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This study is interested in how apocalyptic imaginaries establish borderlines as it reconsider the manners in which Abū Ya'qūb al-Sijistānī's discussions of the End Time resisted the messianic sovereignties implicit in 10th-century Fāṭimid Ismā'īlī thought, in particular, as he introduces a Qā'im-ology without specific reference to the Ismā'īlī imām. To do so, this study first takes a broad theoretical perspective on the aesthetics and anesthesia of the destruction and violence of the End Time, giving careful consideration to apocalyptic imaginaries in calibrated political and soteriological landscapes, turning then to Sijistānī's theories of the barzakh, the cyclical resurrection of the soul, the perfection of the human form (ba'th), and the Qā'im as a process of istishfāf, or rendering transparent the human form as the nafs zakiyyah (pure soul). The coded symbolism of a messianism that questions time's time-line points to how the political and historical horizon event of the Qā'im's rising remains obscure in select works of Sijistānī. In Sijistānī's subtle staging of Fāṭimid Ismā'īlī doctrines of messianism and divine guidance, the apocalyptic plot line of returning to an original unity is suspended. As well, the images of the End Time's cataclysmic events are displaced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The visions of peace contained in the first part of the book of Isaiah are oracles written centuries later than the time of the historical prophet. They are positioned within the book immediately after some messages of destruction and judgment to announce the coming of a future period of peace. This contribution analyzes the three main oracles of peace in these chapters (Isa 2:2-5; 9:1-6; 11:1-9), exploring in their literal meanings and briefly mentioning some subsequent messianic interpretations. While a detailed exegesis of the oracles is not provided, a reading is proposed that can also be helpful in formlating a theology of peace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In my essay, I offer an interpretation of Giorgio Agamben's political thought as a case of philosophical perversion. According to Lacan, perverse practice is based on a structural non-personal enjoyment, in which a pervert assumes the role of an executioner, meticulously executing his task. My analysis will focus on Agamben's perverse use of the messianic discourse, the aim of which is to explode it from within: while applying all elements of the messianic idiom, Agamben assumes a mission the goal of which is to deactivate all mission and revoke all vocations. As he states in reference to Bartleby the Scrivener as the possible figure of the Messiah, to fulfill the Torah, i.e. the religious law, is to "destroy it from top to bottom." I will thus claim that Agamben's strategy of deactivation – a vocation to end all vocation – can be interpreted as a deliberate methodical use of perversion, that is, a position which simultaneously obeys and destroys the law. Although critical of Agamben's method, I will not use the Lacanian frame of perversion in a value-charged manner. I want to present it as one of the late-modern philosophical modes of thinking, which became so widely seductive precisely of its powerful perverse component. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Book review: America against All [Amerika protiv vsekh] (2023). Geopolitics, Statehood and Global Role of the USA: History and Modernity [Geopolitika, gosudarstvennost’ i global’naya rol’ SSHA: istoriya i sovremennost’]. Moscow: LLC “Commonwealth of Cultures” [OOO “Sodruzhestvo kul’tur”], 588 p.What is America for Russia, the rest of the world and itself? This question is answered differently by historians, journalists, writers, diplomats, academic researchers, and incumbent politicians. Why has the United States – in recent years especially – pursued an exemplarily offensive foreign policy, as if directed “against everyone”? The authors of the book of the same name, “America Against All. Geopolitics, Statehood and the Global Role of the United States: History and Modernity” offer their answer to this question. The authors of the monograph analyze a significant body of literature on the U.S. geopolitical thought, reflect on the origins of American statehood, and seek to trace the formation of the so-called ‘‘American empire” and the spread of American hegemony from the late 19th century to the present day. In conclusion, the authors outline proposals for democratizing modern America. This book review is an attempt to critically analyze the assessments and recommendations of a large number of authors from the Diplomatic Academy, IMEMO RAS, MGIMO University, RUDN, and branch institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Contrary to the prevailing view, messianic thinking has not driven Russian expansionism. Russian rulers have rather been guided by realpolitik in a search for security through the creation of strategic depth. When messianic thinking has infected Russian conduct abroad it generally has led to humiliating setbacks. In recent years, Russian President Vladimir Putin has abandoned realpolitik for messianic thinking. Such thinking lay behind his decision to invade Ukraine. It informs his escalating conflict with the West. And it will likely produce no better results for Russia than messianic thinking has in the past. This article is a slightly edited excerpt from the author's new book, Getting Russia Right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Filosofía (0185-3481) is the property of Universidad Iberoamericana Cuidad de Mexico and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Today, the response to the consequences of present and future environmental catastrophes tends to take three forms: one purely technological-productive coming from the alliance between States and the Market; another one, which is essentially movementist, is confusedly fragmented into initiatives, often contradictory to each other, without having a strong ideological–political vision at its base; and the third one refers to apocalyptic or posthuman messianisms of a philosophical–religious nature. None of the three forms envisions a radical transformation of the current political–economic system. In this context, the voice of the Catholic Church emerges strongly to denounce the systemic reasons for the environmental disaster and at the same time to oppose the current system another system, centered on alternative assumptions. This article will analyze the encyclical Laudato Si' (2015), which, sometimes mistaken for a simple text on Christian ecology, should actually be interpreted as a manifesto for a new world, based on the idea of a total anthropological and socio-political revolution. The analysis of the Encyclical is intended to highlight the historical–theological foundations and the ability to adapt some of the cornerstones of Catholicism (in particular of the Franciscan and Jesuit matrix) to the resolution of the current ecological emergency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This text traces the survival of St Paul messianism at various different landmarks in political philosophy, social activism and contemporary art practices. It takes the critical reconsideration of the concept of class as its starting point, showing us how it left behind the egalitarian universalism of the radical and interracial policy of early modernity (the transoceanic proletariat) to become a stable and discriminatory identity (the national working classes) designed to address the conflict between capital and labour. From this perspective, the second part of the article analyses the way in which recent social movements, inspired by the operaista rejection of Fordist work, are trying to go beyond the structural configuration of modern experience in which work and aesthetics have a key function.

