Remembering Cornelius Castoriadis, the only French Intellectual with Humor

The Cornelius Castoriadis I met: humor, kindness, intellect of many carats

by Dimitris Eleas / July 11th, 2025

Cornelius Castoriadis reflected on man. And he decided that the role of each person in the social-historical is so important. Philosopher with an intellect of many carats.

Castoriadis was in awe of the ideas. And ideas are what in time brought about his faith in man. He is a Greek (—French) who honors our ancestors. Where was Castoriadis’ house in Athens? How did he spend his childhood? Behind what shadow was he growing?

Castoriadis therefore lived in three cities: Constantinople (Istanbul today), Athens, and Paris. He was born in the first in 1922, grew up in Athens and, he left for France at the age of 23. In the latter city he was educated and died in 1997.

Castoriadis competed from a young age and read a lot. In Athens, he studied law and philosophy. Cornelius’ house – as the author Mimika Kranaki, a friend of his youth, informs us – was located behind the Metropolis (main Cathedral) of Athens, 5 Hypatias Street. The volume of the temple will become a forerunner, years later, of his thinking against God and all religions. So, Cornelius grew up ‘in the shadow of God.’ In this house, at the age of only six, he “attempted to kill himself”, grabbing an electricity cable with wet hands… From a young age, Cornelius was interested in many areas of thought. He himself began to read early and learned how to promote thought. It was inspired by Max Weber’s work on bureaucracy. Karl Marx’s texts were read by him inside this house.

This is where he returned after school and later after the lectures of the neo-Kantian philosopher K. Despotopoulos at the university. He was also a brave young man. At the age of just 13 he lost all his hair, and his mother, Sophia Castoriadis, went insane and died a few months later. His father, Caesar Castoriadis, who made sure that he did not miss anything – there was also a phonograph in the house – is a Voltairean, who because he did not allow his son to stay up all night to complete the written punishment that the school had imposed on him, almost caused Cornelius to grab the wet cable as mentioned above.

At the same time, the loss of hair gave him strength at a very tender age. His friends now call him “globos” [“light bulb”]. In his first steps, he also sees the power that “small circles or small groups” have in the evolution of History and ideas.

The Odyssey of Castoriadis

The journey – the Odyssey… – of 1945 will be of a colossal importance! Paris with its libraries, its students, the groups that write history and the ‘biggest A’ in the world… He also read a lot. In Paris, in 1948, Castoriadis with co-founder Claude Lefort, and together with other friends/partners, created the group and the magazine, Socialism or Barbarism (1949-65 the magazine, until ΄66 the group) for the battle of ideas – the Iliad…– and in this magazine, under various pseudonyms, Castoriadis published many theoretical texts.

At the same time, Cornelius Castoriadis also started working as a professional economist at the OECD and his writings were another reason to be written under various pseudonyms, such as Paul Gardan, etc. Through each line ‘that he composes like a musician’, Paris is the city that strengthens his thinking. In Paris, Sigmund Freud will influence him decisively. Reading Freud, he saw clearly what it was missing from Marx. That was, the human subject… His work is a continuous critique, to which it can be given a critical interpretation. The two pillars of the Castoriadian creation, are: “the imaginary institution of society” and “autonomy”. Castoriadis contributed to many areas of thought.

The personal acquaintance

 Here, let me just add that I knew him in person, we had exchanged a few letters, and I had spoken to him on the phone. I sent him the first letter when I was 18 years old, and he replied. And above all his kindness! He was extremely polite in our meetings, in his office or, when we went for a swim the other day. He radiated a light and had a sophisticated sense of humor.

With him, there was no chance not to smile or laugh at something he would say or, at a remark he would make. He was an active man, who did a lot of stuff in a single day. I saw him swimming in the Greek sea, he could easily swim from island to island in the Aegean Sea. I have never forgotten the image of him swimming… He was also moving his hands a lot, not in the water, but mostly out of it. His thought has an experiential depth/ethos that I saw with my own eyes.

 Castoriadis, who has always been exuberant in expression and strong in spirit, is constantly evolving. On a personal level: Women, gambling, cigars, whiskey, the stock market and songs with a sad theme (moirologia, traditional Greek laments for the dead]) also play their crucial part. He had a very strong personality, and because of this, his path was lonely and outside the intellectual fashions of Paris. He stood out.

