The Liberal Heritage
Introduction
MONIQUE CANTO-SPERBER
The Philosophy of Liberal Socialism

Humane Economics
YEVGENY SABUROV's Pages
Liberalism in Economics

Topic 1: The Cogs, the Wheel, and the Drivers
Introduction
DMITRY FURMAN, ALEXANDER MOROZOV, VLADIMIR PRIBYLOVSKY, NIKOLAI PETROV, YURY KORGUNYUK and ALAIN BLUM on Russia’s Political System After Putin’s Reforms
Sociological Notes

ALEXEI LEVINSON΄s Pages
Russian Public Opinion on the Power of Regional Governors

Topic 2: The End of the Federation?
SERGEI TURKIN
The Fortunes of Federalism in Russia
ALEXANDER DERYUGIN
The Features of Russian Federalism
YELENA BELOKUROVA, NATALIA YARGOMSKAYA
The Price of an Illusion: Can Civil Society be made more efficient simply by reforming Federalism?
TATYANA VOLKOVA
Local Self-Government in Russia: Historical Background

The Culture of Politics
YAROSLAV HRYCAK
Re: birth of Ukraine

Morals and Mores
NIKOLAI MITROKHIN
Kyiv: Two Days amid the Orange Revolution

Topic 3: Maps, Images, and Pictures of the World
KONSTANTIN IVANOV
The First Telescopes: From Curiosity to Philosophical Instrument
ANDREI KUZMIN
Images of the Starry Sky in the History of European Civilisation
VADIM GAVRIN
"That's why Urania is Older than Sister Clio": "Attributes of Learning" in Russian Portrait Painting in the Enlightenment Age

The Politics of Culture
VADIM VOLKOV
From Fantasy to Reality: Brat-2 and Boomer

New Institutions
The Coalition for a Right to Choose and the Russian Civic Congress

Journal Reviews
Russian Intellectual Journals

Translators’ Quarrel
MARINA KUKARTSEVA
A Reply to my Reviewer
ANDREI OLEYNIKOV
A Reply to a Translator

New Books
MUSA KHADZHAROV
The Sword and the Pen: Books on Chechnya (2002-2004)

Reviews

As our contribution to a debate about social liberalism in Russia that is currently gathering momentum, this issue’s helping of the Liberal Heritage presents an article by philosopher Monique Canto-Sperber on The Philosophy of Liberal Socialism, translated from a recent anthology on that subject which she published in Paris.

Most of this issue, however, is devoted to the recent political reforms in Russia. Yevgeny Saburov links this topic with the issue of liberalism in his Humane Economics column by pointing out how the current political centralisation as well as the government’s budgetary policies run counter to liberal economists’ eagerness to downsize the state. Topic 1, entitled The Cogs, the Wheel, and the Drivers, features answers by analysts specialising in different aspects of Russian politics and society to four questions about the state of the Russian political system after the Duma and presidential elections as well as Putin’s recent reforms of electoral and party legislation and Russia’s federal system. Dmitry Furman, Alexander Morozov, Vladimir Pribylovsky, Nikolai Petrov, Yury Korgunyuk, and Alain Blum discuss whether the recent changes are evolutionary, revolutionary or reactionary, and whether the future is likely to bring a return to Soviet conditions, nationalist authoritarianism, or democratisation.

Moving on more specifically to the federal reform, whereby regional governors will now be appointed rather than elected, Alexei Levinson presents data from recent opinion polls on Russians’ trust in the governors in his Sociological Notes. In Topic 2 (The End of the Federation?), Leonid Smirnyagin, the geographer and former expert on regional politics in Boris Yeltsin’s presidential administration, reflects on The Fortunes of Federalism in Russia; Alexander Deryugin discusses The Features of Russian Federalism from the point of view of budgetary relations between the centre and the regions; Elena Belokurova and Natalia Yargomskaya provide empirical findings refuting Putin’s claim that the reform will strengthen civil society; and historian Tatyana Volkova compares municipal self-government in the Russian Empire after the 1861 reform with current practice.

The two following sections deal with events in Ukraine. In Re: birth of Ukraine, published under the Culture of Politics heading, Lviv-based historian Yaroslav Hrytsak expresses an optimistic view of the Ukrainian elections and the constitutional reform in that country, arguing that regional disparities need not become an obstacle to democratisation. Morals and Mores features travel notes by Nikolai Mitrokhin, who visited the Ukrainian capital at the end of November to get a first-hand view of the motives driving the main actors in the Ukrainian revolution (Kyiv: Two Days amid the Orange Revolution). Hrytsak’s and Mitrokhin’s texts are illustrated with photographs taken during the mass demonstrations in Kyiv.

Turning to a more historical subject, in Topic 3 (Maps, Images, and Pictures of the World) we look at the way in which, in different times and places, visual tools have modified people’s relation to the world, and themselves changed in the process. Historian of science Konstantin Ivanov writes about The First Telescopes: From Curiosity to Philosophical Instrument. His colleague Andrei Kuzmin charts Images of the Starry Sky in the History of European Civilisation. In ‘That’s why Urania is Older than Sister Clio’: ‘Attributes of Learning’ in Russian Portrait Painting in the Enlightenment Age, art historian Vadim Gavrin shows how Russian portraitsts in the late 18th and early 19th century depicted their models’ scholarly background.

In the Politics of Culture section, sociologist Vadim Volkov, an expert on the Russian mafia and its business connections, discusses two Russian blockbusters of recent years, Brat-2 and Boomer, contrasting the former’s idealisation of bandits’ way of life with the latter’s more realistic depiction of their language and code of conduct.

This issue’s New Institutions are the Coalition for a Right to Choose and The Russian Civic Congress that took place on the 12th of December.
Our regular review of Russian intellectual journals (focusing on philosophical and inter-disciplinary ones in this issue) is followed by a Translators’ Quarrel where one of Dutch philosopher Frank Ankersmit’s Russian translators responds to another’s critical review of her edition by discussing different stances towards translating philosophical texts into Russian, while her opponent retorts by pointing out more inaccuracies in her translation.

Finally, the New Books section features a detailed review of Russian and international books on Chechnya published since mid-2002, as well as individual reviews of recent Russian, English, French, German and Ukrainian books on history and the social sciences.