The considerable literature discussing Walter Benjamin’s “idea of happiness” points both to the important role it plays in his thought and, in this context, to the diversity of interpretations his elliptic style has generated. The pivotal role played by the term in Benjamin’s oeuvre from his early writings on language to his Passagenwerk originates in what has been regarded as his “dialectics of happiness.” While this is certainly a plausible diagnosis, a closer look at the wording of the relevant passages in Benjamin’s oeuvre reveals more nuanced and numerous manifestations of the indirectness that characterizes his approach to happiness. Benjamin invokes the term “happiness” (Glück) at crucial crossroads in his thought. It oscillates between potentiality and inaccessibility; individual and collective experience; commemoration and utopia, Eros and emancipation, concrete phenomena and abstract ideas, and last but not least between politics and theology. Equally striking are the divergent modes of expression in which Benjamin’s notion of happiness is articulated. They range from the inexpressible (das Ausdruckslose) to the most lyrical effusions. My talk will correlate Benjamin’s seemingly incommensurable invocations of happiness with the very detours, incompletions, and indirections in his writings about this state of being.

This article presents the unique reception of the Talmudic tale about the messiah at the gates of Rome (BT, Sanhedrin 98a) among German-Jewish intellectuals in the early twentieth century. Thereby, the article offers a new perspective on the relations between messianism, Zionism, and human agency in German-Jewish thought. In tractate Sanhedrin, Yehoshua ben Levi asks the messiah about the date of his arrival, and the redeemer answers, "Today." However, as redemption fails to arrive, the prophet Elijah explains the redeemer's words as "Today, if you will listen to my voice." The tale raises the possibility that people have an agency to act and hasten the redemption. Nevertheless, the "correct" nature of redemptive actions is missing. I argue that by repeatedly interpreting the Aggadah, German-Jewish intellectuals position themselves within the political-theological conversation about Zionism and negotiate the tension between the ethical and the political manifestations of messianic agency. On the one hand, Zionists like Martin Buber, Chaim Arlosoroff, and Arnold Zweig change the content of the tale and charge it with political potency. On the other hand, Franz Rosenzweig returns to the traditional tale to offer a counter-reading supporting an ethical mode of agency instead of a Zionist form of activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a theological exposition of the biblical statement that the human being is created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26). The treatment concludes that this affirmation is the clal gadol , the foundational principle of the whole Torah (as Ben Azzai says, Talmud Yerushalmi, Nedarim, ch. 9, h. 4). There are four dimensions to the image of God: (1) Intrinsic dignities —that all human beings (no matter gender, skin color, race, religion) are endowed by their Creator with three intrinsic dignities: infinite value, equality, and uniqueness; (2) Capabilities —God has infinite consciousness, power, relationship (=love), freedom, and life. Humans have these capabilities in a finite but remarkable, i.e. Godlike, form. According to Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, humans fulfill the commandment of Imitatio Dei (v'halachta b'drachav) by developing these capabilities. God bestows these capabilities on humans to use in fulfilling a mission to perfect God's Creation in partnership with the Divine (=covenant); (3) These dignities are rooted in love. That all humans possess these dignities reflects the fact that God loves all life, especially humans (the most advanced form of life); (4) Prophetic messianism envisions this planet turned into a Garden of Eden (paradise). This is a reality worthy of an image of God, i.e. the enemies of life (poverty, hunger, oppression, war, sickness) are overcome and the fullness of human dignity (infinite value, equality, uniqueness) is honored, in actual practice, in daily life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the 2007–8 financial crisis, far-Right conservatives advanced a reactionary political turn, seeking to replace the prevailing political order, what Nancy Fraser calls “progressive neoliberalism,” with an overtly exclusionary and rapacious form of capitalism. This article investigates how entrepreneur Peter Thiel sought to shape this transition, adopting a messianic rhetoric to return capitalism to its essential principles. Employing Giorgio Agamben’s study of Saint Paul, I argue that Thiel employed a Pauline stance to realize a plērōma, or fullness, of capitalism, preserving the profit motive while jettisoning neoliberalism’s deployment of progressivism. In this analysis, I build upon rhetorical scholars’ exploration of contemporary neoliberal discourse, framing the billionaire rhetor as a uniquely agentive figure in twenty-first-century capitalism and positing neoliberalism as an eminently versatile rhetorical logic capable of operationalizing arguments from across the political spectrum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examines the servant oracles of Isaiah 41–45, which in the MT present a collectivist, national understanding of the figure, but in the OG are rendered so that the servant is individuated, both in the sense that he is granted clearly the quality of individuality, and in the sense that he is distinguished clearly from the collective nation he serves. The servant is also thereby rendered messianic, as Israel's eschatological rule is transferred to this individual, along with God's epithet, 'your king', and as intertextual references identify this figure as one and the same with the Davidic king of Isaiah 9 and 11. Thus OG Isaiah 41–45 attests the emergence of individualist interpretation of the servant well before the common era. These chapters also show the place of messianism in the Septuagint and in second century Alexandria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Second Vatican Council and the Common Word document constitute turning points in the history of Christian–Muslim Relations. Nostra Aetate and Lumen Gentium appealed to a shared Abrahamic heritage between Christianity and Islam, and the Common Word appealed to a God-based theology, as opposed to the long-standing Prophet-based theology. Authorities in both traditions did so in the search for a shared theological foundation. While the article recognizes the vitality of the