I had a wonderful lecturer in Philosophy in my first two years at the University. We only ever had seminars with him, partly I guess because he was very old. He celebrated his birthday on November 7, and in 1997, when we were in our first year, he turned 90. Ours and another group in his seminar had a thought and decided to present him a handwatch. We chipped in, bought it, and on the day, after the seminar, gave it to him. He kindly took it, looked at it, and said: “Ah, a watch? I have too many, anyway“.
That day it was snowing hard, so straight after that seminar I decided to catch a bus to the tube. When I went through the University gate, the bus was approaching the stop, so I had to run. I barely made it, got on the bus, and stood by the door. Next thing I was watching my 90-year-old philosopher running for the next bus that already stood at the stop!
The lecturer came from a noble family; he liked telling us about the occasion when he and his brother were walking, accompanied by their bonne, and met the Emperor Nikolai II. And in 1956 when he was in Hungary his driver refused to give him a lift somewhere, thus saving the philosopher from the wrath of Revolution.
I wanted to show you a few photos of Karl Marx’s monuments. In spite of the change of regime, some of his statues survive to this day. The one of the right actually stands right opposite the Bolshoi Theatre. Here Marx is a passionate prophet appealing to the proletarians of the world to unite. Another photo was taken by another user in the Russian city of Tver. The story has it that some parents still take their kids to this terrifying, severe philosopher. The facial expression of the Tver Marx goes well with the inscription: “Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains“.
The reason I recalled my Philosophy lecturer is that he used to tell us that Marx said something along the lines: “I am Marx, not a Marxist!” (Je suis Marx, pas Marxiste). The lecturer always said this phrase in French. It is a great way to illustrate the conundrum in which some celebrated people find themselves. They are still “themselves”, but as far as the crowd is concerned, they are associated with their teaching.
Many years after Marx, it was the French historian Fernand Braudel who stressed the same point. When the Soviet scholars criticised him for “deserting” Marxism, he replied: “I criticise Marxism in order to remain a Marxist“. Indeed, as with just about any teaching, there is a set of core ideas, which may mutate into an ideology. And one has occasionally to step back and to regain the perspective, precisely in order not to fall into an even bigger fallacy of assuming that a new teaching is necessary.
I know that you, like me, love going into antique shops. There are many antiques and collectables shops in England, and the same is true for Russia, Moscow in particular. My walk in the city centre last week brought me to several of such shops, although I never went inside any of them. When I do go in, I often leave with a pack of old postcards. On the back there are usually letters, and while I don’t try to investigate who those people were, I always find a great pleasure in imagining how they could be living, what relationships they maintained, etc.
This time, however, the shopwindows of those antiques shops brought quite a few remarkable examples. In some of them you will see an old paper knife, a mirror, and a collection of China dolls, including the characters from The Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol. In others there will be amazing gilded dishes, vases, and clocks, complete with a bottle of the Red Label whiskey.
