The
Eurasianists (Russian:
Евразийцы, Evraziitsy) was a political movement in the
Russian emigreWhite émigré is a political term mostly used in France, the USA, and the UK to describe a Russian who emigrated from Russia in the wake of the Russian Revolution and Russian Civil War and who was in opposition to the then current Russian political climate...
community in the 1920s. The movement posited that Russian civilization does not belong in the "European" category (somewhat borrowing from
SlavophileSlavophilia is an intellectual movement originating from 19th century that wanted the Russian Empire to be developed upon values and institutions derived from its early history. Slavophiles were especially opposed to the influences of Western Europe in Russia...
ideas of Konstantin Leontyev), and that the
October RevolutionTheOctober Revolution , also known as the Soviet Revolution or Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution. It began with an armed insurrection in Petrograd traditionally dated to 25 October 1917 Julian calendar...
of the
BolshevikThe Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903...
s was a necessary reaction to the rapid modernization of Russian society. The Evraziitsi believed that the Soviet regime was capable of evolving into a new national, non-European
Orthodox ChristianThe Orthodox Church, also officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to in English speaking countries as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the world's second largest Christian communion, estimated to number 225 million members...
government, shedding off the initial mask of
proletarian internationalismProletarian internationalism, sometimes referred to as international socialism, is a marxist social class concept based on the view that capitalism is now a global system, and therefore the working class must act as a global class if it is to defeat it...
and
militant atheismAntitheism is active opposition to theism. The etymological roots of the word are the Greek 'anti-' and 'theismos'...
(which the Evraziitsi were totally opposed to).
The Evraziitsi criticised the anti-Bolshevik activities of organizations such as ROVS, believing that the emigre community's energies would be better focused on preparing for this hoped for process of evolution.
The
Eurasianists (Russian:
Евразийцы, Evraziitsy) was a political movement in the
Russian emigreWhite émigré is a political term mostly used in France, the USA, and the UK to describe a Russian who emigrated from Russia in the wake of the Russian Revolution and Russian Civil War and who was in opposition to the then current Russian political climate...
community in the 1920s. The movement posited that Russian civilization does not belong in the "European" category (somewhat borrowing from
SlavophileSlavophilia is an intellectual movement originating from 19th century that wanted the Russian Empire to be developed upon values and institutions derived from its early history. Slavophiles were especially opposed to the influences of Western Europe in Russia...
ideas of Konstantin Leontyev), and that the
October RevolutionTheOctober Revolution , also known as the Soviet Revolution or Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution. It began with an armed insurrection in Petrograd traditionally dated to 25 October 1917 Julian calendar...
of the
BolshevikThe Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903...
s was a necessary reaction to the rapid modernization of Russian society. The Evraziitsi believed that the Soviet regime was capable of evolving into a new national, non-European
Orthodox ChristianThe Orthodox Church, also officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to in English speaking countries as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the world's second largest Christian communion, estimated to number 225 million members...
government, shedding off the initial mask of
proletarian internationalismProletarian internationalism, sometimes referred to as international socialism, is a marxist social class concept based on the view that capitalism is now a global system, and therefore the working class must act as a global class if it is to defeat it...
and
militant atheismAntitheism is active opposition to theism. The etymological roots of the word are the Greek 'anti-' and 'theismos'...
(which the Evraziitsi were totally opposed to).
The Evraziitsi criticised the anti-Bolshevik activities of organizations such as ROVS, believing that the emigre 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 Evraziitsi were calling for a compromise with and even support of the Soviet regime, while justifying its ruthless policies (such as the
persecutionThe history of Christianity in the Soviet Union was not limited to repression and secularization. Communist policies toward religious belief and practice tended to vacillate over time between, on the one hand, a Utopian determination to substitute secular rationalism for what they considered to be...
of the
Russian Orthodox ChurchThe Russian Orthodox Church ; or The Moscow Patriarchate , also known...
) as mere "transitory problems" that were inevitable results of the revolutionary process.
The key leaders of the Evraziitsi were Prince
Nikolai TrubetzkoyPrince Nikolai Sergeyevich Trubetzkoy Prince Nikolai Sergeyevich Trubetzkoy (also: Trubetskoy) Prince Nikolai Sergeyevich Trubetzkoy (also: Trubetskoy) (Russian: (Moscow, April 16, 1890 - Vienna, June 25, 1938) was a Russian linguist and historian whose teachings formed a nucleus of the Prague...
, P.N. Savitsky, P.P. Suvchinskiy, D.S. Mirsky, K. Čcheidze, P. Arapov, and S. Efron. Philosopher
Georges FlorovskyGeorges Vasilievich Florovsky was an Eastern Orthodox theologian, historian and pioneering ecumenist...
was initially a supporter, but backed out of the organization claiming it "raises the right questions", but "poses the wrong answers". A significant influence of the doctrine of the Evraziitsi can be found in
Nikolai BerdyaevNikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev was a Russian religious and political philosopher.-Early Life and Education:...
's essay "The Sources and Meaning of Russian Communism".
Several organizations similar in spirit to the Evraziitsi sprung up in the emigre community at around the same time, such as the pro-Monarchist
MladorossiThe Union of Mladorossi was a political group of Russian émigré monarchists who advocated a hybrid of Russian monarchy and the Soviet system, best evidenced by their motto "Tsar and the Soviets"....
and the
SmenovekhovtsiThe Smenovekhovtsy is the name for a political movement in the Russian émigré community that began shortly after the publication of the magazine "Smena Vekh" in Prague, in the year 1921...