Cornelius Castoriadis had a love for dialogue and for every new thought that entered his mind. He liked ideas, and he told me when we met in his office, “when a new idea comes to my mind I feel a great surprise.” Awe for ideas, and from this awe, he started and reflected on the uniqueness that every human being deserves / every human being has. The uniqueness, let’s say, of the militant Nikitaras (Greek War of Independence hero, 1821), who was shouting to the Turks, “Persians, let’s fight”! The ‘only theory’ left behind by Cornelius Castoriadis is his imprint as a Human. An imprint that marked those who mostly knew him up close.

 Exuberant and powerful spirit

When asked how he knows that the cow appearing before them is wild, he answers in a lively voice, “but it has an expression on its face.” (It was, apparently, the peculiar breed of cow of the Greek island of Tinos.) Thus, he impresses the listener, and imparts knowledge hand in hand with humor. How did I find myself in the car driven by Castoriadis himself in 1996? This is the “Personal testimony” that I developed in the humble book of 2014. The rare gift of humor that the ‘atheist Castoriadis’ had is like the strong stings you receive when you read him. He had a sense of humor and like a person as I said. And the ‘bites of humor’ make you say, “the West/Hellenism gave birth to a genius”.

The legacy of Cornelius Castoriadis is priceless. And although we are separated from ancient Greece by 130,000 weeks, Castoriadis was, “an ancient Greek in Paris” as I often say. Man dies at some point, but his ideas remain standing. I think, he will continue to inspire… just like the Parthenon.

In conclusion, the above thoughts/‘pictures’ published here, in a highly summarized form, are those delivered in a humble lecture in the Greek language (it’s the first forty minutes) that took place on Sunday, October 13, 2024 (Institute of Research and Study Thucydides, President Mr. Dimitris Trapeziotis). An ‘early manuscript’ of this speech was read by the excellent expatriate intellectual and professor, Mr. Vrasidas Karalis, in Sydney, Australia, and this fact, as well as his apt observations, honor him in particular.

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Dimitris Eleas is a political scientist, writer and researcher living in New York. You can contact him at: dimitris.eleas@gmail.com. Read other articles by Dimitris.

Escaping the Trap of ‘Realism’ and ‘Utopianism’: Towards Programmatic Synthesis

By Yavor Tarinski

February 10, 2025

Source: Resilience

Practicing direct democracy – voting on Nuit Debout, Place de la République, Paris. By Elekes Andor – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48974357

[T]he strongest and most efficient of megamachines can be overthrown[…] The collapse of the Pyramid Age proved that the megamachine exists on a basis of human beliefs, which may crumble, of human decisions, which may prove fallible, and human consent, which, when the magic becomes discredited, may be withheld. The human parts that composed the megamachine were by nature mechanically imperfect: never wholly reliable.[1]~Lewis Mumford

There is one thing that the status quo manages to do well – to convince us that achieving radical social change is an unreachable utopia. It presents itself as pragmatic and realistic, as a pillar of stability. Furthermore, it also claims a hegemony on the social imaginary level, as the only imaginable system. This is what Mark Fisher has termed Capitalist Realism – the widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is now impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it.[2]

By exercising domination over every aspect of our lives – from economics to culture etc. – it proceeds into setting the parameters along which we evaluate. Thus, we learn from a very young age to perceive authority, efficiency, rapidity, and growth as the main variables to use when measuring events and experiences. For example, one is being encouraged to view the animal world not as a complex cyclical system of mutual aid, diversity and interdependence, but as a “kingdom” determined by a food chain that positions species, on the basis of their physical strength and domination, at the top or the bottom of a hierarchical scheme.

‘Stalinist realism’ and ‘escapist utopianism’

Occurrences and potential alternatives are viewed through such lens by the dominant imaginary, and when they don’t abide by the parameters of the status quo, they are simply omitted from the horizon, or at best, described as naive utopias that are best suited for naive dreamers, not for pragmatic individuals.

