The Moscow School was planned as Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of openness allowed the exhumation of the suppressed people, histories and literature of pre-Soviet times and the USSR’s early years. Lena Nemirovskaya and Yuri Senokosov were Soviet intellectuals, she an art historian, he a philosopher; comfortably placed in the official intellectual hierarchy, uncomfortable in their Soviet skins. They were the planners — planning to illuminate how freedom might be used.
苏联领导人米哈伊尔•戈尔巴乔夫(Mikhail Gorbachev)的开放政策允许苏联成立之前以及苏联早期受打压的人物、历史和文学作品重见天日，在这种背景下，列娜•内米洛夫斯卡娅(Lena Nemirovskaya)和尤里•塞诺科索(Yuri Senokosov)酝酿创办莫斯科政治研究学院(Moscow School of Political Studies)。这两个人是苏联时期的知识分子，前者是艺术史学家，后者是哲学家；他们舒适地位列官方知识分子阶层，却对自己的苏联人身份感到不自在。作为学院的规划者，他们计划向人们阐明如何利用自由。
They were guided by Georgian philosopher Merab Mamardashvili. “Russia,” he told an American interviewer in 1989, “jumped out of history and committed the metaphysical suicide of trying to bypass reality for the ideal.” The task this middle-aged couple took on was to help Russians, especially the rising generation, to construct a grounded reality of democratic process, civil society, rights and, above all, responsibility.
他们受到了格鲁吉亚哲学家迈拉卜•马马达舍维里(Merab Mamardashvili)的影响。后者在1989年对一位美国记者说：“俄罗斯跳出了历史，试图绕过现实达到理想，这等同于形而上的自杀。”这对中年人的使命，是帮助俄罗斯人，特别是年轻一代，实事求是地认识民主进程、公民社会、权利，最重要的是责任。Thus the Moscow School of Political Studies, later the Moscow School of Civic Education, was founded as the USSR crumbled. From the start its funding was largely foreign: a succession of western ambassadors told their governments that here was a centre to which support could be given that would not be wasted or diverted to Switzerland.
因此，莫斯科政治研究学院——后来更名为莫斯科公民教育学院(Moscow School of Civic Education)——随着苏联解体而成立。从一开始，其资金就主要来自国外：许多西方大使告诉本国政府，支持这个中心的资金不会被浪费，也不会被转移到瑞士。
Ms Nemirovskaya taught herself English then buttonholed politicians, officials, institution presidents, journalists and corporate bosses to imbue in them the urgency she believed the civic education of Russia required. As throughout the post-Communist world, money from financier George Soros was vital. The school’s success, most evident in the late 1990s and early 2000s, attracted imitation: there are a dozen Moscow School-type institutions in the world now, modelled on the original.
内米洛夫斯卡娅自学了英语，之后，她向政治家、官员、机构负责人、记者以及企业老板灌输了一种紧迫感——她认为俄罗斯需要公民教育。对整个后共产主义世界来说，来自金融家乔治•索罗斯(George Soros)的资金至关重要。学院的成功（最明显的是在20世纪90年代末和21世纪头十年初期）吸引了效仿者：现在全世界有12所仿照莫斯科学院建立的机构。Foreign money paid for most of it, from seminars and conferences to a lively website, all run by dedicated young staff. Seminars were addressed by Russians and foreigners. The former included Yegor Gaidar, the economist and former acting prime minister, and Alexei Kudrin, a previous finance minister. The foreigners included Boris Johnson, London mayor; Lord Mandelson, former UK cabinet minister; Lord Skidelsky, the biographer of John Maynard Keynes; and many more.
国外资金帮助解决了学院的大部分开支，从召开研讨会、举行会议到运营一个活跃的网站，这些都由甘于奉献的年轻工作人员负责。在研讨会上发言的既有俄罗斯人，也有外国人士。前者包括经济学家、前代总理叶戈尔•盖达尔(Yegor Gaidar)和前财政部长阿列克谢•库德林(Alexei Kudrin)。外国人士包括伦敦市长鲍里斯•约翰逊(Boris Johnson)、英国前内阁大臣曼德尔森勋爵(Lord Mandelson)、约翰•梅纳德•凯恩斯(John Maynard Keynes)的传记作者斯基德尔斯基勋爵(Lord Skidelsky)，等等。The participants — usually well educated, confident, clamouring to be heard — grew more self-assured, less impressed by western attitudes. In one session during Nato action against Serbia in 1999, French policy analyst Dominique Moïsi and I were subjected by the audience — mainly journalists — to a tirade of protests, pointing out that “the west” had attacked a traditional Russian ally (we were reminded that Anna Karenina’s lover, Vronsky, goes off to assist Serbia against the Turks).
研讨会的参与者——通常都受过良好教育、自信并且渴望被倾听——变得更加自信，更不容易被西方的态度所影响。1999年北约(Nato)军事打击塞尔维亚期间，在一次会议上，我和法国政策分析家多米尼克•莫伊西(Dominique Moisi)遭到了听众（主要是记者）的激烈抗议，他们指责“西方”攻击了俄罗斯的传统盟友（我们被提醒说，安娜•卡列尼娜(Anna Karenina)的情人渥伦斯基(Vronsky)就曾去塞尔维亚帮助抗击土耳其）。Now the Moscow School has been closed. Identified as a “foreign agent” under the 2013 law that stigmatises non-governmental organisations operating in the field of politics and accepting money from abroad, it struggled to survive — but, shorn of funds, denied venues and faced with a vicious, co-ordinated attack in the pro-Kremlin media, Ms Nemirovskaya and Mr Senokosov were obliged to shut up shop and try to chart a new course.
现在，这家莫斯科学院已被关闭。根据2013年的一条法律，学院被认定是“外国代理机构”。该法律针对在政治领域运作、接受国外资金的非政府机构。学院艰难地试图办下去，但是面对缺少资金、办公地点被拒以及亲克里姆林宫媒体的联手恶毒攻击，内米洛夫斯卡娅和塞诺科索被迫关闭学院，并尝试开创一项新事业。The aftermath of the murder of pro-democracy activist Boris Nemtsov (another former speaker) is both a good and a drear time to craft a memorial — but not an obituary. The energy powering the Moscow School was a determination on the part of many, more than is now obvious, to grapple with Russia’s historic default[NOT QUITE SURE OF THIS SENTENCE- CLARIFY WORDING?] to authoritarianism.
亲民主活动家鲍里斯•涅姆佐夫(Boris Nemtsov)——他也曾在该学院发表演讲——被谋杀既使人悲痛，也是树立一座纪念碑（而非写一份讣告）的好时机。推动莫斯科公民教育学院的力量，是许多人（比现在所看到的要多）表现出来的、应对俄罗斯历史上默许威权主义这一现象的决心。“We have to lift up our heads and liberate independent social forces,” said Mamardashvili, the School’s philosophical inspiration. “When nobody is independent no politics is possible.” Civic politics is still possible. And it will be fashioned by Russians, not — as the Kremlin believes — by foreign plotters.
“我们必须昂起头，解放独立的社会力量。”马马达舍维里说，“若无独立人格，便无民主政治。”The writer, an FT contributing editor, is chairman of the Moscow School’s advisory council
公民政治仍然是可能的。而且，公民政治将由俄罗斯人所塑造，而非如克里姆林宫所认为的那样，由外国阴谋家所塑造。