Eurasianism

Eurasianism (russian: евразийство, ''yevraziystvo'') is a political movement in Russia which states that Russian civilization does not belong in the "European" or "Asian" categories but instead to the geopolitical concept of Eurasia, therefore making Russia a standalone civilization. Historically, the Russian Empire was Euro-centric and generally considered a European/Western power.

Drawing on historical, geographical, ethnographical, linguistic, musicological and religious studies, the Eurasianists suggested that the lands of the Russian Empire, and then of the Soviet Union, formed a natural unity. The first Eurasianists were mostly Émigrés, pacifists, and their vision of the future had features of romanticism and utopianism. The goal of the Eurasianists was the unification of the main Christian churches under the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church. Eurasianism was never attracted to violence and war as a way to regenerate humanity. A key feature of Eurasianism is the rejection of Russian ethnic nationalism that seeks a purely Slavic state. The Eurasianists strongly opposed the territorial fragmentation of the Russian Imperial state that had followed in the wake of the revolution and civil war, and they used their geo-historical theories to insist on the necessity of the geopolitical reconstruction of the Russian state as a unified Eurasian great power. Unlike many of the white Russians, the Eurasianists rejected all hope for a restoration of the monarchy. Aversion to democracy is an important characteristic of Eurasianism. Eurasianists considered ideocracy a good thing, provided that the ruling ideas were the right ones.

To be able to return some émigrés became supportive of the Bolshevik Revolution, but not its stated goals of building communism, seeing the Soviet Union as a steppingstone on the path to creating a new national identity that would reflect the unique character of Russia's geopolitical situation. The Eurasian movement saw a minor resurgence after the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the 20th century, and is mirrored by Turanism in Turkic and Finnic nations.

Early 20th century

Eurasianism is a political movement that has its origins in the Russian émigré community in the 1920s. The movement posited that Russian civilization does not belong in the "European" category (somewhat borrowing from Slavophile ideas of Konstantin Leontiev), and that the October Revolution of the Bolsheviks was a necessary reaction to the rapid modernization of Russian society. The Eurasianists believed that the Soviet regime was capable of evolving into a new national, non-European Orthodox Christian government in Eastern Europe and Siberia, shedding the initial mask of proletarian internationalism and militant atheism (to which the Eurasianists were strongly opposed).

Some of the Eurasianists criticized the anti-Bolshevik activities of organizations such as ROVS, believing that the émigré community's energies would be better focused on preparing for this hoped for process of evolution. In turn, their opponents among the emigres argued that the Eurasianists were calling for a compromise with and even support of the Soviet regime, while justifying its ruthless policies (such as the persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church) as mere "transitory problems" that were inevitable results of the revolutionary process.

The key leaders of the Eurasianists were Prince Nikolai Trubetzkoy, , Pyotr Suvchinsky, D.S. Mirsky, Konstantin Chkheidze, Pyotr Arapov, Lev Karsavin, and Sergei Efron. Philosopher Georges Florovsky was initially a supporter, but backed out of the organization claiming it "raises the right questions", but "poses the wrong answers". Nikolai Berdyaev wrote that he may have influenced the Eurasianists' acceptance of the Revolution as a fact, but he noted that a number of key Eurasianist tenets were completely alien and hostile to him: they did not love freedom as he did, they were statists, they were hostile to Western culture in a way Berdyaev was not, and they accepted Orthodoxy in a perfunctory manner.

In October 1925 a congress was held in Prague with the intention of creating a seminar. One of the participants was Vladimir Nikolaevich Ilyin (1890-1974), a philosopher, theologian and composer from Kyiv and not related to Ivan A. Ilyin who has been presented in the literature by various authors as belonging to the group.

Several members of the Eurasianists were affected by the Soviet provocational TREST operation, which had set up a fake meeting of Eurasianists in Russia that was attended by the Eurasianist leader P.N. Savitsky in 1926 (an earlier series of trips were also made two years earlier by Eurasianist member P. Arapov). The uncovering of the TREST as a Soviet provocation caused a serious morale blow to the Eurasianists and discredited their public image.