Even when collective activity manages to establish a rupture with the dominant order, giving space to a different set of values, it still continues to be framed by the forces of domination along their own criteria, so that their ideological hegemony remains unchallenged. An example of this can be found in the way the Haitian Revolution, one of the most significant revolutionary events to date, was perceived during its time. As Haitian anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot explains:

administrators, politicians, or ideologues found explanations that forced the rebellion within their worldview, shoving the facts into the proper order of discourse… [T]he insurrection became an unfortunate repercussion of planters’ miscalculations…[or] It was the unforseen consequence of various conspiracies connived by non-slaves[…][3]

The events that shook up Saint-Domingue from 1791 to 1804 constituted a sequence for which not even the extreme political left in France or in England had a conceptual frame of reference.[4]

This process continues to this day with varying degrees of success throughout the years. Despite the fact that increasing amounts of people believe less and less in the contemporary representative top-down model of social organization, as can be seen from the rising levels of abstention from electoral processes around the world[5], nonetheless there still is a persistent tendency among self-proclaimed revolutionaries that find it unimaginable to go beyond bureaucracy. Psychoanalyst Ian Parker has coined the term ‘Stalinist realism’ to best describe this persisting trend. According to him:

Capitalism, and the kind of ‘capitalist realism’ that tells you that there is no alternative, was mirrored by Stalinism and a ‘stalinist realism’ that tells you that the only alternative is oppressive and controlling.[…] As an ideological force stalinist realism insisted that the only reality was either capitalism or bureaucratic control, that these two systems should peacefully coexist, and not interfere with the functioning of each ‘camp’ or part of the world. If you took sides, you were told, it is one side or the other, either with capitalism or with the bureaucracy.[6]

For these-so called “realists” a social change that abolishes domination and hierarchy altogether is nothing but utopia for naive dreamers, or even as ideological cover for “agents” that want to undermine the Revolution. They don’t shy away from presenting analytical programs for today, without taking into consideration any long-term, maximum goals. Because of this, their programmatic proposals are deeply submerged into reformism of what currently exists. By being unable to think beyond top-down structures, such tendencies are destined to reproduce the oppressive ways of the current system. It is not by chance that actually existing socialism has provided us with nothing but anti-examples.

On the flip-side of the political “realists” are the so called “utopian escapists”. In a way, they too have accepted that a revolutionary alternative to the status quo is a utopia – an event so distant in the future that is practically unreachable. As a result of this understanding, they more often than not engage in lifestyle endeavors, directed at making their individual experiences “feel” somewhat alternative to the mainstream, without really challenging the Capital-Nation-State complex. As Murray Bookchin suggests, such tendencies:

seek to transform society by creating so-called alternative economic and living situations [so as] to gently edge social development away from privately owned enterprises—banks, corporations, supermarkets, factories, and industrial systems of agriculture—and the lifeways to which they give rise, into collectively owned enterprises and values. It does not seek to create a power center that will overthrow capitalism; it seeks rather to outbid it, outprice it, or outlast it, often by presenting a moral obstacle to the greed and evil that many find in a bourgeois economy.[7]

By keeping their visions for a better society in the unforeseeable future, they run the risk of descending into ideological purity. Thus, a vision of this sort begins being seen as something that needs to be kept “clean” from what currently exists. This is a kind of activist elitism that doesn’t seek the broadest possible involvement of common people, but rather to limit its reach to those who “already know” and who will not “stain” it with the ills of society-as-it-is. Jonathan Matthew Smucker aptly points at the limitations of such approaches:

There are perfectly legitimate and understandable reasons why many of us gravitate toward spaces where we feel more understood and choose the path of least resistance in the other spheres of our lives. But when we do not contest the cultures, beliefs, symbols, narratives, etc. of the existing institutions and social networks that we are part of, we also walk away from the resources and power embedded within them. In exchange for a shabby little activist clubhouse, we give away the whole farm. We let our opponents have everything.[8]

As can be seen from the above, both categories leave the current system unchallenged: they either struggle for minor reforms without challenging domination, or they attempt at creating their own elitist spaces where there is as little involvement with the broad society. They play along with the dominant narrative that wants us to believe that what currently exists is the only way (Thatchers’ famous ‘There Is No Alternative’ mantra). For a project to be truly revolutionary then, it must aim at challenging the dominant ideology of TINA and offer an alternative path to what currently exists. As Fisher suggests:

emancipatory politics must always destroy the appearance of a ‘natural order’, must reveal what is presented as necessary and inevitable to be a mere contingency, just as it must make what was previously deemed to be impossible seem attainable.[9]

