The themes of imperial glory and Western victimization were propagated across the country in 2017, they were drummed home in the monumental exhibition “Russia, My History.” The expo’s flashy displays featured Mr. Orthodoxy’s combat against Western Christianity and Western decadence could be harnessed to the geopolitical war to come.Įurasian geopolitics, Russian Orthodoxy and traditional values - these goals shaped Russia’s self-image under Mr. Dugin highlighted the long-term connection between Eastern Orthodoxy and Russian empire. And his Eurasianism was not anti-imperial but the opposite: Russia had always been an empire, Russian people were “imperial people,” and after the crippling 1990s sellout to the “eternal enemy,” Russia could revive in the next phase of global combat and become a “world empire.” On the civilizational front, Mr. Dugin’s adjustment of Eurasianism to present conditions, Russia had a new opponent - no longer just Europe, but the whole of the “Atlantic” world led by the United States. With the publication in 1997 of his 600-page textbook, loftily titled “The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia,” Eurasianism moved to the center of strategists’ political imagination. Dugin focused on developing his influence where it counted - with the military and policymakers. After unsuccessful interventions in post-Soviet party politics, Mr. But Eurasianism was injected directly into the bloodstream of Russian power in a variant developed by the self-styled philosopher Aleksandr Dugin. Gumilyov’s theories appealed to many people making their way through the chaotic 1990s. Instead, Trubetzkoy emphasized the ability of a reinvigorated Russian Orthodoxy to provide cohesion across Eurasia, with solicitous care for believers in the many other faiths practiced in this enormous region. Trubetzkoy’s Eurasianism was a recipe for imperial recovery, without Communism - a harmful Western import, in his view.
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He called on Russian intellectuals to free themselves from their fixation on Europe and to build on the “legacy of Chinggis Khan” to create a great continent-spanning Russian-Eurasian state. In 1920, the linguist Nikolai Trubetzkoy - one of several Russian émigré intellectuals who developed the concept - published “Europe and Humanity,” a trenchant critique of Western colonialism and Eurocentrism.
Emerging from the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, this idea posited Russia as a Eurasian polity formed by a deep history of cultural exchanges among people of Turkic, Slavic, Mongol and other Asian origins.
One of the most alluring concepts was Eurasianism. But as the state ran roughshod over democratic politics in the 1990s, new interpretations of Russia’s essence took hold, offering solace and hope to people who strived to recover their country’s prestige in the world. Their explorations took shape briefly in the formation of political parties, including rabidly nationalist, antisemitic movements, and with more lasting effect in the revival of religion as a foundation for collective life. Post-imperial egos felt the loss of Russia’s status and significance keenly.Īs Communism lost its élan, intellectuals searched for a different principle on which the Russian state could be organized. But for others who had set their goals in Soviet conditions, wealth and a vibrant consumer economy were not enough. In the wild years after 1991, many were able to amass enormous fortunes in cahoots with an indulgent regime. What was to be done? For some, the answer was just to make money, the capitalist way. The end of the Soviet Union disoriented Russia’s elites, stripping away their special status in a huge Communist empire.
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