two steps, it equally recognizes that there is still much that can be done to advance Christian–Muslim relations. In this context, this article aims to achieve three primary goals: first, to demonstrate the successes of the two initiatives; second, to critically engage with them by examining their limitations; and third, to suggest "practical theology" as a medium through which the aspirations of Vatican II and the Common Word can reach a greater audience. In doing so, it proposes the concept of shahādah "bearing witness", as opposed to the Islamic concept of daʿwah "making invitation" and the Christian concepts of preaching and messianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the emergence of what is nowadays called "postsecular" religion from German-Jewish philosophy of the 1920s and 1930s. The three different cases of Franz Rosenzweig, Alexander Altmann, and Leo Strauss impel us to pay particular attention to a few recurring argumentative and rhetorical strategies. The emergence of postsecularism marks a shift in the epistemic foundations of Jewish religious thought, which had long been under pressure from secular European thought. Beginning with Rosenzweig, Jewish philosophy used secular categories of European philosophy to facilitate a return to the foundations of Judaism, eventually turning against what it sees as the epistemic weaknesses of secularism itself. This article traces the new phenomenon to Rosenzweig's evolving view of secularism, especially to his ridicule of Siegfried Kracauer's secular messianism, before examining a few key arguments in his book The Star of Redemption (1921). A brief discussion of Alexander Altmann's writings of the early 1930s provides that even modern Orthodox Jewish thought, which had never been "secular", used postsecular categories and arguments to make the philosophical case for orthodoxy. Leo Strauss's introduction to his Philosophy and Law (1935) provides a far more elaborated form of Rosenzweig's argument. As this article seeks to show, postsecular Jewish thought comes with a slight twist of epistemic relativism, particularly when it comes to the juxtaposition of the Biblical and scientific "world-views". But here it merely draws the full consequences of modern science, beating scientism with its own weapons. Furthermore, religious thought in the 20th century had no other option than to rebuild itself on postsecular grounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contrasting Message and The Book of Disquiet as two opposite facets of Pessoa's thinking shall convey the reader into the intricacies of the Portuguese poet's personal myth that he affixed to the national messianic ideal. The paper advances a link between the hidden family romance of the latter posthumous work and the former patriotic epic poem, rooted in making up for infantile loss as disclosed in The Book of Disquiet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of the expected saviour exists as a phenomenon in various religions and cultures, albeit with some differences. In the Shīʿite sect that emerged in Islamic history after the death of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (d. 40/661), ʿAlī and his descendants were referred to as imams based on the imamate doctrine. Members of the sect, who had difficulty accepting the death of the imams to whom they attributed political and sometimes spiritual leadership, believed that the imam they followed would return to the world and bring justice to the oppressed earth. In the Imāmiyya Shīʿa (Twelvers), one of the main branches of the sect that has survived to the present day, the doctrine of the Imamate is one of the basic tenets of the faith, and the line of the imamate ends with the twelfth imam, Muhammad b. al-Hasan. With the twelfth imam went into occultation in 260/874, the belief that he would one day come and rule the oppressed world with justice under the title of al-mahdī (the guided one) and al-muntaẓar (the expected one) has become an important tenet in Imāmiyya. This study deals chronologically with the claims of mahdism that emerged from within Shiʿism during the so-called occultation period. Especially in Iran and its surroundings, where Imāmiyya Shīʿites live densely, some messianic movements have emerged around people who declared themselves or were declared as the expected saviour. In this article, the movements that emerged around the idea of messiahship such as Ḥurūfism, Musha'sha'a, Ṣafavism, Bābism and Bahā'īsm are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(Series Information) European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2023 8(3), 1333-1359 | Article | (Table of Contents) I. Introduction. – II. The law of integration. – II.1. The summa divisio of the modern law and the autonomous “sphere of intervention”. – II.2. The concept of law-making treaty and the search for a European constitution. – II.3. Jürgen Habermas and the revision of Kant’s cosmopolitan right. – III. The law of intervention. – III.1. Two faces. – III.2. The concept of intervention treaty. – III.3. Post-war Europe. – IV. Joseph Weiler and the political messianism in EU law. – V. Conclusion. | (Abstract) In this Article, the EU Treaties which establish a new and autonomous legal order are analysed through the lens of Pierre Pescatore’s qualification of their operating sphere as “sphere of intervention”. Combining Jürgen Habermas' revision of Kant's concept of cosmopolitan law and Joseph Weiler's thesis on the messianic impact of the European integration process, a concept of international treaty is presented that is suitable for a proper analysis of the transformative character of the EU Treaties and the Common Market as such a "sphere of intervention”. Highlighting implications of the theory of international treaty, legal philosophy and messianism, the concept of the European autonomous legal order, endowed with direct effect and supremacy, shall be proven to be the historical answer to the aporias of classical international law and to the totalitarian abuse of the law in the fascist regimes in Europe in the first half of the 20th century – not only on a symbolical level but also on the level of the concrete legal structure of the European integration process. The general aim of this Article is therefore to contribute to the debate about the nature of the EU Treaties as constituting an autonomous legal order from an international law perspective by identifying a type of international treaty suitable to explain the special character of a legal order that is identical neither with international nor with domestic law, but rather constituting a realm in-between the former and showing an independent legal standing in itself.