A programmatic synthesis

Stripping the status quo of its inevitability means departing from the realms of both ‘stalinist realism’ and ‘escapist utopianism’. Instead, the calls for autonomy, direct democracy, and social ecology should be perceived not as visions of utopia, but as a political project that has existed to a different degree in certain historic moments, or that is currently being fought for by grassroots movements around the world. As Cornelius Castoriadis emphasizes:

Utopia is something that has not and cannot take place. What I call the revolutionary project, the project of individual as well as collective autonomy (the two being indissociable), is not a utopia but, rather, a social-historical project that can be achieved; nothing shows that it would be impossible. Its realization depends only upon the lucid activity of individuals and peoples, upon their understanding, their will, their imagination.[10]

For this democratic and ecological project to be made into living reality, social movements and grassroots collectives must not be afraid of charting their own agendas, road maps, and programs. For too long has such strategic thinking been claimed solely by the so called ‘political realists’, while refuted in one way or another by the ‘utopians’. But in fact, setting our own agenda democratically and from below does not mean bending to the self-serving will of bureaucracy. It means synthesizing our theoretical visions with political praxis in the here and now.

One such programmatic approach should have a set of maximum demands, such as the total replacement of State and capitalism by a coherent and multilayered system of direct democracy where all get an equal share in exercising power, reflected simultaneously by a set of minimum demands that bear the spirit of the former and can prove as stepping stones toward our desired destination, such as revocability of officials, inclusion of town hall meetings as a legitimate and recognized source of power in local self-governance, initiation of citizen initiative from below, participatory budgeting, appointment by lot of office-holders, and any other proposal that seeks to empower society at large. In this way immediate and long-term goals are in direct connection with each other, reflecting a popular strive for autonomy.

Scandinavian social ecologists Eirik Eiglad suggests:

Communalist organizations must develop programs and thereby bring their philosophical approach from the realm of social analysis and theory to the realm of political activism. Programmatic demands can present radical municipalist ideas in a clear and concise manner. More specifically, those demands must range from our ideal of a future society to our most immediate concerns. In revolutionary theory this escalation has been properly designated as maximum demands and minimum demands, as well as the necessary transitional demands. 

These programs have to be flexible and adapted to local situations, addressing the pressing needs of the time by offering radical solutions to immediate problems. But although the minimum demands must be applied locally and regionally, certain maximum demands are required if the program is to remain communalist, such as the abolition of all forms of hierarchy and domination, the establishment of municipal confederations, and the implementation of a new system of moral economics.[11] 

The question of local context is crucial for avoiding dogmatism. Such a programmatic approach must be an endeavor of social movements and communities in struggle, and not of experts and ideologues. There cannot be one-fit-all blueprint, since this would mean to fall into the trap of bureaucratic thinking. It is up to local communities, through grassroots participatory processes, to determine what are the immediate steps, most suitable to their local context, that can get them on a path toward the establishment of a truly democratic and ecological society.

One such approach also asks us to reconsider the way we approach time as regarding social change. The dream of an overnight spontaneous revolution must be abandoned – every revolutionary event we know of has been predated by long periods of patient and passionate organizational work done by individuals and collectives who dared to challenge the order of the day and advance a political alternative. Because of this we cannot but agree with Jean-Jacques Rousseau that the citizen should arm himself with strength and steadfastness[12], as well as with Castoriadis when saying that everything must be remade at the cost of a long and patient labor[13].