.
Several members of the Evraziitsi were affected by the Soviet provocational
TRESTOperation Trust was a counterintelligence operation of the State Political Directorate of the Soviet Union. The operation, which ran from 1921-1926, set up a fake anti-Bolshevik underground organization, "Monarchist Union of Central Russia", MUCR , in order to help the OGPU identify real...
operation, which had set up a fake meeting of Evraziitsi in Russia that was attended by the Evraziitsi leader P.N. Savitsky in 1926 (an earlier series of trips were also made two years earlier by Evraziitsi member P. Arapov). The uncovering of the TREST as a Soviet provocation caused a serious morale blow to the Evraziitsi and discredited their public image. By 1929, the Evraziitsi had ceased publishing their periodical and had faded quickly from the Russian emigre community.
The ideology of the movement was partially incorporated into a new movement of the same name after the fall of the Soviet Union, when the
Eurasia PartyThe Eurasia Party was registered as a political party by the Ministry of Justice of Russia on 21 June 2002, approximately one year after the Pan-Russian Eurasia Movement was established by Aleksandr Dugin...
was founded by Alexander Dugin.
Neo-Eurasianism
Neo-Eurasianism is a
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n school of thought, popularized in Russia during the years leading up to and following the collapse of the Soviet Union, that considers Russia to be culturally closer to
AsiaAsia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.6% of the earth's total surface area and with approximately 4 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population.Asia is traditionally defined as part of the...
than to
Western EuropeWestern Europe is the collection of countries in the westernmost region of Europe, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a cultural entity—the region lying west of Central Europe...
.
The school takes its insipiration from the Eurasianists of the 1920s, notably Prince N.S. Troubetskoi and P.N. Savitsky.
Lev GumilevLev Nikolayevich Gumilyov , also known as Lev Gumilev, was a Russian historian, ethnologist and anthropologist...
is often cited as the founder of the Neo-Eurasianist movement, and he was quoted as saying that "I am the last of the
Eurasianists."
At the same time, major differences have been noted between Gumilev's work and those of the original Eurasianists. Gumilev's work is controversial both for its scientific methodology (using his own conception of ethnogenesis and the notion of "passionarity") and for overtones of anti-semitism. At any rate, Gumilev's work has been a source of inspiration for the Neo-Eurasianist authors, the most prolific of whom is
Aleksandr DuginAleksandr Gelyevich Dugin is a politologist and one of the most influential ideologists of Russian expansionism and nationalism, with close ties to the Kremlin and Russian military . He was the leading organizer of National Bolshevik Party, National Bolshevik Front, and Eurasia Party...
.
Gumilev's contribution to Neo-Eurasianism lies in the conclusions he reaches from applying his theory of ethnogenesis: that the peoples of the Eurasian steppe, including the Russians, but also the Turkic-speaking nomadic peoples of Central Asia, constitute a "super-ethnos" (a notion comparable to the "civilizations" that many authors have used to describe like minded groups of nations or cultures—such as
Samuel P. HuntingtonSamuel Phillips Huntington was an American political scientist who gained prominence through his Clash of Civilizations thesis of a post-Cold War new world order.-Biographical details:...
in his
Clash of CivilizationsThe Clash of Civilizations is a theory, proposed by political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, that people's cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world....
. It should be noted that Neo-Eurasianists are fiercely opposed to Huntington's taxonomy of civilizations on the Eurasian continent).
The idea of Eurasianism contrasts with Konstantin Leontyev's
ByzantismByzantinism or Byzantism is a term used in political science and philosophy to denote the political system and culture of the Byzantine Empire, and its spiritual successors, in particular, the Balkan states, the Ottoman Empire and Russia. The term byzantinism itself was coined in the 19th century...
, which is similar in its rejection of the West, but identifies with the
Byzantine EmpireThe Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on the capital of Constantinople, and ruled by Emperors in direct and de jure succession to the ancient Roman Emperors...
rather than with Central Asian tribal culture.
Greater Russia
The movement is sometimes called the Greater Russia and is described as a political aspiration of pan-
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n nationalists and irredentists to retake some or all of the territories of the other republics of the former
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
and territory of the former
Russian EmpireThe Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia, and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
and amalgamate them into a single Russian state. Some have seen the Soviet Union as effectively being a Greater Russia due to the dominance of Russian political interests in the state. The idea of a Greater Russia has important relevance in modern-day Russian politics, as expanding the Russian state to include
BelarusBelarus is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered by Russia to the north and east, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the north. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel , Mahilyow and Vitebsk...
is an important topic in Russian political affairs, as well as the political aspirations of Russian nationalists especially in
MoldovaMoldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east and south....
and
UkraineUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south. The city of Kiev is both the capital and the largest city of...
to have their people reintegrated with Russia.
Outside Russia
Since the late 1990s Eurasianism has gained some following in
TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey
, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe...
among left-wing nationalist (
ulusalcı) circles. The most prominent figure who is associated with Dugin is
Doğu PerinçekDoğu Perinçek is a Turkish politician, leader of the "scientific socialist" Workers' Party which also considered as nationalist, and former chairman of the Revolutionary Workers and Peasants Party of Turkey...
, the leader of the
Workers' PartyWorkers' Party is a political party in Turkey led by Doğu Perinçek. İP has its roots in the Revolutionary Workers and Peasants Party of Turkey and Workers and Peasants Party of Turkey ....
.
See also