Russia's navy has become embroiled in a fresh international confrontation after a senior commander fired a salvo of insults at German philosopher Immanuel Kant.
Igor Mukhametshin, the Vice Admiral in command of Russia's Baltic Fleet, was filmed telling officers and ratings that the Enlightenment thinker was a "traitor" who wrote "incomprehensible books" and begged for university tenure.
The incident comes amid a bitter row over the international airport in Kaliningrad, the Baltic Fleet's base and Kant's home town.
Great Names of Russia, a nationwide competition, invited residents of dozens of Russian cities vote on a local hero for their airport to be named after.
But the competition in Kaliningrad turned sour after Kant, who lived in the city when it was under Prussian rule and was known as Konigsberg, made it to the finals.
"Kant was a person who betrayed his country, who humiliated himself and begged on his knees for a teaching chair at the university. He wrote some incomprehensible books that no one standing here has read or will read," Admiral Mukhametshin said in a video obtained by local website Novy Kaliningrad and published on Youtube on Monday.
"As military people and people of the Baltic Fleet, we should remember why we are here. Thanks to whom the Baltic fleet, Baltisk, and Kaliningrad exist," he added, in what appeared to be a speech to navy personnel at Baltisk, the fleet's home base near Kaliningrad.
He called on sailors to support Alexander Vasilevsky, the Red Army general who oversaw the operation to capture the city from the Nazis in 1945, to win the airport competition.
The Baltic Fleet has not commented on the video.
Last week students at the city's Immanuel Kant State University found a statue of the philosopher doused in pink paint and surrounded by leaflets calling on them to renounce "the name of the enemy."
Vandals also attacked his tomb, which is built into the reconstructed German cathedral in the city centre and is a place of pilgrimage for philosophers from around the world.
The attack came after Marat Bariev, an MP from the Volga region of Tatarstan, complained that naming the airport after the German philosopher would be "unpatriotic" and an insult to Russia's second world war veterans.
Voting in the competition ended on November 30, producing a shortlist of four names. Kant is tied in second place with Vasilevsky, the Admiral's preferred candidate, with both men on 39,000 votes.
Elizabeth of Russia, a Russian empress who briefly annexed Konigsberg during the Seven Years War, is the leading candidate on 49,100 votes.
Ivan Chernyakhovsky, another Red Army general who died in the battle for the city, came in fourth. Kant was born in Konigsberg in 1724 and died there in 1804.
His writings on metaphysics and moral philosophy are considered among the most important in Western philosophy. The city that was annexed by the Soviet Union at the end of the Second World War and renamed Kaliningrad in honour of Mikhail Kalinin, a prominent Bolshevik revolutionary.
In 2015, vandals wrote "Kant is a moron" on a house where the philosopher once lived. In 2013 a man was arrested in the city of Rostov-on-Don after he shot someone during a heated debate about Kant's philosophy.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/1 ... nuel-kant/
Δεν καταλαβαίνω ούτε από που προέρχονται ούτε κυρίως που αποσκοπούν αυτές οι υψηλές απαιτήσεις για τον μέσο ελ(για τον μέσο άνθρωπο?) λες και η κατάσταση ήταν κάποτε διαφορετική/καλύτερη και εμπόδισε τον κόσμο να γίνει καλύτερος το γεγονός ότι οι περισσότεροι άνθρωποι(παντού και πάντα) ασχολούνταν με το πως θα βγάλουν γκόμενο/γκόμενα. Αυτό που πρέπει να καταλάβει κανείς είναι ότι στην καταπληκτική εποχή που ζούμε,η συσσωρευμένη γνώση μας δίνει τρομερά ευρεία δυνατότητα επιλογής ανάμεσα στα πράγματα που μας απασχολούν. Αν οι περισσότεροι Έλληνες ξέρουν τον Ντάνο και όχι τον Καντ δεν αλλάζει τίποτα και δεν είναι και καμιά ρήξη με το παρελθόν. Η ρήξη είναι κυρίως στα μεγέθη και φυσικά όπως είπα στη δυνατότητα επιλογής. Αν λόγω κοινωνικών ή οποιονδήποτε συνθηκών το ποσοστόν των ανθρώπων που ασχολείται με κάτι (συζητήσιμα) πιο παραγωγικό απο τον Ντανο υποθέτω θα έχουμε κάποια οφέλη αλλά δε θα φέρει αυτό την αποκάλυψη. Χαλαρώστε λίγο 
