Academic Rights and Freedom in Russia: Researchers' Views Introduction to the Special Issue

No one today argues that "Academic freedom is […] the price the public must pay in return for the social good of advancing knowledge."¹ Experts seem to agree that knowledge is a value; the development and gain of knowledge through science and education is the goal to which people from all over the world aspire, no matter the political regime, culture, or religion to which they belong. However, a number of questions remain open:

• • Is academic freedom understood similarly by the elite and by ordinary members of the academic profession?

• • Does national political rhetoric influence academics' understanding of the basic principles of academic freedom and how these principles can be used in practice?

• • What are the boundaries of academic freedom?

• • Are academic freedom and free speech rights coextensive or not? These questions are discussed in this special issue, which is dedicated to academic rights and freedom in Russian academia.

A discussion of academic freedom in Russia is long overdue, as one of the authors of this issue noted with sadness. Very little research has been conducted in this field over the past quarter-century² and the topic has been developing very slowly. Meanwhile, the V-Dem project has found that academic freedom in Russia has been declining steadily since 2007.³

This special issue is the first collection to assess the status of academic rights and freedoms in Russia today and to discuss the potential risks thereof. The scholars explore how academic freedom is being understood and implemented in the specific context of the ongoing authoritarian modernization of Russian academia, which has seen an increase in managerialism in parallel with the "conservative turn" of Russia's foreign and domestic policy.

The main question is formulated by Elizaveta Potapova in her paper "Speaking Up at Work: Narrative Analysis of Academic Freedom in Russia." She asks: "Can academic freedom exist in non-democratic societies?" Her focus is how non-democratic practices transform narratives and practices of academic (non-)freedom in the Russian context.

The issue is made up of two parts. The first deals with ideas about academic freedom; the second looks at Russian education management practices that directly affect the level of academic freedom in Russia.

Thus, the first two papers—by Potapova and by Dmitry Dubrovsky & Irina Meyer (Olimpieva)—consider how "academic freedom" is formulated and in what conditions it is used. To answer this question, the authors explore the narratives they obtained from extensive interviews with scholars (instructors, professors, and researchers) at Russian universities.

Potapova, who recently defended her Ph.D., "Making Sense of Academic Freedom in Russia," conceptualizes academic freedom as a narrative construct generated through the binary opposition between "threat" and "safe space." She argues that academic freedom is constructed around a "safe space" that is identified by evaluating external threats and internal capacities.

Narratives of freedom can be divided into two groups: extraverted (outwardly directed) and introverted (self-preserving). Extraverted narratives emphasize challenges to and restrictions on freedom; introverted ones focus on the possibilities currently available. An obvious example of challenges and restrictions on freedom is censorship and self-censorship related to politically "sensitive" topics, such as minority rights, Soviet history of the 20th century, etc. One example of this is an interviewee's explanation of how the annexation of Crimea should be discussed: "'Crimea was adjoined [prisoedinen] to Russia'" or the "'reunification [vossoedinenie] with Crimea.'" This is a vivid illustration of how Russian laws can directly affect freedom of speech in the university context by forcing instructors to engage in self-censorship.

According to Potapova, however, not everyone sees such restrictions as a violation of academic freedom. Some consider them a natural outgrowth of the principle of corporate responsibility: "We have our professional specifics. It's about our corporate loyalty." As a result, "we literally put ourselves in shackles. So our limitation is actually our freedom." Here, self-censorship is understood as an important condition of membership in the academic community and the development of a successful academic career. Those who neglect self-censorship in the authoritarian context therefore have to "pay."

Potapova...