We have been following with grave concern the case of Svetlana Mesyats and her colleagues at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Svetlana Mesyats is a respected scholar of ancient philosophy, known internationally for her work on Aristotle’s Parva Naturalia, neo-Platonism, and the history of theories of light, color and vision, including a collaborative Russian translation of Goethe’s Farbenlehre. She has held visiting positions and fellowships at several German universities, and is well known to many German colleagues.
In May 2026, she was detained and later placed under house arrest on an accusation of large-scale criminal fraud and embezzlement over alleged misuse of state money for a project of a Russian annotated translation of Aristotle. Several of her colleagues were also detained and interrogated. The charges carry a possible sentence of up to ten years in prison.
The alleged embezzlement is simply Svetlana’s and her colleagues‘ drawing their salaries for what the accusations are describing as a fraudulent project of a complete Russian translation of Aristotle. But to those who know Svetlana and her work, it is obvious that there is nothing remotely like criminal fraud. There is an honest ongoing scholarly project which has been making progress and duly reporting it to the state granting agency. At most, there may be a question about the pace of publication, which should be addressed through the normal grant-review process. The attempt to criminalize scholarship is outrageous, and can be understood only against the background of sustained attempts to bring the Institute of Philosophy under tighter ideological control. The Institute has repeatedly been accused of being “pro-Western” and “liberal,” and there have been public calls to subject its employees to ideological vetting.
We call for Svetlana Mesyats to be released from house arrest and for an end to the use of criminal proceedings against scholars engaged in legitimate academic work. We urge colleagues and academic institutions internationally to follow this case closely and to recognise the serious threat it poses to academic freedom and to the safety of our colleagues in Russia.
Peter Adamson – Professor of Late Ancient and Arabic Philosophy, LMU Munich / Professor of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, King’s College London
Markus Asper – Professor of Greek Studies and Classical Philology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Jonathan Beere – Professor of Ancient Philosophy and History of Knowledge, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Gábor Betegh – Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy, University of Cambridge
Klaus Corcilius – Professor of Ancient Philosophy, University of Tübingen
Philip van der Eijk – Alexander von Humboldt Professor of Classics and History of Science, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Geert Keil – Professor of Philosophy, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Stephen Menn – Michael and Virginia Walsh Professor of the History of Philosophy, University of Toronto; Honorary Professor of Philosophy, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Dominik Perler – Professor for Theoretical Philosophy, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Christof Rapp – Chair of Ancient Philosophy at LMU Munich
Tobias Rosefeldt – Professor of Classical German Philosophy, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
James Wilberding – Professor of Ancient and Contemporary Philosophy, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Photo By Niklitov – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link