This essay returns to Jacob Taubes's messianism in order to short-circuit a contemporary political and conceptual impasse between left- and right-wing Schmittianisms. It first seeks to expose the limits of both Schmitt's originary political theology and post-war Italian Marxist rehabilitations of Schmitt, which, it is argued, remain caught in the same political-ontological matrix. To answer the question of what (if anything) might come after political theology, the essay turns to Jacob Taubes's "counter-political theology" in order to find an alternative genealogy for modern democracy, not in Schmitt's Christian conservative hierarchy, but in the antinomian and heretical elements within the Judaeo-Christian tradition. In conclusion, the essay argues that Taubes transforms the political theological impasse and makes possible a new reading of the contemporary political false choice we face between democracy and authoritarianism, liberal pluralism and populism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dominant Western narrative—now virtually obligatory within its media and foreign policy establishments—asserts that Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 was unprovoked, deriving from domestic political imperatives and messianic imperial nostalgia. Yet, while these factors must be included within a comprehensive causal argument, a deeper and more satisfactory explanation for the invasion situates the predicament of the Russian ruling class—and thus government—within the context of the systematic, decades-long project of NATO expansion and a series of specific provocative actions and decisions taken by Kyiv and Washington in the second half of 2021. The United States has consistently opposed integration between Russia and Western Europe. The key parameter of U.S. neo-imperial strategy in Europe-Asia remains embedded in Cold War geo-politics, namely that U.S. hegemony in Eurasia rests on the exclusion of Russia from European affairs and the prevention of a geo-economic axis between Berlin, Moscow and Beijing. However, even as the war may result in a final settling of accounts in the U.S.-Russia relationship and beyond, it has also thrown into increasingly sharp relief the growing conflict of class interests and complex geopolitical asymmetries and contradictions in the transatlantic relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on Foucault's and Agamben's readings of Augustine's account of human nature and original sin. Foucault's analysis of Augustine's account of sexual acts in paradise, subordinated to will and devoid of lust, highlights the way it constitutes the model for the married couple, whose sexual acts are only acceptable if diverted by the will away from desire and towards the tasks of procreation. While Agamben rejects Augustine's doctrine of original sin and reclaims paradise as the original homeland of humanity, his reappropriation of paradise remains conditioned by our turn towards our true nature, from which we have been estranged by sin. Agamben's politics of reclaiming paradise necessarily involves the demand for obedience to this originary model of human nature. It therefore follows to the letter Augustine's description of paradisiacal sex, in which the will prevails over desire by applying itself to and curtailing itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines José Servando Teresa de Mier's "Carta de despedida a los mexicanos." In the letter written in 1821, Mier argues that the name Mexico must be spelled with an x to preserve the name's originary connotations. Analyzing the poetic strategies and messianic discourses implicit in how Mier composes the idea signified by the name Mexico, I argue that Mier supplies a plausible argument for its time about the sources of Mexican identity and nationhood. Given the context of uncertainty around the future of Novohispanic independence in early 1821, the "Carta" is a timely intervention about the nation at a critical juncture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enrique Dussel (1934-2023): In memory. This article pays tribute to the Latin American philosopher Enrique Dussel, recognized for his critical and innovative work in philosophy, history, and theology. Seven interpretative keys are highlighted to understand his work, such as his Latin American identity, his adoption of Semitic thought, and his critique of Eurocentrism and colonialism. Additionally, his experience in Europe and Israel, which influenced his Latin American perspective, is emphasized. The text presents the idea of using ethical-mythical elements from Hebrew culture to construct a philosophical alternative and highlights the importance of the notion of epiphany and messianism in understanding political leadership and the sacrifice of life for the people. It also mentions his philosophy based on theological metaphors and his departure from the Hellenocentric view of philosophy. The need for a Philosophy of Liberation in Latin America and the role of Bartolomé de Las Casas as a precursor of this school of thought are emphasized. Furthermore, his analysis of Bartolomé de Las Casas as the first thinker to denounce the genocidal domination of invaders in America and recognize the right of peoples to govern themselves is mentioned, as well as his study of Marx's work and his development of an ethics of liberation and a politics centered on the people as protagonists. [Extracted from the article]

