Topos

Topos Journal — 2025-12-28

THE ORIGINS OF VATSLAW LASTOWSKI’S VIEWS ON PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

Anton Prakapchuk — 2025-12-28

The article presents the most recent results in the study of Vatslaw Lastowski’s views on philosophy of history. Despite not being a systematic thinker but rather a publicist, he developed an outline of a methodology of national historiography which was based on the concept of national style and a classification of national values. His method combines certain aspects of primordialism, historicism, and even modernist constructivism in order to overcome the insufficiencies and theoretical difficulties of individual respective approaches. According to Lastowski, history is not only a science of the past but also a way of national self-understanding, since nation is seen as a community of shared historical experience. Therefore, the task of historian is to provide a ‘mirror image’ in which a nation can truly recognize its individuality and political agency. It is shown that being fundamentally cultural, Lastowski’s nationalism develops a specific understanding of politics as a sphere among others within the whole of national culture. The article abides by general principles
of scientific historicism as historical contextualism and therefore considers Lastowski’s works within the intellectual context of his epoch. Specifically, his theoretical dependence on positivism, social-democratic literature and German neo-Kantian philosophy is demonstrated. The origin of Lastowski’s concept of national style is traced to the article of Ukrainian social-democratic author Vadym Shcherbakivskyi. Finally, the connection between Lastowski’s classification of national values and the work of Werner Sombart, explicitly mentioned by Lastowski as a point of reference, is analyzed. Overall Lastowski’s oeuvre appears to be a fruitful source of inspiration for the contemporary debates on methodology of history of oppressed, stateless, and/or previously colonized nations, while its study reveals some important and often neglected conceptual difficulties of Belarusian and Eastern European intellectual history.

BELARUS AS A “CULTURAL PARALLEL TO COLONIAL AFRICA” OR ANTI-COLONIAL UPRISING OF THE COMMUNIST ALIAKSEI KAŬKA

Tatsiana Astrouskaya — 2025-12-28

In the focus of this article is the uncensored text “Letter to a Russian Friend” by the Belarusian philologist, literary critic, and historian
Aliaksei Kaŭka (1937–2024). Written in Moscow between 1976 and 1977, the text was first published in 1979 in London in Russian (in the original) and in the English translation. The study explores the content of the work and its publication history and reception. The “Letter to a Russian Friend” represents the first Belarusian tamizdat publication, in the classical sense of a text produced under the constraints of censorship within the Soviet bloc and disseminated abroad. Despite this, its author is seldom, if ever, categorized as a dissident.
By focusing on Kaŭka’s biography and his “Letter,” this article seeks to address broader questions of how, in the post-Stalinist Soviet Union, local (national) intellectuals — who were often integrated into Soviet power structures and implicated in their cultural, political, and economic operations — began to challenge these very structures. The article asks about the circumstances under which these practices of intellectual resistance emerged. As this study further argues, the issue of decolonization and critique of imperial legacies, both historical and contemporary, found specific resonance in the Belarusian context during the late socialist period. In doing so, this essay contributes to the reexamination of the idea of Soviet dissidence, proposing an alternative framework that moves beyond the
conventional heroic narrative. Instead, it emphasizes a nuanced analysis of the interplay between conformity and resistance, as embedded in the distinct historical context of cultural emancipation endeavours in Soviet Belarus.

VIRTUALS SPACES OF FREEDOM: THE TELEGRAM-ENABLED PROTEST IN BELARUS, 2020

Vasil Navumau — 2025-12-28

In August 2020, Belarus experienced its most intense protests. Daily protest activities lasted almost a year, driven by frustrations with the COVID-19 pandemic response, rigged elections, and brutal repressions. Citizens demanded President Lukashenka’s resignation. These protests were notable for their scope and the use of Telegram channels and digital platforms. Drawing on Hannah Arendt’s theoretical insights, this article highlights that such collective movements create new informal but impactful political institutions and principles, breaking from the past. Event and network analysis revealed that prior to the August 9, 2020, elections, civic initiatives were mainly led by social entrepreneurs and were less interconnected. After August 9, a more diffused and interconnected network
of civic initiatives emerged, marked by high social relevance and innovation despite the repressive context. This increased interaction signifies a transformation in collective consciousness, potentially laying the groundwork for future democratic development.

