“Machiavelli’s Solitude” is the text of a lecture to the Association Française de Science Politique delivered by Louis Althusser in 1977. Despite his being enormously influential philosopher, continually surrounded by irreconcilable opponents and supporters, it is contended that Niccolo Machivelli’s solitude consists of the fact that he remains unclassifiable — an indecipherable riddle. The particular issue of whether he was a monarchist or a republican is explored in detail, and it is argued that to pose this problem in these terms goes against Machiavelli’s assertion that a classification of governments is impossible. Rather, Machiavelli was a theoretician of the nation-state (specifically, of the political conditions necessary for its formation), and his “prince” was an autonomous, anonymous actor in search of this “new principality”. Machiavelli’s solitude is also related to the “unwonted” character of his thought; his belief that “one must be alone to found a state” is reflected in his writings, in which he rejected the dominant ideologies of the past and formed a unique tradition of political thought. The relationship between Machiavelli’s ideas and the Marxist tradition is discussed, along with Antonio Gramsci’s assessment of them. This lecture exemplifies a side of Althusser that has often been neglected: his skill as a lecturer and stylist.

Belinsky was one of the most significant Russian thinkers of the nineteenth century and influenced almost all ideologies of pre-revolutionary Russia. Contradictions within his views are well-known but not fully explained. The article focuses on a part of Belinsky’s heritage which can be classified as his thought on politics and interpret contradictions within his works as the outcome of the fact that his works reflected the genesis of and the beginning of discrepancy between Russian populism (narodnichestvo) and Russian Marxism which later split into bolshevism and menshevism. Georgii Plekhanov and Vladimir Lenin considered Belinsky as their own predecessor. However, some populists (narodniki) were also inspired by him. The examination of Belinsky’s works is relevant today as populist ideologies, a specific form of which was populism in Russia, are widespread across the globe while the organized working class is absent as it was in Belinsky’s time. Therefore, contradictions within Belinsky’s works can contribute to a better understanding of the formation of Marxism and populism when significant popular movements are absent. The article demonstrates how discussions on conditions of the people, bourgeoisie, people’s immanent emancipatory capacity, subjectivism, laws of historic development and positivism in Belinsky’s texts reflected the formation of populism and Russian Marxism.

Text of the lecture that opened the last course given by Pierre Bourdieu at the Collège de France in 1998–2000. The lecture discusses the idea of a symbolic revolution centered on the figure of the French artist Édouard Manet. His exceptional role in the art of modernism is examined from the dual perspective of the sociology of art and the social history of art. The successful symbolic revolution, as well as its soft form the religious revolution, is accompanied by the destruction of the traditional symbolic order and the overturning of the usual categories of perception. Bourdieu’s theory of (successful) symbolic revolution suggests a few conditions in which it becomes possible and that are presented successively in the sections of this lecture. The relationship between the revolutionary artist and the state is examined through a break with academic painting, officially recognized by state academic institutions. The narrative is accompanied by careful methodological remarks that allow us to return to the question of criticizing methods of analysis. It develops the idea of a new research method elaborated by the sociologist in the last years of his life. The results were presented posthumously in the unfinished manuscript Manet L’Hérésiarque. Genèse des champs artistique et critique. More specifically, the idea of a research program for the space of criticism outlined in the lecture introduces the reader to this ambitious project for the first time, shedding light on the analysis of the art world through sociological methods and remaining to this day a constant source for researchers in the sociology of art.

Since the nineteenth century, newspapers have contributed to the democratization and industrialization of reading, establishing an increasingly distinct front between the advocates of these processes and those literary practices committed to the “de-automatization” of linguistic production. Many authors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries construct their definition of poetic language precisely through its contrast or resonance with newspaper language. Thus, Stéphane Mallarmé asserts that poetry in language exists wherever there is rhythm — “except on the fourth page of the newspapers.” Gertrude Stein makes the rhythm of the teletype into the technological unconscious of the literary technique of “stream of consciousness,” yet she continues to regard “newspaper time” as false. Finally, Ezra Pound defines poems as “news that stays news,” thereby also betraying the opposition of his poetics to the operations of the rotary press. Only Bob Brown — a journalist close to the avant-garde — proposes to industrialize reading itself. To this end, he envisions “a moving type spectacle,” which is meant not only to transform the act of reading but also to reshape the very nature of literary creation in adaptation to this apparatus. This brings him closest to the Soviet project of an industrial revolution of language, within which newspaper language ceases to serve as the constitutive antithesis of the literary, and the very genre and medial form of the newspaper becomes “our epic” (Sergei Tretyakov). The first article in this series on the discursive infrastructure of modernism examines whether it is possible to determine the specificity of newspaper speech and to rehabilitate verbal mechanization as a discursive effect of industrial modernity within the poetics of Western European modernism.

The article explores various aspects of reading as a material practice and delves into the metaphors of materiality found in readers’ expressions. Despite earlier predictions suggesting that the advent of screen reading would diminish the materiality of reading, it remains intact. For readers, the tangible qualities of books as physical objects retain significance, not only for ease of use and specific reading habits but also for aesthetic reasons (such as preferences for certain publications or series). Reading also persists as a bodily activity that is integral to daily life and must be accounted for within its economy. Consequently, fragmented reading and the intricate materiality of the spaces designated for reading are natural outcomes.

Material metaphors are prevalent in readers’ discourse, encompassing descriptions of both the book itself (“tough”) and the act of engaging with it. Commonly, these metaphors draw parallels between reading and consuming food or drink (e.g., “swallowing books,” “going on a binge,” or experiencing “a hangover”). Such visceral metaphors may indicate that reading is perceived as a fundamental need. Evocative descriptions of the discomfort of reading underscore the importance of finding comfort in selecting reading material. Readers seek comfort not only in the content and aesthetics but also in its integration into their existence, and any disruption to this comfort is perceived as a violation of bodily integrity.

Reading as an embodied practice persists, evolving to encompass additional dimensions such as audio (audiobooks) and emerging technologies for text reproduction.

This paper examines the phenomenon of the “poster book” in the work of the second wave of futurists (1918–1920; the “41°” group, Tiflis). The author draws attention to the fact that the media-technological format of the poster is creatively adapted by futurist authors: the poetic “poster” differs from the real one in that it does not always place accents for the reader, the latter is often deliberately confusing, given several alternative reading routes. Such a revision of the poster format is due to the pragmatic attitude that is cultivated in the futurist community. Restoring the pragmatic attitude, Shvets shows that in the “41°” community, the emphasis was on the complicity of the recipient and his transformation into a collaborator. Such an understanding of the role of the reader leads to the transformation of the poster in poetic creativity.

The beginning of this century in Russia was marked by the emergence of the “new drama” movement in the theater. It included very different directors and playwrights: from Kirill Serebrennikov to Elena Gremina, from Ivan Vyrypayev to Vasily Sigarev. At the same time, they all addressed the theme of the excluded: migrants, the homeless, victims of violence and bullying. But while similar movements in Europe were directly linked to a specific ideology, in Russia the opposite happened. Theatrical criticism of society did not enter the political plane, such as activism. It happened in parallel with the depoliticization of public space, the creation of consumption and media infrastructure. At the same time, the assessment of this current as political still remains dominant. Rethinking this approach, the article analyzes formal techniques, general artistic methodology and introduces the concept of “depoliticization” to describe the aesthetics of new drama.