It is not uncommon to stick to Father António Vieira the label of "messianism" - which has even happened to illustrious "vieirists" - but this is clearly a mistake. To the Coimbra's court of the Holy Office, the Jesuit confessed to being a "millenarian", simply because he believed in the advent of a "new state" of the Church, which he called "the Kingdom of Christ consummated on Earth" and which he identified with the new eon announced by the Old Testament prophets and initiated in Jesus Christ (see The Key of the Prophets). The theme addressed here Vieira's relationship with tradition allows us to understand his deter- mination to give a new answer to a new reality: the possibility of evangelization (and conversion) of the whole world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article covert from a biblical point of view a social problem of permanent interest: poverty, seen as a state of precariousness caused by the multiple causes, some involuntary (the state of people left without support – widows, orphans, those with disabilities –, victims of natural disasters, immigrants, etc.) or voluntary (greed of peers, indifference of institutions empowered to watch over the observance of citizens’ rights, etc.) that led to it. It is, however, a scandal in a society that holds a theological view that God is a Father to all members of the People, from which it implicitly follows that the latter are brothers. However, such a scandal generated positions of some of those responsible, most often under pressure from prophets. These positions gradually led to the drafting of legislative codes designed to regulate scandalous social situations. When even these regulations did not eradicate poverty, then the vision of a new, messianic project was born. This project, which has as protagonist a descendant of King David, proposes a new vision (which I will develop in a later article) foreshadowed in several prophetic texts with a messianic theme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is commonly acknowledged that blindness and seeing play an important role in the theology of the Gospel of Mark. Typically, readers interpret "spiritual blindness" as the moral thrust of the discipleship discourse in Mark 8:22–10:52. While the disciples fail to see their teacher as the Christ, blind Bartimaeus appears to identify Jesus as the "Son of David" (10:46–52). However, centering blindness-as-vice not only plays on an unfortunate ableist binary but also renders Mark's more marginal characters as insignificant. Research on blindness in antiquity demonstrates how socioeconomic status was a leading factor in determining social perceptions of the blind. This article contends that Mark's Bartimaeus pericope should be read accordingly. Instead of serving as a metaphor for "spiritual blindness," physically blind characters are raised to the status of insider as a condemnation of mistreatment of the poor—a motif found within the broader terrain of Mark's moral landscape (6:30–44; 8:1–10; 12:38–44; 14:1–11). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Filosofía (0185-3481) is the property of Universidad Iberoamericana Cuidad de Mexico and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper analyzes how Jewish representations in Russian government-supported war films from 2010 to 2018 have been engaged in the assertion of Vladimir Putin's foreign and domestic political agenda. The paper argues that the re-emerged heroic war genre—the principal Russian ideological medium—has employed Jewish representations and Jewish historical narratives in order to instrumentalize and re-interpret them for the benefit of the new Russian imperialist ideology and Vladimir Putin's current political agenda. Using such films as The Match (Malyukov, 2012), Battle for Sevastopol (Mokritsky, 2015), Sobibor (Khabensky, 2018), and others as illustrations, the paper infers that contemporary film representations of Jewish identities are inspired by the Soviet models adjusted to transmit the idea of Russian state messianism. The paper explores how Jewishness , represented primarily on a racial account, is culturally downplayed compared to some privileged Russianness , until it comes to the recognition of the allegedly universal values of the latter and the readiness to share its historical destiny. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. In the article, the author analyzes the views of the leading ideologues of the concept of pan-Slavism in the Russian Empire, who, according to Ivan Mirchuk, had a decisive influence on the formation of the modern ideological mythologeme of the hegemony of the Russian state on a planetary scale and contributed to the deepening of ideological differences between Western and Eastern civilizations. Using the example of the arguments of representatives of the Slavophile stream of Russian Pan-Slavism regarding its messianic role in the history of the Slavic peoples, the researcher proves the absurdity of the very idea of the superiority of one nation over another. At the same time, intelligence focuses the reader’s attention on those dangerous tendencies of the spread of this theory, which in the future may lead to global world conflicts with catastrophic consequences. Following the further development of the ideology of pan-Slavism during the second half of the 20th century, the researcher reveals the process of transformation of Moscow messianism into the leading role of the now Soviet (Soviet) people in world history, which received its theoretical embodiment in the concept of pan-Sovietism. It was she who contributed to the final consolidation of the lawless position of the Slavic peoples within the framework of a single state entity on the territory of Eastern Europe, and the emergence of a new socio-cultural generation with an ideologically shaped rejection of values contrary to communist ideals and a negative attitude towards the entire surrounding world. The research methodology is based on the philosophical-anthropological and psychological analysis of the key ideas of the concept of pan-Slavism and pan-Sovietism in the historical-philosophical studies of I. Mirchuk. In particular, we used formal-logical, critical and hermeneutic methods of research to reveal the process of transformation of the pan-Slavism mythology in modern Russia and its influence on the socio-political life of other Slavic peoples. Among the general scientific methods, the methods of deduction and comparison came in handy, which helped to analyze the views of individual representatives of various pan-Slavic currents on the problem of uniting the Slavic peoples into a single ethnic substratum in different historical time periods. And the principles of objectivity and systematicity helped us dispel the myth of Russian messianism among other Slavic peoples. Conclusion. Thus, the main mythologeme of the ideology of Pan-Slavism in the studies of the Slavic scholar I. Mirchuk was reduced to the messianic role of Russia and its people, as the leader among the entire Slavic world, in relation to all other, primarily European nations. Neglecting the historical and spiritual contribution to the development of the world culture of other nations and peoples, the Moscow Empire to this day continues to call itself the