Russia has recently lost one of her towering personalities in the fields of political dissent, human rights defence, political memory, social criticism and humanities. Professor Yuri Nikolayevich Afanasiev (1934–2015) was a prominent historian and democratic activist. The founder of the Russian State University for the Humanities, Professor Afanasiev appears to have been the voice of humanism, conscience and liberty in Russia and beyond. (Tęsti...)

The extreme power of manipulation, in terms of public opinion and imagology, and its political and moral implications are well revealed by one film that has contributed to the critique of today’s controlling political structures. This is Barry Levinson’s film Wag the Dog. The film tells us the story of Hollywood producer Stanley Motss and Washington’s spin doctor Conrad Brean, who are supposed to save the White House due to the President’s scandalous romance.(Tęsti...)

As Zygmunt Bauman noted, classical politics has always been related to the conversion of private problems into public issues (at the same time, internalizing public issues and turning them into private or even existential problems). Today this political mechanism has clearly been taken apart. Thus, what we in our postmodern politics treat as public issues, most often are the private issues of public figures. (Tęsti...)