Abstract

The article presents an overview of A. S. Akhiezer’s reconstruction of Russia’s socio-cultural history as a cultural hermeneutic. The underlying idea is that the way humans make sense of their existence is driven by an algorithm of meaning production informing the organization of their ‘world’, in particular the selection of the means involved in that production. Thus the central axis of Akhiezer’s hermeneutic, methodogically, is symbolization: ‘worlds’, that is, socio-cultural matrices, are made according to and reflect specific modes of symbolization. Akhiezer’s account of the Russian socio-cultural experience is centred on the particular algorithm that he names raskol. His purpose was twofold: to examine the ‘logic’ of raskol, on the one hand, and to investigate, on the other hand, in the manner of a historian, its impact and consequences for Russian society at large, including its effects on institution-building. In this way, the study of raskol goes hand in hand with an investigation of and commentary concerning the uncertain state in Russia of what Akhiezer named the bol’šoe obščestvo. In effect, his theory is a social ontology with culture at the centre.