Targeting Aristotle: The “Philosophers’ Case” Started Over Economics but Will End in Politics
On May 19, at 6:00 a.m., masked security forces raided the homes of staff of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IP RAS). About ten people were taken in for questioning by the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation. Several people, including the institute’s director, 87-year-old academician Abdusalam Guseynov, were interrogated until 11:00 p.m. The formal pretext for the assault on the country’s leading institute of philosophy involves alleged violations in implementing the project “Aristotle’s Heritage (Preparation of Aristotle’s Complete Works).” The project’s head, Svetlana Messiats, was placed under house arrest. For nearly four days, there has been no information regarding the whereabouts of several employees, including academician Andrey Smirnov, who headed IP RAS until 2021. According to T-invariant, the criminal case was initiated in March 2026, though the conflict surrounding the institute began as early as December 2021. T-invariant has repeatedly reported that right-wing conservatives — such as the philosopher Aleksandr Dugin and the Orthodox billionaire Konstantin Malofeev — attempted to seize control of IP RAS by pushing for the appointment of Anatoly Chernyaev as director. T-invariant discussed the details of this new “philosophers’ case” with Yulia Sineokaya, a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and former deputy director of IP RAS, who is now labeled a “foreign agent” in Russia and serves as president of the Independent Institute of Philosophy (IPHI) in Paris. In her view, unlike in 2021, no one will step in to prevent the destruction of the academic organization this time — and a case that currently appears to be financial on the surface will quickly turn political.
T-invariant: How and when did this philosophers’ case begin? What do you know about it?
Yulia Sineokaya: It all started on May 19. At six in the morning, they showed up at the homes of those involved in the Aristotle project and confiscated all their electronics: computers, laptops, and phones. They arrived at the institute around 10:00 a.m., took several people away for interrogation, and examined the equipment there as well. The project in question involves preparing a new edition of Aristotle’s complete works. Work on this project ran from 2018 to 2024, after which it was closed. Obviously, this is an immense undertaking, and no volumes have yet been published, but the project’s mandate did not promise immediate publication — only preparation. The scholars were translating texts and holding seminars to discuss the translations and materials. The work was progressing at a normal pace for an academic institution. This wasn’t a separate grant; scholars received their regular salaries and simply worked on this project as part of their regular state assignment. It was approved by both the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and the Russian Academy of Sciences. Every report since 2018 was approved by officials, and everything was perfectly fine. They did not receive any extra money at all for this work.
Framing this as a financial crime is completely wrong. This is a political case. They were desperate to find something to tarnish the Institute’s reputation, found nothing, and so they latched onto Aristotle. If you look at the project reports, which are still publicly available on the Institute’s website, they explicitly state that existing Russian translations of Aristotle are outdated; he hasn’t been retranslated in a very long time, with the last collected works published back in the 1980s. The texts need to be translated anew into modern Russian. The team began working on this gradually. It is common knowledge that preparing annotated translations of classical philosophers takes decades. The fact that a complete set of collected works didn’t appear in six years is entirely normal.
T-i: Did it take that long during the Soviet era too?
YS: Yes. You can churn out sloppy work quickly, but our colleagues at the Institute aimed to produce rigorous scholarship.
BACKGROUND
Svetlana Messiats holds a Candidate of Sciences degree [PhD equivalent — T-invariant] in Philosophy. The topic of her dissertation research was “Aristotelian Physics in Neoplatonism: Proclus’ Elementa Physica.” She spent two days in a temporary detention facility before being placed under house arrest. According to data from the Moscow City Court, Messiats is charged with fraud committed by an organized group or on an particularly large scale (exceeding 1 million rubles [$14k] — Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code). The court hearing regarding her pre-trial restrictions took place on May 21. This charge carries a mandatory prison sentence of up to 10 years. Svetlana Messiats’ case is being handled by the same investigator who handled the cases against Sergey Zuev, the former rector of the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences [Shaninka — T-invariant], and Vladimir Mau, the former rector of RANEPA.