A programmatic approach is also an indispensable tool for public intervention, as it offers movements and initiatives a coherent message with specific proposals and a sense of long-term direction that can convey to common people a conviction in a possible alternative and a motivation for praxis. Without such intervention into the public sphere nothing can be achieved, as social change in the direction of direct democracy requires large segments of society to begin mobilizing and organizing toward that end, rather than than small sects conspiring in secrecy. Being well aware of this, Bookchin insists that for one movement to become truly public it needs to formulate a politics that opens it to social intervention, that bring it into the public sphere as an organized movement that can grow, think rationally, mobilize people, and actively seek to change the world.[14] He further suggests that:

[W]e must ask ourselves what mode of entry into the public sphere is consistent with our vision of empowerment. If our ideal is the Commune of communes, then I submit that the only means of entry and social fulfillment is a Communalist politics with a libertarian municipalist praxis; that is, a movement and program that finally emerges on the local political scene as the uncompromising advocate of popular neighborhood and town assemblies and the development of a municipalized economy. I know of no other alternative to capitulation to the existing society.[15]

One practical example of this approach can be found in the Slovenian city Maribor. For over 10 years there has been functioning the so-called Initiative for Citywide Assembly (Iniciativa mestni zbor – IMZ).[16] It is focused on organizing and sustaining non-partisan, self-organized municipal assemblies in the city. So far, the initiative has around 10 assemblies in different neighborhoods that meet regularly and are attended by common citizens. It pushes for these grassroots institutions to be accepted and recognized by authorities as a standard form of communication and collaboration amongst people, giving them a voice on matters that affect their locality, as well as the right to exercise participatory budgeting. What they aim at is the real-life reclamation of power by local communities. This goal represents a synthesis of the long-term striving for direct democracy, where institutions of the people replace the bureaucratic state, with the more immediate one of empowering citizens in the here and now, by setting up the proper tools with which to begin having some input on local decision-making processes.

In conclusion, being a political ‘realist’ or seeking for a ‘perfect end-state’ both limit the scope of action. Either case leaves dominant parameters intact, seemingly unalterable. Recommencing the revolutionary project, i.e. setting direct democracy as a horizon, means abandoning the aforementioned logics, embracing instead the complexity and messiness of trying to implement it in the here and now. Organizing our communities horizontally and managing to draft collectively our own programmatic agendas helps us break the supposed juxtaposition between political visions of a better society and what is politically feasible in the meantime. It is through one such process that we can really challenge the status quo. As Aki Orr suggests,

Opposing oppression and exploitation without proposing alternative political system leaves the ruling system intact. The system acts, the opposition reacts. Those who struggle against evils of a political system but do not offer an alternative to that system are politically impotent.[17]

[1] Lewis Mumford: The Myth of the Machine: Technics and the Human Development (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc., 1967), p230.

[2] Mark Fisher (2010): Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (Winchester: Zero Books, 2010), p2.

[3] Michel-Rolph Trouillot:  Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon Press, 2015), pp91-92.

[4] Michel-Rolph Trouillot: Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon Press, 2015), p82.

[5] https://www.essex.ac.uk/news/2021/09/22/voter-turnout-is-declining-around-the-world

[6] Ian Parker: ‘Stalinist Realism Part 1’ in Anticapitalist Resistance [available online at https://anticapitalistresistance.org/stalinist-realism-part-1/]

[7] Murray Bookchin: Thoughts on Libertarian Municipalism in Institute for Social Ecology [available online at https://social-ecology.org/wp/1999/08/thoughts-on-libertarian-municipalism/]

[8] Jonathan Matthew Smucker: ‘What’s wrong with activism?’ in Beyond the Choir [available online at https://jonathansmucker.org/2012/07/23/whats-wrong-with-activism/]

[9] Mark Fisher (2010): Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (Winchester: Zero Books, 2010), p17

[10] Cornelius Castoriadis: A Society Adrift: More Interviews and Discussions on The Rising Tide of Insignificancy, Including Revolutionary Perspectives Today (unauthorized translation), p5. [available online at http://www.notbored.org/ASA.pdf]

[11] Eirik Eiglad: ‘Bases for Communalist Programs’ in Communalism Vol. 6 (March 2005) [available online at https://ecotopianetwork.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/bases-for-communalist-programs-eirik-eiglad/]

[12] Jean Jacques Rousseau: The Social Contract (Ware: Wordsworth Editions, 1998). P68

[13] Cornelius Castoriadis: Political and Social Writings, Vol.3 (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press), p48.

[14] Murray Bookchin: The Next Revolution: Popular Assemblies & The Promise of Direct Democracy (London: Verso, 2015), p63.

