The Russian Idea in Eurasianism and Its Reflection in Contemporary Times

Abstract

Eurasianism of the 1920s–1930s was one of the most original phenomena of the Russian émigré community. The Eurasianists proposed a new solution to the problem of Russia’s civilizational identity, seeing it neither as Europe, nor Asia, nor as the “center of the Slavic world”, but as a unique, synthetic cultural entity – Eurasia. According to the initial, “right-wing” Eurasianists, the destiny of Russia and the Russian people is to recognize their Eastern roots, their distinc­tion from the West, to lead the uprising of oppressed humanity against the West, and to establish a system of “continental states” that would eliminate the causes of wars and conflicts. The left-wing Eurasianists and the Eurasianists of the 1930s believed that the Russian Revolution opened a new era – an era of collectivism and socialism, but this socialism would not be Marxist; it would be a unique, re­ligious socialism. In the 1990s and 2000s, the phenomenon of neo-Eurasianism emerged. The most prominent “media” figure of neo-Eurasianism was and re­mains A.G. Dugin. However, his understanding of Eurasianism is reduced to a geo­political theory, which appears as the “inverted geopolitics” of H. Mackinder, op­posing Land and Sea. A.G. Dugin understands Eurasia too broadly, including Europe in it, in accordance with the concept of K. Haushofer. Specialists in Eurasianism (particularly M.A. Maslin) rightly note that this contradicts the understanding of Eurasia by the classics of Eurasianism and, in general, the concept of classical Eurasianism. Among other representatives of neo-Eurasianism of the 1990s and 2000s, one can note V.V. Kozhinov, A.S. Panarin, and S.G. Kara-Murza