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Tag: Anti-World

Russia in Search of Apocalypse: Eschatology and the Politics of the End-Time

Posted by NURPRT Forum

"The Third Rome Ascends: Babel Rebuilt with Missiles and Martyrs (a Bruegelian Allegory ) From the shattered bones of sacred tradition rises a new cathedral—not to God, but to power. Cloaked in the vestments of Orthodoxy yet crowned with nuclear halos, this Tower of Babel fuses ecclesiastical ruin, imperial nostalgia, and apocalyptic ambition. Crowds march upward in obedient spirals as missile silos replace bell towers, and cranes lift dogma into orbit. Overhead, a mushroom cloud flattens heaven into doctrine. This is no temple of salvation—it is a sanctuary of annihilation, a shrine where the Antichrist wears a cross.

This article, written by  Mikhail Epstein, is appearing for the first time in English on the NURPLRT Forum. An expanded version of this article is published in Russian in the book: Mikhail Epstein. Pered kontsom istorii? Grani russkogo antimira (Before the End of History? Facets of the Russian Anti-World). New York: Freedom Letters, 2025. (Series

Mikhail Epstein: From Minimal Religion to Russkii Antimir

Posted by NURPRT Forum

Kupala Night Henryk Siemiradzki 1880s

This paper was part of the opening roundtable celebrating Mikhail Epstein at the Inaugural Conference of the Northwestern University Research Initiative for the Study of Russian Philosophy and Religious Thought which took place at the Northwestern University, April 2023. The roundtable included Alyssa deBlasio, Randall A. Poole, Victoria Juharyan, and the author of this paper,