only center of true Christian traditions, which strives to lead the planet to a better future. Declaring itself the successor of the Roman Empire as the “Third Rome”, Muscovy, and later the Soviet Union, completely usurped the right of other Slavic peoples of the continent to independently choose their own path of state formation and social development. The transformational processes experienced by pan-Slavism at the beginning of the 20th century brought only the change of the name of the ideology to pan-Sovietism, fully preserving the essence of the imperial unity principle in all spheres of social and political life of the communist era. According to the leading communist ideologues, all the best that the world had could be found only in the Soviet Union, or rather in its capital. Other Slavic peoples got the desired equality only in the negative attitude of the center towards any manifestations of their own spiritual identity and economic initiatives, which were instantly punished by brutal repression and physical destruction under the slogans of finding non-existent enemies of the people and invented counter-revolutionary activities. The theoretically attractive idea of the special purpose of the Slavic peoples in the international arena has in practice turned into an imperial totalitarian dictatorship of one country, which wanted only one thing – world domination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reads Oscar Wilde's De Profundis and the 'Aeolus' episode of James Joyce's Ulysses together via their usage of Dante, asking what productively emerges from considering this medievalism side by side. The resonance of Dante, in particular his Commedia, is shown to align with a shared concern of difficulty and ambiguity: both texts depict the act of rereading Dante. Struggling with exile of various kinds and facing the problem of representing these states, both texts attempt to generate new aesthetic modes through Dante's example. This article therefore contends that both texts make use of a Dantean poetics here called the purgatorial mode and that Purgatorio appears as a forerunner of these works. Wilde's De Profundis embeds the reader within layers of reminiscence to create the experience of a difficult middle, proclaiming a redemptive future even alongside what Benjamin Bateman has called its 'messy messianism'. Joyce's 'Aeolus', meanwhile, dramatises the movement of Purgatorio, the ascent to perfection through exile as allegorised by Dante via the biblical exodus of the Israelites. What this aesthetics of exile achieves is not so much a clear answer to the problems of representation that Wilde and Joyce faced as a difficult middle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article provides a reconsideration of Frank Herbert's dystopic perspective, through the careful analysis of Dune and Dune Messiah, the best-selling science fiction novels. Narratively unveiling the detrimental impact of colonizing imperialism motivated by religious doctrine, Dune and Dune Messiah compel their readers to denounce conceptions of the religious and the spiritual preventing the respectful formation of the human body, mind, and spirit and opposed to evolutionary understandings of the universe, biosphere, and human history. Dune and Dune Messiah offer critical principles and resources to produce emancipating notions of the human and spiritual practices contributing to the emergence of a more ethically and ecologically sustainable society and world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of messianism is a significant motif in Russian religious philosophy, which becomes more accentuated during times of crises, notably in the revolutionary period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. While messianism is often purely metaphysical and abstract, with the personification of a Christ-like figure as its spiritual guide, this philosophy had also played a significant role in the political struggle for social justice, with revolutionary groups from the Narodniks to the Marxists being no exception. Indeed, messianism is significant in the writings of Lev Trotsky in 1905, where the failure of the revolution led him to envisage the coming of a future messiah to 'revive' and 'avenge' the dramatic end of such a movement. In critiquing the theoretical ideas of Russian Marxists and developing the Russian religious themes of messianism as defined by Nikolai Berdiaev, this article will demonstrate the religious themes and metaphors within Russian Marxist thought and argue for the socio-political interrelation between Marxism and religion that acts as an incitement for revolutionary social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European 'messianic' project was not particularly concerned with democracy or human rights, but rather sought 'legitimacy' in the nobility of its cause. However, when failure struck during the Euro-crisis, many sources of legitimacy suddenly collapsed. Similarly, failure struck the rule of law principle, demonstrating its precariousness and weak source of legitimation. The strong waves of de-europeanisation and the rise of illiberal democracies not only bolster the existing preoccupations of problematic democratic procedures, but further bring into question the continuity of the EU as a supranational entity. Interestingly, the European Union's answer to these issues furnishes a solution that, on the one hand, focuses on the enhancement of democracy, while focusing the safeguarding of rule of law on the other. Such an enhancement of democracy could be the result of the Conference on the Future of Europe, whereas, the rule of law crisis is meant to be addressed through financial and techno-managerial mechanisms. However, if the first mechanism aims to palliate or even mitigate the democratic deficit, the second one risks further alienating Union citizens by seeing in it another instance of European Union 'technocracy'. The solution to be foreseen is to reconnect democracy with rule of law as they have always been the foreign implants of European integration. Filling in these empty gaps of political messianism through an outright pairing of democracy and rule of law will rejuvenate the social legitimacy of European exceptionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A singular Romanian writer, often considered a precursor of the