I Am Not: Reflections on the Ruins of Man

An introduction to Belarusian intellectualism from one of its most prominent — and most controversial — proponents and defenders.

Scattered vocabulary, audacious enthusiasm, unyielding sarcasm, and paradoxical sharpness of thought. A new culture of national thinking. The birth of a legend.

This is the first reprint in 25 years of a cult book that first appeared in 1998. With the author's permission — and from his hands — we return it to the interested Belarusian reader.

In his book, the Belarusian philosopher constructed his image of modern urbanized and Russian-speaking Belarus. For Akudovich, "All Belarus" and "Belarus Proper" are two conceptually different compositions within the space of one topos. "Belarus Proper" is an Archipelago. Within the state borders, here and there, individually or in groups, islands and islets of Belarusianness are scattered, and communications between them occur through texts. It is very unusual to see this apology for Text in the words of an author known for his skeptical attitude towards the belief that a literary work can in itself somehow influence social life, even if it was created with the aim of such influence. The author sees the greatest modern threat in the fact that we are still oriented towards a war of cultures (on the one hand, a war with Russian culture, on the other — a war with Western culture). A fundamentally different situation is beginning to emerge now, when the distance between native and other cultures is being annulled. The situation of a communicatively open society imperceptibly becomes perhaps the most dramatic problem, which questions the very possibility of cultural identification. And therefore, the very possibility of Belarusian culture in general.