Writing and Thinking at the Margins: A Philosophical Strategy to Resist Totalitarianism in Post-War Eastern Europe

The aim of this project is to examine a philosophical strategy that is not overtly political, yet serves as resistance to totalitarian ideology: a way of philosophical thinking and writing at the margins of dogmatic forms of totalitarian political ideology and totalizing systems of thought after the Second World War.

We will investigate this strategy in the works of Hannah Arendt, Merab Mamardashvili and Alexandru Dragomir.

By paying attention to their way of writing and developing thoughts on writing under the constrains of oppression, we connect Dragomir’s and Mamardashvili’s philosophy with Arendt’s critique of totalitarianism and her own exercise of writing notes. The main research questions are: 1.

How do Mamardashvili, Dragomir and Arendt write thoughts and think writing as a form of resistance at the margins of totalitarian ideology? 2.

How does this form of resistance enhances the understanding of resistance in Eastern Europe during the communist era? 3.

How do these forms of writing and thinking imply a particular critique of modern philosophy and its tendency to build totalizing systems of thought?

The project constitutes a gateway to retrieve an often over-looked legacy of resistance among East European philosophers in the communist era, and it contributes to the knowledge of the intellectual history of the region.