[15] Ibid

[16] Alexandria Shaner: ‘IMZ: 10 Years of Citizens Assemblies’ in Znet [available online at https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/imz-10-years-of-citizens-assemblies/]

[17] Aki Orr: Autonarchy – Direct Democracy For the 21st Century (self-published, 1996) [available online at https://web.archive.org/web/20190517032506/http://www.autonarchy.org.il/]

 

Hanna Perekhoda: ‘The fight for freedom in Ukraine is intimately linked to the global struggle against fascist forces’

By Hanna Perekhoda & Francesca Barca

Published 13 February, 2025\

First published at Voxeurop.

Hanna Perekhoda is a historian and researcher at the University of Lausanne – Institute of Political Studies and Centre for International History and Political Studies of Globalisation, specialising in nationalism in the context of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union. Her doctoral research examines the political strategies of the Bolsheviks in Ukraine between 1917 and the 1920s. Perekhoda also studies the historical development of the Russian political imaginary, with a particular focus on the role of Ukraine in Russian state ideology. Perekhoda is also an activist with Sotsialnyi Rukh (‘ Social Movement’), a left-wing Ukrainian political organisation founded by activists and trade unionists in the wake of Euromaidan.

It is now three years since Russia launched its all-out invasion of Ukraine. What is your view of the situation today?

With the return of Donald Trump, it should be clear by now that Russia's impunity is directly fuelling the rise of fascist forces in our own countries – and vice versa. These forces are actively working to dismantle any international structures that limit their ambitions. The fight for freedom in Ukraine is therefore intimately linked to the global struggle against these destructive trends. But it must be clearly stated: the prospects for liberation are shrinking by the minute.

The rise of forces combining authoritarianism and libertarianism in the United States and Europe must be taken very seriously. Capitalist reason, with its cult of unlimited growth and profit, puts profit above all else: from individual life to our collective security. In such a world, if this dynamic is not broken, Ukraine will have no future. But let's be clear: in such a world, nobody will have a future.

Part of the debate in the West, especially but not exclusively on the left, has focused on pacifism on the one hand, and the danger posed by far-right – or even neo-Nazi – forces in Ukraine on the other. What is your view on this?

Imagine looking out of your window and seeing someone being attacked, beaten and raped by an assailant. This person sees you and begs you to help. You have the necessary tools to enable them to defend themselves, but you choose to do nothing, leaving them to die. Regarding an individual person, failing to intervene is obviously tantamount to encouraging the crime and aggravating its consequences. If the witness tried to justify their inaction by claiming their pacifism and opposition to all forms of violence, the argument would be seen as inappropriate or even absurd.

Even if they escape criminal liability, such an attitude is generally considered profoundly immoral. So I ask myself: why does this same attitude suddenly become acceptable when the situation moves from the level of an individual under attack to that of a society under attack? As if by a miracle, the refusal of assistance is transformed into pacifism and has the appearance of a legitimate moral position.

The reality is that a lack of support for victims encourages aggressors. This is obvious at the level of personal relationships, within families, in the workplace or any social institution. But it is also true in international politics. If you abandon the victims of military aggression, you are signalling to all the psychopaths in positions of power that they are now free to solve their legitimacy issues with wars.

The impunity granted to those who advocate the law of the strongest on the international stage inevitably fuels the rise of forces that defend the same principles at home. Forces such as Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Germany, the Rassemblement National in France, Donald Trump in the United States and Vladimir Putin in Russia all share the same cult of brute force - in other words, fascism. Ultimately, any aggression, however remote, if normalised, has implications that sooner or later will affect us all.

The argument that the presence of the far right in Ukraine justifies a refusal to send arms is based on a rather blatant error of logic. Refusing to help a people on this pretext is tantamount to punishing an entire society for a reality that exists everywhere. Yes, there are far-right groups in Ukraine, as in many countries. In the elections before 2022, these groups received only minimal votes and failed to win any seats. There are far-right movements in France and Germany that are infinitely more influential than in Ukraine, yet no one would dispute their right to self-defence in the event of aggression. Is this attitude not rather the expression of the Western fantasy of a reactionary and retrograde "East", which persists even when Western societies are themselves at the vanguard of the fascisation against which the left in these countries seems to be completely powerless?

