Russians take positions to the extreme. As a result, Russian intellectual history shows us where ideas may lead—and in Russia’s case, really did. The English prided themselves on moderation and suspicion of radical abstractions, but Russians regarded anything short of ultimate positions as . . . . Continue Reading »
In 1909 the academic economist and former Marxist Sergei Bulgakov, a priest’s son who had recently and very publicly returned to Christian faith, published a long essay on the crisis of Russian culture and the mentality of the Russian intelligentsia. It is important to recognize that this . . . . Continue Reading »
No doctrine was more fundamental to the Bolsheviks than atheism. They professed absolute certainty that nothing exists beyond the chain of cause and effect described by the sciences. From day one they gleefully arrested priests, defaced icons, and subjected believers to mockery or worse. . . . . Continue Reading »
The resurgent nationalisms of recent decades have been one response to the homogenizing impulses of globalization—but nation is not the solution to homelessness in Eugene Vodolazkin’s Brisbane. Continue Reading »
Toward the end of his short life, Anton Chekhov penned one of his shortest stories, “The Student.” Debates over Chekhov’s own faith continue; however, no one doubts that at the root of his soul sprang a human compassion that was without peer. He knew how to “weep with those who weep” (Rom. . . . . Continue Reading »
Even at the height of the Cold War, no one thought of banning Russian literature, art, or music. Continue Reading »
In his speech “The Strenuous Life,” Theodore Roosevelt identified “the American character” with “the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife.” “The man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil,” Roosevelt asserted, “wins the ultimate . . . . Continue Reading »
Robert DiYanni joins the podcast to discuss his new book, You Are What You Read: A Practical Guide To Reading Well. Continue Reading »
According to the Talmud, the demons are more numerous than we are. “They stand over us like mounds of earth surrounding a pit.” Rav Huna teaches that “each and every one of us has a thousand demons to his left and ten thousand to his right.” Abba Binyamin tells us that “if the eye had the . . . . Continue Reading »
When Dostoevsky wrote his last and greatest novel, The Brothers Karamazov, the revolutionary movement that would lead to Bolshevism was well underway. The terrorist organization People’s Will—one of the first such organizations in the world—performed daring assassinations and . . . . Continue Reading »
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