page_title: Alexander Zinoviev
section_title: Return to Russia and last years
hierarchical_section_title: Alexander Zinoviev / Biography / Return to Russia and last years
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Автограф писателя А. Зиновьева
context_page_description: Alexander Alexandrovich Zinoviev was a Russian philosopher, writer, sociologist, and journalist.
  Coming from a poor peasant family, a participant in World War II, Alexander Zinoviev in the 1950s and 1960s was one of the symbols of the rebirth of philosophical thought in the Soviet Union. After the publication in the West of the screening book "Yawning Heights", which brought Zinoviev world fame, in 1978 he was expelled from the country and deprived of Soviet citizenship. He returned to Russia in 1999.
  The creative heritage of Zinoviev includes about 40 books, covers a number of areas of knowledge: sociology, social philosophy, mathematical logic, ethics, political thought. Most of his work is difficult to attribute to any direction, put in any framework, including academic. Having gained fame in the 1960s as a researcher of non-classical logic, in exile, Zinoviev was forced to become a professional writer, considering himself primarily a sociologist. Works in the original genre of "sociological novel" brought international recognition to Zinoviev.
context_section_description: From the mid-1990s, Zinoviev began to visit his homeland more often, he had supporters and followers with whom he willingly communicated. In 1996, he confessed that he was not going to return to Russia that was "hostile", despite the publication of his books (Embroilment, Russian Experiment, etc.). He believed that he was "boycotted" in Russia, as, incidentally, in the West, where he managed to publish with difficulty. Nevertheless, in France, in the publishing house "Plon" in 1996 "West" was released, two years later in Italy it became the bestseller "The Global Humant Hill". As Pavel Fokin writes, the turning point was the fall of 1997, when he visited Russia several times. Zinoviev represented the "Global Humant Hill" in Moscow, held a series of meetings with Sergey Baburin, Nikolai Ryzhkov and Gennady Zyuganov. Zinoviev called for a vote for the Communist leader in the 1996 presidential election, considering the Communist Party of the Russian Federation one of the few positive political forces in the country, although his position was more radical than that of the parliamentary Communist opposition. Zinoviev's 75th anniversary was celebrated at the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences and at the Institute of Philosophy; he visited his native Kostroma Region, and in 1998 made a number of trips around Russia and the CIS. On June 30, 1999, the Zinoviev family returned to Moscow. A few days later he was accepted as a professor at Moscow State University (Department of Ethics at the Faculty of Philosophy) and Maxim Gorky Literature Institute. At the end of the year, at the suggestion of Baburin, he agreed to participate in the Duma elections on the list of the Russian All-People's Union, but was not registered.
  The decision to return was influenced by the bombing of Yugoslavia, which Zinoviev repeatedly condemned. He believed that the war in the Balkans is being waged against Europe, which means its degradation and marks the arrival of a new, post-democratic and post-communist totalitarianism. In the last Western interview "Why I am returning to Russia", published in "Le Monde", Zinoviev stated catastrophic changes in the West and in Russia, the surrender of Europe before Americanization and globalization, its betrayal of its ideals (democracy, freedom of speech, moral values, etc.). He stated that, returning to Russia, he remains committed to genuine European values. Slobodan Milošević (the philosopher met him in 1999), like Muammar Gaddafi, symbolized for Zinoviev the challenge and resistance of globalization, insubordination to America, caused his admiration and respect.
  Zinoviev spoke positively about Vladimir Putin, pinned great hopes on him, considering his coming to power as the country's first chance after 1985 to break the deadlock and to resist Westernization and colonization. However, he rather quickly revised optimistic estimates, noting at the end of 2000 that Russia continued to lose ground, although he did not rank Putin as a "traitor". In 2002, he wrote that Putin, having popular support, did not use the historical chance, refusing to revise the results of privatization and nationalize finance and energy; Zinoviev concluded that Putin's historical role was to legitimize the consequences of the Yeltsin coup. In 2006, shortly before his death, he stated that Russia as a sovereign state and a single whole no longer exists, the country presents an imitation ("apparent"), an artificial, fragile formation connected by the fuel and energy complex: "Russia as a powerful energy power is an ideological myth of the Russian unpromising. The very narrowing of economic progress to the "pipe" is an indicator of historical doom".
  Upon his return, he continued active writing and public work: he edited the editions of his books, commented on political events, spoke at round tables and conferences, gave interviews in various publications, from Zavtra to Komsomolskaya Pravda. In 2000, the publishing house "Centrpoligraf" published 5 volumes of collected works; director Viktor Vasilyev made the documentary film "I am a soverei
caption: Autograph of Alexander Zinoviev (1995)
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