avant-garde, Urmuz (1883-1923) left a complex representation of time in his work. Alongside chronological temporality, we find the elements of a more complex temporal imaginary, which is essentially critical of notions of progress. The paper proposes a close reading of the prose endings, to underline the particular aspects of the representation of time: the integration of destruction, its indefinite continuity, its positioning in relation to the future. Drawing on Giorgio Agamben's reading of the istle to the Rommts, we highlight the messianic character of the time represented in Urmuz's prose. Through an analysis of the linguistic dimensions of temporal expressions, as well as an analysis of the relationship between time and the imaginary of filiation, we attempt tc, discuss the possibility of a critique of modernity and what we might call, with a notion borrowed from Frangois Hartog, an alternative regime of historicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The novel Once Were Warriors (1990), by Alan Duff, demystified the Māori grand narratives of the past previously romanticized by writings from the Māori Renaissance of the mid-1970s and 1980s. In contrast with the negative portrayal of Māori subjectivities and the political immobility generally perceived by critics, this study aims to reconceptualize male tribal models in Duff's novel. On the one hand, the rangatira (or male elders) and Māori urban gangs engage in tribal patterns echoing utopias of male domination. Whilst on the other hand, female characters such as Beth Heke, her daughter Grace and the singer Mavis Tangata – as examples of warrior-matriarchs – suggest a recuperation of ancestral warriorhood through open democracy and the hybridity of a revised version of tribalism and the Eucharist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the analysis of archival documents and literary texts, a comparative analysis is conducted of the similar ideas expressed by poet M.Yu. Lermontov and General A.A. Velyaminov regarding Russian-Caucasian relations. Their history of interaction is reconstructed through the identification of contemporary witnesses, analysis of the poet's letters, and determination of their shared circle of acquaintances. The hypothesis is put forward that they were acquainted before 1837, when Lermontov came under Velyaminov’s direct command. The influence of Velyaminov on Lermontov’s early works is demonstrated. Additionally, an overlooked essay by A.A. Velyaminov entitled “History of the Caucasus” is introduced into scholarly circulation, which provides a detailed chronicle of the Caucasus from prehistoric times to the present day. Through the study of Velyaminov’s publicistic works, a better understanding is gained of the origins and development of Lermontov’s Caucasian historiosophy in the context of messianic ideas prevalent in society during the 1830s due to Russia’s actions on its eastern borders. The shared belief of both Lermontov and Velyaminov in the peacemaking role of the Russian Empire is revealed. These newly discovered materials contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the formation of Lermontov’s historical thinking in regards to his perception of Russian-Caucasian relations.

The article analyses the problem of the current state of philosophy in the context of Russian aggression against Ukraine. It is argued that contemporary philosophers are faced with the question: «How is philosophy possible after Bucha?». It is argued that, on the one hand, this questioning and situation is in many ways similar to similar discourses on «philosophy after Auschwitz» and «philosophy after the Gulag», and on the other hand, it shows a number of ideological and moral flaws in modern society and politics that made this question possible. Another consequence is the failure to learn the lessons of history, which leads to the emergence and growth of new totalitarian leaders who are ready to start wars to achieve their goals, which in the future threaten to escalate to the level of a new World War or the use of nuclear arsenals. Thus, there are grounds to state that not only international organisations such as the UN and the Red Cross are unable to resist authoritarianism and totalitarianism, but also that the worldview and value positions on which their activities are based are ineffective. Particular attention is paid to the theological aspects of this problem, the peculiarities of its formulation and solution by contemporary theologians. The authors analyse the criticism by Ukrainian intellectuals-philosophers of the prejudices of the Western philosophical establishment, touch upon the doctrine of the «Russian world» as a civil religion with its corresponding dogmas, and finally offer some philosophical conclusions that, in the authors’ opinion, formulate, if not new imperatives, as they somewhat pretentiously call them, then at least new significant accents that Ukraine brings to the world philosophical sphere. Thus, Ukrainian scholars of the social sciences and humanities face a crucial task, not just to reflect or comprehend the reality of life «under the bombs», but to formulate new imperatives that can become the basis for a new post-war philosophy, politics and culture.

This article problematizes the relationship between the sociological and philosophical traditions of Russian social thought based on the material of the subjective school and of Slavophilism. The absence of direct ideological and conceptual continuity between these avenues is shown, albeit they do share common mental and world-view prerequisites. Slavophilism and the subjective school are compared along three lines — epistemological, social, and historiosophical. The distinguishing features that reveal the correspondence between the aforementioned schools are as follows: the orientation towards a holistic view of reality, unifying life and cognition; the ethical dominant of epistemological views and the inclination towards a practical and transformative attitude towards reality; anthropocentrism and personalism; a romantically ecstatic formulation of the popular/commoner issue; missionary and messianic motives of historiosophical quests, and journalism as a genre of theoretical reflection. It is suggested that the cultural codes of the national social mentality are reflected in the outlined worldview complex.

