Vera Pozzi – A Year of Russian Intellectual Culture

Ever since she completed her dissertation on ‘The role of the Ecclesiastical Academies in Reception of Kantianism in the Russian Empire’ in 2015, Vera Pozzi, a native of the northern Italian city of Lecco, has sought an opportunity to return to Russia to take her research to the next level. When she saw HSE’s call for international fellowships, she was drawn by the internationally oriented nature of the application and the opportunity to apply for a field like ‘History of Russian Intellectual Culture’, which aligns perfectly with her current research interests. In September, Vera will be enrolled in the Faculty of Humanities, School of Philosophy for one year under a post-doc fellowship.

Both an opportunity and a challenge

‘I am currently carrying on my research on Russian Orthodox thought, focusing on its contemporary achievements’, Vera said. ‘My interests fall in a circle of Moscow intellectuals that meant a great deal both in the 1980s and in the post-Soviet era. I am especially fascinated by their perspective, which is traditional and innovative at the same time. ‘That has a lot to say not only in Russia, but in contemporary Western intellectual culture as well. I see this research exploration as a “crossing the boundaries” challenge’.

Vera said she also sees the fellowship at HSE itself as both a challenge and an opportunity. ‘The opportunity is to improve my research in an international and dynamic context, which will give me the possibility of thinking and working continuously. On the other hand, the challenge is to translate my thoughts into effective instruments of communication, for example for papers for scientific journals and conferences and to receive feedback’, she said.

Surrounded by a new world

‘I lived in Moscow for more than a year during my M.A. and Ph.D.’, Vera said, stressing how difficult it was at the beginning but how over time people would help her. ‘Every day I met someone who helped me, with kindness and naturalness’.

Eventually, Vera realized that she was surrounded by a new world and that her goal was above all to know and understand it. Learning Russian plays a key part of that, as does her approach to reading.

‘I will always remember an exhortation from a Russian friend of mine: “The linguistic barrier lives only in your brain!” I can’t wait to improve my Russian again, and refresh it after quite a long period outside Russia!’ she said.

As for reading, she claims that the best book one can read about Moscow, or Russia, is Russia itself – watching the crowds of people that seem to flow from one metro station to another in the most modern face of Russia, or in the fields around a dacha in a small ancient village in the region of Tula. That said, when pressed to recommend a book, she doesn’t hesitate to name Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita as her favourite.