‘TRADITIONAL VALUES’ — A NEGLECTED TOOL OF RUSSIA’S SOFT POWER IN THE EU’S EASTERN NEIGHBOURHOOD

Piotr Rudkouski — 2025-12-28

The dispute between ‘traditional’ and ‘progressive’ values, long a feature of internal debate in the West, has recently evolved into a broader civilizational conflict — with the West uncompromisingly advocating progressive values and Russia positioning itself as the champion of traditional ones. This article explores the potential of the Kremlin’s traditional values discourse in the context of the European Union’s Eastern Neighbourhood. It argues that this region is potentially highly susceptible to the Kremlin’s soft power in this respect. While the psychological effect of Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine may temporarily reduce its ability to “attract and co-opt” societies in most Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries, the use of values discourse as a channel of soft power is oriented toward the long-term perspective and may produce delayed effects.

INTERVIEW BY TATIANA SHCHYTTSOVA WITH VLADIMIR MATSKEVICH

Tatiana Shchyttsova — 2025-12-28

Interview by Tatiana Shchyttsova, Editor-in-Chief of the journal Topos, with Belarusian philosopher, active public and political figure Vladimir Matskevich. Matskevich was recognized as a political prisoner and spent more than four years behind the bars. He was among 52 political prisoners who were released on September 11, 2025, as a result of negotiations between a representative of the US president and the Belarusian authorities. In the interview, Matskevich talks about his experience of opposing the Lukashenko’s regime and shares his views on the role and place of philosophy in society and the specifics of prison as a totalitarian institution.

PHILOSOPHY IN THE PRISON

Gintautas Mažeikis — 2025-12-28

The article posits that contemporary industrial penitentiaries in Russia have evolved into sites of military mobilization, labour exploitation, psychic traumatization, and desocialization. Consequently, Belarusian correctional facilities have devolved into institutions of labour exploitation, political and cultural humiliation, and the dissemination of repressive political discourse. These penitentiaries deviate significantly from the Enlightenment-era ideals of penal reform, as articulated by M. Foucault, and from the notion of prisons as instruments of repression, as expounded by A. Davis. Consequently, the role of the imprisoned philosopher within the penal system evolves, shifting from individual spiritual resistance to the broader struggle against systemic coercive transformation. In the
Western democracies of the 20th century, there was an increasing association of the prison with the school system, re-socialisation, re-inculturation and re-qualification programmes. In contrast, in Russia and Belarus, there has been a shift in focus towards the military-industrial complex, modern PR and the new system of exchange — political human trafficking. Consequently, the role of philosophy in prison and of the imprisoned philosopher is undergoing a fundamental change. The central question guiding this study is the conceptualisation of the philosopher within the context of the prison system. The present article undertakes a comprehensive
analysis of the prison as a hegemonic system of political thought and related practices, examining.

WRITING PHILOSOPHY WITH ONE’S HANDS TIED: LETTERS FROM CZECHOSLOVAK COMMUNIST PRISONS

Anton Vydra — 2025-12-28

This paper addresses the question of how Czechoslovak intellectuals and philosophers from the dissident movement coped with the difficult situation of normalization and their own imprisonment. The failure to invoke justice led many to identify with characters from Franz Kafka’s novels concerning the dead-end situations. Writing philosophical texts in official publishing houses and journals was impossible and unimaginable even for those who were at liberty. The dissemination of ideas was even more difficult for those who were in prisons. One way was to write letters from prison, which became a peculiar tool of communication and a specific genre of writing. Letter-writing was subject to the rules of prison life, which forbade writing about politics and the regime. It was up to the creativity
of the political prisoners how they managed to sneak civic themes into their letters. They did this either like Václav Havel, who used long
philosophically sounding reflections and carefully chosen code-words, or like Milan Šimečka, who chose to philosophize about ordinary, intimate life, real or oneiric memories of his family, and supposed conversations with his loved ones as a way of thinking freely. Although in retrospect one can accuse both of various shortcomings (and this has happened, even from the milieu of the dissidents themselves), it is important to remember that these texts were not produced in quiet study rooms and with access to the necessary literature in libraries. Even if they were philosophically “leaky”, fragmentary or interpretively weak, it is in this “writing-at-thismoment”
that their historical and philosophical value lies.

