Misha Verbitsky

Misha Verbitsky (born June 20, 1969 in Moscow) is a Russian mathematician. He is currently working at the HSE Faculty of Mathematics. However, he is primarily known to the general public as a controversial critic, political activist and independent music publisher.

Verbitsky's webzine :LENIN:, started around 1997, is one of the oldest Russian online projects and has been hugely influential in the shaping of Russian counter-culture. It was the first website in Russian to openly discuss topics considered taboo at the time, such as pornography and Right-wing extremism, and to create a milieu for the emerging counter-culture aesthetic. The site also contains the largest single collection of rare underground music from the ex-USSR and contemporary Russia.

While studying Mathematics at Harvard University in the early 90s, Verbitsky was heavily influenced by Western counter-culture, especially Thelema and industrial music, and was the first to introduce these concepts to post-Soviet Russia via his webzine. At the same time, Verbitsky developed his political views which can be described as a mixture of Social Darwinism, National Bolshevism and Anarchism. He is also a prominent supporter of the anti-copyright movement, and has given lectures on the subject at various locations, including Oxford University. His work Anticopyright: The Book is the only Russian publication placing concepts such as Open Source and copyleft into historical and cultural context.

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