I’ve been sick since Friday night (timing is everything), and when I’m down with the flu, the world around seems strange and unusual. I tried (re)reading the first part of Vekhi (Landmarks or Signposts, 1909–1910), a classic collection of essays on the Russian intelligentsia by prominent Russian thinkers of the time. It sounds trivial, but I was amazed how well some of the pieces apply to our times–Sergei Bulgakov’s and Semen Frank’s in particular. Bulgakov’s article begins thus:
Russia has survived a revolution. This revolution did not produce what was expected from it.
(Here’s an old post on Bulgakov’s/Schumpeter’s characterization of Marx.)