The protection of Academia from regimes hell-bent on control must be a priority. Alas, this doesn't seem urgent for some countries. Russia's neo-Soviet purge of Academia as begun.
As one who is on the periphery of modern Russian politics, when I saw in my weekly Moscow Times newsletter that Putin has begun a (or better, furthered the) full-on assault of Western influence within Academic Institutions in Russia (a very much NOT new phenomenon for Russia), my head cocked and my eyes widened. What is happening to the world that we are coming to repeat the same mistakes our predecessors did, only now in more fatal and irreversible ways? Have we learned nothing from the past, and simply pretend like we are better and can avoid the apocalypse simply due to the passing of time? Of course not, and in Putin's Russia the Nietzschean cyclicality to which those in the global "West" [literally everywhere but Russia] are aware stops short of consciousness apparently.
The event which I'm alluding to is the recent purge of Bard College's Professor Michael Freese, a distinguished Professor from the Liberal Arts and Sciences faculty at St. Petersburg State University in Russia. This is a huge shock, not only to the Academic community at large but the school itself, as it is reported by Moscow Times that the two Institutions have had an ongoing relationship since 1997. In fact, the school had helped St. Petersburg create its satellite campus, the Smolny College of Liberal Arts Sciences, 2011!
The relationship, begun in 1997 under the fraught and all-together unproductive presidency of Boris Yeltsin, unified St. Petersburg's Smolney College and the American Institution in a dual-degree program. However, when in June the Prosecutor General labelled the school "undesirable," the partnership was terminated everywhere. On the St. Petersburg website, the school is nowhere to be found, while the faculty page about Freese is absent as well.
However, the saga of Bard College's slow stagnation in the eye of Russia is not new, and this pitiful turn of events apparently begun on June 22nd, after the Prosecutor General accused Bard College of...
"threatening Russia’s constitutional order and security of the Russian Federation."
Thus, in swift accord the Institution had become the 35th Institution to be blacklisted from the totalitarian nation-state. But (and this seems like an endemic phrase) it's nothing new, as Russia has been cracking down on NGOs in the country, all based on the threat of negative Western influence which all reflect the sorrowful realization that Soviet hysteria isn't over.
Following the June 22nd post, comprehensive reporting done by American Journalist Samantha Berkhead published only two weeks later revealed that nearly 700 students are now going to be harmed by this disaterous edict, and the cultural integration that the partnership promoted will never again be able to produce an educational experience that is not only life-changing, but life-inspiring. Echoing the sentiments of everyone near and far, one student had made the tearful revelation, “It’s a big loss for everyone." Loss indeed.
Berkhead's reporting touched upon the reasons why exactly this sobriquet was laid upon Bard College, that being the entirely "Russian" reason that Smolney College was providing students with a pro-Western educational experience. Russia's NGO Coordinating Council apparently felt that having such a strong transcultural connection was too much for them.
"...part of a global network of controlled educational institutions to educate young people in a pro-Western way, form a protest electorate and inculcate a hostile ideology toward their country"
Sadder still, and this effected me somewhat by my ability to learn Russian through online means outside Institutional frameworks of pedagogy, that this all was relatively predictable. Earlier this year, in the beginning of June, it was announced that all non state-sanctioned educational partnerships and activities were banned, and could result in fines, jail-time, or worse if revealed. Such a harrowing sequence of events, ALL in a matter of three to four months, does not bode well for the future of Russia and beyond. Further, it signals that something is coming. What is it? I do not know, but something far deadlier than Academic expulsions and education proscription is afoot, and we all must stay incurably vigilant.
What is there to say to such deeds that have transpired in Russia that have not already been said? Academic censorship of any kind is a fool's game, as Academicians seek to further conversation, dialectics, argumentation, and strengthen the global community's understanding of the world as best they can. So yes, there are those who seek to undermine intellectual rigor with their falsehoods and post-truths (intersectionality, queer theory, and the like). Yes, by strengthening a partnership with Western Institutions students will inevitably liberalize in their views of the world. Yes, Russia's isolationist educative system might change due to inseminations of non-Russian students. But unless Russia plans on fully becoming North Korea, they must embrace this change and do it quickly.
What we are living through is the reiteration of Andropov's 1980s, Brezhnev's 1970s,
and Stalin's 1940s. A second Revolution is coming, I can hear the echoes of Petrograd.
Mark my words, a second Socialist Revolution is coming in Russia. It's only a matter of time.
If you're interested, a previous event, like this purge of Bard College, happened in a different way back in 2017. These articles show how St. Petersburg University has been under the microscope for a very long time, and its relationships mercilessly investigated.
1. Russia's Education Watchdog Closes In on European University (Sep. 27, 2017)
2. Turmoil on St. Petersburg Campus Strands Foreign Students (Oct. 30, 2017)
3. Prestigious St. Petersburg University Refused License for Third Time (Dec. 7, 2017)
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