Introduction 1 
Costica Bradatan and Serguei Alex. Oushakine 

I. The Sickle, the Hammer, and the Typewriter 
1 Ideas against Ideocracy: The Platonic Drama of Russian Thought 13 
Mikhail Epstein 
2 Asking for More: Finding Utopia in the Critical Sociology of the Budapest School and the Praxis Movement 37 
Jeffrey Murer 
3 Aesthetics: A Modus Vivendi in Eastern Europe? 53 
Letitia Guran 
4 Changing Perceptions of Pavel Florensky in Russian and Soviet Scholarship 73 
Clemena Antonova 

II. Heretics 
5 The Totalitarian Languages of Utopia and Dystopia: Fidelius and Havel 95 
Veronika Tuckerová 
6 Philosophy and Martyrdom: The Case of Jan Patocka 109 
Costica Bradatan 
7 Anticommunist Orientalism: Shifting Boundaries of Europe in Dissident Writing 131 
Natasa Kovacevic 

III. In Search of a (New) Mission 
8 Somatic Nationalism: Theorizing Post-Soviet Ethnicity in Russia 155 
Serguei Alex. Oushakine 
9 Balkanism and Postcolonialism, or On the Beauty of the Airplane View 175 
Maria Todorova 
10 Anxious Intellectuals: Framing the Nation as Class in Belarus 197 
Elena Gapova 

IV. Reinventing Hope 
11 The Demise of Leninism and the Future of Liberal Values 221 
Vladimir Tismaneanu 
12 “Politics of Authenticity” and/or Civil Society 243 
Ivars Ijabs 
13 Mihai ¸Sora: A Philosopher of Dialogue and Hope 261 
Aurelian Craiutu 

Index 287 
About the Contributors