This is the first comprehensive study about the non-mathematical writings and activities of the Russian algebraic geometer and number theorist Igor Shafarevich (b. 1923). In the 1970s Shafarevich was a prominent member of the dissidents’ human rights movement and a noted author of clandestine anti-communist literature in the Soviet Union. Shafarevich’s public image suffered a terrible blow around 1989 when he was decried as a dangerous ideologue of anti-Semitism due to his newly-surfaced old manuscript Russophobia. The scandal culminated when the President of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States suggested that Shafarevich, an honorary member, resign. The present study establishes that the allegations about anti-Semitism in Shafarevich’s texts were unfounded and that Shafarevich’s terrible reputation was cemented on a false basis.

This is the first comprehensive study about the non-mathematical writings and activities of the Russian algebraic geometer and number theorist Igor Shafarevich (b. 1923). In the 1970s Shafarevich was a prominent member of the dissidents’ human rights movement and a noted author of clandestine anti-communist literature in the Soviet Union. Shafarevich’s public image suffered a terrible blow around 1989 when he was decried as a dangerous ideologue of anti-Semitism due to his newly-surfaced old manuscript Russophobia. The scandal culminated when the President of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States suggested that Shafarevich, an honorary member, resign. The present study establishes that the allegations about anti-Semitism in Shafarevich’s texts were unfounded and that Shafarevich’s terrible reputation was cemented on a false basis.

In this original and timely assessment of cultural expressions of paranoia in contemporary Russia, Eliot Borenstein samples popular fiction, movies, television shows, public political pronouncements, internet discussions, blogs, and religious tracts to build a sense of the deep historical and cultural roots of konspirologiia that run through Russian life. Plots against Russia reveals through dramatic and exciting storytelling that conspiracy and melodrama are entirely equal-opportunity in modern Russia, manifesting themselves among both pro-Putin elites and his political opposition. As Borenstein shows, this paranoid fantasy until recently characterized only the marginal and the irrelevant. Now, through its embodiment in pop culture, the expressions of a conspiratorial worldview are seen everywhere. Plots against Russia is an important contribution to the fields of Russian literary and cultural studies from one of its preeminent voices.

In Russia at the turn of the twentieth century, mysticism, anti-Semitism, and mathematical theory fused into a distinctive intellectual movement. Through analyses of such seemingly disparate subjects as Moscow mathematical circles and the 1913 novel Petersburg, this book illuminates a forgotten aspect of Russian cultural and intellectual history.

The growing influence of Russia on the Western far right has been much discussed in the media recently. This book is the first detailed inquiry into what has been a neglected but critically important trend: the growing links between Russian actors and Western far right activists, publicists, ideologues, and politicians. The author uses a range of sources including interviews, video footage, leaked communications, official statements and press coverage in order to discuss both historical and contemporary Russia in terms of its relationship with the Western far right. Initial contacts between Russian political actors and Western far right activists were established in the early 1990s, but these contacts were low profile. As Moscow has become more anti-Western, these contacts have become more intense and have operated at a higher level. The book shows that the Russian establishment was first interested in using the Western far right to legitimise Moscow’s politics and actions both domestically and internationally, but more recently Moscow has begun to support particular far right political forces to gain leverage on European politics and undermine the liberal-democratic consensus in the West. Contributing to ongoing scholarly debates about Russia’s role in the world, its strategies aimed at securing legitimation of Putin’s regime both internationally and domestically, modern information warfare and propaganda, far right politics and activism in the West, this book draws on theories and methods from history, political science, area studies, and media studies and will be of interest to students, scholars, activists and practitioners in these areas.

The book offers an extensive study on the convoluted history of the research of algebraic surfaces, focusing for the first time on one of its characterizing curves: the branch curve. Starting with separate beginnings during the 19th century with descriptive geometry as well as knot theory, the book focuses on the 20th century, covering the rise of the Italian school of algebraic geometry between the 1900s till the 1930s (with Federigo Enriques, Oscar Zariski and Beniamino Segre, among others), the decline of its classical approach during the 1940s and the 1950s (with Oscar Chisini and his students), and the emergence of new approaches with Boris Moishezon’s program of braid monodromy factorization. By focusing on how the research on one specific curve changed during the 20th century, the author provides insights concerning the dynamics of epistemic objects and configurations of mathematical research. It is in this sense that the book offers to take the branch curve as a cross-section through the history of algebraic geometry of the 20th century, considering this curve as an intersection of several research approaches and methods. Researchers in the history of science and of mathematics as well as mathematicians will certainly find this book interesting and appealing, contributing to the growing research on the history of algebraic geometry and its changing images.

The grandson of a Jew, whose Jewish relatives converted to Christianity, whose allies played down his Jewish origins just as fervently as his enemies played them up, V.I. Lenin makes for a fascinating case study of the many complexities associated with 'Jewish question' in Russia.