Late Soviet Intellectual Cult(ure): Merab Mamardashvili’s Strategy of Self‐Presentation

Abstract

Abstract This article analyzes Merab Konstantinovich Mamardashvili’s philosophical strategy in the context of late and post‐Soviet intellectual culture. It focuses on How I Understand Philosophy (1990), a collection of Mamardashvili’s works and interviews that had a significant impact on the reception of his thought and the shaping of his intellectual cult. This article argues that in the late 1980s, by assuming the role of a public intellectual, Mamardashvili laid the foundations for this cult, and after his death, his friends and colleagues who participated in its creation reinterpreted his ideas to legitimize (post‐)Soviet academic philosophy. I draw on Pierre Bourdieu’s approach to studying philosophy as a social practice, determined by both theoretical controversies and political struggle. This article is divided into three parts: the first section examines Mamardashvili’s career trajectory within the late Soviet academic environment; the second section analyzes his definitions of philosophy, which reflect the position of a public intellectual he occupied in the late 1980s; and the third section focuses on his critique of political and academic institutions and demonstrates how these “inconvenient” aspects of his legacy were neutralized and decontextualized by his followers.