The aim of the article is to clarify the basic perspective that Immagini cristiane e cultura antica adopted to read the relationship between early Christian iconographic production – the main subject of the book – and the development of the forms of later figurative art, as well as the path leading to modern aesthetics. For this purpose, the article compares the positions of Auerbach – that had an explicit influence on the book – with those of Benjamin, regarding the different ways in which the two Berliner authors interpreted the meaning and the function of allegory. In Auerbach, allegory is understood as the past of the figura whose logic, according to Immagini cristiane e cultura antica, underlies not only the Christian literary production of the first centuries, but also the figurative one. In Benjamin, conversely, allegory is understood as the future of the figura, followed to the definitive crisis of Christian messianism.

Emerging in the context of messianic Sabbateanism in Eastern Europe, Frankism’s main characteristics are its stern opposition towards rabbinic Judaism and its rigid antinomism. Frankist doctrine and Frankist practice straightforwardly reversed the Law to its opposite. Frankist leaders, and in particular Jacob Frank (1726-1791) himself, employed strategies that took advantage of the multiform contact situations of religious traditions within the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth by metaschematic subversion of religious forms. Frank refused to hide what he claimed to be the true faith, and openly and publicly presented himself as an opponent of the established rabbinic tradition. The open, visible, and public presentation was intended to be an affront by ostensibly/iconically opposing its aniconic stance. Anti-aniconism performed iconically was a deliberate and virtuously employed strategy in the struggle about messianic and eschatological issues. The emphasis on visibility and the deliberate establishment of iconic scenes within Frankist practice also breaks with the Sabbatian conduct of occurring in the environs of the traditional community and not being sharply distinguished from the ‘correct’ faith. In my article, I will argue that Frank deliberately employed hyper-iconism and living images (tableaux vivantes) to fulfill his messianic role.

This essay asks what is "the image of unpayable debt"? I approach Ferreira da Silva's assemblage from the angle delineated by Walter Benjamin's concept of the "image," a multi-layered composite of time-spaces. I include Benjamin's weak Messianism, via the democratic debt jubilee, and the general strike reconfigured for the present as the feminist strike against debt. The "image" formed in this process is multiple and sedimented with layers of time-space, containing a caesura. This "break" is comprised of weak Messianism and blackness. The essay concludes by asking how the debt-image can be projected into the world as the general strike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Transylvanian Sabbatarians represented one of the most radical form of the Reformation whose only retained doctrinal link to Christianity was belief in Jesus. By the mid-nineteenth century, even this last doctrine dropped out of their faith and they officially converted to Judaism, thus founding the only proselyte congregation in contemporary Europe. They were immediately suspected of having ulterior motives for their conversion, and in the twentieth century, accusations proliferated of deliberate Jewish proselytizing and bribery. Here, we go back to the beginnings and search the Sabbatarians' earliest texts for the original, theological grounds that they themselves asserted. The working hypothesis is that analysis of this key article of faith, belief in Jesus, is sufficient to mark out the later course of the Sabbatarians' theological development. The interpretation of the messianic mission and tasks clearly indicates which side the Sabbatarians would lean to in the course of their several centuries of balancing between Christianity and Judaism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The American Puritan minister Increase Mather's first publication, The Mystery of Israel's Salvation (London, 1669), originated in a series of lectures he delivered in Boston in 1666 and early 1667. These lectures were occasioned by reports that the twelve tribes of Israel were returning to Palestine under the inspiration of the self-styled messiah Shabbetai Tzvi (d. 1676). This essay explains why Mather and those Anglo-American Protestant contemporaries who shared his vision of the millennium were intrigued by Shabbetai even though they remained convinced that Jesus was the messiah; and why other Protestant contemporaries disliked this particular form of millennialism, which is sometimes termed Judeocentric millenarianism or Judeocentrism. Judeocentric millenarianism was controversial because it explicitly elevated the twelve tribes, upon their miraculous and massive conversion to Christianity, to a position of millennial superiority over gentile Christians. The essay also addresses an important point of chronology: the Sabbatian movement collapsed (but did not vanish entirely) following Shabbetai's conversion to Islam in mid-1666. Mather edited his lectures for publication after he learned of the movement's collapse. Thus his Mystery of Israel's Salvation was not a transcript of his lectures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "messianic secret" in the New Testament refers to instances where Christ instructed his followers to keep silent about his identity. While contemporary studies on the messianic secret have predominantly employed the historico-critical method, the Early Modern Period witnessed diverse interpretations that focused on edification and moralization. These interpretations emphasized the concealed Messiah's identity, the act of revelation, and the duty to transmit the divine message as inseparable aspects of the Christian faith. The primary objective of this study is to explore the development of messianic secret interpretations in the first half of the sixteenth century. The study aims to address key questions such as: How were Jesus's injunctions to silence interpreted? How did these interpretations shape biblical readings, preaching practices, and the evangelical mission? Did they impact the definition of the Church? Through a comparative analysis, this study examines the interpretations of three relatively contemporary authors – Gabriele Biondo, Otto Brunfels, and Celio Secondo Curione. It argues for the interconnectedness between biblical exegesis, preaching, the audience, theological concepts like predestination, holy remnant, and salvation, as well as the organization of the Church. Ultimately, this research demonstrates that diverse interpretations of Jesus's actions and the messianic secret were rooted in changes in exegetical methods, the definition of the Church, and the understanding of the salvific message conveyed by Christ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]