From the editor

Our magazine has a great name. To tell the truth, we got it to some extent by accident. In the sense that we did not mean to continue the traditions of either Svinin’s “Domestic Notes” (1820–1830), or Belinsky, Nekrasov and Saltykov-Shchedrin’s “Domestic Notes” (1839–1884), much less those “Domestic notes”, which were published by a group of Russian dissidents several years ago. Simply registering a new journal at the beginning of the 21st century in Russia turned out to be more difficult than one might expect. Anyone who has never done this cannot imagine how many magazines and newspapers we have in our country - modern dictionaries hardly meet the growing needs of the emerging media for new names.

“Domestic Notes” miraculously turned out to be free. The name first captivated us with its simplicity, and then, when we began to seriously try it on ourselves, with its accuracy.

We are a group of individuals who are united, in addition to mutual sympathy, by the belief that thinking is, in principle, necessary and useful. Which, it seems, is not news. However, the opinion has already become commonplace that over the last decade the space for intellectual communication in Russia has almost completely collapsed. It is believed that “thick magazines” have lost their influence. That modern scientific and intellectual publications are often marginal. That today there is no communication environment for discussing issues more fundamental than daily political news. That the intellectual “nutrient broth” that is necessary for the emergence of new ideas of modern times is missing.

We believe in the benefits of reflection and that “knowledge is power.” We are also convinced that activity preceded by reflection is usually less harmful than activity without thought. We believe that a thought should not justify an action already taken. We were so lucky that we met people who share this belief and therefore finance our project.

Our “Domestic Notes” are conceived as a journal devoted to problems that we recognize as socially significant and not sufficiently clarified. From our point of view, a lot is significant. The editors' plans already include so many topics that they will last for years. The structure and fate of state borders, the values ​​of modern education, the future of Russian banks, the nature of corruption, xenophobia in a multinational state, methods of survival in the provinces, features of Russian capitalism, the picture of the world through the eyes of a Russian, prospects for philanthropy in Russia, the benefits and harms of unemployment, healthcare and lack of health , the mystery of the price of labor - all this and much more is interesting to us, and we are preparing to write about it. More precisely, we will not write about this. One of our main principles is to avoid publishing journalistic texts whenever possible: we want the authors to be not journalists, but experts and practitioners. When working on a particular topic, we are not looking for a predetermined result. On the contrary, we are interested in it becoming the result of a conscientious interdisciplinary dialogue, a clash of reasoned opinions, and an analysis of thematic information, which we, with the participation of experts, will try to systematize.

The structure of the magazine will be close to what you see in this issue. About two-thirds of it is devoted to the main topic. In the first issue, the main topic is the relationship between the Russian state and the Russian Orthodox Church, which, in our deep conviction, influences all state policy as a whole, and therefore our lives. There are also articles in the issue that are not related to the main topic, devoted to various, more or less relevant problems.

The main topics of the upcoming issues are “Education: fetish or necessity” and “Taxes: can the state and society agree?”

In each issue we will publish at least one documentary work. This is our special project under the code name “Revival of the “physiological essay” in Russia,” for which a separate section “Country of OZ” was invented.

We may not succeed in everything right away. So, in this issue there are no, for example, articles by foreign specialists (already in the second issue you will find interesting translated material), the block of book reviews is not yet sufficiently representative (we are clarifying the genres and range of authors). Will be working.

It is not entirely clear to us whether to consider the thickness of our magazine an advantage or a disadvantage. Probably an advantage - it looks more like a book, that is, for slow reading. To have time to think.

Read. There will definitely be no harm from this.