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In search of ressentiment:
“Inequality of equals” by L. Fishman in the historical and psychological context

Aksenov V.B.,

Institute of Russian History, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, vlaks@mail.ru

elibrary_id: 256539 | ORCID: 0000-0003-2716-7700 | RESEARCHER_ID: AAH-1453-2021

Article received: 2024.11.02 21:28. Accepted: 2025.02.13 21:29


DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2025.04.14
EDN: GYZMWL

Rubric: Reflecting on matters in print

For citation:

Aksenov V.B. In search of ressentiment: “Inequality of equals” by L. Fishman in the historical and psychological context. – Polis. Political Studies. 2025. No. 4. https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2025.04.14. EDN: GYZMWL (In Russ.)

Abstract

Today we can see a growing interest in the concept of ressentiment in political science, philosophy, social psychological and historical studies, especially when studying social consciousness, ideologies or collective emotions. Thus, Leonid Fishman’s monograph “Inequality of Equals. The concept and phenomenon of ressentiment” is devoted to an urgent and promising research topic. It provides a fair criticism of the concept of ressentiment from the point of view of conventionality and historicity of normative categories. However, according to the author of the review, the book underestimates the psychological and concretehistorical foundations of this phenomenon. Fishman chooses the axiological optics of studying ressentiment, but this leads to a certain blurring of the concept, its confusion with such similar terms as “envy”, “anger”, “revenge”, “reflexion”, which casts doubt on the existence of ressentiment as an objective social phenomenon. The review proposes to return the concept of resentiment to its destructive connotation and to consider it as a consequence of trauma – as a psychological complex that paralyzes the individual’s will, provokes hatred and triggers compensatory mechanisms. The sources for the study of public sentiment on the eve of the First World War make it possible to detect the presence of historical trauma and the ressentiment, which can hardly be interpreted as an illusion of false thinking of historians.

Keywords

ressentiment, trauma, Leonid Fishman, inequality of equals, World War I, public sentiment, emotions, Panslavism.

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