The first biography of Hannah Arendt, a thinker on whose ideas every public debate about history and politics is still based, has been published in Russian. Thomas Mayer tells how her views were formed in a caustic and calm way

In 2026, the publishing house Corpus published the first biography of the philosopher Hannah Arendt in Russian. Its author, the historian of philosophy Thomas Mayer, does not touch upon stories that have already been told long ago (for example, he is not at all interested in Arendt’s affair with her teacher, Martin Heidegger), but meticulously, referring to documents, reconstructs the events in her life after emigrating from Germany to France. It was during this time, the author believes, that Arendt’s personal experience helped shape her key ideas, which we still refer to today. Literary critic Alex Mesropov talks about the book.