reduces them into mere propaganda. Intended for scholars of Russian and Soviet studies, this book will dispel many received views about the character of Stalinism and Soviet culture.Chapters 1, 2, 4, 6, 10 and 13 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

This book focuses on the extent to which Soviet scholars and cultural theoreticians were able to act autonomously during the Stalin era. The authors question how we should consider certain intellectual achievements which took place despite the pressure of Stalinism, and how best to recognise and describe such achievements. The chapters in this book offer suggestions for new interpretations on Soviet philosophy of science and humanities, linguistics, philosophy, musicology, literature and mathematics from the point of view of general cultural theory. In this way, they challenge the received image of the Stalin-era humanities which reduces them into mere propaganda. Intended for scholars of Russian and Soviet studies, this book will dispel many received views about the character of Stalinism and Soviet culture.Chapters 1, 2, 4, 6, 10 and 13 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Levant and Oittinen provide a window into the subterranean tradition of 'creative' Soviet Marxism, which developed on the margins of the Soviet academe and remains largely outside Western contemporary theory. With his 'activity approach', E.V. Ilyenkov, Soviet Marxism's principal figure in the post-Stalin period, makes a substantial contribution toward an anti-reductionist Marxist theory of the subject, which will be of interest to contemporary theorists who seek to avoid economic and cultural reductionism as well as the malaise of postmodern relativism.

For the first time, this book presents to Western readers a current in the late Soviet philosophy of the 1960s and 1970s known as the 'activity approach'. It had to some degree a counterpart in so-called cultural-historical psychology, but whilst the work of Vygotsky and Leontyev was received in the West decades ago, its sibling in philosophy has remained virtually unnoticed. Started by Evald Ilyenkov in the early '60s, the activity approach soon became an intellectual mode, leading to several different interpretations of human activity and challenging Marx and Lenin.

Offering a new and original interpretation of Marx’s theoretical development, Marx’s Russian Moment analyzes the following themes: Marx’s concept of ideology (as developed in the German Ideology) and its fortunes in Russia;

Offering a new and original interpretation of Marx’s theoretical development, Marx’s Russian Moment analyzes the following themes: Marx’s concept of ideology (as developed in the German Ideology) and its fortunes in Russia;