This argument is all the more hypocritical given that many of these same voices on the left do not hesitate to support resistance movements that include actors who are more than problematic. Why demand a purity from Ukraine that no other society is required to show when it has to defend itself?

What is undeniable is that the war, which has lasted for more than ten years, has already helped to strengthen and trivialise nationalist symbols and discourse that were previously marginal. Wars do not make any society better. However, the relationship between the delivery of arms and the strengthening of the far right in Ukraine is inversely proportional.

The weapons sent to Ukraine are used first and foremost to defend society as a whole against an invading army. Ukraine's victory guarantees the very existence of a state in which citizens can freely and democratically choose their future. Conversely, nothing strengthens extreme right-wing movements or terrorist organisations more than military occupation and the systematic oppression that goes with it.

Indeed, if Ukraine obtains peace under Russia's conditions – the peace of the graves – it is more than likely that the radical groups, which will capitalise on the frustration and sense of injustice, will rapidly gain strength, to the detriment of the moderates.

The role of languages (Ukrainian and Russian) is very important in understanding the (often artificial) debates and arguments. Could you help us put things into perspective?

It is indeed useful to place this issue in its historical context. Since the 19th century, the Russian state has sought to marginalise the Ukrainian language by presenting it as an inferior form of Russian. The Russian elites felt that recognising a distinct Ukrainian language would threaten the unity of their nation-state under construction. Under the Soviet Union, Russian was imposed as the only legitimate language of modernity and progress. After Ukrainian independence [in 1991], this linguistic hierarchy persisted.

Until 2014, speaking Ukrainian in the big cities was frowned upon, while Russian remained associated with prestige. So basically, for Ukrainians, the promotion of Ukrainian in the public space is not an attack on Russian speakers, but an attempt to rectify centuries of marginalisation. To see this as evidence of aggressive nationalism is to ignore the (post-)imperial context that underpins these dynamics. This is a context that is often invisible to those who belong to historically imperialist nations and not to culturally oppressed groups.

So the language issue is instrumentalised?

Yes, what is important to consider is the way in which Russia has used the language issue to legitimise its aggression against Ukraine. In 2014, at the time of the annexation of Crimea and the start of the war in the Donbass, the Kremlin justified its actions by claiming that it wanted to protect the Russian-speaking population, who were the alleged victims of "linguistic genocide". While the Ukrainian and Russian languages used to coexist fairly peacefully in everyday life, this use of the linguistic question as a weapon of political manipulation has exacerbated the divisions.

It is crucial to emphasise that speaking Russian in Ukraine does not mean being pro-Russian or pro-Kremlin. We should avoid blindly adopting the narrative imposed by Russian propaganda, which does everything it can to legitimise, in every possible way, the attack on the sovereignty of neighbouring democratic states.

It was only with the Russian aggression of 2014 that the Ukrainian state broke the status quo of relative non-intervention in linguistic affairs. In 2018, the parliament passed a law requiring the use of Ukrainian in most aspects of public life, obliging civil servants and public employees to know the language and use it in their communication. Ukrainian also became compulsory in schools. This did not necessarily lead to radical changes: many people used both Ukrainian and Russian in their daily lives, not to mention those who spoke a mixture of the two. The reality of Ukraine is one of linguistic porosity.

The war and the atrocities committed by the Russians have led many Ukrainians to speak only Ukrainian and to view with suspicion those who continue to speak "the language of the occupier". It is not uncommon for Russian-speaking survivors of the bombings to be accused of a lack of patriotism by Ukrainian-speaking residents of towns far from the fighting. The radical rejection of Russian, which was not an issue in 2014 but was brandished by Putin to legitimise military aggression, has become a self-fulfilling prophecy ten years later.

The problem for Russian speakers in Ukraine is that the state that claims to be protecting their language is using it to spread narratives that deny Ukraine's right to exist. At the moment, Russian speakers have no spokesperson capable of articulating their experience without exploiting it for political ends. If Russia did not exploit language and culture as tools of expansion, and if the presence of a Russian-speaking population were not used to justify political domination and - subsequently - military invasion, the coexistence of these languages would likely pose few problems.