TWO MODELS FOR THE EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIAL SECURITY: SWEDEN’S TRYGGHET AND JAPAN’S AMAE

Anja Kraus — 2025-12-28

Pedagogical terminology is often instinctively associated with encyclopedic precision or philosophical depth. However, this tradition
does not universally shape all languages — Swedish and Japanese, for example, present compelling alternatives. In Sweden, comprehensive educational encyclopedias are relatively uncommon. Many terms central to pedagogical discourse emerge not from philosophical inquiry, but from domains such as social engineering, legal structures, and everyday vernacular. Similarly, the Japanese language encompasses numerous expressions that potentially convey fundamentally philosophical or socio-psychological ideas, although these are seldom reflected upon as such. This encyclopedic inquiry seeks to foreground the Swedish concept of trygghet
and the Japanese notion of amae as vital components in a framework for conceptual analysis and comparative encyclopedic studies in education. By offering a conceptual grounding, we aim to support more nuanced and context-sensitive empirical research. Both trygghet and amae function as foundational pillars in pedagogical theory and practice: they are, on one hand, deeply embedded in cultural norms of relational interdependence, and on the other, possess a latent capacity to shape collective identity

EXPRESSION OF THE „CHILD’S VOICE“ IN THE LITHUANIAN KINDERGARTEN IN THE LATE SOVIET ERA

Vitalija Gražienė — 2025-12-28

The article analyses aspects of the expression of the concept of the child in the late Soviet era (1964–1988) Lithuanian kindergarten.
The research is conducted by use of a narrative qualitative methodology. Thematic analysis of the data revealed the pedagogical attitudes prevalent among kindergarten practitioners during this period and, by comparing these with contemporary quality criteria in early childhood education, identified distinctive features of their pedagogical practice. The research revealed that late Soviet era preschool pedagogy in Lithuania was characterized by: a standardized educational program content; focus on knowledge domain; superficial comprehensive education aspect; normative methodology for assessing children’s achievements; subject-based
academic instruction; inflexible organization and strict rules of group life, one-way impact pedagogy, often accompanied by psychological and physical punishments; collective education; a narrow conception of didactic tools; unificating internal and external environment without creating conditions for children’s activity, creativity, experimentation, and accumulation of experiences; limited parental involvement; strict state and institutional control; a social and ideological context directly influencing pedagogical decisions. The findings indicate that across all the main examined parameters (content and assessment, methods, environment,
interactions) there was no visible signs of the concept of the proactive child, an active player in his/her childhood, involved in decisions that were important to him/her; children’s wishes and opinions were not taken into account; the child’s powers were seen not as special, but as weak, not equal to those of an adult; in the educational process, the child was treated solely as an object of education. Thus, the opportunities for the expression of the “voice of a child” were extremely limited and that is why the empirical data of the research encourages a more critical, rather than moderate, approach to preschool pedagogy of the analyzed period. The results of the study are relevant because even today there are still common and viable attitudes and solutions that sometimes replicate and multiply
outdated practices that are very far from child-oriented pedagogy.

TEMPORALITY AND AFFECTIVITY IN AUTHORITARIAN EDUCATION (a case study of an exemplary lesson in a Belarusian secondary school)

Tatiana Shchyttsova — 2025-12-28

This article examines long-standing authoritarian patterns within the Belarusian general secondary education system. It focuses on how these patterns are structurally sustained through pedagogical approaches, communication methods, and emotional regimes. Drawing on an interdisciplinary research project conducted between 2023 and 2024, the study takes a critical phenomenological approach to analyse manifestations of violence in the educational environment. The central thesis explores the crucial yet often overlooked roles of temporality and affectivity in reproducing the authoritarian dynamic. Specifically, the research conducts an in-depth case study of an exemplary secondary school lesson, analysing its rigid structure and prescribed pace. The author argues that this lesson is characterised by a specific structural connection between temporality and affectivity that restricts the potential for authentic, creative, non-hierarchical cooperation between educators and students. The findings reveal that an authoritarian approach to education is enabled by rigorous linear time management and characterised by negative affective dialectics. The study concludes that, under an authoritarian regime, an exemplary lesson can be more destructive and dehumanising than a regular lesson due to the temporal-affective phenomenon of overmobilization.

