Max Weber and Russian Liberalism. The Debate on Fundamental Individual Rights between East and West

Filomena Fera

doi:10.6093/978-88-6887-356-1

Max Weber and Russian Liberalism. The Debate on Fundamental Individual Rights between East and West

Authors

Filomena Fera

University of Naples Federico II

https://orcid.org/0009-0007-1243-2547

DOI: https://doi.org/10.6093/978-88-6887-356-1

Keywords:

Max Weber, Russia, Germany, Russian liberalism, rights, revolution, East, West

Synopsis

Publisher: FedOA - Federico II University Press

Series: School of Human and Social Sciences. Working Papers

Pages: 351

Language: Italian

Abstract: Max Weber’s two essays on the Russian Revolution of 1905, Zur Lage der bürgerlichen Demokratie in Russland and Russlands Übergang zum Scheinkonstitutionalismus, represent a pivotal yet rarely explored moment in the German scholar’s political and philosophical thought. Through the rigorous analysis of these essays and the reconstruction of Weber’s position on Russian liberalism and the biographical, theoretical and political context of its definition, the present text aims to focus on the key elements of Weber’s work starting from the redefinition of the role of the politician in the context of the crisis of the nineteenth-century liberal tradition and the correlated incursion of the totalising dynamics of modern capitalist and bureaucratised mass society. A path that, thanks to the establishment of an accomplished comparison with the leading exponents of the philosophical, political and legal liberalism of the early 20th century, allows us to problematise the image of Weber as a convinced advocate of mere German power politics in favour of a renewed centrality in his thought of the liberal principles of the rule of law and the fundamental rights of the individual.

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Author Biography

Filomena Fera, University of Naples Federico II

Filomena Fera studied Philosophy at the University of Naples “Federico II”, where she earned a PhD in Philosophical Sciences in 2025. Her studies focus on Max Weber’s political and philosophical thought and the history of Russia in the late imperial period. Her publications include Bogdan Kistjakovsky to the Rescue of Max Weber (2022); Max Weber and Russian Constitutionalism: «A “Last” Opportunity to Build “Free” Cultures “Starting from the Foundations”» (2023).