T-i: What is the role of former IP RAS employee Anatoly Chernyaev here? Some sources suggest that the case is directly linked to an informant report he filed.
YS: Chernyaev is an informant, that’s a fact. But I don’t think this current move was his own initiative. Several government agencies, including the Investigative Committee, have been targeting the Institute. Several audits took place after the invasion of Ukraine began. One of the investigation teams grew interested in the reports on this project. Although today’s case was officially opened in March, they have been fishing for a pretext since 2021. I believe that in the run-up to the war, they wanted to replace the leadership with figures who were more ideologically aligned, in order to prepare society for war. As for Chernyaev, there was an attempt to stage a hostile takeover of the Institute in December 2021. Konstantin Malofeev, Aleksandr Dugin, and Olga Zinovieva tried to seize the Institute and install Chernyaev as director, but he only lasted about a week. Chernyaev is just a pawn. He is not a clever man and decides nothing; he merely leaks information to them. In 2021–2022, we managed to defend the Institute. Now we are seeing the second attempt. It was Chernyaev who leaked the news about the raids and detentions. The very text he circulated was first published by Dugin on his Telegram channel. He wrote that Messiats was “behind bars,” even though Svetlana was already under house arrest at home.
T-i: What exactly is the formal grievance against IP RAS?
YS: The security forces went through the documentation they seized during their audits of the Institute and apparently found some sort of discrepancy. I don’t know exactly what happened, but judging by the materials on the Institute’s website, I assume the auditors noticed the mention of Parva naturalia — Aristotle’s collection of short treatises on natural philosophy, parts of which were translated into Russian. During the first phase of the project (2018–2021), the team managed to complete several translations. In the second phase, they planned to translate several more. However, they might not have explicitly specified in the reports that these were new texts, simply labeling the section Parva naturalia again. The auditors likely assumed this was duplicate reporting for the same work. My guess is that the authorities have two formal grievances — that the collected works have not been published and that the team reported twice for Parva naturalia — but I don’t know the precise details of the charges.
T-i: What can be said for certain about the roles of Malofeev, Dugin, and Zinovieva?
YS: Just look at the misleading, offensive articles they publish on the platforms of the Zinoviev Club and what is published on the Tsargrad TV channel and its website. For instance, Zinovieva held two press conferences at TASS in 2024. First, they dealt with those who were easier targets — those who had left the country. Now they have turned their attention to those who stayed behind.
PREVIOUSLY IN T-INVARIANT
Yulia Sineokaya: “The Longer the War Drags On, the More Difficult the Ultimate Reunion Will Be”
T-i: We know that the director of IP RAS, academician Abdusalam Guseynov, who is 87 years old, was taken in for questioning. He is not giving statements to the media. Do you know how he endured the interrogation?
YS: I don’t know firsthand, but I imagine it must be incredibly difficult at his age. Masked men showed up at his home at six in the morning too, and he was the last one to be released — around 11:00 p.m. He and I haven’t been in touch since I resigned from the Institute. Word is that he is holding up with great dignity. The following day, he came to the institute and briefed staff on the situation.
T-i: Were all the detainees put through interrogations that long?
YS: Many were let go much sooner. Word is that Polina Gadzhikurbanova, the scientific secretary, was interrogated multiple times. In fact, the authorities brought the entire human resources department and every single philosopher involved in the Aristotle project led by Svetlana Messiats to the Investigative Committee. Anyone who had published anything or was listed in the reports was brought in.
T-i: What does the staff intend to do next?
YS: I am no longer on the staff, but obviously, their priority will be to protect their colleagues and clear the Institute’s reputation. Judging by the outcries from the far-right, it’s highly possible that more severe charges will emerge. The financial allegations are completely contrived, but it gave them a foot in the door, and from here they will try to manufacture something more serious. As past experience shows, they will be looking for a political angle.
