Source IFRAN staff outraged by bullying for the ethics of non-violence. The Scientific Council of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IPh RAS), Russia's leading specialized institution, has published a statement about the “defamation campaign”. “Groups of pseudo-patriots” from the Tsargrad TV channel and from the Zavtra newspaper accuse the institution of Russophobia, working for Western intelligence agencies and studying the “ethics of non-violence,” the letter says. In Tsargrad, they really regularly accuse the directorate of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences of “sabotage activities”, and in the publication “Arguments of the Week” they even reported that the institute’s employees are implementing an “LGBT program”. The Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences says that the accusations are built around foreign internships of employees and often appeal to the times of the USSR. What is happening there is called harassment and witch-hunting.
The statement of the Academic Council of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences (it includes 41 people) is published on the website of the institution. It reports on the attempts of a “group of pseudo-patriots” from the Tsargrad TV channel and from the publications Zavtra and Argumenty Nedeli to accuse the institute of “anti-state political activity, Russophobia and work for foreign special services.”
Claims are built around the participation of employees of the Institute of Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences in international conferences and internships abroad, that is, “usual forms of scientific activity,” the letter says.
“For lack of arguments,” the accusers, according to scientists, refer to the events of 20-25 years ago and the times of the USSR. “Cooperation with foreign colleagues is supposed to be a government task. Our ill-wishers accuse us of fulfilling these requirements, which are at the same time conditions for the effectiveness of scientific research,” the scientists are outraged.
The Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences was established in the late 1920s as a division of the Communist Academy under the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. One of its tasks was the implementation of the project of a fundamental encyclopedia of world philosophy (it remained unfinished). Since 1991, the Institute has become an institution of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Specific materials are not indicated in the appeal, but the mentioned media do often feature the Institute of Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. So, in April 2022, in the article “Secret letters from “saboteurs” in robes” on the Tsargrad website, the activities of the leadership of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences were called “malicious and ideologically sabotage”, and the fund of the American John Templeton was called the “main sponsor” of the philosophy of religion sector of the institution, associated with the “Jewish Republican lobby”. The publication of the Zavtra newspaper dated September 16, 2022 says that the staff of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences are under the influence of the “civilization of the West” and promote “an ideology designed to demolish the supporting structures of the building of Russian statehood.” In November 2022, the text “IP RAS and MI-6” of the same publication said that the deputy director of the institute, Yulia Sineokaya, had an internship in the UK and “during her entire career” she was in contact “with British structures.” In December 2022, Argumenty Nedeli accused Ruben Apresyan, Head of the Department of Ethics of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences (included in the register of foreign agents by the Ministry of Justice) of introducing an “LGBT program” at the institute. In this publication and on the website of Tsargrad, Mr. Apresyan got the job of researching the ethics of non-violence, including the works of the “ideologist of the Orange Revolutions” Gene Sharp.
The IP RAS confirms that the ethics of non-violence is one of the research topics. But the Academic Council reminds “pseudo-patriots” that “the doctrine of non-resistance to evil by violence” occupied, in particular, the attention of Leo Tolstoy.
United States in the 1950s, when “under patriotic slogans, a wave of persecution of workers in science and culture was organized.”
Scientists believe that the campaign falls under Art. 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on inciting hatred, but they call for discussing any “discrepancy of opinions” at seminars and conferences.
It should be noted that at the end of 2021, a scandal erupted at the institute: instead of the current director of the institute, academician Andrey Smirnov, chosen by the team, the Ministry of Education and Science appointed Anatoly Chernyaev, candidate of philosophical sciences, head of the history of Russian philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, to this position. However, Mr. Chernyaev was not accepted by the team, and his candidacy was not agreed upon in the Russian Academy of Sciences, as required by the regulations. The Scientific Council of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences then issued a statement that Anatoly Chernyaev participated in the campaign “to discredit the institute and its leadership”, and the Tsargrad TV channel of entrepreneur Konstantin Malofeev was called the center of such a campaign. After numerous collective petitions to the Ministry of Education and Science, Mr. Chernyaev was removed from his post. The scientific director of the institute, 83-year-old academician Abdusalam Huseynov, was appointed acting director. The letter of the Academic Council states that the current campaign against the Institute of Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences is being waged by “the same forces and persons that provoked the crisis in management activity a year ago.”
Konstantin Malofeev redirected Kommersant for comments on the editors of Tsargrad. The editor-in-chief of the publication, Daria Tokareva, advised me to seek clarification from the head of the ideological department of the Tsargrad TV channel, Mikhail Tyurenkov. Mr. Tyurenkov, in turn, sent the following comment to Kommersant: “For us, the conservative patriotic media, it is very important that all state institutions, including academic ones, act in the Russian national interests. That is why in our publications we have repeatedly drawn attention to examples of openly liberal, Westernizing ideology of the institute's leadership. Of course, confirming the materials with facts and quotes. But I would like to hope that the time of Soros from science in our country is already ending.”
In 2021, the reason for the media campaign was the desire to change the leadership of the Institute of Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Andrey Smirnov, Acting First Deputy Director for Research at the Institute, told Kommersant , but now the reasons for what is happening are incomprehensible to him: “The accusations that are heard go beyond the reasonable and permissible.” narrow departmental interests.”
Vladimir Shalak, Head of the Department of Logic at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, called Kommersant the goal of the campaign “to raise the question of a complete reformatting of the institute by completely unjustified discrediting of its employees”: “I can assume that this is preparatory work for new attack.
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