FORMATIVE EPISTEMIC JUSTICE IN EDUCATION: THE TEACHER’S POSITION WITHIN THE TRAJECTORY OF INSTITUTIONAL TRANSFORMATION

Marianne Sokolova — 2025-12-28

The article conceptualizes institutional mechanisms of epistemic injustice reproduction in general secondary education through the analysis of the teacher’s position and develops principles for systemic transformation based on the concept of formative epistemic justice. The teacher’s position is identified as a structural paradox manifesting the conflict between formal epistemic recognition and actual limitation of professional autonomy through contradictory sources of legitimation: institutional, sociocultural, and epistemic. This paradox embodies systemic contradictions through which injustice is reproduced. The study reveals three interconnected mechanisms of institutionalization: normalization of administrative procedures, construction of deficit subjects, and self-regulating exclusion, which transform epistemic coercion into an invisible regime of educational relations. The theoretical framework of formative epistemic
justice operationalizes three normative orientations — epistemic recognition, hermeneutical inclusion, and reciprocity — as diagnostic criteria for identifying hidden mechanisms of exclusion and strategic points of transformation. The research demonstrates that overcoming epistemic injustice requires not local corrections but systemic restructuring of institutional foundations determining what is recognized as knowledge and who can be recognized as its bearer. Five principles of transformation are formulated: redefinition of epistemic power, liberation of pedagogical labor, institutionalization of trust, formation of epistemic communities, and development of adaptive resilience. Their cascading interaction creates a logic of systemic change rooted in the present yet open to overcoming
its structural limits, transforming local practices of resistance into foundations for systemic transformations.

A MOSAIC OF VALUES: THE TRANSFORMATION OF YOUTH ORIENTATIONS IN THE SOCIOCULTURAL DYNAMICS OF KAZAKHSTA N

Zhanna Khamzina — 2025-12-28

Employing an interdisciplinary framework, this investigation analyzes how post-Soviet sociocultural shifts in Kazakhstan are redefining youth value orientations. By juxtaposing results from the 2018 World Values Survey with data gathered in a dedicated 2024 youth survey, the study traces emerging priorities, compares them with nationwide trends, and probes the forces driving these transformations. The methodology, combining philosophical hermeneutics with sociological analysis, provides a robust comparative perspective and empirically rich foundation. Key findings reveal a nuanced mosaic of values: rising individualism, self-realization, and pragmatic life priorities (such as financial security and career mobility) are accompanied by a sustained emphasis on family. Young people report higher life satisfaction than older cohorts yet exhibit religious individualization (personalized faith and high tolerance rather than institutional religiosity) and pervasive mistrust of state institutions. Notably, youth demonstrate increased civic activism, evident in rising volunteerism and participation in peaceful protests. These findings underscore the study’s originality and practical relevance, offering a solid evidence base for shaping youth policy. To facilitate the full social, economic, and political integration of Kazakhstan’s rising generation, policymakers should capitalize on youth optimism and activism, broaden institutional
pathways for meaningful participation, and recalibrate educational and cultural programs to reflect shifting value orientations.

REFRAMING ABUSHENKO: PRAXEOLOGICAL CONSTRUCTIVISM AND TRANSDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE IN THE UPCOMING AI ERA

Andrei Kamarouski — 2025-12-28

The paper analyzes the intellectual legacy of Belarusian philosopher and sociologist Vladimir Abushenko (1957–2015) within the contemporary gnoseological situation, shaped significantly by the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI). The research includes three enquiry areas: (1) defining the intellectual contributions of Abushenko; (2) identifying core themes and central figures within his works; and (3) evaluating the relevance of his intellectual heritage to current socio-humanitarian knowledge amidst the ongoing AI transformation. The analysis closely examines Abushenko’s extensive yet underdeveloped work. His contributions, characterized by encyclopedic breadth covering areas from epistemology to Latin American studies, are interpreted through critical comparative analysis, notably with the works of V. Stepin and M. Petrov. Stepin’s postpositivist philosophy of science provides a foundation for critiquing historical-genetic reconstructions of scientific rationality, whereas Petrov’s conceptual framework of sociocodes
and “human-dimensionality” offers analytical tools relevant to contemporary socio-cultural realities. The conclusions underline that Abushenko’s epistemological perspective, particularly his formulation of “praxeological constructivism”, aligns closely with contemporary debates on transdisciplinary science and the transformative potential of AI. His emphasis on the praxeological dimension significantly advances Stepin’s framework by integrating socio-cultural rationality as central to understanding scientific practice and knowledge production. Moreover, through Petrov’s theory, Abushenko’s legacy gains relevance in analyzing the implications of AI in shifting biological, cognitive, and social boundaries of human-dimensionality, thus rethinking modern concepts of subjectivity and agency. Ultimately, the paper argues for the critical necessity of revisiting Abushenko’s ideas as epistemological resources essential to navigating the global socio-cultural shifts induced by the rise of AI.

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