The article introduces the special issue on the “Soviet” phenomenon, examining it as a distinct reality at the intersection of the material and the imaginary, the institutional and the existential. Three modes of engaging with this reality – thinking, remembering, and describing – are not merely juxtaposed but interwoven into a research optic rooted in Soviet intellectual traditions themselves: from the Formal Method and activity theory to phenomenology and historical poetics. Drawing on the issue’s contributions, the article demonstrates how the “Soviet” canon was constructed in rewriting the concepts of space and man, in debates over the “majolica” of the Palace of the Soviets, in the transformations of Lenin’s monumental propaganda plan, in “Soviet” Eurasianism, and in the complex reception of Karsavin and Losev. The inner dramaturgy of Soviet thought is analyzed, from Matyushin’s avant-garde experiments to the epistolary dialogues of late Soviet intellectuals. Special attention is paid to contemporary strategies for working with the Soviet legacy, from ironic recycling to the construction of a rigorous theory of humanistic knowledge.