T-i: What do you mean by a political angle? Chernyaev previously accused the Institute’s leadership of “LGBT propaganda,” destroying the institution of the family, and undermining “the very foundations of marital relations.” Will they be looking into gender studies and LGBTQ+ topics?
YS: No, that is completely absurd and misses the mark. It’s much more likely to be about opposition to the war.
Top news on scientists’ work and experiences during the war, along with videos and infographics — subscribe to the T-invariant Telegram channel to stay updated.
T-i: The post attributed to Chernyaev claims that academician Andrey Smirnov managed to flee the country.
YS: No one knows where he is or what has happened to him right now. Academician Smirnov was the director of IP RAS from 2016 until December 2021, during the period when the project was underway at the Institute. In late December 2021, an administrative coup took place at the Institute when Chernyaev was installed as director for a week. After that, on December 30, 2021, academician Guseynov took over as director; he currently serves as acting director.
T-i: How many employees are currently unreachable?
YS: Several people, including academician Smirnov. As far as I know, as of now, no one knows what has happened to them.
T-INVARIANT BACKGROUND
Who is behind the attack on IP RAS
Anatoly Chernyaev — the ousted acting director of the Institute.
Aleksandr Dugin — a notorious right-wing ideologue and director of the Ivan Ilyin Higher Political School at the Russian State University for the Humanities (RGGU).
Konstantin Malofeev — founder of the Tsargrad TV channel, ultra-Orthodox tycoon, and husband of Russia’s Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova.
Olga Zinovieva — widow of the philosopher and Soviet dissident Aleksandr Zinoviev, and head of the Aleksandr Zinoviev International Scientific and Educational Center at Moscow State University (MSU).
Context
In 2024, T-invariant reported that Olga Zinovieva had repeatedly made public calls to dismantle the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences. On January 15, 2024, the TASS news agency hosted a press conference titled “The Sovereignty of Russian Philosophy: Westernizers vs. Slavophiles at the Institute of Philosophy RAS.” Among the participants was Anatoly Chernyaev, who served as a leading research fellow at the Institute from 2016 to 2023.
Zinovieva’s rhetoric at the time was remarkably harsh even by current standards; she branded the Institute of Philosophy “a horrific abscess — a haven for scoundrels and traitors” and demanded that all employees be subjected to polygraph tests to check their loyalty. Other participants at the press conference echoed her sentiments. However, what mattered as much as what was said was where it took place. The TASS press center had become a platform closely aligned with the Kremlin’s official line long before the war. For this reason, many Russian philosophers and analysts viewed the airing of such fringe rhetoric in such an prominent venue as the opening salvo of a major state campaign against the Institute of Philosophy RAS.
The calls to dismantle the Institute began before the press conference and were triggered by the dismissal of Anatoly Chernyaev on December 21, 2023. On December 22, 2021, Chernyaev had been appointed acting director of IP RAS by order of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. Although that decision was revoked on December 28, he remained on the institute’s staff until his eventual firing in 2023. The institute later published an official clarification explaining his dismissal.
According to data from Novaya Gazeta Europe, the May 19 raids also targeted the homes of:
The Media Campaign Against the Institute
Chernyaev’s short-lived appointment had been preceded by a targeted smear campaign against several IP RAS scholars, orchestrated by media outlets controlled by Yevgeny Prigozhin and Konstantin Malofeev’s Tsargrad TV. Following the failed leadership transition, the campaign only intensified. The nationalist newspaper Zavtra also joined the fray, claiming that Chernyaev’s conflict with the staff was political: “Chernyaev has repeatedly criticized the stance of IP RAS, many of whose employees have not only failed to support the special military operation but have also established Russophobic centers abroad.” Around the same time, Sergey Mironov, leader of the A Just Russia party, announced he would petition Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov and Minister of Science and Higher Education Valery Falkov to investigate the legality of Chernyaev’s dismissal.