Опубликовано в журнале Неприкосновенный запас, номер 5, 2001
DEBATES ON POLITICS AND CULTURE
№ 5 (19)of Debates on Politics and Culture opens up with an essay Why I Am Not a Conservative. by F.A.Hayek, where the famous social thinker argues that liberalism, not conservatism, is the only and proper answer to the socialist radicalism of the twentieth century. The essay is published with a foreword by Andrei Zorin.
Aleksei Levinson, a sociologist and the magazine’s columnist, outlines the problems of public opinion and its study in the age of the Internet (On-line and Beyond). Sociologist Boris Dubin (War, Power, and the New Managers) offers a critical overview of the relationship between the media, the democracy, and the public opinion in today’s Russia. Political scientist Grigory Golosov (Political Institutions and the Russian Democracy) points out that only the maturation of political institutions can guarantee the stability of democracy in Russia. The first thematic section offers three different perspectives on the events of August, 1991, and the following decade. The article by Oleg Kharkhordin, one of the leading young Russian sociologists (Was There a Coup at All?), consists of two parts: a piece produced by the author in the aftermath of the August, 1991, coup, as well as his reflections written ten years later. In his essay Igor Kliamkin, a renown political scientist (Revolution or Thermidor?) questions the conventional description of the late 1980s—early 1990s as a period of revolution. Finally, Leonid Gozman, a prominent member of the Union of the Right Forces, a Russian liberal party, talks to Debates about his perception of the 1990s as a decade and his forecasts for the years to come. Finally, the Myths and Symbols section features a piece by the magazine’s columnist Andrei Zorin Are We Allowed to Mourn in the Jubilee Year?
The second thematic section contributes to the current debate on the reform of Russian education. Andrei Poletaev and Irina Saveleva (The Higher education and the Market. Demand for Education in Modern Russia) use extensive sets of data to demonstrate that the 1990s were, in fact, not a crisis, but a period of rapid growth in Russian higher education. Iakov Shchukin, a sociologist (The Reform of Education and the Liberals), and Revekka Frumkina, a prominent linguist and an essayist (In the Gardens of Lyceums), suggest that the central problem of Russian education is the absence of free choice, both for those educating and those being educated. Evgeny Bunimovich, a prominent educator and a member of the Moscow City Duma, shares with Debates his perception of current processes in Russian education. Marina Loskutova (School Reforms in England) presents an overview of two centuries of educational reform in England.
The Politics of Culture section includes two articles. Elena Baraban analyses the portrayal of gay characters in the modern Russian detective stories (Everyday Homophobia), while Aleksei Yurchak describes the gender stereotypes in the new Russian business magazines (The Male Economy: “When You Make You Career, You Don’t Have Time for Nonsense”).
The third thematic section features three pieces under the rubric My Personal Japan. Akio Kavato, a Japanese diplomat in Russian Federation reflects on the stereotypical description of Japanese society as devoid of individualism and tells about complex and dynamics changes that run contrary to that perception. Two experts in the field of Japanese studies, Karine Marandzhian and Aleksandr Kabanov, talk in their articles about the interdependence between language and mentality in the case of Japan and about the Japanese educational system, respectively. The Morals and Mores section introduces an essay The School, where mathematician Evgeny Badansky recollects his childhood experiences in a typical Soviet school. The issue ends with the New Books section, which includes an overview of latest American works on the Russian economic reforms of the 1990s by a Harvard economist Yoshiko Herrera.