The paradox Ivan Il’in, Putin’s beloved philosopher

On September 29, 1922 the cruiser “Oberburgermeister Haken” sailed from Petersburg to the then German Stettin with a cargo of professors, engineers and thinkers on board. Intellectuals who had proved absolutely unfit to be integrated into the new Soviet model under construction after the October Revolution, but whom Lenin preferred to send into exile rather than to the gulags or before firing squads. “Philosophers’ steamer” was called, together with another which sailed the following 16 November. It is not known exactly how many there were, but the most reported figure is 272. Exactly a century later, on September 30, 2022, Putin, in his war of aggression against Ukraine, announced with a speech the annexation to the body of the Russian Federation of four Ukrainian territories: Donetsk, Luhansk, Kerson and Zaporizhzhya regions.