In the late 1920s, Eurasianists polarized and became divided in to two groups, the left Eurasianists, who were becoming increasingly pro-Soviet and pro-communist and the classic right Eurasianists, who remained staunchly anti-communist and anti-Soviet. After the emergence of "left Eurasianism" in Paris, where some of the movement's leaders became pro-Soviet, Trubetzkoy who was a staunch anti-communist heavily criticised them and eventually broke with the Eurasianist movement. The Eurasianists faded quickly from the Russian émigré community; also V.N. Ilyin left. By 1929, the Eurasianists had ceased publishing their periodical. Several organizations similar in spirit to the Eurasianists sprung up in the emigre community at around the same time, such as the pro-Monarchist Mladorossi and the Smenovekhovtsi.

During the mid 1930s, representatives of the Eurasianist movement who had settled in the Soviet Union were suppressed during the Stalinist purges and émigré Eurasianists had mostly scattered throughout Europe. By 1938, any organized Eurasianist movement had ceased to exist.

In the late 1940s, George Orwell gave this enemy Eurasia a demonic public face in his dystopic 1984 (novel).

Early proponents of Eurasianism in the West argued that control of the Eurasian heartland was the key to geopolitical dominance. It influenced Oswald Spengler, and on the extreme right, the American white nationalist and neo-Nazi Francis Parker Yockey, the Belgian Nazi collaborator Jean-François Thiriart and interwar German National Bolsheviks.

Greater Russia

The political-cultural concept espoused by some in Russia is sometimes called the "Greater Russia" and is described as a political aspiration of pan-Russian nationalists and irredentists to retake the territories of the other republics of the former Soviet Union, territory of the former Russian Empire, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, and amalgamate them into a single Russian state. Alexander Rutskoy, the vice president of Russia from 1991 to 1993, asserted irredentist claims to Narva in Estonia, Crimea in Ukraine, and Ust-Kamenogorsk in Kazakhstan, among other territories.

Before war broke out between Russia and Georgia in 2008, Russian political theorist Aleksandr Dugin visited South Ossetia and predicted: "Our troops will occupy the Georgian capital Tbilisi, the entire country, and perhaps even Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula, which is historically part of Russia, anyway." Former South Ossetian president Eduard Kokoity is a Eurasianist and argues that South Ossetia has never left the Russian Empire and should be part of Russia.

American journalist Michael Hirsh wrote that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a messianic Russian nationalist and a Eurasianist "whose constant invocation of history going back to Kievan Rus, however specious, is the best explanation for his view that Ukraine must be part of Russia’s sphere of influence".

Neo-Eurasianism

The ideology of the Eurasianism was partially incorporated into a new Neo-Eurasianism movement after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union. It considers Russia to be culturally closer to Asia than to Western Europe. This ideology was influenced by political theorist Aleksandr Dugin to publish in 1997 a ''magnum opus'' by the name of ''Foundations of Geopolitics''. He later founded the Eurasia Party on the Russian political scene.Laruelle, Marlène "Histoire d'une usurpation intellectuelle: Gumilev, 'le dernier des eurasistes'? (analyse des oppositions entre L.N. Gumilev et P.N. Savickij" in Sergei Panarin (ed.) ''Eurasia: People & Myths'', Moscow, Natalis Press, 1993 (Russian lang.)

Political scientist Anton Shekhovtsov defines Dugin's version of Neo-Eurasianism as "a form of a fascist ideology centred on the idea of revolutionising the Russian society and building a totalitarian, Russia-dominated Eurasian Empire that would challenge and eventually defeat its eternal adversary represented by the United States and its Atlanticist allies, thus bringing about a new ‘golden age’ of global political and cultural illiberalism".

Pragmatic Eurasianism

Ideologically, President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev’s speech in March 1994 at Moscow State University became the starting point for the practical implementation of Eurasianism. He proposed an integration paradigm that was fundamentally new at the time: to move towards a Eurasian Union based on economic integration and common defense. This vision has been later materialized in the Eurasian Economic Union and the Collective Security Treaty Organization. Eurasianism in Nazarbayev’s reading is seen as a system of foreign policy, economic ideas and priorities (as opposed to a philosophy). This type of Eurasianism is unequivocally open to the outside world.

