States increasingly treat collective memory as a security issue: whoever threatens the national narrative is seen as an existential danger. This “mnemonic security dilemma” explains tensions between Russia and Europe, but operates more universally (including in the context of EU enlargement). Understanding it depersonalizes conflict, makes memory laws legible as signals, and points — through the Franco-German example — to a concrete path toward lasting cooperation.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1973 science-fiction film Welt am Draht is the starting point for a broader reflection. Using the film as a lens, this piece connects its themes to communication, systems thinking and organisational change — exploring why being technically right is rarely enough to move people, and how simulated worlds, hidden assumptions and human resistance shape the way ideas actually land within complex organisations and the systems we build around them.

An exploration of the intellectual kinship between Russian and Western European traditions through the idea of the salon, with special attention to women as hosts and cultural leaders. This article reflects on culture, conversation, and the shared spaces where ideas take shape across borders and beyond geopolitical divides.