Sofia Kiselnikova ““Poverty” is aesthetic and existential. Refusal of “beauty” as a system requirement, work with simple and base materials<...> - all these features allow us to consider the practice of Eric Zhelezker in dialogue with the practice of arte povera" / Source: the artist’s social networks The artist Eric Zhelezker lay down on an unmarked grave, and a few days later he covered himself, his clothes and the objects around him with black paint.

Oksana Bashkatova “Circe and her lovers in a landscape” by Dosso Dossi, circa 1525 / Source: National Gallery of Art Modern fashion promises women freedom from strict requirements: heels, brands and the pursuit of trends are no longer necessary. Now everyone can say that they dress for themselves. But who actually determines what clothes become appropriate and indicate good taste?

Discourse "The Scribe's Workshop", Loiset Liede, 1470–1472. Emperors cry, pulling at their beards, brothers exchange “hypocritical kisses,” and one short detail turns family turmoil into tragedy - medieval chronicles were not written as boringly as their name might suggest. They contain intrigue, betrayal, love affairs, political conflicts and vivid descriptions in which the heroes of the story appear directly before the reader.

Mikhail Mayatsky Illustration by Yulia Litvin , specially for samizdat The poet Pavel Arsenyev turned the arrest report into poetry back in 2009 - the year the “E” center appeared. Since then, the material for his poetry has been a freely read Constitution, an expert indictment on modern poetry, the mantra of a foreign agent and the denunciation of former comrades to the Poetry Center.

Tahir Adilzhanov “Technology has taken away everyone’s free time” / Modernized cartoon by Leif Parsons It turned out to be easier to shock yourself than to spend ten minutes in silence - some of the volunteers agreed to the shock in psychologist Wilson’s experiment, just so as not to be alone with themselves.

Azat Kapenov The image was created by a person using neural networks A performance can be assembled from court records, newspaper clippings, other people's diaries, and even from the author's own body - this is what documentary theater has been doing for almost a hundred years.

Rita Neverova “We cannot say: while it is dangerous to talk about peace and human life, we will only deal with the protection of bees. Protecting bees is important, but there are more urgent problems” / Illustration: Maria Domnikova The entire election program of Yabloko is only 43 words: peace and immediate ceasefire, the rest will come later. In the event of a nuclear war, the party believes, there will be no time for personal income tax rates.

Boris Bondarev The image was created by a person using neural networks The most dangerous trap for opponents of dictatorship is to begin to reproduce its habits. Political thinker Boris Bondarev argues that the Russian opposition falls into this category over and over again. The scandals surrounding the Platform of Russian Democratic Forces under PACE and the litigation between Lyubov Sobol and Mark Feigin are only symptoms of a disease that began long before emigration.

Discourse Pavel Krisevich at the court hearing In prison, Repression surrounds a person everywhere: it hangs over him, hides in a cup of Maisky tea and between the lines of protocols. This is what Pavel Krisevich calls not only the state machine, but also a special environment that subjugates the thoughts, life and relationships between prisoners.

Rustam Galanin Illustration: Ivan Kobrin , specially for Discourse Democracy is to blame: the freer Athens became, the more strictly the law restricted women. But the image of the downtrodden recluse was invented by philologists of the 19th century: they based the Greek woman on their own wives, and gender theory still looks at Athens through their eyes.

Mikhail Fedorchenko The illustration was created by an anonymous author specifically for samizdat. We are accustomed to thinking that a person speaks a language. Xenopoiesis suggests the opposite: language speaks to man. It is with this revolution that a philosophy begins, in which to be means to be captured: the text does not convey meaning, but changes the one who reads it; algorithms, errors and glitches become not a failure, but a way of birth of something new.

Martha Gwai The article was illustrated by Ivan Kobrin specifically for Discourse. Loved one - married another. The biography of Afanasy Fet could give him a reputation as a dishonest person: for decades he calls Maria Lazic his alter ego and devotes poems to her until the end of his life, but in life he chooses marriage with a rich bride and stubbornly regains his lost nobility and fortune.

Nestor Pilawski Illustration by Elena Kholmova , specially for "Discourse" First, say who you are. This is what is increasingly required today by any public and social space - from social networks and algorithms to government agencies. Now the debate is not only about what is said, but also about who has the right to speak at all. The right demands to remember origins, the left demands the experience of oppression, but both camps increasingly use the same logic.

Marina Simakova Illustration by an anonymous author specially for "Discourse" Pope Leo XIV called for the disarmament of artificial intelligence in his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas. He chose a strong word deliberately - by analogy with nuclear disarmament. The pontiff signed the document on the digital age on the 135th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, Leo XIII's message on the “social question” and factory work.

Nadezhda Vorobyova Saint, demon, healer, libertine, hero-lover and pop culture meme - over more than a hundred years, Grigory Rasputin has turned into dozens of almost dissimilar characters. Each era rewrote his history anew, endowing him with features that spoke more about the fears and hopes of his contemporaries than about the man himself.