Eurasian Economic Union

The Eurasian Economic Union was founded in January 2015, consisting of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and observer members Moldova, Uzbekistan and Cuba, all of them (except Cuba) being previous members of the Soviet Union. Members include states from both Europe and Asia; the union promotes political and economic cooperation among members.

Collective Security Treaty Organization

The Collective Security Treaty Organization is an intergovernmental military alliance that was signed on 15 May 1992. In 1992, six post-Soviet states belonging to the Commonwealth of Independent States—Russia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan—signed the Collective Security Treaty (also referred to as the "Tashkent Pact" or "Tashkent Treaty"). Three other post-Soviet states—Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Georgia—signed the next year and the treaty took effect in 1994. Five years later, six of the nine—all but Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Uzbekistan—agreed to renew the treaty for five more years, and in 2002 those six agreed to create the Collective Security Treaty Organization as a military alliance. Uzbekistan rejoined the CSTO in 2006 but withdrew in 2012.

Turkey

Since the late 1990s, Eurasianism has gained some following in Turkey among neo-nationalist ('' ulusalcı'') circles. The most prominent figure who is associated with Dugin is Doğu Perinçek, the leader of the Patriotic Party (''Vatan Partisi''). Some analysts of modern Turkish politics have suggested that the ultra-nationalist and secular elite that are also affiliated with the members of the Turkish military, who have come under close scrutiny with the Ergenekon coup case, have close ideological and political ties to the Eurasianists.

Organization of Turkic States

Organization of Turkic States, is an international organization comprising some of the Turkic countries. It was founded on 3 October 2009 in Nakhchivan.

The General Secretariat is in İstanbul, Turkey. The member countries are Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkey. Turkmenistan and Hungary are not currently official members of the organization due to their neutral stance; however, they are possible future members of the organization. Uzbekistan announced its intention to join the council on 30 April 2018, and formally applied for membership on September 12, 2019. Since late 2018, Hungary is an observer and may soon request full membership in the Organization of Turkic States.

Hungary

The Hungarian party and movement, Jobbik, used to espouse a far-right form of Hungarian nationalism that fosters kinship with other "Turanian" peoples, including the Turkic peoples of AsiaEvelyne Pieiller, "Hungary Looks to the Past for Its Future," ''Le Monde Diplomatique'', English ed. November, 2016. http://mondediplo.com/2016/11/10hungary before its redefinition to a more moderate party.

In literature

In the future time depicted in George Orwell's novel '' Nineteen Eighty Four'', the Soviet Union has mutated into Eurasia, one of the three superstates dominating the world.

Similarly, Robert Heinlein's story " Solution Unsatisfactory" depicts a future in which the Soviet Union would be transformed into "The Eurasian Union".

See also

* All-Russian nation
* Eurasian Economic Union
* Eurasian Observatory for Democracy and Elections
* Eurasian Youth Union
* Intermediate Region
* Manifest destiny
* Proletarian internationalism
* Great Game
* Atlanticism
* Neo-Sovietism
* Nostalgia for the Soviet Union
* Rashism
* Russian irredentism
* Pan-Slavism
* Post-Soviet states
* Territorial evolution of Russia
* Belt and Road Initiative
* Lev Gumilyov

References

Sources

*The Mission of Russian Emigration, M.V. Nazarov. Moscow: Rodnik, 1994.
Russia Abroad: A comprehensive guide to Russian Emigration after 1917
also some Ustrialov's papers in th

*
*Stefan Wiederkehr, ''Die eurasische Bewegung. Wissenschaft und Politik in der russischen Emigration der Zwischenkriegszeit und im postsowjetischen Russland'' (Köln u.a., Böhlau 2007) (Beiträge zur Geschichte Osteuropas, 39).

External links

The Fourth Political Theory – Eurasianism

Evrazia

Geopolitika.ru


GraNews.info

Eurasianist-Archive.com

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Conservatism in Russia
Eurasia
International relations theory
National Bolshevism
National mysticism
Pan-European nationalism
Pan-Europeanism
Pan-nationalism
Politics of Russia
Russian philosophy
Spheres of influence
White Russian emigration