Cover of Jacques Derrida in Moscow (1993), an early volume in the Philosophy on the Margins series from Ad Marginem publishers (1992–95)

Source

“Philosophy at the Margins” / “Filosofiia po kraiam” – Series published by Ad Marginem, 1992–1995

Description

Series of philosophical and theoretical texts from Russian and international authors published by Ad Marginem and meant to bring the latest in global thought into newly opened post-Soviet minds.

Era

Post-Soviet

Date

1993

Annotation

Beginning in October 1992, one of the thousands of new private publishers distinguished itself by taking on an ambitious and erudite project: an “international collection of contemporary thought” as the series described itself. At a time when much of the book market was moving towards genre fiction and pulp potboilers, Ad Marginem’s series Philosophy at the Margins brought together difficult and provocative theoretical texts from around the world. The series was meant to “bring its reader into the circle of the most pressing questions of contemporary philosophy and cultural studies, to help overcome the increasingly obvious deficit in humanistic information, and to resurrect a fully functioning dialog with western philosophical thought.”

It claimed to be the first “experiment in publishing an international philosophical book series” in Russia and it aspired to nothing less than “uniting the efforts of domestic and western researchers to create an international intellectual community” that would come together at seminars and conferences and would eventually put out an “international journal or contemporary thought called Ad Marginem.” Though the journal never came to fruition, the head of the publishing house, Alexander Ivanov, managed to bring together a star-studded editorial board that included Susan Buck-Morss, Fredric Jameson, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Derrida, Félix Guattari, Merab Mamardashvili, and many others. Together they put out at least 15 volumes from writers as diverse as the Marquis de Sade, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Georges Bataille, Elias Canetti, and others.

The series was hugely influential in bringing contemporary continental philosophy (especially French postwar thought) to Russia and placing it in immediate context. One striking example is the volume Jacques Derrida in Moscow (1993), which collects a series of fragments the philosopher wrote during and in response to his visit to Moscow in 1990. It is framed by a foreword and commentary by Russian philosopher Mikhail Ryklin, who writes that this is the first time a text by Derrida has found its first publication in Russian. Furthermore, since there were no plans for publication in French, this translation would “function as the original,” a play with priorities, an undermining of the very concept of an authentic original that, according to Ryklin, would please Derrida himself.

Derrida’s fragments continue the play with originals and translations. Titled, in English (and riffing off the Beatles song) “Back from Moscow, in the USSR,” the notes recount—among reflections on René Étiemble, André Gide, and Walter Benjamin—an intriguing conversation with Moscow interlocutors who tell Derrida that “the best translation for perestroika, the translation that they used among themselves, is ‘deconstruction.’” A Soviet colleague, he claims, even said to him, “Deconstruction? That’s today’s USSR.”

Associated People

Buck-Morss, Susan, Jameson, Frederic, Nancy, Jean-Luc, Derrida, Jacques, Guattari, Félix, Mamardashvili, Merab, and Ivanov, Aleksandr

Geography: Place Of Focus

Global

Bibliographic Reference

Zhak Derrida v Moskve (Moscow: Ad Marginem, 1993)