At the same time, Ukraine's self-proclaimed intellectual elite is particularly backward-looking and frankly ridiculous when it tries to construct national identity according to nineteenth century formulas. In reality, it is impossible to fit the contemporary Ukrainian population into either of the obscurantist frameworks offered to them: Ukrainian ethno-linguistic nationalism on the one hand, and Russian imperial nationalism, on the other.

Before 2022, there was still a possibility of building an alternative Russian-speaking culture in Ukraine, one that was not infected by the Russian imperial imaginary and did not depend on the political priorities of the Russian state. The invasion has made this project absolutely impossible. Putin should probably be pleased about this: his main fear is not Ukraine cutting all ties with Russians, but rather Ukraine sharing the Russian language while developing a solid democratic political system, thereby infecting Russians with the virus of freedom.

The European Union is often perceived as "unfashionable" at best, if not "neoliberal" and "undemocratic", by the left and activists in Western Europe. In Eastern Europe, on the other hand, whether in Moldova, Romania, Ukraine or Georgia, citizens mobilise behind the idea... What is the reason for this difference? What does the EU represent in the east of the continent? And particularly in Ukraine?

Seen from the inside, the EU can be seen as a project where market logic takes precedence over social justice; where decisions are often taken behind closed doors; and where the interests of major economic powers like Germany take priority. In this context, it is not surprising that some see the EU as an obstacle to be thrown aside.

But for European countries outside the EU, and particularly for Ukraine, it represents something different. Above all, "Europe" represents an aspiration, the idea of a future where rule of law, individual freedoms and a certain level of prosperity prevail. What is less obvious to Western Europeans is that here the EU represents an alternative to an authoritarian and oppressive model, a model that Russia imposes on its neighbours by force.

So for EU citizens, the EU is first and foremost an economic project. But for those who are not EU citizens, the EU is above all a cultural and civilisational project. Whether they admire it or hate it, its supporters and opponents outside the Union treat it as a primarily political force. Russia, moreover, is explicit in this respect: since at least 2013, it has treated the EU not as an economic competitor, but as a geopolitical and ideological rival.

This dimension became even more obvious in 2014, when Ukrainians literally gave their lives to defend their country's "European" future. It was an act that many Europeans looked upon with incomprehension, even condescension or pity. Yet for these demonstrators, "Europe" was not an economic area, but a symbol of dignity and freedom.

Europeans struggle to recognise that there is indeed substance behind the idea of a politically united Europe, because it seems to be discredited by neoliberal policies. However, like any project born of modernity, the European Union bears contradictory tendencies. To use the words of the philosopher and economist Cornelius Castoriadis, the European Union bears within it both the unlimited expansion of rational mastery of the world, which manifests itself in neoliberalism, and the potential for autonomy and political openness, which takes the form of democracy.

Which trend will prevail? This depends on the political forces that invest in this project. But what is certain is that abandoning the idea of a politically united Europe while legitimately combating the EU's neoliberal policies is to throw the baby out with the bathwater. While Europe was lulled into the illusion of a post-national peace, of prosperity built on Russian hydrocarbons and Chinese goods, the elites of these countries were amassing armies, resources and, above all, resentment. And this resentment is aimed precisely at Europe's democratic imaginary, not its economic liberalism.

It might seem paradoxical...

The paradox is sadly logical: the democratic potential of the European project seems more obvious from the outside. It's a bit like vaccines: the more effective they are, the more they are denigrated. In a country that has only just implemented vaccination, where children are dying of polio on a massive scale, an anti-vaccination movement would seem absurd. In the same way, Europeans who so easily abandon the idea of European unity appear naive in the eyes of those who are confronting an army determined to destroy it.

That said, Ukrainian left-wing activists are not fooled by the economic realities of Europe. They have carefully observed what has happened in Greece, for example. But you have to understand: Ukraine is already a highly neoliberal country, with predatory elites and precarious labour laws. In certain sectors, European legislation could effectively dismantle what remains of social protection. But in others, it could bring standards and regulations that do not exist under unbridled capitalism. So there are no easy answers.

However, for the vast majority of Ukrainians, the details are not so important. "Europe" represents a promise of justice, democracy and emancipation. Facing the abyss of Russian occupation, Ukrainians – like Georgians – are clinging to the only alternative political unity that exists on the continent.